Currently Reading

Since reading is one or my greatest pleasures, and many of my ideas and writings are sparked by the books I read I thought it would be worthwhile naming the books I am currently reading on this blog. On the right hand side, below the section titled About Me is a new section titled Currently Reading. I am not a fast reader, so I tend to stay with books for many weeks. I often have more than one on the go at the same time. I may post a brief review of each book when I am finished them, but I haven't decided if I want to make this blog into a partial review site. If anyone has any questions about a book I'm reading give me a shout, I'll respond if I'm able.

Entitlement is a Lie

Our consumer culture has produced a sense of entitlement which is all out of proportion to reality. A number of years ago McDonalds ads proclaimed "You deserve a break today!" Really?! How would a global corporation know what I did and didn't deserve. Maybe I just lazed around the house all day, maybe I cheated on some exams, maybe I manipulated others into doing my work for me - do I deserve a break if that was the case? Here is the problem - the general message of "You deserve this" is floating around as a way of selling us stuff, but it's a message that doesn't distinguish between circumstances - its general pronouncement becomes our mantra, and before you know it we are living like the world owes us something, that we deserve a break, that all the good stuff should just be there for us - but it shouldn't cost me much if anything, after all, I deserve it.

When I was a child I played in a playground in my home town called Kinsmen Park. The Kinsmen were average folks who formed a service club so that they could provide things like playgrounds for the community. As a child I just assumed that playgrounds were simply there because I never knew anything different. When I got older I realized that some adults put in a lot of their own time, work and money to make sure that playground was there, and that it was kept in good repair. The other day I heard a story of a community in my home city that needs a new playground, the old one having been torn down - but hardly anyone in the community would commit to come to a meeting (let alone actually put in any time, work or money) to make that happen. Yet when these things aren't there we complain - and try to make someone else responsible.

This is one more example of the "It's all about me" attitude, which sadly is becoming more and more prevalent all the time. Sorry to burst anyone's bubble, but it's not about me, and it's not about you, it's about we. This important understanding is getting lost in the entitlement age. Can this entitlement attitude get turned around? Not until more of our media messages are "It's about us - together, each one doing their part, and all have to give of their time, work and money." That won't sell as many products, but it will make our community, and our lives, better in the long run.

Giving in to self-centeredness leads to a bitter and lonely world, where people drift without purpose or direction. A sense of entitlement leads to a life of dissatisfaction, it does not add to life, it diminishes it - entitlement is a lie.

In contrast to a sense of entitlement, learning the difficult way of cooperation and community, of sacrifice and service - this is not an easy prospect, but it is worth the effort. As Paul wrote to Timothy:

They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life. (1 Timothy 6:18-19)

What Does it Mean to be a Disciple?

Lately I have been thinking about what it means to be a Christian, and more specifically what does it mean to be a disciple of Christ. Some of the books I have been reading lately provide some interesting perspectives on that topic. Most recently I was reading about this topic in a book titled Christianity Beyond Belief: Following Jesus for the Sake of Others by Todd Hunter. Bishop Hunter writes in a section entitled The Problem with Getting Saved the following provocative words:

It seems to me that many Christians have been imagining the wrong story concerning God and his people, and thus they come up with less-than-helpful ways of thinking about the Christian life.

The story [commonly told] is one in which the forgiveness of sin is the sole plot line. The plot line moves toward the final resolution of “who goes to heaven and who goes to hell.”...

Here is the first problem: that story rarely produces actual followers of Jesus. At best it produces “forgiven people” — and even then I think forgiveness is only understood in a very shallow way. I believe that in responding to Jesus, people do not merely receive forgiveness of sins so they can go to heaven. Rather, they are forgiven so they can begin a different kind of life, a cooperative relationship with God, a new and eternal kind of life right now (which ultimately includes heaven).

To state this a little differently, to say that being a Christian means thinking the right things about Jesus so that you can go to heaven after you die is missing the main point. Jesus came to transform lives, to change the way people relate to God and each other right now, not just after this life is over. N.T. Wright, one of the world’s leading New Testament scholars, said in an interview with the Wittenburg Door magazine:

The point of following Jesus isn’t simply so that we can be sure of going to a better place than this after we die. Our future beyond death is enormously important, but the nature of the Christian hope is such that it plays back into the present life. We’re called, here and now, to be instruments of God’s new creation, the world-put-to-rights, which has already been launched in Jesus and of which Jesus’ followers are supposed to be not simply beneficiaries but also agents.

Being a Christian is not just about believing the right things so that we will be brought to the kingdom of heaven, its about doing the right things so that the kingdom of heaven will be brought into the world through us. Living out our faith is not a way to get saved, it is a way to be agents of salvation for the world around us.

