Shizuka Blog

I've Moved!

2007-08-06T08:04:00.000-07:00

To God be the Glory

2006-10-10T09:17:00.000-07:00

What is the meaning or purpose of life? What are we here for? The Westminster Confession of Faith addresses this aeons old question this way: The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
Notice there's nothing there about self esteem or success or "victorious living." Those things might be part of your specific package deal, but for the Reformers, the purpose of our existence is to bring glory to God and enjoy His presence. This is undeniably personal, but it is also undeniably theo-centric (God-centered).

This week I and others praised the Pennsylvania Amish community for their radical grace in response to the most heinous of murders. This humble community of Jesus followers demonstrated an openness and an obedience and a willingness that puts most of our feeble attempts at Christlike living to shame. But that's sort of beside the point. Because as much as the Amish are due honor for their granting forgiveness, we must be careful that it is not the Amish who are glorified. What they did would not have been possible without the work and power of Jesus Christ.

So the media -- including some Christian bloggers -- is providing analysis that is deceptively inaccurate. The Amish deserve kudos, but God deserves the glory. What happened in Pennsylvania in the wake of that tragedy is not only or primarily a testament to the humility, faithfulness, or meekness of the believer; it is a testament to the inestimable grace of the Almighty God.

We Christians today are accustomed to commenting on the strength or size of our faith and the faith of others. When someone overcomes impossible odds, we may say, "She had so much faith." When someone fails -- maybe it's ourselves -- we are tempted to think, "Maybe he (I) didn't have enough faith." I won't discount the necessity of faith. How could I? It's all over the Scriptures. We are justified through our faith. But did you know even your faith is a gift from God? That's right. Your faith, big as a mountain or small as a mustard seed, is there because God willed you to have it.

Last week I shared with my church small group and with the readers of BCC is Broken a message by John Piper called Sustained by All His Grace. An excerpt:

[W]e really do work, but all our working is the fruit of enabling grace. Paul explains this in Philippians 2:12b-13:
Work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

We work, but when we have worked by faith in God's enabling future grace (rather than for the merit of the law), we turn around and say about our work, "My work was God's work in me, willing and "doing his good pleasure."

So when we say . . . that we are "sustained by all His grace," we do not mean sustained like friends sustaining a broken wheelchair while we do our own independent work. We mean that everything in this spiritual dynamic is sustained by God's grace. "Treasuring all that God is" is a work of grace in my heart. I would not treasure God without a mighty work of grace in my life (Acts 18:27; Phil. 1:29; Eph. 2:8f; 2 Tim. 2:25). "Loving all whom he loves" is a work of grace in my heart (1 Thess. 3:12; 4:9; Phil 1:9; Gal. 5:22). "Praying for all his purposes" is a work of grace in my heart (Phi. 2:13; Heb. 13:21). And "meditating on all his word," is a work of grace (Psa. 119:36).

Why has God set it up this way? Because the giver gets the glory. God has established the universe in such a way that it magnifies the glory of his all-sufficiency. You can see this really clearly in 1 Peter 4:11:
Whoever serves, let him do so as by the strength which God supplies [that's grace]; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

God gets the glory because he gave the grace.

But who gets the glory in our lives, in our day, when a great faith is exercised? Is it ever God? Maybe. Is it always God? I don't think so. The Bible talks about "heroes of the faith," and therefore so should we. But we should never make our heroes into idols, and at no time is that more tempting than in our culture of celebrity Christianity. Who gets the glory in the megachurch or the minichurch? Wh gets the glory in Christian publishing or Christian music? Who gets the glory on our blogs and in the blogosphere?
Who gets the glory in your church, in your family, in your life?

Whose reputation are you trying to further?
If you say it is Jesus Christ's, are you ready to apply to your own life, whatever it takes, the fact that He had to go through shame to get to glory? However monumental your own work for the Lord is, it is not your doing, but His. Hebrews 12:2 says Jesus is the starter and finisher of your faith, and that to get to "enjoying God forever," he endured the scorn and shame of the cross. In your life, are you too busy planting your flag to take up your cross?

Your faith has made you well, but God is the healer. Your faith has saved you, but He is the Savior. When you do good works so that men may see, is it to further your career, your public perception, or your renown? Or is to glorify your Father in heaven? If we were to put a spiritual magnifying glass over your house, over your church, over your office, over your personal portfolio, over your promotional website, over your heart -- who would be magnified? I think like most people, I find myself crying out to God when I feel weak but tooting my own horn when I feel strong.

But if I am a real follower of Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, and the life I live with flesh and blood I actually live in He who loves me and died for me. I hope my life of faith is lived with the explicit and implicit acknowledgment that both my life and my faith are gifts from God and that therefore it is He who gets the glory regardless of what I achieve or don't achieve.

It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God -— that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord."
-- 1 Corinthians 1:30-31

For through the grace given to me I say to every man among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.
-- Romans 12:3

You Can Never Go Down the Drain

2006-09-28T09:57:00.000-07:00

Mister Rogers occasionally sang a song that went "You can never go down, Can never go down, Can never go down the drain" as part of reassuring his young audience they need not fear the bathtub drain. I don't recall ever having that fear as a little one, and neither of my little ones have ever feared getting sucked down in the gentle tide of the draining tub, but I recall an episode of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" where Rogers sat on the edge of a bathtub and calmly explained that people were too big to go down the drain.

That's a good word. As I said, I don't know what it's like to feel afraid of the bathtub drain, but I can imagine what it's like to be a small child watching the spiral of water over a mysterious hole and worrying it might take him down too. It's an irrational fear, but an understandable one. It was wise of Mr. Rogers to tell children that, despite appearances, they can never go down the drain. It just can't happen.

Do you remember the story of Joseph and his brothers? You probably remember the part about the flashy coat and all that, but if you fast forward through all that -- after Joseph's jealous brothers throw him in a pit, then sell him into slavery, tell their father Jacob that wild animals ate Joseph, enter into a severe famine, become ignorant of all of Joseph's travails in Egypt, wind up in front of Joseph (unbeknownst to them) to beg for food, and have to go back to their father and tell him they're supposed to return to Egypt with their youngest brother Benjamin -- Jacob reflects on all that has befallen his family and says something like "Everything's against me!"

I don't know about you, but I've been there, done that, and threw away the T-shirt a few years ago. The weight of the world comes crashing down, and I just want to throw up my hands and say "I give up." Maybe you've been there too. There's a lot of people living a lot of lives in the world; the potential for pain and suffering and trials and tribulations is infinite. We've got financial problems, health problems, career problems, relationship problems, personal problems.
Maybe you feel like you can't catch a break. Maybe you're at the bottom of a pit so deep you can't even see the light at the opening. Maybe you've been there so long, you've lost all hope you'll ever get out. Maybe the tide has swept you up, you've been waving your arms for help to no avail, and you just know it's a matter of time before the downward spiral drowns you.

Don't lose hope. Don't give up.

You know Jacob, the old man who moaned "Everything's against me"? His son Jospeh, who he'd given up for dead, really did have everything against him. His own brothers try to kill him, then sell him to slave traders. He ends up in wasting away in a prison for years because of the lies of a seductress he refused to be seduced by. And after all that mess he was later able to stand before the very people who started the whole downward spiral and forgive them. He was able to say "You meant all this for evil, but God meant it for good."

Look, just 'cause you're paranoid, doesn't mean nobody's out to get you. There's some people who are in intense pain, both physical and emotional, right now, and it's pain that has gone on for years and years and will probably go on for years and years. I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer, but not everybody gets that super-magical TBN-powered spiritual pixie dust that makes you rich and healthy because you "trust in Jeeeeeezus." The strongest Christians are the ones who are hurting and have been hurting and keep trusting Jesus and will keep trusting Jesus even if their hurt never goes away. That doesn't sell books, I know, but it's the truth. God is omnipresent, right? So while he's perfectly capable of delivering you from your pain and suffering, he's also capable of redeeming you in and through your pain and suffering.

Know this: You cannot go down the drain.
You are in your Father's hand, and nobody -- not even yourself -- can take you out of there. There is nothing that can separate you from the love of God. Nothing. Zip, zilch, nada. No thing and no person can do it. All things work to the good of those who are called according to His purposes. Who's called according to His purposes? If you are a believer in Jesus, you are. So what things work to the good? All things. Not just some things. All things.

This world may be in the proverbial handbasket. It may be circling the drain. Our bodies are indeed winding down. (And more than a few of us have bodies widening downward. ;-) But our help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. Our redeemer lives. And one day, he will descend with a shout, and this old earth will get an extreme makeover in an eternal splash of glory the likes of which will make the aurora borealis look like a Lite Brite. And our sagging flesh and aching bones and slowing hearts and diseased cells will be taken from us, and we'll get fresh legs, a freshly purified heart, fresh lungs to breathe the fresh air of the new heaven and the new earth. We'll get fresh eyes to finally see Him face to face.

Child of God, you have been rescued once. And it was a promise of glory to come. So someday you will be rescued again in such a way you may laugh at all the things that make you cry today. Your anguish over this world and your hurt from your experience in it will become joy over the new world and the worshipful pleasure it brings.

The great thing is that we can taste that joy now, in the midst of our sins and sufferings. We have a mighty God who is strong to save, and He loves us so such. If the birds and the flowers are under his care, how much more do you think he cares about you and me? Most of us know Jesus cried out from the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?". But many of us don't know Jesus was quoting Psalm 22. Go read it.
Do you see that it's not a psalm about God forsaking anyone? It's actually about God delivering his people. Kinda puts Christ's lament in a more reassuring context, doesn't it? Here's verse 24:

For he has not despised or disdained
the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him
but has listened to his cry for help.

Wherever you are, whatever you're going through and may go through (perhaps for the rest of your life), know that your salvation lay not in your circumstances or situations, but believe that God is strong to save, and that even his Son suffered torture and death to achieve it for you. You do not hurt alone. Your road may be hard, but despite where it appears to be leading, it is the road to glory. God's will for you will not be disappointment or destruction. The "everything against you" is working toward your good. You will stand renewed, redeemed, and ready to prevail at the last day.
Whatever it looks like, whatever it feels like, you can never go down the drain.

The Hard Stuff of Real Lives

2006-09-11T10:47:00.000-07:00

A week or so ago on Thinklings I conversed with a guy named Matthew who said he had done the whole Christianity thing with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength and didn't get anything out of it but an empty silence and a failed marriage. He poured out his story of devoting years and years to faithful pursuit of a relationship with Jesus, of studying his Bible and believing wholeheartedly in what it said, of praying daily with a fervent and devoted heart, of attending church with commitment and openness. Of begging God to take away the same-sex attraction that had been plaguing him since as long as he could remember. Matthew believed his desires were sinful and out of faithfulness did not act on them, and day after day for years and years pleaded with God to take those feelings away. He tried counseling and community. He even tried marriage to a woman. When he was finally able to come clean about his inner struggles, almost nothing he had committed himself to survived the fallout. His marriage was over. And so was his faith.

Matthew says he trusted God and tried truly, sincerely, honestly to have a relationship with Jesus Christ. He says he was repentant and obedient. But God never kept up His end of the relationship, so Matthew gave up. In his mind now, there probably is no God, but even if there is, He ain't worth having faith in. You can't have a relationship with someone you can't see or hear, he says. He tried.

What do we say to someone like Matthew? He's not alone. There are millions of folks like him. What do we say to the Matthews of the world? To the pre- and post-Christian skeptics?

I tried to say a few things as respectfully and helpfully as I could. He was asking questions, and I felt obliged to offer some answers. But I was way in over my head. I was humbled not just by the difficulty in finding "the right words" for an experience like Matthew's, but just by the very idea that a few paragraphs of "insight" in a blog comments section could adequately address, much less honor, his decades of pain and struggles.

This week, at Common Grounds Online, pastor/author Les Newsom posted about his conversation with a seeker-skeptic who wanted to know why God was hiding. Newsom is a very intelligent guy, one with a great pastoral spirit, and he was able of course to work some philosophical ju-jitsu and turn the tables on the asker. Using sound biblical insight and practically flawless logic and rhetorical eloquence, he spoke the truth that it is not God who hides, but us. It was as perfect an answer as one could provide.

Yet I'd be willing to bet it did not suddenly make the skeptic go, "Oh, yes, I see. You're absolutely right."

Words can be very, very cheap. Even the best ones. Even the truest ones. Yes, it is true that God's Word will not return void, but oh how inadequate even our best words can be in "making someone believe." The Bible says that faith cannot come without hearing, so the Church must be dedicated to preaching, but isn't it humbling -- or, at least, shouldn't it be humbling -- to know that it's not our words that work faith in a person, but God's grace?

I'm a words guy. I'm big on words. I want to make a living with my words. I try to get my words published and have had a little success. I fill up too many blogs with words. I fill up a computer file with fictional words. I speak words when I'm teaching. I speak words when I want my wife to know how I feel. I speak words when I'm caring for, instructing, or disciplining my kids.
The world is not short on words, and some of us are trying to speak as many as we think appropriate in the best way we know how.

But words don't save. The Word does.

I'm a fan of apologetics, by which I mean the system and study of providing answers and evidence in defense of the validity and truth of the Christian faith. Apologetics are helpful in evangelism. But I've never heard of anyone argued into or really even intellectually convinced into the kingdom. That can often be the first step, but it's never the only one. Jesus doesn't require we love with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength by only changing our minds. He changes the rest too.

So how do we do this? For the Matthews of the world, and for everyone else? People are looking for sound words, for true words, but mere words aren't working. That there's a new "religious" best seller on the New York Times list every few months certainly proves that. Clearly not everyone was driven to a purpose that ultimately satisfied or they would not have then latched on to finding their best life now. The Church has an abundance of words.
What else we got?

This week Michael Spencer highlighted a post from the Internet Monk archives. It is called To Know We're Not Alone, and I highly recommend you read it. Here's an excerpt:

His face comes back to me across the years, and as I think about my own brokenness, failures, and the desire for common humanity that drives me to nail my thoughts to the door of the world, I wonder if he wasn’t showing me the face of every man and woman I’ve ever met.

You see, the invitation concluded, and that preacher began talking. His words were nervous, not the sure and confident tones of the sermon, but the halting, breaking, fearful tones of the guilty confession. He wasn’t in preacher-speak. He was speaking differently. Humanly. It bothered me.

In my church, our pastor seemed super-human. He was God’s man. A Spirit-filled man. He was different than all of us. He spoke differently. He dressed in suits all the time, even on hot summer days when he was doing yard work. He knelt behind the pulpit when he prayed, even though it was a very large church. He cried and shouted in the pulpit. He declared the Word of the Lord, and pled with sinners to come to Jesus. He was an embodiment of heaven’s man on earth.

He was not like the rest of us, and we knew it.

He did laugh, but not in the same way or at the same things. His wife was saintly, and always dressed like royalty. He could be tender, but he could also be frightening. You knew he spent hours with God, and was different as a result. He was a holy man.

As a young preacher-boy, I wasn’t a thing like him. I’m not sure that I wanted to be. I had walked the aisle and “surrendered” to preach, but could I ever be like that? Holy and separate? Anointed with power? I did believe, I am sure, that being a preacher meant I would be different. God would give to me…..something. The mantle of the prophet. The fire of the preacher. A light in the darkness. I wouldn’t be like other people. I would be safe and protected.

But this evening I was looking at another preacher, not my pastor. And he was not supernatural or holy or other-worldly. He seemed small and frightened. He was talking about his wife. He’d come home, and found his wife with another man. He just said this, to the whole church, as if they must know. He wept. His fear and self-loathing oozed out of him and into the atmosphere of that revival. Everything changed.

His wife was not present, though we all looked around to see her. I was uncomfortable. I wasn’t the only one. I wanted him to stop talking. He was scaring me. Real humanity, and the mess of a broken marriage, weren’t welcome in this revival, or in my world.

He said he and his wife had a lot of trouble, and he’d been taking medicine. But the medicine hadn’t done any good. Now his wife was with another man, and he wanted the church to pray. We did not know what to do with this. It was too much. Too much. Too real . . .

. . . I did not realize until many years later what had happened that night. The preacher was calling out of his darkness, calling into a room of other people, looking for something. What? He was looking to know he was not alone. He wanted to know if anyone else knew and understood what it was like to be human, to hurt and be a failure. To have failed at marriage and now, to have failed at being a “good Christian.” Did anyone care that his life was a wreck, or would they just condemn him? Would they pray for him, or did they just want him to go away?

I have no idea what he found. In me, he found the shock that comes from being confronted with my illusions. I wanted this to be a freakish exception to the rule that God makes us all better and makes everything all right. I wanted this to be a bad dream that would go away, because I did not want to think about the waking realities of infidelity and mental illness and desperate, despairing people. I did want to think that the man standing in the pulpit with the answers might not have all the answers for himself.

My faith rejected such a vision. I thought of that preacher as a sick fool. Today, I know better. He was a window into my own soul. A picture of the human race. A representative of the our true nature. And even more, he was, for that moment a sacrament of honesty in a religion of pretense. He stood there, falling to pieces, asking, “Am I alone? Am I the only one?” But we couldn’t let the secret out. We had to say the “amen,” and go home to a religion that protects us and makes us better.

Some twenty years later, that preacher took his own life. I do not know his path, I only know that in the end, he could not live with himself.

How many times did he stand and tell others to trust in a God of love, mercy and grace? And what did we hear? Did we hear the truth….or did we hear, instead, the invitation to paint ourselves in colors of self-deception and denial, and pretend another week, another year?

Over and over, Jesus reached into the lives of people like that preacher. The last, lost, least, losers. The unacceptable, the unreformable. The failures and the frauds. Those whose lives could not be tidied up with a little cultural religion. And from that, we have constructed a Jesus who prefers the “good Christian.” A Jesus who wants moralizing and religious superficiality. A Jesus who hardly needs to die for us, because a little exhortation to do better and keep on the straight and narrow are more our style. A Jesus without a cross, but with smiles and blessings for our homes and marriages full of “Christian moral values.”

I couldn't have said it any better, and coming as it does as the result of a severe life lesson grounded in personal pains (and not just mental ruminations), I am content to have provided a lengthy excerpt of his piece at the expense of more of my blathering. ;-)

This is why the Jesus + nothing Gospel is vital. This is why a works gospel is worthless, whether its coming from a Pharisee in 1 BC, a fundy hellfire preacher in 1975, or a pomo pastor-buddy in 2006. Jesus must be the point of our work and words . . .

. . . and we must mean them. I don’t mean be sincere about them or speak them well. I mean we must mean them. And that is the missing ingredient in all of these real stories of real hurt in the real world. The real hope. Hope that is real. Not just words of hope. Yes, those too, but the authenticity, the pure religion that makes the words real. What is missing, then, is the living witness of the church. The community cannot just be about dispensing kingdom words but about living out the kingdom life and doing the kingdom work.

