:: In.a.Mirror.Dimly ::

Taking Root is a series of meditations I’m writing and editing for Central Vineyard Church during the season of Lent. You can download the podcast version of each post by subscribing to my church’s podcast or visiting the podcast blog for each day of the series.

I sat in the main hall at a conference attended by 1,000 creative, innovative, and smart people. Many of us traveled hundreds of miles and paid hundreds of dollars just to sit in that room together.

• We changed our schedules.
• We missed family time.
• We reordered our obligations in order to be physically present in the same room.

What did we do once we were in the same room together?

Like junkies desperate for a fix, the majority of the people around me poured over their cell phones and iPads, tweeting, texting, and even playing games.

I sat by myself with people all around me who were using technology in order to be “more connected” with more people. The people in that room were connected indeed. They had lots of “connections,” but they weren’t necessarily interconnected with the people either around them or those appearing as bits of text on their devices.

A similar thought crossed my mind when I observed a mother at a café one day. She had just picked up her two kids from elementary school. After asking her children about their days, she began to send text messages while they offered short answers that lacked detail or description.

We are not lacking in connectivity, but where there are many connections, we run the risk of failing to interconnect, to really know someone else, to share our lives with one another, and to even depend on one another.

Connectivity is the Easy Way Out

The easy connection through impersonal technology will always be easier than becoming interconnected with a flesh and blood person who may ignore or reject you. It’s costly, but the quality of that connection has the potential to change lives.

Costs and Rewards of Being Interconnected

Real life change can only happen when we reach out and risk something. The conversation may fall flat. I may say something stupid. There are a hundred ways a conversation can run off the tracks.

However, we may find hurting people who need to hear our stories. By the same token, we may be in need of the support and prayers that only someone else can supply. There are real blessings to be given and received when we are interconnected with the people around us, even if there are risks we take along the way when we reach out.

Interconnected and Intentionally Present

I’ve found that I can easily pass the time on my computer or pick up my phone in search of distraction throughout my day. I’m physically present in many places, but I’m rarely committed to moments with my full attention.

The more I learn to intentionally use my “connected” technology time and guard my “interconnected” people time, the more I see benefits for both. I can use my online time more efficiently if I know that I can’t just log on any old time. In addition, the people around me benefit when I’m a whole person who is fully committed to giving them his full attention.

Technology is great for keeping us in touch with one another, but there is no substitute for the intimate support of reaching out to the person in the next chair over. A loose connection through a website does not replace the nurturing we receive and provide in an interconnected community.

The Greenhouse

Turn off your cell phone for a 30-60 minute stretch today, especially during times when you may be tempted to use it as a distraction. How can you use that time differently? Can you pray? Can you practice breathing and relaxing? Can you ask someone how he/she is doing?

Choose a way you can limit your online connectivity in a healthy, balanced manner today. For example, you may want to turn off the internet for an hour at night. There also are programs such as Freedom that allow you to block your computer’s internet connection for a set period of time. In fact, I wrote most of these Lenten devotionals using Freedom to help me focus.

Taking Root is a series of meditations I’m writing and editing for Central Vineyard Church during the season of Lent. You can download the podcast version of each post by subscribing to my church’s podcast or visiting the podcast blog for each day of the series.

I used to have this red chair in our living room in our last apartment. I sat in that chair every morning with my coffee and Bible. I’d usually pray for a bit. If a rabbit hopped over and hunkered down, I may even scratch her ears.

It was a peaceful place by our windows, and if it was warm outside, I’d leave the windows open and you could hear the rush of the water fall behind our building.

Before moving to Columbus and leaving that apartment behind, I gave away the red chair to a college student. The rabbits had done enough damage that we could no longer justify keeping it around. However, as we parted from both that apartment and my chair, we also parted from my routine.

Ever the creature of habit, my spiritual disciplines flagged almost immediately. It was really, really hard to stop myself to pray even for five minutes each morning.

Was my red chair that important?

I tried to fight my lack of focus by sitting at my desk each morning, forcing myself to be quiet and still. The call of work often interrupted my serenity. My computer, closed and hibernating peacefully nearby, emitted some kind of electronic pulse.

• There’s work to be done.
• Check your e-mail!
• There’s probably something really important on Facebook!

My solution was insultingly simple. I’m ashamed to even write this.

We bought a couch that resembles the red chair, and I sit there to read the Bible and pray each morning. No, it’s not my “red chair,” but it’s a sacred space where I can find peace each morning for prayer and scripture reading.

Our Spirits Need Boundaries

We need space, however small it may be, that is set aside for work, devotion, or leisure. Even if that couch later becomes the spot where I read a book in the evening, I know that sitting there in the morning means my mind is directed toward heaven.