What does living out our faith look like? While it is fair to say that this question can be answered as many different ways as there are people of faith, there are some general answers that can be identified as being applicable for all. The starting point for answering this question is love - as Christians we are called to love God with our whole being and love others as we love ourselves. This love is not having warm and fuzzy feelings for someone, rather it is being committed to the others’ well-being. Jesus gives some concrete examples of what this kind of love looks like in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 25: feeding the hungry, giving clothes to those who have none, taking care of the sick, visiting those in prison. In each of these examples those who do God’s will are caring for those less-fortunate than themselves through simple acts of kindness and compassion. Being a disciple of Jesus means caring for those in the world that need help.

In Canada we do some of this collectively, through Government institutions such as our health care system, and through other agencies like Canadian Lutheran World Relief. More locally we do this through providing some funding for places like Indian Métis Christian Fellowship and Regina North-Central Family Centre. There is an advantage to pooling our resources to assist such agencies, but this does not exempt us from also acting as individuals to show love to others.

What about love for future generations? I grew up with predictions of the second coming of Christ happening any day. The sad consequence of that emphasis has been less of an urgency about tackling problems that will impact the future of the world - specifically I am thinking about how we impact the environment. How does it show love for future generations if they inherit a world destroyed by pollution? How does neglect for the environment show love for God’s creation, and thus God? How does being a Christian shape our decisions about how we consume the world’s resources?

One simply action in this area is to be intentional in buying food grown locally. Another is to reduce power consumption by taking shorter showers, turning off unnecessary lights, and walking or biking more. There is nothing specifically Christian about these actions - many non-Christians do such things as well - but for Christians we make such choices out of our call to love God and others. Being a disciple of Christ does not mean simply believing something about God for the future, it means working with God in the present to help God’s kingdom come.

Just as Jesus ushered in the kingdom of God through many acts of love and compassion, so too are we his followers called to do the same. The process of bringing in the kingdom is slow - bit by bit, person by person - but it is happening, all over the world this is taking place at this very moment. The specific actions we choose to do because of our faith may not seem like much, but as agents of Christ we can, and do, make a difference, even if we don’t see it at first. Being a disciple of Christ is not just about believing, it is about doing, about living our lives with Jesus at the centre. It is taking the love Christ shared freely with us and sharing it with all the world. It is not just a head trip, it is a life journey!

Saint Patrick, Celtic Christianity and Thin Places

In honour of Saint Patrick's Day I would like to write a little about thin places as found in the ancient form of the Christian faith known as Celtic Christianity. Saint Patrick is considered the founder of this unique expression of the Christian faith that spread throughout Ireland as well as parts of Scotland, Wales and Britain in the 5th, 6th and 7th centuries.

From what I understand a thin place is a place where the boundary between this material world and the realm of the divine becomes so thin that we can experience a glimpse or taste of the glory, majesty, and love of God. It’s a place where one can sense the divine more readily. There are many places that have this reputation throughout the regions where Celtic Christianity flourished. One of those place is a little island off the west coast of Scotland called Iona.

Back in 563 C.E., Saint Columba set off from Ireland and eventually landed on Iona. He and 12 other monks founded a Celtic monastery there. Since that time people have come as pilgrims to this spiritual place. It was a place that my wife and I visited in our pilgrimage throughout Europe in the summer of 2009. The picture above is of St. Columba's Bay on northern part of the island of Iona. This is the place where Saint Columba and his group of monks are said to have landed when they first arrived at Iona.

Their very presence in Scotland is an interesting case of the missionized becoming the missionaries. It was just over a century earlier that Patrick brought the message of Christ to Ireland (in 433 C.E.), and now Ireland was producing missionaries to take the Gospel back across the Irish Sea. There is some uncertainty as to exactly why Columba left Ireland for Scotland. One tradition says Columba had upset the king of Ireland by refusing to hand over a copy of the Gospels he had illegally copied, which led to a battle in which Columba's warrior family prevailed. Full of remorse for his actions and the deaths he had ultimately caused he fled. This tradition further states that when Columba landed on Iona he climbed to the top of the highest hill and when he determined that he couldn't see Ireland from Iona he decided that was where they would stop their journey.

Once settled, Columba and his monks set about converting most of pagan Scotland and northern England to the Christian faith. Iona's fame as a missionary centre and place of notable learning eventually spread throughout Europe. This resulted in Iona becoming pilgrimage destination for several centuries to come. The famous illustrated manuscript, The Book of Kells was said to have been created on Iona. For more on this beautiful work of faith and art click here.