Will we respond to the Matthews of our community with just good advice? With some clever apologetics and airtight theology? Or with grace and relentless support and a consistent witness that we still believe this stuff and know it makes a difference and are going to keep trusting Jesus is faithful even if they won't? Will we carry on with love? Or with resentment or dismissal or avoidance? Will our testimony be desertion? Or the bearing of burdens?

The people who enter our doors and “test drive” our churches had better get more than words for their trouble. Some of them can subsist on good words for a while. But the substance of lives troubled by broken families, broken hearts, substance abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, adultery, pornography, grief over lost loved ones or prodigal children or prodigal parents, lost jobs, lost joys, secret sins and secret shames, doubt and hurt and need and guilt will not be healed by words, but by the living witness of the Body of Christ being the body of Christ to them. The friends of the crippled man didn’t just tear the roof off the sucker so their friend could hear Jesus better; they lowered him down into the middle of an astonished audience so he could be healed.

Jesus Christ came to preach the good news of the coming of the kingdom of God, and everywhere he went, he testified in word and deed to the freedom life in the kingdom gives to the hurt, lost, and lonely. If we, the community the Bible calls the Body of Christ, will be true to our namesake, we will do no less. Our open door must be like the hole in the roof of that house – the place of dramatic entry into a place of real hope for real people with real hurts.
Our churches cannot just be about giving people good advice to live their generic lives more successfully; we must be about living the Gospel in a world of hard stuff.

But prove yourselves obedient to the Message, and do not be mere hearers of it, imposing a delusion upon yourselves. But be ye doers of the word...
-- James 1:22

What's the Point?

2006-08-23T08:44:00.000-07:00

Rather, who's the point?

I don't believe in this day and age the Church can stress enough that the "point" of Christianity is Jesus himself. The point of Scripture, the point of prayer, the point of faith -- all Jesus.

We have not done a great job at making Jesus the point of the enterprise of faith. We take the Gospel notion of "faith alone," a belief many Reformers died contending for, and make it about us. We turn perseverance into personal empowerment and sanctification into self-improvement. We've made religion a bad word by turning Law into legalism and grace into license. We make Jesus our buddy, our co-pilot, our sidekick. We don't have sin -- we have "issues." We say we have bad habits rather than admit we have sinful hearts. We look to Scripture in general as a toolbox of pick-me-up quotable quotes and to the Gospels specifically as a chronicle of warm-fuzzy behavioral aspirations.

But if the point of any of it is not Jesus, it will not, cannot, and does not work.

Let's look at a few highlights from the Gospels, how 'bout?

Last week at BCC is Broken, someone critiqued my understanding of the story of the woman caught in adultery. (Doing so is fine, of course. I make no claims to be the end-all, be-all of biblical interpretation. I'm just a dude trying to do my best to make heads or tails of stuff that convicts and challenges me daily.) My understanding of that story is that "don't be a hypocrite" is not the main point. It is an application and implication of what Jesus said, but I don't see it as the point. If you want to know what I think the point of that story is, it is this: Jesus forgives adultery.

Here is my guiding principle for reading the Gospels: The point is Jesus. Every saying, every story -- Jesus. If the main point you're getting out of the story doesn't center squarely on Jesus, I respectfully suggest your aim is off.

Some examples:

Lots of people look at the story of Jesus throwing the moneychangers out of the temple and think this is about how it's wrong to sell stuff at church (or some variation of such). As I've pointed out in an earlier post, that cannot be the main point, as at that time, foreign Jews needed to exchange currency to be able to make the required sacrifices in the temple, and they probably needed to buy the objects of sacrifice, since very few packed animals for travel. So the point of that story is not "commerce and temple don't mix," because up until that point, commerce and temple had to mix for the temple system to work. No, the point of that story is that Jesus replaces the temple system.

Similarly, people look at the Beatitudes and see a list of behaviors to aspire to. That's all well and good, but Jesus didn't come to show you how to be a better person. He came because you can't be. The point of the Beatitudes is that that list is what the kingdom of Jesus looks like. Those are the promises of Jesus to those who will enter his kingdom.

The point of the parable of the man who built his house on the sand is not "be prepared" or "have a solid foundation" or "think ahead." The point is that building your life on anything but Jesus is making rubbish of your life.

The point of the parable of the lost son is not some generic "God allows u-turns" sentimentalism; the point is that Jesus brings reconciliation to sinners.

The point should and must be Jesus. In all we say and do. In our churches we can have the best quality presentation, the most dynamic speakers, the greatest list of helpful tips for successful living (in convenient alliterative format), the most talented musicians and worship leaders, the nicest greeters, the most enthusiastic congregation, and the best coffee in the fellowship hall -- but if the point is anything other than Jesus, we've all missed the point.

Jesus cannot be periperhal. He cannot be merely included. He has to be at the forefront of our message and ministry. It's not everything and Jesus; it's Jesus, and everything else will be added unto us.
Look, provided you are far enough south, you can be charting a measly 2 degrees off due north and still end up a thousand miles from your destination.

N.T. Wright, who has revolutionized my exploration of Jesus more than anyone, says this:

But since orthodox Christianity has always held firm to the basic belief that it is by looking at Jesus himself that we discover who God is, it seems to me indisputable that we should expect always to be continuing in the quest for Jesus precisely as part of, indeed perhaps as the sharp edge of, our exploration into God himself.

As individuals and as the Church, we have to commit ourselves to "continuing in the quest for Jesus as the sharp edge of our exploration into God himself."

It's Jesus + nothing, folks. It really is.

Such as These

2006-08-16T08:56:00.000-07:00

As the family sat down to dinner the other night, a couple of us (Daddy and Gracie) were poised to dig in, when Macy said, "Aren't we going to pray?"

Oops.

Kids, eh? They are such a reliable barometer of my spiritual priorities.

"What are you worried about, Dad?" Macy asked me yesterday.
"Huh? Why do you think I'm worried?"
"You have a worried look on your face."
"Oh. I didn't know."
"You should put a happy smile on!"

I'll tell you what, the times I remember to not think of my girls as little religious projects of mine, to stop thinking in terms of making sure they "turn out right," and start seeing them as reflections of my own religion, are the times I most have a handle on what it means to raise kids in Jesus' kingdom. (Gary Thomas's incredible book Sacred Parenting was a great help in this regard.)

I have known and still know, that in all of the challenges in my five years of stay-at-home dadding, the biggest challenge has been to see my parenting as refining of me as much as of the girls. I desperately want them to grow up loving and following Jesus; but they have worked this ministry in me as much, if not more than, I have worked it in them. Sometimes I believe their healthy discipleship occurs in spite of my parenting as often as it does because of it.

Like marriage, parenting is not a project -- it is a spiritual discipline.

How Jesus-y my girls become is not a result of the effectiveness of my techniques but a reflection of the quality of my own Christlikeness.

Macy writes and tells a lot of stories. Lately they are more and more retellings of Bible stories. Grace has taken to evangelizing all her stuffed animals and talking so much about "the Lord Jesus" it makes even me uncomfortable.
These activities are colored by childishness. But I take them as indicators their parents are doing something right.

Ch-ch-ch-Changes

2006-08-16T08:51:00.000-07:00

Anybody left reading Shizuka Blog may have noticed a couple of new menu features.

First, I have expanded the blogroll to belatedly include some very worthy links.

And perhaps more noticeably, I have added a reading list feature under the heading "Influences." This list is a representative sample of the works that have most influenced the thinking and style that direct the unique approach of Shizuka Blog. (Thanks, as always, to Thinklings web-shaman Bill for working the code that makes the list possible.)

Your Worst Life Now --> Abundant Living

2006-08-15T06:05:00.000-07:00

I encountered this quote for the first time this morning, and it rocks my world.

Abundant living is sometimes on account of, but more often, perhaps, in spite of. When circumstances are against us, we must be able to set the sails of our souls and use even adverse winds. The Christian faith does not offer exemption from sorrow and pain and frustration -- it offers the power, not merely to bear, but to use these adversities. The secret of using pain and suffering and frustration is in many ways life's greatest secret. When you have learned that, you are unbeatable and unbreakable.

The Christian "can take it," because he can take hold of adversity and use it. Christ bore the cross, for he could use the cross. You cannot bear the cross long -- it will break your spirit, unless you can take that cross and make it serve higher purposes. The stoic bears the cross; the Christian makes the cross bear fruit.

Any movement that has learned the secret of making the bitterest tree -- the cross -- bear the sweet fruit has learned the secret of abundant living.

-- E. Stanley Jones

The Scandal of Grace

2006-08-10T19:43:00.000-07:00

Imagine you are one of the early church's first members. You are sitting in a home with a few other believers, sharing a meal. You pray together. You sing a few Psalms. Someone recites a bit he's heard of Jesus' biography. Then someone gets up to read a letter to you from some guy named Paul.

Paul is a guy who used to go by the name Saul. It's possible he is responsible for the murder of someone you know, perhaps even your parents or one of your children. Now you have to sit and listen to someone read not just words from this guy, but instructions from this guy. Since his conversion from Christ-hating enforcer of the Law to card-carrying Jesus freak, he's not just one of your fellow Christians. He's an authority over all Christians recognized by nearly everyone.

It is possible this arrangement would not have sit well with you.

Imagine you're attached to Peter, a guy who has his problems, but who has been with Jesus from the beginning. And this newcomer Paul actually exerts authority over Peter! He seems to wield power over apostles who were actual disciples!

What in the world can explain the rise of Paul's recognized authority in the primitive church? The first explanation that comes to my mind is the authority over all authorities himself -- Jesus. If you were an early church member tempted to dismiss or disregard the teaching of a guy who used to push the killing of the ones you love, maybe you thought of something you heard Jesus said from the cross. In that excruciating place where Jewish officials like Paul had taken him, Jesus hung there dying and wished forgiveness even on the unrepentant revelers carrying out his execution.

The difference between Saul the persecutor and Paul the apostle was Jesus. The very road Paul was taking to kill Christians became his road to becoming one, because Jesus put up a roadblock and intervened. Revenge became repentance.
The difference between an early church member despising Paul's leadership and embracing it was Jesus. The same Pauline letter that might have irked became an encouragement.

Isn't that completely illogical? What weirdos this following Jesus thing makes us. C.S. Lewis was once asked what the main difference between Christianity and all other religions was, and he answered, "Oh, that's easy -- grace."
Grace isn't just amazing; it's ridiculous. It's revolutionary to our thoughts and feelings. It humbles the powerful and empowers the humble.
Jesus didn't die so you could learn how to be a better person. He died because you can't be. (That's grace offending your sensibilities right now.)

The grace of Jesus is a foolishness that, when believed, brings power to save (1 Cor. 1:18).

Grace is that bizarre missing ingredient that mucks up all human foibles, flaws, and fears. Grace is the thing that turns lives upside down. It is a sweet, beautiful irritant.
Grace is scandalous. It makes murderers into apostles, it makes victims into forgivers. It takes "never the twain shall meet" and makes "reunited and it feels so good." ;-)

Have you been scandalized by grace lately? Has Jesus shocked you through someone's granting grace to you?
When was the last time you offended someone's expectations by extending grace to them?

(Shamelessly lifted, but slightly altered, from a recent post of mine at BCC is Broken.)

Yo

2006-08-01T06:35:00.000-07:00

I don't mean to be scarce here just as I've ramped up the posting again. The truth is that, in addition to general Dada-type busy-ness, I am a bit caught up in the dealings with our church.
If anyone is interested in info about that, I have set up a (I hope temporary) blog to reflect and comment on the conflict. You can reach it at BCC is Broken. I know several Shizuka Blog and Thinklings readers have been through situations like this before, so perhaps your insights, and for certain your prayers, will be valuable and instructive.

I do hope to post some things here enough to keep the site "active." And not just quotes either. ;-)
But please forgive the silence when it occurs. Thanks!

Nomenclature

2006-07-31T06:18:00.000-07:00

In order to be a church, the people must assemble in the name of Christ. In so doing, they attest that he is the determining ground of their lives; in him they have found freedom, orientation, and power. They come together first of all to call upon him as Savior and to bear witness to him before each other and before the entire world. They hear the proclamation "in his name" (Acts 5.28), call upon his name in faith (see Rom. 10.13), are baptized in his name (see Acts 2.38), and in this way are "washed," "sanctified," and "justified" through this name (1 Cor. 6.11). He is the source of their lives.

Second, people gather together in Christ's name in order to profess faith in him as their Lord and as the Lord of the entire cosmos. He determines the fundamental conditions of their individual and communal lives (see 1 Cor. 1.10; 5.4); they gather together "under his authority and with the intention of acting in obedience to him." It is he who gives their lives binding direction.

Third, by assembling in Christ's name, Christians acknowledge him as the power in which they live. The "power" and the "name" are intimately connected. Jesus Christ is Immanuel, the God who is with them, and in the power of his Spirit they are able to do those works that are commensurate with the new creation and that allow the new creation to shine in the midst of the old.

-- from After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity by Miroslav Volf

The Church is Broken

2006-07-31T05:51:00.000-07:00

My church here in Middle Tennessee began this weekend an ugly split. (Actually, I'm learning it began almost two years ago, but the congregation has just learned of and engaged in the conflict this week.)

I attended the service in which our elders, supported by former elders and the entire ministerial staff (minus one), read a statement announcing they had removed our senior pastor from office. The representative reading the statement did so with visibly trembling hands, choking back tears. There was not a dry eye on the stage.
Anyone who thinks these men and women came to this decision lightly, enthusiastically, or with lust for power is either incompetent or heartless himself.

I also attended a rally of sorts held by our pastor and his wife at a nearby park, where he offered to tell his side of the story. They feel betrayed, humiliated, and blindsided.
There were more tears here, much shock and concern.
And lots of anger. Lots.

Please pray for our church if you think about it. There is an opportunity here for a parting that is God-honoring, but unfortunately I am not optimistic about that. There is a lot of hurt and a lot of personal zeal involved. One side has vowed to "fight tooth and nail," and I know both sides are standing firm in their convictions.
And thus may we crucify His Body all over again? I don't know.

I do know, though, that in the same way damaged bones must sometimes be rebroken to be set, that sometimes breaking something is the first step to fixing it.

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
-- Hebrews 12.11

Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.
-- Romans 14.19

Gospel Helps Self

2006-07-26T20:02:00.000-07:00

Heh.

Call me slow, but when I first encountered the idea that believers ought to be preaching the Gospel to each other -- and to themselves! -- in (Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together), it was like a lightbulb switched on in my head at the same time a sucker punch rocked my gut. What a transforming truth that was.

Here are some neat words along those lines from Tim Challies's recent review of the Jerry Bridges classic, The Discipline of Grace:

Bridges continually takes issue with the unbiblical view that the gospel is solely or even primarily for unbelievers. Rather, he says, the gospel must be the foundation not only of justification but also sanctification. The believer must preach the gospel to himself every day. "To preach the gospel to yourself, then, means that you continually face up to your own sinfulness and then flee to Jesus through faith in His shed blood and righteous life. It means that you appropriate, again by faith, the fact that Jesus fully satisfied the law of God, that He is your propitiation, and that God's holy wrath is no longer directed toward you."

He later says, "This is the gospel by which we were saved, and it is the gospel by which we must live every day of our Christian lives...If you are not firmly rooted in the gospel and have not learned to preach it to yourself every day, you will soon become discouraged and will slack off in your pursuit of holiness."

Good stuff.

Some of us have come a long way through guilt trips and tours of techniques and alliterative outlines and workbook curriculum designed for maximum holiness, through cult and kitsch, through hoakum and hooha, and only relatively late in our Christian walk do we realize that what we need today and tomorrow is what we needed that blessed day Jesus "came into our hearts." We needed -- and still need -- the Gospel.

Shall Not God Have His Own?

2006-07-26T19:51:00.000-07:00

As a follow-up to the post on Contentment, here are some words from William Penn:

In him, his humble, sincere disciples find more than all that they lose in the world. All we have is the Almighty's; and shall not God have his own when he calls for it?

Discontentedness is not only in such a case ingratitude, but injustice. For we are both unthankful for the time we had it, and not honest enough to restore it, if we could keep it.

But it is hard for us to look on things in such a glass, and at such a distance from this low world; and yet it is our duty, and would be our wisdom and our glory to do so.

I appreciate that irony there -- that we who suffer trials and setbacks often wish for justice, as if our trials and setbacks are injustice.
Rather, all that God wills is just, because God himself is just. Better to give thanks for God's amazing grace, which, given our sin and God's holiness, is injustice "at such a distance from this low world."

Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.
-- Job 13.15a (KJV)

Content

2006-07-25T05:51:00.000-07:00

The real devil in the details of the prosperity-type teaching overtaking evangelicalism is not really that it skips over the stuff about sin. Sure, it does that too, but the pernicious paradox of this stuff is that it champions "victorious Christian living" yet does not equip believers for sustainable discipleship. It emphasizes feelings and "outlook," not the power of the Spirit, which is hard for some folks to notice since the latter is often conflated with the former (so that being optimistic or a go-getter is ipso facto being Spirit-empowered). The problem over time is that, going from victory to victory, expecting victory after victory, cultivates a contagious form of spiritual greed. (Is it any wonder that this sort of teaching often goes hand and hand with talk of financial riches and prosperity?) The real stuff of discipleship -- what Eugene Peterson calls "a long obedience in the same direction" -- involves hard stuff like discipline and the fruit of the Spirit. In pop discipleship discipline is replaced by steps, tips, and amazingsupercolossal breakthroughs.

There are a couple of Laws of Raising Children active in my house. The first law is that no item in the universe is more interesting than the one a sibling is currently holding. The second law is that no matter where you are (and it could be Disney World), there is some other place you'd rather be.
Getting what we don't have, being somewhere we aren't. That defines the childishness of the children in our house. But they are children, so they have an excuse.

Prosperity gospel then, ironically, breeds discontentment. We are never abiding with God where we are, because we always consider what we have less than what's available (or at least less than what our neighbor has). We always think of today as less than tomorrow. But you cannot get to resurrection day without going through the cross.

There's a fine line between contentment and complacency, also, and I think this implicit confusion is why contentment is rarely spoken of these days. It implies stagnation or laziness. But complacency is about not caring. Contentment is about caring for the needs of the moment. It is about obedience and faith. Paul was not complacent about his repeated imprisonment and torture. But, amazingly enough, he was content.

Contentment trusts God to be God. Discontent evidences our fear of everything but God -- it fears for safety, for financial solvency, for what others might think of us, for even "spiritual maturity." The content soul, however, fears God.

