Happy Canada Day

The Canadian Heritage website says,

This year, as we celebrate the 141^st anniversary of Confederation, we also celebrate the 400th anniversary of Québec City, which also marks the founding of Canada. Let's Celebrate Canada!

This morning, sitting here in the fresh mountain air listening to songbirds, ravens, chattering chipmunks and squirrels amidst thousands of blooming wild roses in the thick green forest around our home (and sipping coffee in between bacon and eggs) I'm celebrating 400 years of Canada.

After the kids finish their breakfast I'll take them for a drive through the mountains around Spray Lakes in their mom's new Jeep Renegade Sahara. Dar's always wanted a Jeep and no one can get the smile off her face. It's a lot of fun getting the hard top off... driving over bumpy roads and splashing through the shallows with hair free in the wind... snapping on the soft top... wiping down after all the dust... Jeep's are a blast in the mountains. Hold on for the ride of your life.

Sitting here at breakfast with three books. You won't find me without a book or three or ten. So I'm sitting here reading a very cool old map book, Donald Wigal's "Historic Maritime Maps" - It's fascinating to watch the process of global discovery over 800 years. Also reading through "The Knights Templar: Discovering the Myth and Reality of a Legendary Brotherhood" - nothing really new learned here... but full of great colours and laid out well... an excellent introduction. The third document is "Independent Panel on Canada's Future Role in Afghanistan" which states,

Between October 12 and December 14, 2007, Panel members held face-to-face discussions in Ottawa, New York, Brussels and Washington, in addition to their trip to Afghanistan. They also met with individuals from elsewhere in Canada, the United States and Europe via video-conference.

While in Afghanistan, the panel traveled across four provinces - Kabul, Balkh, Bamiyan and Kandahar. They held meetings in Kabul, Bamiyan, Mazar-e-Sharif, Kandahar Airfield, Panjwai, Zhari, and Kandahar City. While in Kandahar province, the panel met with the Provincial Reconstruction Team at Camp Nathan Smith, and personnel at two forward bases, a police sub-station, and other military facilities.

Pilgrimage is always part of sound judgment.

Yesterday afternoon I bought the kids a bamboo xylophone (made in Indonesia) at Ten Thousand Villages. I bought it with Luke in mind after Dar and I watched War Dance with him about the children of Northern Uganda - and one particular boy in the documentary who played the xylophone.

So last night, all three kids went nuts on their new instrument...
and then they surprised me. Luke (eight years old)
sat the new instrument down in front of me
and tapped out a song while singing lyrics he had just made up.
I had to write the words down:

On the top of the Earth
Praise the One and Only God
There's only One Lord
Sing Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Sing Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Praise to the Lord
Praise to the Lord

Bree (six years old) wanted to give song writing a try,
so she tapped away and this came out:

When the gates open
You'll know where to go
Where God's Jesus Christ
comes down to the Earth
You'll know where to go
When you see the angels come
down the ladder
down the mountain
the ladder comes from the mountain
down to the Earth
Then you'll know where to go
You'll know where to go

Then we invited Nate (three years old) to give it a try
and he tapped away and sang:

Jesus, I love you (8 times)

Then Samuel said,
Do you think all God wants are sacrifices—
empty rituals just for show?
He wants you to listen to him!
Plain listening is the thing,
not staging a lavish religious production.
Not doing what God tells you
is far worse than fooling around in the occult.
Getting self-important around God
is far worse than making deals with your dead ancestors.
Because you said No to God command,
he says No to your kingship.
I Samuel 15:22-23

Heading out to the Canada Day Parade before our big Jeep ride...

Heavy Artillery Above Our Shoulders

No I don't wanna battle from beginning to end
I don't want a cycle of recycled revenge
I don't wanna follow death and all of his friends
and in the end we lie awake, and we dream of making our escape
Coldplay: Death and All His Friends

So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night

and left...
Matthew 2:14

As a woman with child and about to give birth
writhes and cries out in her pain, so were we
in your presence, O LORD.
Isaiah 26:17

"For a long time I have kept silent,
I have been quiet and held myself back.
But now, like a woman in childbirth,
I cry out, I gasp and pant.
Isaiah 42:14

A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come;
but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy
that a child is born into the world.
John 16:21

When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth,

he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child.

The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle,

so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the desert,

where she would be taken care of...
Revelation 12:13-14

But I have stilled and quieted my soul;
like a weaned child with its mother,
like a weaned child is my soul within me.
Psalm 131:2

When the city came into view, he wept over it.

"If you had only recognized this day,

and everything that was good for you!

But now it's too late. In the days ahead your enemies

are going to bring up their heavy artillery and surround you,

pressing in from every side. They'll smash you...

Not one stone will be left intact.

All this because you didn't recognize

and welcome God's personal visit."
Luke 19:41

didn't sleep

heavy artillery all night

saw them falling from the skies

coal soot lightning - foxholes are no cover

concussion - too close to the skin of that drum

take the eastern gates

terracotta over caspian to the iron

100 ton gun to northern frontier

from the rift to the dome

nowhere near done

beneath searing molten heavens
what have you been training for
move! move! move!
Shaddai's shadow

Circle of Quiet

When the future's architectured

by a carnival of idiots on show

you'd better lie low.
Coldplay: Violet Hill

Well, think again, you idiots, fools — how long before you get smart?

Do you think Ear-Maker doesn't hear, Eye-Shaper doesn't see?

Do you think the trainer of nations doesn't correct,

the teacher of Adam doesn't know?

God knows, all right — knows your stupidity, sees your shallowness.

How blessed the man you train, God,

the woman you instruct in your Word,

providing a circle of quiet within the clamor of evil...
Psalm 94: The Message

We love to "hear" about Isaiah's call. We love what he "saw"... that one liner, "Here I am, send me?" Wow, that sentness preaches so good... Pick me Lord. Pick me. I'll go! Of course we never seem to preach it right. We preach it as if Isaiah was clamoring after God. Isaiah just saw and heard ... and he responded to a command.

We want the big show... want to hear the thunder of those words, until we start to wrestle with what needs to be said,

"Go and tell this people: 'Listen hard, but you aren't going to get it; look hard, but you won't catch on.' Make these people blockheads, with fingers in their ears and blindfolds on their eyes, so they won't see a thing, won't hear a word, so they won't have a clue about what's going on and, yes, so they won't turn around and be made whole."

I'm sure that message didn't go down so well with "this people"...

These words echo through each of the four Gospels and Luke closes the book of Acts with this exact passage... after all that revelation of the Holy Spirit they still didn't get it. Why do you think Jesus was so preoccupied with healing the blind, deaf, dumb and lepers and demon possessed and dead? He wanted people to see and hear and speak with and touch HIM with sound minds and fresh bodies.

John was good with his Gospel intro... and his letters got even better,

From the very first day, we were there, taking it all in—we heard it with our own ears, saw it with our own eyes, verified it with our own hands. The Word of Life appeared right before our eyes; we saw it happen! And now we're telling you in most sober prose that what we witnessed was, incredibly, this: The infinite Life of God himself took shape before us.

We saw it, we heard it, and now we're telling you so you can experience it along with us, this experience of communion with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. Our motive for writing is simply this: We want you to enjoy this, too. Your joy will double our joy!

There are a lot of people to deprogram... If we claim we can see, maybe our guilt still remains (John 9:41). If we have not seen and yet believe, maybe we are truly blessed (John 20:29).

