Faithfully Dangerous...

RESPONSIBILITY IS THE STUFF OF LAW....NOT GRACE

2009-12-20T09:51:00.006-06:00

"I had begun to believe the myth called responsibility, and it turned what had been spontaneity into suffocation in my soul. It made even breathing hard work. The storm around me stopped being an opportunity to dance with Jesus and started to look like a sentence of drowning." Michele Perry....from her book Love Has A Face

Being governed by the myth of responsibility is a tyranny....learning to respond from moment to moment to what is going on around you is of the stuff of grace and freedom.

I learned this the hard way. Maybe we all have to? I was suffocating and all I knew was to push for more responsibility from those around me and myself because it was my responsibility to do so. Today I really do see it as the tyranny that it is. My life has calmed down simply because internally I have calmed down. There still seems to be some form of a storm in progress at any given moment but the storm inside me is being displaced.

Learning to respond is all about staying flexible so that you can move with the flowing unpredictable tide of life. It's much more a possibility in that space to be able to live the life of doing (which is a present moment thing) only that which you see our Father doing. Humans are conditioned by the life of independence to attempt to follow principles and rules (law) and try to find the right ones to fit the situation at hand and they never fit which leaves us trying to manipulate people and situation to conform to the law...(which in most cases is our interpretation of the law because in actuality that approach has led us to act like we are god). Freedom is always destroyed inside that paradigm. That life, is suffocating to everyone.

For this to become a reality, trust in a bigger picture becomes essential. Because in this world, given birth by human independence, fear has become the driving force, and out of fear, the myth of responsibility has captured the human mind. It has led us to believe the lie that if we do all the "right" things we can eliminate uncertainty from our experience and make life work out the way we want it to. An honest look at history...the larger one and own own...tells us something very different.

ONLY LOVE CAN TURN THIS AROUND

2009-12-18T18:52:00.008-06:00

It's been an interesting week, beginning with a text message last Friday in the form of an invitation to join a friend on a trip to Kenya to have a conversation with a group of leaders about living loved and being able to help others with that so as to find the way to forgiveness and reconciliation, as they help their communities walk through some very difficult situations. It's so encouraging and humbling to hear of people who are putting love on the line, knowing that it is the only pathway to a better tomorrow, than is hate and retaliation. I'm completely convinced that I have more to learn from them then I have to offer.

This invitation has led to many conversations with my clients at work. I have been pleasantly surprised this week at the number of conversations that have actually been able to get off the ground...the kind of conversation that most often never does and in turn always leaves me sad and frustrated. But I am learning that these things can't be forced.

I have this sense that we are living in a time when many corrections are beginning to be made (or attempts to do so) in regards to offenses of the past and ongoing present. Things of economics...race...religion and so on. The status quo is being challenged and needs to be, but these are never easy times. People don't like change and people's sense of entitlement on all sides have a way of stirring deep emotions.

History and memory play such a huge role in this process and I have learned how tricky history and memory truly are. "Memory, the Self-Justifying Historian"

William Maxwell explains the difficulty in this quote: "memory ...the self justifying historian. What we....refer to confidently as memory...is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling."

I'm guessing that it has always been this way? That people always live within the telling of the stories that define them, the past experiences of the lives of the people that make up their group. The stories told in order to make sense out all that has gone into making them who they have become. But there in lies the problem. People are rarely ever honest about how things actually happened. And that doesn't mean they are lying...even though sometimes that is very much a part of the memory. The mind has a way of bending reality so that the picture painted by the story being told, looks better than it actually was/is. It's a way of sanitizing/justifying bad behavior so that we can live with ourselves.

I know of only one path that has the power to change the equation. The path defined by Love. Some might say honesty would be the answer, but to me that is as tricky as relying on memory. Without love, the kind of honesty we are in need of is not possible. Without learning to live loved and in turn learning to love the other...self preservation mode is left fully intact, and by definition, that leaves us as people who spin the story to our favor while we deny reality.