Rituals Can Help Create Boundaries

I’ve read that lots of creative folks have little crazy rituals, like drinking coffee out of the same mug each morning or only writing on yellow legal pads. These little things alert their minds and spirits that it’s time to focus, to get down to it.

Boundaries help rope our minds and spirits in so that we can be present. There is a freedom and comfort in knowing that when I go to that spot in our living room each morning, I’m free to be with God. The computer can’t reach me with its electronic pulses, and I’m free to hear what God would have me do today.

Boundaries shelter us from the noise, the rush, and the crush of each day. Boundaries don’t hold us back. They create a safe place where we can pray, love, create, and work.

The Greenhouse

Is there one ritual that you can incorporate into your today that will help signal to your mind that it’s time to pray?

What is something you love to do? How can you create a safe, focused space to do that one thing?

I spent years believing that I didn’t belong in church. Prone to cliches, I often described myself as a square peg surrounded by round holes. I didn’t know if the problem was my squareness or the roundness of the church—so to speak.

Over the years, I’ve heard similar complaints about certain groups not fitting in at church.

Women feel overlooked and marginalized.

The more athletic, muscular men don’t feel like they can be themselves.

The more artistic, humanities-oriented men feel like they don’t have a place with either the church or the athletic men.

In general, the artists feel crammed into predefined categories where they lack creative freedom—if they are even acknowledged in the first place.

If you look at this list, it would seem that no one actually belongs in the church. Everyone feels left out.

In stepping back, I think it’s probably better to say that certain groups feel left out of certain churches. Some churches are less affirming toward men, while others are quite restrictive and disingenuous toward women.

I want to step back and ask, “What do we mean when we say we don’t feel like we belong in church?”

There are lots of broad, sweeping prescriptions for “fixing” our “problems,” but sometimes they just make things worse. My least favorite “solution” is the whole, “Our churches are too feminized” line of thinking—if we dare to even call this “thinking.” This strikes me as reactionary—men are not comfortable in church so it must be feminization!!!

Um, the women are who aren’t allowed to speak in feminized churches while getting saddled with all of the work actually sort of hate it and rightfully resent such statements. (I go into this particular topic a bit more here.)

We never want to overlook the needs of any one group, but by pitting men against women or attendees against leaders or whatever else is counterproductive. We need to start talking about what we actually mean when we make statements about not belonging in church.

There are a ton of reasons why church may not click for someone. Gender is but one of many issues swirling about.

From the best to the worst, every church is a system and a culture to a certain degree—even those that try to just keep it simple. Trends will emerge, groups will form, and others will struggle to fit in. Expectations develop, those gifted for leadership will emerge (whether by calling alone or by gender/calling), and membership traits will coalesce in one way or another.

By the time all of these things take place, there will be those who fit and those who do not. And the question remains, how do some people end up fitting in while others do not? The answers aren’t simple here.

I hope to ask this question from a few different angles this week. Stay tuned.

Last night I realized that I may have an unhealthy relationship with my computer…

Dear Loving Computer Screen,

Thank you for always being on whenever I need you. Thank you for providing me with work to do and money in my bank account. Thank you for giving me thousands of followers and hundreds of friends. Thank you for providing hours of streaming NHL hockey to help me battle the evil forces of laundry and dishes.

I offer my day to you, focusing my eyes on your brightly illuminated pixels in search of guidance and provision. Only you can provide the programs I need to open, the hyperlinks I need to click, and the Klout that I desire so badly.

Only you can connect me to the infinite wisdom and entertainment of the internet. Only you can make my day better.

Guide me, consume my time, and fill me with the good things I desire from life. May I rest in the peace of your presence throughout today. Be with me whether I’m online or offline, for now and until you’re rendered obsolete by the next big thing.

A-RAM

While I’m happy to help spread the word about a friend’s book release, I realized a few years ago that book reviews are not my thing. There are some bloggers who love writing them. They kind of psych me out. There’s something about HAVING to do a review that makes it less fun to read a book.

I’m a pretty obsessive planner for the blog too, so I usually have a hard time finding one day for a book review. All that to say, I’ve been stalling on some reviews and interviews for some good books. I owe apologies to more authors than I can count on one hand.

This week I’m working through some book reviews. I don’t care about following any kind of format. I just have three things I want to say: what is the author trying to say, who is the audience, and will that audience want to read what that author has written. Without further ado, I’ll begin book review week with Becky Garrison’s Jesus Died for This: A Satirist’s Search for the Risen Lord.

