Weakness and Strength

Weakness is provocative, strength deters.
Donald Rumsfeld's speechwriter Ken Alderman

Last night I watched Why We Fight, and tonight I'll try to make it through The War Tapes about three soldiers filming their war. I wonder if it is as raw as three college students filming Invisible Children in Northern Uganda.

I think prophecy is the fullness of a process that begins with discernment, knowledge and wisdom. There is no guess work in prophecy. But there is timing. Words need time to form. Many times, the most prophetic of words come from people in the fringes of power and authority. Not because of position, but because they "know" what is going on. Like Daniel. And they also know "who" is doing what. Like Esther. And wisdom figures out which words will make the most impact on those who need to know who is doing what. Like John in Revelation.

Revolutions are all about speaking the right words, exposing the right things, at the right time, before the right people - the results are inevitable. The words give the happenings a context to the hearers. Context provides leverage. People begin to move.

Jesus spoke kingdom to a nation under Roman law and occupation. John revealed his Revelation to seven tiny churches scattered throughout Asia Minor. Augustine, from the edge of the empire, took 14 years to write City of God, which was completed as Rome fell.

The most prophetic movement happens in the outer perimeters. Coming from the inside, it can all sound a bit hollow.

From Dwight D. Eisenhower's final words as President (Jan. 17, 1961),

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction...

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.

From John F. Kennedy's first words as President, (three days later):

The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebearers fought are still at issue around the globe - the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.

We dare not forget today that we are heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans - born of this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage - and unwilling to witness of permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

This much we pledge - and more.

To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends.

I was in Atlanta, Georgia during as 9/11 unfolded live on CNN. As a passive Canadian who has never fired a live round of ammunition in his life, I finally understood how Americans can sing so emotionally a national anthem about "bombs bursting in air." It was a day like none other. All at once, bewildered Americans knew they were at war. All at once, I was in solidarity with them. The world didn't get it (even Canada) for a long time, that America was already at war. That day, September 11, a prominent pastor cursed venom, "God bless America! And we had better bomb the hell our of somebody." Those glaring eyes and hot measured words took my breath away. Until that moment, I had no idea what it meant to be an American. And my solidarity started searching for wisdom...

It seems to me that America is a nation that is perpetually defined by the wars it decides to fight. And now, with the internet and some bipartisan media coverage, the underbelly of the shark is finally being exposed.

When Rome fell it was a beastly empire. That one city alone imported more than 1000% more than it ever exported. Senators with ivory tables and chairs. What an incredible imbalance. Generations earlier, Nebuchadnezzar was turned into a beast after it was prophecied he would rule over them. What was it that got George Washington so worked up? I haven't read his "prophecy" so I'll have to look into it some more.

It's obvious, isn't it?

The place where your treasure is,

is the place you will most want to be,

and end up being.

Matthew 6:21

Christmas and Snow

Nate loving Bob the Builder. Grammy & Grampy loving Nate.

Bree (olympic cross-country ski-queen) Christmas Day @ Nordic Centre

Flipping off the deck into two feet of snow.

Luke getting a spotter as he flips out :)

Buried up to his eyeballs.

Literally!

Resolutions and Revolutions

We have got to be careful. Vows can be dangerously religious... We ask people to cross all kinds of power lines and renounce this and that to find something else... I'm not so sure what we are finding. I love 24-7, have given away boxes and boxes full of "Red Moon Rising" have read "the Vision and the Vow" and am looking forward to "God on Mute". I have launched prayer rooms and spent the night keeping vigil in many others. But I have not taken the Moravian vow or put on the ring. I've thought and prayed about it a lot. I have a Scottish friend who is a third generation Mason... One day I hope to help him out from under certain vows and rings.

There is something about vows, covenants and blood that I am not comfortable mixing. I am not critical of neo-monasticism. I'm a praying mystic who listens for my Lord and walks softly in this world. I live in the mountains surrounded by my family and my books. Among other global places, my wife has been with Mother Teresa and the Sisters of Charity. We are partners in a new foundation that will hopefully release a spirit of adoption among many orphan children and university and college students around the world. I can't wait for my three kids to get the chance to love on kids their age all around the world.

In truth, the external actions that do not exceed our powers depend absolutely upon our will; but our volitions depend upon our will only through certain artful twists which give us means of suspending our resolutions, or of changing them. We are masters in our own house, not as God is in the world, he having but to speak, but as a wise prince is in his dominions or as a good father of a family is in his home.
Leibniz - Theodicy

And whoever desires to be a perfect disciple of our Lord is called upon to lift up his spirit in this spiritual exercise for the salvation of all his natural brothers and sisters, as our Lord lifted up his body on the cross. And how? Not for his friends and kinsfolk and for those who love him dearly, but in general, for all mankind, without any special regard for one more than for another. For all those who desire to forsake sin and ask for mercy are to be saved through the power of his passion.
The Cloud of Unknowing

51 years ago, something happened to five families that changed the lives and future ministries of thousands of Christians around the world. This is one of the most important stories in the formation of my spirituality. Last November I posted "Now! It's time! Come on!" Two thirds through that post I wrote the following:

I was 14 years old when I read Elisabeth Elliot’s book, Through Gates of Splendor. She tells the January 8, 1956 story of her husband Jim and four of his friends who were killed by tribesmen on a secluded beach of the Curraray River in the jungles of East Ecuador. I met Elisabeth Elliot shortly after reading her book. In my shy early teens, I looked at the floor and told her, “Your husband was a good man.” She looked me right in the eyes and without hesitation, said, “You can be just like him.” That phrase went right through me. I decided then and there that I wanted to love and understand Jesus in such a way that I would be willing to be his witness, even if it meant my life might be put in danger. That night, before going to sleep, I prayed and asked for a martyr’s death (in a 14 year old kind of way). For years I wanted to be a bush pilot like Jim’s martyred friend Nate Saint. Two years ago, Dar and I named our third child after him, my brother, and Dr. Leighton Ford. Nathaniel Andrew Leighton Bartha.

