I think I like spontaneous ministry opportunities better than those we plan sometimes. While I enjoy our youth group on Friday nights, there are young people in the area (late teens) for whom our youth group would appear irrelevant at best. Most of our kids are in the junior high range. It's hard--maybe impossible?--to engage such a broad age range in one setting. Unfortunately, at the moment we don't have the resources (people and time!) to have more than one youth group. But thankfully God never leaves us without opportunities.
The other night I was on our back deck playing guitar. It had been a beautiful day, and the evening was also very nice. Cool, but not cold, and no bugs to speak of yet. Ella was already asleep, and Alisha was working at the church office. I had some time to myself. Now, our church, which is just across the road from our house, tends to be a loitering/hang-out spot for some local youth. Usually, they hang-out there mostly out of boredom. And on this particular evening there were a few young guys doing exactly that. I kept playing my guitar, foolishly thinking that the sounds may attract them to come closer. It didn't.
So I went over and invited them to come hang-out on the back deck and have a Coke. They came, and I learned some stuff about them that I didn't know already. A couple are taking their GED. All three are also working. After about 15 or 20 minutes they left. But they were grateful for the invite and the Coke.
I really like simple moments such as those. No pretense. No expectations. Informal. Casual. I can be myself and (hopefully) over time they learn that they can be themselves too. I think that sometimes moments such as those are more important than having these guys come out to a youth group meeting where everyone else is at least 5 years younger than they are. Aside from that, I just want them to know, even though I am a Christian and a pastor, that I am still normal. All I wanted them to take away from that evening's invitation is that I was willing to invite them over to give them a place to sit, talk, and have something to drink. And especially since this is most likely how I will be able to get to know the older young people in our community, I hope and pray that it happens more often.
There's something profoundly incarnational about not imposing on such moments any kind of evangelistic agenda. Jesus spent a lot of time eating and drinking with people--embodying not only the love of God the Father, but also the parables of the great kingdom feast to which all of the "least of these" are invited. Food and drink are great ice-breakers. Hospitality is itself a crucial expression of the love of Christ. In his book, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways that Jesus is the Way, Eugene Peterson says that the way we express and live out the truth of Jesus is as vital as that we express and live out the truth of Jesus. That is to say, the gospel is irreducibly relational and personal, and how we follow Jesus and invite others to do likewise have to be grounded in personal relationships. The gospel must become en-fleshed in us as the Body of Christ. To use a popular cliche, "People won't care what you know until they know you care." And God demonstrated his love for us by sending his Son in the flesh--and this is, ultimately, how he sends us. And send us he does: as his arms, feet, legs, hands, head, and heart. Jesus is God the Son incarnate; and we, through the power of the Spirit, are Jesus incarnate (in a manner of speaking!).
Spontaneous opportunities are, of course, not at all spontaneous in that they are truly random or accidental. But they are still opportunities--and we can take them or not, just like we can accept God's grace in Christ or not. While God sovereignly provides opportunities for us to demonstrate his love, he leaves it up to us whether we will, like the good Samaritan, stop and offer help to those who are desperately in need of aid whether they know it or not. And doing so reminds us that we too are that man lying on the side of the road, bloodied and beaten, and that Christ is the good Samaritan for each of us , the one who gives healing and hope.
"Life is what happens when you're busy making plans," John Lennon once sang. And it's true. Most of what is valuable in life can't be confined to our calendars and day planners and palm pilots. The good Samaritan in the story had no idea when he began his day that he would come across anyone in distress; it was unplanned ministry. Neither do we always know when such moments will present themselves. But we do have to be willing to step into the moment, at the prompting of the Spirit of God. I hope and pray that I will have opportunity to do so. For in doing so we too can experience the presence of Jesus that we intend to convey to those we minister to when such moments come along.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Friday, May 04, 2007
God and Superheroes
With Spider-Man 3 hitting theatres today, I thought I'd mention some interesting links to the portrayal of spirituality and religion in comics and Spider-Man in particular. There's one here, here, here, and here. Indeed, they were quite thought-provoking. So many people think that comics are thoughtless and frivolous, but looking at these links makes you realize that they often deal with some pretty serious subject matter; and this is just a small taste.