If you took a travel narrative, spiritual memoir, critique of consumer Christianity, and a report on hopeful movements in the church today and blended them together with a heavy dose of sarcasm, you’d have Garrison’s new book.

The book offers a series of snapshots at the spiritually surreal landscape of Christianity—places where skeptics and critics may find Christianity lacking. However, she sheds light on communities and individual Christians who offer a hopeful take on Christianity. Garrison’s faith-based critique also offers positive examples and is a welcome relief from the “we suck” narrative that dominates some Christian circles.

The book has a series of cartoons by artist David Hayward that help drive home Garrison’s words in unexpectedly powerful ways.

Garrison is a writer who pulls no punches, calling it like she sees it with a journalist’s skill and the creds of an MDiv from Yale Divinity school. She refuses to fawn over trends, and poses hard questions when they need to be asked. In fact, personally speaking, if I’m worried about a trend in Christian publishing or Christianity in general, she’s one of the first people I look to for a perspective.

It’s rare to find someone with Garrison’s commitment to relationships, while remaining committed to asking the questions no one seems to be asking—at least out loud. She seeks out fresh expressions of God in our world and learns what she can, while still committing to speak her mind.

This speaking her mind has gotten her into trouble, but then again, it’s why I trust Garrison so much. She doesn’t raise the alarm for the sake of attention or self-justification, but rather asks tough questions as an honest seeker asking what readers may well be wondering on their own. It’s hard to do what she does well, and for that I’m grateful for her perspective in this book.

Jesus Died for This? is a book unlike any other, as it combines a travel narrative with personal reflections on spirituality with lessons from Christians from a number of countries. It’s spiced throughout with Garrison’s whit and wordplay—which will either endear her to readers or confuse them.

If you’re convinced that Christianity is going to hell in a hand basket (even if it’s a Rob Bell hell hand basket that doesn’t last forever), this is a book for you.

If you’re frustrated by Christianity, Garrison both feels your pain and offers some helpful guides to the Christian faith who will not disappoint.

If you’re convinced that every new form of church is awesome and can’t imagine anything going wrong, this book will give you perspective.

If you think Christianity has nothing for you, Garrison will make you think again.

If you aren’t sure you’re up for word-play, alliteration, and a heavy dose of sarcasm, I encourage you to drop by Amazon and read a bit of the book.

Jesus Died for This? cuts through the hype and consumerism and points readers to solid ground. Rather than leaving readers shaking their heads at what a mess we have,  Garrison shares her own doubts, discoveries, and connections by way of pointing out that Jesus Died to create a people committed to him and his Kingdom.

Have you noticed that doubt is in right now?

Blog posts about doubts, fears, and misconceptions about God abound today like Uggs on a university campus. Unlike the existence of Uggs, I can understand where our recent emphasis on doubt is coming from, even its kind of squishy, unstable, and unsightly at times.

After liberal theologians called the historicity of Christianity, including the divinity of Jesus, into question during the late 1800’s, the majority of conservative Christians made rock solid truth, certainty, and the elimination of doubt their goals. Sure, faith was part of things, but you were 100% certain about that faith. Beliefs were sturdy things made of impenetrable truth.

Today? Meh. Not so much.

Many Christians in America are finally buddying up to their doubts, even pulling them on to strut them in public a bit. It feels honest, liberating, real, and, cue the postmodern heavenly choir, authentic.

This is what I am calling the “Belief Shift.”

What is wrong?

You see, in our quest to shore up the truth, many Christians stretched the truth of their beliefs beyond their limits. We wanted the truth to eliminate all of the inconsistencies that come our way in life, systematically answering all of our questions and providing an on-tap FAQ to living as a Christian in a broken world.

And then the faith fails began to happen.

We were told we should be certain about our beliefs beyond the shadow of a doubt, but then didn’t know how to process doubts. We thought we had the right path to God, but then we encountered other Christians with another way forward. They either became a welcome refuge or an immanent threat to our belief system’s configuration of God.

In its proper place, the truth of our beliefs can do quite a lot for us, but we run into problems when we ask them to provide certainty where humility is appropriate or black and white simplicity when complexity is the case. On the other hand, if our only solution is to rehash our doubts without asking God to help us move beyond them in some way, we could fail to take the necessary steps forward in faith that God requires of us.

What should we do now?

In a sense Christianity is built upon certain beliefs or truths in which we place our faith, but they only come to life when put into practice in our daily lives. I have personally struggled with most systematic theology because it can become disconnected from the real situations detailed in scripture and in my own life.

Christianity as something we “only believe” is a Western skew of our faith that overvalues our beliefs and undervalues putting them into practice and living with tension and uncertainty. Before they believed anything about Jesus, the disciples had to follow him. They began by believing something about Jesus, but in the process of following Jesus they doubted and he confronted these doubts.