So the great irony of prosperity gospelism -- and more people teach and believe this stuff than the walking cartoons on TBN, trust me -- is that it actually cultivates its own need for itself. It is built on discontentment and greed and desire and accumulating (whether stuff or "spirituality"), and therefore it turns in on itself, self perpetuating, continuing to create the needs it promises to fill. We all know what happens when you try to fill a God-shaped void with anything not God-shaped. We all know that money doesn't buy happiness, etc etc.
But contentment! Being content with what we've got, with where God has us, whether it be on top of a mountain surrounded by beauty or down in a valley walking toward a pit we cannot see -- now that is true gain!

But there are no easy steps to contentment. The word "content" evokes feelings of peace and tranquility, of being carefree. And those things are true, in a sense. But the way to contentment is difficult, and the place of contentment itself may be in a harsh and barren land. That is, after all, how you know you've reached contentment anyway. Being content involves the tough stuff of trust and discipline and obedience and biblical love. As Chesterton said:

True contentment is a thing as active as agriculture. It is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous and it is rare.

And to quote Mark Galli, we believe that "God loves you and has a difficult plan for your life."

So how do we get it? How do we reach contentment?
We start where we are, not looking ahead to what is next. We begin with a hope for deliverance, provided we are really in need of it, but also with a trust that God is refining us through the circumstances in which He's presently placed us. It just that -- being present. Show up, in this moment, for submission to God. Trust that the cross you are bearing is not the end of His story, but accept that cross as necessary and get everything out of it that is there to get.

There are no steps or strategies. Just the Spirit and the power He gives by His good pleasure. You cannot achieve being discontent with achievements alone.

I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
-- Philippians 4.12-13

Flipside

2006-07-24T05:12:00.000-07:00

Now that "sin" is not spoken of much in churches anymore, and now that inspirational self-help has influenced the church's prescription for our troubles, it occurs to me that the Gospel is now a truly radical proposition in the very community it birthed.

What I'm saying is, we shouldn't necessarily look at the American evangelical predicament and bemoan its state or get into hopeless Critic Mode. Rather, we should be thankful that the message of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone has regained the revolutionary power it never really lost. We are in a strange -- but, dare I say it?, exciting -- place where the Gospel continues to scandalize even those sitting in the pews next to us or in the chairs across from us in small group.

Grace and Service

2006-07-21T12:38:00.000-07:00

Can I tell you that I hate the folktale of "The Little Red Hen"? I do not like it, for although I know the morals it hopes to teach are good ones (against laziness, for work and cooperation), the climactic delivery actually teaches a very unChristlike selfishness. It's sort of a "one bad turn deserves another"-type thing. Here's the story to remind you:

One day as the Little Red Hen was scratching in a field, she found a grain of wheat.
"This wheat should be planted," she said. "Who will plant this grain of wheat?"
"Not I," said the Duck.
"Not I," said the Cat.
"Not I," said the Dog.
"Then I will," said the Little Red Hen. And she did.
Soon the wheat grew to be tall and yellow.
"The wheat is ripe," said the Little Red Hen. "Who will cut the wheat?"
"Not I," said the Duck.
"Not I," said the Cat.
"Not I," said the Dog.
"Then I will," said the Little Red Hen. And she did.
When the wheat was cut, the Little Red Hen said, "Who will thresh the wheat?"
"Not I," said the Duck.
"Not I," said the Cat.
"Not I," said the Dog.
"Then I will," said the Little Red Hen. And she did.
When the wheat was threshed, the Little Red Hen said, "Who will take this wheat to the mill?"
"Not I," said the Duck.
"Not I," said the Cat.
"Not I," said the Dog.
"Then I will," said the Little Red Hen. And she did.
She took the wheat to the mill and had it ground into flour. Then she said, "Who will make this flour into bread?"
"Not I," said the Duck.
"Not I," said the Cat.
"Not I," said the Dog.
"Then I will," said the Little Red Hen. And she did.
She made and baked the bread. Then she said, "Who will eat this bread?"
"Oh! I will," said the Duck.
"And I will," said the Cat.
"And I will," said the Dog.
"No, No!" said the Little Red Hen. "I will do that." And she did.

What a graceless twit the hen is. I would like to rewrite the story so it ends like this:

She made and baked the bread. Then she said, "Who will eat this bread?"
"Oh! I will," said the Duck.
"And I will," said the Cat.
"And I will," said the Dog.
"Come on in!" said the Little Red Hen. "We can eat it together." And they did.

Of course that doesn't work if you're wanting to teach children if they don't work and don't help, they shouldn't expect to enjoy the fruits of someone else's labor. But it does work if you want to teach children that the world is full of people who don't deserve their charity or help but that we should give it to them gladly anyway.

What graceless twits we are. (Okay, what a graceless twit I am.)
One point I have tried to make to some of the newly married couples in our small group is that they must really work on getting to know the difference between doing good for their spouse in order to get something in return and doing good for their spouse simply because it's the right thing to do. I think lots of the stuff out there on his-and-her needs, love languages, etc. can be very helpful, but too often it somehow sets us up to be yinning and yanging each other. I do this and you do that, and then we will bring balance to the force. I wonder where sin and grace come into play.

I didn't (and don't) know these things intuitively. I've only learned them from realizing I didn't know them. The truth is only Jesus can fill the reservoir of needs inside of us. The language of love we all (sometimes unknowingly) have is redemption, and only Jesus can speak it perfectly. As long as we are looking to anyone else to respond correctly to our good works, thereby energizing us for or enabling us to continue doing good works, the thing won't work. For followers of Jesus, the ideal for service is giving without anticipating receipt. Of anything. I don't know that it's even possible for us to give without thinking of receiving, but I do know we should believe that such thoughts are anti-grace.

Grace leaves results up to God. Grace leaves "what people deserve" up to God. Grace leaves the thanks and the reciprocity for your good works up to God.
Because grace is the virtue that, when embodied in us, best enacts the Great Commandments -- it is about God and others and only lastly, if at all, about us.

The painting above is Washing Peter's Feet by Watanabe Sadao, a 20th-century artist who used the katazome stencil method to recreate biblical scenes, combining traditional Christian iconography with a Japanese folk art style.
That's Peter the graceless twit. Peter who sunk, Peter who slept while the Lord wept, Peter who lashed out, Peter who denied. That's Jesus washing Peter's feet. Peter whom Jesus said He'd build His kingdom on, Peter who went to his own crucifixion.

When we serve others without expecting a favorable response, we are actually being the Gospel to them. And we are being the Gospel to ourselves, really, because the Bible says we love because He loved us, not that we love because others will love us back. The Bible does say to love one another, but it doesn't say love one another because you love one another (if that makes sense).

How far our sin separates us from God! And from our neighbors too. It seriously screws up everything we touch, everything we get involved in. It's right there in the beginning, right at the first screw-up -- enmity between man and God, enmity between man and woman.

And that's how radical grace is, how revolutionary the gospel is. It covers us screw-ups and the things we screw up. It is not blind to our laziness, but it might as well be. It welcomes us to the table even though we've done nothing to earn a right there. In our sin we say "Not I" to God's requirements every day, but in our clingy, needy way, we say "I will!" to His offers. It is grace that reserves a place for us at His table and says, "Come on in! We can eat together."

A Tao of Scripture

2006-07-21T12:21:00.000-07:00

Dan Edelen has a good post today touching on the recommended bloggy allowance of Scripture. It's for people who count verse citations in posts like the raisins in Raisin Bran.

I link to it not just because it's a good post, but because it reminds me of this one from over a year ago on Shizuka Blog. It's about the difference between wielding the Word and living it, between being a toolbox biblicist and being a lifeblood one.

Predestination Anxiety

2006-07-20T05:39:00.000-07:00

Katsumoto: "Do you believe a man can change his destiny?"
Algren: "I believe a man should do what he can until his destiny is revealed."
-- from The Last Samurai

God has given Scripture to us so that we can know what we should and shouldn’t do. He expects us to act on this knowledge. What we cannot know, we should leave to God. We should stick to our responsibilities, vocation, and position in life. God and God alone knows what his predestined. You aren’t supposed to know.

Take for example the time when Joab was being attacked both in front and from behind by
his enemies. He didn’t say to his brother Abishai, “Wait, let’s see what is predestined, and then
we will act accordingly.” Rather he said, “If the Arameans are too strong for my troops, be
ready to help me. And if the Ammonites are too strong for your troops, I’ll come to help you. Be
strong! Let’s prove ourselves strong for our people and for the cities of our God, and the LORD will do what he considers right” (2 Samuel
10.11-12).

So we should also concentrate on our duties, not whether or not something is predestined. Because we have no word or light from God on that matter, we don’t know anything about it.
Therefore, we should put the thought of trying to find out whether something is predestined or not out of our mind and heart. Let the future remain in darkness. Let it stay secret and hidden.
In the meantime, we should do what we know we ought to do. We should live by God’s Word and the light he has given to us.

-- Martin Luther, Faith Alone: 365 Devotional Readings

Stretching My Legs

2006-07-19T14:27:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, the couple who lead our couples small group at church said they were going out of town, and they asked me if I wouldn't mind filling in for them. Feeling a bit put on the spot, I said yes. I'm glad I did.
So last week I facilitated our group study. It was no big deal, really -- just going through a Bible study guide, nudging folks to answer some questions, cracking a joke here and there, offering a few meager insights when the silence grew too long. You know, being my normally winsome self. ;-)

Honestly, though, it wasn't a big deal, but every time I go so long without doing something like that, it feels like a big deal. After the session, I received many thank-you's and smiles. It was very nice and, again, to be honest, good for the ego. (Not quite as good a stroke as when I was leading a trak in our church's new members seminar and one participant told one of the pastors, "I could listen to him all day." But still pretty good.) It reminded me that exercising my spiritual gift(s) can and should be energizing, fulfilling. Not that you don't get tired; but that it's not a "going against the grain" of sorts. There is validation, even in the fatigue.

If you have gifts or talents you haven't used in a while, for whatever reason, take them for a brief spin sometimes. I know there are seasons in life where we need to just sit a spell, and I think that's okay. I didn't used to think that, but now I do. But even if you're in a sitting down period, get up every now and then and stretch your legs.

Self-Helpless

2006-07-19T10:54:00.000-07:00

On a Sabbath day during one of the Jewish feasts, Jesus went to Jerusalem. By the Sheep Gate there was the Bethesda pool, which was said to heal all manner of infirmities if entered when the water stirred. The place was big enough to require five roofed colonnades. All around the pool waited a multitude needing healing. The blind were there, and the lame and paralyzed. One guy waiting by the pool had been an invalid for almost 40 years.
Jesus saw him lying there and knew he’d been there a long time. “Don’t you want to be healed?”

The man said, “Yes, but I don’t have anyone to put me in the pool when the water starts stirring. And when I try to get in by myself, people push their way in front of me.”

Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.”
And at once the man was healed and he obeyed.

-- paraphrased from John 5

I love that story. It means the world to me for reasons I can’t fully explain. That the man was too weak to help himself resonates with me. That he needed help but nobody would help him resonates with me. That he’d been waiting 38 years for healing resonates with me. That everybody was pushing in front of him to get theirs in the pool resonates with me.
That all it took was Jesus resonates with me.

I am finding it harder and harder to put up with self-helpy preachers. I don’t get it. I want to be charitable — and for once I won’t name names, but you know who I’m talking about — and part of that is because these guys at least carry the pretense of evangelicalism. They aren’t all-around discounted like the Armani-clad cartoons on TBN. They still maintain supporters as long as pragmatism, Church Growth Movement ideology, and feel-good spirituality entertainment holds sway in American churches.

But that only makes them more gross. For the life of me I can’t figure out what makes them so appealing. Because when I watch some preacher talk about the power of me and about being positive and speaking blessings into existence, I have no idea who he’s talking to. Am I the first person to say I can’t do it? I can’t do it by myself. I’m incapable. I’m cynical, sure. Negative, yes. I’m a pessimist. But those aren’t my problems.
Sin is. I’m being honest with myself. And until they can be honest about themselves — and until they can be honest about me — I have no interest in discovering the champion inside of me. Because he ain’t in there. I checked.

I consider myself fairly spiritually mature. I trusted Jesus for salvation, and I keep doing that every day. But spiritually speaking, I’m a lame dude watching everyone else push their way into the foamy waters, waiting on something I can’t manage on my own. No amount of rush or maneuvering or special pool-entry techniques are cutting it. I’m waiting on Jesus to show up, to make the pool irrelevant.

Look, either grace is sufficient or it isn’t. Either the joy of the Lord is my strength or it isn’t. All the rest is b.s.
I wish I was living my best life now, but I’m not. I’m wandering (as if you couldn’t tell just by reading this post). And I’m wondering how to continue, day in and day out, loving scavenged manna. I mean, I’m scraping the stuff off the side of rocks and whatnot. But I know the dude in the gigantic arena saying he’s got lobster and caviar for me to eat is a liar.

Knowing that is no consolation. But knowing Jesus is.

(cross-posted at Thinklings)

note

2006-07-19T10:48:00.000-07:00

I hope to resume regular posting here.
We'll see . . .

There Are Many Ways to Say I Love You

2006-06-12T05:50:00.000-07:00

The girls were doodling on some paint sample cards on the way to church yesterday morning. Here's a little chart Macy made:

The first box reads "Macy's Love." The next boxes read "Draw a Picture, "Clean Your Room," and "Give a Present," concluding with "I Love It."
Macy said that this was a chart of ways someone could say I love you. She also said that these were all things she was going to do for Mommy and Daddy.

I'm so blessed to have such sweet girls.

(Macy provided some helpful interpretation: The "Clean Your Room" illustration has a dark scribble under the first door, indicating a messy room. The "Give a Present" illustration depicts Dada giving a necklace to Mama.)

Not Humanly Possible

2006-03-02T05:03:00.000-08:00

Be kind to me
Or treat me mean
I'll make the most of it,
I'm an extraordinary machine.
-- Fiona Apple, "Extraordinary Machine"

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends.

-- 1 Corinthians 13.4-8a

Insipid Lie

2006-03-01T14:07:00.000-08:00

I'm inside outside upright downright happy all the time
I'm inside outside upright downright happy all the time
Since Jesus Christ came in
And cleansed my heart from sin
I'm inside outside upright downright happy all the time.

What a crock.

Notice

2005-11-30T07:06:00.000-08:00

No, I haven't abandoned Shizuka Blog. I actually have plenty of ideas for this space and the other three sites I write for; I'm just lacking the time and focus to write them. I've promised my agent another manuscript in January, and since I'm only three chapters into my current project, the vast majority of my writing time in December will be spent by Novelist Jared (as opposed to Blogger Jared).
I'm sure I'll post a few things here in that time, though, as I consider this space important, and I don't want it to languish.

Thanks to all who keep stopping by even though they keep finding the updates less and less frequent.

Wisdom the Way

2005-11-14T10:42:00.000-08:00

"The measure in which I have trusted Jehovah, and acknowledged him, has been the measure of walking in the paths of real life. Doubt of God, pride of intellect, and independence in volition, these are the things which blight and blast. Paths chosen for us by God all lead onward and upward, even when they seem to us to turn about in extricable confusion, and to move downward to the valleys of humiliation and suffering. He is the All-Wise, and to him, wisdom is the way by which Love gains his victory."

-- from G. Campbell Morgan

The Father's Voice

2005-11-09T09:39:00.000-08:00

This morning I began reading The Theology of the First Christians by Walter Schmithals. Macy climbed up into my chair, squeezed in next to me, and asked me to read it to her.

I thought she'd get tired of it after the first paragraph, but she sat there quietly and listened to almost three pages. Three pages of sentences like this one:
Although in principle he presented Jesus as an apocalyptist, he held to the liberal idea of the "kingdom of God" as it had been worked out by Ritschl in relation to Kant and Enlightenment theology, because it was best suited "for bringing the Christian religion to our race and, properly understood and expressed, to awakening and cultivating a healthy and vigorous religious life, which we need today."
And this one:
In spite of such consolations and over against them, the most influential consequence of the discovery of Jesus' apocalyptic message was the overcoming of ethicizing liberal theology, in whose bosom that discovery had been unwillingly made; this happened at first through parts of the developing history-of-religions school and then definitively through dialectical theology.

It's dense stuff even for me.
But she listened for a long while before calmly saying "I'm done" and scampering off to play.

I wondered why she would sit for so long. She obviously couldn't have understood it. My guess is that there was something enjoyable about just sitting next to her Dada and listening to his voice. Perhaps there was a momentary curiosity about "Dada's books," a slight entrance into Dada's world that held some mystery.

A lesson in that guess hit me quickly. Sometimes -- oftentimes -- what God is saying to me in his written Word and through my circumstances is uncomfortable and confusing, but maybe I should take comfort and find enlightenment in the fact that he is speaking in the first place. I may frequently be confused by what the Father is saying to me, but in the midst of my confusion perhaps I can find peace and pleasure simply in hearing his voice.

Election: That I May Live Always Near the Cross

2005-11-02T08:47:00.000-08:00

I don't want to inundate the site with The Valley of Vision excerpts, so this one will be the last for a while. But I had to share this prayer titled "Election" in its entirety; it ministered well to me yesterday.

Holy Trinity,
All praise to thee for electing me to salvation,
by foreknowledge of God the Father,
through sanctification of the Spirit,
unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus;
I adore the wonders of thy condescending love,
marvel at the true believer's high privilege
within whom all heaven comes to dwell,
abiding in God and God in him;
I believe it, help me experience it to the full.

Continue to teach me that Christ's righteousness
satisfies justice and evidences thy love;
Help me to make use of it by faith as the ground of my peace
and of they favour and acceptance,
so that I may live always near the cross.

It is not feeling the Spirit that proves my saved state
but the truth of what Christ did perfectly for me;
All holiness in him is by faith made mine,
as if I had done it;
Therefore I see the use of his righteousness,
for satisfaction to divine justice and making me righteous.
It is not inner sensation that makes Christ's death mine
for that may be delusion, being without the Word,
but his death apprehended by my faith,
and so testified by Word and Spirit.

I bless thee for these lively exercises of faith,
for the righteousness that is mine in Jesus,
for grace to resign my will to thee;
I rejoice to think that all things are at thy disposal,
and I love to leave them there.
Then prayer turns wholly into praise,
and all I can do is to adore and love thee.
I want not the favour of man to lean upon,
for I know that thy electing grace is infinitely better.

