Spiritual Ninja

Fall Post

2007-10-18T11:50:00.000-05:00

Hello blog world,

It has been far too long since I visited.

Life is pretty okay. Being a pastor is a lot.

A lot of

goodness-
baptizing babies, celebrating with families, being sarcastic with teenagers,

talking faith with the expierenced members

sadness-
walking with people in deep grief, hearing bad news with people, watching people struggle, feeling people's pain and confusion

frustration-
not being able to do and be all that I would like, watching people make dumb choices,
seeing people get too much trouble heaped on thier already full plate,

not being able to "make it all better,"

messy desk

2006-09-26T15:15:00.000-05:00

how is it that i uncover my desk each week only to find it overrun with papers the next day. i just hope there isn't anything living underneath it all. well. here i am finally making another blog entry after months of not and I actually have nothing to say. i love my work even as i procrastinate planning for the pre marriage session tonight and put off studying the text for Sunday and putting together binders for confirmation. sometimes i pause before the church building and wonder at how I got be a pastor here, what a gift and how scary is it- if only they knew how little I really know and how very unqualified I feel. well me and my messy desk need to do our Tuesday dance where we pretend not to be overrun with projects and papers and we pretend that we are really ordered.

Apology

2006-03-01T15:37:00.000-06:00

I am tired of feeling sorry all the time.
I apologize for existing and I don't know how to stop.
I come at life from the posture of apology.
I try to do nice things, good works in order to make up for the offense of my existence.

I am not entitled to life, I forfeit it every time I put my own wants before other people's needs, every time I put my trust in anything but God. The wages of sin are death. Out of this deep sense of sinfulness and brokenness, I come at life always in terms of my own guilt. People say I am kind, gentle and a good person, but I am so restless and so mean inside. It is no wonder that I forsake the gospel and cannot believe that Jesus actually died for me and has taken the sins I relish in. It is no wonder that I feel sorry all the time knowing that I believe and yet I do not live as I believe.

As I believe in the grace and love of God, as I declare God's love in the world, I am outraged at bad things happening to good people. In anguish and blame I defiantly ask God how can God be so negligent and cruel, why God lets such horror happen to basically good people.

But then I paused and wondered what the inverse of the question means. "why do good things happen to bad people?" I am fundamentally "bad", I turn away, I actively choose evil over good- yet God still shows me love, God covers me with grace and forgiveness, God gives me life, abundant life, when I deserve death. Instead of pushing me into a posture of apology, God restores me to a posture of thankfulness.

The Church has taken the posture of apology.
we are apologetic
about our faith
about our theology
about our identity
about our vocation.

How can we, the Church and I, move from the posture of apology to the posture of thankfulness that Christ has freed us to take? God alone can turn our hearts, but are there ways that we can open ourselves to God re-orienting our life to God?

ramble

2006-02-19T17:50:00.000-06:00

how is it that i am 28 years old? 28 is not old; what i am more concerned about is that I still feel 22 and that was 6 years ago. i am having a bit of a crisis here now that i am about to graduate and become a pastor. i feel like i just woke up and here I am about to become a pastor, me a pastor- who would have thought of that? of all the tracks and all the directions i could have gone and followed, how did i end up here? this is not a crisis of faith or vocation, i feel like this is the place for me to be and the direction i should be following. it just weirds me out to think that i am here and that people will call me pastor and mean it and more over i will start to think of myself as a pastor. i still feel weird talking to most pastors and here i am about to become one- yikes!

Made in God's image II

2006-02-17T14:22:00.000-06:00

It has been said that we ought to look for and see the "little Christ" in each person we meet. It has also been said that whatever you do to the least of these you do to Christ. It is also said that we need to show hospitality to people because we might find that we are entertaining angels.

So I have spent a lot of time and energy trying to treat people as if they are Christ himself, but I suck at this. In fact I would go so far as to say that this way of thinking is impossible and can be at waste of time at best, harmful at worst. This is the type of thinking that allows me to objectify the other person and see them only in fragments.

but then I heard it said in Galatians (bible) (and Luther's commentary of Galations) that Christ took and takes on all forms of sin and is the most despised of all because of the sin he bears (our sin: hatred, violence, greed, lust, idolatry, etc.).

This being said, when we are called to see the "little Christ" in our neighbor it means seeing this despised Christ who takes on all of my sin and the sin of the world. So that means I don't need to search and search and justify my neighbor trying to see God in them, but see their sin as sin that is taken on by Christ himself.

