theo|digital

People who have never developed a deep personal knowing of God will be limited in the depth of their personal knowing of themselves. Failing to know God, they will be unable to know themselves, as God is the only context in which their being makes sense. Similarly, people who are afraid to look deeply at themselves will of course be equally afraid to look deeply at God.

For such persons, ideas about God provide a substitute for direct experience of God

Knowing God and knowing self are therefore interdependent. Neither can proceed very far without the other. Paradoxically, we come to know God best not by looking at God exclusively, but by
looking at God
and then looking at ourselves
then looking at God
and then again looking at ourselves.

This is also the way we best come to know our selves. Both God and self are mostly fully known in relationship to each other.

– David G. Brenner in The Gift of Being Yourself

Thanksgiving evening is a weird feeling.

I spent the day out with family. My aunt hosting, crushed olive hors d’oeuvres, red wine, great uncles, football on Direct TV, and not few Republican laments about Obama.

And after pumpkin pie, I did go back for apple crisp. And then coconut cream pie.

There’s the fake kisses, long small talks, phone calls from out of state, and then my drive back to the city, a little less than an hour with no traffic. I stopped at Walgreens on the way home cause I had run out of Dial, and I expressed sympathy with the cashier for having to work ’till 6:30pm on Thanksgiving. “Now it’s gonna be 7:30,” her boss walked up and joked.

There’s the return to the apartment and the kicking of the shoes and e-mail check and the casual browsing on Amazon.

But these aren’t the weird part.

It’s that time about 7:45pm when I identify what’s been bothering me for the last thirty minutes.

I’m hungry.

Really?!?

I ate today! I ATE today! White meat turkey (two ladles of gravy), green bean casserole, mashed potatoes thick enough to stand up, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes and raisins, soft rutabaga, dips, and oven-baked dressing in the middle to keep the wrong juices from flowing together.

I’m hungry.

The weird part is admitting that it could be true. That me microwaving some leftover soup and snacking on corn chips while the last 45 seconds count down isn’t something dreadfully immoral. That six hours from the last meal really is a biologically acceptable time to return to the feeding. But I still I feel gluttonous. Who needs more food on Thanksgiving?

These past months I’ve felt pangs when I notice how little I’m writing reflection. This is a genre that’s helped me sort through years of confusing moments and big-grin highs. But school has tended to suck the writing and creative contemplation right out of me into critical book reviews and take-home exams, leaving scarce left-over words for text messages and terse to-do lists. So tonight, as I think, I’ll take it as the grace of God on a late November evening.

And on Thanksgiving, spiritual is where I’ve gotta go. But it’s not to rehash my necessary gratitude for extravagant American wealth in contrast with a poverty-clasped world; my three desserts to a cross-ocean family’s hunger. This is not because this thought is not strikingly true (to whom much is given…), but that it is not striking enough.

Maybe instead I’m noticing the inescapable similarities between reheating leftovers and choosing turkey from this afternoon’s candle-heated silver tray. Between the ordinary and the celebratory. Maybe it turns out that what we counted at 2pm as Food To Die For is the same substance I’m eating tonight as I’m Hungry Just Like Every Day At This Time. That I make much of something that isn’t special. That the consecrated isn’t remarkably changed from the plain.

Sure there are some special foods that I don’t often eat (my grandma makes cranberry sauce with orange rind bits that could solve Mideast peace). But for the most part: food is food. And I don’t emphasize this to desacralize the holiday as much as to bless the ordinary.

Sure, I’m struck by the wealth I live in that I “take for granted”; the vegetables I ate in early life because Mom’s rhetoric included those starving African children. But if I’m taking anything for granted, it’s that the Spirit is the one who animates my life, not the food. That special-ness (and there should be that) is brought by the same overlooked One who runs circumstance-independent throughout my life, mundane or not. The Blessings, the Right-ness, the Peace That Makes No Sense–comes from my citizenship in a kingdom is built by wine I don’t stock.

The prayer of thanks said in tired corners of the world over Too Little is the same dependence on the same food from the same God who both gives and takes what we need for life.

Meaning a beeping microwave—if moved by the King Who Gives—can be more a holiday than anything else I’ve experienced today. Extra-Ordinary Thanksgiving at 7:45pm. Weird.

The summer is beginning to threaten its end, and I think my heart has found a way to mourn without telling me about it. That I wouldn’t notice until the sadness comes… that’s not unusual for me, I think. Today I walked through the dirt past Laundry and stared up at Mt. Ypsilon, thick and permanent on this backdrop. I’ll miss it when I leave.

My heart has been with my students here. Most are tired now, full with a summer that for them has been cleaning, conflict, mornings, trust, patience. Many probably had hoped for greater revelation or stronger hope. Only a few already see that what they got in patient endurance was worth the labor, God himself living in the toughest moments.


John Drage says that he’s still not sure how LT works. The economist in me agrees. The entire idea is that we “set the conditions for growth.” We couldn’t compel it to happen.

And so it’s true that a few of my student will walk away from the summer feeling no change. Wondering why they came out, frustrated there was only an empty promise of spiritual growth: certain that the eleven speakers were a disappointment, their project groups weren’t organized, their dorms noisy, and their bank accounts smaller than they had imagined. The saddest part isn’t for me that they didn’t like what we set, but that they never understood it in the first place.

I can only hope that Mt. Ypsilon draws them out here again, maybe a second chance at finding God in mountains.

I-Life in Champaign has posted the audio for my talk (mp3 -10.5MB) on 5 April in their New Heart series. Like usual with me talking, you miss a bit because we had almost 50 photos, but you can still follow the stories, and why I think Kingdom hearts are to be subversive.

