Reach Out!

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field."

I have a lot of plans. All the time. My latest plan is to go on an 11 month communal, mission, service adventure to over 11 different countries all around the world. It’s called the World Race. Click here and check it out.

Another broad plan that I have is doing my music. “Doing music” involves writing songs, practicing guitar and vocals, booking shows, and performing in front of thousands of people (just seeing if you’re listening).

I want to be a good steward with my talents, so I take these plans very seriously. I work hard at my music. I get excited about things like the World Race in order that my imagination and capacity for God will be stretched. I am learning how to create systems of organization to allow me to work on many different plans at once without getting overwhelmed, and because of that, I’m becoming very productive.

"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it. Although, with all my planning, there is one thing I fear. What if I get so involved in my plans, so absorbed, that if Jesus called me to sell everything and follow him, I looked back.

I don’t think God calls everyone to be poor, and when Jesus was traipsing through Judea in 33 AD or whatever, I think the call to the hobbled senior citizens to “follow me” was a different “follow me” than he said to Peter. I can’t imagine Jesus asking a bunch of older women with canes and walkers to hike through the wilderness with him. The point is, he asks different people for different things based on their context.

Rather, what he seems to be more concerned about is freeing people to enter into the Kingdom of God. “The Kingdom of God is near,” he says. He means it spatially rather than temporally, as if the Kingdom of God is across the street, or next door, or down the block, or next to your right hand.

“Reach out! Take a step forward. Jump. Seize the Kingdom, it’s so close!”

But will I be able to, when I’m called? Or do I value my baggage too much? If I discovered that fine pearl, would I be willing to sell my nice clothes and Armani watch? Would I get rid of my car and choose to walk? Would I be able to not buy deodorant or toothpaste for a month to save up for that amazing pearl? I would be rich for the rest of my life, but for a month I would be the loneliest, smelliest guy in town.

Would I give up my plans? Would you?

Sometimes I’m not so sure.

Letting Go

The rosary is a pretty long prayer. It takes about 20 minutes, more or less, and it's pretty monotonous on the surface. Only on the surface, though, because there is so much going on underneath:

• The touch of the beads. It's easy to downplay the senses, but Catholic theology certainly doesn't. Once you have prayed with something so many times, just the touch reminds you of the grace of God.
• The meditation on the Mysteries. There are four different sets of five mysteries about the life of Christ. For example, on Tuesdays and Fridays the Sorrowful Mysteries are meditated on: 1) Jesus in Gethsemane, 2) his flogging, 3) his crowning with thorns, 4) carrying the cross, 5) and finally, his crucifixion. During each decade (1 Our Father, 10 Hail Mary's, 1 Gloria) you meditate on one of these mysteries. For me, 12 different prayers is not enough time to due each of these events justice. Especially when,
• you're also trying to pray for other people. The rosary is a great time to intercede for others. I try to bring people into the cathedral in my soul--carved by God through my prayers--and passing the grace that is flowing in me to them.
• And the prayer itself, of course. The request and hope for the Kingdom in the six "Our Fathers," the acknowledgement of sin and plea for intercession, the praise of the Gloria.

It quickly becomes a juggling act, only God is directing the balls and I am just moving my hands. Often after the first decade I find myself spiritually surrendering, to the extent that I've rarely experienced in Protestant prayer in which there is always the pressure of turning my thoughts and imagination and everything else to God. The pressure is taken from me during the rosary. The Holy Spirit turns my thoughts. The Holy Spirit controls my imagination.

A spiritual freedom comes upon me, releasing even the burden of my own relationship with God. All I have to do is surrender, and he comes to me.

One Thing That Frustrates Me About Christians

and Christian writing is our penchant for finding quick solutions to difficult problems. Everything becomes a simple little Sunday school lesson.

I was reading a woman's blog who was struggling with thoughts of worthlessness in the midst of a stressful project in which she was expected to provide leadership. She wrote one paragraph about the episode and three paragraphs giving a moral sermon about what happened and why and what she had learned.

This wouldn't be bad if I hadn't just read 10 other blogs from Christians with the same tendency for Sunday school pedantry.

It reminds me of when I was a high school junior at a church meeting. One man admitted that he had trouble feeling intimacy with God. "Feeling" was the key word. He was close to God, but didn't feel it all the time.

I was on a spiritual high at the time and told him what I was doing to feel close to God. I still look back in shame at that. This punk 17 year old kid was trying to give spiritual advice to a 40 year old missionary!

Forgive me, Lord, for my spiritual pride! Help me to learn to become incarnate in people's lives, as you were. To lead them by carrying my cross, not by putting another burden on their backs. Pray for me, Jesus, that I would learn to shut my mouth and listen.

Baseball, Buddhism, and a Man Named Leslie: Part 1 of 3

This was written for a friend who had just accepted Christ. It might have been a little too much for him at the time. He compared it to a fire hydrant. It's long so I'll break it into 3 parts. Enjoy!

