Back to School...and nothing's changed.

I'm officially back in the belly of the beast that is Point Loma Nazarene University.

I don't know what a Christian institution of higher education should look like in the world--namely because I don't think I've ever seen one. Where are the institutions that are striving for excellence but at the same time remember that they can't sacrifice their Christianity in order to get there. In fact, if they sacrifice the process then the result is shot too. So often, we strive for excellence, for being the best we can be and all of those things but we forget about the really important things.

What sort of school would it be that didn't leave out the students that would be a financial burden? What kind of school could we have if social justice was not something that we did in chapel or on missions trips but in the way that the school operated day to day, we brought in people that should have been cast out, that should have been forgotten and we said, "Hey! You with the low GPA! I believe that you are important. I believe you are worth educating. Come to my school and we will teach you to the best of our ability. And we will do it for very little money."
But no. We offer spots to low-priority students if they can make up for it by being good at soccer or by being the child of someone who works at the school.

I got here by visiting the new theology building. I walked inside and I felt so sick. What sort of theology is it that leads us to this big fancy building with a really nice view? Does that help us learn better? Does it help professors connect with students better? Does it help professors do better research? No. No. No. except maybe on the last one. and that's only because we have this big symbol of prestige and success and that may attract some good theologians to our halls. But the reason that people love Loma is not because we have the best theologians. That's not our role. Its because we have professors that are SO passionate about students. They are brilliant and, in many cases, world-class. But they spend time with us and challenge us and push us and care about us.

Until now.

Now, they will try but we will have to seek them out in order to find them. Gone are casual conversations with Pat, the department assistant. Gone is John Wright's shrill voice reverberating down the hall about something that I didn't understand but now do after having class with him. Gone is Lodahl's "Hey, come in here." As you walk by his office on your way to class. Because theology is incarnational. It's worth as an academic discipline only goes as far as it prepares pastors, provides an intellectual ground for ministry, and contributes to the life and work of the church. Which means that when you undercut a theologian's chance to be incarnational, you undercut their ability to be a theologian. So by taking the theologians away from the classrooms, Point Loma (in the name of making the School of Theology and Christian Ministry more central) has taken some of the worthwhile theology away from the church.

Beyond that, I am wrestling with why we really needed a new building. If you want the STCM to be more central on campus, then invite them to board meetings and ask them their opinion. Read their books. Listen to their lectures and try to figure out how that plays out in the life of the University. Don't give them positions of perceived authority and power instead of listening to them. Its a nice gesture but frankly, it smacks of washing the outside of the cup and forgetting that what is inside the walls is what really counts. It feels like whitewashing the walls of a the sepulchre.

the heart of leadership

I've been reading "Imitation of Christ," the classic spiritual guide by Thomas a Kempis. Recently, the chapter that I read had the advice that we should, each of us, seek to stamp out one vice in our life each year and that way we would be continually moving towards holiness (rough paraphrase).

I've been so checked recently by my need to refocus on my Christian life. It is really easy to focus on what it means to do successful ministry or be a "global" Christian and forget how to be a Christian that is faithful in the little things, that is true to the way of Christ in loving people who are not fun to love or in being a good roommate or in listening to people. One of my vices is talking smack. but its unloving. its mean. it makes for an overabundance of competition for competition's sake, not sport for sport's sake.

And the movement toward Jesus in terms of my mouth makes my prayer better. It makes the Scripture more alive. It makes the whole Christian life more full. Jesus moves into the dark and quiet corners, into the pieces of my reluctant heart that are holed up under the bed and that scream out that they are part of who I am and what's the point of getting rid of them? If people are put off by them then so what? They can get over it. Its who I am.

And we wonder why those we lead won't let their lives be changed. We lead by example. To the degree that we let Jesus retransform us every day, those we lead will be filled by Christ and retransformed.

music

I'm no connoiseur of music. I know very little about it in any sort of historical context. I know very little about it at all except how it makes me feel and the people that I see connected to it.