A message from a brother in Kenya can been read here

HEARING BUT NOT LISTENING

2009-12-17T08:54:00.003-06:00

When we become people governed by ideologies it seems we become people who who can no longer see that the people of differing ideologies are actually people who deserve to be heard and more importantly, respected. People of differing ideological perspectives have ended up there based upon the experiences they have had and the script that has shaped them. Scripts defined by ideologies are the stuff that keep destructive approaches to living in this world alive. It creates a world, for said individuals, made up of enemies...those people out there that are different than we are. It's why we are all in need of making critics a part of our life. I don't want to live surrounded by people that just parrot what I think or believe to be true.

"Given that everyone has some blindspots, our greatest hope of self-correction lies in making sure we are not operating in a hall of mirrors, in which all we see are distorted reflections of our own desires and convictions. We need a few trusted naysayers in our lives, critics who are willing to puncture our protective bubble of self justifications and yank us back to reality if we veer too far off. This is especially important for people in positions of power." from the book Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)

The Christianity many of us have grown up in seems to have created such a people that thrive on being isolated from critical thought and in turn inoculated with just enough of God that keeps us from actually being able to hear him and know him, which leads said people to reflect something out into their world that is a grand distortion of God.

We need to learn to listen and and to learn to allow others to help us take a critical look at ourselves.

"One sign of Christian maturity may be a readiness to hear the argument through to the end, rather than what many Christians are eager to do, short circuiting the argument in the interest of quick fix spirituality or missiology." NT Wright

ARE YOU ALL "WORKED UP" OVER POLITICS THESE DAYS?

2009-12-14T13:38:00.003-06:00

You can't even begin to imagine how sick I am of the destructive practice of "the politics of personal destruction." And what makes me more sick than even that practice is when it comes from the camp that makes it a point to use the name of God as if they are defending him.

Here is something very profound from Dr. King and Bono, that seems many are in desperate in need of hearing today.

In the book Bono in conversations with Michka Assayas, Bono describes a conversation he had with Harry Belafonte where Harry is describing a meeting he was a part of with Dr. King at the time Bobby Kennedy was named attorney general. Everyone (except Dr. King) was railing on Bobby Kennedy and how terrible of a thing it was that he was named to this position. Dr. King at one point slammed his hand down on the table and ordered them to stop bitchin' and said "Enough of this. Is there nobody here who's got something good to say about Bobby Kennedy?" The response from them all was "NO. There is nothing good to say about him"

Dr. King closed down the meeting and told them, "We will re-adjourn when somebody has found something redeeming to say about Bobby Kennedy, because that my friends is the door through which we will pass." He just wouldn't listen any longer to any negativity about Bobby.

Bono then describes an emotional Harry Belafonte as he spoke of Bobby's death. "When Bobby Kennedy lay dead on that pavement, there was no greater friend to the civil rights movement. There was no one we owed more of our progress to than that man."

Bono then talks about how this story has been so important to him as one of the great lessons he has learned. "What Dr. King was saying was: Don't respond to caricatures---the Left, the Right, the Progressives, the Reactionary. Don't take people on rumor. Find the light in them."

LIVING FRACTALS...DON'T MISS EM

2009-12-13T10:54:00.007-06:00

The evening yesterday closed out with one hell of a Dec. thunderstorm. There was heavy rain, loud thunder, out-of-this-world lightning and hail. I woke up this morning and took the pup on a walk around the neighborhood and the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and the temp was 37 but it felt like a spring 37. We are now socked in with clouds again.

I love what it all has to offer. One such thing was when I went to pick my 14 year old up along with 3 of her friends from a high school hockey game last night. It was pouring when they came out and it took them all some time to get up the courage to run across the long courtyard to get to the truck. One at a time they ran. I was laughing my arse off and wishing I had a video camera. During the last one's run, a large clap of thunder, and lightning that lit the night up like day, happened. When she got in the truck she said she had peed her pants. LOL. The ride home with these girls was pretty fun. Connections more important than any of us can even imagine were being formed.

Some might not be able yet to see how this applies here, but for me, it's the heart of the matter. This freeing truth of learning to accept things for what they are instead of always being "worked up" by trying to force things to be something they are not, allows us to "see" past what we are seeing with our eyes and allows us to hear the invitation to join the Spirit in the work the Spirit is doing.