On Sunday, the Boston Globe ran a feature article on the idea of new monasticism – people who are practicing Christianity within the context of a community house with shared possessions, meals, hospitality, spiritual direction. The movement has seen some remarkable growth in just the last five years, and they have some good points about why they are not simply a re-hashed Jesus-hippie-movement.

I’m very interested, because in part, my home in Champaign, the Dawg Haus, has tried to live some of these values. I’ve favored a much more relaxed approach, which means a great deal less orchestrated discipline except weekly meals and chores. We emphasize hospitality, leadership, worship, shared intimacy, personal humility and spiritual growth. But these are sort of left up to the individual guy. The level of participation varies depending on the current spiritual motivation or maturity of the guy. This clearly affects everyone in the house, but my little postmodern heart has trouble with practices that feel “official” or “group control-ish.”

But I’ve often wondered if more focal – historic – practices (evening prayers, for example) would help or harm a community like ours.

I’ve had to answer this question an I’ve-lost-count number of times – from old friends, GCM partners, new friends, professors – those know much about me and those who are meeting me for the first time. I’ve found it tough to answer, because there are so MANY answers. So I think I’ll start slipping them in here, one at a time. Could be ten or more.

Why am I in [seminary/theology grad school/divinity school]?

1. Not to “become a pastor.”
Maybe it’s weird to start with a negative, but this an important first thought. For my GCM friends, we know that we don’t tend to think of pastors as professionals like doctors or lawyers, each with their professional degrees. And we don’t believe a degree can make a pastor.

I still agree with this. I still think that in Paul’s 15 descriptions (in 1 Tim 3) on what an elder should be like, only one involves learning of the book-type: “able to teach.” Others (self-controlled, hospitable, more…) are descriptions of character, and this is grown through spiritual formation: being quick to listen, gaining experience in failure, and cultivating humility.

This is part of the reason why it feels weird to use the word “seminary” as opposed to “study theology” or “grad school” – the first reminds me of that professional model that in some contexts worries me.

ps – Most of my fellows students do see this as pastor training – and I recognize this is the majority view of the current American church – and it’d be foolish for me to say that God hasn’t blessed that. I take my perspective humbly and cautiously. Still can’t shake the feeling that people need more experience than this to be a pastor, but kudos to North Park for heavy emphasis on spiritual formation and internship experiences.

Rob Bell released another Nooma short film this weekend. It’s called, “Today,” and it’s only available to watch online full-length until Wednesday.

I’ve only watched it once, but my initial reactions are:

• Rob Bell is characteristically more enthusiastic the more he talks, leaning toward the camera, etc. Because it seems like he follows the same pattern each time, I started suspecting it as “just an act,” but then ditched the cynicism and realized that Rob understands how gripping it is to listen to someone who looks like they really are all-about what they are saying.
• The metaphor/story of the video does what many of the others do: hold you in suspense until the end (“what’s going on?”) and then reveals at the end. They’re never a “big” surprise – usually just simple and effective. This new one follows suit.
• Rob’s distilled message seems to be “seize the day.” I like it. It’s a value of the Kingdom to live simultaneously in the “now” and the “hope to come” – the places the Kingdom exists – and not elsewhere. Living in the past or the simple future (1 year, 5 years, 10 years from now) has produced much worry and spiritual sludge in my life.

You can buy Nooma DVD shorts at www.nooma.com.

When I go to New York City, I do not have to think about not going to London or Atlanta. People do not meet me at the airport or station and exclaim over what a great thing I did in not going somewhere else. I took the steps to go to NYC, and that took care of everything.
…
On the other hand, not going to London or Atlanta is a poor plan for going to New York. And not being wrongly angry and so on is a poor plan for treating people with love.
…
“He that loves has fulfilled the law,” Paul said. “Really.”

Dallas Willard, in The Divine Conspiracy, on how Jesus’ ‘Discourse on the Hillside’ is a sermon on how people in the kingdom Live, not rules on how they shouldn’t.

From the AP wire a few days ago:

“In a way, I’m really glad this happened because it changed my life forever.”

“I just can’t wait to see my family and have a nice meal and be in my own bed and appreciate all the things I took for granted and never really thought much about,” she said.

“I feel like I can’t wait to start a new chapter of my life. It feels really great even though I really don’t like it here,” she said.

Getting past the humor of me reading the entertainment section, I think I see a reason that Paris’s comments about her jail sentence may be more than simply publicity management. And it’s only because in the reality of the spiritual life, they ring true.

As universal as lifting weights forms muscles, humans forced into humility can reliably observe the resulting formation spiritually. Self-centeredness is the spiritual trans fat of our race, isn’t it? It makes sense that Paris’ jail time would be healthy for her spirit, producing waves of developing gratitude, genuine love, a wider perspective.

I hope she’ll find that Jesus was both the teacher and author of how this works in us.

Okay, entertainment news over. Back to philosophy. Or at least NPR.

At the bottom of lots of our problems is a “gospel” problem. Students of mine that grow up in Christians homes often admit to me that the gospel they grew up was this: Jesus came to die for my sins so I could go to heaven. This parody of the biblical gospel, I contend, is at the heart of many of our problems.
…
Now a definition: The gospel is the work of the Trinitarian God (a community of persons) to create the community of faith in order to restore humans (made in God’s image) through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ as well as through the empowering gift of the Holy Spirit to union with God and communion with others for the good of the self and the world. And all of this to the glory of God.

This is a good summary of the way my views on the gospel have transformed (widened, perhaps) in the last six years. It has affected my personal maturity, my role in ministry, and definitely my storytelling and teaching.

Read the rest of the post at the Out of Ur blog. Scot’s blog is Jesus Creed.