Faith/Hope

2005-10-28T08:48:00.000-07:00

If faith . . . is a sure persuasion of the truth of God which can neither lie nor deceive us and be neither vain nor false, those who have conceived this certainty surely expect likewise that God will accomplish his promises which, according to their conviction, cannot but be true. So that, in sum, hope is nothing else than the expectation of the things that faith has believed to be truly promised by God. Thus faith believes God to be truthful: Hope expects that he will show his veracity at the opportune time. Faith believes God to be our Father: Hope expects that he will always act as such toward us. Faith believes eternal life to be given us: Hope expects that it shall at some time be revealed. Faith is the foundation on which hope rests: Hope nourishes and maintains faith. For, just as no one can expect and hope anything from God, except he who will have first believed his promises, so, on the other hand, it is necessary that our feeble faith (lest it grow weary and fail) be sustained and kept by patient hope and expectation.

-- John Calvin

Perspective

2005-10-28T08:46:00.000-07:00

Becky says that people reading my posts over the last couple of weeks will think really terrible things are going on. I guess that’s the nature of travails unspecified. By not saying exactly what’s happening, I’m inviting people to imagine worse happenings than are actually present. That’s not my intent.
Some things I have shared – Becky’s wreck, job travails, church disillusionment, the dissolution of our friends’ marriage. And some things I will share – for instance, one thing I was sort of looking forward to as the light at the end of the tunnel developed this week into essentially a humongous boulder stuffed into the end of said tunnel – but cannot yet for a variety of reasons.

But mostly the things left unspecified are not specific things. How do you quantify emotions and spiritual conditions? I can’t point to x event, really, as the cause of y spiritual effect.
What’s going on seems bigger and yet less discernable than a sequence of events.

One thing I used to do in such times is the always popular “getting perspective.” No matter how bad a person has it, there’s always someone who has it worse. (Although I guess this means there is that one person in the world who indeed has it worse than everyone else. I’m saying a prayer for that person right now, because I’m assuming he’s on an excruciating deathbed surrounded by no one.) And certainly I can think of three people close to me right now who are in worse situations than I am. And there are millions more I don’t know personally.
So what I use to do when I was feeling down or fed up or picked on by God and/or the world is just think of that friend I know who’s just lost his job or who just gave birth to an ill baby. My issues are small potatoes compared to real trials and sufferings.

But for some reason this spiritually-approved schadenfraude hasn’t been a sustained help this time. Because getting perspective seems to work when comparing one event or trial to another event or trial, but you can compare and contrast all day long and still not make your doldrums go away. No matter how worse off people are than you, your stuff is yours. Perspective is great; but pretending your situation is nothing when it is indeed something is not a sustainable practice.

The real perspective I suppose I need to get is the realization that events and circumstances are just as transitory as the emotions and spiritual fluctuations they cause. What I mean is, as long as I’m looking for ________ to “fix” the stuff that is going on right now, I will be setting myself up for whatever happens after _________ to bring me back down again. In the landscape of life, it’s like expecting the top of the hill to redeem the valley you’ve just climbed out of. There’s still the other side of the hill to go down. And the whole thing is a desert anyway.
Better, instead, to look to the heavens.

That’s a lot of text. All I mean is: My hope and rest should be Jesus, not whatever good things happen after the bad things. Because the good things, while enjoyable and approved as blessings from God, don’t last.

Being positive and feeling good aren't the cures to being negative and feeling bad. Faith is. More accurately, Jesus is.
Emotions, no matter how strongly willed to the fore, don’t last. (Incidentally, this is why Osteen-Peale-esque positive thinking is a load of crap.)
My hope should be built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. All other ground, no matter how spiritual a spin you put on it, no matter how good it is, is sinking sand.

In the field of perspective, I also take comfort in knowing I’m not alone. I’m not the only one in the middle of the spiritual blahs. Maybe there is something larger at work, in my community, in the Church. A commenter at LeeAnn’s place mentioned the spiritual barometer being “down.” I take some comfort in knowing my friends are sharing the whine.

O God,
Thou hast taught me
that Christ has all fullness and so all plenitude of the Spirit,
that all fullness I lack in myself is in him . . .

-- “Fullness in Christ,” The Valley of Vision

The Way Down is the Way Up

2005-10-25T09:37:00.000-07:00

I've begun reading The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions. This is the titular prayer:

LORD, high and holy, meek and lowly,
Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision,
where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights;
hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold thy glory.

Let me learn by paradox
that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.

Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells,
and the deeper the wells the brighter thy stars shine;
Let me find thy light in my darkness,
thy life in my death,
thy joy in my sorrow,
thy grace in my sin,
thy riches in my poverty,
thy glory in my valley.

"Thy light in my darkness" sounds really good right now . . .

The Ministry of Art

2005-10-21T09:04:00.000-07:00

To call . . . a man's rapture in great tragedy or exquisite music, by the same name, enjoyment, is little more than a pun. I still maintain that what enraptures and transports is always good.
-- C.S. Lewis, "Different Tastes in Literature"

Every morning shortly before ten o'clock, we turn off "Sesame Street" and turn on NPR and listen to the music for a couple of hours. This morning, I was sitting in my chair reading, and when I got to those lines in my edition of Lewis's "On Stories" and Other Essays, as if on cue, Tchaikovsky's "Waltz of the Flowers" from The Nutcracker Suite came on the stereo. I turned it up and closed my eyes.

I've heard this piece plenty of times (so have you, I guarantee it). Today it brought me to tears.
It is now at the top of a very short list of the highlights of my week.

Mere entertainment is a neutral good. But art that merely entertains cannot bring the transcendence and rapture good art can. It does not minister to a man's spirit like capital-g Good art does.

Doldrums

2005-10-21T06:48:00.000-07:00

What he said.

I understand the practicality of "God will not give you more than you can bear." Physically, I'm able to do all the things God is requiring of me. Emotionally and spiritually, I'm not so sure.

What do you do when you are low, empty, and spiritually and emotionally parched, but so is the support system that previously lifted you up in such times?

Sometimes all you have is trust.
Why doesn't trust make you feel better?

An Edifying Challenge

2005-10-12T13:38:00.000-07:00

"Be the Church. Be Christ to the grieving. No platitudes or generic memorized spiels that are easily dispensed to the hurting before you flit off to your next scheduled appointment, but real, bloody, messy care in the midst of someone else's ruin."

-- from Dan's latest post

Hope

2005-10-11T06:33:00.000-07:00

Put your hope in the LORD, for with the LORD is unfailing love and with him is full redemption. -- Psalm 130.7 (NIV)

"It is the wholesome precept of our Lord and Master: 'He that endureth,' saith he, 'unto the end the same shall be saved.' We must endure and persevere, in order that, being admitted to the hope of truth and liberty, we may attain to the truth and liberty itself; for that very fact that we are Christians is the substance of faith and hope. For we are not following after present glory, but future, according to what Paul the apostle also warns us, and says, 'We are saved by hope; but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he hope for? But if we hope for that which we see not, then do we by patience wait for it.'
Therefore, waiting and patience are needful, that we may fulfill that which we have begun to be, and may receive that which we believe and hope for, according to God's own showing."
-- Cyprian

O LORD, sustain me according to your promise, and I will live; do not let my hopes be dashed. -- Psalm 119.116 (NIV)

"But wait in faith. Express your unstaggering confidence in him, for unfaithful, untrustful waiting is but an insult to the Lord. Believe that if he keeps you tarrying even till midnight, yet he will come at the right time; the vision will come and will not tarry."
-- Charles Spurgeon

This stuff is easy . . . to type. ;-)

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. -- Romans 12.12 (NIV)

Quandary

2005-10-10T09:19:00.000-07:00

If something is wrong and you want to make it right, doesn't it seem like God would allow you to do that? Why would God make getting out of a wrong situation or changing course from an errant one near impossible?
Why won't God honor someone's wanting to do the right thing?

These aren't hypotheticals . . .

Blessed are the Content

2005-10-05T10:28:00.000-07:00

From Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan:

Now as they were going along and talking, they espied a boy feeding his father's sheep. The boy was in very mean clothes, but of a very fresh and well-favored countenance, and as he sat by himself he sang.

"Hark," said Mr. Greatheart, "to what the shepherd's boy saith."

So they hearkened, and he said:
"He that is down needs fear no fall, he that is low no pride:
He that is humble ever shall have God to be his guide.
I am content with what I have, little be it or much:
And, Lord, contentment still I crave, because thou savest such.
Fullness to such a burden is that go on pilgrimage:
Here little, and hereafter bliss, is best from age to age."

Then said their guide, "Do you hear him? I will dare to say that this boy lives a merrier life, and wears more of that herb called hearts-ease in his bosom, than he that is clad in silk and velvet."

From Jesus' Sermon on the Mount:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

Still as irrational, still as incomprehensible, still as radical today as it was 2,000 years ago. I just had the notion to tack the Beatitudes onto the end of this post, and I pulled them up online somewhat cavalierly. Just reading the words over again, for perhaps the thousandth time in my life, I felt a shock to my spirit. They still both comfort me and completely freak me out.

Real Contemplation

2005-10-03T12:12:00.000-07:00

Today in my devotional (By Faith Alone, 365 readings from the writings of Martin Luther), I found this great (and challenging) bit from Luther on "contemplation":

Formerly, many people wrote and taught about the differences between contemplating God and serving him in the world. Some people, who had the best intentions, spent their whole lives searching for visions and revelations. Some of them even recorded all of their dreams. They expected to receive personal messages from God without using the Word of God. What else is this but trying to climb into heaven without using the ladder God has provided? They were being fooled by the devil's tricks.

If you want to contemplate, then contemplate the right way. Think about your baptism. Read the Bible. Listen to sermons on God's Word. Honor your father and mother. Help a needy neighbor. Don't hide in a corner like people who think their personal devotions will give them a place on God's lap. They believe that they can be close to God without Christ, without God's Word, and without the sacraments. These people consider living life and doing everyday work beneath them. I also thought that way until God freed me of my error. The idea of spending life in quiet contemplation is very appealing. Human reason enjoys dabbling in miraculous signs and supernatural matters that it cannot understand.

Don't let Satan trick you. Approach spiritual matters in a different way. The true contemplative life is to listen to God's Word and believe it. Like Paul, decide to "deal with only one subject -- Jesus Christ, who was crucified" (1 Cor. 2.2). Jesus, along with His Word, is the only worthwhile object of contemplation.

Easy/Hard

2005-09-29T10:42:00.000-07:00

In his latest post, Dan asks, "Just how hard is it to be saved?"

It reminded me of this passage from my novel Black Dog Man:

Walter looked him in the eyes. “Do you believe,” he asked, “that God can forgive anything?”

“Sure.”

“No, for real. God can forgive someone no matter what they do?”

“Seriously, yes.”

“It’s that easy?”

“It’s easy for God to forgive, I think. It’s hard sometimes for us to receive forgiveness.”

“But that’s not fair,” Walter said.

“What do you mean?”

“We go through the hard work of guilt and feeling ashamed and worrying about being forgiven and measuring up, but he just snaps his fingers and forgives us? Shouldn’t it be hard to forgive the bad sins?”

“Well, there is that thing Jesus did on the cross.”

“Yes,” Walter said, looking across the hall at the blank wall. In an instant he seemed afflicted by an immeasurable pain. It was more a thought than a question, really, but he said, “So forgiveness isn’t easy.”

“No,” David agreed, feeling Walter’s sadness. “In that sense, it’s not easy at all.”

My answer in the thread at Dan's place begins: "The answer is that it's not hard at all, and it's also as hard as one sinless life and crucifixion."

Gospel

2005-09-28T15:32:00.000-07:00

I'm a jerk. And a screw-up. And a liar and a pervert and a hypocrite.
I'm defensive and offensive. I make excuses, shirk obligations, and ignore the needy.
I am a stumbling block to myself and others.
The weight of these things (and more) bends me low.

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

-- Romans 5.1-11 (ESV)

Oh God, thank God.

I don't feel like I'm standing. But I can throw my stupid feelings up there into the list in my first paragraph.

"Although illumination by the Spirit begins the process, or order, of salvation (Heb. 6:4; 10:32), it continues throughout the life of the believer. The Holy Spirit leads us to a deeper understanding of God (John 16:3), prompting both repentance for the sins that we commit and assurance of God's grace and the certainty of our election.

-- from the 1 Corinthians article commentary "Illumination and Conviction" in the ESV Reformation Study Bible

The Parable of the Broken Tree

2005-08-26T13:28:00.000-07:00

There are four trees in my front yard. Two I planted myself.

About four years ago, the week my oldest daughter was born, we only had the two small trees the front yard came with. It stormed while my wife and our newborn were still in the hospital, and the wind snapped one of the trees in half. All that was left was a narrow, forked stump.

I was out the next day to break down the fallen half. My neighbor walked over. He said he had a chain at his place he could hook to the stump. Using his truck, he could pull it out of the ground for me. (This is what you do with tree stumps, I think.)

I told him "Nah."
"You think it will grow again?" he asked.

Now I know for a fact I know less about vegetation than this man. This man wears over-alls all the time and mows his yard twice a week and grows beautiful vines and bushes and flowers and ripe vegetables all over his landscape.
I said, "I don't know."

Four years later, that broken, leafless tree that once poked nastily out of the ground like a wooden snake's tongue is still in my yard. It is not the prettiest or the fullest of the four trees.
But it is the tallest.

Making Sabbath Real

2005-08-22T10:03:00.000-07:00

I've shared a bit from the excellent Dallas Willard essay "The Key to the Keys of the Kingdom" before, but now I'd like to share a bit more. In this excerpt, Willard highlights three practices dear to Shizuka Blog and its likeminded blog-brethren -- solitude, silence, and fasting. (The emphases are my own.)

Three practices or spiritual disciplines are especially helpful in making Sabbath real in the midst of our life: Solitude, Silence, and Fasting. These are three of the central disciplines of abstinence long practiced by the followers of Jesus to help them find and keep solid footing in the kingdom that cannot be moved--in the midst of a busy and productive life, or even a life of trial, conflict and frustration.

For most of us, Sabbath will not become possible without extensive, regular practice of solitude. That is, we must practice time alone, out of contact with others, in a comfortable setting outdoors or indoors, doing no work. We must not take our work with us, even in the form of bible study, prayer or sermon preparation, for then we will not be alone. An afternoon walking by a stream or on the beach, in the mountains, or sitting in a comfortable room or yard, is a good way to start. This should become a weekly practice. Then perhaps a day, or a day and a night, in a retreat center where we can be alone. Then perhaps a weekend or a week, as wisdom dictates.
This will be pretty scary for most of us. But we must not try to get God to "do something" to fill up our time. That will only throw us back into work. The command is: "Do no work." Just make space. Attend to what is around you. Learn that you don't have to do to be. Accept the grace of doing nothing. Stay with it until you stop jerking and squirming.

Solitude well practiced will break the power of busyness, haste, isolation and loneliness. You will see that the world is not on you shoulders after all. You will find yourself and God will find you in new ways. Joy and peace will begin to bubble up within you and arrive from things and events around you. Praise and prayer will come to you and from within you. The soul anchor established in solitude will remain solid when you return to your ordinary life with others.

Silence also brings Sabbath to you. Silence means quietness, freedom from sounds except natural ones like breathing, bird songs and wind and water moving. It also means not talking. Silence completes solitude, for without it you cannot be alone. You remain subject to the pulls and pushes of a world that exhaust you and keep you in bondage, distracting you from God and your own soul. Far from being a mere absence, silence allows the reality of God to stand in the midst of your life. It is like the wind of eternity blowing in your face. Not for nothing does the Psalmist say: "Be still and know that I am God." God does not ordinarily compete for our attention. In silence we come to attend.

When we stop talking we abandon ourselves to reality and to God. We position ourselves to attend rather than to adjust things with our words. We stop our shaping and negotiating, or "spinning." How much of our energy goes into that! We let things stand. We trust God with what others shall think. Of course there is a time to talk, as there is a time to be with others. But we are not safe and rich in talk and companionship unless our souls are strong in solitude and silence. If we have heard the good news and have come to trust our Savior, He will meet with us through extensive solitude and silence to stabilize his love, joy and peace in us. His character will increasingly become ours--easily, thoroughly. You rarely find any person who has made great progress in the spiritual life that did not have much time in solitude and silence.

Good stuff. But I dare say, if my own experience is any fair indicator, too much solitude can be just as detrimental to one's spiritual health as too little.

More Kid Stuff

2005-08-18T06:34:00.000-07:00

Last night, Becky and Macy went to a Rockfish concert. (I am told Rockfish is sort of a Christian co-ed Wiggles, but I always thought it was a good seafood restaurant in Northwest Houston.) So Gracie had Dada all to herself. I got her a Happy Meal and let her stay up a little later than normal.
My absolute favorite moment of the night was when I was sitting in my chair reading my book and Grace found a brush and decided to brush my hair for me. I just sat there reading, letting Grace brush while she said "Pitty Dada, pitty Dada." That's bliss.
---

This morning Macy and I had a conversation about a toy. She needed me to explain something to her about how it worked.
Then she said, "I think so, too, Daddy," followed with much conviction by, "If you think so, I think so."

That is a rich -- rich and scary -- thought!

Making Requests Known

2005-08-17T08:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday as I was sitting at the computer, Macy walked into the room, holding her booklet, and said, "Time to learn my catechism now, Daddy."

I think one important way in which we may experience the kingdom of God as little children is not to wait on God to "teach us a lesson," but to come to Him daily, open and eager, saying "Lord, please teach me something today."

Help Me Die

2005-08-09T09:12:00.000-07:00

Lord of essential life, help me to die.
To will to die is one with highest life,
The mightiest act that to will's hand doth lie --
Born of God's essence, and of man's hard strife:
God, give me strength my evil self to kill,
And die into the heaven of thy pure will.
Then shall this body's death be very tolerable.

-- from the March Twenty-sixth stanza of George MacDonald's Diary of an Old Soul

Wonder

2005-08-09T06:11:00.000-07:00

Did you know? Did you know?
Did you know that it's all right to wonder?
Did you know that it's all right to wonder?
There are all kinds of wonderful things.

Did you know? Did you know?
Did you know that it's all right to marvel?
Did you know that it's all right to marvel?
There are all kinds of marvelous things.

-- from a song by Fred Rogers

If I were a painter, I do not know which I'd paint
The calling of the ancient stars or the assembling of the saints
There's so much beauty around us for just two eyes to see
But everywhere I go, I'm looking.

-- "America" by Rich Mullins

Slow Down. Stop. Think.

2005-08-04T05:43:00.000-07:00

Dan Edelen's excellent piece "The Humble Warrior" is in part a reaction to the Shoot First, Ask Questions Later (if Ever) element of the Christian blogosphere. It made me start thinking about how humility almost always entails reacting and responding to people and circumstances thoughtfully. The very nature of this medium, the blog, is built on instant publishing and near-instant response, and when one is reactionary, knee-jerk, offensive, or defensive, the medium can only exacerbate one's need to retort or retaliate.