It's all...we all are...a work in progress. And that process is being worked out in an evironment that we cannot control. The lesson here is to stop trying to control it. We aren't the author or the finisher of this and when we begin to understand what our role in the dance is all about and we let go of the severely messed up understanding of what most humans think their role is...a beautiful picture begins to come into focus. A living fractal.

If my days are defined by the chaos and mess of what is going on around me and I can't see the mystery that is unfolding behind it all, I can rest assured that there will be no rest present in my life and I can rest assured that my activity will certainly be contributing to the unrest in the lives of the people around me. It will keep me from seeing the living fractal...the tapestry that the Spirit of the living God is at work weaving together.

Leisure (by William Henry Davies)

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this is if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

PATIENCE....ALL IN IT'S TIME

2009-12-09T21:41:00.005-06:00

This life with all it's uncertainty is a tricky thing indeed. Eliminating much of the unnecessary stuff doesn't remove the uncertainty but it seems to be a help when it comes to the level of peace we can access. A life of scrambling and a life of peace just don't seem to be able to exist along side one another. But the life of peace makes the necessary stuff much more doable.

My daughters don't yet have much of a life of peace and the realm of necessity is something they have yet to come to understand and they are all caught up in the unnecessary, thinking it's where life and fun are to be found. I just hope for them the transition from having much of it taken care of for them...to it being something that they have to manage mostly on their own goes well for them. The world of uncertainty can be rather brutal on scrambling humans.

But then again it took me 42 years to get to that place where I began to make the transition to a healthier space. I just keep hoping they are able to find the life of freedom sooner than I did. But I'm painfully aware of the reality that this doesn't happen according to my timetable

So with that being the case....myself living a life defined by peace makes it far more likely that I will be able to be a safe place for them and an encouragement and help to them until they begin to find that life of freedom....the one that has to be relaxed into.

Anne Lamott is responsible for this post. Something from her book Plan B came to mind tonight

"My friend Mark, who works with church youth groups reminded me recently that Sam doesn't need me to correct his feelings. He needs me to listen, to be clear and fair and parental. But most of all he needs me to be alive in a way that makes him feel he will be able to bear adulthood, because he is terrified of death, and that includes growing up to be one of the stressed-out, grey-faced adults he sees rushing around him."

And then I was reminded of this from The Shack.

"I've been talking to you for a long time, but today was the first time you could hear it, and all those other times weren't a waste either. Like little cracks in the wall, one at a time, but woven together they prepared you for today. You have to take the time to prepare the soil if you want it to embrace the seed."

"I'm not sure why we resist it, resist you so much," Mack mused. "It seems kind of stupid now."

"It's all part of the timing of grace, Mack," Jesus continued. "If the universe contained only one human being, timing would be rather simple. But just add one more, and, well, you know the story. Each choice ripples out through time and relationships, bouncing off of other choices. And out of what seems to be a huge mess, Papa weaves a magnificent tapestry. Only Papa can work all of this out, and she does it with grace."

I'M JUST NOT FRIGGIN INTERESTED...LIFE AND FREEDOM ARE TOO PRECIOUS

2009-12-05T20:26:00.003-06:00

Call it all progress if you want. I've seen into the belly of that beast and I am not interested anymore. I will not play along, even if it makes me look like the backwards crazy one.

"I may call thirty years an instant, but in this age---which might be called the "Age of Impatience"---that span of time may as well be forever to most people. We get impatient if the car in front of us pauses imperceptibly at a red light. We watch the interminable seconds tick away on the microwave, and get irritated if the computer takes a few extra nanoseconds to accomplish a task that, even five years ago, would have seemed incomprehensible. Technology has compressed time so greatly that we have come to expect miracles to be over and done with almost before we even notice they have begun.

Gardening is an antidote to this manic pace. Gardens aren't created overnight; a good garden takes time to develope, and then can be made and remade, over the course of a lifetime and even into succeeding generations. Plants don't mature in nanoseconds. They follow the pace of the natural world, which for most of the time has been the only measure of time: the passage of days and seasons, the annual cycle of death and rebirth. The late May Sarton, whose intimate journals are full of wisdom about life in the garden, wrote: "Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow cycles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace." Tending a garden can be a continual lesson in letting go, of accepting what is offered and appreciating the moment---because a moment later, what you see could disappear." KEN DRUSE from THE PASSION FOR GARDENING

GRACE CONSTRAINS ME

2009-12-02T21:12:00.003-06:00

This sky was the beginning of a wonder-filled day full of inspiring conversations.