The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out. It's written,

I'll turn conventional wisdom on its head,
I'll expose so-called experts as crackpots.

So where can you find someone truly wise, truly educated, truly intelligent in this day and age? Hasn't God exposed it all as pretentious nonsense? Since the world in all its fancy wisdom never had a clue when it came to knowing God, God in his wisdom took delight in using what the world considered dumb—preaching, of all things!—to bring those who trust him into the way of salvation.

While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom, we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle—and Greeks pass it off as absurd. But to us who are personally called by God himself—both Jews and Greeks—Christ is God's ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one.
I Corinthians 1:18-25 (The Message)

Jesus, I long to see you and hear from you in the circle of quiet.

Deeper Recon

The Weird Sisters present nouns rather than verbs. They put titles on Macbeth without telling what actions he must carry out to attain those titles. It is Lady Macbeth who supplies the verbs. Understanding that her husband is torn between the now-articulated object of desire and the fearful deed that must achieve it, she persuades him by harping relentlessly on manly action...
Susan Snyder, Macbeth: A Modern Perspective

go on - flutter ye mystic ballad - ah haunting & Tokay jittery ye be like the mad pulse - the mad pulse of child - the children of ring around the rosey & wandering poets over India - the jugglers who call you by the wrong name & title you wounded kitten - it is that easy for they know no fairy tales....
Bob Dylan, Tarantula

Mack gasped involuntarily. He wasn't used to having deep secrets surface so quickly and openly. Instantly guilt and anger welled up and he wanted to lash out with a sarcastic remark in response. Mack felt as if he were dangling over a bottomless chasm and was afraid if he let any of it out, he would lose control of everything. He sought for safe footing, but was only partially successful, finally answering through gritted teeth, "Maybe, it's because I've never known anyone I could really call Papa."
William P. Young, The Shack

Civiliazation survives only in some beleaguered form, usually virtual or artificial. If the earth can no longer cope with us - if we can no longer cope with ourselves - what kind of language will we utter? "Art does not intimidate life," the novelist Jeanette Winterson has said. "Art anticipates life."
Mark Abley, The Prodigal Tongue: Dispatches From the Future of English

Looking back over the year, the problem I have been working on has probably ended up getting more complicated that it was 12 months ago. It will make the final resolution, if it comes, that more gratifying. What's the satisfaction if solving easy problems? I'm still not sure even what the final answer will be... In mathematics the real prize is... making the breakthrough on the problem you've dedicated your life to. The prize might be claimed at any time and any place: on a broken-down bus in Kashmir, on a Saturday in Cambridge at twenty past midnight, or while listening to the engaged signal on the end of a telephone line in Bonn.
Marcus Du Sautoy, Symmetry: a Journey Into the Patterns of Nature

After the Chinese had raided the Tashilunpo monastery in 1961, the Panchen Lama became increasingly critical. He sent a report to Chairman Mao calling for freedom of religion to be restored. Mao called the document a poisoned arrow and kept it secret. After a speech in Lhasa demanding Tibetan independence, the Chinese lost patience with their man and he was imprisoned for ten years in Beijing.
Michael Palin, Himalaya

The lore as well as the effects of acute mountain sickness had plagued every military campaign and construction project on the Tibetan Plateau since the 1950s. The Chinese are sure that their lowland citizens are especially sensitive to the high altitudes... Medical studies show that Tibetans born at such elevations have a unique genetic ability to carry more oxygen in their blood - especially in their lungs... Yet when the Ministry of Railways created its plan to bring tens of thousands of eastern Chinese onto the plateau for the difficult and demanding job of building the track, it did not prepare fully for the health risks to the workers.
Abrham Lustgarten, China's Great Train: Beijing's Drive West and the Campaign to Remake Tibet

This past weekend I was with friends in St. John's, Newfoundland and Halifax, Nova Scotia. Deep things were shared and deeper things were prayed. We stood in the gates. We prayed into the nights. Now I anticipate the arrival of the Mediterranean guard in July and in August potentially visiting a buried army in China and high city in Tibet.

Coldplay's Viva La Vida
I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word
Now in the morning I sleep alone
Sweep the streets I used to own

I used to roll the dice
Feel the fear in my enemies eyes
Listen as the crowd would sing:
"Now the old king is dead, long live the king!"

One minute I held the key
Next the walls were closed on me
And I discovered that my castles stand
Upon pillars of salt, and pillars of sand

I hear Jerusalem bells a ringing
Roman cavalry choirs are singing
Be my mirror, my sword, my shield
My missionaries in a foreign field
For some reason I can't explain
Once you go there was never, never an honest word
That was when I ruled the world

It was the wicked and wild wind
Blew down the doors to let me in
Shattered windows and the sound of drums
People couldn't believe what I'd become

Revolutionaries wait
For my head on a silver plate
Just a puppet on a lonely string
Ah, who would ever want to be king?

God claims Earth and everything in it,

God claims World and all who live on it.

He built it on Ocean foundations, laid it out on River girders.

Who can climb Mount God? Who can scale the holy north-face?

Only the clean-handed, only the pure-hearted;

Men who won't cheat, women who won't seduce.

God is at their side; with God's help they make it.

This, Jacob, is what happens to God-seekers, God-questers.

Wake up, you sleepyhead city! Wake up, you sleepyhead people!

King-Glory is ready to enter. Who is this King-Glory?

God, armed and battle-ready.

Wake up, you sleepyhead city!

Wake up, you sleepyhead people!

King-Glory is ready to enter.

Who is this King-Glory?

God-of-the-Angel-Armies:

He is King-Glory.
Psalm 24 (The Message)

Digging In!!!

I beg my reader to aid me in the endeavor to make myself intelligible - if here understanding be indeed possible between us. I was in a world, or call it a state of things, an economy of conditions, an idea of existence, so little correspondent with the ways and modes of this world - which we are apt to think the only world, that the best choice I can make of word or phrase is but an adumbration of what I could convey. I begin indeed to fear that I have undertaken an impossiblity, undertaken to tell what I cannot tell because no speech at my command will fit the forms in my mind. Already I have set down statements I would gladly change did I know how to substitute a truer utterance, but as often as I try to fit the reality with nearer words, I find myself in danger of losing the things themselves, and feel like one in the process of awaking from a dream, with the thing that seemed familiar gradually yet swiftly changing through a succession of forms until its very nature is no longer recognisable.
George MacDonald: Lilith

My own belief is that all encounter is to be taken seriously. No choice should be made. No preconception should be entertained. No pre- judgment should be obeyed in dialogue. Only one form of encounter or dialogue seems to me to be completely inauthentic. This is the planned and organized encounter between specialists in dialogue in which we leave altogether the sphere of gift and grace and put ourselves afresh in a total determinism...

I have to see someone and clasp his hand. Dialogue has to begin. I have to speak and an answer has to be given... I can give meaning to the dialogue, not by overwhelming the other with pious speeches, but by self-engagement with the other...

Jesus does not expect reciprocity. He might hope for it, and he can thus make its absence a matter of reproach... But in dialogue only Jesus himself is engaged...

