Chimenea Church of Christ

I slept through church again the other day. A decidedly odd thing to do considering I'm pastor at the before-mentioned church. That not being an entirely new activity for me, this time was somehow different. Usually I [metaphorically] sleep through church, bidding time for my moment in lights and than thankfully for the close of service. But this time, sleeping through church provided a most spectacular event- a meeting with God.

Granted, the strange spiritual quest of sorts I've been on lately has offered all kinds of fantastic encounters. It's been a period of little prayer (and little guilt! Not sure which is the more odd), lots of questions, lots of writing, lots of poetry, lots of talking with people, voracious reading, lots of thinking. It's best summed up by saying I'm absolutely sick of going to church! That, coming from a pastor ready to be ordained in 2 months! What gives. Speaking of ordination, can anybody come up with a good reason why I ought NOT to do that? People keep telling me how exciting it is, and whoa is me, did I miss that lesson in Sunday school, I seem to have lost my passion for credentials! That being said, it's scheduled in stone for Sunday afternoon October 17. You are all terribly welcome to join in the fun!!

Back to my being sick of going to church. Yes, that statement is true. I woke up Sunday morning grieving that I had to get up and "go" somewhere. Certainly if Jesus intended to build his church on some specific coordinates he did not intend them to be in Hesston Kansas, but rather somewhere north of the Galilee sea! Oh, just let me BE the church! How refreshing that would be. How easy if I didn't have to go because I already was. With you, and you, and yea, you over there. I'm tired of the dog and pony show. And completely shocked how polluted our understanding of the term 'church' is. Does the word even carry any helpful meaning anymore? Buildings, services, programs, times of the week- as soon as you equate church with any of them you've totally lost all connection with Jesus intention. An intention that shouts, "We are the body!!" Friendship, sharing, connected, growing, committed, working together, able to respond to Jesus- aren't these worthy of our excitement more than appropriate time slots and music styles? These can happen on my back porch or at Mokas just as quickly as it can at the building formerly known as 'church.'

Any good Anabaptist worth their salt would quickly retort, "You can't do Christianity by yourself. You need the church!" I agree, I just don't know that we've got 'church' figured out. I wonder if the Institutional church as it now exists is incapable of doing the very thing it set out to do. Which reminds me, I was telling you a story about meeting God in church. It happened not through the carefully chosen music, scripture, or theme. It happened when I left the service to go grab something I forgot. There in the hall looking as lost as me, was one of my youth, who promptly gave me a quick hug, and asked, "How's it going." When I gave the expected response -"fine"- she asked me again, and qualified it with a "I want to know." In a complete and startling moment of clarity, I saw what church is. Better yet, I experienced it because I was it-together with a 13 year old girl. I told her a little of what was going on with me, and she promised to pray for me. Later that week I got an email from her, a follow up (a sledgehammer more like it!) that was so kind and meaningful it might as well have been a new car! You can't plan that. You can't even sleep through that.

Who knows, maybe I really am a heretic, or just a bad pastor. Just seems that church shouldn't have to be something we prepare for, it should be something we live. Complete with hospitality, generosity, a vision of something bigger than us, and an extra large portion of God getting in our lives and having his way. That's all I want. That's all I hear others want. And thankfully, I don't have to go anywhere to get it!
God is totally cooler than I ever dreamed him to be!

Angel or Demon? Debunking the Debunkers...

Dan Brown has been an unlikely guide on my spiritual journey of late. I picked up a copy of the uber-popular The Da Vinci Code mostly out of intrigue for scandal. After all, had I not just seen on a Borders bookshelf this BestSeller flanked by not 1, not 3, but 5 (that's FIVE!) books attempting to debunk the theories and theology of Dan Brown? I felt it my pastoral duty to investigate, albiet doubtful I would cry aloud in protest.