I must confess, when I was a kid I was pretty fanatical about Spider-Man comics. I must have had hundreds of them! The same thing that drew me to the comics also draws me to the movies--they're both a lot of fun but there's also a thread of humanity that is relatable. The characters are not at all comic-bookey in the more derogatory sense of two-dimensional card-board cutouts and stereotypes, but people that most of us can identify with. That's especially true of Spider-Man, a young kid who receives these incredible gifts and then struggles enormously in how to handle and use them. Peter Parker, the young guy under the Spider-Man mask, already had problems, and becoming Spider-Man just seemed to multiply them. Spider-Man was likable and attractive because he was more like us.
And if it seems strange to write about this topic in this blog, then I would simply say that such cultural icons are often touchstones for discussing universal themes such as forgiveness, redemption, responsibility, love, etc. Most successful stories, including super hero stories, weave arcs of redemption into their narratives. Characters experience challenges and choices, and the choices they make shape their characters and their destinies. As you can see if you follow the links above, even the director of Spider-Man 3, Sam Raimi, speaks of his movie in quasi-religious terms.
This shouldn't surprise us. Super-heroes are mythological characters, cut from the same imaginative cloth as other mythological heroes of literature and pop-culture. Whether we talk about The Lord of the Rings or Star Wars, redemptive storylines are usually much more effective if the religious elements are completely absorbed in the story itself. Tolkien, when asked why there is no "religion" and no "churches" in Middle-Earth, commented that this is because the entire story is through and through religious. He wasn't too keen on the obvious allegorical approach of his friend C.S. Lewis's Narnia books. If I'm not mistaken, he once referred to The Lord of the Rings as a thoroughly Catholic work. Even so, there are still narrative hints of a divine presence, not unlike the so-called "Force" in Star Wars. And so it is with super-heroes.
Given that God is the Creator, it's no surprise to me, also, that those who are creative find themselves dealing with the reality of God, whether knowingly or not, positively or not. Patterns of redemption, salvation, and resurrection have been inscribed into the fabric of all that God has made. I'm no pop-culture critic or scholar of literature, but I think that this is pretty obvious. That it is so reminds me of Paul's speech to the Athenians in Acts 17. They had an altar to "an unknown god," and Paul went on to say, "What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you." He then went on to proclaim Christ. Intimations of God's presence, however imperfect, broken, sinful, and incomplete, are there all around us. As Bruce Cockburn sings, the world gives us "rumours of glory." We can see them in films, the arts, hear them in music, see them in the people around us, and in trees, fields, and forests, lakes, rivers, oceans, and in all the creatures God has made. As Christians, we need to provide context and shape to these intimations and rumours, and let people know that the God that Paul says they "grope" for "is not far from each one of us." And more than that, as Paul says, using one of their famous poets, it is in this God that "we live and move and have our being." It was true for Paul, the Athenians of his day, and it is true for us. It's also true for all those super-heroes on the page and screen, and for those who put them there.
I must confess, when I was a kid I was pretty fanatical about Spider-Man comics. I must have had hundreds of them! The same thing that drew me to the comics also draws me to the movies--they're both a lot of fun but there's also a thread of humanity that is relatable. The characters are not at all comic-bookey in the more derogatory sense of two-dimensional card-board cutouts and stereotypes, but people that most of us can identify with. That's especially true of Spider-Man, a young kid who receives these incredible gifts and then struggles enormously in how to handle and use them. Peter Parker, the young guy under the Spider-Man mask, already had problems, and becoming Spider-Man just seemed to multiply them. Spider-Man was likable and attractive because he was more like us.