Lesslie Newbigin was a missionary and bishop in Madras, India. He retired in 1974 and spent the rest of his life writing to the church to convince it the take the Gospel to post-Christian Western Europe. He passed away in 1998 (1).

Many people say different religions are like the AL and NL. They have a few different rules, but in the end, they’re really playing the same game.

This is an assumption, but we'll have to get back to this later.

Many people are afraid of competition. If the Dodgers and the Red Sox playing in the World series play to win, the players pride might be hurt, and that’s dangerous. To be avoided at all cost. For them, competition = violence. The Reformation taught us how costly religious differences can be. The need at this critical point in human history is for unity. It makes sense. Nuclear weapons can kill everyone and everything, the environment is on the tipping point, and Islamic Extremism scares the crap out of all of us. What we really all need is just to get along.

But the problem is, that turns baseball (and world religions) into


Tee ball.

Everyone gets a trophy. Everyone is a winner. No one is better than anyone. There are no losers.
In other words, all religions are equal paths to God.

To be continued...

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesslie_Newbigin, 2007.

Healing Light

Sometimes I get a view of the mystical side of the world. I had a friend who could see angels and demons. I hold her visions loosely because she proved to be an unhealthy, unbalanced person. Still, I mostly believe her view of the world because it coresponds to certain parts of the Bible, and even more so, to Catholic theology going back hundreds of years.

Sometimes you can feel your spiritual presence. You get the sense that there is a battle going on, and that you're an important part of it. You can absorb the Love of God and push it out into the world around you.

This may sound strange, but I have a hunch that this is just as much a reality as it is my imagination. Speaking about the imagination, one of my heroes, Agnes Sandford, holds the imagination in high esteem as a means of connecting with God and becoming a conduit of grace for the world. It's worth a look.

Praying the Rosary is kind of like...

Grinding out a level in World of Warcraft.

I have a problem. I have an addictive personality disorder, and I get addicted to video games. Not as bad as some, but worse than most. Fortunately, I haven't come under the power of World of Warcraft in a year and a half. I still daydream about it sometimes though.

Like while I was saying the rosary the other day. I was reminded of "grinding," which for you non-WoWers means just killing a lot of bad guys without doing a quest. It's really repetitive and kind of boring, but you do it because you want to get to a new level. The rewards are worth the boringness.

The rosary is similar. Saying a three-sentence prayer ten times in a row and 53 times in one sitting can get a little mind-numbing (and that may be part of the point), but the boringness is worth it.

While saying the rosary, I'm plowing my soul. It constantly changes my opinion of my identity. "Pray for us sinners." I cannot escape it. I cannot pretend I am holy and perfect and whole. You say it 53 times.

Sinner
Sinner
Sinner
Sinner

Sinner


Sinner

No escape. No avoidance. No hiding.

"Glory be the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen"

But there is an escape. There is freedom from my identity, but it is only by submitting that identity to the story of God. As it was in the beginning, when I was sinless, when I was free. That reality is now. That reality is forever. If I accept it.

Ravi, We Have a Problem

This is my reaction to a comment on a NY Times blog about the Pope. See it's context here.

Ravi,

Jesus called himself the cornerstone, which means the foundation, the starting point. The Church does not claim to have all the answers, it claims to have the starting point. There are many stones that are compatible with the cornerstone, and some of them may be found in Hinduism and Buddhism. But some stones in those faiths simply do not fit.

The secular person admits to no starting point, has no foundation, and therefore is at great disadvantage. If you have nothing to build from, if your house is just a pile of stones, how will your house of faith stand?

Practicing the Rosary

Prayers are tools. They are means of breaking into the the kingdom of heaven and obtaining it's peace. There are good tools and bad tools. There are also great tools.

Some people are very good with certain ones, but horrible with others. Sometimes, you get so used to using one tool that you miss out on a lot of opportunities. You start to use a new tool and you get things done that you never knew were possible.

Lately, I've been practicing using a new tool. The rosary has been around for a long time, prayer beads for even longer. With so many saints to recommend it, I think it's about time for me to try it.

I'm not Roman Catholic, but I am loving asking for intercession from Mary the Mother of God. My soul delights in the thought of the Communion of Saints and all the brothers and sisters and mothers of Jesus praying at His feet.

Protestant fear of this Communion is silly and foolish. Roman Catholic idolatry to it is just as bad. Instead, I choose to fear God and love his Saints, my family.

First of all

I'm not a monk. Nowhere near. I'm sorry to ruin expectations. I feel like a sketchy loan officer selling the bait and switch.

I chose this name because on my other blog, Joe Bunting--which documents my exploration of the singer/songwriter profession--I have a category called "Joe Bunting the Monk" (to see my other blog, CLICK HERE). The reason that I'm writing this new blog is to process a totally different subject matter, faith and prayer.

There is a little bit of monk in all of us. This is because we are all filled with a little bit of the divine and have the ability to contemplate that divinity that lives in us.

Although a Christian all my life, I only recently discovered the essence of the divine in my soul. You can feel it, you know, if know where to look.

This is the beginning. This is the end.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and shall be forever, world without end. So be it!