the experience of You

Majestic and Indwelling Presence

i want wonder!

to marvel

at the smallest snowflake

caught in my eyelashes

i want awe!

to admire

the power

and humility

witnessed

in God Most High

living inside

astonish me

with Your seductive invitation

confound me

with this rare emancipation

woo me

into a wondrous celebration

beyond all imagination

in awe and amazement

unspeakable

incredible

breathlessly i wait

for innocence anew

the experience of You

People are veritably besieged...

People are veritably besieged, on all sides, at every moment simultaneously by these claims and strivings of the various powers each seeking to dominate, usurp, or take a person’s time, attention, abilities, effort; each grasping at life itself; each demanding idolatrous service and loyalty. In such a tumult it becomes very difficult for a human being even to identify the idols that would possess him or her…

~ William Stringfellow

DaySpring

when the day springs early
and darkness is eclipsed;

there is a moment of eternity
at the edge of daybreak
at the point where light peals back the thick darkness
[seeking to linger in silhouette]

i wait amidst the flecks of first light mingled with shadows
witness the march of radiance stalking persistent gloom

as the cresting wave of brilliance splashes over the horizon,
aglow…faint memories of a rumour intersect

[mercy cascades from upon the summit
with the hush of avalanche
compassion visits iniquity
threatening darkness trampled in the encompassing surge]

as the DaySpring shines forth wielding light upon those sitting in darkness
[in the shadow of death]

O, come forth DaySpring…shine Thy radiant splendor

In the practice of Advent...

I think - in the practice of Advent - we all become Quakers.  For it is the particular practice of the Quakers - silence, stillness, attention, waiting - that we engage in this season. 

One of the most precious gifts of grace that I get glimpses of over the years is how the long-term pattern of my life is changing by engaging these practices...these disciplines. 


I liken my own practice to be very similar to an experience maybe we've all had.  So imagine with me that you have taken a walk in the woods in the late afternoon.  It's beautiful, it's peaceful, it's mostly silent. 

As the shadows lengthen and the colors of the setting sun deepen both the silence and the texture of it, you lose track of time.  After a while, you realize that it is getting rather dark, and you need to make your way back through the woods to your home.  As you walk along the path in the gathering dark, you suddenly hear something, like the crack of a branch on the floor of the wood.  You stop and still all inner life, and with all the discipline you have you bring your focus and attention to sensing what has made that noise. 

This stillness in silence and focused attention is like what I have sensed that has grown in me.  This is what Quaker unprogrammed worship is like, as John Punshon in his wonderful and reflection-rich book Encounter with Silence observes, "It is a state of great attentiveness, not of abandon.  It involves an awareness of one's being, not one's doing.  That is why it is still.  Silence is defined from the outside, stillness from within...when Friends practice it together, there is a great release of God's power into their worship and their lives." 

The power of Advent - as the power of the Quaker practice of worship - goes beyond the simple act of waiting.  It helps give texture and depth to a community of the called/gathered and bonds them together in a unitive experience.  There is such a deep, transforming power in this Presence together that is a crowning of what we seek to experience day-to-day in our ordinary, sacred lives, isn't it?  For it is indeed living that is most precious, most sacred...even in the waiting for something impossible-yet-true. 

In the stillness of this morning, a new name or metaphor emerged for the Spirit.  Weaver.  

You see, almost like a bird who gathers separate twigs and weaves them into a unified, integrated and strong home for herself and her hatchlings, the Weaver mysteriously, sacrificially, sacramentally, searches my depths - the best and worse in me, the complexity and simplcity...the noble and the vindictive...these separated twigs of my existence and being.  Yet bringing those into the Light, this wondrous Weaver integrates and heals me, instead of leaving those shadows to populate my heart in a subversive and destructive secrecy.  My weakness become my strength because the Weaver makes it so.  This also is true for all of us together as the Weaver threads a diverse community together...

Thus in this last week of Advent, I say: Come, O Weaver!...shine your Light and search me...and if there be any twisted way in me, weave me in the way everlasting.

Peace, Tension and Impossibly-True-Wonder be yours this season, my friends!

Something is on the Horizon

“The season of Advent means there is something on the horizon the likes of which we have never seen before…What is possible is to not see it, to miss it, to turn just as it brushes past you. And you begin to grasp what it was you missed, like Moses in the cleft of the rock, watching God's [back] fade in the distance. So stay. Sit. Linger. Tarry. Ponder. Wait. Behold. Wonder. There will be time enough for running. For rushing. For worrying. For pushing. For now, stay. Wait. Something is on the horizon.”
~ Jan L. Richardson, Night Visions

I'd Rather Be Significant Than Relevant

Below is a link to the latest post at the Out of Ur blog.  I've been ruminating on this one, because - it resonates with something I have sought before: I'm aiming to go beyond relevance...into a deeper significance.

Fred Shuttlesworth and Steve Jobs died on the same day.  One was very relevant to many people, the other greatly significant for many people.  Guess which-is-which?  Shuttlesworth was gravely significant, Jobs merely relevant. 

Guess which one people know more about and think has shaped their lives more?  Jobs, of course, and while he has had a tremendous impact that is currently relevant, in time it will not measure up to the significant impact Shuttlesworth made upon humanity. 

In considering this, it strikes me that in this Advent season, what we wait upon and deeply embrace is a child whose birth and life was attended with great significance, yet little relevance for the wider world at that time. 

[aside: my friend Andy Campbell has some good reflections toward the fact that there was no room for them...]

All of this also reminds me of a quote from Henri Nouwen: “The leaders of the future will be those who dare to claim their irrelevance in the contemporary world as a divine vocation...”

Father, I want to follow you into your deeply significant work in people's lives...show me how to join your revolution!  Help me to go beyond relevance to a deeper significance...O come, Emmanuel!

Here is the link to the Out of Ur blog: Christian Saints versus Cultural Celebrities.

Be Awake to the Divine Mystery

 

"Take time to be aware that in the very midst of our busy preparations for the celebration of Christ's birth in ancient Bethlehem, Christ is reborn in the Bethlehems of our homes and daily lives. Take time, slow down, be still, be awake to the Divine Mystery that looks so common and so ordinary yet is wondrously present."

 

~ Edward Hays

La Noche Oscura

Just read through this article that briefly explores what St. John of the Cross called la noche oscura, or dark night, that difficult invasion of God's astringent grace that opens us to new realms of spiritual experience.  Chuck DeGroat says that the purpose of the dark night, of course, is to strip us of our futile attempts to find God on our own terms, and to awaken us to a much simpler desire for intimacy with God. I find in my work that this is exactly what people want. Time and again, pastors tell me that they'd just like to know God, more purely, more simply, more deeply.

Having experienced a few dark nights, I wholeheartedly agree with Chuck.

I spoke of this a while back, but these dark nights can be extraordinary moments of grace and opportunities for a deeper...knowing?  Experience of Love?  I'm not even sure how to put it, but DeGroat is right, there are just so many dimensions to it. 

But I do know that each time it just scares the crap out of me, but paradoxically it also engenders hope. I have come through these seasons of dryness – wilderness experiences really – closer and more in touch with Jesus as a real person.  Y'know, what we really believe - that Jesus is alive, right here, right now - is pretty damn disturbing, exquisitely so...and yet I am still along a journey of living the questions more fully, more faithfully... 

Iconoclast: Calenthia Dowdy, Race and Intentional Community

I've been listening to the Iconoclast podcasts for some time, so I thought I would finally share with others.  In this 38th podcast, they have some seriously great conversation as the Iconoclast hosts interview Calenthia Dowdy.  Calenthia Dowdy is a cultural anthropologist who specializes in urban youth culture(s) and Afro-Brazilian life. She teaches youth ministry and cultural anthropology at Eastern University in St. Davids, Pennsylvania. Calenthia was born, raised, and continues to reside in the city of Philadelphia. She’s a Philadelphia Mennonite affiliate and has a keen interest in intentional discipleship community living and various expressions of the emerging church movement. Since 2003, Calenthia has been an antiracism trainer with Damascus Road, an antiracism education and organizing program.



Recently, she contributed a chapter to Widening the Circle: Experiments in Christian Discipleship, where she addresses issues of race in intentional communities.

Click HERE for the podcast.

Stoking the Fire of Advent

"Advent, like its cousin Lent, is a season for prayer and reformation of our hearts. Since it comes at winter time, fire is a fitting sign to help us celebrate Advent.  If Christ is to come more fully into our lives this Christmas, if God is to become really incarnate for us, then fire will have to be present in our prayer. Our worship and devotion will have to stoke the kind of fire in our souls that can truly change our hearts. Ours is a great responsibility not to waste this Advent time."

- Edward Hays