And is nearing an end framed by a wonderfully freeing reality as I think about my relationship with my daughters and others my path may cross.

Grace constrains me from forcing you. And at the same time, saves you from becoming dependant on someone else to always have to be there to lead you.

SELF AGGRANDIZEMENT

2009-11-30T09:15:00.003-06:00

In this country where we live, where having a "braggable" life seems to be high on most people's list, and that often being tied to money and career...the quest for significance and what it leads people to do has a way of sneaking up on you and biting you in the arse before you even know what has happened.

Allowing the things of this world to allure us with the promises of security, satisfaction, sense of worth, value and significance, will surely be the very thing that keeps us from "knowing" security and living aware of our worth, value and significance. Accepting the world's substitute will set us up to always be faked out and it always sets us against one another...always...while creating justifications that make us feel okay with the violations.

At times it all can still leave me so annoyed. I hate it and what it does to people I care deeply about and yet I understand how easy it is for us to find ourselves caught up in it, even myself, and unaware that we are caught up in it.

The excerpt from Richard Rohr's book, Hope Against Darkness struck me when I read it a few years ago and has stuck with me. The peace mentioned, I feel comes from the life in the Spirit...the annoyance seems to come from not being able to remain there completely yet.

"Saint Francis stepped out into a world being recast by the emerging market economy. He lived amid a decaying old order in which his father was greedily buying up small farms of debtors, moving quickly into the new entrepreneurial class. Francis stepped into a Church that seemed to have been largely out of touch with the masses. But he trusted a deeper voice and a bigger truth. He sought one clear center and moved out from there.

The one clear centerpiece was the Incarnate Jesus. He understood everything else from that personalized reference point. Like Archimedes, Francis found his one firm spot on which to stand and from which he could move his world. He did this in at least three clear ways.

First, he walked into the prayer depths of his own tradition, as opposed to mere religious repetition of old formulas. Second, he sought direction in the mirror of creation itself, as opposed to mental and fabricated ideas or ideals. And, most radically, he looked to the underside of his society, to the "community of those who have suffered," for an understanding of how God transforms us. In other words, he found depth and breadth---and a process to keep you there.

The depth was an inner life where all shadow, mystery and paradox were confronted, accepted and forgiven. Here he believed God could be met in fullness and truth. The breadth was the actual world itself, a sacramental universe. It was not the ideal, the churchy or the mental, but the-right-in-front-of-you-and-everywhere----the actual as opposed to the ideal.

And, finally, he showed us the process of staying there---the daring entrance into the world of human powerlessness."

LEARNING TO SEE WHAT MIGHT NOT BE VISIBLE

2009-11-29T11:22:00.006-06:00

While standing out on the deck this morning looking down on the garden I was reminded of something I have come to see as such a travesty in regards to what seems to be the status quo of religion and religious training. Environments focused on performance ("good" and "bad") have a way of producing something fake on one hand and something that is seen as rebellion on the other. It's the nature of "fear of punishment" and "promise of reward" performance environments. It's so problematic and yet religion leaves us in a place of not being able to see it.

While looking down on my garden I couldn't help but be aware of the reality, that regardless of how it looks today, it's the same garden I have enjoyed since it began displaying it's beauty in early spring. I'm not going to turn away in repulsion and reject or punish it simply because it's not outwardly reflecting the same beauty. Actually I'm going to go down there to care for it and do what it is in need of me doing as far as collaborating along with it so it can just continue to be what it already is. A garden that is alive and growing and maturing whether it is showing any signs on this day of that being true. I'm not the author of it nor the finisher, I'm just a gardener doing my part in caring for it, all the while knowing there is a much greater force at work here, who is very creative when it comes to knowing how to create beautiful things out of things that might not be all that beautiful today to the naked eye. It takes eyes to "see" beyond what I see today in this garden....and in my children and my wife and my friends and even those set on doing me harm. And even in myself.