Iona became a sacred isle where kings of Scotland, Ireland and Norway were buried. (When I learned that Norwegian kings were buried on Iona I realized that my Scandinavian roots were connected with the Celtic people and culture as well.) By establishing a long-standing vigorous religious community on Iona, Saint Columba made the tiny island an important place in Celtic Christianity.

Perhaps it is because of the centuries of Christians who gathered in intensive prayer and learning on that tiny isle that Iona has a reputation of being a thin place. As one recent pilgrim noted "It has been said that the millions of prayers offered over the centuries echo in the very stones of the walls and the presence of God resonates from the ground itself." This was certainly a sense I had, both while wandering around the island with Beth, and when worshiping in the Iona Abbey with other pilgrims.

If that was the extent of it then any place of worship that has existed for centuries could be described as a thin place. Iona had something more as well, something that is hard to put my finger on, or to put into words. I think it had to do with the stillness and isolation of the place. Iona is not easy to get to - many hours on a combination of trains, buses and ferries. In some ways I felt like we were on the edge of the world gazing out at the wide expanse of the Atlantic Ocean to the west of us. There are only a few vehicles allowed on Iona, so there is little noise of any kind. Even though there are many visitors every year, most come over for a few hour tour of the Abbey and sites immediately around it, which meant when Beth and I wandered around the island most of the time we were quite alone (if you don't count the sheep that were everywhere). This quietness, the rugged beauty of the island, the expanse of the sky and sea - all this seemed to invite one into the presence of the Creator.

Yet it was even more than that. There are many places where that are quiet and surrounded by nature. Iona had something else as well. So far I've identified Iona's long history of Christian community, and its isolation from the distractions of a modern world - and still there was something more, something deeper that I experienced there. A stirring within my spirit, an enlivening of my sense of call, a sense of being surrounded by the mystery of God - these are things that I can not fully explain. All I can say for sure is that I am glad we went to visit Iona, and I have a definite desire to return someday.

While walking over rocks on the shore of St. Columba's Bay I was struck by the unique colour of some of the pebbles - they were green, or in some cases a mixture of red and green. So I did something that might seem crazy, I picked up a bunch and put them in my pocket. From my pocket they went into my suitcase, and they travelled with us the rest of our time in Europe. When back in Regina I asked Dorathea Little, a wonderful lady from my congregation, if she could help me with getting these stones polished (this was something she did as a hobby with her late husband Tom). Dorathea arranged for someone she knew in the rock jewellery community to polish them up for me. Now I have a wee bit of Iona, a reminder of that thin place, sitting on top of my desk.

So in honour of Saint Patrick I looked at my green rocks and thought of a little island where I felt particularly close to the Divine - Iona, a thin place if there ever was one.

Haiku for Japan

Spring time brought sadness.

Earth moved, water swept, many died.

Not judgement! God wept.

Baby Jesus is Buried

This winter is getting a little bit ridiculous. Lent is starting pretty well as late as it can (Ash Wednesday is March 9th this year, the latest Ash Wednesday can ever be is March 10th), and yet the Nativity Scene is still up in front of our church! And we can't take it down either - because in December and January we had a few really warm spells causing things to melt then freeze repeatedly, thus the poles holding up the display are now solidly frozen into the ground and won't be coming out until a good long thaw.

Meanwhile we've had so much snow this winter that a lot of the Nativity scene is completely covered with snow - we lost baby Jesus a long time ago (in between Christmas and Epiphany). I suspect at this rate the infant Jesus will emerge from the snow about the same time we celebrate the adult Jesus emerging from the tomb.

Standing in the background the Magis' camels remain stationary, like the many airplanes grounded due to bad weather, stranding many travellers this past Christmas. If the Magi were hoping to flee the wrath of Herod quickly the weather hasn't cooperated.

Perhaps the only good thing about this unusual situation is that when the spring weather finally arrives, and the snow melts away we will be able to answer affirmatively to our evangelical friends, "Yes, we found Jesus!"

The Miracle of Now

This is a poem I wrote while on a personal retreat at the Qu'appelle House of Prayer about a decade ago. I think is resonates somewhat with the things I wrote in the previous two posts. What was then is still relevant now.
____________

The Miracle of Now

The miracle of now
is a hundred thousand colours
and motion that is not blurred
by mechanical blinking to fool the eye.

There need not be the burden of regrets,
the miracle of now is a free spirit.
There need not be the urgency of next,
the miracle of now is peace of mind.

The miracle of now
is a single thought unfolding
and meaning that is not fixed
by digital ordering of ones and zeros.

There need not be anything but now,
full in its incompleteness,
for God is as much present now
as ever has been or will be to come.
This is the miracle of now,
this is the gift of the present moment.
May I receive and be part of
the miracle of now!

(Written June 18, 2001 - Qu'appelle House of Prayer)