It is the Christian's engagement which transforms a conversation and makes trivial contact into a decisive force.
Jacques Ellul: The Ethics of Freedom

Any tradition forstering the progress of thought must have this intention: to teach its current ideas as stages leading on to unkown truths which, when discoverd, might dissent from the very teachings which engendered them. Such a tradition assures the independence of its followers by transmitting the conviction that thought has intrinsic powers, to be evoked in men's minds by intimations of hidden truths. It respects the individual for being capable of such response: for being able to see a problem not visible to others, and to explore it on his own responsibility.
Michael Polanyi: The Tacit Dimension

We aren't making outrageous claims here. We're sticking to the limits of what God has set for us. But there can be no question that those limits reach to and include you. We're not moving into someone else's "territory." We were already there with you, weren't we? We were the first ones to get there with the Message of Christ, right? So how can there be any question of overstepping our bounds by writing or visiting you?

We're not barging in on the rightful work of others, interfering with their ministries, demanding a place in the sun with them. What we're hoping for is that as your lives grow in faith, you'll play a part within our expanding work. And we'll all still be within the limits God sets as we proclaim the Message in countries beyond Corinth. But we have no intention of moving in on what others have done and taking credit for it. "If you want to claim credit, claim it for God." What you say about yourself means nothing in God's work. It's what God says about you that makes the difference.
II Corinthians 10:13-18 (The Message)

Limping Pilgrims

God is so other that we can never pretend to predict what God will do, or get God under our control in any way whatever.
Eugene Peterson

The fundamental thought of the Bible is not creation, but God's care for His creation. The sense of wonder for His creation is common to all men. The sense of care for His care is the personal prerequisite for being a prophet. All men care for the world; the prophet cares for God's care. In the process of such redirection, he may be driven to be careless about everything else.
Abraham Joshua Heschel

What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

A young man ran and told Moses, "Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp." Joshua son of Nun, who had been Moses' aide since youth, spoke up and said, "Moses, my lord, stop them!"

But Moses replied, "Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the LORD's people were prophets and that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!"
Numbers 11:27-29

What if, in attempting to be relevant we have become irreverent? What is this emerging - a better tone or a bitter tumor?

When David was chosen to be king, God immidiately placed him in Saul's service. Before he ran out to the battle line to take out Goliath, the young annointed humbly served his tormented King. For years to come, no matter what the circumstances between them, David had nothing but mercy and grace for Saul. And like Joseph and Jesus, do we realize that we were never fatherless in the pit?

If there is an emerging urgency in the Church it is in the absence of her relevant and emerging sons and daughters.

25 + 14 (39) + 15 = 54

Isaiah, Hezekiah, Sennacherib and Merodach-Baladan.

Here's God adding 15 years to sick Hezekiah's life (II Kings 20)... and I ask myself the question, "Why, in the midst of being given a 15 year extension on his life (and a sundance) does Hezekiah show off everything he owns to messengers from Babylon?"

A second question, "Why is Hezekiah sick in the first place?" Seems show-offs give the wrong things away.

Some read Old Testament stories and wonder what an iron-age God eats for breakfast to put "Ole Rusty" in such a cranky mood. Others read II Kings 18 to 20 and see tons of grace, faithfulness, obedience, personal faith, fear and pride. God becomes concerned with the affairs of humanity for good reasons.

I wonder what Isaiah thinks amidst all the good, bad and ugly. For one thing, I think Isaiah is totally consumed by the presence, voice and will of God. For prophets like Isaiah it's all about God's grace. Isaiah doesn't have a "condemnation fix." He's not pointing some boney finger at some king pin of the status quo who should be overwhelmed with "guilt"... who should be soooo "ashamed" of themselves. It's not Isaiah's job to guilt and shame all these awful people into cages.

Isaiah is standing in the free-flowing pathos of God concerned only with the words (actions) of God and how God might be "gracefully, yet completely" and "emotionally, yet truthfully" engaging the leaders of God's own people, or any other rich or poor individual God chooses to engage personally ... through the straight-forward human voice of God's servant (and sometimes there's no human voice physically available so a dream here or angel there, or even the Messenger of the Lord Himself in all His glory).

During the entire process of God engagements, anyone "feeling" ashamed or guilty, or "recognizing" themselves and their stuff - that's their own crap to deal with before that One Holy Almighty God - and if they don't humble themselves before God in that moment, there is nothing worse than shame and guilt to eat a person away from the inside out. Self-hatred is a deadly poison. Self-mutilation has many faces.

Isaiah is never caught in between. He is only a witness. Isaiah knows what Paul later writes in Romans 2,

3-4 You didn't think, did you, that just by pointing your finger at others you would distract God from seeing all your misdoings and from coming down on you hard? Or did you think that because he's such a nice God, he'd let you off the hook? Better think this one through from the beginning. God is kind, but he's not soft. In kindness he takes us firmly by the hand and leads us into a radical life-change.

5-8 You're not getting by with anything. Every refusal and avoidance of God adds fuel to the fire. The day is coming when it's going to blaze hot and high, God's fiery and righteous judgment. Make no mistake: In the end you get what's coming to you—Real Life for those who work on God's side, but to those who insist on getting their own way and take the path of least resistance, Fire!

Re:desecration

Ah, sinful nation, a people loaded with guilt, a brood of evildoers, children given to corruption! They have forsaken the LORD; they have spurned the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him. Why should you be beaten anymore? Why do you persist in rebellion? Your whole head is injured, your whole heart afflicted.

From the sole of your foot to the top of your head there is no soundness— only wounds and welts and open sores, not cleansed or bandaged or soothed with oil. Your country is desolate, your cities burned with fire...
Isaiah 1:4-7a

Do not be angry beyond measure, O LORD; do not remember our sins forever. Oh, look upon us, we pray, for we are all your people. Your sacred cities have become a desert; even Zion is a desert, Jerusalem a desolation.Our holy and glorious temple, where our fathers praised you, has been burned with fire, and all that we treasured lies in ruins.
Isaiah 64:9-11

At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, "Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath."

He answered, "Haven't you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven't you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple desecrate the day and yet are innocent? I tell you that one greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath."
Matthew 12:1-8

Like hot metal being pounded out on an anvil, because of God's great mercy and for the sake of those God knows are innocent, God will desecrate whatever (whoever) God wants to desecrate whenever and wherever God chooses to desecrate it (them) for whichever reason God willfully chooses.

The same hammer pounding this metal will pulverize these rocks.

Jesus perpetually desecrated "the religion of intercession": eating and healing on the Sabbath, filling ceremonial washing vessels with wine, lobbing all kinds of seemingly rude comments at the temple and worship cult (not to mention he wrecked the joint once or twice), and he even told people to eat Him - desecrating everyone's sacred assumptions about humanity and God in a human body. How aweful it must have sounded to those little ears to be amidst the first one's to hear God say, "Eat me!" I'd have been squirming in my seat...

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: "The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them."
Matthew 23:1-4

Why do you think the religious perpetually called Jesus a demon-possessed blasphemer? How dare God expose the vacuous dread of their shallow and fallow sacred assumptions. And if we carry that forward, how is God exposing the vacuous dread of our shallow and fallow sacred assumptions?

The scriptures reveal with circular and telescopic precision that God perpetually humbled and flattened everything and everyone in the Ancient Near East (and God had God's reasons for focussing on that geography for that extended period of time). Threshing floors are threshing floors and in God's eyes - nothing more. And there are threshing floors in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

Here on earth, with our own hands, before our own eyes, we just love beautiful flat places to build places of worship upon, don't we!? I think one of the reasons Moses and Joshua and the people wandered around the dusty tumbleweeds with God for 40 years in the wilderness may have partially been God's way of saying, "Don't go colonizing every nice sacred little nook and cranny of this lovely planet with some religious institution (point of view)! I'm God on the move!" And the Angel of the Lord warning to David (who had been seduced more than once) on that threshing floor: "Don't you dare sit around on this nice flat spot assuming anything about your kingship or my Godship!"

