Hagia Sophia Church

The Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom) has been the site of a church or mosque since the fourth Century. The structure pictured and still standing was the third such church built on this site. Originally the largest Christian Church in the world, built by Emperor Justinian, this was a place of Christian worship for one thousand years. This was the spot where a thousand years of Emperor coronations were . Until the Ottomans captured Constantinople, removed the Christian elements and frescos were placed over the Christian icons (see picture of uncovered images of Jesus). It became Ayasofya (Holy Wisdom Mosque) in the mid 1400s. It remained an active Mosque until 1935 when Ataturk designated it a museum.

We are having an incredible time with wonderful hosts learning much about Islam and Christianity, making friends along the way.

On the ground Istanbul

Our plane dropped out of the bright sky and into a black cauldron of
Istanbul at night. lights did not appear until just before the runway.
Lights if a city heading into a holy day and light if boats on the
Bosphorous River. We touched down at 5:20 pm. As I type the call to
prayer is being sung this will probably be the fourh of the five daily
prayers.

Already I could jump on a plane and return home having experienced
great conversations with our guides and with a professor I met on the
plane this is an amazing place. Tomorrow the sun will rise and the
black cauldron of mystery of this historic land will meet the light of
the son. Then I will actually see in the light what I've heard and
read from afar. A long night if sleep will be wonderful.

Turkey Trip

We are about to board a plane for Istanbul. Donna and I will spend almost two weeks abroad with a group meeting with religious leaders in Turkey. Amazing sites, amazing stories, and lots of fun are ahead. Please say a prayer for peace and for safe travels. I will (as internet allows) post info about our experiences here.

Attention Bono - Set list Dallas 10/12/2009

In 1991 three crazy ACU Freshman drove to a bar to win a U2 Achtung Baby CD. We weren't even old enough to enter, but they gave us the disk 4 days before it was released to the world. We were shocked to hear the difference.

Months later those same freshmen drove to Dallas to buy tickets. The returned to Dallas in February of 1992 to experience U2. Since that time I've been to every concert tour. Tomorrow night, Bono, here are the songs this long time fan would love to hear in a U2 Dream Set List. I've been singing and preaching your tunes for almost 20 years. Today was a good day to "Stay" which found its way into worship and sermon this morning. I will sing whatever you sing tomorrow night.

Peace,
Brady

U2 Dream Set List

Magnificent No Line On The Horizon 2009
Desire Rattle And Hum 1988
Seconds War 1983
Until the End of the World Achtung Baby 1991
Out of Control Boy 1980
Please Pop 1997
Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World Achtung Baby 1991
Daddy's Gonna Pay for Your Crashed Car Zooropa 1993
Wake up Dead Man Pop 1997
Gone Pop 1997
Love Is Blindness Achtung Baby 1991
Stay (Faraway, So Close!) Zooropa 1993
Drowning Man War 1983
With or Without You The Joshua Tree 1987
Two Hearts Beat as One War 1983
One Achtung Baby 1991
Red Hill Mining Town The Joshua Tree 1987
Walk On All That You Can't Leave Behind 2000
I Will Follow Boy 1980
Kite All That You Can't Leave Behind 2000
Where the Streets Have No Name The Joshua Tree 1987
All Because of You How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb [Bonus Track] 2004
A Sort of Homecoming The Unforgettable Fire 1984
Always 7 2002
Rejoice October 1981
Surrender War 1983
Gloria October 1981
Indian Summer Sky The Unforgettable Fire 1984
Yahweh How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb [Bonus Track] 2004
All I Want Is You Rattle And Hum 1988
Falling At Your Feet - Bono And Daniel Lanois The Million Dollar Hotel 2000
40 War 1983

Six Feet of Shelf

There is a shelf in my home that is about as tall as I am. In looking across the inches of this shelf I found a great diversity of books from bird watching to marriage, from philosophy to novels, from cycling to banking, from prayer to short stories.

I kept looking back and forth across this shelf and realized that is was something of a book graveyard. The tombstones rooted downward to a host of disconnected people, united only by the soil that pointed them upright.