In another post, Dan recommends praying for someone we consider an enemy before we write them up on our blog. Prayer brings perspective. So does just pausing.

I have mentioned that I'd like Shizuka Blog to be a slowly flashing yellow light on your travels through the blogosphere, like the one that marks the opening pan of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood." Here, as there, it's a sign to slow down, that we're about to stop and be calm, be thoughtful, be restful. It's amazing what insights hit you when you're too busy doing nothing to fire your flamethrower at someone.

An Oldfangled Idea for a Book

2005-08-03T21:40:00.000-07:00

People have told me now and then that I should really write a non-fiction book. I really do want to. But while I have lots of interesting and helpful things to say ;-), I lack the credentials. In fact, if I had the right credentials, I could probably publish my non-fiction book even if I had nothing interesting or helpful to say. Judging by the selection at my local Christian bookstore, anyway.

I do hope that should my fiction writing ever afford me the liberty of writing non-fiction, I will be able to say old things in fresh ways. I think the Church really needs a heapin’ helpin’ of Old Things. I’ve got nothing against Rick Warren, but I don’t want the Church to catch the cultural waves of the minute. I want it to seek the deep waters of yesteryear. I’ve got nothing against Brian MacLaren, but I don’t think we need new kinds of Christians. The old kinds work just fine.

My mentor-pastor Mike Ayers and I have been working on a book project off and on. We are not in a hurry. It is a labor of love and will reflect the growth we have undergone and are undergoing. It’s a church book, but there’s no rush because we don’t plan on writing one that is about the church of the day. We’d have to keep starting over every year if we were to do that. No, instead we are thinking and mulling and growing and working and talking and researching and writing, so that one day it will be ready when we are ready. It was C.S. Lewis who said “The more up to date a book is, the sooner it will be outdated.” That’s sort of the opposite of what we want to write.
Last week I had a brilliant idea for a title and I e-mailed him to share my inspiration and Mike agreed it was perfect. Surely someone will steal it (if someone hasn’t used it already), but we’re liking The Gospel-Driven Church.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. And that’s got me thinking about what my first non-fiction book would be about. I’m thinking The Gospel-Driven Life. And I want it to be an antidote to all the Christianized self-help, pickyourselfupbyyourbootstraps gobbledygook. It will be hopelessly out of date and therefore extremely relevant. Especially for people like me. Normal people. That is to say, people not on or funding TBN.

The Gospel-Driven Life will not be about achieving victory. It will be about trusting Christ right in the middle of our messed-up-ness. So, you know, it will be honest.
It won’t be about discovering the champion in you because it will flat-out inform you right off the bat that there is no champion in you.
It won’t be about speaking positive words in order to create the prosperous reality you want to live in. You can read Harry Potter for that kind of stuff. Instead, it will be about faith and contentedness in being: a) poor, b) sick, c) almost dead, d) single, e) homely/ugly, f) married to an idiot or a nag, g) a freakin’ human being. It won't be about trusting Jesus to "fix" those things, but just to be present and working in and through them.

Are any of those books out there written for dudes who sit on couches and watch “The Simpsons” reruns after working on an assembly line all day? ’Cause they don’t seem like it.
A week or so ago I read David Hansen’s excellent little book Long Wandering Prayer and among all the wonderful things he wrote in this book was something that went like this (I’m paraphrasing from memory): “If you don’t want to read about prayer from someone who has watched thousands of hours of football on television, this book isn’t for you.” I loved that.
The larger point was about how God desires obedience, not necessarily sacrifice, and that giving up things you enjoy (that aren’t sins, obviously) to spend more time in prayer and Bible study won’t work. He’s not saying it’s wrong to do that, he’s just being realistic about the odds of its success. Instead, Hansen recommends giving up yard work or doing the dishes for time with God. Not altogether, but he’s saying you might as well cut back or sacrifice for the moment the things you don’t want to do anyway.

If laziness wasn’t a sin, I’d title a chapter in my book “Good News for Lazybones.” Why do all of these books out there seem like they were written for Type-A personalities? Not everybody has an inner Tony Robbins just waiting for Joel Osteen to tell him to “choose blessings.”
Sure, that works from time to time.

But that’s the key, see? Works. What to do. These are things you do to achieve victory/blessing/prosperity/happiness. Pray this prayer for 30 days and God will finally get so sick of it he’ll give in.
Some of these books are just Pelagianism translated into Christian motivational speak. They are a stylish repackaging of the prosperity gospel for mainstream evangelical audiences.
Like God is some Thing to appease or trick or cajole. There’s something to be said for battering the threshold of heaven with our prayers. And then there’s treating God like a candy machine that’s always jamming.

The Bible doesn't call for speaking victory over your obstacles and negative thoughts. It calls for repentance from sin. (I'm not even sure those words are in the vocabularies of some of the folks I'm talking about, and at least one of them has gone on record saying he doesn't like to talk about them. Which is why one of his supporters in a blog forum said we talk about the cross too much!)

So no Jabez for me. No Braveheart or Maximus or Neo or Obi Wan.
I’m lookin’ at Job. And not because he was a Super-Happy Triumphant Prosperous Victory Ninja.
Because the dude just sat there. He just sat there and trusted.
His friends were all bugging him and pushing him and telling him what to do. No doubt one of them handed him a copy of Your Best Life Now. And what did Job say? (Man, this guy rocked. And he didn’t do anything! Just sat there all ash-headed and what-not.) He said, “Shall I accept good from God and not trouble?” (My paraphrase.)

So, yeah, The Gospel-Driven Life will be for the rest of us. It will be for the neurotic and the pathological, for the broken and the wounded, for the irritated and the unmotivated, for the guilty and the ashamed, for the proud and the self-deprecating, for the doormats and the martyrs, for the worried and the ignorant, for the poor, the middle-class, the rich, and P. Diddy.

You know, because the Bible says the good news is for sinners. And that’s me. I don’t know who these other books are for, but they’re not for people like me. And the churches they are spawning and feeding and being spawned and fed from are not for people like me either.
The Gospel-Driven Life will be for people who are broken and/or imperfect, including those who don’t know it yet, as well as for those whose kids aren’t perfectly behaved at the supermarket. A book about God’s presence and love in the midst of doubt, wandering, suffering, losing, worrying, not measuring up, sinning, and grocery store tantrums would be Good News, wouldn’t it?

So I’ll write that someday.

But those who suffer he delivers in their suffering; he speaks to them in their affliction. -- Job 36.15

(The image is a watercolor by Turkish-Canadian artist Atanur Dogan.)

The Dust of Your Rabbi: A Pig-Pen Discipleship

2005-08-02T10:34:00.000-07:00

[F]irst-century Jews had a blessing that beautifully expresses the commitment of a disciple to stay in the presence of the one he followed: "May you always be covered by the dust of your rabbi." That is, "May you follow him so closely that the dust his feet kicks up is what cakes your clothing and lines your face."
-- John Ortberg, God is Closer Than You Think

I love that saying, and I love the image it provokes. Staying so close to the one you're following that at the end of the day, you're covered in the dust he's kicked up.
It reminds me of the Peanuts character, Pig-Pen. Remember him? The cute little guy who walked around in a constantly churning cloud of dust? Applying that image to the ancient Jewish blessing, I would hope my life of discipleship to Jesus makes me a spiritual Pig-Pen, awash and a'mess in the orbit of the Lord's dusty trail.

But I know I'm not. In those terms, I'm relatively clean. Sometimes I'm following Jesus from a respectable distance. I can see the dust he's kicking up on the horizon, keeping it in eyesight but following it cautiously, maybe like the Israelites followed the cloud of YHWH in the desert.
Other times, I'm so far behind, I can't see it at all. I might as well be lost. I come to a fork in the road, and I can't follow Jesus because I don't know which direction he went. My mind plays tricks on me; I can see wisps of smoke in the distance, clouds of dusts sent up faintly over the landscape's splintered line by other travellers, others who are not the Rabbi but might be mistaken for him since I'm so far away.
Getting far away and make one desperate to follow anything that looks like it might be the right thing.

My feet have closely followed his steps; I have kept to his way without turning aside.
-- Job 23.11

I wish.

But it stands to reason that if I'm right up next to Jesus' back, I'll get a glimpse of God's backside glory. If I'm sticking close, I can match his pace, see what he's looking at, smell the sweat on his arms -- like a nosy son up under his busy dad's feet, precocious and curious and imitative.

". . . Who is he who will devote himself to be close to me?" declares the LORD.
-- Jeremiah 30.21c

I want to be so close as to get dirty in the stir Jesus is making. I want to be filthy with his presence.

Trust

2005-07-28T10:39:00.000-07:00

Most of us have heard the common parallelism that because children's views of God are developed initially and primarily through the lens of their parents, specifically their fathers, a huge burden of responsibility lay upon those fathers not to raise children with warped or distorted views of the heavenly Father.

But I think this idea is more universal than child-parent. In almost any situation where one believer is urging a weaker brother or sister to exercise more faith, that exercise can be surprisingly affected by the strength of the one doing the urging.

To put it more bluntly: It can be hard for someone to obey your urging for them to trust God if they're not even sure they can trust you.

It shouldn't necessarily be that way, especially since we're all imperfect, we all sin. But just as children develop whatever level of trust they have in God through the lens of their parents, weaker or less mature brothers and sisters in Christ may falter simply because the one urging them on is not steady himself. (Yes, not one of us is perfectly steady, but hopefully you get what I mean.)

Trust begets trust.
Be a trustworthy person so that you may glorify the trustworthiness of God.

Repentance and Virtue

2005-07-28T10:28:00.000-07:00

Gary Thomas is one of my very favorite contemporary writers. (His Center for Evangelical Spirituality site is linked in my sidebar.) In fact, if you're married, you should read Sacred Marriage, if you're a parent, you should read Sacred Parenting, and if you're a Christian, you should read Authentic Faith.
There -- that should cover the bases. ;-)

Today the Jollyblogger highlights a good article by Thomas titled "Repentance and Virtue."
Do check it out.

Good Ideas

2005-07-25T11:04:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, while I was in Houston, I was waiting for some friends outside a coffee shop. Across the street I could see a homeless man sitting under a tree in the lawn outside a retail shop. It was raining. As plain as such a thing can be, I felt the urge to go talk to the man. I don’t know what I should have said, and “street evangelism” is not a habit of mine, but I could really sense God would like me to go talk to the man about himself and then about Jesus. It wasn’t really a command I was feeling; as far as I could tell, it was an idea of my own devising, although I would not deny the Holy Spirit’s nudging. But it was, basically, a good idea.
I didn’t do it. And ever since I have wondered if God has been withholding some of Himself from me because of the part of Himself I refused to share with a stranger in need. It’s not the first time in my life I have had a good idea and let it pass unrealized. And these aren’t just good ideas – these are ideas that are good, if you catch my meaning.

I came across this great parable from The Shepherd of Hermas in my readings of the Apostolic Fathers a while back:

"Hear the parable which I shall tell thee relating to fasting.
A certain man had an estate, and many slaves, and a portion of his estate he planted as a vineyard; and choosing out a certain slave who was trusty and well-pleasing (and) held in honor, he called him to him and saith unto him; "Take this vineyard [which I have planted], and fence it [till I come], but do nothing else to the vineyard. Now keep this my commandment, and thou shalt be free in my house." Then the master of the servant went away to travel abroad.

When then he had gone away, the servant took and fenced the vineyard; and having finished the fencing of the vineyard, he noticed that the vineyard was full of weeds. So he reasoned within himself, saying, "This command of my lord I have carried out, [but] I will next dig this vineyard, and it shall be neater when it is digged; and when it hath no weeds it will yield more fruit, because not choked by the weeds." He took and digged the vineyard, and all the weeds that were in the vineyard he plucked up. And that vineyard became very neat and flourishing, when it had no weeds to choke it.

After a time the master of the servant [and of the estate] came, and he went into the vineyard. And seeing the vineyard fenced neatly, and digged as well, and [all] the weeds plucked up, and the vines flourishing, he rejoiced [exceedingly] at what his servant had done.

So he called his beloved son, who was his heir, and the friends who were his advisers, and told them what he had commanded his servant, and how much he had found done. And they rejoiced with the servant at the testimony which his master had borne to him. And he saith to them; "I promised this servant his freedom, if he should keep the commandment which I commanded him; but he kept my commandment and did a good work besides to my vineyard, and pleased me greatly. For this work therefore which he has done, I desire to make him joint-heir with my son, because, when the good thought struck him, he did not neglect it, but fulfilled it."

Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin.
-- James 4:17 (NRSV)

Tobacconist Theology, Part Four: Burnt Offering

2005-07-21T10:09:00.000-07:00

The late great Princeton-trained theologian M.B. Jackson, who happened to be my religious studies professor in college, was a daily pipe smoker. Whenever he would give our class a test, he would excuse himself to the front steps of the building by saying, “If anyone needs me, I’ll be outside sending up a burnt offering.”

I thought it a clever joke then. Now I believe he meant it.
I have pondered the interesting parallels between our sanctification and the making, preparing, and smoking of a good cigar. Dr. Jackson’s witticism has inspired this bit of free-form verse:
---

With a gentle violence
I am fashioned for your pleasure.
Like Abraham, I am cut.
Like Isaiah, I am burned.
Like Job, I am given breath.
In this needful destruction
I find the joy and purpose of my making.

I am drawn.

Grown to the fullness of time,
I have been cut down, splayed out, hung up.
And brought to life again in your hands.
Open, aflame, filled with your spirit,
Coaxed and cradled, the overflow of my life
Is but the incense of yours.

I am a burnt offering.

Tobacconist Theology, Part Three: The Glory of God

2005-07-20T10:22:00.000-07:00

The Prince of Preachers, Charles Spurgeon, was an almost daily cigar smoker. This practice obviously raised the ire of many of Spurgeon's brethren. Phillip Johnson has devoted an interesting page to the Reverend's favorite pasttime in his online Spurgeon Archive: Spurgeon's Love of Fine Cigars.

One of the more famous anecdotes is an exchange that occurred when Spurgeon and Dwight Pentecost shared a tabernacle stage one Sunday evening in 1874. At the end of his address, Pentecost implicitly indicted Spurgeon's love for cigars by testifying to his own surrendering of them to the Lord. Spurgeon's response is classic.

Here's the tale reported by Christian World Magazine in September of 1874:

[Pentecost] said that some years ago, he had had the cry awakened in his heart, "Quicken Thou me." He desired to be more completely delivered from sin, and he prayed that God would show him anything which prevented his more complete devotion to Him. He was willing, he thought, to give up anything or everything if only he might realise the desire of his heart.

"Well," said he, amidst the profound silence and attention of the immense congregation, "what do you think it was that the Lord required of me? He did not touch me in my church, my family, my property, or my passions. But one thing I liked exceedingly—the best cigar which could be bought."

He then told us that the thought came into his mind, could he relinquish this indulgence, if its relinquishment would advance his piety? He tried to dismiss the idea as a mere fancy or scruple, but it came again and again to him, and he was satisfied that it was the still small voice which was speaking. He remembered having given up smoking by the wish of his ministerial brethren, when he was twenty-one years of age, for four years. But then, he had resumed the habit, for he declared during that four years he never saw or smelt a cigar which he did not want to smoke. How, however, he felt it to be his duty to give it up again, and so unequal did he feel to the self-denial, that he "took his cigar-box before the Lord," and cried to Him for help. This help he intimated had been given, and the habit renounced.

Mr. Spurgeon, whose smoking propensities are pretty well known, instantly rose at the conclusion of Mr. Pentecost's address, and, with a somewhat playful smile, said:
"Well, dear friends, you know that some men can do to the glory of God what to other men would be sin. And notwithstanding what brother Pentecost has said, I intend to smoke a good cigar to the glory of God before I go to bed to-night. If anybody can show me in the Bible the command, 'Thou shalt not smoke,' I am ready to keep it; but I haven't found it yet. I find ten commandments, and it's as much as I can do to keep them; and I've no desire to make them into eleven or twelve.

"The fact is, I have been speaking to you about real sins, not about listening to mere quibbles and scruples. At the same time, I know that what a man believes to be sin becomes a sin to him, and he must give it up. 'Whatsoever is not of faith is sin' [Rom. 14:23], and that is the real point of what my brother Pentecost has been saying.
"Why, a man may think it a sin to have his boots blacked. Well, then, let him give it up, and have them whitewashed. I wish to say that I'm not ashamed of anything whatever that I do, and I don't feel that smoking makes me ashamed, and therefore I mean to smoke to the glory of God."

Can a cigar be smoked to the glory of God?
For that matter, can a yard be mowed, can a race be run, can a picture be painted, can a house be built, can a plane be flown, can a post be blogged, etc etc, to the glory of God?

"You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink." -- G.K. Chesterton

In so far as smoking a cigar is an enjoyment and appreciation of God’s good gift of tobacco – with all the godly rumination that goes along with it – it is an act of worship, and can therefore be exercised to the glory of God.
In fact, there is much about cigars and the smoking of them that inspires thoughts of God and His glory. But that is for tomorrow's installment . . .

Tobacconist Theology, Part Two: Work and Rest

2005-07-19T12:06:00.000-07:00

"God saw all that he had made, and it was very good . . . By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done." -- Genesis 1:31, 2:2-3

Many people, and I am often one of them, believe work itself is a curse. But it’s not. Adam and Eve, by all indications, worked in the garden before the Fall. The curse of their sin, in relation to their efforts, was that work was (and is now) done “through painful toil" and by "the sweat of the brow.” (Similarly, we don’t think of childbirth itself as a curse. But the pain accompanying it certainly is.)

Work is a good thing. But so is rest.
And the way God has set up the world to work is that we can’t have one without the other, and the latter must be earned.
Six days of work. And on the seventh, rest.

The Sabbath rest isn’t just meant as a recovery period, a way to recuperate from the week’s effort (although it is that, no doubt). No, the Sabbath is also meant as a day to reflect on our work and our life, to declare it (and the God who commissions it) “good.” The Sabbath is for our enjoyment as much as it is for our recuperation. But, again, the rest cannot be properly enjoyed until the rest has been earned.

Lots of time and work goes into the creation of a single fine cigar.
Aside from the consideration of ideal conditions, the entire planting, growing, harvesting, curing, and other preparing can take several years.
And then the rolling. Good cigar rollers in the best factories have really made this part of the creation of a stogie into an art. Roll the cigar too loose, and the cigar will fall apart, lose its filler. Roll the cigar too tight, and it may not “breathe” properly, which means it may not burn right or it may dry out too quickly or it may not allow a good draw from the smoker’s lips. An unevenly rolled cigar may burn unevenly, and any serious cigar smoker can attest to how frustrating the ashy “overbite” an uneven cigar can be.