So the LORD sent a plague on Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell dead. And God sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem. But as the angel was doing so, the LORD saw it and was grieved because of the calamity and said to the angel who was destroying the people, "Enough! Withdraw your hand." The angel of the LORD was then standing at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.

David looked up and saw the angel of the LORD standing between heaven and earth, with a drawn sword in his hand extended over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell facedown.
I Chronicles 21:14-16 (2 Samuel 24:15-17)

There's God in a barren wilderness with Moses (and Joshua) and upon a threshing floor with David (and Solomon) desecrating humanities sacred assumptions about God and humanity... There we are paving paradise putting up our parking lots, telling everyone else that this one place right here is at least one of the best places, if not one of the choicest place around where God has obviously chosen to meet with us... a stairway to heaven... Isn't it obvious... look around... It's a beehive in here, up and down and all around! This is so obviously the work of God... God's hand is upon us. Really!?

Why do you think Jesus was crucified on a lonely hill outside that city, beyond that temple mount threshing floor? Heaven forbid that the temple would grow legs and walk away no matter how we nailed those two feet down. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but fools despise a thing or two. Is there a curve ahead? Do we drift right? Or, do we go underground?

God never ever has and never ever will put up with anyone who sets up shop in between God and all the people! Intercession has always been such a big business. Oracles are in high demand. Amidst such ignorance of the holy, God might just get roused in Shiloh and ride upon the clouds of heaven to show up amidst the pomp and splendor to say a few things on God's own behalf... Sun going dark, moon blood red.

In moments and places of that kind of direct revelation, nothing and no one is left standing or growing anywhere they assumed they were built upon or planted before... and there's rubble and splinters everywhere... and whoever is left like broken twigs on that hearth to record the terrible situation - those lonely ones find themselves on pilgrimage one way or another... either being carried off into captivity or running for their lives.

Some will tell you that this kind of god was just the god of the iron age... The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is obviously such a different breed of grace and peace!? Right, ok! So then let's play with time and space and put in a dash of the light, truth and healing music arts of Apollo and his prophetic Oracle harping between heaven and earth ... and stir in a sacred shakra here and there ... and a dash of corporate manipulation for good measure ... and then put it all under a marketable post-modern twenty-first century banner ... as if we can all now speak on the gods' behalf as we have obviously discovered the deeper secrets of the elusive gods.

I will not go beyond what is already written about the Trinitarian God. I am not just full of my own opinion. I will continue to call out for accountability and authenticity. I am not the accuser of anyone. I stand amidst these smoking ruins with all these hungry people and I know full well that it's only Jesus Christ who has that food we all know nothing about. May, all lies and seductions fall as dust and ashes under the feet of One Righteous King.

I humble myself before the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. I bow down before you my Father in heaven, coming through the body and blood of your Son Jesus Christ, in the council and breath of your Holy Spirit. I come before the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the Bright Morning Star whose Name is Faithful and True. The Just Judge. The One who has all the crowns, stars, swords and keys. The Jesus Christ whose voice sounds of thundering waters. The Jesus Christ with eyes of blazing fire. The Jesus Christ whose feet glow hot in that furnace. I come before the only embodied God man in heaven who is worthy of my worship. I bow down low before the white hot human God feet of Jesus Christ. I wait for you Jesus Christ. And I will only get up when I hear you say: "Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades."

May we find ourselves in the company of the Trinity, four living creatures, 24 elders and multitudes of angels and growing great cloud of witnesses. We already have everyone and everything we need! And yet, as far as it depends on us - we're not to leave anyone behind.

Thank God it doesn't depend on us!

"Sit in silence, go into darkness, Daughter of the Babylonians; no more will you be called queen of kingdoms. I was angry with my people and desecrated my inheritance; I gave them into your hand, and you showed them no mercy. Even on the aged you laid a very heavy yoke. You said, 'I will continue forever— the eternal queen!' But you did not consider these things or reflect on what might happen."
Isaiah 47:5-7

Fun and Games

I thought of this picture after all the research I've been doing today... Here we are earlier in the year on Gozo, a small island off the coast of Malta. I'm chewing on some fresh baked goat cheeze pizza in one hand while keeping the kids perpetually squealing with the other.

I started the workday researching everything I could find on Trinidad and Tobago: 25 windows open reading up on the President, Prime Minister, and Cabinet; discovering they just unveiled their brand new Hyatt Regency; are planning $25 billion worth of simultaneous projects including water projects of $10 billion towards 5 or 6 new desalination plants (after recently finishing Jeffrey Sachs' "Common Wealth" I saw that coming); and of course all kinds of past and present stuff in the energy sector.

The more I play with my kids... the more I play with my kids the more I pray... the more I pray the more I travel around and around and around...

Delirious? - Break the Silence

Citizens with a secret in our hands
That could ignite our shadowlands
Light it up and let it go
Let it shine with love and grace and a redesign
A ray of hope for the common man
Light it up and let it go

Oh, oh, oh,
We’ve got to give it away
And there’s a price to pay
When we give it away

Break the silence, break the silence,
Cross ever boundary that divides us, divides us
Break the silence, break the silence,
Cross ever border that divides us, oh, unite us

We turn the page, to a future just begun
If heaven is real then let our heaven become
Peace on earth, let it flow.
We raise our voice where the colours all but gone
Paint the world with redemption songs
Stir it up, let it flow.

Stu G of Delirious? is recorded as saying of this tune, "We met Rabbi Joseph Edelheidt in India and, in conversation, he was encouraging us to write songs that cross divides. It’s much better if we find what unites us rather than concentrate on what divides us. We have to work together to get the job done!"

And if I sit here and Google another name I'll be here all night... I gotta get home to my family. I put the world in bigger hands tonight.

One Heart Revolution

Listening to Hillsong United: One Heart Revolution.

Like Bree's picture in the previous post, Luke and Nate on Gozo capture a bit of my heart for our kids amidst the nations. Luke is a singer, songwriter, dancer... seven year old triple threat... when he moves under the leadership of the Spirit I hold my breath... just beautiful to witness. And Nate is the strongest little juggernaut I've ever tried to pin down and tickle... little warrior adventurer - full of strength and justice. Nate has this Buzz Lightyear sword... and when he goes for it I have to run to get my Balian defender of Jerusalem sword... cause if I don't have my sword that kid will cut me down. We swing swords for an hour until Nate is nearly exhausted... sweaty and smiling, but he will not ever let go of that sword, and it's in my best interest to always be aware... WHACK!

Our kids will be free to be anywhere in the world and do anything with and for Jesus Christ - led by Him; leading more like Him; leading more to Him. They will learn this now. Pilgrimage is one of the greatest gifts we can give our kids. Besides our absolute devotion to they're becoming truly human and fully alive in Christ, we want our kids to grow up amidst the nations... here, there and everywhere in Jesus' name.

And what Dar and I are noticing is that we don't have to be in the nations for the nations to find us. It's like breathing. Our home is a place of peace... a place connected with the contemplation of heaven on earth... a portal of sorts... and they find us, those who are with him end up with us - the one's that he directs our way... and may that continue Jesus... may that continue to happen for the sake of all that you are in our home, and out there in the nations. It's a bit tiring following you, but I'm tired in such a good way... and a few moments by that quiet stream recharges my heart, soul, mind, spirit, joints and marrow... and it's not long before I'm ready to follow you into deeper water.