Some of these books I have never even looked at the opening page. Others lack only a few chapters of being completed with their bookmarks sticking up at mini tombstones demarcating where the words fell dead. With a handful of exceptions most of these were unfinished words.

Each was receive with anticipation and excitement, brought home and either begun immediately or place in view for just the right moment to buy. These purchases and gifts were collected with joy and anticipation to diving in.

Today I’m thinking about why it is that we would much rather read than live, collect than engage, and consume then dwell. Books are like people. Some received with excitement and others silence. Some are checked out and others lost. Imagine the number of books that never make it off the shelf, or through the checkout or even off of the discount table. Many many books simply have no life. Today on my favorite day, I am going to attend to the words of the people that God puts in my life today. Today I will be present and available to their hearts and lives. I will read even only the few sentences and paragraphs people offer me, treating their words as novel to be enjoyed today. Fall is coming, summer is passing.

Meetings

A week of meetings – hour after hour, day after day – is the wake of my week. I had been looking to this week in dread of a looming inability to get anything done thanks to the quantity of meetings.

The word means the “act of coming together” or and “assembly” or a place or point of contact. After completing a week of meetings, I’m drained of life and sapped of excitement. Yes, I came together with others. Yes, I was part of a large body. Yes, contact was established. However, relationship does not always result from “meeting.” Relationship goes beyond introduction, beyond contact, and beyond the surface to a deeper level of community.

Certainly things were done or accomplished at one level. Information is exchanged and contact is maintained and tasks are delegated; yet people remain disconnected. I fear that the weekly or daily encounters in our lives are often not more than a mere rendezvous.

A parallel might be drawn with meeting God. We have those points of ‘meeting’ God at church, in a Sunday School class, through a quiet time, or some other ritual point of contact. But what is the connection or disconnection created by these meetings.

Meeting is different than communing. To commune with someone is to “talk together usually with profound intensity” or “to be in intimate communication or rapport.” Today I am thinking more about what our lives would look like when large groups of people communed with God and one another. I wonder what small groups of people would look like who communed with God and each other.

Meeting and communing are worlds apart.

Kicked Through the Night

There is one thing that I’d like our family to lose this summer – the stomach virus. What is the point of having a family vacation if one by one by one our family is reduced to a convulsive outflow of everything inside moving quickly out. Living at the mercy of the toilet for 24 hours is no fun. But when you have to anticipate it, observe it, and then endure it, 24 hours is not the proper description for this virus.

Okay, so Nathan got it first and I held trash can after trash can for him (home). Then, my daughter coated her great grandmother’s room with it (Altus, OK). Finally, my wife greets me opening the door of our hotel with “gimme a trash can” (Quartz Mountain Lodge, Lone Wolf, OK). You get the picture. This is common to humanity.

Well, that night we were split guys and girls. My sick wife and daughter in one bed and my recovered son and me the lone wolf still healthy. It is hard to sleep with your kids when they are well (let alone ill or in a strange place). Nathan simply treated me as an extension of the bed – a pillow, a blanket, the mattress, a punch bag, a trampoline – but certainly not a human being.

I was laying there in bed and it felt like as if my spine was an escalator that he was running up to catch a connecting flight at DFW. As I felt him sprinting up my back, I thought, “he has no idea what he is doing.” We are right her as close as to humans can be and he does not know that he is making me into a human concourse. He has no knowledge that I'm here.

And then a connection flashed through my mind. I wondered about the times in my life when God is so close that I am running all over him, but I have no recognition of God all. Maybe you could say this was my "footprints in the sand" moment. Ha! These times when the separation between me and God is indistinguishable to God but completely lost to my oblivious sleep. Sure, I know, this is “all the time,” right? When we look at beautiful solid quartz rock mountains that pop up out of a flat farmland reaching for the vast blue sky, we see God. When we hear the laughter of a child squealing with delight, we hear God. When we go to a work at a job that we may hate, we thank God for a job in this sunken economy. Even when we are with out a job, in the midst of looking for work we can thank God for a healthy family. God is as close to us as our skin and we hardly notice.

