My Favorite New (old) Law

Not much to say here, but the apex of my spiritual thought over about the past week or so has been something I came across in McGrath’s newest that I’d yet to come across otherwise in my travels through Christian history.

I’ll spare you the oh-so-pretentious-sounding Latin* and tell you that it roughly translates to “the law of prayer [is] the law of belief”.

Where McGrath took it, and the locale of my meditation as well, has been to reduce it to this: how you pray is how you believe.

Notice, it didn’t say the guilt-engendering “how much you pray is how you believe” or anything like that; that point may be there to be made, but I refuse to help bring in that baggage for you. Tote it yourself.

Now I’m gonna wave the flag as high as I can right here and say that I’ve studied nothing whatsoever of the context, further employ, or heck, even the Latin grammar of it; I know there is a Wikipedia page about it, and I’ve not even perused that. So perhaps I’m going rogue here as a proudly ignorant propagator of something I admittedly have read nothing about, but even still, it seemed to have a particular gravity and resonance to it.

I guess you could legitimately say that the way someone prays is truly how they actually believe (ever listened to fresh-to-the-faith people or middle schoolers pray?). I don’t know; my thinking is still fresh on this.

The history of Christianity virtually overflows with nuggets such as this one, and the make up of my spirituality is increasingly characterized by a reverence for the wisdom of those who’ve gone so valiantly before us-with less and less thanks for the hip, the cool, or the paradigm-shifters that populate the local book megaplex. The ancients picked up on the fact that much of the ‘trailblazing’ stuff, doctrinally at least, often ended up at false belief.

With those who’ve stood firm in the tracks of those humble giants of the faith who’ve gone before us in mind, then, here’s to a wonderful, joyous, ponderous Thanksgiving holiday.

*Unless you’re into such things, like Amanda G. no doubt is… It is lex orandi, lex credendi.

Forbidden Math

I’ve taken to staring at walls a great deal.

Two lyrics from Jackson Browne’s immortal “These Days” once again describe every thing about me well, these days.

Well I’ve been out walkin’

I don’t do that much talkin’

These days

(…)

These days I seem to think a lot

About the things

That I forgot to do

This morning I stare across the trenches at monumental changes in my life (don’t worry-these changes still be largely the stuff of secret; if we share friendship you will be privy soon enough). These days, I’m not doing that much talking, and I’m giving a lot of thought to all that I’ve never gotten around to doing.

While I do not consider ThisSpace a journal, I do find it funny how my personal journaling tends to inspire me to share with the scattered dozen whose eyes land here. Allow me to try and polish it for public consumption by way of a question.

Anyone know how to untangle personal faith from an ideal, from an institution, from a (perhaps) ill-founded dream?

I think the content of my atrophied soul’s wonderings has been to ponder how faith (mine, actually; not that on some impotent chalkboard) stands apart from well, everything else.

Let me make it tangible.

I don’t go to church these days, mainly due to my work schedule (but also due to laziness).

How well does (or should) I expect my faith to stand, to grow, to nourish itself?

I don’t work at a Christian institution any more, by (sometimes lamented) choice.

How should my faith function in places where it is a sorta quirky “lifestyle choice” to everyone else, not necessarily a decision I make every day about the star around which my personal galaxy orbits?

I graduated seminary some six months ago.

How should my faith function, both in private and in vocation, given the richness of the theological education I’ve undergone?

Subtract those three things and… what do you make of my faith in Christ?

What does such a faith look like?

A crooked stick? An empty jar? Filthy rags?

Can you subtract all of the things that make you a Person of Faith and just retain well, that faith?

Are you supposed to do that?

Permit me to drop a bit of historical analogy on you, one that doesn’t quite fit but makes the point as best I can contrive at the moment.

It became the uber-hip, in vogue thing in the 19th century to subtract all that stuff that well, we’d prefer weren’t in the gospels and the rest of the New Testament and reduce all of Christianity down to just Jesus as Love Guru and Omnidirectional Revolutionary Force for Hire or something. (See guys from Crossan to Spong to Chopra for such ‘making of Jesus in an image of our own choosing’ today.) That was then and always has been the default answer to the ‘what do we do with this Jesus?’ question.

Well, I wonder if I have not done something similar, by subtracting most all of Jesus except for whatever I can get going on with Him by myself.

The stuff I don’t like about Jesus, like his expectation that I make church, or make effort to grow in the knowledge of him, or negotiate tough teachings about him, or deal with the unpalpable things others in my tradition may do with him, or, whatever… I guess I’ve sort of subtracted all that I don’t like about the Lord and stuck with what I can would rather hold onto.

By myself.

Alone.

For the Christian, the forbidden math is that which leads to one.

Alone.

The God you can taste

Okay, we all fall in ‘ruts,’ so to speak, and This Guy deserves as much condemnation as the rest.

I find myself in a sort of ‘theological rut’. Kind of like Walter in “The Big Lebowski,” everything always seems to circle back ’round to one particular area of theology, specifically, one idea.

The record I think stands easily which judges this one of the most well-trod ones in the history of our dear tradition. I think I’m safe in asserting that the amount of traffic it has gotten proves its relevance to the core of the Christian message.