And if it seems strange to write about this topic in this blog, then I would simply say that such cultural icons are often touchstones for discussing universal themes such as forgiveness, redemption, responsibility, love, etc. Most successful stories, including super hero stories, weave arcs of redemption into their narratives. Characters experience challenges and choices, and the choices they make shape their characters and their destinies. As you can see if you follow the links above, even the director of Spider-Man 3, Sam Raimi, speaks of his movie in quasi-religious terms.
This shouldn't surprise us. Super-heroes are mythological characters, cut from the same imaginative cloth as other mythological heroes of literature and pop-culture. Whether we talk about The Lord of the Rings or Star Wars, redemptive storylines are usually much more effective if the religious elements are completely absorbed in the story itself. Tolkien, when asked why there is no "religion" and no "churches" in Middle-Earth, commented that this is because the entire story is through and through religious. He wasn't too keen on the obvious allegorical approach of his friend C.S. Lewis's Narnia books. If I'm not mistaken, he once referred to The Lord of the Rings as a thoroughly Catholic work. Even so, there are still narrative hints of a divine presence, not unlike the so-called "Force" in Star Wars. And so it is with super-heroes.
Given that God is the Creator, it's no surprise to me, also, that those who are creative find themselves dealing with the reality of God, whether knowingly or not, positively or not. Patterns of redemption, salvation, and resurrection have been inscribed into the fabric of all that God has made. I'm no pop-culture critic or scholar of literature, but I think that this is pretty obvious. That it is so reminds me of Paul's speech to the Athenians in Acts 17. They had an altar to "an unknown god," and Paul went on to say, "What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you." He then went on to proclaim Christ. Intimations of God's presence, however imperfect, broken, sinful, and incomplete, are there all around us. As Bruce Cockburn sings, the world gives us "rumours of glory." We can see them in films, the arts, hear them in music, see them in the people around us, and in trees, fields, and forests, lakes, rivers, oceans, and in all the creatures God has made. As Christians, we need to provide context and shape to these intimations and rumours, and let people know that the God that Paul says they "grope" for "is not far from each one of us." And more than that, as Paul says, using one of their famous poets, it is in this God that "we live and move and have our being." It was true for Paul, the Athenians of his day, and it is true for us. It's also true for all those super-heroes on the page and screen, and for those who put them there.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
On the other side of darkness
It's been ages. And I've said this to myself before: why keep a blog if I'm not really going to keep it? Just a few days ago, a close friend suggested that perhaps updating my blog would be a worthwhile idea. It's been over three months since I've posted here. The reason for this is that I honestly have had neither the time, the energy, nor the inclination. You see, only now with Spring finally arriving in all its new-life glory is my family emerging from the other side of the darkness of depression. Not long after my last post--dated January 21st--my wife entered into a black season, three months of soul-rending, that only with the emergence of longer days and more frequent blue skies has begun to dissipate. Needless to say, our family was stuck in a veritable black hole for the bulk of the winter, a depression heavier than twelve inches of hard-packed snow. And our climb out of this hole has been long, arduous, and frought with feelings of despair and frustration, doubt and even anger. Yet at the same time, and I will get to this at greater length later, God has seen us through, even if we weren't always able to see that so clearly. Our view of heaven obscured, we clung desperately sometimes to our faith as best as we were able.
Depression--and I mean of the clinical, serious sort--is a thief. It steals your joy, takes your peace, and robs you of life itself. Your own mind becomes your worst enemy as it is flooded with negative thoughts to the extreme. There were times when all my wife wanted was for it to end. There were times when all we could do was cling to one another, sob, and cry out to God a heart-wrenching, "WHY??" There were times when everything felt lost except for the barest instinct to survive.