Cigars are a luxury, no doubt. They are a gift and a reward. They are things to be enjoyed (in moderation, naturally). But for the gift, reward, and enjoyment of a cigar to approximate perfection, lots of work must precede.

So rest and enjoyment must be earned, and therefore preceded, by work.
But it’s possible to work too much. It’s possible to work so hard that rest is neither restful nor enjoyable. (It’s also possible to negate real rest by working for the wrong things or for the wrong reasons.)
Sometimes when we are working too hard, we take our Sabbath begrudgingly, and consequently it is not enjoyable as it should be.
Sometimes when we are working too hard, we forget to take our Sabbath altogether, and rest is eventually forced upon us, and consequently is it not as restful as it should be.

Several years ago, when we were making our move from an apartment to our first home, we were trying to achieve the benefit of a loophole in our apartment lease by moving out in two days so that another family could move in. At the same time, I was studying for finals and working at a bookstore. We both worked to our limits for those two days, barely eating and not really sleeping. When we had finally moved the last box into the house early in the morning of the day we were to be out of the apartment, I went straight to work.
Five minutes after arriving, I went into shock and collapsed on the bookstore salesfloor.
My mentor-pastor Mike Ayers, after hearing about this incident, told me that sometimes our bodies force us to Sabbath. I had worked too hard without taking an enjoyable rest, and I was forced into a rest that was neither enjoyable nor restful.

On the flip side, it’s possible to take rest we haven’t earned. I do this every time I try to create an ideal scenario of sitting out on the deck to smoke a cigar in the cool weather. The activity rarely lives up to the feeling the idea conjures up beforehand. I tried this a few times when I was in Houston. When the rain would come, and when I had available time, I would go out onto my in-laws’ covered porch with a book and a stogie. Every time I found myself impatient with how long it was taking to “finish up.” I couldn’t for some reason just sit there and enjoy the cigar and the rest it symbolizes.
Because I was on vacation. I was already resting. The added rest of the “cigar on the porch” getaway wasn’t earned. It was indulgent.

Laziness is just unearned rest.

But on the flip side of that, I have found the “cigar on the porch” getaway most enjoyable and restful after an extraordinarily long week, and especially after I have spent several hours working in the yard. After mowing, trimming, pulling weeds, watering plants, and blowing off the driveway and sidewalk, it is nice to sit back with a glass of iced tea and a nice little cigar and just look at the work I’ve finished.
That is rest I’ve earned. And that I’ve incorporated looking out on the good results of the cleaned, manicured lawn is probably the primary reason why this rest is better. Because the rest is for reflecting on the fruits of my labor and enjoying the rest that has been earned.

There is even work that goes into the rest itself!
If my deck is cluttered or dirty, finding rest there is not really possible.
And my biggest problem, cigar-wise, is keeping my humidor maintained. Proper cigar storage involves a quality humidor (preferably lined with cedar, preferably Spanish cedar) in which one must maintain the proper temperature and proper humidity.
My problem is that I sometimes let weeks go by without refilling the humidifier, so by the time I’m ready to enjoy a cigar, it’s too dry to really be worth it.

I am fortunate to have received, over the last two weeks, five cigars from a place Americans aren’t supposed to have cigars from. Nevertheless, three different parties were kind enough to bless me with these much-sought-after treasures. For years after dabbling in stogies, I wondered if a C____ cigar really was worth all the hype. (It is, by the way.) And I always assumed I’d never be able to find out. C____ cigars are for the wealthy or the privileged (or for those living overseas ;-). Now I have four resting side by side in my best humidor. (I smoked one in Houston.) I have been tempted lately to smoke them “just because.” Because smoking a C____ cigar has a certain cache all in itself.

But I haven’t earned it yet. I’m saving them for when I complete various stages in the novel. And until then, I am having to remember to keep an eye on the humidor, so that when the time comes, the enjoyment of them will be worth the wait, worth that delayed gratification.

Before Grace was up this morning, I managed to get a load of dishes in the washer, put some clothes away, take out the trash, edit a chapter in my novel, help Macy put a puzzle together, and eat breakfast.
After I’d gotten Grace out of bed, I felt like it was time to just sit in my chair for a few minutes and watch the girls play. A song came on “Sesame Street” that encouraged them to dance, and both of them responded by twirling, whirling, and shimmy-shaking around the living room. It was a glorious sight, and I was able to watch them with pride and wonder, enjoying the work that has gone into raising two beautiful, joyful children.For some reason, I don’t think I would have enjoyed that sight quite so much if I hadn’t done some of that work before Grace was up. It didn’t take me all that long to accomplish what I did this morning, but in doing it, I felt as though I earned the enjoyment of the rest that resulted.

All of the good things God has given us, whether things we consider necessary or unnecessary (e.g. children or cigars), he has given as fruits of our labor. They are blessings nonetheless and reminders that there is no fruit without that labor.
Sometimes the fruit is itself a labor (e.g.children!), but that is only because work is good and rest must be earned. The former is not a curse. And the latter is not a vice.

(And of course the end of curse and vice is the risen Christ, the firstfruit of our future resurrection and the perfect rest from our toil and His own good work.)

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." -- Matthew 11:28

(The lady in the image at top is a Cuban cigar roller. She appears to be enjoying her work. ;-)

Tobacconist Theology, Part One: Ideal Conditions

2005-07-17T19:46:00.000-07:00

"I don't care what anybody says. I know it's a matter of taste, but as far as I'm concerned, this is something that not even the Communists have been able to screw up. It's the best tobacco in the world. There's no comparison. This is not to put anybody else's down. I've looked into it. I've studied it. It's like Bordeaux grapes. You can try growing them in California, but they're not the same. They've taken Cuban seed to Jamaica and Honduras, but it just isn't the same."
-- radio pundit Rush Limbaugh on why the best tobacco comes from Cuba, in a Cigar Aficionado interview

This brings us to the conditions under which premium cigar tobacco is grown. Producing first-class cigar tobacco is an exacting process. Growing the stuff requires using the right seed and having the right weather and the right soil. And that's only the beginning. After harvest, the leaves have to be cured (dried), fermented and aged properly. The entire process can take up to two years. Tobacco grows fastest with at least 3 or 4 inches of rainfall a month during the growing season and temperatures around 80 F (27 C). However, those conditions are not conducive to optimum quality of cigar tobacco, which requires less rain and somewhat lower temperatures.

What's so special about Cuba? Tobacco is grown in many parts of the island, but the best comes from a small region called Vuelta Abajo tucked between the Sierra de los Órganos and the Golfo de Batabano in the westernmost province, Pinar del Río. This is the wettest region in Cuba, receiving about 60 to 80 inches of rainfall annually. Normally that much rain would be ruinous to tobacco crops, but in Cuba tobacco is grown during the dry season (November-April), when rainfall averages less than 2 inches a month. The unusual combination of moderately moist sandy loam soil, high relative humidity, and moderately low but dependable rainfall during the growing season, together with warm (but not excessively hot) temperatures and little wind, is what makes Vuelta Abajo special.

-- from a Straight Dope article on growing tobacco

Cuban cigars are cherished not (just) because of the "contraband coolness" factor, but because Cuba really does make the best cigars in the world. Experts and aficionados agree that there is something unique about the sun, soil, and atmosphere in Cuba -- not to mention the long history and cultural identity -- that make it the ideal place for premium tobacco.
For the appreciaters of fine cigars, it really does seem that God made Cuba especially for tobacco. If you want to plant, grow, harvest, cure, and roll the best stogie -- the ideal conditions for your task are in the land of Habana.

Ideal conditions.
God has designed us for such a place, as well. We have ideal conditions collectively, and we have ideal conditions individually.

And even apart from the general ideal conditions for individual disciples, I believe there are still more specific conditions for which God has designed each of us.
Most of us, I would guess, are living in less than ideal conditions. But God can still make it work. We can still grow.

The ideal conditions for each Christian person or family may include the right neighborhood, the right church, the right town, perhaps even the right country. Some of us are in the right places for us on all of the above. Some of us are still looking for the right place to grow. Some of us aren't growing at all (although sometimes that has nothing to do with the conditions we live in).
But for most of us, there are certain places God wants us, places God has designed for us, and us for the places.
And for all of us, there is a certain "place" God wants us to be to best grow as one of His children.

You can get really good non-Cuban cigars. Some good brands actually grow Cuban seed in the Dominican Republic or Nicauragua. And there are many cigars that have no organic connection to Cuba whatsoever. Stateside, good farmers in Connecticut, Maryland, and Tennessee grow quality tobacco.
But if you want the very best . . .

It's possible to grow in Christ in less than ideal conditions, in places we know is not the best place to be or not the place we were meant to be. And there's no need to get frantic or paranoid about it. But if we're growing in the wrong place, I suspect we'd be fairly restless or feel vaguely unfulfilled, knowing that if we want God's best . . .

The ideal place for growing in Christ has good soil, plenty of water, and lots of light.

Praise awaits you, O God, in Zion; to you our vows will be fulfilled.
O you who hear prayer, to you all men will come.
When we were overwhelmed by sins, you forgave our transgressions.
Blessed are those you choose and bring near to live in your courts!
We are filled with the good things of your house, of your holy temple.
You answer us with awesome deeds of righteousness,
O God our Savior, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas,
who formed the mountains by your power, having armed yourself with strength,
who stilled the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves, and the turmoil of the nations.

Those living far away fear your wonders; where morning dawns and evening fades you call forth songs of joy.

You care for the land and water it; you enrich it abundantly.
The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so you have ordained it.
You drench its furrows and level its ridges; you soften it with showers and bless its crops.
You crown the year with your bounty, and your carts overflow with abundance.
The grasslands of the desert overflow; the hills are clothed with gladness.
The meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are mantled with grain; they shout for joy and sing.

-- Psalm 65 (NIV)

Photo at top is by Abigail Seymour.

Houston

2005-07-07T17:18:00.000-07:00

We live in a beautiful world
Yeah we do, yeah we do . . .
-- Coldplay

I am visiting family and friends in Houston right now, a city I only lived in for about five years starting in the tenth grade but which I nonetheless consider my hometown.

Last night I had a great dinner of Tex-Mex with my mentor-pastor Mike Ayers. We talked about Jesus, which is usually what we talk about, and the subject never fails to excite us. Fresh from that passionate conversation, I drove around a bit as night began to fall on Northwest Houston. This city is not much to look at; you have to know where to go to find the natural beauty. We brought a friend for Christmas two years ago, and she was shocked to actually see trees here. Once we showed her the right places, she conceded that Houston is indeed beautiful.
But you have to know where -- and how to look.

No one in their right mind would choose to live here. People live here by necessity, and the people who live here out of compulsion (or, like me, don't live here but still feel that compulsion) want to live here because of some emotional or familial connection to the place. In my case, the connection is also ecclesiological.
But it's not much to look at. It is concrete and steel. Dense traffic. Nice new upscale stores on FM 1960 jammed butt-up against old dilapidated stores. The streets are lined with restaurants and you could eat at a different place every night of the year if you wanted to.

And the heat. My goodness, man, the heat. I laugh at people in Tennessee when they complain about the heat there.

I have been told that Houston has not had rain in over a month. So the place is sticky-wet with humidity, but the grass is browning and the trees are starving. The place needs a cool-down rain.

After I stopped off at my in-laws' home after dinner last night, I headed back out for some coffee. It started to rain. I felt privileged to be here for the rain that ended the drought.

I saw people scattering. The lady at the coffee shop drive-thru said something to me that escapes me right now, but it blessed me somehow.

You know that people are hurting, right?
People in real life.
And a blogospheric conversation was fresh on my mind last night; it was about hurt too.
So I'm driving around in "ugly" Northwest Houston, watching the lights of evening shimmer on the wet streets, thinking about everybody I know who's hurting or who has recently experienced a hurt and everyone I drive by -- in cars, on the sidewalk, in their driveways or yards as I pull back into my family's neighborhood -- I'm looking at their faces.

I'm looking at their faces and thinking about hurt and thinking about the Jesus talk I just had with my old pastor.
And Coldplay is in my CD player, and Chris Martin is singing "We live in a beautiful world, yeah we do, yeah we do."
And I almost started crying, because I believed it. In hot, humid, gross, concrete-and-steel ugly Northwest Houston I believed the world was beautiful because wherever you go there are people made in God's image and there are people Jesus died for and there are people who live lives and think thoughts completely outside my selfish life and mind.

Today I went up to the church I (sort of) grew up in. I was a teenager in the youth group there. I worked maintenance there from the time I was of employable age to the week we moved away to Tennessee. I also ministered there for a couple of years after graduation.
Some people know this but this church, which began as a place of promise and growth for me, eventually became a place I couldn't wait to escape. It became a place of incredible heartache for me, of experiences I can only describe as spiritual and emotional abuse.

I have posted recently about forgiveness. It is a troubling concept for me.
A couple of years ago one of the people at this church who was most responsible for some of the deepest hurt and disillusionment I have experienced suffered a moral fall. When I heard the news I was intrigued by the fact that I didn't feel any sense of vindication. I suppose that, without knowing it, I had grown past that. A year or so earlier, and I probably would have taken some sort of perverse pleasure in knowing that someone who caused me such pain was now "getting his." But that didn't happen. Learning the news didn't surprise me (for reasons I won't go into), but I was actually saddened by it. Whatever confirmation it provided about this man's character, it was not a pleasing confirmation.
That was an unexpected test of my conviction that I had forgiven him.

In the years since I left that church, I have always been reluctant to go back and visit. This has been hard to explain, because 1) I have so many friends and family who still go and serve there, and 2) the church has changed so much since I've been gone. It is not really the same place.

But it's the same building. (And one other staff member who was/is more difficult to forgive is still there.) The few times I've walked in to visit (I've never attended a service there since leaving) I have really been tested emotionally and spiritually. A lot of bad memories come back. I remember which hallway I was in when I wanted to throw a chair through a window because of something said to me. I remember which office I was in when someone said something really hurtful to me.
The wall color has changed. The offices have been rearranged. Heck, the whole place has grown enormously, with added wings and buildings and bubbling fountains. But the same voices are there, especially the ones that the building puts in my head.

I don't remember the last time I visited, but the minister who eventually "fell" had not fallen yet and was still there. It was just my luck that we happened to cross paths. In the span of probably a three minute conversation, in which he did nearly all of the talking, he told me about two different ministries he gives money to and managed to work in a passive-aggressive jab at the church I joined after leaving his.

Having that conversation with a man who caused me so much pain in a buidling I really didn't want to visit in the first place was enough to make me decide when I left never to set foot in there again. I mean, I knew that wasn't realistic, but if I was serious about forgiving people and getting past hurts from my past and staying away from bitterness, I figured it was in my best interest not to go back again.

Today I visited the church. Just like the time I got the news that the minister had fallen, I was intrigued by the fact that I remained calm. I didn't have to tell myself to do so; I just did.

My brother and a few of my friends are on staff there. They showed me around a bit. I had never seen the inside of the "new" sanctuary.
I let my brother and my good friend Rob show off some of the stuff they had been doing -- displays and brochures and other handiwork. I let them tell me about the lighting and the way messages are burned on CD now (not recorded on tape) and about the outdoor baptistry.

And beyond that, I let them -- I let myself -- reminisce. We stood in the front atrium, a place that was there when I was there (so much of the structure has changed since I'd been gone), and talked about old times. They led me around the building and we looked at what had changed and what hadn't.
It felt . . . okay.
I was glad to be doing it.

I saw that the stair railing I painted had not been repainted or covered. The wood I had sanded and varnished remained. Carpet I helped lay was still down in some areas.
I saw that a piece of the life I lived there remained. The good piece.

(Is this making any sense? I know I'm rambling.)

I also learned that the place has changed just enough that I like what what part of myself still lingers there and I am interested in the parts that are there that had nothing to do with me and I am unhaunted by the bad memories I had of the place.

As I left, I was saying goodbye to the receptionist who had been there since before my family even joined the church. Before my "tour," I had talked with her about old times, old bosses, old funny memories of working there together. As I was making my perfunctory goodbye pleasantries, she said somewhat abruptly, "You know my Bobbby died, didn't you?"
I did, actually. Bobby was her husband, a great big teddy bear of a man that everybody loved. I learned of his death the week it happened from my mother in law.

"Yes," I said.
"December 20," (I think) she said. "But it's still with me." (That's not exactly what she said, but she was indicating that she was still struggling with it.)
I didn't know what to say. She was looking at me, looking for a response. I don't know if she expected something special since we have a history of sorts, of if she has been doing this to everyone and was just still releasing. I felt awkward. What do you say to an older lady who's suddenly without warning reminded you her husband died and she's still dealing with the pain?

She added more detail. "He was 65."
"That's young these days," I offered. I was trying to think of something.
"I know," she said. "Just poof. He died before he hit the floor.

How do you respond to that? What could I say that wouldn't sound lame but that would still be somewhat comforting? As I'm trying to leave! Is there any graceful way to offer encouragement and comfort and then leave?
I told her that we'd be praying for her. We exchanged another awkward goodbye. I think I added a "Take care," and then I left.
---

People are hurting. Seriously. I've just been burdened about this so-obvious-I've-missed-it fact in the last month or so.
But Jesus still excites those who love and are trying to follow him.

It's a beautiful world where the wounded people are, in the places where wounds are made. But only if you see Jesus in those people, be Jesus to those people. And follow Jesus to those places.

Mike Ayers's "life verse" is the one in Matthew (too lazy to look it up) where Jesus sees the crowd and had compassion for them because they were all sheep without a shepherd.

If we love Jesus -- wherever we live and whatever we've been through -- we live in a beautiful world.
Yeah we do.

Prayer

2005-06-30T11:37:00.000-07:00

I believe I've mentioned on this site before that my prayer life suffers from willful neglect. I say "willful" even though superficially it is "accidental." What I mean is, I don't purposefully say "I'm not going to pray much this week (or at all today)," but I might as well. The end result is the same.
I've also mentioned, in that same previous post I think, that while I don't commit to purposeful times of prayer, I do talk to God all the time. Since high school (that's as far back as I can trace it), I've been directing what psychologists call my "inner monologue" Godward. So I talk to God all the time, and in a very real way, I do believe I pray without ceasing.
But it's not the same as focused, deliberate prayer; it's not the same as, shut out the world and all distractions and be still enough to pray and to listen.

So a couple of weeks or so ago, I told God I wanted to pray more deliberately but that I needed help. In no time at all, I began to receive e-mails and other sorts of indications from friends that were having various types of trouble. I hesitate to be specific, just for the sake of privacy, but most of these folks were dealing most heavily not with the troubling circumstances they found themselves in, but with how those circumstances are affecting them. Doubt, depression, faithlessness, fear, despair. These are big things for mere mortals.