May we be examples for our kids, and all our friends - that we will continue to walk, run and dance fearlessly in the powerful loving name of Jesus Christ amidst every tower and gutter as our kids bike, run, wrestle and play on every street with no name with all their new friends - all over the world. Somewhere in the spiritual realm that unnamed street full of smiling kids will be paved with gold... even if it's in the middle of a dust bowl in Central Africa or the jungle of East Asia or stretched across the Himalayan mountain peaks. As long as it depends on us, maybe - just maybe, that street will be filled with tangible expressions of the love of God as well... so that nobody gets left behind... and every kid, all of humanity, actually has the opportunity to live and be loved all together... happy, healthy and whole before God who is the pure embodiment of love.

Joel Houston from inside the CD jacket of One Heart Revolution:

"In November 2005, we stood in a stadium in Bogota, Columbia, with thousands upon thousands of people we'd never seen nor met before. We were about to hit the first note of the night when the power went out completely - no lights, no amplification, nothing but a whole lot of people together in the darkness. For a few awkward seconds I didn't know what to do as my heart skipped and I looked frantically for someone to sort it out. But before I had the chance to worry, I found myself caught up in one of the most incredible worship moments of my life: the people began to roar. It was a shout of praise that defied the present circumstances. It was more than hype, it went beyond a cheer, this was something else altogether. The people took over and we got swept up in it, the whole band joining in the shout, at one with the people. Nobody gave a second thought to anything other that the reason we were all there - to simply encounter God and bring glory to His Name."

I remember meeting Joel a couple of years ago in Calgary. We were in a green room and I was chatting with Phil Dooley regarding some Billy Graham stuff (at the invitation of Paul Kelly of Unite Productions). Joel was sitting across the room with his swollen ankle elevated, laughing with his buds about something. I got up, crossed the room and asked Joel what happened to his ankle. A surfing thing... I asked him if I could pray over his ankle... and as I sat next to Joel with my hands on his foot and ankle I saw a snapshot of my boy Luke surfing one day in Australia... and I thought how huge Joel's father's heart is for him... and the peace in that moment was like a thick warm blanket.

In the ninth grade, for a project in anthropology, I built an aboriginal village. I don't know why I chose to do a project on Australian Aborigines.. maybe it was partly because my parents took me to see Indian villages in Ontario... where I sat amidst the pow-wow's as a kid... all that music and chants, and drums, marveling wide-eyed at hearts minds and languages open wide to the Creator... amidst their traditions. Maybe, in building that Australian village in the ninth-grade I wanted to know how people all over the world lived and worshiped God.

On the Aborigine theme, few years back I was preaching to hundreds of youth at a week long camp... I challenged them to keep unbroken prayer in their chapel for 24 hours... and they did it. And at the end of that unbroken prayer meeting they held a spontaneous three hour worship session... It was after midnight in the midst of worship.. and I was sitting at the back of that large room... listening to all those kids full throttle into the throne room of their Father in heaven... and the Spirit just burst upon the place... and there I was sitting quietly at the back, a bit tired... but expectant... I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. And in a flash of a vision I was standing beside an old Aborigine man standing beside a rack of white robes and he said in a thick accent... "You must change your clothes!"

I was so startled I opened my eyes real wide and said to myself, "Wow, that was intense! What a vivid imagination I have." Just then, independently of one another, and all during the music and singing and dance... a young man came and stood over one shoulder and a young woman came and stood over the other shoulder and both laid one of their hands on one of my shoulders and the other hands they lifted before the Father. Ok, that was no coincidence... now there were three of us in that portal... So I closed my eyes again and there was the old man again, "You must change your clothes!"

I opened my eyes again, this time getting a bit more emotional... and the girl leading worship at the front of that place... right in the middle of whatever she was singing, led the band into a transition and then looked right at me, right through that whole sea of kids, and she said, "You know, Solomon in all his splendor wasn't dressed like a lily in a field - sometimes you just have to change your clothes."

And even as I type this now I'm crying... It's snowing in the mountains here today, right outside my window is a blanket of newly falling snow... "There is nothing like" is playing in the background... augh, I'm just bursting... so much fire coming up out of this cold dark night... I'm rocking a bit now... back to the vision...

So I took off my clothes and I put on one of those robes... and immediately I started to ascend the mountain city of God... whole mountain ranges full of a massive city of glorious light and love... so many levels... so many beautiful things... so many gorgeous people from every nation... and then I was out over the nations... cities... locations... and I would be taken to one, and then another... and you know what... I've been to many of those places since that vision... I've stood in many places globally and many more to come... and I saw them in that vision... and you know what I'm doing in those places amidst the people of God in those places... I'm proclaiming the name of Jesus Christ over the city, and the people of God, and the people who are yet to realize they belong to God already.

And I'll tell you this much... when United plays and sings I am in the very flow that first called me... something so very familiar about the DNA of this stuff, the flow that captivated my heart as a kid as I walked and prayed all those miles alone with God in my hometown of London, Ontario.

I didn't learn to walk all over cities and pray into every layer - by accident. I didn't pastor and shepherd and preach to youth in Churches and out on streets for ten years - by accident. I didn't work for Billy Graham for ten years - by accident. I wasn't discipled by Leighton Ford's (Billy's brother in law) Arrow Leadership Program - by accident. I didn't drink up all that spiritual theology James Houston taught me at Regent College - by accident. I didn't join forces with a 65 year old Canadian orphan who's father was an RAF pilot shot down over Normandy waters and who's grandfather was Chairman of the Trustee Savings Bank in the City of London - by accident. We are not going to raise up 10, 000 choice master cadets of the kingdom of God - by accident. Those 10, 000 won't lead hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands themselves into the wide open gates of heaven - by accident.

And as I share snippets of our growing story with you... please know, there is nothing accidental about these mounting kingdom waves for any of us. We can't slow down following Jesus Christ. We can't leave anyone behind. We are all in this together and we are anamchara - soul friends on the journey... everywhere in the name of our Father, through His Son, in His Spirit... dressed in His armor of Light. We already have everything we need in Him!

Strike the Tent

I just love this recent picture of Bree in Malta within the canvas backdrop of a refugee camp. Her knowing adventurous little look takes some of the sting out of the phrase "refugee camp". This picture reminds me of the God of all refugees showing up to Samuel in a little tent at Shiloh. God tented all over the map with Moses and Joshua... and then of course David and Solomon had their plans for more than a tent... and then there was a modest rebuilding of a second structure and Herod's tinkering with that one (and now, for some reason the feverish pitch over a third)... and after a number of centuries of silence God came and tented among an occupied depression in the incarnational embodiment of Jesus Chirst... and then he was a baby refugee in Egypt... and for most of his ministry had no pillow to lay his head upon... camping out most nights I guess... the embodied word of heaven a meandering canvas of sorts... and sure, we can stretch that metaphor out a bit... pun intended.

You might stretch God out and nail him down for a moment, just long enough to paint something... he'll even provide the finger paint. But, poor Thomas, you'll barely get close to God's original intent with your finger in that paint... Then again, you may want to keep your fingers to yourself... He'll invite you to put those fingers into his side... but I'm not sure you'll get too far before falling on your face crying out, "My Lord and my God" which, coincidentally was a confession no other disciple was ever recorded as saying while Jesus was on earth.