My thought is that I want to live my life so in the presence of God that I am kicking him with my concerns in the middle of the night. I want to live so close to God that even my unconscious motion is affecting him. I want to live so that God indeed reigns over my waking and my sleeping, my eating and my walking. Prayer is not just for church, at the table or in a moment of desperation. Prayer is a lifestyle of seeking the presence of God. Prayer when it permeates our subconscious can and will kick a loving God who is always silently right here with you.

Donald Miller Commits Suicide

My heart sank as the news hit. I was stunned that it the news did not come from a more official source to me. How was I just now hearing that Donald Miller, the famous Christian writer and New York Times Best Selling author of Blue Like Jazz (and what I will believe will be another top selling hit “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years” due out this September). I had planned an event that featured Donald Miller and already thousands upon thousands were eager and planning to attend the ACU Summit 2009.

I had to shake myself awake. This was not news at all, but a dream (so far as I knew). It was so vivid that I had to google news services just to make sure. No, Donald Miller had not committed suicide!

However, what if it did happen? To let you know how shaken I was by this (false) news - I already began to plan what I would do as Director of Ministry Events if this were to happen. I do not mean “administratively” or “to rescue the program.” That really is not my first reaction. I began to consider what would people need to explore given the news that a “rock star” Christian author had given into the worst lie pitched to humanity – that death is a better option than life. That any death is better than anything about the life I have to live. A lie. The worst lie!

My heart began to explore how we would probably still meet, but without Donald Miller. We would meet but we would explore how it could be possible that the Christian world could exalt someone while at the same time allow that person to be left without hope and community and a friend. At times there seems no difference between the Christian celebrity culture and the pop celebrity culture.

My hope is that the Christian – any and every Christian – is so connected to their relationship with God and seeking God that any success or failure is irrelevant when compared with being in the presence of God. A Christian finds their entire identity from God (not from sales figures, enrollment numbers, poll results, or leadership popularity percentages).

The difference between a follower of Christ and a follower of billboard or red carpet or box office snapshots is the kind of person that we are becoming for all eternity. It is not a moment in time, but a life of time invested in God.

So many of us are plodding through life. We have an image of what success looks like: a raise, a job, a location, a car, an office, selling a book, writing a screenplay, having money, being on the screen, or whatever. This is usually something that is out of reach or just out of reach. It escapes the present moment in which we find ourselves as we are before God. We don’t live in the future or in an illusion. We don’t even live in the past of good or bad decision. We live in the here and now.

This unreal dreaming is an escape from the reality that God loves us right now – as we are. Not when we get a little better. Not when we actually amount to something. Certainly not to when we cross some benchmark of what we or others think of as "success." God loves us as we are right now. No, God won’t love us a little more if we loose a few pounds, spend a few weeks in the gym, improve our language, read that book we must ready or take that class we ought to take. God loves us as we are.

When we let God love us in the moment as we are then and only then can we find our identity. We are beloved by God. We are God’s child without any extra effort or special action. We simply are. From that identity we may become who God intends for us (and it is better than our wildest dreams). We are God's child, whom he loves dearly. Each day we are making life choice that will allow us to become the kind of person we will be for all eternity.

So live. Choose life (not death). Choose to let God love you. Live with God now.

[. . . and once more for the record, Donald Miller is alive and well as far as I know. Sorry for any shock, but believe me I was shaken]

Lost and Found - Open Thursdays

In the early morning hours of Saturday, I was reflecting and thinking about life and God. Several ideas came to me in a short period of time. They all seemed appropriate for this “lost and found” space. Here is a place to share ideas, thoughts, and people that I am both finding and losing. One thought, "Thursday is a great day to find something." Maybe it is something you have forgotten or maybe it is something brand new. But Thursday is simply a great day to find something.

Thought #2, "Thursday is also a fine day to lose something." It could be something that you really need and must find. The frantic-ness of losing something on Thursday would drive you to find it on Thursday (but probably not till Saturday would you actually find it). Whatever this thing is that you lose on Thursday might be something that you hope you will never see again. Example: the Kids Meal toy with the noise making whistle is lost to the abyss of the mall's lost and found. That is a loss that brings joy. It will make some other child happy and send some other parent to the insane asylum.