REST IS GOOD

2009-11-28T15:16:00.012-06:00

It's November 28 and it's 70 degrees. Fall just keeps going and going. I can't remember two consecutive years (from start to finish) in the Midwest with as pleasant weather. I got the camera out this afternoon and took some pictures of a few of my favorite things. Often on a day like today I would take a nap in the garden on a bench. Today I took a nap beside Bailey where she had laid down in a sunny spot right inside from the deck.

Rest is good.

THE LATEST ADVENTURE (OF THE RELIGIOUS) IN MISSING THE POINT

2009-11-27T12:01:00.003-06:00

The Manhatten Declaration. You can download it here and read it if you so desire.

Here is something I posted in a Facebook conversation in regards to it and a friend bringing up the encounter with Jesus and the "guilty-themselves-angry-judgemental-mob" feeling it was their duty to stone the one they had caught breaking the rules.

There are a lot of stones being thrown. It seems the point Jesus was trying to make in that moment is so easily lost with people malformed by religious training.

Religion is all about "group think" and every group I had ever been a part of when it comes to the pursuit of TRUTH, with then all other things playing second fiddle to that, is that people feel justified with this kind of exclusive thinking and tossing stone because they assume that their judgements are true. The driving force behind this adventure in missing Jesus' point is that this is how religion shapes people to see G-O-D. And this scary character's justice is all about setting things right by pouring out judgement/punishment on all the wrong doers PERFECTLY. This flawed thinking leads them to think God is the ultimate perfect stone thrower. The closer they think they are to this G-O-D's truth, the more confident they become in their own judgements of others.

All the while God's beautiful justice is completely missed.

This from from Penal Substitution vs Christus Victor by Dereck Flood and he draws a stark contrast, when put up against this declaration, between the justice Father has in mind and is/has accomplished and the justice religious people seem actually still be hungering for.

"Even if we are hostile to God, reacting destructively towards life, violently reacting to the authority images we struggle with - God's response as revealed in Jesus is not to crush us as we might expect, but to break the cycle of estrangement and rivalry with the transforming power of love. We see on the cross, in Richard Rohr's terms, "the naked God". ,God is made small, stripped naked, arms stretched out, so that our false image of a threatening judgmental God is taken away and God's heart of love for us is revealed. The threat is removed; we have nothing to fight against. God surrenders first so we can give up the fight too and come home. The cycle of rivalry and violence is broken through the weakness of God on the cross."

ALL THE SHAKING IS A GOOD THING

2009-11-23T17:49:00.002-06:00

While in a conversation with a friend, a book I read three years ago came to mind. One angle of the book I really found profound and timely. Mind you, I read this book several months before the enormous economic crisis came to light for most of the world's population. Brian uses the term Suicide Machine to describe the systems our nation and most of the rest of the world are attempting to operate within. At the time, I was beginning to see the madness in much the same light myself. During that season it was like all of my friends would begin to have convulsions when they would see me approaching. Today they are no longer having seizures while around me, due to the revelations over the past couple years in regards to the systems many have been shaped to trust in that are now proving themselves untrustworthy. They always have been.

What I didn't like about the book was Brian's attempt to produce a blueprint that the world might follow in order to create more just systems. I want to believe that is possible but somehow I'm left thinking that systems will always fail us and placing our trust and hope in them will always leave us disappointed and in full fear mode simply due to the reality that whatever can be shaken will continue to be shaken. And systems will always call for the sacrifice of people when caring for people becomes too much of a drag on the systems. It's just their nature.

Out of curiosity I went through my blog archives to reread some of the posts I made regarding Brian McLaren's book Everything Must Change and I found something though that turns out, has been at the center of a beautiful change that began to happen inside me during the season I faced myself in the mirror and I stepped outside that familiar existence so as to take a critical look at what I believed that in turn dictated how I was living. This speaks of a life that cannot be shaken and a life that actually has the power to change everything....and it has nothing to do with shakable and failure prone systems.