Now that I think about it: if Thomas had put his fingers in Jesus' side I don't think he'd have come out with any red paint... all Jesus' blood was spilled down upon the ground at the foot of the cross. Besides, Jesus spoke about being touched and not touched after his resurrection... I don't know, I guess it's a touchy subject... a resurrected holy God in between two kingdoms :)

Certain renaissance painters, when they painted the crucifixion, painted a squatting crapping dog in the foreground of their paintings... It seems it was their way of putting themselves on the canvas... Amidst that kind of eternal moment before the cross, the artist was nothing more than a dog... an old school route to humility. That wouldn't work in today's psychology... naw, you're a god... dog is too derogatory, unless you're dyslexic.. then - well, choose your own adventure.

This god dog stuff reminds me of a story in Matthew 15:21-31,

From there Jesus took a trip to Tyre and Sidon. They had hardly arrived when a Canaanite woman came down from the hills and pleaded, "Mercy, Master, Son of David! My daughter is cruelly afflicted by an evil spirit." Jesus ignored her. The disciples came and complained, "Now she's bothering us. Would you please take care of her? She's driving us crazy." Jesus refused, telling them, "I've got my hands full dealing with the lost sheep of Israel."

Then the woman came back to Jesus, went to her knees, and begged. "Master, help me." He said, "It's not right to take bread out of children's mouths and throw it to dogs." She was quick: "You're right, Master, but beggar dogs do get scraps from the master's table." Jesus gave in. "Oh, woman, your faith is something else. What you want is what you get!" Right then her daughter became well.

After Jesus returned, he walked along Lake Galilee and then climbed a mountain and took his place, ready to receive visitors. They came, tons of them, bringing along the paraplegic, the blind, the maimed, the mute—all sorts of people in need—and more or less threw them down at Jesus' feet to see what he would do with them. He healed them. When the people saw the mutes speaking, the maimed healthy, the paraplegics walking around, the blind looking around, they were astonished and let everyone know that God was blazingly alive among them.

Bread to dogs. Pearls to swine. I think it's interesting that at first Jesus ignored her, and that she drove his disciples nuts trying to get to him... and who was schooling who and surprising who with faith? He, the embodiment of God uses the word "dogs" and she doesn't even bat an eye... she responds humbly... And then to top the story off, Matthew records the immediate miraculous feeding of the 4000... I guess all those healed people had an appetite. Lots of puppy chow all around. And they'll always come back for more... though God may not feed them the same way twice. But with this woman... it's amazing how Jesus brings up bread and she'll settle for just a few crumbs... scraps!

I hope I never lose touch with the beggar puppy in me.... I'll take that crumb of manna. I'll feed off that living bread come down from heaven. I want that food that some know little or nothing about. Last thing I need to become is an existential gnostic phenomenon!

I'm sitting here in the office... We seem to have so much head spinning activity around here. Numbers and deals and pins all over maps and whiteboarding. Now, in between the office waves, I'm sitting amidst tons of books with another oddball book open in a window online; another online window open to Oprah and Eckhart Tolle; world bank publications here and a confidential executive summary of a friend there; and Time magazine open to an article entitled: "The Clean Energy Myth".

The books stacked around me today: Marsden's "Stupid to the last drop: how Alberta is bringing environmental armageddon to Canada (and doesn't seem to care)"; Stutchbury's "The silence of the songbirds": how we are losing the world's songbirds and what we can do to save them"; Houston's "Joyful exiles: life in Christ on the dangerous edge of things"; Gilmore and Pine's Harvard Press "Authenticity"; Taleb's "Black Swan"; Mason's "The pirate's dilemma: how youth culture is reinventing capitalism"; "The Cambridge companion to Kierkegaard"; Clairborne and Haw's "Jesus for president"; Barlow's "Blue covenant: the global water crisis and the coming battle for the right to water"; Fletcher's "Breaking news: NBC news bureau chief, Tel Aviv"; Diamond's "Collapse"; Krupp and Horn's "Earth: the sequal, the race to reinvent energy and stop global warming"; Khanna's "The second world: empires and influence in the new global order"; Bernstein's "A splendid exchange: how trade shaped the world"; Sachs' "Common wealth: economics for a crowded planet"; Palin's "Himalaya"; Tolle's "A new earth: awakening to your life's purpose"; Kenner's "The elsewhere community"; Broad's "The oracle: the lost secrets and hidden message of ancient delphi"; Baker's "The heart of the world: a journey to the last secret place"; McCullough's "John Adams"; Kinnaman's "unchristian"; Aikman's "Billy Graham: his life and influence"; Peterson's "A long obedience in the same direction"; Kolini & Holmes' "Christ walks where evil reigned: responding to the Rwandan genocide"; Rosenberg's "Dead Heat"; Jabbour's "The crescent through the eyes of the cross: insights from an arab christian"; and Brother Andrew & Janssen's "Secret believers: what happens when muslims believe in Christ"....

I'm on the hunt for the living Jesus Christ who is on the move in between all these lines, and some of these lines are just pure static, junky connections obtusely angled toward the transcendent, like gum that loses its taste too quickly ... But, I'm going after that golden crimson thread of heaven... and loving that still small voice weaving every step of this Way!

I think Jesus Christ has a few things to say for Himself... on His own behalf... and believe it or not, He has our best interests in mind. And oddly enough, if "The Secret" really works!!!! then Jesus must be really really real... cause so many people are going so hard after Him in every way, praying and singing and carrying on and on and on 24/7 365 - all going after Him, being found by Him ... I don't think there's another person getting so much focussed attention anywhere on the face of the earth... or above the earth, or under the earth... you just never know where Jesus Christ might allow himself to be found.

I'm listening to delirious? "Kingdom of Comfort" and I love Eagle Rider:

I feel the spirits breath moving down my neck
Closer than a summers day
You’re a lion on my back
I hear the spirit speak whispering my name
Gentle as a butterfly
In a violent hurricane

I feel the spirits breath free me from the net
Flying from captivity
And the life I called a wreck
I hear the spirit speak a voice behind my eyes
It’s time for a brand new song to sing
Now I’m saying my goodbyes

If you want to chat then come and find me. But, please don't patronize me and don't assume anything. Some days, the escapist in me feels a bit like Jason Bourne. Other days, the discoverer in me feels a bit like Horton hears a Who.

So much life blowing around every tent, word, seed, crumb... and speck!

Adventures in Parousia

I'll never forget reading Bonhoeffer's "uncompromising allegiance to a life lived according to the Sermon on the Mount" on a flight between Calgary and Toronto. It was a couple of years ago, and the future leader of Canada was sitting in executive class. God spoke to me while reading Bonhoeffer's teachings on the Sermon on the Mount, "This book belongs in the hands of Stephen Harper..." Anyway, it's a long story... and I gave him the book and he thanked me on the plane and later in a note emblazoned with the arms of Canada... (you might think I'm waving my little flag... but there's a stronger point coming).

Recently, while traveling internationally, I was in conversation with a government minister of a certain nation and we were chatting about potential components of our soon to be global company (not a subject in this blog... protecting that for now)... While sitting there discussing strategic international business developments our conversation turned to the topic of prayer... and a particular prayer room in the area hosting two weeks of 24/7 prayer... a kingdom business meeting in a government office.