In most cases, I could identify with my friends, and so I have committed to share their burdens, even if just in prayer. I had asked God for help in making my prayer more intentional, and He responded by sending me the burdens of friends to bear. (I even traded prayer burdens with one dear friend, committing to pray for him every day while he did the same for me. In that way, neither of us would feel like we were whining daily to God selfishly about ourselves but we still both were having our cares cast upon God.)

I didn't set this up on purpose, but as I was winding down the few books I wanted to finish before starting the two BIG books I have been planning to read over the summer, I have now ended up with two stragglers -- both are books on prayer.

I'm still struggling with deliberate prayer, but one of my strengths (or one of my faults, depending on how you look at it, or upon how I express it) is loyalty to my friends. I have remained true to praying for these people every day not really because my prayer life has been turned around, but because I don't want to let a friend down! How's that for accidental growth?

One thing I have worked out somewhat is not to get discouraged or distracted when prayer is difficult. Sometimes, especially when one is rusty, it can be hard to pray, hard to sense that the words are making it all the way up to God. There is no automatic relief or exhilaration in the prayers of a prodigal intercessor. But I am beginning to believe that prayer is supposed to be difficult, and that actual strength is found precisely in this difficulty. Perhaps at no other time is my faith more true and strong than when my prayers falter, God appears silent, and yet I keep believing He is there.
It is easy to have faith when all is well and prayer comes easy and God's blessings are raining down unavoidable. But there is strong faith to be found when one keeps trusting even though life is troubled and prayer is hard and God's favor is hard to find.

Forgiveness

2005-06-30T07:19:00.000-07:00

If you deny others forgiveness, you are denying the presence of the Kingdom of God. Forgiving one another is a sign of the kingdom, and when we do not practice it, or when we practice it begrudgingly, we are expressing distrust in the King and disbelief in His kingdom.

From N.T. Wright's The Lord and His Prayer:

[H]aving received God's forgiveness themselves, they were to practice it amongst themselves. Not to do so would mean they hadn't grasped what was going on. As soon as someone in one of these Jesus-cells refused to forgive a fellow-member, he or she was saying, in effect, "I don't really believe the Kingdom has arrived. I don't think the Forgiveness of Sins has actually occurred." Failure to forgive one another wasn't a matter of failing to live up to a new bit of moral teaching. It was cutting off the branch you were sitting on. The only reason for being Kingdom-people, for being Jesus' people, was that the forgiveness of sins was happening; so if you didn't live forgiveness, you were denying the very basis of your own new existence.

The two clauses "forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors" and "thy kingdom come" in the Lord's Prayer are more connected than we realize.

In previous blogospheric discussions on forgiveness, I have had people express the need for the other's repentance before forgiveness can be properly given. I think there is some truth to that, but I fear making my forgiveness of someone so conditional. It smacks of gracelessness. My God saved me "while I was yet a sinner" -- indeed, because of my own personal theology, I don't believe I could have repented of my sins until God first freed me from them. So just as a personal stance, I would think myself an arrogant grace-denier if I denied forgiveness to those who have sinned against me until their level of contrition pleased me.

I want to forgive not because the forgiven "earns" it, but because the kingdom necessitates it.

Inability to Love

2005-06-27T09:46:00.000-07:00

From John Ortberg’s The Life You’ve Always Wanted:

“The most serious sign of hurry sickness is a diminished capacity to love. Love and hurry are fundamentally incompatible. Love always takes time, and time is one thing hurried people don’t have.”

Apology

2005-06-13T13:36:00.000-07:00

Sorry for not having posted here in the last week or so. Real life has been very busy, and it is about to get busier. As we all know, busy-ness is not conducive to quietness. This interestingly illustrates one of the ironies of this purposefully quiet space -- if Shizuka Blog is quiet, it is because I am not.
I have quite a few ideas for the site queued up, and have even partially composed a few posts, so once things slow down in real life, I will definitely be back exploring quiet with you here. Thanks for your patience.

Conversations

2005-06-07T10:29:00.000-07:00

During the car ride to church this morning. Me, Macy (4), and Grace (almost 2).

Dada -- Oo, do you smell that skunk?
Macy -- Ew.
Dada -- It's stinky, huh?
(pause)
Macy -- Why do we need skunks?
Dada -- I don't know. God wanted to make skunks for some reason.
Macy -- Just for some reason?
Dada -- Yep.
(pause)
Macy -- But why do we need the sun?
Dada -- The sun? God made the sun so that we would have light to see things and so we could be warm and so the plants and trees and flowers can grow. If we didn't have the sun, the whole world would always be dark and we couldn't see. And we'd always be cold. And no pretty plants would grow.
(pause)
Grace -- Yeah!
---

This morning, the very first thing said when I got her up out of bed.

Macy -- I just have to give you a smooch, Dada, because I love you.

Sabbath

2005-06-05T20:37:00.000-07:00

From an excellent piece by Dallas Willard called "The Key to the Keys to the Kingdom":

What are some practices that will make "the keys" given in response to our faith in Jesus as Messiah effective in our lives as ministers? We strongly need to see the manifest hand of God in what we are and what we do. We need to be sure He is pulling the load, bearing the burden--which we are all too ready to assume is up to us alone. We must understand that He is in charge of the outcome of our efforts, and that the outcome will be good, right. And all of this is encompassed in one biblical term, "Sabbath."

The Sabbath, Jesus said, was made for man. (Mark 2:27) That is, it serves human life in essential ways. Without it, life cannot be what it should be. That is why it is given in the Ten Commandments, at the heart of the moral law. It is not something we have to do because God has arbitrarily required it of us, a pointless hoop He would have us jump through. It is His gift to us. At the same time it makes clear that our life and our ministry is also His gift to us.Sabbath is a way of life. (Heb. 4:3 & 9-11) It sets us free from bondage to our own efforts. Only in this way can we come to the power and joy of a radiant life in ministry, a blessing to all we touch. And yet Sabbath is almost totally absent from the existence of contemporary Christians and their ministers.
What is Sabbath? Biblically, it is a day, once a week, when we do no work. "Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work." (Ex 20:9-10) It was also a year, once every seven years, when God's covenant people not sow seed, prune vines or store up harvest. (Lev. 25:4-7) And to the question, "How are we going to eat in the seventh year?" God replied: "I will so order My blessing for you in the sixth year that it will bring forth the crop for three years." (vs. 21)
The moral principle certainly applies as well to our non-agrarian, contemporary life, though our faith will be greatly challenged in working out the details. Very practically, Sabbath is simply "casting your cares upon Him," to find that in actual fact "He cares for you." (I Peter 5:7) It is using of the keys to the kingdom to receive the resources for abundant living and ministering.

Constellation

2005-06-03T10:51:00.000-07:00

When I look up at the stars at night
What could I find beyond the light?
A hundred million worlds that we ignore.
Who can restrain Pleiades
Or know the laws of heavenlies?
How many times have we been wrong before?
-- from the song “Pleiades” by King’s X

I like that I live out where we can see the stars. I like stargazing, but I confess I always have trouble picking out the constellations. I like to think I have a pretty good imagination, but try as I might, I don’t see “figures.” I just see a bunch of stars.
What is seen when people – you and I or anybody else – look at the Church? Do they see a bunch of individual stars, some shining more brightly or dimly than others? Or do they see in all of the stars the shape of a figure?

Can you bind the beautiful Pleiades? Can you loose the cords of Orion?
Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs?
Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God's dominion over the earth?
-- Job 38.31-33 (NIV)

. . .On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.
-- Matthew 16.18b

(The image is of the Pleiades star cluster.)

The Windless Nights of June

2005-06-03T10:48:00.000-07:00

Out on the lawn I lie in bed,
Vega conspicuous overhead
In the windless nights of June;
Forests of green have done complete
The day’s activity; my feet
Point to the rising moon.

Lucky, this point in time and space
Is chosen as my working place;
Where the sexy airs of summer,
The bathing hours and the bare arms,
The leisured drives through a land of farms,
Are good to the newcomer.

Equal with colleagues in a ring
I sit on each calm evening,
Enchanted as the flowers
The opening light draws out of hiding
From leaves with all its dove-like pleading
Its logic and its powers.

from “‘Out on the lawn I lie in bed’ (To Geoffrey Hoyland)” by W.H. Auden

The painting, which admittedly does not depict enchanted flowers or forests of green, is West Texas Starry Night by American Plains artist Alice Leese.

Fasting as a Means of Sabbath-Taking

2005-06-01T20:47:00.000-07:00

Dallas Willard with some excellent words on fasting as a means of taking the Sabbath and experiencing the kingdom:

"Fasting is another long proven way of finding our way into Sabbath, where we live and do our work from the hand of God. In fasting we abstain from our ordinary food to some significant degree and for some significant length of time. Like solitude and silence, it is not done to impress God or merit favor, nor because there is anything wrong with food. Rather, it is done that we may consciously experience the direct sustenance of God to our body and our whole person. We are using the keys to access the kingdom.

This understanding of fasting is clearly indicated by Jesus in Matt. 4:4 (with its back reference to Deut. 8:2-6) and in John 4:32-34. Fasting is, indeed, feasting. When we have learned well to fast, we will not suffer from it. It will bring strength and joy. We will not be miserable, and so Jesus tells us not to look miserable. (Matt 6:16) Was he suggesting that we fake a condition of joy and sufficiency when we fast? Surely not. He knew that we would "have meat to eat" that others "know not of." I and many others can report that we have repeatedly verified this in experience.

Fasting is one way of seeking and finding the actual kingdom of God present and active in our lives. And because we are then more immersed in the reality of the kingdom, practically utilizing the "keys," our lives take on the character and power of Jesus. This will assure us that our work is his work and that he is working. Though we act, and work hard, it is after all not our battle and the outcome is in his hands."

Stillness

2005-06-01T10:51:00.000-07:00

Now then, stand still and see this great thing the LORD is about to do before your eyes!
-- 1 Samuel 12.16 (NIV)

One reason why I like (most) abstract paintings is because you actually have to look at them. You can’t just look at it and say, “Oh, it’s a country lane” and walk away as if you have really seen the work. With a good piece of abstract art (and, honestly, some of what goes for abstract is just rubbish), you actually have to look at the thing. There is contemplation, study, analysis involved.

And those tasks involve stillness. One obvious downside to the mass marketing of even classic works of art (I have a Starry Night magnet on my fridge) is that people actually stop looking at them. The cheapening of art fits well with our drive-thru culture.
Some people think we ought not to spend too much time with the mysteries and paradoxes of the Bible. Some people think the study of theology is not worth our time. I think this is largely because it involves disciplines that involve contemplation and analysis. It taxes our brains too much.
And it requires stillness.

We have so-called promise books (I have a few myself, including one right here on my desk) that compile hundreds of individual Scripture verses categorized according to encouraging or “positive” subjects. This is a good thing.
But this sort of one-stop shopping version of Bible study can get out of hand, especially if it becomes symptomatic of our need for instant answers and on-the-go behavior. Promise books are not marketed to still people.

If God has exhaustive future foreknowledge, do I really have free will?
If God is sovereign, how also is man responsible for his own sin?

Those are just two of the more obvious examples of theological conundrums believers have wrestled with for centuries. And there are plenty of folks today who would suggest we should just stop.This space is not designed to argue or debate those or any other theological issue. But I will take this opportunity to affirm the validity – the necessity -- of wrestling with the hard stuff of Scripture. Not just because if the Bible teaches something, we ought to do our best to make as much sense of it as we are able, but also because this contemplation encourages being still.

So much of the Bible can be so confusing. Abstract, even, particularly the poetic and prophetic portions. So let us not pass them by as too hard, too confusing, too demanding like we would an abstract painting in a museum. Let us be still and study. We still may not “figure it out,” but we have at least given it the focused attention the work requires and the contemplative stillness our heart desires.

You have seen many things, but have paid no attention; your ears are open, but you hear nothing . . . Which of you will listen to this or pay close attention in time to come?
-- Isaiah 42.20,23 (NIV)

(The painting above is of a Musketeer with Pipe. It is by Pablo Picasso.)

Isn't Either

2005-06-01T06:26:00.000-07:00

But the wisdom from above is first confusing, then disagreeable, harsh, unyielding, full of anger and irritation, without a trace of acceptance or equity.

Smiles

2005-06-01T06:19:00.000-07:00

This is a drawing Macy did yesterday. It is Dada surrounded by his girls. The fourth girl is Heidi, of course, silly. (The film adaptation with Shirley Temple is one of Macy's new faves.)

One thing I love about Macy's drawings is that the faces are always smiling. And she knows how to draw both sad faces and surprised faces, because I've practiced them with her. But she always chooses happy. That's comforting (and convicting) to me, because I worry sometimes that she sees Frustrated Daddy or Tired Daddy more than she sees Happy Daddy. But her drawings are a great indication of how she sees me. If that rendered smile ever starts to droop, I'll know something is wrong.

Links

2005-05-31T06:35:00.000-07:00

A couple of beauties from other bloggers:

Brad, The Broken Messenger, recently posted a remarkable piece connecting the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5.22-23) and the attributes of love (1 Corinthians 13). The parallels and Brad's explication of them are brilliant. There's so much that is quotable there, I'm tempted to excerpt the whole thing! Just go read The Supremacy of Love. You'll be blessed, enlightened, and glad you did.

Friend and fellow Thinkling Bill just posted at his solo blog, Out of the Bloo, a neat celebration of gentleness, a favorite virtue of Shizuka Blog. Here's an excerpt from The God Who Stoops:

"[T]he NIV renders the idea of God's gentleness [in 2 Samuel 22.36], 'You stoop down'. And, of course, our God does stoop down to lift us up. As any good parent knows, 'stooping' is a large part of raising small children. With little ones around, a great part of your day can be taken up in stooping - stooping down to look at the world from their level, stooping down to listen to the things that are important to them. We imbue our little ones with strength and power when we, in gentleness, stoop down and look them in the eye, embrace them, smile and tell them how loved they are, and encourage them that, yes, they can.

There is so much power in gentleness. Our Lord came to the world in gentleness, quietly and unobtrusively, and the heavenly host shouted as the shepherds hit the dirt, prostrate and trembling. And He exhibited the power of His gentleness throughout His life, touching and healing the sick, restoring the lame, welcoming the children. He was, by His own prophetic pronouncement, 'gentle and lowly'.

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. - Matthew 11:29

He was also, of course, the King, zealous for His Father's name; a truth-teller, fearless in the face of opposition. Our Lord Jesus: joyous and weeping, triumphant and weary, He was the Man of all men. In Him was unfathomable power veiled in human flesh; a burning, holy passion with a gentle touch for a world desperate for healing.

Jesus is the One who stooped down for us, and in doing so, gave us the privilege of being called the children of God. I praise and thank the God who stoops!"

To paraphrase the voice in Augustine's head, "Go and read."

Together

2005-05-31T06:08:00.000-07:00

Benton Shrine by Kawase Hasui:

"Awake, O north wind, and come, O south wind! Blow upon my garden that its fragrance may be wafted abroad. Let my beloved come to his garden, and eat [the] choicest fruits."
-- Song of Solomon 4.16 (NRSV)

"He has taken me to the banquet hall, and his banner over me is love."
-- Song of Solomon 2.4 (NIV)

Sabbath

2005-05-28T10:09:00.000-07:00

Don't just do something, sit there.

Silence

2005-05-27T06:26:00.000-07:00

“It is better to be silent and be real, than to talk and not be real.”
-- Ignatius, Letter to the Ephesians 15.1

The trouble is, I think, that too often our unnecessary verbosity and our untamed tongue really is us being "real." I think Ignatius is talking about boastful facades or lies or "talking ourselves up." But if what we say and how we say it are reflections of who we are, the unreigned speech, even if false in content, can still be us "being real."

How many times have you come across someone excusing their own insensitivity or insulting manner by claiming they are just "telling it like it is." They're just being "real" or "honest."
They're right -- they are telling you what they're like, what their real self is, the "honest" condition of their heart.
Most times, someone's unhinged tirade (or even passive-aggressive criticism) of you actually says more about them than it does you.

Sometimes you are (by which I mean "I am") in the place of the critical someone.
Sometimes it's just best to be silent. When we actively choose silence over unnecessary or unnecessarily critical speech, we reflect a real self that is actually worth boasting about.

Solitude

2005-05-26T13:42:00.000-07:00

You who live in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,
will say to the LORD, "My refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust."
-- Psalm 91.1-2 (NRSV)

The Bench of Saint-Rémy by Vincent Van Gogh:

During his stay at the asylum at Saint- Rémy, Van Gogh found obvious inspiration for his work in the garden (which Gerhard Gruitrooy calls “romantically neglected”). The garden likely attracted peace-seeking guards and inmates alike, but nearly all of Van Gogh’s renderings of it are unpopulated. Whether the space was busy or not, Van Gogh at least thought of it, as his paintings indicate, as a place of solitude and a source of quiet.

In the secret, in the quiet place
In the stillness You are there
In the secret, in the quiet hour
I wait only for You.
-- Andy Park, "In the Secret"

snapshot 2

2005-05-26T13:38:00.000-07:00

Mid-morning in the living room: Macy is in her denim Thinking Chair reading a Bible storybook, while Gracie and I are squeezed side-by-side into Dada's Chair. I'm reading Solzhenitsyn; Grace is "reading" the Three Little Pigs.

koan three

2005-05-26T05:47:00.000-07:00

"[A]ll who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted."
-- Luke 18.14b (NRSV)

(koan)

Armed with Gentleness

2005-05-26T05:43:00.000-07:00

In the Epistles of Ignatius, I found the fruit of gentleness written of in a rather peculiar way.
From his Letter to the Traillans:

I am sure that you agree with me regarding these matters, for I received a living example of your love, and still have it with me in the person of your bishop, whose very demeanor is a great lesson, whose gentleness is his power; I think that even the godless respect him . . .
Therefore I need gentleness, by which the ruler of this age is destroyed.

The ruler of this age is destroyed by . . . gentleness?

Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
-- Colossians 3.12 (NIV)

Through patience a ruler can be persuaded, and a gentle tongue can break a bone.
-- Proverbs 25.15 (NIV)

Weeds

2005-05-25T09:13:00.000-07:00

Insight from Dory at Wittenburg Gate: The Weeds in My Garden:

"The proper handling of that sin is in many ways analogous to the proper handling of weeds.

You must mind the roots. A careless gardener might tear away the green part of the weeds, leaving the roots beneath the soil, out of view. The garden may look better--at least for a little while--but the root is there ready to flourish again on another day.

