a journey to be more simple…I hope.

Well, we’re moved and settled into the new community.

We’re living in the church’s first parsonage, built in 1912 and affectionately referred to by many as “the Cottage.”  Evidently they didn’t need closets back then, as the house is compltely devoid of any.  Houses were MUCH smaller, too.  But we love it.  Just moving into it was an exercise in just flat out getting rid of stuff: furniture, clothes, trinkets, junk that we’d been holding onto and didn’t need.  But it took something like this to actually go through it all and get rid of a bunch of it, because we simply didn’t have the space for it.  It’s been a really nice step toward simplicity (how appropriate that I started reading Foster’s Freedom of Simplicity just as we started the moving process?).

I hope this continues to be a new path we take in regards to how we live, and how much we live with.  For a while now I’ve wanted to have a smaller footprint in regards to the amount of waste I create, how the surrounding environment is affected by our living structure, how much and what kind of energy I use, etc.  The Cottage is a good first step…hopefully the first of MANY I hope to take.  I want to live more simply and friendly, and I’m not sure if it’s easier or harder to do in a place like this (so far, it seems that many people who live this far out in the mountains tend to be of the ‘we need to fight and subdue nature’ mindset).  Last week I was mowing our lawn with a reel mower (which I’ve used and loved for three years now), and the church groundskeeper came by and said there was a tractor/mower in the garage that I could use.  I told him I preferred the reel and didn’t the little bit of extra time and effort it took to use it.  “Alright, if you actually enjoy it,” he said.  “But it’s there if you change your mind.”

I think I’d rather downsize my lawn (which we rarely use, anyway) before I upsized mowers.  Something that requires so much water and care and naturally goes into dormancy when it’s hot and dry out (which is when we ironically try to keep it the most alive)…is that really the best way creatively tend and order the creation?  I actually did some research this past summer on the history of grass lawns.  Evidently, they were initially a symbol of wealth and high social status.  At the time, most people didn’t own much land, and so the gardens they grew and harvested food from were often planted right outside their doors due to the small plots of land most people could afford.  As the wealthy acquired more land and the land was turned into an estate, lush grass lawns were put in place, and the subsistence gardens for the estate were planted at great distances from the house to communicate the wealth of the person and their ability to spread out.

I really started thinking about this, and I wondered if this is still at play in modern suburbia.  I mean, how much time do people spend manicuring their lawns?  Why is it so important for so many to be the ‘pride of the neighborhood’ with a green, lush lawn in front of their house?  When it came down to it, status and attention seemed to be the only real reasons I could come up with.  But what if we chose a different paradigm, once that took into account our specific locations and watersheds and environments?  What if we tried to create islands or bridges of habitat around our houses for populations of native wildlife?  No animals I’m aware of (including many insects and invertebrates) really thrive in a monocultured swath of manicured grass.  Short of playing tag and kicking a soccer ball and playing catch (which do have their place, don’t get me wrong), lawns aren’t really useful for much, and especially aren’t complimentary to the environment.  But what if we planted our lawns with various trees and shrubs, especially native ones that are well-suited for the native climate and didn’t require that much additional water (if any)?  What if we decided not to simply be encroachers on the birds and lilies….but neighbors?  What if we used water with native fish and salmon in mind (that require decent river flows in order to spawn and ‘produce more of their kind’)? 

This summer we had a clothesline.  I used to think those were for people who either didn’t know that dryers had been invented, or just couldn’t afford one.  But one day I decided to hang our laundry on the line (after reading an article in Better Homes and Gardens about how dryers don’t always get rid of viruses and germs and whatnot…but the UV and ozone from natural sunlight does).  I don’t know any other way to put it, but the practice of putting clothes out to dry just seemed…spiritual.  There was something almost worshipful about it, about the action of light through fabric and movement of sheets in the wind.

It seems this sort of life allows a greater awareness of the presense of God, and in the end, that’s my goal.  I desire an immense understanding of the weight of glory, an understanding that compels me to become an active and incarnational tool for God’s shalom, for the healing and restoration of His creation and our relationships to it and each other.  It’s such a huge thing, yet seems to hang its peg on something so simple as putting sheets on the line.

the mite

This whole resignation and switching to a new position thing has been terrifying.  For the most part, I have not enjoyed it.  I am excited about my new position, but this whole arena of raising personal support is humbling.  At times it just feels humiliating.  It’s always stressful.

Tonight we were invited over for dinner at some friends’ house.  When we came out and got in the van to go home, there was an envelope laying on the driver’s seat.  Inside was a card from someone we know, and inside the card was a few hundred dollars worth of grocery gift cards. 