We must keep in mind that some of us are not being called into those rooms to spout half-baked views of "end games" or lobby for a few dimes towards a few good causes. Some of us will actually be there to pray. We are there to discern and serve. We are there listening to God amidst others... and in that listening, we may bear in confidence the wisdom and peace of our eternal God amidst certain swirling temporal decisions. For the saints, it's about presence, in all places, salt and light at every level... Simple martyrs with no reputation in every gutter and ivory tower who carry a simple vow that no one gets left behind.

Jesus is not a republican conservative singing, "God bless America (and those who don't mind tolerating our agendas)!" Jesus is also not a neo-liberal democrat who preaches environmental ecopsychology in a godlike tone with all of humanity's best interests in mind.

God blessing America (and Canada) is a good thing on certain days. A holistic view of ecopsychology is a good thing on more days. What I'm getting at is, the god of our particular nations and the god of our best intentions may not be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ... and sooner or later, we may, or may not, want to ask Him a thing or two about the smoggy story we find ourselves in. Keep in mind, He's not really into sales...

Jesus answered, My kingdom (kingship, royal power) belongs not to this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My followers would have been fighting to keep Me from being handed over... But as it is, My kingdom is not from here (this world); [it has no such origin or source]. Pilate said to Him, Then You are a King? Jesus answered, You say it! [You speak correctly!] For I am a King. [Certainly I am a King!] This is why I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the Truth. Everyone who is of the Truth [who is a friend of the Truth, who belongs to the Truth] hears and listens to My voice. Pilate said to Him, What is Truth?
John 18:36-38 (Amplified)


May all our elemental stuff be purified by the advent of Truth....

Vow of Friendship

Here's Darlene, Shelley, Ryan and I six months ago in Three Sisters Mountain Village in Canmore, Alberta amidst a circle of friends from all over Canada building an altar (third one in that area) amidst simple prayers and flowing words.

Today I've been remembering how far so many of us have come through so many things - all together. I sit here thinking about many such things as I overhear Luke and Bree sitting outside on the sunny deck reading books to each other, playing horse shoes with each other... enjoying the warm sun in their shorts and t-shirts. It's a gorgeous day in the mountains today. I love the sound of Luke reading books to Bree and the sounds of giggles as horse shoes hit their mark. Earlier this morning, we were all out chopping down and hauling around dead fall trees on our land here on Spring Creek. Spring cleaning in so many ways... time to wake up from winter's slumber.

I have two books open here beside me: "Bernard of Clairvaux: the times, the man and his work" by Richard S. Storrs published in 1901; and Thomas Cahill's "Mysteries of the Middle Ages: and the Beginning of the Modern World" the edition I'm reading was published in March of 2008. I am becoming more fascinated by Bernard's relationships with Hildegard the mystic and Eleanor the mother of Richard the Lionheart and his brother John Softsword - kings of England. I am studying the historical developments of the sacred feminine.

I feel like I have ten desks in my head full of ten different paper trails of research. And all the research and study has me perpetually returning to my primary convictions in "what is already written".. primarily to the scriptures as they've been handed down to us in the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. In all my prayerful study I won't go beyond what is written. In all this prayer and research and interaction with kingdom leadership and business leadership and now international leadership in various growing conversations at many levels... I keep coming back to the core of the Law, Prophets, Jesus and apostolic band of leaders in the First Century Church... and even more specifically, to the incarnation, life, teachings, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ and the personal revelation and outworking of the Holy Spirit during Pentecost and beyond.

We cannot go beyond what is written. We must move from vision to covenant and creed. If we are not accountable with one another, as we hope to embody this living word of heaven, we will speculate and extrapolate in a gnostic way... where both our feet are planted firmly in mid-air where our words are so far removed from God's living Word growing up amidst our life together in the splendor of the ordinary life. We must move from the ideal of our models to the reality of spiritual friendships wholly authentic and humbly accountable to one another... responsible for each other before God. The more responsible we become for one another the more pastoral moments we find ourselves in ... the grunt work of the kingdom, the toilet cleaning for the sake of the health of all.

Eventually things come full circle. We realize just how hard it really is to be real... to be humble... to be pruned to be more "fruitful" the way Jesus defined it. Things finally come full circle to repentance.. that the leaders of the people become repenters... not just on behalf of the people... but repenting for their own sins of omission and commission... Frankly, there are a lot of things we tend to apologize for that we should actually be doing - putting that apology to work, rolling up our sleeves and building up the body of Christ in every way. No one gets left behind.

I could quote you from far too many books on revival and the revivalists... but let me go right back to Jeremiah 23...

"You prophets who do nothing but dream - go ahead and tell your silly dreams. But you prophets who have a message from me - tell it truly and faithfully. What does straw have in common with wheat? Nothing else is like God's Decree."

"Isn't my message like fire?" God's Decree. "Isn't it like a sledgehammer busting a rock? I've had it with all the prophets who get their sermons second hand from each other. Yes, I've had it with them. They make up stuff and then pretend it's a real sermon..."

And Jeremiah 15... Jeremiah was whining when God interrupted:

This is how God answered me: "Take back those words, and I'll take you back. Then you'll stand tall before me. Use words truly and well. Don't stoop to cheap whining. Then, but only then, you'll speak for me. Let your words change them. Don't change your words to suit them...."

I pray for my friends today... that they continue to find the heart of their Father in heaven, through the Son, in the Spirit... discovering the words of our Father spoken boldly through Jesus Christ and breathing life into us by His Spirit - that God's words would be like horns blasting - frequency shaking the foundations of ancient walls... that the very words of God incarnated in his people would shape the songs we long to sing - all that sound flowing like a torrent from the throne... May we preach the words that will be written into song and sung over the people of God as we receive an unshakable kingdom. If we truly are returning from captivity.. those harps won't stay hung up in the willows for long. Those are communion cups in the picture...


Psalm 126 (The Message)

A Pilgrim Song

It seemed like a dream, too good to be true, when God returned Zion's exiles. We laughed, we sang, we couldn't believe our good fortune. We were the talk of the nations— "God was wonderful to them!" God was wonderful to us; we are one happy people.

And now, God, do it again— bring rains to our drought-stricken lives. So those who planted their crops in despair will shout hurrahs at the harvest, so those who went off with heavy hearts will come home laughing, with armloads of blessing.

Body, Blood and Bare Wood

Sitting here anticipating Maundy Thursday. The final upper room discourse. The body and blood of Jesus. I am captivated again by the passion of Jesus... the struggle... the determination. March 22, 2005 I posted this little poem. I first wrote it in 1999 while studying in the atrium at Regent in Vancouver:

:: contemplation on the brink of two kingdoms ::

::::

dark night of the soul
small naked curled up ball of fear
numbing darkness joints marrow
tears blur stinging
agony
slipping through the cracks
the cry, “Lord, save me!”
light glint swinging rapier
balm
stable heartbeat
breathe

Back to Holy Week 2008: there is something about hearing a voice... something about the word from the throat, the gestures and tones - the conviction - that just goes missing in text form. In this regard, the red letters in the Gospels are so fascinating. Captivating texts. Yet, there is nothing like revelation coming from a whole human being... nothing like being plugged into heaven amidst the people of God coming to terms with the word of God embodied in Jesus Christ.

