On the way in this morning, I was talking to a co-worker who was doing a little complaining. His beef was that a 20-grand kitchen remodeling has become a 40-grand re-do of kitchen & fireplace. Projects always double, he said - echoing my Dad's basic speech on projects: double the time, double the cost. "That's the way every project is," said my companion as we parted ways toward our separate areas, "might as well just plan for it from the outset." I laughed knowingly. Yet, now it occurs to me that I fundamentally do not ever, at any time, follow this advice. What would my attitude about life be if I simply believed this simple truth? When we lose our perspective about what the important projects are, we stumble and fall into the boiling caterwaul of competing needs.
I am God's important project - if only because God promised himself I would be. That really has little to do with me. I can barely swim high enough to begin dreaming about a self not completely dominated by the cultural tsunami of the past, how can I know anything about God's project? That project is more often seen in the embarassingly simple, the "at hand" than in some kind of machinery of Hegelian Geist. Burrow down under trust if you can. (You want to.) Hear a snatch of hope and see if you can plug your ears. (I doubt it.)
I have been listening to an interveiw with Samantha Chang; a writer talking about writing. This is why Martin Heidegger and phenomenology have caught my eye. There's something about them that is what Ms. Chang is talking about, that thing that art-making makes of you. Practical Christianity is a way of reading. Theology is a way of writing. Worship is a way of speaking good to one's neighbor. Altogether extraordinary in the ordinary. Reading, writing and talking - that's what real life is about. A good day always has these ingredients, ordinary bits of this and that thrown into the comfort food that ends a day's work. Theology is archaeology, now. Theology has been reduced and marginalized into academics marching off to dig up what other, living people did. I feel a pulse, though. There's something alive underneath this Lazarus coat. Sounds like my own heart.
Lynn-nore called me at 1:18pm. I'd been thinking about the day Kara was born - at 1:09pm 5 years ago. I am more real to that experience now than I was then. It is richer now than it was then, and it continues to be richer. Dead things are simply that, but living things grow and change with time.
I can't begin to explain to the fellow members of my church the source of their ills and mine. Complexity has overwhelmed us -all of us, once and twice-born. There isn't an easy answer to be found anywhere, and there hasn't been for a very long time. Distrust all easy answers. Of course, then, again, there is the in-your-face of the ordinary, boring, repetitive, even annoying demands to put down your selfishness and care about your neighbor. That is not sexy. Americans like to take off down the highway, chasing dreams of glory, hoping that the daily work of home and hearth isn't all there is to living. Americans war, build, buy, explore and, in the end, winding up embracing the truth that home and hearth are all there is. There it is again, the sacred in the simple. Reading, writing, talking, singing, that is enough for any life - to want more is kind of an idolatry that misses the mark in pursuit of some transcendence without immanence; very God without very Man.
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3 comments:
Thom,
Do I detect a bit of the melancholy in your post?
Life is both the good and the bad, the mundane and the dramatic. If the day in day out is all that existed we might well still be living in wattle huts following the migratory paths of hunter-gatherers. Man creates because he is like God and despite the fallen state apes His characteristics. I still believe in the dreams of glory, if only because they are the dreams of God when given by Him. The dream that glorifys Him is the dream worth dreaming. That is not to say all dreams are His, but He gives them to those who will build the ark or lead His people out of bondage. (What did we used to say about greatness? I can't seem to remember, but it was unqualified by time no doubt. It was a personal greatness and a greatness of "self" that much I do remember.)
Still, life is all the components rolled into one. Waking, eating, sleeping and all those repetitive motions are as important as the charge into battle or the day of victory. Along with the triumph of the cross there is the agony of the garden, and as well, the moments unrecorded by any evangelist that were important to whomever they happened.
Are the answers complex are are they just difficult?(There is a difference I think. One is an application of perception and the other is an application of exertion.)
"he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will also do; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father"
The answer is simple isn't it. Jesus speaks no parables here, rather He speaks plainly it would seem to avoid the possibility of being misunderstood. The application of faith is difficult, however, and calls into play a degree of effort that may be well beyond the contemporary mindset. Luckily..."with man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible." We know what we are capable of if we trust as little children...unless God is like a man that He would lie. (As Paul says, "may it never be!") God is not a God of confusion. He states His purposes and gives us truths to trust or to not wholly give into. Our choice is the garden or the fruit which makes us wise in our own eyes ...and we are still making that choice everyday.
I like your "God's important project". That has a nice ring to it and helps remind me of my/our value. The enemy tries very hard to get us to devalue ourselves according to the world's veiwpoint. It is important that we remember that we have been foreknown and predestined to be sons and co-heirs with Christ. I am still in the process of trying to wrap my mind around the meaning of that scripture.
In closing, I will say that I hope you and your family are well. Should you wish, feel free to email me at gillespieart@comcast.net or for a more personal communication you can call 239-595-6199. Tell Lynn-nore thanks for contacting Christy and getting the ball rolling. God bless.
"The dream that glorifies Him is the dream worth dreaming. That is not to say all dreams are His, but He gives them to those who will..." I like it. Leave it to an artist to run on ahead. I've been meaning to call/write - things at our church have pushed out all else, with our pastor resigning etc. I *do* that it is complexity, rather than difficulty, which characterizes any form of knowing or doing. We are always aware that more things are reactions than actions, and it is hard to know where we ourselves fit in that scheme. Trust is right, but it is not enough. It is the ground of action, not action itself.
Trust is only a beginning, but without it in proper proportion, any resulting action will be unable to become what it can be in Christ. "When the Son of Man returns, will He find faith on the earth?" My take, (after years of wandering in the wilderness) is a streamlined version of what modern thought has turned the Christian experience into. Rather than bog down the wheels in the mire of over analysis and self-created interpretations(ie: Christian thought that continues to proliferate much like rabbinical writings do from the Old Testament), immerse me in the Word to comprehend what He wants me to comprehend. "And when the Spirit of truth comes, He will lead you into all truth"
I'm sorry to hear about your pastor leaving. I'd like to talk sometime, but we can type at each other if that is what you have time for right now. Eventually it'll be nice to play catch up though.
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