A Prayer for Advent

I attended the Liturgy of Peace last Thursday put on by Urban Skye in Denver. It was facilitated so well by Ellen Haroutunian. It had been a truly bizarre day for me, so this prayer that we read made all the more sense in an odd kind of way.

Lord of the watching ones,

Overwhelm our fear,

that we might learn to trust one another.

Lord o the watching ones, the waiting ones,

Overwhelm our insecurities that we might seek the flourishing of all people.

Lord of the watching ones, the waiting ones,

the slow and suffering ones.

Overwhelm our loneliness so we might dare to reach out in love.

"God uses the talent pool available"

"Thinking back over the Christian personalities I’ve known, as well as those featured in both Old and New Testaments, I’ve come up with the following principle: God uses the talent pool available." ~ Philip Yancey, www.philipyancey.com
       One of my favorite authors is Philip Yancey. I think it is for three reasons:
1) His dominant themes are grace and suffering, and he deals with both very honestly and humanly;
2) he is a great story-teller in writing and listening to him speak;
3) he has not given up on God and the Church despite all the messes he has seen. That gives me hope!
       I was reading Philip's blog yesterday and read this principle: "God uses the talent pool available." It felt like a prophetic word for me personally. I am exploring a new focus in missions (still with Christian Associates) which is both exhilarating and is scaring me spitless (not typo there!). People are responding to me with excitement, confusion, skepticism, and hope! And I am having these moments like Moses in Exodus where he sends, "I can't do it! Send someone else!"
       Then I got to thinking about Philip's statement. And perhaps, just perhaps I am the available talent pool at this time in this place. Not sure about the choice of a Jewish kid from Long Island with my history in Europe and currently living in Denver. But, hey, God has done crazier things than that I suppose!

I'm beginning to believe God is doing the impossible

Last week I wrote something on my Facebook wall that said, "I'm beginning to believe God is doing the impossible. - oh me of little faith!" I got a fair number of responses to this and I want to say a little more about it.
       First, you should know that this idea came to me after hearing the theme song from "Man of La Mancha" in a restaurant! Not too spiritual, but bone honest. And just to be totally truthful, I LOVE that film and play! Really.
       Second, I spend way too much time living rationally and not so much living supernaturally. I realize that the opposite can be true also - that some live in fantasy and not in reality. But that's not the danger for me too often.
       Third, it seems to me that I only really grow and mature when my "impossible" meets God's "possible." That's where I desire to live more often than not.
       For all of you secret romantics who really want to live LARGE in God's vision for heaven and earth, enjoy this clip from "The Man of La Mancha"!

Larry King Finishes Up

Television talk show host Larry King went off the air today, after 25 years of being in Americans' living rooms. His final show was a great tribute to him. He has been quite the character indeed!
       Way to finish well, Larry.

The Giving Pledge Expands

The Giving Pledge, launched by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett in 2009, has continued to expand. It is very encouraging to see the world's wealthiest people stepping up for the good of humanity.
       Among the more recent signers of the Pledge is Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz, founders of Facebook and the most recently wealthy. They are also only about 25 years old, so to say that you will give away the vast majority of your wealth going forward is quite the statement by these guys.
       Perhaps this is one of the reasons that Time magazine named Zuckerberg Person of the Year this week.
       You may ask, "Does it make any difference to me that these Billionaires are pledging to give away most of their wealth? After all, they can afford to give most of it away. As for me I'm just scraping by."
       Personally I think it makes a huge difference in our culture when anyone cuts across the grain of society and decides to be wildly generous, whether can means giving billionaires or giving pennies. Generosity is contagious and so I applaud these wealthy individuals as pacesetters for us.

What We Are Handing to Our Kids

This is a sobering graph. Welcome to my children's inheritance.

Tax Cuts Extended ... Let the Donations Flow!

Last week the United States Congress and President Obama came to agreement to extend the so-called "Bush Tax Cuts." This means that individuals who earn more than $200,000 and couples who earn more than $250,000 will continue to pay a lower federal tax rate. Translation: Wealthy people in America will have more disposable income in their pockets.
       So, let the donations and charity flow! I have heard from a number of wealthier people who have said they were keeping money in their wallets because they feared that the U.S. government was going to take more in income tax in 2011. Well that fear is now gone, at least for the next two years.
       I hope the wealthiest 2% of Americans will "step up to the plate" just like Warren Buffett has done - giving extravagantly for the good of our country and of this earth. Let the donations flow!