The Gospels present a very familiar and hopefully comfortable picture of what it means to balance our growing beliefs and faith with the areas of doubt that persist. Jesus can work with us if we have our doubts, but he doesn’t want us to stay there. At some point we need to stick our fingers in his wounds, believe that he has conquered sin, and continue following him with renewed assurance.

The process is far more messy than we’ve been told, but it also shouldn’t be perpetually messy. Things will be neatened up a bit at times. In picking up on themes from other posts in this series, I find that my beliefs are strengthened as I interact with Christian traditions and the beliefs of Christians from around the world.

When I look at what sustains believers in persecuted countries, on the mission field, in prisons, and in another culture, I’m often jolted by all of the junk that I’ve made part of the “normal” Christian experience. I used to spend a lot of time obsessing over truth, certainty, and deconstructing my beliefs.

Even in my deconstruction of certainty, I was obsessed with beliefs. I was only dealing with another side of the same coin. One day my Father-in-law, who has helped me process a lot of this stuff, summed it all up in one word: humility. Right, be humble. We don’t have to figure it all out. We can have doubts. There are Christians all over the world and throughout history who have been in the same boat and who can help us.

At the end of the day the one thing that matters is whether or not we have chosen to follow Jesus and committed ourselves to his Kingdom. We are either advancing toward that goal or retreating into ourselves, forgetting that God loves us madly and desires to be with us wherever we’re at with our beliefs.

“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13

There is something beautiful and honorable about those who put their own lives in the path of danger for the sake of others. I have a good friend who works the tough hours as a police officer, and I can’t express how grateful I am to have someone with so level a head and desire to serve out on the streets.

I also know several former soldiers, veterans of the Second Iraq War. Some have moved on with their lives without the war impacting them too terribly, while others suffer severe headaches, tumors, and fatigue—the effects of the enriched uranium in our bombs also causing severe cancer and birth defects among the civilians in the war zones of Iraq and beyond.

Wherever these veterans are today, I am grateful that they put their own lives on hold, left family and friends, and traveled to distant lands. I believe they joined the American army with the best of intentions, hoping to hold up the ideals of liberty and justice. We can debate how our soldiers have been used by their superiors, the motives of our government, and the exceptions to these exemplary young people, but on the whole, I only know of honorable, dedicated people in our military.

There are always exceptions—those who join for the power and authority or simple financial reasons—though on the whole our veterans are worthy of being remembered and honored. In addition, many who have fought through the hell of war have come back as the strongest advocates for peace and diplomacy.

While it is good to honor these good people, Christians have a gray area to navigate. It is common for Christians to apply Jesus’ words from John 15:13 to the military context: giving one’s life for another. However, such a use of this passage makes a terrible blunder, mixing up one kind of sacrifice for another. This doesn’t negate the good that our soldiers do. It’s more a matter of apples and oranges.

Jesus laid down his life in a non-violent manner before the Roman and Jewish leaders, dying for the sake of all humanity—even those who murdered him. His death was a rejection of the empire’s path to establishing a Kingdom, choosing instead to inaugurate God’s Kingdom rule by laying down his own life, setting rule through power and domination aside, and demonstrating his love through his own death.

Jesus sacrificed himself for the sake of his enemies and friends. He never threatened anyone with physical harm. He rejected the kingdoms of this world in favor of God’s ground up, mustard-seed-style, yeast-through-dough Kingdom.

Though we hope America’s soldiers are only deployed for the cause of freedom and justice, we must keep in mind that our soldiers are at the disposal of the American government, which is not to be confused with God’s Kingdom. Soldiers are trained to kill their enemies, and as such they sacrifice themselves for their friends only, not for the sake of the enemy.

As General Patton once said, “No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”

And so we should certainly honor selflessness and courage. We should remember those who laid their own lives on the line for the sake of their friends.

However, we should not quote Jesus in the context of Memorial Day. Jesus chose a path of non-violence. We can debate whether such a path is feasible for a nation state today, but we should not confuse a non-violent path with a path that clearly puts violence on the table.

In addition, Jesus tells us to love our enemies, and he demonstrated his incredible love by not only dying for his friends, but also his enemies—offering them a chance to be reconciled to God. It should not surprise us that Jesus has set the bar for love incredibly high. We should also not be surprised that the love of Jesus is something quite different from the love of a soldier for friend or country. There are no doubt some similarities and points of contact, but we are dealing with two very different things.

As we honor the dedication of our men and women in uniform, may we spend even more time pondering and honoring the height, length, breadth, and depth of God’s love for everyone.