We were stunned.

And we know that the person who gave us the card is not at all what you would consider rich or well-off.   As far as I know, this wasn’t just a handful of disposable income she was throwing our direction.  It was a chunk out of her life.  She gave what she had in order to take care of us, to bless us with something practical and tangible. 

Jesus called his disciples over and said, “The truth is that this poor widow gave more to the collection than all the others put together. All the others gave what they’ll never miss; she gave extravagantly what she couldn’t afford—she gave her all.”   (Mark 12:43-44)

[dis]connection

I spent this past weekend in Seattle.  The first night in the city I stayed with an old friend from high school, and we spent the evening catching up, hopping from one of his hangouts to the next.  My friend is single, and I asked him how the search was going for a relationship and whether it was easy or hard to meet a girl in a city.  My assumptionn was that it would be easier: with so many people coming into contact with one another, it seems logical that you would run into more people, have more opportunities for meeting people and getting together.  But my friend said that he only tends to frequent a handful of places, and a lot of other people tend to do the same…so you end up seeing the same people all the time.  In the midst of this, mini-communities tend to form around these places (even if not everyone there knows one another).

By the end of the night we ended up at an English-style pub called The George and Dragon.  My friend mentioned that this, too, was a place he frequented.  He told me that during the week there are actually quite a few older British folks that frequent the place to hang out, converse with others, watch a football (soccer) game.  During World Cup season it’s almost standing room only.  But on Friday and Saturday nights (which is when we were there), a younger crowd tends to fill the place.  As we were sitting there, surrounded by white walls and dark wood trim and a vintage poster of Winston Churchill above my head, I started thinking about what a center of community a place like this serves to be.  It’s a gathering place.  It’s a place where people show up regularly and networks of friends and people brush together and interact and sometimes interconnect.  It’s a space that allows people to come together, that encourages it.

The next day I was with some different people, and one of them made a comment about how the suburbs “kill your soul.”  They talked about how seperated people were there and how disjointed everything was. 

“It’s just stripmalls and houses.  There isn’t any culture there.”

Within twelve hours I went from a place where people were regularly coming together and creating a culture of interaction and art and music, to a place where everyone keeps to themselves in a culture of uniformity and individualism.  You might know the person living across the culdisac from you, but you don’t actually know them.  And it somehow feels empty, hollow.  It drains you.

So as I drove back over the Cascade Range to rural home and community, I thought about how that applied generally to where I live, but specifically to how the Church functions in that sort of a place.  Where I’m from, we don’t have places that you can just walk a few blocks to.  Sure, there’s a small downtown, but nothing that really creates a common space for people.  People are forced to drive into nearby towns and smaller cities to find this sorts of places.  Everyone here is spread out, distanced.  We live in a small river valley, surrounded by the same mountains, but we go somewhere else for connection.  Outside of high school sports, there isn’t really any sort of culture that people seem to be apart of.

So in this kind of culture, one of rurality and distance, both among and as one of “the hill folk”…how do we create times and spaces for connection?  How do we help facilitate the genesis of a connection culture, one that encourages and helps give birth to a shared creativity and vision of what it means to be a certain type of person in a certain type of place? 

the unexpected

I’m really not good at this blogging thing.  I see many bloggers and their ability to add an entry every day and continue the content of their blog…but I just seem unable to do that.  I keep thinking about giving up this whole thing and then a bit of inspiration comes along and I try it again.

There seems to be a season of incredible change on my horizon.  I’ve been fairly miserable and frustrated in my current role/situation for the last couple years as a youth pastor at a rural church.  I have felt vary constrained and constantly second-guessed and looked at with a suspicious and nervous eye.  I’ve thought many times about leaving my position at the church and doing something else, but nothing felt right.  Many times I realized I needed to try and be content in the here and now and the situation I was in rather than trying to hop the first ship to Tarshish and get out of an awkward situation.

But in the last couple weeks, I have decided to take a drastic change in direction.  There is a local discipleship training school in the area that someone just started.  It is in its EXTREMELY fledgeling stages…but it is exactly the kind of thing I have longed to be apart of.  All the weekend camping trips and camps I plan are really just microcosms of what this founder and school are hoping to accomplish: take young adults (ages 18-25) and spend 4-5 months living in community, instilling disciplines, having somewhat monastic ryhthms to the day, taking part in local matters of ministry and justice and new creation, and culminating with the last month (yes, four weeks) in some of the poorest areas of Nicaragua, working with prostitutes and children from the city dump and seeing what the world looks like outside of America.

