Monthly Archives: October 2007

October 31, 2007 · 9:05 am

Process

In my early training in the theatre, as director and actor, we used to talk a lot about process. We knew we had an opening night, and a play to do, and all the work we were doing was about the moment of encounter between audience and the play/production. But the clearly stated belief was that the process that created the play would impact the play in a deep way. It was understood that the process of creating art was as important, if not more so, than the actual finished piece of art available to an audience.

Maybe that’s why a phrase in the packet our church consultant gave the elders and staff members jumped out at me. “Process is as important as the product.” I was reminded again of what I’d learned early on, a lesson that in the middle years of my life, I let go of, at least to some extent. When results are the only thing that matters, process gets shoved aside, and relationships become strained and overtaxed.

Process is formation, spiritual and otherwise. Process is the dynamic relationship over time where action taken is, as Dallas Willard puts it, forever. In process, trust is built or eroded. In process, respect and honor are given or withheld. In process, we become more Christlike or less.

Process may not only be as important as the product, it may be the product itself.

Outdo one another in showing honor…

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October 30, 2007 · 7:14 am

Spiritual Discernment in Community

This was the idea I heard yesterday, and my sense is that I need to pay attention to it.   I say I heard it because it came in a conversation with a church consultant as we talked about the life of “church.”  This scholarly gentlemen mentioned that many scholars believe the work of the Holy Spirit to be primarily discerned in the context of community.  This is not to say that the individual movements in our hearts, the impulses and leanings and promptings we get from the Spirit in individual experience are less present and important, but that community is where the larger and fuller import of the Spirit’s work among the body will be apprehended.

Then I heard it again, in a conversation I had with a colleague who helped me understand the balance I have to achieve as I work on the Christmas musical as well as begin to take on more leadership responsibilities in the life of the church.   Her word to me was a corrective one, and one that I appreciated.  It helped me bring my focus back onto the task at hand as I walked into rehearsal last night, and we were much more productive.  I was thankful.

Proverbs tells us to get wisdom, though it cost us all we have.  It is more valuable that silver or gold, the writer tells us.  We often give lip service to this, but my current hunger to find wisdom calls into question my earlier stance toward it.  Kingdom living says “Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you.”  My current pounding of the door makes my earlier knocking little more than absent-minded tapping.  Jesus said the door will open to those who knock.   But we must stand at the door together, and knock and ask and seek as community.  As we turn to each other in conversation and hunger, the promise is that we will find.  We will be filled.

We need each other….

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October 29, 2007 · 8:20 am

A Bittersweet Weekend

The weekend was a celebration, a frustration, a time of saying good-byes, and a time of turning a corner toward a new journey into the unknown.

My daughter Amy made a grand debut on the mainstage of the University of Cincinnati’s College of Conservatory of Music’s Theatre program. She played a leading role in Anonymous, by Naomi Iizuka. Anonymous is the story of an immigrant family fleeing to America to escape a war, but a storm destroys their ship just off the coast, and they are separated, each finding themselves lost in a bewildering and frightening new world. Amy played the mother, and did it with great heart and voice and even got mentioned in local reviews here and here. The play was gorgeous, doing exactly what theatre ought to do, exploring the heart of contemporary culture in fresh and bold ways. The play was beautifully directed by the head of the UC’s program, Richard Hess. It was a strong affirmation that Amy is where she needs to be for this part of her journey.

abby1.jpg

Saturday morning, we got the sad news that Abby, our 14-year-old Yorkshire Terrier, suffered a heart attack and did not survive. It was an emotional loss for all of us. I will probably blog later in the week a full tribute to Abby. We are still processing this loss–she was definitely a part of the family, always there for most of our kids’ growing years.