Basically, Thursday is a good day to lose or to find things that need finding and loosing. So, after 6 years of people bugging me to do something regular (most of you say “every day” – and I just shake my head thinking . . . who has the time?). So, after many years of displacing your desire to see something regular. I am going to try Thursday. It is my favorite day of the week. It always has been my favorite day of the week. I don’t really know why Thursday is my favorite day but it is. Favorite things are like that. Favorite things don’t often have an explanation; they just occupy an irreplaceable position in our hearts.

So, I'll see you Thursday and we will share some things that are being lost and found. Maybe you will find something here.

The 'Last Battle' for U2

Since the moment I first heard the song 'Desire' blaring through my high school gym in Colorado, I've been a fan if U2. That relationship has carried me with them over two decades and I have seen them in person on every tour since 1992.

To give an idea of what a nut I am for my Irish brothers... I got my ear pierced as a conservative Bible major, ministry student before going to see them for the first time. I have listened to all 11 CDs and 145 release songs 4 times straight through Boy to Horizon in the last 2 weeks. I have almost 400 songs by U2 on my iPhone. I like them.

I am worried about Bono. Is this their last hurrah? Larry says it cannot last forever. He says he hasn't told the band his feelings, but they must know.

I am worried because the CD us the exact opposite of what Larry expresses. No Line on the Horizon suggests no end in sight. The disc begins with a big kiss for the future (one that personally, nationally and globally looks darker with each shady back-alley bailout).

The disc even ends with a challenge that both politically and spiritually invites us to love our enemy and keep them as close as neighbors and friends. This is more than the guidance of a messiah. These are the words of children in the last battle by the great C S Lewis. Not only has Bono been a reader of Lewis through the years but U2 have been at times the rock n roll embodiment of the great thinker and author. That is why I am worried. Because the end of "Horizon" is a page from Lewis' last children tale about Narnia. Book 7. Choose you enemies wisely because they will define you. Too bad George W. Bush did not read Narnia at Yale. Our world might be different right now instead of a firy ball of fury.

I am worried that U2 us telling us something through a mixed Larry & Bono message. Which drum beat do we hear? If ticket sales mean Anything then this band is at the absolute top of their game or any other game in the history of this world. Period. That should get the attention of the eternal, like those shepherd boys songs have four thousands of years. Obscurity doesn't suit these boys with their eyes always beyond the horizon to something beyond. They make you want to pursue something beyond belief.

So I am worried if this is the horizon. But the music tells me otherwise. This is a disc that captures sound and elements from 30 years of their music and moves forward. The lyrics are deep and reverberate on the soul. By are they finishing? Have they moved from one white album to a final white album?

I hope that like Lewis' "Last Battle" this is only the beginning of a new horizon with many more expanding horizons in the future.

Birds of the Weather

Hope flooded my heart last week that winter might be over. The temperatures have been erratic - one day 80, the next day 30 degrees.

However, even when temperatures were in the 30s, the sight of birds flying north in Vs brought hope. Could warmth be coming. Forget the groundhog's shadow visibility. These are the instincts of a real animal, giving me hope that winter is over. I could trust birds migrating.

However, that hope washed away when on Monday in 30 degree weather . . . I noticed "V" after "V" of birds flying south. Wrong direction!

So, with flags standing at attention for more than a week, I must find hope in some other horizon than the weather. How about U2's new disc? "No Line on the Horizon" is the all-world band's 12th studio album. It will be for sale at 12:01 am tonight.

As a U2 super fan, I have already listened to the entire album online. The first single "Boots" sounds vastly different from what we've heard from U2, but that is true to form. Reinvention yet faithfulness to what is the core for these Irish lads.

Confetti of Leaves

Like most days, my birthday began like any other week day. Alarm clock echoes NPR. Up, shower, shave, eat, and walk with my son to school. We always talk along the way. I prefer the days when we walk instead of the cold days or "late" days when we are forced into a quick, buckled car ride to school. In-out-in and off again. But the walks, these walks are windows to the soul of my son and often illuminate the world beyond. The Abilene wind was blowing in bursts. We walked under a tree and a gust loosened hundreds of amber yellow leaves descending to life separated from the tree. Leaves embraced us like a New York street parade of confetti. I turned down to Nathan, whose hand I would soon let go to float into his classroom, "It is confetti from God, Nathan." He looked back up and said, "God must have known it was your birthday." After a hug, we released each other to our days apart. Just another day, one more day removed from our birth - another day vibrant in the parade of life.