The scary thing?  I need to raise my own support, something I have always dreaded and never wanted to do…but at this point it doesn’t worry me too much.  I guess that’s a good thing.

This will also free me up to try out and experiment with various forms of doing church, something I’ve been wanting to do for a couple years now.

This whole thing seems rather surreal, but I’m excited at the prospect of the unknown that lays before me.  I’m excited to get my hands dirty (both literally and figuratively).  I’m excited to walk the next distance of this path.

what I didn’t give up

The other day a friend asked me what I gave up for Lent.  My answer?

Nothing.

I had actually been pondering this for the previous couple days before he asked me.  I thought about giving up coffee, but I wussed out on that (ironically, though, I’ve been drinking less).  I thought of others things I could give up…but nothing really worth it. 

But leading up to this point I had been getting more and more stoked about spring.  The final bits of snow had finally melted in our yard and I was able to spend a couple days pruning some shrubs and just hanging around the yard.  Despite all the wind and still cold air, I could see that some of the trees were starting to bud.  I was ecstatic.  I was tired of snow and sleet and cold and staying inside all of the time.  I wanted spring.  I wanted life and green and newness and the music that pours forth as flowers open up to the sun.  I was more excited for a changing of season than I ever have been in my life. 

So then I woke up on the first day of Lent…and it was DUMPING snow outside.  And it didn’t stop all day.  And the next day it snowed some more.  And my soul sunk.

I was actually caught off guard at how this affected me.  I had been anticipating this for so long, and it seemed so there and so tangible and I had actually tasted just a bit of life…and then this cold blanket of nothing smothered it from my sight and senses.  And that day I realized that I didn’t need to give anything up for Lent, because what I truly yearned for was out of my reach.  The snow would be my bit of personal darkness for the next 40 days.  In the wilderness.  In bondage.  In expectation of life and redemption and exodus and renewal.

This season, my Lent is everywhere.  It’s in the driveway.  It’s on my steps.  It’s on my windshield.  It’s tracked in on my shoes.  But eventually it will recede.  Eventually it will give way to an event that is inescapable…and so will I.  As the tips of bulbs break free from their dark sleep, so will my soul unfurl and instinctively turn its face toward that light which is truly Light.

So no, I technically didn’t give anything up for Lent, because this year, my longing comes from something that I received.

where I go.

There are some coffeeshops and Starbucks where I live, but they are in other towns and a 15-minute drive from where I live.  I’d prefer not to take the time and gas to get there every time, plus the cost of the drink that I’m obligated to buy when I’m in their working and studying for hours.

The only place like this where I live is a tavern.  It’s logo consists of a dead crow lying on its back.  It’s in a really old building and evidently holds the title of being the longest running bar in the state of Washington.  I usually go in the morning and work for 2-3 hours until lunchtime.

I stick out like a sore thumb.

Most of the people there are at least in their 40’s.  I’m in my late 20’s.  They wear flannel jackets and welding overalls.  I wear a track jacket that says IRELAND.  They go outside every 10 minutes for a cigarette.  I sit at a table with a laptop.  We all drink coffee, though…except for the occasional guy who has to have a beer at 10:30 a.m.  I get frequent glances and looks, most probably wondering what the heck I’m doing here (I’m actually here as I type this).  Only one person has ever asked me what it was I was doing, and then proceeded to tell me that he didn’t mean anything bad by some of the remarks he made about me to his buddies at the pool table, and he doesn’t have a problem with ‘pretty men’ and the fact that they all seemed to be named Beau (yeah…I was just as lost as you are with that whole conversation).  In the end he said however I choose to live my life was okay by him…and he proceeded to put his coat on inside out.

I’ve been coming here long enough that they start pouring me coffee as I come through the door (although I’ve had tea enough times that they ask me first which I would prefer).  This morning I needed a refill on my coffee, and for the first time I did what the regulars have permission to do: went behind the bar and poured it myself.  I think I’m officially ‘in.’

Yesterday a girl came in and sat at the bar.  I think I went to high school with her, she was a freshman when I was a senior.  I had headphones on and was editing the recording of the previous night’s youthgroup lesson, but through that I could hear her talking to the person behind the bar about how “he told me to leave, so I did.  I just had to.”  I spent the next hour wondering what place her life had come to and what paths she had in the ten years since we walked the same halls of the same small school in the same small town.

A few minutes later some guy watching the news on one of the many TVs started using racial slurrs as he turned to his drinking buddy and spilled a personal commentary (plenty loud so everyone could hear it) about the actions of a certain group of college students and how they should be able to do whatever they want on MLK Jr. day.  And in that moment I was hit by the depth of our rebellion in this world and the turmoil we find ourselves swirling and choking in the midst of.