"The phrase "kingdom of God" on Jesus' lips, then, means almost the opposite of what an American like me might assume, living in the richest, most powerful nation on earth. To the citizen of Western civilization like me, kingdom language suggest order, stability, government, policy, domination, control, maybe even vengeance on the rebels and threats of banishment for the uncooperative. But on Jesus' lips, those words describe Caesar's kingdom: God's kingdom turns all of those associations upside down. Order becomes opportunity, stability melts into movement and change, status-quo government gives way to revolution of community and neighborliness, policy bows to love, domination descends to service and sacrifice, control morphs into influence and inspiration, vengeance and threats are transformed into forgiveness and blessing.

In his message of the kingdom of God, then, Jesus proposes a radical new framing story, and he wanted people to trust him enough to give his way to peace a chance. How does he do so? In public, he teaches people (often using parables, which invite them to think rather than telling them what to think) and heals them (which is often described as freeing or liberating them from disease and demons)---rather than propagandizing them (telling them what to think while simultaneously keeping them from thinking for themselves) controlling them (oppressing them under sick and demonic systems of oppression). In private, he eats meals with people---all the wrong sorts of people---to demonstrate that the kingdom of God transforms by grace and acceptance rather than by fear or threats of exclusion. In the midst of Rome's empire, wherever Jesus goes, he creates a family meal where all are welcome.
Some will be quick to note that Jesus also used strong language of exclusion---being thrust into "outer darkness," for example where there is "weeping and gnashing of teeth." But in an irony that is so powerful it can hardly be overstated, Jesus applies that language to the typically exclusive (religious scholars, Pharisees,etc.), and asserts that the typically excluded (prostitutes, sinners, even Gentiles) will be included before them (Matthew 23:13, Luke 13:28-30, Luke 4:24-27) Clearly Jesus is deconstructing the dominant system of exclusion---not fortifying it.

No wonder Jesus mixes metaphors so freely: kingdom can be useful in confronting the kingdom of Herod and the empire of Caesar, but it also needs to be deconstructed and augmented by other more intimate and less violent metaphors. So Jesus habitually refers to God as Father rather than King. As the famous prodigal son parable profoundly communicates, the rebel and the upright are equally God's children, as (we could extrapolate) are the Jew and the Gentile, the free and the slave, the religious scholar and the prostitute, the female and the male. The Father's deep desire is to bring all the children home into his feast (Luke 15:11-32)."

BECAUSE I CARE MORE DEEPLY THAN EVER

2009-11-20T18:35:00.002-06:00

I have three daughters, who I hope and pray have long and fulfilling lives, as I hope and pray also for your sons and daughters. For that to happen I get the sense that the community we all live in is in need of a dramatic transformation of values. For that to happen the myths and the dangerous delusions must be seen for what they are and how they are destroying us. What has been happening in my life now for over two decades and what I have gratefully come to see has been happening in many of your lives also, gives me renewed hope.

I've recently been introduced to someone who puts into words much better than I do a case that exposes many of the delusions I came face to face with in my life 4 years ago. These were the delusions I lived in regarding the political and economic systems of the nation I live in. Talk about a disorienting scary experience facing these things that had left me so dysfunctional, all the while thinking I was pretty functional due to the fact that it all was working out pretty well for myself and my family. Jesus got my attention in such a way that had me listening. A year of repentance had passed before I ever realized what was happening. To say nothing looks the same to day is an serious understatement. I've never been more full of hope and I have never been more aware of the challenges that we face. And I have never been more convinced that love and grace and understanding are the only way forward.

So here is former US Army Colonel Andrew J. Bacevich. Listen through to the end to hear the pain this man carries around due to this dysfunctional reality we all find ourselves in.

Part I

Part II

A DAY WHEN THINGS WERE MOVING AND SHAKING

2009-11-16T18:06:00.004-06:00

Sometimes things just make no sense when looked upon outside the paradigm of love, because outside that, fear is still in place and is still the defining emotion.