Depression also colours the remainder of your experience. When you're facing depression, nothing is like it was. Life is tainted. Hope is absent. Even the joy of family is taken away; there were weeks during this time when our little girl had to stay with her grandparents because she wanted her Mummy and Mummy wasn't well enough to look after her. When your own child begins to show obvious signs of stress, you know it's become serious. One evening in particular was absolutely horrible--possibly one of the more difficult moments in all the three months--when we had to call for Ella's grandparents to come get her. She had been with us for just over a day and already was displaying indications of stress because of Alisha's depression. Suffice it to say, Ella was not herself. Alisha's Mum, brother, and sister-in-law arrived and once Ella realized that she would be going with them and not staying with us, the look on her face said it all. It was the face of a little two-year old trying to process the situation and feeling the weight of the moment. It was heart-breaking. When she left, Alisha and I wept. What was happening to our family?
For the first month and a half, this was something, amazingly, that we hid from some. But once we realized that this was not going away quickly, we knew that we had to tell more of our family and friends. Alisha wrote a long e-mail to close friends disclosing what was happening. Around the same time I revealed it to our church. This was becoming ever more important since Alisha and Ella rarely were at church; we didn't want anyone to get the wrong idea! And we also realized our deep need to open ourselves up to the available prayer support of our church family. Initially, because we know that depression can be so hard to understand, we chose not to tell people outside of our closest friends and family. I think we feared misunderstanding. But the stress was affecting more than Ella. I was spending much of my time at home caring for Alisha, and was feeling the pressure of not getting work done at the church. Telling our church family was the only way of alleviating that pressure. And, thank the Lord, our church exhibited the graciousness of God, who, in his mercy, accepts us in our brokenness and by doing so helps us inch our way toward resurrection life and newness.
Throughout this particular trial, we questioned, prayed, doubted, cried, but never cursed God. Our circumstances were Job-like, at least in proportion to what we would no doubt be able to endure. And God was there. We didn't always hear him or see him. Yet he was there. He was there in the availability of family to help, especially when it came to taking care of Ella. He was there in the e-mail responses and phone calls of close friends who came alongside us with the wisdom of Job's friends before they began to talk. He was with us in the prayers of our church family who were vigilant and persistent in their knocking on heaven's door. And he was with us even in the smallest details of home life, for despite the enormity of this depression and its seeming endlessness, the one thing we never did was curse him and each other. There were moments of tension, yes. But love reigned. Perhaps not always in our attitudes, but in our actions. Love was made flesh and dwelt among us, with us, and for us.
Bruce Cockburn sings in "Lovers in a Dangerous Time" that "you've got to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight," and there's truth in those words. Love is called to bear with the harshest, most unfriendly, most uncongenial of circumstances until signs of life begin to appear. In Genesis, God speaks light into the darkness--"Let there be light!" Only God can bring the daylight we need--and he did, oh, did he ever! It was the second last week of April, and finally there was blue sky, and the warmth of the sun was something we could feel rather than have to imagine. It was then that Alisha's depression noticeably lifted--and, in fact, she got a sunburn from being out so long doing yardwork!
With previous episodes of depression, we tended to move on quickly and in some respects to forget about it and put it out of our minds. “Life is good now,” we would think to ourselves, “so let's not even dwell for one second on that awful time.” Understandable. But I don't want to forget. Not entirely. I guess I want our experience to have a purpose that's larger, a purpose I can see. You might say that I want some evidence of Paul's words that "all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose." Whether I am granted this prayer remains to be seen, but in the meantime I am glad and grateful that while we do experience darkness in our lifetimes that "God is light and in him there is no darkness at all."
Depression--and I mean of the clinical, serious sort--is a thief. It steals your joy, takes your peace, and robs you of life itself. Your own mind becomes your worst enemy as it is flooded with negative thoughts to the extreme. There were times when all my wife wanted was for it to end. There were times when all we could do was cling to one another, sob, and cry out to God a heart-wrenching, "WHY??" There were times when everything felt lost except for the barest instinct to survive.