Sometimes the high school janitor comes in (the same one from when I was in school) and sits by himself at the bar.  He orders breakfast or lunch, depending on what time it is.

Right now someone is playing the electronic gambling machine, with it’s electronic noises and blips and pings and the guy frantically tries to match up cards and not have too much money taken off the debit card he inserted into it.  As I was typing this I looked up to see his progress and in all purple caps the word “WINNER!” was flashing on the screen.  Maybe today he will break even.

And this is where I go to study, to prepare my lessons, to pour through the Scriptures.  I have a small office at the church with khaki colored walls and a calendar and bookshelves and a couch and drafting table I use for a desk.  But I always end up here, drinking a bitter but bottomless cup of $o.99 coffee.  I think I just enjoy the paradox, the real life texture of thinking about and being in the midst of God.  I get tired of the ivory tower study of Him.  I sit here and I watch the same news stories break on the same four TV’s mounted above the bar and feel the air from the same wobbly fan above my head and hope for a table underneath the skylight (because it’s the brightest spot in the bar, and my eyes tend to hurt when I read by the red light of a Budweiser neon sign).  And God is real here. 

I don’t always see him…but I don’t think that’s because He’s not here.  I think it’s that sometimes I forget where to look for Him.

anti-fundamentalist fundamentalism

From what I can gather, the global community is increasingly becoming one of funamentalism.  There is of course religious fundamentalism, with each group and it’s militant religious patriots doing whatever is necessary to show the world and the other religions why they are ‘the one.’  But I’ve also been thinking about other forms of fundamentalism here in the U.S.  What about the political arena and its extreme polarization between ‘right’ and ‘left’…’conservative’ and ‘liberal?’  Recently I’ve had thoughts about consumeristic and anti-consumeristic fundamentalism, as well as environmental fundamentalism.  Here’s how it seems to play out:

Someone doesn’t completely agree with the current ideology and/or methodology of something.  The reaction is to then so completely dismiss or act against said ideology that they jump to the polar opposite and establish it as the proper way against the other way.  By doing so, they reject the excess of the previous model…but completely bypass the more healthy place of being, moving beyond and settling into a form of fundamentalism that may be different, but just as completely distorts reality and misses the mark. 

Is the answer to consumerism to reject buying anything, especially anything of substantial monetary value?  Do we physically transplant ourselves outside of the society so obsessed with it?  Does rejecting a consumeristic fundamentalism have to look and be so extreme?  Can I ever buy something at Wal-Mart without being guilty of hopping in bed with Empire and Oppression? Does the rejection of something always mean acquiring its exact opposite?

This morning I was thinking about this issue in regards to religion (specifically Christianity) and wonder how fundamentalism, in light of an increasing fundamentalism around it, may seek to even more compare/contrast itself and prove itself right.  This was specifically in regards to apologetics, which seems to always be fueled by the desire to ‘prove’ something to someone, forcing them to make a decision.  These seemed to me to be very fundamentalist in nature.  I started thinking about how the emerging conversation and church seems to focus more on being missional and incarnational, rather than adhering to a correct form of rhetoric. 

It seems to me, if the world only continues to become extremely more fundamental in how it works and functions and deals with itself, with each group and faction trying to be louder than the others,  the Christian’s natural response would be to enter into that feud and try to drown out the competing voices (unfortunately by employing the same tactics it seems to abhor in others).   But what if the way you function is more subversive, more like yeast in a ball of dough or a vine creeping throughout the garden?  What if, to avoid the dangers of fundamentalism, we worked and lived on a different level that skirted and hopefully bypassed those pitfalls altogether?  But this begs the question:

In an age where the battle cry is, “You’ve got to stand for something…and then let everyone know beyond a shadow of a doubt what it is you stand for!” …what does it look like to stand for something but not in that way?  And what if you do it in that different way, but the reason is primarily to simply distance yourself from the ugly bellowing of that scene?  Is that enough?  I’m sure some (namely fundamentalists) would say that those who did were simply being ‘ashamed of the gospel’ or something similar.  Various small groups have started up at my church and are going through a recent curriculum put out by a popular ministry company.  The foundation of the series is that “truth is on trial,” and it’s our job as followers of Christ to stand for truth in a postmodern world (where the term ’postmodern’ seems to simply mean ‘relativism’).  The videos take place in a university type atmosphere, with the ’professor’ discussing areas of philosophy and science and everything else, and how the world has always been out to attack the truth (for example, by creating ideas like evolution).  From my perspective, this is the very thing we need to be avoiding, not only because I disagree with such simplistic and binary thinking, but because it just enters into the same vicious circle that everyone else is apart of.  You’re rejecting someone else’s fundamentalism by engaging in your own.