Yesterday (I missed another day in my blogging discipline for the month of October–again, there just wasn’t time), we got up at 5:30 a.m. EST (2:30 a.m. PST) and caught a plane for Seattle, which arrived around 11:00 a.m. PST. Which meant I did not get to hear Milton Jones’ last sermon at the Northwest Church. From all reports, it was a strong finish to an incredible career at Northwest, bittersweet though it was. There was also a time to celebrate Pat Jones, our illustrious worship leader who is also moving on, and I so wish I could have been there to just say thank you for his time at Northwest. He will be deeply missed in worship each Sunday for a long time.

From the airport, we came home, and I almost immediately turned around and headed for a rehearsal for the Northwest Church’s Christmas musical, which is a little behind at the moment, yet which promises to be something pretty special. The cast seems to be having fun despite the hardships of the changing culture at church, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it all unfolds. We were scheduled to go until 5:00, but we stopped at 3:30 so we could all get to the big event of the evening, the farewell dinner and tribute to Milton and Barbie Jones.

The details of the evening were daunting, and the volunteer efforts of 50+ people made the whole event pretty magic. Brother’s Four members Mark Pearson and Mike McCoy, good friends of Milton’s for many years, did a concert after dinner, with Pearson’s heartfelt tribute especially moving. It was a bittersweet ending to a bittersweet weekend, but as one person said to me at the close, “It was a perfect evening.” In the sense that it seemed to be just what we needed in that moment, I would agree.

Now comes the next chapter, with all of us watching closely for what God is up to.

He’s the one doin’ stuff…

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October 27, 2007 · 5:58 am

Cincinnati

There just wasn’t time yesterday to blog.  So I missed a day in my month of blogging everyday.  This morning we slept in, and my daughter needs a desk, so we’re heading out to shop in just a minute, but I wanted to get in a word about being here.  Amy has a strong role in a new play called Anonymous (details later-I don’t have the program in front of me) and we got to see the play last night.  She did a beautiful job, and it was great to see her and her friends and to get a chance to be in this new world of hers.  There’s lots more to tell, and as I blog over the next few days, more details will come, but for now, just wanted to say how thankful I am for this family of mine…

Seeing the show twice more today…

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October 24, 2007 · 6:14 am

Resisting the Frenetic…

When I moved from undergraduate work to graduate work, it was a rude awakening.  I had written one 25 page paper in my four years of college (and little else), but I began churning out 10-15 page papers on a constant basis as soon as the work on the MFA began.   The first three or four months were pressure packed as my intellectual muscles worked to ramp up to speed.

The past ten years have been a process of finding a pace in life, of slowing down, being reflective and sensible about the way time and task live together.  I’m sure I’ve been lazy sometimes, but for most of my life, I’ve worked hard and often complained about not knowing how to rest.  As an independent creative, the work never ends, the mind constantly churning with ideas and planning.  But–thank God–in the past couple of years, rest has finally come.  The release of expectations, leaving results in God’s hands, settling into a commitment to pay attention to what is here-and-now–all these postures and more have led to the discovery of Sabbath and an end to the turbo-drive list of to-dos so often driven by reactionary impulses in response to the ever-current crisis.

So now, as I step into a preaching and leading role in the life of our church community, I feel as if I’m making the same kind of move I had to make in taking on graduate work.  The pace is ramping up and the to-do lists are tempting me to give them allegiance. There is much to be done, and I want to serve just as I’m called, but the calls of Sabbath, of deep shared pilgrimage (rather than frenetic “service”), and of prayerful discernment nurtured in the disciplines are strong in me, and I’m thoughtful just now how to go about the balance.   There are seasons of life when it’s “all hands on deck” and everyone works as long and hard as necessary, even to exhaustion.  But in the end, exhaustion destroys, and the need for long-range, sustainable patterns of service seems paramount.   And it may be unwise to step out of the character forming patterns that God has used to shape me for this very moment.

The pace will quicken.  It must.  That’s fine.  But I am committed to keeping the quiet, walking slowly, seeing the world through the eyes of silence and reflective presence.  In my experience, God is not primarily a shouter, preferring to come to us on the sly, wooing rather than coercing, whispering rather than browbeating.   Deep-change conversation rarely happens on the run.

The Lord is in His holy temple…

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