Depression also colours the remainder of your experience. When you're facing depression, nothing is like it was. Life is tainted. Hope is absent. Even the joy of family is taken away; there were weeks during this time when our little girl had to stay with her grandparents because she wanted her Mummy and Mummy wasn't well enough to look after her. When your own child begins to show obvious signs of stress, you know it's become serious. One evening in particular was absolutely horrible--possibly one of the more difficult moments in all the three months--when we had to call for Ella's grandparents to come get her. She had been with us for just over a day and already was displaying indications of stress because of Alisha's depression. Suffice it to say, Ella was not herself. Alisha's Mum, brother, and sister-in-law arrived and once Ella realized that she would be going with them and not staying with us, the look on her face said it all. It was the face of a little two-year old trying to process the situation and feeling the weight of the moment. It was heart-breaking. When she left, Alisha and I wept. What was happening to our family?
For the first month and a half, this was something, amazingly, that we hid from some. But once we realized that this was not going away quickly, we knew that we had to tell more of our family and friends. Alisha wrote a long e-mail to close friends disclosing what was happening. Around the same time I revealed it to our church. This was becoming ever more important since Alisha and Ella rarely were at church; we didn't want anyone to get the wrong idea! And we also realized our deep need to open ourselves up to the available prayer support of our church family. Initially, because we know that depression can be so hard to understand, we chose not to tell people outside of our closest friends and family. I think we feared misunderstanding. But the stress was affecting more than Ella. I was spending much of my time at home caring for Alisha, and was feeling the pressure of not getting work done at the church. Telling our church family was the only way of alleviating that pressure. And, thank the Lord, our church exhibited the graciousness of God, who, in his mercy, accepts us in our brokenness and by doing so helps us inch our way toward resurrection life and newness.
Throughout this particular trial, we questioned, prayed, doubted, cried, but never cursed God. Our circumstances were Job-like, at least in proportion to what we would no doubt be able to endure. And God was there. We didn't always hear him or see him. Yet he was there. He was there in the availability of family to help, especially when it came to taking care of Ella. He was there in the e-mail responses and phone calls of close friends who came alongside us with the wisdom of Job's friends before they began to talk. He was with us in the prayers of our church family who were vigilant and persistent in their knocking on heaven's door. And he was with us even in the smallest details of home life, for despite the enormity of this depression and its seeming endlessness, the one thing we never did was curse him and each other. There were moments of tension, yes. But love reigned. Perhaps not always in our attitudes, but in our actions. Love was made flesh and dwelt among us, with us, and for us.
Bruce Cockburn sings in "Lovers in a Dangerous Time" that "you've got to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight," and there's truth in those words. Love is called to bear with the harshest, most unfriendly, most uncongenial of circumstances until signs of life begin to appear. In Genesis, God speaks light into the darkness--"Let there be light!" Only God can bring the daylight we need--and he did, oh, did he ever! It was the second last week of April, and finally there was blue sky, and the warmth of the sun was something we could feel rather than have to imagine. It was then that Alisha's depression noticeably lifted--and, in fact, she got a sunburn from being out so long doing yardwork!
With previous episodes of depression, we tended to move on quickly and in some respects to forget about it and put it out of our minds. “Life is good now,” we would think to ourselves, “so let's not even dwell for one second on that awful time.” Understandable. But I don't want to forget. Not entirely. I guess I want our experience to have a purpose that's larger, a purpose I can see. You might say that I want some evidence of Paul's words that "all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose." Whether I am granted this prayer remains to be seen, but in the meantime I am glad and grateful that while we do experience darkness in our lifetimes that "God is light and in him there is no darkness at all."
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Lessons from the Back Deck
Today is a beautiful day. But it hardly began that way. At first, it looked we were in for another cloudy, grey, perhaps wet day. And while it is still overcast on occasion, there was enough sunshine and blue sky for my family and I to eat lunch on our back deck. Granted, there was a pretty cool breeze, but I love being able to sit on our deck, eat sandwiches, and just enjoy the gradually warming weather. I feel so blessed to have the house we do. The only thing we lack is a barbecue and I'm hoping we can pick one up next summer. Our back deck is positively screaming for a BBQ!