I just bought Nick Drake's "Pink Moon," an album I had listened to in high school by the gracious loaning of a friend. But it hits so deeply, resonates so completely with me. It is truly a grace of God to have these friends to walk with us and remind us of what is beautiful, remind us that in the midst of a failing world, God is going to make something new and good from the brokenness. And when I listen to Nick Drake, I'm reminded that this happens in the whispers and the corners before it happens anywhere else. Good Lord, may we redeem and be redeemed.

The Joy of Gardening

I just ate a plum. Two plums, actually--they were like little purple gems that tingled my mouth and fell apart in sweet sweet goodness on my tongue. Oh boy.

There is just something about gardening, about bringing something out of the ground that is actually full of junk and awful stuff and turning it into food that is delicious and healthy. I love gardening so much. I can't wait to do it for the rest of my life. I can't wait to live in rhythm with the seasons of the year. I'm just excited about it. The corn's getting ready too and I've already eaten a few ears. They are very delicious. Mario bought some heirloom tomatoes at the farmer's market and will plant them soon. They will be very good. Mario is very good at getting things to grow. I'm getting there. I'm good at letting things rot in the compost pile.

I wish I knew how to put pictures up. Hooray for self-grown food!

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this is a fantastic way to avoid doing Economics homework. Don't you agree?

phew. I just stopped by and talked with Alice Corbin a few minutes ago. She is a gem, maybe the best-kept secret on this campus. We talked of simplicity and the way that the world is getting more complicated. I can't help but wonder aloud if it is a good thing. Connectedness, while nurturing the virtues of relationality and openness of information on the one hand also cuts into simplicity, singularity of purpose, focus, sabbath, and so many other glorious virues. Yet I feel as though I do not belong to my culture, to the people that I love, if I do not operate on these levels of connectedness. My cell phone and email, facebook and myspace, blog and journal--all of these are each one piece of myself that becomes available until I am so available I can't find myself. I am so busy that I quite literally do not know how to rest or be still. I am so caught up in the service to so many gods--most of them claiming to be in the service of the One--that I forget to serve the One God, who made heaven and earth, who knit me together in Donna May's womb, who knows my inmost being, the God who has been content without blogs and cell phones and email for thousands/millions/billions/trillions (pick whichever you fancy) of years. If the silent swirling cosmos which slowly cooled into explosive volcanoes, land forms which separated out into the deep waters and mountain ranges and plant and animal life which have culminated in the zelem of God are enough for God, then I suppose they should be good enough for me.

We're past functionality. We are at a point in human history where our ability to produce more does not create prosperity or blessing. Instead, the concentration of the production in the hands of the few and wealthy creates poverty and waste instead of blessing for all. I can't help but think of the scene from Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath in which an overabundance of oranges are poured down the hill and then, in order to keep the impoverished workers from taking them for themselves and their children (thus relieving the great need which drives capitalism's production), there is gasoline poured on the perfectly good but unmarketable fruits and they are burned as starving onlookers lament this waste.

Going small but deep. I think I'm scared of it because I seem to get my friends and employers mad at me whenever I am without a cell phone for a week or so. We just don't know what to do with ourselves.

I'm questioning whether "Its the world we live in" is a valid excuse anymore.

"Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates."


in the thickness of the day,
in the weight of the evening,
in the expectation of the morning,
in the solitude of the still night,
i am known by one who is One.
open to the great mystery

and laid naked in front of the glorious Love.
Oh love Divine that sweeps my being into thine,
that breaks me open, pouring unknown hopes in.
you do not release me to my fear, to my life.
i am yours. i am yours. i am yours.
it cannot be worn out.

i am the fragmented pieces of the mosaic

take all that i am and may i stand alone before you,
willing only that which you desire.

I am a faceless voice, voiceless face in Israel.
I am Israel and I am not even myself.
We are the hearer-obeyers.
and we are alone before You as you are alone before You.
and before us.

before us
before us
ignore us
bore us
store us.
go before and teach us this
Alone.

holy Nazarenes

Pastor Steve asked the question about holiness in Bible study yesterday. he kept referring to Brother Mack and others who have come out of holiness traditions in the South and Midwest and noting that things are different now, that we don't have the same kind of distinctiveness that we used to have. i see three threads coming through this discussion of holiness, but i think that where we should be is somewhere in the middle of all three of them.