The Day Al Died

My friend Al died. He died on the day my son was born seven years ago. Al was 50 years old when he died, but in my life he was only 3 1/2. Life. Death. Dates to remember of beginning and ending. The dash between two dates is all that marks life. One date a birth the other a death. These dates are only two of thousands of other dates: conception, marriage, birth of children, graduations, cancer diagnosis, baptism, newspaper articles published, and more (read more about Al). Just over three years ago I witnessed first hand Al and his wife Val experiencing a rebirth. We were surrounded in water. They admitted life was better with Jesus. They were willing to die to themselves and embrace an eternal life with God. I was there, right there. The change in their life was a joy to behold because we were seeing God at work in our human frailty. But then there was the surgery, the diagnosis, the treatments, and the prognosis. I am sad that six months to live turned out to be six weeks. I am sad his family must say, "goodbye for now." Still I will cling to the same hope that Al showed me. Life is better with God. Death is better in God. Just as Al will go on living beyond death, so I will go on living through death.

Doctor from Community

Not everyone can become a "doctor." It takes years and in some cases decades to become a medical doctor. I will never become an M.D. It just is not in me. I'm not the kind of "doctor" who can help anyone physically. This past weekend I received my diploma for having completed my doctorate in ministry and spirituality. No, I cannot serve in the ER nor can I prescribe any medicine (well, I am now prescribing Tylenol and all forms of over the counter cough medicine . . . but no one is paying me for that).

Whatever one does, it cannot be done alone. It always takes a community of people. I was blessed this weekend that all of my immediate extended family on both sides (except for my grandparents) traveled to Pasadena for my commencement. While I actually finished my degree in March, the ceremony was in June and became the excuse for a huge vacation to Southern California.

It was a great trip at every turn - days at Disneyland, afternoon at Huntington Library Gardens, day at the beach, Price is Right, Jay Leno, dinners, lunches, 15 passenger van rides through LA, Dallas Willard speaking at the hooding, Richard Mouw speaking at commencement, having all my family together - it was all great. It made me realize over and over again that I could never do this alone. We are not self-made people. We are a community. Even if I had no wife, kids, parents or family, I could not "educate myself." It takes a community of students and professors and administrators to make that happen. Life is community even among the most reclusive of individuals.

I thank my wife and kids who were my immediate community. I thank my parents and sister who were my first community. I thank my in laws who adopted me into their community. I thank my brother in laws who are brothers in love. I thank my niece and nephews who show me that community keeps going beyond us. I thank the one whose echo invigorates the human soul. Doctors are doctors of nothing without a community of people to serve and be served by.

Beach Math (or "Springing Thoughts" pt. 2)

Talking with Nathan or Lizzie is like looking into a deep spring well and wondering, "where do do these waters come from." The wisdom of a child flows from unseen places. It causes wrinkled adult eyes to take a double glance and wonder at the ripples.

As Nathan and I enjoyed the cool breezes of Huntington beach as we dug into the hot sand, here came one of those streams of wisdom. He looked down at the sand in his hands. Nothing else mattered. His attention fixed upon the flowing sand. Gazing down the length of the beach stretching as far as the eye could see in any direction, Nathan stated, "The sand in the world is more than all the 'things' in this world."

Hum. I slowly repeated it back as a question, "the sand in the world is more than all the 'things' in this world." Pausing I said, "Yeah, I think your math is probably pretty close." There is something a bit eternal, and quite a bit baffling about thinking that type of thought. I am not going to be able to double check it. My wife is the math person. However, from a philosophical or theological perspective there is a vastness to his metaphor.

An old fellow named Abe claimed to have had this conversation with God. It was one of those dreams or experiences that kept happening over and over and over. You may have some dreams that repeat. Anyway, Abe clearly hears God tell him that his children would be of incalculable number . . . more than the sands on all the seashores. Strange dream. Like you and me, even Abe did not buy it. Yet 4,000-6,000 years latter it is getting more and more true. The great news is that anyone and everyone can walk the beach and be one of the billions of billions of people God' calls children.