I'm so glad Jesus Christ spoke up... Up until that point in history there was already so much editing and rewriting. I'm not saying the Old Testament scriptures were not inspired or whatever your word may be for it... I'm just saying, writing is a certain craft... and there was so much to be revealed - and then Jesus showed up and started making beautiful oragami of all those pages... yes, fulfilling everything written along the way. Jesus kept saying, "It is written." And then, after his death and departure, everyone started writing again... While he was around I wonder if all the feather pens just stood still in their inkwells... maybe Peter, James and John kept journals. I don't know.

I love the Gospels, and all those incredible layers of words and symbols and cyphers. Just to pick four authors, I look at Luke, Peter, Paul and John and wonder.. Peter especially! Like the guy had any idea when he first dropped his nets that he'd craft such incredible stuff... "inexpressible and glorious joy" ...that stuff sings! And the creed of Philippians 2 and the poetry of John 17... and the Revelation of John... I mean those guys mastered and distilled texts in a Spirit way... "It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you..."

I've been hunting to find documentable words for all these revelations and experiences... so many without words... uninterpretable in text... It's like trying to imagine Ezekiel or Daniel or Zechariah or John seeing and hearing all that stuff and then trying to get it all down on parchments. Must have scratched their heads a lot... sitting by a river for days speechless... I guess I'm after sound these days. The rumble of the heavens. Tone. The heartbeat of the words...

I guess I really miss preaching... proclaiming the King. And when I go looking for tone and sound - God always brings it, through the skies, from beneath the earth... I'm after that stuff again... not to increase my faith or as a demand to show me something... It's God's smile my way... all of creation groaning along with me anticipating the revelation of the Son of Man coming in the clouds.

And it's not that being a word-bearer is some nice cute glossy eye-ball slow-mo great-lighting movie scene of an adventure. Not when the word-bearer gets sent (time and time again) to struggling leaders in big positions... well, big by their terms. Most of the time, the messenger ends up shot in the back. Most of the time, the messenger is so deep amidst the web of networks, so far removed from the front office that once the dust settles, the word-bearer is totally forgotten... the word-bearer is often marginalized, mocked and misunderstood by most people "on the inside". When dealing with sick and diseased infrastructures, the most authentic kingdom authority is typically always outside in ... that's one reason why Jesus was crucified outside the city.

The word-bearer worth their salt knows before they ever utter a word that they might die right after that word is spoken... death is filling the room as that word is uttered... and yet they still speak it out. Yet, the word-bearer survives, they live what they are speaking... they choose life... until the world is no longer worthy of them. They are the embodiment of their own words... because their words are becoming more and more the very words of God. In that way, they are Christ-like. In that way, they are humble. In that way, they are perpetual repenters. Cause there is nothing like an ivory tower full of sin to bring a stairclimbing word-bearer to their knees. God is on the move and some sinner is sent somewhere with a message... sons and daughters of God, sure... just wait until that moment when the conviction of your own fallenness and minititude (smallness) overwhelms you... small naked curled up ball of fear... and there is a fear that is the beginning of wisdom... dread is a good thing at times.

Do you think it's easy to speak one word to a church and then watch it close its doors? Is it easy to stand with a leader of leaders while they pull the pin from their own grenade? Is it easy to serve a movement from the outside while many on the inside reinforce their walls?

I'm so thankful for Jesus Christ and his leadership and his understanding and his cross. May his people continue to follow him into every gutter and high place on this planet as His kingdom comes... His waves of revival proclamation are coming... bones are shaking... wake up o sleeper!

It's time to witness Jesus bring His Church (in certain places and nations) down to bare wood... shaving curls down onto the threshing floor. Yes, it's all about grace... and maybe grace has been training a few fighters to go a few rounds with non-grace and un-grace.

When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you'll not talk about the joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear babble that we think we mean. How can they meet us face to face until we have faces?
C.S. Lewis - Till We Have Faces

"You've been with me all this time, Philip, and you still don't understand? To see me is to see the Father. So how can you ask, 'Where is the Father?' Don't you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you aren't mere words. I don't just make them up on my own. The Father who resides in me crafts each word into a divine act.

"Believe me: I am in my Father and my Father is in me. If you can't believe that, believe what you see—these works. The person who trusts me will not only do what I'm doing but even greater things, because I, on my way to the Father, am giving you the same work to do that I've been doing. You can count on it. From now on, whatever you request along the lines of who I am and what I am doing, I'll do it. That's how the Father will be seen for who he is in the Son. I mean it. Whatever you request in this way, I'll do.
John 14:9-14

Faith in God

Last year, I studied the word "perhaps/maybe" in the Old Testament. It started with my reading of the chat between Jonathan and his armor-bearer in I Sam 14:

Jonathan said, "Come on now, let's go across to these uncircumcised pagans. Maybe GOD will work for us. There's no rule that says God can only deliver by using a big army. No one can stop GOD from saving when he sets his mind to it."

His armor bearer said, "Go ahead. Do what you think best. I'm with you all the way."

The word "maybe" engages our faith. Faith engages God in the sacrament of the present moment. Hope is like an arrow shot out into the future... drawing the future back through the neck of the hourglass into the faith of the present. Love warms up the vacuous space in-between faith and hope. Another way I put it: Faith believes Him; Hope expects Him; Love embraces Him... all encircling while on this journey, pilgrimage... always on the move. We are moving towards Him as He is moving toward us. When he says he's coming soon... he is always coming... and there are ways that he is always with us and ways that he is coming. I'm not concerned about that final coming... My hope is set on Him in eternity... I've set my mind and heart on things above. Through this kind of hourglass my eschatological hope is shaped.

The bottom line is that faith allows God to be Godself. Faith believes in God's character... God's word. Faith trusts and acknowledges the understanding and wisdom of another. Faith is not stubborn. Faith is not manipulative. Faith can never tell God what to do. Faith can never anticipate what God will do... accept that God will do what is just and right. Faith is the most flexible trusting part of human consciousness... and it's what God targets in us and draws out of us, on the way to making us truly human and fully alive in "their" image... so many layers to God. Can my faith handle all that insurmountable glory funneled into the body, soul, mind and strength of Jesus Christ!? Will I walk obediently with Him over this His earth? Will I love Him as I believe Him? Not to mention will He and I "enjoy" each others presence?? Joy is the relational destination of hope...

The bottom line for me... If He is not leading this armada we're not going anywhere and we're not going to "enjoy" sitting around.

Remember Thomas' words to the disciples when Jesus sets his face on going to Jerusalem (via Bethany to raise Lazarus from the dead) in John 11. The conversation unfolds:

Then he said to his disciples, "Let us go back to Judea."

"But Rabbi," they said, "a short while ago the Jews tried to stone you, and yet you are going back there?"

Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? A man who walks by day will not stumble, for he sees by this world's light. It is when he walks by night that he stumbles, for he has no light."

After he had said this, he went on to tell them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up."

His disciples replied, "Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better." Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.

So then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him."

Then Thomas (called Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him."

Jesus face was set like flint towards Jerusalem. May our faces be set like flint towards our crosses... the bearing in our bodies the marks of Christ. May we already be crucified with Christ. We are already martyrs. Our lives are already hidden with Christ in God. In every way, we take Jesus at his word. We on our way to the same destination. The righteous are as bold as lions.

Jesus and Thomas were fearless. Jonathan and his armor-bearer were fearless. Every Moses has their Joshua. Every Elijah their Elisha. Every Peter their John Mark. Every Paul their Silas... Actually, Paul had a few armor-bearers. I love Band of Brothers.