Thought for the Day

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

The Blackthorn Project

I'm not a lover of bluegrass style music. But The Blackthorn Project defies my prejudices.
       These folks played at my church last weekend and were fabulous.
       Check out this song:

Yale Center for Faith and Culture

Yale University's Center for Faith and Culture has recently launched their Reconciliation Program. Miroslav Volf is a professor of theology at Yale Divinity School and is heavily involved in the Center.
       I mention this program because there are so few in the United States, at least from at least a nominally Christian perspective.

       Yale states this, "The goal of the Reconciliation Program is to promote reconciliation between Muslims and Christians, and between Muslim nations and the West, drawing on the resources of the Abrahamic faiths and the teachings and person of Jesus."

       An honorable pursuit, to be sure. I'd love to be part of those conversations.

A Liturgy of Peace - Tonight

Urban Skye in Denver is hosting "A Liturgy of Peace" for the four Thursdays of Advent.
The second of these is tonight, 5 and 6 pm at Pomegranate Place, 750 Clarkson in Denver. If you are in Denver I'm sure this will be a worshipful evening.

Those Who Dialogue Are Those Who Have Suffered

One of the best treatise or cases for inter-religious dialogue is found in the thinking and writing of Miroslav Volf, a professor at Yale University.
       Volf is a Croatian whose country (Yugoslavia) was torn apart by civil war in the early 1990s. Croatia was the first republic to breakaway, triggering the first of numerous secessions. Volf knows firsthand who is the enemy (Serbs) and how to hate.
       That is why his book Exclusion and Embrace is so stunning. It is autobiographical more than it is purely theological. It is a deeply personal reflection with Volf's struggle to enter into relationship with those who are truly "other" than him.

"Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community of humans even as I exclude myself from the community of sinners. But no one can be in the presence of the God of the crucified Messiah for long without overcoming this double exclusion—without transposing the enemy from the sphere of monstrous inhumanity into the sphere of shared humanity and herself from the sphere of proud innocence into the sphere of common sinfulness. When one knows that the torturer will not eternally triumph over the victim, one is free to rediscover that person's humanity and imitate God's love for him. And when one knows that God's love is greater than all sin, one is free to see oneself in the light of God's justice and so rediscover one's own sinfulness."

—Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace 

Richard Mouw on Dialogue

Fuller Seminary President Richard Mouw speaks candidly about the importance of inter-religious dialogue. His views are controversial in some circles.
       Those Christians who value evangelism over anything else fear that dialoging with other world religions compromises the Truth of the gospel.
       Those Christians who value dialogue and justice more than anything else fear that other world religions will be alienated by Christians who try to cram God down the throat of non-Christians.
Listen to how Mouw addresses this issue in the lead article from Theology, News and Notes.

"It is important to value both evangelism and dialoguing without reducing the one with the other. The two activities have a complementary relationship. Christians can engage in evangelization while at the same time hoping to gain new understanding through dialogue with other religions, so when "evangelism" and "dialogue" become the watchwords of two opposing camps, it leaves me very uncomfortable."

       It leaves me uncomfortable also. I have two concerns or critiques of we Christians in this regard:
1) I am concerned that we who value evangelism are fundamentally insecure in our beliefs so we refuse to listen people of other faiths. We become narrow-minded and end up having the attitude, "God said it, I believe it, that settles it."
2) I am also concerned that progressives who value dialogue jettison the uniqueness of Christ and His Kingdom. We can be so accommodating that we lose the core of our beliefs in Jesus.

The Challenge of True Dialogue

The most recent edition of Theology, News, and Notes published by Fuller Theological Seminary is about inter-religious dialogue. Fuller President Richard Mouw is a major proponent of such dialogue and has led the seminary into relationship with Catholics, Jews, and Muslims. Needless to say, Mouw and Fuller have been criticized for these efforts.
       Many of us in the Evangelical world feel that "dialogue" means "selling out" or compromising our core beliefs. On the contrary, it means the exact opposite. As theologian Jurgen Moltmann has said, those people who "merit" dialogue "have arrived at a firm standpoint in their own religion, and who enter into dialogue with the resulting self-confidence."
       Thus, I am reading this edition of TNN with great interest.  More and more I am convinced that I am to be in the dialogue amongst the Children of Abraham - Jews, Muslims, and Christians. Next week's blog entries will center on what I am reading in TNN.

Not all those who wander are lost

“All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring; renenwed shall be blade that was broken, the crownless again shall be king.”
~ J.R.R. Tolkin, The Lord of the Ring