"There are times when you choose to believe something that would normally be considered absolutely irrational. It doesn't mean that it is actually irrational, but it surely is not rational. Perhaps there is suprarationality: reason beyond the normal definitions of fact or data-based logic; something that only makes sense if you can see a bigger picture of reality. Maybe that is where faith fits in." The Shack

THE GARDEN IN REVERSE

2009-11-06T22:23:00.068-06:00

Well, another growing season in the garden is coming to an end. Soon everything will be in rest/sleep mode until the temps begin to warm up next spring and things begin to awaken so to do it all once again. I love this process and part of that is sharing it with others. Thanks to all the encouragement through the kind words many have shared with me through this year when they have seen the garden either in person or through pictures. It's been a wonderful year of personal growth for myself, my wife and daughters along with many of you my friends. I look forward with great expectancy to what tomorrow holds for us all. So here are some highlights from the garden. I have left out the fall pictures since those have so recently been posted in other places. One place being here

THE LIFE OF INDEPENDENCE IS FULL OF BOTH LIGHT AND DARK

2009-11-05T07:18:00.006-06:00

Another story about some plants I grow and about how humans carry within themselves the power to help and to harm all at the same time. The ravaged path of independence leaves people as unpredictable mixed bags.

"Digoxin---the drug derived from Digitalis (foxglove) for centuries---is a useful heart stimulant in carefully controlled doses. But ancient Romans also employed it to dispense with an enemy, as others would a double-ought operative." Ken Druse...Planthropology

FLOWN FREE

2009-11-04T07:49:00.009-06:00

"Mack, pain has a way of clipping our wings and keeping us from being able to fly." She waited a moment, allowing her words to settle. "And if left unresolved for very long you can almost forget that you were ever created to fly in the first place." from The Shack chapter A Piece Of Pi

Listen to FLOWN FREE HERE

This brings many tears this morning...some of joy based upon the freedom I have found and still finding and many full of sorrow for people I love dearly who are still trying to find their way out of the cage.

IF YOU CAN ONLY HANDLE ONE...SKIP THE OIL CHANGE AND CHANGE THE FILTER FIRST

2009-11-03T08:50:00.004-06:00

I will begin with a confession. The kind of person Richard Rohr describes in this video used to be me. I lived within the confines...the mindset...a world view shaped by Christendom. I never knew Jesus nor had I ever accepted him for who he truly is. That lasted until the day I could no longer live with the internal conflict...the day my hypocrisy and destructive world view came into full view and I came to understand that I had been perpetuating the hostility towards Jesus and those I was to love.

As Richard explains, the former filter just wouldn't allow me to see Jesus or even more importantly, hear Jesus. Since faith comes by hearing, hearing is an essential thing. Well, I began to hear things clearly and my first responses went something like this, Okay, I'm seeing and I am hearing but I don't know if I can do this. Turns out, I can't, but his life inside me makes it possible...makes it reality. It leaves me with nothing to boast about just One to marvel at and follow out into a very unpredicatable, uncontrollable world.

WOULD I RATHER HANG WITH VAN JONES OR GLENN BECK?

2009-11-02T08:04:00.011-06:00

In reality, it's actually impossible for me to answer that question because I really don't know either one of them personally. But if going solely on the messages (and message can tell us a lot about the messenger) they are putting out in the public, my choice is clear at least as far as what resonates with my heart when it comes to the human element...lifting people up instead of tearing people down in order to maintain the status quo.

I've surprised several of my friends that have been watching Glenn Beck by saying to them that I would much rather spend a weekend having a conversation with Van Jones than with Glenn. And I am serious about that. The old game that Glenn and many on his side are pushing has nothing to do with moving humanity down the road towards justice for all...or to say it in a way that has taken on deep meaning for me...towards Honorable Relations. It actually just continues to ignore the problems that are at the center of the problematic dilemmas we face today in this nation and the world. The power class always fights change and they are almost always on the wrong side of justice, just like with Dr. King in his day. He was on the right side of justice and the powerful were not.

This morning I awakened with some words of Nelson Mandela in my head which led me to do a google search to find the quote. Instead it led me to an interview with Van Jones where he mentions Mandela in the context I was looking for...Mandela's refusal to dehumanize his oppressors during the 20 years he was incarcerated basically for being opposed to the oppressors form of governance.

As I say often, I really don't have much hope for there ever being a solution found through political means. But when it comes to government and the fact that it's not going away anytime soon...I'm really open to and hoping for a government that not only talks about equality and equal opportunity for all, but one that actually works hard to make it a reality.