So what does a life look like that is about keeping quiet for the sake of Christ?  What does a life look like that doesn’t reject something by accepting its polar opposite, but simply shedding the unhealthy aspects and attempting to walk a more difficult (but proper) alternative path?  What does a life look like that grabs the attention of the world, not by its ability to shout, but by its inistence on remaining quiet and not lifting yet another voice in the cacauphony?

among the hill folk

The word pagan is from Latin paganus, an adjective originally meaning “rural”, “rustic” or “of the country.” As a noun, paganus was used to mean “country dweller, villager.” In colloquial use, it would mean much the same as calling someone a ‘bumpkin’ or a ‘hillbilly’. From its earliest beginnings, Christianity spread much more quickly in major urban areas (like Antioch, Alexandria, Corinth, Rome) than in the countryside (in fact, the early church was almost entirely urban), and soon the word for “country dweller” became synonymous with someone who was “not a Christian,” giving rise to the modern meaning of “pagan.” This may, in part, have had to do with the conservative nature of rural people, who may have been more resistant to the new ideas of Christianity than those who lived in major urban centers. However, it may have also resulted from early Christian missionaries focusing their efforts within major population centers (e.g. St. Paul), rather than throughout an expansive, yet sparsely populated, countryside (hence, the Latin term suggesting “uneducated country folk”). [for more, go here.]

A lot of the authors of the books I have read, as well as church planters and house church planters, seem to be situated in urban areas.  I read about lots of emerging churches and liquid churches and new communities and I visit their websites…and they all seem to be contained in urban/metro areas.  

I, however, am not. 

I would say the environment I am in can best be described as ‘pagan’…in the most original sense of the word.  People here aren’t all that keen on new ideas and worldviews.  What they’ve done for years (and decades…or even generations) works, so why mess with it?  I’m sure I could be making a gross generalization here, but I would venture to say this is a long step away from more urban areas, which I would say can still be classified as environments where new ideas are hashed out and tried out and people are quick to jump on the newest and latest philosophy or ethos.  But this doesn’t happen where I live.

you say you want a revolution…conference

I attended a conference a couple weeks ago called You Say You Want A Revolution, put on by Off the Map.  I’ve been wanting to blog about it since then, but haven’t been quite able to get my thoughts about it in coherent order.  I’m not even sure I’ve managed to at this point, but wanted to get it done anyway.

To put it simply, I really enjoyed the conference.  Over the last couple weeks I’ve been keeping up on the Revolution blog and have honestly been a bit surprised at how disappointed some people were and how critical they have been of what went on.  Some seem upset that so much emphasis was placed on ‘being kind’ and not enough on ‘truth.’  I really don’t get this.  Sure, if all we ever talked about was being kind and never did anything else, I’d be getting worried.  But I’ve been following the Way of Jesus for about 10 years or so now, and even in that short amount of time I would say the vast majority of the atmosphere and underlying attitude in what I’ve learned is all about being right (and if that doesn’t come across as being all that kind, well too bad for that person on the receiving end, because sometimes the truth hurts…).  I can’t think of really any times where the ideas of kindness and mercy and grace and how to actively express them in our interactions with others (especially with those outside the faith) were really focused on and discussed or taught about at length.  It’s always about truth and ’standing for truth.’  I’ve been a youth pastor for 4+ years now, and most of the messages I hear at conferences and youth rallies and festivals are about encouraging students to ’stand for truth’ in their schools.

I don’t think we’re really in short supply of learning how to be right.  But I do think many Christians are pretty sparse when it comes to being kind and gracious.  And if we’re lacking in our exercise of grace and kindness, why don’t we spend some purposeful time on that and figure out out to integrate it into our understanding of truth and interaction with others.  They two aren’t mutually exclusive, nor does one need to be dropped for the other.  But the way some have critiqued the conference you would start to think so.  True, parts of the conference really honed in on kindness (especially Brian McLaren and same of the interviews with various types of people onstage).  I don’t recall Barna talking about this in any of his talks.  I don’t recall any of the workshops hammering into people “BE KIND!  BE KIND!  FORSAKE TRUTH…AND BE KIND!”  Each workshop leader(s) came with their own focus and dealt with that, and they were all extremely varied in what they dealt with.  So, again, I don’t see what the problem is.

In regards to other aspects and my personal thoughts of the conference, I’ll just quickfire some of my thoughts: