The Skeleton Kingdom

 

Inspired by rumors of mansions in heaven

Building begins for his kingdom on earth.

Supplies pile up; workers are gathered, 

Trained, and put to different tasks,

Each with a niche, an itch, a handful of tools.

 

But as the castles receive their finishing touches,

No one comes to live in them, instead,

The workers all go home to their own beds for rest.

 

Subdivisions, cities and zip codes,

Cranked out by the labor of dreamers

Who are building the kingdom here on earth

Just as it is in heaven, or perhaps a little altered

Only because dreams are often skewed, or

Hard to understand because they are views of

What hasn’t yet been done or even seen,

A revelation of the invisible.

 

And one mans edifice, results in another mans’.

As reactions zig-zag across the landscape,

Competition interrupts the dream world.

 

The walls keep being raised, the ribbons

Keep being cut, but the neighborhoods lie

Desolate with no one to take up residence.

All the workers return to their beds for rest,

Only to rise again, build again, rival again.

 

All the mud, bricks and mortar, all the blood

Of friends and enemies, all for a kingdom

That no one wants to live in, a skeleton kingdom. 

Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

This is a line from Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space that makes me yearn for a renewed church that moves with God, rather than worshipping an unimaginative “thing” of our own creation and calling it God:

“Sometimes the house grows and spreads so that, in order to live in it, greater elasticity of daydreaming, a daydream that is less clearly outlined, are needed.” 

If we as Christ’s body let him rule us, in his power and mystery, instead of striving for safety and short cuts to religiosity, maybe our eyes could be opened and we could see him more fully, and not just the few snap shots that we limit him to being. 

Bachelard’s book is genius, and sort of sweet. It reveals of way of living that depends heavily on the chaos that comes from not just brushing over the contradictions of details, but leaving them vulnerable and alive, not settling for generalities in order to cope.  

Q & A

Earlier this week, maybe it was Tuesday morning, I noticed a peculiar empty feeling creeping up inside of me. I recognized it when I started catching myself getting anxious and angry for no reason, or small ones, and being overwhelmed with doubt and worry. When I tried to think about what could help me, I felt sort of empty. I briefly wondered if the things that were making me anxious and angry went away, would that help? No… Or if the questions/fears that I was having that made me doubt and worry could be answered, would that help? No… The only thing that could help me was the answer to this question: Jesus, do you love me? As I expressed my feelings of emptiness to Brian after blowing up at him and wounding him with my worries, we prayed together and hugged for a while. I wanted to ask him (but didn’t): Do you think Jesus really loves me? I dealt with this question for the next few days, not because I wasn’t sure about the answer, but because it surprised me how essential this question and its answer were in my recovery from anxiety/anger/worry/fear/doubt, my emptiness. They were needed by my soul, in actuality, not just in some deluded Christian phrases and songs we sing in church.

The Death of God

This is from a poem by Stephen Dunn: 

 

…The void grew and was fabulously filled.

Vast stadiums and elaborate malls—

the new cathedrals–were built

where people cheered and consumed.

At the nostalgia shops angel trinkets

and plastic crucifixes lined the shelves.

The old churches were homes for the poor.

And yet before meals and at bedtime

and in the iconographies of dreams,

God took his invisible place in the kingdom of need.

Disaffected minstrels made and sang His songs.

The angels were given breath and brain.

This all went on while He was dead to the world… 

 

How do we forget God in the midst of celebrating his religion?  

7th Week Sabbath

First Baptist Church Durango, where Brian and I minister together, is a 100 year old denominational church in a diverse little town in the mountains of Colorado. Hippies, cowboys, Mexican immigrants, yuppies, drug addicts, and wealthy retirees abound. It’s a college town. It’s a retirement town. It’s a ski town. It’s a town with a history deeply rooted in the mining and ag cultures. And churches are plentiful here too. There are so many possibilities… And yet, together with the staff of our church, we are struggling to see our stewardship, in this community full of possibilities, to live the life of Christ in ways that creatively take advantage of these opportunities. Sometimes, Brian and I feel like church, the way we do it, is like a bubble boy church (“Not in the world and not of the world”, instead of “In the world, but not of the world;” and we’re not talking about being relevant in a “In the world, and of the world” sort of way either).

But anyone who has tried knows, that it is very difficult to change anything in a old, tradition saturated church, because it’s hard for a church that has been running like a well-oiled machine for 100 years to be still and know that God is God. And moments of being still and knowing that God is God are essential for knowing how to engage our diverse and nuanced communities in ways that are particular to them and not just the way the machine has always run.

A lot of frustration comes from being a part of the church in this way, but we are not accusing anyone, because it isn’t any one person or group of peoples fault. It’s the nature of the beast. It’s the way we human beings are bent. On a smaller scale, that’s the way I am as a person. When I find something that works, my innate response is to make it universal/timeless/law/rule never to think about it again. For instance, I’ve found it to be, in my own experience, really efficient to do my morning, get-ready routine in a certain way. Some time ago, I thought about and decided how I thought it was best to go about it, and I haven’t thought about it since. And from that moment of decision, I’ve pretty much done it the same way ever since. Maybe there is a better way to go about it, or maybe now, some things have changed in my life, and some parts of the process are out-dated. But it wouldn’t even occur to be to stop and examine it, because the very reason I am doing it that way is because it worked! “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, right? But what if it is broke, and it’s broke because of something that used to work? Can we be okay with that? Or are we too afraid that we will never see God work again in the way we did when we did what “worked”?

God shows himself to us in a certain way, and it blows us away. We’re floored. We are changed, and it is good. But I think fear sets in that God will never move or work in our lives again, so we feel compelled to just repeat, as much as possible, the way that he worked in our lives “that time.” We even insist that others experience him in that same way! This isn’t trusting Christ’s promise that he would not leave us as orphans but would send us the Holy Spirit (John 14:15-26). We don’t have to keep the machine going because it worked then, when God was moving in our lives (just because we’re afraid he won’t work in our lives again). He has given us his spirit to guide us daily, thru history, and thru all kinds of strange and diverse circumstances.

We need to be still and know that God is God, and not just feel that if we don’t keep it going, it won’t go. Anyway, the point isn’t for it to “go,” the point is to live and follow in the way of Jesus.

         Brian and I were thinking that we would like our church to take a 6 month sabbatical, where we ditch all our programs, and do nothing but seek his face, practice hospitality with our neighbors, build into our families and other relationships, and rest from “church.” But we knew that this could never happen, so we came up with another option… A seventh week Sabbath. Maybe we can’t stop for 6 months to undo all the de-sabbathing that we have been doing for such a long time, but we dream of a regular sabbath check up where we force ourselves to be still, and acknowledge who is God, to stop our work, in order to make sure we are not a religious machine but followers of Christ. Every seventh week we, as a church, stop.

We envision it having the same motives as the Hebraic sabbath. 

Exodus 31:13

“Tell the people of Israel to keep my Sabbath day, for the Sabbath is a sign of the covenant between me and you forever. It helps you to remember that I am the Lord, who makes you holy”

Isaiah 58:13-14a

“Keep the Sabbath day holy. Don’t pursue your own interests on that day, but enjoy the Sabbath and speak of it with delight as the Lord’s holy day. Honor the Lord in everything you do, and don’t follow your own desires or talk idly. If you do this, the Lord will be your delight”

  God makes us holy, not our work. God gives our lives value, not our success. God makes our delights pure, not our efforts. Our work is holy when done from a place that acknowledges this, our lives have value when lived from a place that acknowledges this, and our delight is pure when experienced from a place that acknowledges this. This is what Sabbath teaches us. And from this place, our hearts are open to God and what he loves. This is the place where we get our heads screwed on right, and we find inspiration for living out the time between sabbath times. 

We hope that this time we set apart as a church can be a time where we rest from all our programs, and just seek God’s face, invite people into our homes to share a meal and pray, make our families and friendships stronger, and just “be still and know” so that all that we do comes from a place that acknowledges who is God, and who is not. 

  God willing, we are willing.

Bow-ties with Italian Sausage

Ingredients: 1 box bow-tie pasta, 4 links of sweet Italian sausage, 2 heaping tablespoons black olive tapenade, 1 red pepper, 1 yellow pepper, 1 medium yellow onion, 1/2 jar sun-dried tomatoes, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic, fresh parsley, salt and pepper Directions ut a pot of water on the oven to bowl for the pasta and warm up the grill to roast the peppers. When the water is bowling and the grill is warm, put the bow-ties in the water and the peppers straight on the grill. Cut the links into 1 inch pieces and toss into a large hot skillet with some olive oil, b. vinegar, chopped garlic, salt and pepper. Chop up the yellow onion and throw it into the skillet with the sausage, also add the tomatoes, the tapenade; chop the parsley up real fine and throw it in as well. The pasta and the peppers should be done by now, so bring the peppers in, chop them up and toss um into the skillet; strain the pasta and toss it in as well.  We tried this meal with Christy and Bobby/Mom and Dad when they were in town from Las Vegas. It was great with some Chianti Classico that Christy brought. It’s a flavorful and filling pasta dish that stands alone, but a simple green salad would really top it off.