First, I see what Olivetians would lament as the Point Loma mentality, which is very much okay with not looking too different from the dominant culture--so much so that we don't really know how to be different from the dominant culture. In this thread, we love to use words like "Love" and "Grace" to define our religious belief. Our piety is most characterized by our permissiveness. We understand that each one is a sinner and that God forgives each one where s/he is at. God meets us and wants relationship with us. That frees us to be who we want to be as God affirms our lives, wants us to be happy and will have relationship with us no matter where we are in life.

Second, there is the stereotypical Nazarene thread that looks like women in high collars, midwestern parents who are concerned with the image of their children. It is connected with refusing to drink, to dance, to do anything on Sundays. In the case of Brother Mack's youth, this even looks like refusing to cook, buy gas (or anything for that matter), or play ball on Sundays. There is no or minimal jewelry: simplicity is highly stressed. But why? to be distinctive. Because all that stuff from which we refrain is worldly and therefore, by refraining, we become other than worldly. It is defined in a negative manner.

Third, there is the reaction to the second that does not want to be so worldly as the first. We recognize the death and the staleness of the second and reject that. but we do not want to lose that distinctiveness. This is where my parents are. So we reject some things, such as drinking, dancing (in certain ways) and being too hyperactive. But there is no premium on simplicity. We comfort ourselves from the stale legalism of the old-time nazarenes with the middle class comforts that we have convinced ourselves that we deserve. we don't party or have sex. But we still look like everyone else. we shop like everyone else, vote like everyone else. we live where everyone else lives. hell, we even watch the same TV shows as everyone else and probably the same movies. We try to define ourselves in a way that embraces both the grace and permissiveness of the first thread and the distinctiveness of the second.

(8 days later)
What bothers me about all of these is that each of them seem to be asking the wrong question. Rather than asking ourselves how we can align ourselves with the world in a way of least resistance, we should begin to look to the Scriptures and the Christian tradition in a way that sees them as normative for our lives and then try to figure out what is okay for us rather than what is not. we need to be stripped down into virtually nothing. We need to be broken, to be forsaken and forgotten by our world. In truth, the complacency and the complicity of the church with the world is something that must be judged. This may look like wandering, but stay with me.

We have lost what it means to be holy, but let us recognize that this is not a particularly Nazarene doctrine or even a doctrine that is particular to the Holiness congregations. Holiness is central to the life and ministry of the Church catholic. It is a part of the doctrine laid out at Vatican II and one only has to read Matthew 5-7 to get the clear picture that a church without holiness is no church at all. It is an organization based on some foundation that is other than Christ. If Christ is our head and Christ is holy, then of course we strive for holiness. Talking with John Wright today, he made the point that the Nazarene church is a renewal movement within the Church. We are not a group that exists to make our particular denomination normative, but in the preface of the manual, even, it says (in less words) that we are a group that exists to call the Church catholic to its greater purpose as the Body of Christ.

There has been some talk about Nazarene monks or something like that. Well, folks, here's the thing--as far as I can tell, Nazarenes started as monks. We may not be called specifically to celibacy but we are those who, with the grace of God, are called to humbly call the church back to its original purpose through holy lives. We are not here to be the denomination to which all denominations should aspire. we are not here to fit nicely into the religious marketplace in America, offering an option for those conservative Americans who need an outlet for their conservatism. We are here to serve the church by reminding the church of what it means to be holy and in that, to return to our purpose as the body of Christ.

From my perspective, not drinking is important because it reminds us that if we are not sharing life with people who have trouble with alcohol (so prevalent in our culture), then we are not living our call faithfully (this even informs the very elements of the Eucharist so that we do not use wine in the Eucharist). Refraining from sex until marriage is important because it reminds us that marriage is a metaphor of the relationship between Christ and the church as well as a creative act. Refraining from other addictions is important because it reminds us that our lives are to be lived under the kingship of Jesus Christ and no other. Watching what we buy is important for the same reason--because we are the people of God, not the people of our nation or the people of the marketplace. Offering hospitality is important because it reminds us that we are not our own, not to mention direct commands in the Scriptures. There is so much more to be said here but for the sake of your time, i would point you to the blog by the Order of Saint Stephen in my links. It says these things more eloquently and more completely.