On October 27, 1949, five years before his martyrdom, Jim Elliot penned these words into his Wheaton College Journal,

Reading Nietzsche and Orr I have been soberly impressed with the strength of the forces in the human mind…. I have just now prayed for God’s new revelation – this generation’s real laying hold of the Old Revelation. The old is become so undefined, so “accepted,” so followed in blindness, that when the truth of it is brought to light, it shall be a new revelation.

I have prayed for new men, fiery, reckless men, possessed of un-controllably youthful passion – these lit by the Spirit of God. I have prayed for new miracles. Explaining old miracles will not do. If God is to be known as the God who does wonders in heaven and on earth, then God must produce for this generation.

The next day, October 28, Jim reflects on the cost of such a prayer, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”

And then, the very next day, on October 29, Jim realized something profound, “…I responded to the simple urge within me to offer myself for the work there [in the jungle of East Ecuador].”

Jim prayed; he understood the cost of such a prayer; and then was called by God to serve in a place where one day he would lay down his life – a revelation confessed over the span of three college days.

Our resolve comes from whatever we revolve around.

Look at these three sentences (I'll leave two blanks):

"____________ have nothing to lose but thier chains. They have a world to win. __________ of all countries, unite!"

Fill in the blanks to come up with something redemptive and missional. Or, fill in the blanks with "the proletarians" and "working men" and you have the last three lines of the Communist Manifesto.

Lord Byron spoke about a drop of ink falling like dew upon a thought and making thousands, even millions think. One word can change everything. God gives me a one word focus every year. I ask him for that one word. Over the last eight years there has been a progression to the words: Centered; Grounded; Launched; Authority; Transition; Velocity; Stop; and Grace.

I wonder what my word for 2007 will be?

Bonhoeffer: The Cost of Discipleship

"Christian love draws no distinction between one enemy and another, except that the more bitter our enemy's hatred, the greater his need of love. Be his enmity political or religious, he has nothing to expect from a follower of Jesus but unqualified love. In such love there is no inner discord between private person and official capacity. In both we are disciples of Christ, or we are not Christians at all. Am I asked how this love is to behave? Jesus gives the answer: bless, do good, and pray for your enemies without reserve and without respect for persons."

Intersistere & ῥυθμός

When to change gears? Typically, mechanical metaphors are useless when describing human behavior - we are not machines. I'm a Luddite of personalism. Abandon the construct for a heartbeat. Of course, I still love the little iPod that Dar got for free and the cheap Vonage she's setting up at home!

Something happened this morning on my early commute through the mountains that got me thinking. My pearl woke me up at 6 a.m. I got my stuff together and showered while my Starbucks one-mug coffee maker percolated away. Grabbed a hot mug of java and was out the door by 6:25 (still wet behind the ears).

As my VW TDI diesel hummed it's way onto the highway I inserted some vintage U2 and cranked the volume. After all these years, each tune still gets me emotional. This morning it was the lyrics of "Bad" that caught my attention:

If you twist and turn away.
It you tear yourself in two again.
If I could, yes I would
If I could, I would let it go.
Surrender, dislocate.

If I could throw this lifeless life-line to the wind.
Leave this heart of clay, see you walk, walk away
Into the night, and through the rain
Into the half light and through the flame.

If I could, through myself, set your spirit free
I'd lead your heart away, see you break, break away
Into the light and to the day.

To let it go and so to find away.
To let it go and so find away.
I'm wide awake.
I'm wide awake, wide awake.
I'm not sleeping.

And if you know the tune well, what really woke me up and got me focussed, and when I mean "focussed" I mean interceding - when the Spirit grabs your heart and everything else disappears - was when Bono went "Woo-Hoo"... I was immediately reminded of Martin Smith of Delerious? doing a similar "Woo-Hoo" during "I'll See You". When I first heard Martin "woo-hoo" I knew I'd heard it somewhere before... In my car, early this morning, light creeping over the horizon, clipping along at 120 km/hr, I was frozen for a breath or two in between different times and spaces in a flood of colours!

Tunes still blasting away, I finally got through the mountains and plains to the Calgary city limits. I pushed the clutch to downshift and noticed that the car was already in fourth gear. I had whistled an hour down the highway at 120 km/hr without being in 5th gear. I didn't notice my transmissions rpm's up at 3000. I had the tunes going. I was just humming down the highway. VW's are great! If I was driving a North American automobile, forget 3000 prms, I'd have a $3000 transmission bill.

I was between gears. I got to the city at the usual speed at the usual time. But there was more pressure. An unhealthy dis-engagement below the surface. I should have been in 5th gear. I can't drive like that everyday... I imagined all the stuff I could miss in life if I never engage 5th gear.

Again, I'm not a machine! But there is something there about catching the pace, rhythm, flow, stride, the "Woo-Hoo!"

Dictionary.com's word for today:

Interstice is from Late Latin interstitium, "a pause, an interval," from Latin intersistere, "to stand still in the middle of some- thing," from inter, "between" + sistere, "to cause to stand."

Engage. Don't get caught running to stand still. Brings to mind the words of Jesus in John 4,

It's who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That's the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.