Theologians, historians, and everyone else important refer to this concept as dualism.

A Greek idea originally, it holds esoteric, “spiritual” stuff as better than (if not wholly superior, in every sense of the word, to) fleshly, this world stuff. Some forms of it actually hold the universe (including, but not limited to, God, Satan, and all aspects of creation) to be at war with itself, the “spiritual” stuff vs. the “fleshly” stuff.

Pop quiz: Don’t think, just answer. Choose any two.

Which honors God more, praying alongside the latest Chris Tomlin hits or loving your spouse well?

Which would God prefer you cultivate, your prayer endurance or whether you work as though unto Him?

Which does God like more, those Chris Tomlin hits or Beethoven’s 5th?

Remember, don’t think, just answer. I’m wanting honest answers here, not the “right” ones. Besides, I’m not waiting around on you. Feel free to email your results.

So this morning during Communion, for the first time ever, as best I can recall, it really did hit me as I was eating the cracker that something truly profound, truly otherworldly happens during that sacred meal.

I know of no way I can get you there to that pew from earlier in the day, but the power of Communion, throughout the history of Christianity, has manifested in one particularly powerful way:

It reminds us that God is not ashamed of these bodies of flesh and this dirty, unclean, unpretty physical world made up of stuff that doesn’t always behave itself.

See, Christianity has stumbled time and time again in its history, guided by some charismatic leader who whipped some group into a frenzy over how deeply, fundamentally ashamed they ought to be at their weaknesses (like needing to go to sleep), their temptations (like being attracted to the opposite sex), and their attractions (like enjoying beautiful art).

Communion reminds us of the God unashamed of what His creation says about Him.

Communion reminds us of the Incarnation (as well as Christ’s Passion).

Communion reminds us of the God so real to us we can taste Him.

For all of our weaknesses, failures, nastiness, unfaithfulness and outright defeats… God is right there with us.

Whom, or What, have we been admonished to remember when we come to that table?

Jesus.

“God with us”.

Maybe that’s what that cracker tasted like this morning… God with us.

I should get some more of that.

Who did I think I was?

Okay, two rules:

1) This will be short,

B) this will be the beginning of more regular postage.

Promise.

Sitting at IHOP a couple of days ago and I found myself reading and meditating deeply upon Romans 8. I decided then and there, in true keeping with the ‘anything goes’ espirit de summer, to pay no attention to amount ingested, how “far I got” from my starting place at Romans 8:1, or to even be conscious of “how many verses I read this morning”.

That triggered the realization in me that there is a lot packed into our Scriptures.

Why rush?

When I taught at the School-Which-Shall-Not-Be-Named, there was an, ahem, very ardent Republican lady with whom I occasionally crossed paths. We would always share good banter, never anything serious or heavy (at least to me; I’m sure I wasted valuable real estate on her “God Please Open These Sinners’ Eyes” list).

Well, all in good fun (I think…), this lady one time told me that she and I were one day soon going to sit down and talk politics, Bible-to-Bible, and hammer out which position, hers (ardent GOP) or mine (not-ardent-for-either), was “more Biblical”.

The reason this exchange stuck in my mind is that, almost immediately, I realized that I don’t know my Bible well enough to make that argument on one side or the other.

I didn’t then and I don’t now.

Nor do I think I ever shall.

I hope I’m never that convinced of my own grasp of God’s Word, as well, I really do hold that if we have even a moderately high view of Scripture, as we go through life we’ll invariably be confronted with our own shortsightedness with regard to it. We’ll grow, change, and even laugh at what we used to believe they said about God.

So back to the Maison des Pancackes.

I’m reading Romans 8 and all I can do as I go is ask the inspired writ as I go, “what does this mean?” and “why?” or even “why not?”.

Alongside. Every. Verse.

Just yesterday I returned to church after about a five-week uhhh, sabbatical from there.

The question I asked myself almost as soon as I got done talking to Ryan was, “what in the world was I doing, thinking I knew God, the Bible, and His world well enough to imagine I was getting the whole picture doing Christianity by myself?

Who did I think I was?

As most who know me well are aware, I’m sort of a student of church history and what those who’ve had the same Book and Savior as us have done with It. The more I study and think deeply upon just what we are to do with this “Jesus Thing,” I stand ever more convinced of the need for deep and profound humility before God, our tradition, and the Scriptures.

The Spirit of God, alongside the Scriptures, has been at work in God’s people for some two millennia now-and we haven’t exhausted the meaning or power of Holy Writ just yet.

I’m not sure I should alter Augustine this way, but he famously said that “When you’ve found yourself a god you understand, you have built yourself an idol.”

I wonder if it’s okay to say something similar about the Scriptures?

I know I err more often than not on the side of epistemic impotence, but I really did shudder at my friend’s presumption of knowing the whole of Scripture that well, and it made me wonder if she had not in fact erred on the side of building herself blueprints for an idol.

May the Scriptures never conform… to anything.

Not a song, political platform, doctrinal presupposition, or anything else.