Princess Dreams (or "Springing Thoughts" pt. 1)

Talking with Nathan or Lizzie is like looking into a deep spring well and wondering, "where do do these waters come from." The wisdom of a child flows from unseen places. It causes wrinkled adult eyes to take a double glance and wonder at the ripples.

A long day in the man made "park" that Walt built makes for tired kids. The little energetic ones and the bigger older ones that have to buy the tickets. This my third venture in what is supposed to be a world of dreams was no less tiring. It seems like man-made parks are fun and entertaining, but they do not have the ability to renew the energy like a natural park with birds and grass and flowers and trees and kids making dreams with their imaginations.

Well, little kids still have the ability to say things that just spring up and make you grin or reflect. Tonight little Lizzie went to bed full of joy. A second day of being a princess in a dream world worked for her. She left with a princess bank, princess crown, and was eager to return home to get her 'wish' or her wand.

She went to sleep with a smile on her face and said, "I have enough dreams for tomorrow."

Life should be like that. Dreams spilling over into a new day. Joy that overflows into the next day. In reality, these dreams will fade. She is just young enough that in time the crown will break, the memories will become fixed photos, and the princess bank will be emptied with pealing paint.

What we dream is what we become. How we live becomes where we live. Who we choose to be today becomes the person we will be for all eternity. So, the dreams and the joy and the hope and the faith I have is placed in something beyond myself in the one who is beyond and behind and within every moment. The joy of the Lord will be my strength.

Our Kisses Can Drive

This month is a little anniversary of sorts. This is kind of calendar clocking that young lovers engage in. It is when two young love birds share how many days or weeks they've been together or how many months, days, and hours till their wedding.

In this month of Valentines, the kisses of my wife are now old enough to drive. Sixteen years ago we kissed for the first time. Fifteen years ago we were engaged. And later this year we will have been married for fifteen years - a decade and a half. Okay, I warned you this is the kind of calendar games young lovers play. Our marriage is not old enough to drive yet, but our kisses can . . . and that is what counts.

I am overjoyed that love is young whatever our age. When intimate love is shared and entrusted to one other person, the rewards never stop "wowing!" I love my wife.

Google For Good & Better World

It seems that I am constantly impressed by Google. The company with a funny name indicating a seemingly infinite number is making a difference unlike any company of which I have knowledge. I and a billion of my closest friends use Google on a daily basis. It's simple search engine is fast, accurate, easy, and the portal to seemingly infinite information.

Then, came Gmail the beta program you had to be invited into, but then was offered as a free limitless storage email. I love it. Whenever something comes along that takes a completely different approach and makes the ordinary tasks of life extraordinarily easy and even fun, I love it.

Then, I caught wind that Google is working to digitize every piece of literature ever written into a super-Google library. This too is an amazing feat and one that will make study, learning, research, and potential growth available to anyone with access to the internet.

Just last month Google announced that they are entering the cell phone industry and will have a Google Phone sometime next year. They are not invested in hardware, per se, but the software that makes accessing the internet and email available to users of cell phones. Their logic is that there are significantly more cell phone users in the world than computer users. So, they will bring the internet simply and efficiently to cell phones.

Then, today while reading my Gmail across my webclips comes an article about Google pursuing renewable energy. They are investing millions upon millions of dollars in renewable energy. Sure it is for lowering their own corporate energy costs. However, most Wall Street observers think the move is sheer insanity and a case of a company trying to do too much. Many guess that Google will outreach its ability to produce. While their name represents an infinite number of zeros and seems to mirror their net worth, their goal is not making money. What? A huge multi-billion dollar company is not in it for the cash? No wonder Wall Street frowns and shakes a discouraging finger.

Get this. In 2004 when they went public with their initial public stock offering, founders Page and Brin wrote to investors:

"Our goal is to develop services that significantly improve the lives of as many people as possible. In pursuing this goal, we may do things that we believe have a positive impact on the world, even if the near-term financial returns are not obvious."