Just before eating lunch on our back deck, I went for a walk behind our house with my daughter Ella, who is now an active two and a half. At first, we observed all the work her mother and my wife, Alisha, did to extend our back lawn with much toil and sweat over the last week and a half. And then we proceeded to walk through the woods behind our house on a couple of the well-worn paths. Not only that, we also walked through some not-at-all well-worn paths. Ella insisted that we talk a stroll through a less-travelled section of our backyard, where our property meets and intersects with that of a couple of neighbours. I'm sure they wouldn't mind; a two year old can do little harm to their forested backyards!
But Ella is endlessly curious about everything, and she loves being outside. She trotted along with childlike confidence, stopping now and again to examine rocks, dirt, and the occasional twig. Being with your child like this is an incredibly refreshing experience; at least it was so for me. Unless I am with her outside, I rarely stop to notice all the minutiae of God's creation. Ella, well, she can't help but stop. She isn't hemmed in with the distractions of responsibilities and routines and schedules. Unlike us adults, she has all the time in the world. I find myself learning from my daughter, learning to stop, to pause, to put on hold my reasons for worry and endless movement from one task to the next. To keep pace with her is, in a way, to keep pace with the God who calls us to rest and trust in him. For all those little things that spark Ella's endless fascination are all things that God himself has made.
After lunch Alisha and Ella had to leave for a funeral and to spend the night at my in-laws. Once they were gone I gathered some of my books together and again sat in my comfortable adirondack deck chair. While sitting there, I found myself noticing sounds of rustling in the grass and shrubs just beyond our back lawn. I was hoping perhaps for a deer sighting. No such luck. It was only a handful of robins. But even so, there was something about just simply noticing anything at all. It didn't hurt that I was reading Mark Buchanan's book The Holy Wild at the time. It was a chapter reflecting on God as creator, and was a reminder to notice the setting in which God has placed us, this world that he has made, to be alive to it and therefore to him. How appropriate that both my little girl and this other pastor from across the country were, each in their own way, telling me to pay attention to the same thing!
Just before eating lunch on our back deck, I went for a walk behind our house with my daughter Ella, who is now an active two and a half. At first, we observed all the work her mother and my wife, Alisha, did to extend our back lawn with much toil and sweat over the last week and a half. And then we proceeded to walk through the woods behind our house on a couple of the well-worn paths. Not only that, we also walked through some not-at-all well-worn paths. Ella insisted that we talk a stroll through a less-travelled section of our backyard, where our property meets and intersects with that of a couple of neighbours. I'm sure they wouldn't mind; a two year old can do little harm to their forested backyards!
But Ella is endlessly curious about everything, and she loves being outside. She trotted along with childlike confidence, stopping now and again to examine rocks, dirt, and the occasional twig. Being with your child like this is an incredibly refreshing experience; at least it was so for me. Unless I am with her outside, I rarely stop to notice all the minutiae of God's creation. Ella, well, she can't help but stop. She isn't hemmed in with the distractions of responsibilities and routines and schedules. Unlike us adults, she has all the time in the world. I find myself learning from my daughter, learning to stop, to pause, to put on hold my reasons for worry and endless movement from one task to the next. To keep pace with her is, in a way, to keep pace with the God who calls us to rest and trust in him. For all those little things that spark Ella's endless fascination are all things that God himself has made.
After lunch Alisha and Ella had to leave for a funeral and to spend the night at my in-laws. Once they were gone I gathered some of my books together and again sat in my comfortable adirondack deck chair. While sitting there, I found myself noticing sounds of rustling in the grass and shrubs just beyond our back lawn. I was hoping perhaps for a deer sighting. No such luck. It was only a handful of robins. But even so, there was something about just simply noticing anything at all. It didn't hurt that I was reading Mark Buchanan's book The Holy Wild at the time. It was a chapter reflecting on God as creator, and was a reminder to notice the setting in which God has placed us, this world that he has made, to be alive to it and therefore to him. How appropriate that both my little girl and this other pastor from across the country were, each in their own way, telling me to pay attention to the same thing!
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