In light of yesterday's events at the Boston Marathon I found myself experiencing a variety of feelings: shock, sadness, anger, and a kind of malaise. It was that feeling of malaise or melancholy that intrigued me. As a people who are becoming accustomed to events like this we can become jaded and think this is just the way we live now. We can detach and disconnect from our feelings and even the life around us. But yesterday was not common place. It is not normal for bombs to explode at a seemingly safe event resulting in chaos, injury, and death. It is not even normal for these things to happen in some far-removed middle-eastern locale. Ours is a world broken and in our brokenness we are turning on each other and wreaking havoc; brokenness seemingly becomes perpetual. I do not want to get used to bombings at marathons, murders in schools and at theaters, planes crashing into buildings, and families ripped apart by violence. I do not want to accept that this is a way of life. I do not want to become jaded to the point where I am no longer moved by the pain and suffering of those around me. If this day should ever arrive it will be then that I will have lost my heart and in essence, my humanity. I believe God is calling us to reach out in love, forgiveness, and reconciliation. There is a price to be paid. Just ask Jesus. And the answer given might surprise us for in the answer of pain and suffering we might find hope and resurrection and even how to be human for the first time. Don't lose heart.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
In light of yesterday's events at the Boston Marathon I found myself experiencing a variety of feelings: shock, sadness, anger, and a kind of malaise. It was that feeling of malaise or melancholy that intrigued me. As a people who are becoming accustomed to events like this we can become jaded and think this is just the way we live now. We can detach and disconnect from our feelings and even the life around us. But yesterday was not common place. It is not normal for bombs to explode at a seemingly safe event resulting in chaos, injury, and death. It is not even normal for these things to happen in some far-removed middle-eastern locale. Ours is a world broken and in our brokenness we are turning on each other and wreaking havoc; brokenness seemingly becomes perpetual. I do not want to get used to bombings at marathons, murders in schools and at theaters, planes crashing into buildings, and families ripped apart by violence. I do not want to accept that this is a way of life. I do not want to become jaded to the point where I am no longer moved by the pain and suffering of those around me. If this day should ever arrive it will be then that I will have lost my heart and in essence, my humanity. I believe God is calling us to reach out in love, forgiveness, and reconciliation. There is a price to be paid. Just ask Jesus. And the answer given might surprise us for in the answer of pain and suffering we might find hope and resurrection and even how to be human for the first time. Don't lose heart.
Monday, April 1, 2013
A Few Photos from Lawrenceburg
Recently, I was in the Amish community near Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. Here are a few photos from that afternoon in mid March.
Nothing to See Here...Move Along.
"Nothing to see here; move along." How many times have we read or heard these words in a book or in a movie? Nothing to see. Really? Move along. For real? There's so much to see that we better stay put if we truly want to see. We miss it though, don't we? We miss the significance of things until we are hit between the eyes. So, what do we do? We move along, right?
This is Easter Monday which for me is usually a day of reflection following a very harried week of activity leading up to Resurrection Sunday. I find that I wish I could "move along" and not think for a bit or wrestle with life's problems but Mondays seem to be made for wrestling. Nonetheless, I was reflecting on the first day of the week as recorded in John's Gospel in the New Testament. On that first day of the week the women and disciples of Jesus go the tomb where he was buried only to find the tomb vacant. They fear that the body of Jesus has been stolen. They are bewildered and afraid because when one expects to find death but death is absent there are questions to be asked. Perhaps the dead person has now become a ghost or worse yet, a zombie!
I'm intrigued, however, by the response of the first disciples who entered the tomb that day. John's gospel tells us they went in, had a look around and then went home. That has always struck me as odd and interesting. They went home. Now, you might ask, "Where else could they go?" Good question. I'm not sure what I would have done at that point but to return home doesn't seem likely. I might have begun a search for Jesus. Or I might have texted my friends or sent out a tweet or created a page on Facebook related to my experience hoping to garner an outlandish number of "likes". "If you've seen Jesus, like us on Facebook!"
Granted, I exaggerate. Still, there is something happening here. Was there really nothing to see so that the only response for the disciples was to move along and go home? Once again, this intrigues me. It shouldn't though.
We all retreat to our homes. Home is our place of safety. Home is our castle where we feel fortified against the ills of the world. Home becomes a fortress where we surround ourselves with all the comforts we can afford and hope that no one will ring the doorbell and disturb us in our domain.
So, returning home seems like the natural thing to do.
In his book, "Falling Upward," Richard Rohr writes: “The familiar and the habitual are so falsely reassuring, and most of us make our homes there permanently. The new is always by definition unfamiliar and untested, so God, life, destiny, suffering have to give us a push—usually a big one—or we will not go. Someone has to make clear to us that homes are not meant to be lived in—but only to be moved out from.”
For me it seems apparent that what took place on that first resurrection Sunday was so radically different and new that the only initial response was to hold to the familiar, the "tried and true" of going home. Yet, home is not where God wants to take us; at least not home in how we think of it.