The bold italics are my addition to highlight their stunning assertion, which means "it is not about the money." They are focused on positively improving life for as many as possible. Wow! What if everyone had that as a goal? Think of the impact that one person could make who was willing to give their life - even painful embarrassing death - for the good of as many people as possible. It sounds like a hint of a faith I could really hang onto tightly. Sacrifice some of our perks, power, hours, and cash so that others could see seismic difference in their lifestyle.

The story of Jesus (and those who follow him) has green reproductive power even today. If people of faith will get out of mere sermon listening and into changing the world, then life would be better for more people. Don't get me wrong, this is not a "rah-rah" chant for human potential. I think it can only happen on the shoulders of a God who stretched his arms wide in love of the world (the whole world), but he also accomplishes it through you and me and Google. God is bringing all things to their perfection in Jesus. I am ready to follow him.

Picture Perfect Imperfect Faith

Standing on the curb, I watched my kids wave at parade floats while I spoke with old friends. They were enjoying the new experiences of Homecoming, while we adults were reminiscing about our college lives gone by. Homecoming at ACU is always fun because the Alumni community is strong and our graduating class size was small. So, it is more likely that you see people you know. However, being at a "Christian" college in a town full of three Christian colleges means that there is a. . . well, a surplus of Christians. It is great to raise a family, but not necessarily a realistic world for the greater portion of America.

As I stood with friends and current students, we watched carloads full of "the homecoming court." These pretty girls with straight teeth and combed and conditioned to perfection waved to the crowds. I overheard the student next to me say to his girlfriend, "Yep, I bet she loves Jesus." I looked and he was nodding at a pretty young girl waving from a sports car, one of the many chosen beautiful girls.

The truth of the offhanded comment stuck to the back of my brain - "she must love Jesus." Of course, the obvious curse of blessings. Who wouldn't love Jesus if their teeth were white, face beautiful, hair held perfectly by a crown, and figure worthy of a Queen's title. With everything going for them, why not thank and bless and honor God?

But what about the rest of us? What about those who stand sneering on the sideline of life longing for the perks of life that pass us by? Many of us live in the "if only's" of faith. If only God would give me X, then I would believe. If only God answered my prayer about X, then I could follow. If only God . . ., then I could.

So we look in the mirror, recount inadequacies, list unfulfilled dreams and scoff. All that is missing in our lives becomes reason enough to let following God go, too. What has God done for me?

As his words about loving Jesus echoed in my head, it was clear that some people love Jesus for what he can give them. Jesus is easy to follow when he is leaving big blessings for us to pick up behind him. It is more difficult to follow when the road is marked by suffering, tragedy and death. I wonder which faith is more valuable: faith in a Jesus who makes life perfect or faith in a Jesus despite an imperfect life? Probably the more noble is the imperfect life that mirrors Jesus way of the cross.

Come to think of it what is the difference between a faith that follows Jesus when blessed and a faith that rejects Jesus when life is less blessed? Not much.

Blanket Rolled Into the Sky

Yesterday Nathan and I were again walking to school. There were hundreds, likely thousands, of birds eating in massive groups across the intramural track and field. So we sprinted right through the middle of this huge mass of blackness. Running as fast as we could the birds took to the air all around us. We were laughing and somewhat in awe of all these birds flapping the wind all around us. After we ran through them for the first time, Nathan said that it looked like a black blanket being rolled up into the sky. Now that description sounds poetic to me.

We have made a habit of running through the birds and sending them upward and away in flight. We've only done it maybe three times. Today, Nathan associated two experiences (the one were birds were in church and the other where birds fly) and said, “I think they are in church.” So there we were sprinting hand in hand as the sun was just beginning to peak through the pink sky with hundreds or thousands of black birds flying around us. Indeed, it is church - a sacred moment of worship. God's creation of animal and light and life is present powerfully in a moment shared between father and son.

Jesus spoke about birds and invited us to consider them. It is funny how we will consider scripture or meditate on a commentary or reflect upon a great new book, but not a bird. When Jesus watched the birds he explained the wisdom they reveal about life. These birds do not have barns nor seed planting strategies nor cookbooks full of recipes. Yet, God does not let them go hungry. We worry and fret and wring hands about much that we are not even in control of. God is in charge. So, enjoy life. Stop worrying about what you cannot control. Live in the church of life and let God care for you.