If you don't weed often, the work is much harder. A tender dandelion is easy enough to pull from the soil. After only a week or so, however, its tap root has grown down several inches and extracting it becomes very difficult. Unattended sins become habits, our consciences become numb to them and extracting them from our lives becomes more difficult in time.
Weeds can crowd out the good things. Weeds rob resources, like nutrients and water from the good plants. They block out the sun.

Weeds beget weeds. Allow one dandelion to go to seed, and you now have hundreds of them. We have this wild feverfew growing in our flower beds. The roots spread out and one little plant soon has little children popping up around it in every direction. There is an old saying about the tangled web of deception that results from one little lie. So it is. Sins draw us in to other sins and sin begets sins. Bitterness begets hatred. Covetousness begets theft. Lust begets adultery. Then we lie to cover our sins. Then we lie to cover our lies.

Saying weeds aren't weeds doesn't make it so . . . I once decided that I loved the violets so much that when they found their way into the flower beds, I would let them stay there, too. Big mistake. It didn't take long for them to begin crowding out the other plants. Calling sins something other than sin doesn't erase their power to overwhelm and corrupt us."

Proverbs 28:13 Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.
Psalm 139: 23, 24 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!

Green

2005-05-25T06:13:00.000-07:00

House in a Garden (House and Trees) by Pablo Picasso

My three year old will proudly tell you that she knows Dada’s favorite color is blue. This is true. But of all the colors occurring in nature, my favorite to look into is that which is most prevalent – green.

From my desk in the bedroom I can look out across a tall hedge that scrapes the window ledge, through the wide expanse between the two houses across the street, and over the brief splinter of country highway to the forest on the other side.

From the balcony deck overlooking my backyard I can see rolling greens of every shade, all of them brilliant, in all directions. Our subdivision is, for the most part, a fenceless neighborhood. None of our neighbors have fences, although our backyard neighbor has a short chain-link fence to keep his dog in. It is small and unobtrusive and, obviously, transparent. We all know where our property boundaries are, but it’s nice not having these boundaries marked with looming wooden planks, walling each of us into our “private” green. Or blocking that extra green out.

In a middle school art class I was informed that blue and green are not complementary colors, and that, indeed, when paired, the effect is one of dissonance.
I don’t know about that. But I do know that from my Dada’s Chair in the living room, I can look right out the window mere inches to my right and see the gigantic and beautifully symmetric Bradford pear tree in my neighbor’s yard. Its emerald crown is glorious against an azure sky.
I love that green against that blue. I like it so much I reflect on it probably too much in my current novel.

So there’s that dissonant pairing – green against blue. A sylvan arrow pointing toward heaven. I’m no art critic, but this colorful contrast the Creator seemed to like so much He put it all over the earth seems quite beautiful to me.

Be praised for all Your tenderness
By these works of Your hand;
Suns that rise and rains that fall to bless
And bring to life Your land.
Look down upon this winter wheat
And be glad that You have made
Blue for the sky and the color green
That fills these fields with praise.-- Rich Mullins, “The Color Green”

Rolls

2005-05-24T10:26:00.000-07:00

Just a couple of quick notes of clarification:

The title of this site is Shizuka Blog. I had to choose "shizukagarden" for the url, because variations of "shizukablog" were not available (although the weblog "shizukablog.blogspot.com" doesn't appear to be active).
I would be ever so grateful if those of you who have seen fit to blogroll me would check to make sure you have the site listed as Shizuka Blog, and not Shizuka Garden. Thanks.

Also, on the subject of blogrolls, I suppose I should mention (because I'm a generally paranoid fellow) that if you are a commenter and/or general supporter of this site, and I don't add your site to the blogroll here, it is nothing personal. I have specific criteria in mind for the Shizuka blogroll, criteria I don't particularly feel the need to articulate but which are fairly cut and dry inside my mind. I am trying to do something a little different with this site, and that task extends to the blogroll.
If the general rule of reciprocity compels you then to not link to me or to delete your current link to me, I completely understand and it won't bother me at all.

I have, actually, already added one or two of the early supporters of this site to the Thinklings blogroll. So I'm not trying to just suck up your good vibes and give nothing in return.
I do hope that those who may feel slighted -- assuming there are any -- will notice that I don't even list either of the other two more well-known blogs I contribute to. And I don't intend to add them. In addition, I don't link to several of my good and long-standing blog-friends either. It's not because I don't like them or their sites. It's just because their sites land somewhere outside the parameters I have in mind for the roll.

So please accept my apologies in advance for any slight you believe this creates. It's nothing personal, and again, if this means you must de-link me (or, heaven forbid, stop reading), I will understand and accept it as just part of the way the 'sphere works.

The purpose of this site is not accumulating hits, traffic, links, or popularity.

Blessings.

Is Not

2005-05-24T10:18:00.000-07:00

The fruit of the Spirit is criticism, agitation, impatience, cruelty, stinginess, anxiety, abrasiveness, and entitlement.
---

Anxiety weighs down the human heart,but a good word cheers it up.
-- Proverbs 12.25 (NRSV)

Therefore encourage one another and build up each other . . .
-- 1 Thessalonians 5.11a (NRSV)

Wielding the Word, Living the Word

2005-05-24T05:36:00.000-07:00

If His Word is written on my heart, why isn’t it flowing in my blood?

It is written, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” -- Matthew 4.4 (NRSV)

I have been reading selections from the Apostolic Fathers lately, and one thing that strikes me most about them is just how drenched in Scripture they are. The difference between these documents and more contemporary writings of edification (the so-called “Christian Living” genre) is clear and impressive. These early documents live and breathe God’s written Word.

Take 1 Clement, for example, which is an epistle from the Roman church to the Corinthians, written at the end of the first century and attributed to Clement of Rome. The point of the letter appears to be a correction and a soft rebuke, addressing the fact that young members of the Corinthian church have affected some sort of rebellion, even ousting older (and wiser) members of the church. The primary aim of the letter is restoration.
And the whole thing is riddled with references – some explicit quotes, some incorporated paraphrases – to Scripture passages, both from the Hebrew Scriptures and from the early New Testament canonical tradition. (By the way, the practically equal treatment artifacts like 1 Clement give to both Old Testament documents and to assorted snippets from the Pauline epistles, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and even Gospel sayings is a good indicator of the historic attestation of our New Testament canon.)

The letter known as 2 Clement, which is not really a letter but a sermon, is likewise full of Scriptural quotations. The footnoted references at the bottom of the pages of my edition are thick. 2 Clement, which is a speech of exhortation, is essentially a thin pretext for preaching God’s Word unadorned. It reminds me of the time I prayed privately with an old pastor, whose prayer was not much more than a recitation of a few Psalms. At the time, I thought this somewhat lazy. Now I think of it as revolutionary and refreshing.

We don’t write like this anymore. In the blogosphere, one occasionally comes across a reader who comments using only Scripture, but typically those people are using God’s Word as a carelessly swung club, not as a rightly dividing sword. More like a bomb than a balm. These are the blogospheric equivalents of the stereotypical “Bible thumpers” who quote Scripture at you without regard to context or investment, whether spiritual or personal. They don’t mean to lovingly correct, but to callously rebuke.
These comments may be 100% Holy Writ, but they are 0% Holy Spirit.

But even in our “regular” writing – our blog posts, our e-mails, our sermons, our Sunday School lessons, our notes and letters – we use Scripture as a tool (if we use it at all), rather than as the motivating muse for and lifeblood of what we are trying to say.
The early church, though – ah, those put-upon, persecuted, finding-their-way through the heresies and the apostasy and the violence and the prejudice early Christians – wrote God’s Word in such a way as they lived it. The authors of the early church wove the Bible into the fabric of their writings, because the Bible was inextricably woven into the fabric of their lives.

I may be alone, but such knowledge convicts me. I am a toolbox biblicist, not a lifeblood one.

Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is always with me. -- Psalm 119.98 (NRSV)

[A]nd you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. -- 2 Corinthians 3.3 (NRSV)

koan two

2005-05-23T06:49:00.000-07:00

The human mind plans the way, but the LORD directs the steps. -- Proverbs 16.9 (NRSV)

(koan)

snapshot

2005-05-23T06:42:00.000-07:00

Mowing the front yard while Macy and Grace stand at the front door blowing me kisses.

The Bronze Snake

2005-05-23T06:39:00.000-07:00

From Martin Luther:

“Some people imagine that faith is a quality that sticks to the heart on its own, with or without Christ. This is a dangerous error. Christ should be placed directly before our eyes so that we see and hear nothing apart from him and believe that nothing is closer to us than Christ. For he doesn’t sit idly in heaven but is continually present in us. He is working and living in us, for Paul says, ‘I no longer live, but Christ lives in me’ (Galatians 2:20). He also says that you ‘have clothed yourselves with Christ’ (Galatians 3:27). Therefore, faith is an unswerving gaze that looks on Christ alone. He is the conqueror of sin and death and the one who gives us righteousness, salvation, and eternal life.

This is beautifully illustrated by the story of the bronze snake, which points to Christ (John 3:14). Moses commanded the Israelites, who had been bitten in the desert by poisonous snakes, to look at this bronze snake with an unswerving gaze. Those who did so were healed, simply by steadily gazing at the snake alone. In contrast, others, who didn’t obey Moses, looked at their wounds instead of the snake and died. So if you want to be comforted when your conscience plagues you or when you are in dire distress, then you must do nothing but grasp Christ in faith and say, ‘I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s Son, who suffered, was crucified, and died for me. In his wounds and death, I see my sin. In his resurrection, I see the victory over sin, death, and the devil. I see righteousness and eternal life as well. I want to see and hear nothing except him.’ This is the true faith in Christ and the right way to believe.”

-- excerpted in By Faith Alone: 365 Devotional Readings

You are all God’s children by believing in Christ Jesus. Clearly, all of you who were baptized in Christ’s name have clothed yourselves with Christ. -- Galatians 3.26-27 (GWV)

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. -- Hebrews 12.2 (NIV)

Cared For with Steadfast Love

2005-05-20T10:27:00.000-07:00

The Olive Grove by Vincent Van Gogh

But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever. -- Psalm 52.8 (NRSV)

I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you. -- Genesis 28.15 (NIV)

Fruit

2005-05-20T07:03:00.000-07:00

Fruit is not automatic. You don’t plant a tree and “get fruit.”

You have to root your tree in good soil. Depending on what fruit you hope to grow, the very geographic location of your garden or orchard can be crucial.
There is watering and other care involved. You have to protect your trees from insects and animals and, sometimes, thieves. You have to protect it from the cold.

I don’t have a green thumb. I am not outdoorsy.
I worked church maintenance for about five years. The grass grows quickly in South Texas. What you cut on Monday needs cutting again on Thursday. So in the warm months (which in Houston is most of them), that’s five days a week for five years of mowing and otherwise tending to acres and acres of land in the sweltering Houston heat. I made a meager living off of the curse.
Now I dread mowing my almost-an-acre every weekend in the mild Tennessee spring. No one’s paying me to do it, but it’s not someone else’s land. It’s mine. I own it.
It’s almost as if I didn’t learn anything in my years of professional earth subduing.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. -- Galatians 5.22-23

I am not inclined toward prayer. I talk to God constantly, actually, but I am not “prayerfully minded,” by which I mean I am terrible at committing to times of quiet and meditative prayer.

The fruit of the Spirit is not automatic. I can’t just think about God and superficially read my Bible every day and “get fruit.”
I have to root my spirit in His, in the nurturing soil of the Word incarnate and the Word written. I have to put myself in locations conducive to spiritual nourishment – family, church community, a quiet corner in which to really pray and study.

In his novel The Fourth Treasure, Todd Shimoda describes the efforts of Japanese calligraphers to perfect their artistry. One sensei instructs his students to perform ten thousand strokes a day for ten thousand days. And then the student might be ready.
And the strokes are not the Japanese characters themselves, but the individual strokes – the “radicals” – that together make a character. That’s ten thousand times a day, for ten thousand days, of practicing the parts of a letter. Can you imagine having to practice drawing the three separate parts of an A for that long before you can attempt to draw the actual letter?
But there is a beauty and a spirit and an emotional substance to expertly rendered Japanese kanji not found in the cold geometry of our twenty-six-letter alphabet.

There is a difference between trying and training.

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. -- Galatians 6.9

The work of sanctification is God’s. But there is work to be done on my part, as well. The works of faithfulness.
Disciplines to undertake. Hard work. Consistency. Perseverance.
A long obedience in the same direction.

Discipline: Any activity I can do by direct effort that will help me do what I cannot now do by direct effort. -- John Ortberg, The Life You’ve Always Wanted

The fruit of the Spirit is not automatic. There is work and care involved.

“Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” -- John 15.4-5

koan one

2005-05-19T06:15:00.000-07:00

Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. -- Matthew 10.39 (NRSV)

(koan)

Power, Compassion, Safety

2005-05-18T14:49:00.000-07:00

"In pointing out the terribleness of God, I do not appeal to fear . . . We do not say, 'Be good, or God will crush you.' That is not virtue, that is not liberty -- it is vice put on its good behavior. It is iniquity with a sword suspended over its head.

The great truth to be learned is that all the terribleness of God is the good man's security. When the good man sees God wasting the mountains and the hills, and drying up the rivers, he does not say, 'I must worship him or he will destroy me.' He says, 'The beneficent side of that power is all mine. Because of that power I am safe. The very lightning is my guardian, and in the whirlwind I hear a pledge of benediction.'"

-- Joseph Parker, quoted in The Classics Devotional Bible

Even in darkness light dawns for the upright, for the gracious and compassionate and righteous man. -- Psalm 112.4

Peace in Quiet

2005-05-18T12:06:00.000-07:00

Quiet can be unnerving. Practicing and experiencing quiet can feel awkward.

Technology. Multitasking. "Stuff." Busy-ness. Artificial noise. Micro-. Nano-. Fast.
All of these are good things.
We become accustomed to the collective din of these things. When we experience their absence, it can be uncomfortable. Peace and quiet can make us uncomfortable.

Be still, and know that I am God! -- Psalm 46.10

There was a time -- probably not more than five years ago -- when it never would have crossed my mind that I should have a phone on my person when I leave the house. Now I feel naked if I happen to make it out in public without my cellphone; I can get not more than five minutes away from home, and if I have forgotten my cellphone, I get nervous about the possibility of being in an emergency and not being able to contact someone.
I wouldn't have worried about that five years ago. The convenience of it, the actual advancement of having a small portable telephone in my pocket wherever I go, actually makes me a more nervous person. (And I don't need any help in that regard.)

When I first started watching "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" with my girls, I found it off-putting. It struck me as weird, and Mr. Rogers seemed somehow creepy.
This was because I was not accustomed to the pacing of patience. Fred Rogers broadcasts at a different frequency than the outside world (and certainly any other world on television); he lives, breathes, and speaks in a different rhythm. His frequency is quiet, his rhythm is patient.

It can be very uncomfortable to encounter the rhythm of peace and quiet when one is used to the world's rhythm.

Sometimes Technology Keeps Us from Beauty. That's the title of a brilliant post by Robert Williams today.

We can talk on the phone as we eat fast food while using the ATM. Not only are we better at multitasking and becoming more productive and efficient, along with the increased pace, more is required of us. And so we hurtle through life faster and faster, becoming busier and busier. The result is that in our busyness we are becoming increasingly efficient at leading meaningless lives. -- Don Whitney, quoted at the BHT

You may notice my writing "sounds" differently here than it does there or there. That's on purpose. I'm trying to cultivate a different rhythm here. I'm focusing on my words more. It sounds weird even to me.
There will be less transitions. More "to the point"-ness.

I have kids. Sometimes when the house is too quiet I feel like something must be wrong.
In the real world, we react that way when things get too quiet, also.
We should learn to love that.

Better is a dry morsel with quiet than a house full of feasting with strife. -- Proverbs 17.1

People use computers, cellphones, television, DVD players, VCRs, microwaves, video games, pagers, and all manner of other things to feel _______. Put whatever you want in there: important, useful, efficient, empowered, up to date, whatever. What happens if we strip ourselves of those things just for one day? For one week? For one month? For one season? (Forever? Perish the thought.)

So don't get rid of those things. Or do. But either way, seek out purposeful quiet. Get used to the way quiet sounds. You may hear nature. You may actually hear what your loved ones are saying.
You may hear God.

Can we find peace in quiet?

Waves

2005-05-18T06:06:00.000-07:00

This is The Great Wave off Kanagawa from Katsushika Hokusai's breathtaking series of paintings 36 Views of Mt. Fuji. It may take a second glance for one to notice the relatively large boat (and the figure reclining within it), as overwhelmed and assumed by the waves as it is. And yet one immediately notices the firm, dry land of Mt. Fuji, even though the image of it appears small and it is set far in the distance.

Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me. -- Psalm 42.7

You rule over the surging sea; when its waves mount up, you still them. -- Psalm 89.9

A Garden

2005-05-17T14:32:00.000-07:00

A garden...teems with life. It glows with colour and smells like heaven and puts forward at every hour of a summer day beauties which man could never have created and could not even, on his own resources, have imagined...when the garden is in its full glory the gardener's contributions to that glory will still have been in a sense paltry compared with those of nature. Without life springing from the earth, without rain, light and heat descending from the sky, he could do nothing. When he has done all, he has merely encouraged here and discouraged there, powers and beauties that have a different source.

-- C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Thanks to The Window in the Garden Wall, a Lewis weblog

Welcome to Shizuka Blog

2005-05-17T13:24:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of each episode of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," after the scene opens up inside Fred Rogers's house, the first thing one sees is the flashing yellow light of the stoplight in his kitchen. It is a sign to the viewer to "slow down," that in Mr. Rogers's world, peace and patience and gentleness reign. It is a fitting symbol for a program that brought immeasurable tranquility to countless children in turbulent homes. Even for this adult father, the yellow light reminds me I'm about to enter a world for which slowness and calm will produce optimum results.

My desire for this marginal space in the blogosphere is to be a slowly flashing yellow light. I want the readers who come here to find a quiet and gentle space, a welcome respite from the oft-times turbulent and trivial land of blogdom. I contribute to two other weblogs, both of which specialize in spirited discussion and debate. I am not opposed to such endeavors, and indeed find them very profitable. But you won't find that here.

What I want Shizuka Blog to be is a place of meditative calm (prompting rest) that is nevertheless consistently rooted in the Word of God (providing edification). In this Zen garden, the fruit of the Spirit grows.
Every post will be specifically designed to encourage or edify, or to provoke meditation on the Word, or to in some other way bless you. This will be a matter of discipline and ministry to me, even as I am trying to minister to you.

If you happen to find this quiet space, I hope you will return frequently and find here rest and restoration.