Consider that Jesus never stayed in one place for very long and was always on the go, moving in and out of communities in ministry and service. The idea of a place to escape was foreign to Jesus. Now, don't misunderstand me. There were times when Jesus needed some alone-time to recharge and renew his spirit but it was always for the purpose of moving out again never to take up permanent residence.
New things often frighten us. The unfamiliar can seem daunting. Not knowing can paralyze us from taking necessary steps for our betterment. Through the resurrection God was seeking to push those first followers of Jesus out of their "comfort zone" into new territory to blaze a path for the message of grace, love, and forgiveness they were called to proclaim.
As people we are often pushed and prodded to further retreat into our homes and ourselves. Crime, cancer, wars, poverty, hunger, the unknown..all of these things stir up fear in us and sometimes the only thing we know to do is to go home and pray nothing will bring us harm.
If, however, we are to face life that pushes us out of the familiarity of our comfort zones we are going to have to step out of the house, leave the yard, move out onto the street and go forth and claim the life we have been given. Home should not simply be a place of retreat and isolation. Home is the place where we learn that we have permission to leave. Home is where we receive the inner resolve to move out and climb the walls and barriers that threaten to entrap us.
You can't go home again. I think this is true but it doesn't have to be a negative. The irony is that when we leave home we are preparing for another home where we live in the safety of God's presence.
Nothing to see here; move along. Don't worry. God will go with you.
This is Easter Monday which for me is usually a day of reflection following a very harried week of activity leading up to Resurrection Sunday. I find that I wish I could "move along" and not think for a bit or wrestle with life's problems but Mondays seem to be made for wrestling. Nonetheless, I was reflecting on the first day of the week as recorded in John's Gospel in the New Testament. On that first day of the week the women and disciples of Jesus go the tomb where he was buried only to find the tomb vacant. They fear that the body of Jesus has been stolen. They are bewildered and afraid because when one expects to find death but death is absent there are questions to be asked. Perhaps the dead person has now become a ghost or worse yet, a zombie!
I'm intrigued, however, by the response of the first disciples who entered the tomb that day. John's gospel tells us they went in, had a look around and then went home. That has always struck me as odd and interesting. They went home. Now, you might ask, "Where else could they go?" Good question. I'm not sure what I would have done at that point but to return home doesn't seem likely. I might have begun a search for Jesus. Or I might have texted my friends or sent out a tweet or created a page on Facebook related to my experience hoping to garner an outlandish number of "likes". "If you've seen Jesus, like us on Facebook!"
Granted, I exaggerate. Still, there is something happening here. Was there really nothing to see so that the only response for the disciples was to move along and go home? Once again, this intrigues me. It shouldn't though.
We all retreat to our homes. Home is our place of safety. Home is our castle where we feel fortified against the ills of the world. Home becomes a fortress where we surround ourselves with all the comforts we can afford and hope that no one will ring the doorbell and disturb us in our domain.
So, returning home seems like the natural thing to do.
In his book, "Falling Upward," Richard Rohr writes: “The familiar and the habitual are so falsely reassuring, and most of us make our homes there permanently. The new is always by definition unfamiliar and untested, so God, life, destiny, suffering have to give us a push—usually a big one—or we will not go. Someone has to make clear to us that homes are not meant to be lived in—but only to be moved out from.”
For me it seems apparent that what took place on that first resurrection Sunday was so radically different and new that the only initial response was to hold to the familiar, the "tried and true" of going home. Yet, home is not where God wants to take us; at least not home in how we think of it.
Consider that Jesus never stayed in one place for very long and was always on the go, moving in and out of communities in ministry and service. The idea of a place to escape was foreign to Jesus. Now, don't misunderstand me. There were times when Jesus needed some alone-time to recharge and renew his spirit but it was always for the purpose of moving out again never to take up permanent residence.
New things often frighten us. The unfamiliar can seem daunting. Not knowing can paralyze us from taking necessary steps for our betterment. Through the resurrection God was seeking to push those first followers of Jesus out of their "comfort zone" into new territory to blaze a path for the message of grace, love, and forgiveness they were called to proclaim.
As people we are often pushed and prodded to further retreat into our homes and ourselves. Crime, cancer, wars, poverty, hunger, the unknown..all of these things stir up fear in us and sometimes the only thing we know to do is to go home and pray nothing will bring us harm.
If, however, we are to face life that pushes us out of the familiarity of our comfort zones we are going to have to step out of the house, leave the yard, move out onto the street and go forth and claim the life we have been given. Home should not simply be a place of retreat and isolation. Home is the place where we learn that we have permission to leave. Home is where we receive the inner resolve to move out and climb the walls and barriers that threaten to entrap us.
You can't go home again. I think this is true but it doesn't have to be a negative. The irony is that when we leave home we are preparing for another home where we live in the safety of God's presence.
Nothing to see here; move along. Don't worry. God will go with you.
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