This liberating to me because I wasted time trying to excuse people and make them "acceptable" enough to carry Christ when I don't need to do that. Instead I can see people as they are, indeed see myself as I am. I can treat people with dignity and respect and as a radical equal without trying to change them or justify them because God has already done that. That other person who I think is a jerk, is a jerk but like me that person is a forgiven sinner.

I don't know if this makes sense to other people, but it is awesome for me to finally understand this.

Made in God's Image

2006-01-29T14:22:00.000-06:00

In the sermon today the pastor talked about how we attempt to make God in our own image. The pastor argued that this is wrong because we are made in God's image, not God in our own.

However, I wonder that
if we are made in God's image
then we are images of God
and
since no person has seen God in a very long time and no one really remembers what Jesus looked like,
then all we can do is look at each other and try to piece together an image of God reflected in those we see.

What can we learn about God in the faces of our neighbor? How can we discern what is God's image and the image of crap? What role does scripture/the Bible play in revealing God? Scripture is God revealed in the accounts and truth of the people of God in that time and place?

2005-11-25T21:43:00.000-06:00

Day after Thanksgiving

Actually, this is sort of the day before thanksgiving for me because my family is celebrating tomorrow and honestly after two and a half days of cheesy TV movies, homework, and alone time I am ready to go anywhere! I am currently watching a Dolly Parton movie where she is the "unlikely angel" nanny who brings the family together for the holidays, there is something soothing about her southern accent (makes me miss my internship supervisor) and there is something homey about predictable movies.

That being said, I am now gearing up to see the family. My family is not obnoxious or uptight or anything that requires "gearing up" In fact it is uneventful to say the least. We are a house of strangers. Okay so that is a little melodramatic. My sisters and I are getting closer in some ways but we are so different and I feel disconnected sometimes. I am so glad there are little kids now because that means I can play with them and we can focus our attention on them. Otherwise we spend our time rehashing the stuff of our past and that frankly wears me out while at the same time I am curious and thankful for the time to talk about things.

So thanksgiving, woo hoo. I am thankful that my dad and his wife are putting together a feast and that I get to see my little sister pregnant (she is a little scary not being pregnant, so it will be a real treat to see her with her hormones officially out of whack!).

Guess what, Dolly Parton got her angel wings!!!! I am so happy! St. Peter is cute and he directs the angel choir (who knew?).

Well, here to doing homework!! Or Anne Tylers maybe saint?? WE TV might have something good.

Happy Thanksgiving or day after Thanksgiving when we forsake all that we hold dear and say we were thankful yesterday but now we want to buy more stuff for us to be more thankful for next year.

2005-11-18T21:19:00.000-06:00

The Inner Angst

Two or three times each year I get in touch with my inner angst, I become one with my outrage at the gross injustice and heinous evil in the world. A large part of these annual experiences is my paralyzing frustration at being an active participant in the systems that oppress others. Then I move to dwelling on my guilt and move to feeling disgusted at myself for focusing on my own guilt and moving the focus onto me me me. Of course that self loathing is still focusing on me.

So then I move to God in Christ who breaks free the bonds of injustice and frees me to serve and transform the world around me. Well, great, except I can't seem to move from outrage to real and sustainable action. I don't want to "save the world" but it is an urgent crisis that people are cut off from basic necessities and human dignity, they become "other" or "non persons". Something has to be done or more people will die and more blood will be on my hands as a participant in the systems that deprive the "other" from those basic needs. Lutherans (like me) cling to the theology of the cross which places Christ in the middle of the suffering, oppression, and deep pain in our broken world. This emphasis is not particularly glorious and does not offer solutions or clear answers, but attends to the places of brokenness by claiming that God is there and is crying and perhaps even is outraged as well. I like this, it is a model for me to just go and be there; however I am lacking the faith that says this is good enough. I want solutions and a real hope and end to suffering. I don't like to dwell in my own or other people's brokenness. I am not okay with just being present with people, I want to be a part of the transformation, I want to see people flourish and grow, not be destroyed and die.

What is my weakness that I cannot be satisfied with the awesome love of God who forsakes being perfectly above and apart to come into and take on suffering? If God died and rose again taking on all evil and death and suffering... all systems of oppression and greed... even the sin within each human heart, then why, why hasn't anything changed. At the end of the day, I just trust in the hope that God is at work in the world in posit

this is my first entry

2005-11-15T20:57:00.000-06:00

All the cool kids are doing it, so I thought I should, too.