You can listen to the interview HERE

NATURALLY

2009-11-01T11:01:00.004-06:00

I've learned much from nature. There is something very healthy and completely natural about accepting the progressive nature of life. It's a perpetual cycle of new beginnings..seasons of growth...time for letting go. And it's all done with little effort. Nature never wastes time trying to be something other than it was created to be.

I'm so done with the human activity of carving out space and defending it as if it's an arrival point. The only things that stay in the condition of sameness are dead. I lived there too many days of my life and I'm not interested in going back.

Simplifying how I live, what I allow myself to get involved with has made this transition (returning to a life more in tune with how I was created to live) possible. Learning what is necessary and letting go of that which is not, has been at the heart of this transition. It's funny how in the culture I have been shaped by, entertainment of all sorts turns out to be a way of "unwinding" from the things people would call necessity. I came to find out that just like everything else, this was upside-down thinking. That way of unwinding wasn't really helping me at all. It was instead just something else that was at work draining the tank and distracting me from the Life I was in need of.

I AM LISTENING

2009-10-30T20:13:00.010-05:00

I arrived home from work today and grabbed my camera before heading out into the garden for a walk-through in the light rain. The fall colors are still wonderful and I know I have missed many worthwhile shots simply due to the fact that there are too many for me to even be able to recognize them all.

Tranquility is the word that comes to mind when I think of my garden and some seasons of the year just ever so gently project that feeling more than others. Fall is one of them. Rainy days are another. Combine those two and the garden oozes with a sense of peace and calls to visitors to enter and to slow their pace. Well, at least to the visitors that are listening.

I am listening.

A LIFE TO RELAX INTO

2009-10-27T17:31:00.001-05:00

Believe me when I say, grace doesn't let us of the hook....it just helps us own our own crap. In contrast to the law that just muddies the water by complicating things with all kinds of manipulative posturing and helps people stay in the scapegoat cycle.

THE WORLD SYSTEM ON TRIAL

2009-10-25T12:41:00.003-05:00

Read this in light of what our nation prides itself for. The rule of law and what we as humans determine to be just.

"Pilate represents Roman authority and applies Roman law. Now, I concede that no civilization ever created so well-developed a law or could give such decisions in trials, debates, and conflicts. I say this without irony. I taught Roman law for twenty years and discovered all the nuances and all the skill of jurists whose one aim was to say what was right. They defined law as the art of the good and the equitable, and I can guarantee that in hundreds of concrete cases they rendered decisions which showed that they were in effect dispensing justice. The Romans were not in the first instance ferocious fighters and conquerors, as they are often described. Their chief achievement was Roman law. A little problem which virtually no one considers is that their army, strictly speaking, was never large. At most it seems to have had 120 legions, and these were nearly all stationed on the frontiers of the empire. They came into the interior only when there was a rebellion. The order of the empire was not a military order. It was through administrative skill and through the equilibrium established by skillful and satisfying legal measures that the empire endured for five centuries. We have to bear this in mind in evaluating what the accounts of the trial tell us.

The law of which the Romans were so proud and which provided the justest solutions---what did it accomplish in this instance? It allowed a Roman procurator to yield to the mob and to condemn an innocent man to death for no valid reason (as Pilate himself recognized!) This, then, is what we can expect from an excellent legal system! The fact that Jesus submits to the trial is not in these circumstances a recognition of the legitimacy of the authority of government. On the contrary, it is an unveiling of the basic injustice of what purports to be justice. This is what is felt when it is said that in the trial of Jesus all those who were condemned to death and crucified by the Romans are cleared. We thus find here once again the conviction of the biblical writers that all authority is unjust. We catch an echo of the saying in Ecclesiastes 3:16 that "where the seat of justice is found, there is wickedness." Jaques Ellul Anarchy and Christianity

WHAT FATHER ARE YOU TRYING TO GET BACK TO?

2009-10-24T16:45:00.002-05:00

I keep thinking that all the talk about getting back to our founding fathers misses the point. The Father we need to get back to is the one who seems to be very fond of gardening...not making war in order to form a nation.