May they define, not deviate.

May they always shape, mold and polish.

And may they always inspire thanks to our holy God.

Quote of the day

I ran across this whilst reading my devotional this morning:

“The alternating beats of the Christian heart are receptivity and response-receptivity to God and response in work from us.”

-E. Stanley Jones

The roused mama bear on the bus

So my dear friend Amanda said in comments on one of the posts below that she’d be interested to hear what I learned from having my car towed at the Amos Lee show (besides where not to park!).

Two things come to mind that I’d do well to share.

We Christian folk have a very well-oiled way of presenting holiness and life change to the world (even when authentic), until someone manages to glance us from just the right angle. (Think of a Jenga tower, perched precariously, but not realized until you look at it from an unusual angle.)

Well, my unusual angle was money, specifically, someone taking it from me and there being NOTHING I COULD DO ABOUT IT (i.e., the car being towed).

You see, I exercise EXTREME discipline on how I handle my money. (This is in part due to so many years in school. A good thing, too, I’ve decided.) I keep up with every cent. I consider a trip to Starbucks a luxury I can do without, and I’ve been known to skip lunch entirely rather than eat out at work. (I suspect I share that in common with Los Geidls as well!)

So you can imagine the simmering potpourri of rage and cauldron of bubbling hatred (yes, I chose those specific words on purpose) that engulfed me as I was working out the details to get my car back.

Well, the car was in far south Dallas (geography tidbit: I live in far north Dallas) located conveniently-not-close to a bus stop. My roommate just so happened to be going out of town that weekend (to propose to his girlfriend now fiance!), so my main avenue for help on that front was gone.

It pains me to admit that I was loathe to even ask him for help anyway, however.

No one at work knows about the Towing Incident, nor do anyone in my family.

You see, I’m too proud, in a place deep, deep down, to cop to having needed help. A lesson I’ve revisited time and time again since college has been that mankind’s sin problem manifests powerfully in the deep confidence all of us have to affirm which says that we can “do it by myself”.

Whenever I get too sold, too sprung, too confident in my own ability to get things done (in this case, taking an extremely complex trip on three buses and two trains, in addition to walking a mile or so) without any help, I know I’m not walking by the Spirit.

Or when my silent mantra, deep within my soul, becomes “can’t let them know I need help”.

And whenever someone messes with my money, son, you’d best watch out-I’m like a momma bear protecting her cubs. Cute, fuzzy, and inviting… until you get to know her from an authentic angle.

Get to know her well and get to find out what she cares about more than well, you.

So I used my long sojourn to get the car back to do a bit of reflection (as well as put in some time with an old legend) and to plan for a bit of spiritual discipline.

You see, I’m not normally a vituperative, combative guy… but the folks who’d towed my car, well, they deserved the worst I could unleash upon them, I reasoned.

I’d found my mind wandering to entirely justifiable places, where I’d say some, well, highly creative (yet non curse words!) things to Those People about their lot in life, how they made their living, and what I hoped for the fate(s) of their children.

On one of those buses, however, I decided to contort myself into a God-honoring place that would prove gracious to the towing people.

And, somehow, I did it.

Heck, I even managed to squeeze out a ‘God bless you’ to the lady. (Bet she hadn’t heard that in a while!)

So, I guess the lessons learned on this little adventure were twofold: when exerted toward the use of different ‘muscles’ or seen from a different angle, the Dixonator is still very, very controlled by those parts of himself he’d rather lament in others.

Money does that.

So does needing a hand.

United Towing got far less than $209 dollars.

Realizing all of this makes me say perhaps, just perhaps, I’m the one that came out ahead here.

Randomness worth sharing

Of course, I’m a big fan of Pandora, but I’m also fascinated lately with Last.fm. Two things really take me about it: a), the fact that it ’scrobbles,’ or keeps up with EVERY SINGLE TRACK I play on my computer, and b) that I can pull up random songs, in my library or not, and play them on demand. Very cool. Come check in on me here.

Bought a huge wok this weekend. Might use it as early as this evening. Chicken, green onions, rice, sweet peas and some sort of sauce I’ve never heard of. We’ll see.

A week out of seminary and it feels an eternity ago. Wow.

Learned Was force fed some painful lessons about patience, grace, and foolishness the past few days in spending some $230 on getting my car towed from the Amos Lee show. Funny the utter hatred me being put out a few (hundred) bucks stirred. Ouch.

Catching up…

So I’m really a fan of my friend Ryan’s blog, as well as a few others. The main reason I enjoy Ryan’s so much is for the… how to put it… not-terribly-filtered nature of it. In it, he talks about life issues, whatever book he’s reading, theological stuff, you name it. I love it when an update comes through the Google Reader.

Perhaps, then, I’m going to take a cue from Ryan. I’ve tried more than once these past few years blogging to do as various folks like Ryan or los Geidls do. I’m realizing more and more of late that Facebook status updates, Twitter, and blogs function as a highly effective way to keep up with far flung friends.

So I’m gonna do better at this, as communication is a two way street.

Keep your eyes pointed here for more… me.

Don’t act so excited.