Immediately, I was riveted. Now don't get me wrong, this book and it's prequel Angels and Demons (equally absorbing!) are more fun than fact. Were it not for the art and religious hooks, I can't claim I'd of even read something from the modern thriller genre. But this was different. Fifty years after Tolkien introduced the world to the ring of power, Brown gives us a specific instance of powers' corruptibilities. Oh, and similarities abound to M. Night Shyamalan's most recent classic The Village as well. Both of Dan Brown's books challenge the status quo not only of Western Christianity, but of Western civilization as a whole. As huge as that sounds (and both books are gloriously enormous in scope and reach), Brown simply begs the question, "How would we see things differently if Christendom had not been the most dominate world power over the last 1700 years?" Issues of science, faith, history, and art have all been influenced, distorted, and given life by an institution that has wielded tremendous power: The Institutional Church.

As a post-modern, he's simply deconstructing cultural Christianity with the hopes of giving us a glimpse of something deeper and more ancient. Isn't this what we post-moderns and emerging church persons are hoping for at our core? Absolutely! John Driver, in his book Radical Faith: An alternative history of the Christian Church, laments that "The church's memory was twisted to serve the puposes of established powers and their institutions, rather than the needs of the Christian people." That might as well be on Code's jacket cover as a plot summary! Of course he's referring primarily to Christendom, which is also precisely what Dan Brown takes aim at in narrative fashion. "In the fourth century, the Christian Church ceased to be a persecuted minority movement and became an established institution, protected by secular powers." Creeds, dogma, and even our present canon codified during this same time period in which secular powers reigned. The Church, as it were, sold out (souled out?) it's radical roots for political power.

Enough of the deep stuff! Brown's novels waver back and forth between characters guided by good faith, and characters guided by bad faith brought on by being squashed by the powers and principalities of our world, whether religious or not! I was surprised at their depth, to be honest. But in the midst of Catholic abuse scandals, corporate fraud, and raging government clinging to every shred of power - Brown has helped me ask some of life's bigger questions. In the midst of all the page-turning bravado, weaves a great tale of oppression, sin, and all it's ugly consequences. Sure, he suggests some things about Jesus and the church that are hard to swallow. But in doing so he reminds me that in history there are winners and there are loosers, and it's the winners who get to write history. Heretics, whether truly unorthodox or only perceived so (one thinks of Galileo for instance, or even our own Dan Brown!) never get the chance to speak. No matter what I believe, my belief is based as much in those whom passed it on to me as in he whom I claim to believe. At the very least, some discernment is demanded of us? Is that so bad?

Besides all that, Brown has got people reading and talking about faith and religion in ways that are far safer than Tim Lahaye allows! So, with that, I debunk you! You crazy debunkers! Let all the free Christians of the world read and enjoy The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons! I for one, can't wait for the next Robert Langdon book to hit my libraries shelf next summer!!

Another crazy backwards truth

Tears,
The soft fall of salted water on my cheek
Refreshes the barren hole within me -
That darkness I hide, hide from others,
Hide from me.
They fill it up, like air rushing in to lungs
After holding your breath through a tunnel.
Empty, dark, and lonely, the hole suddenly springs to
Life - burping and gulping, grasping at any and every
Drop, starved for nourishment.
Destined to grow, the hole now shrinks. Not shut, not gone,
But noticeably, there is quiet change.
These tears -magic? - find every nook and closed off
Room, sweeping them clean. In sadness opened, we find our way.
Through the putrid depths of dark caves, my soul takes flight.
That is, when we weep...
How can our souls drink, without tears?
Blessed are you who mourn...


A friend of mine can't cry. I wrote this poem as a prayer for her. May God give her the gift of tears.

My Life in Greece

I think it's funny -funny and sad - how chained we are to the social conventions of our day. As a pastor my life is a joke. The last shred of evidence that another way exists. But it doesn't exist here. Not yet anyway. This poem sucks, but I haven't figured out how to say it any better yet. So enjoy...


I sense their jeering,
as I dance my Jester dance.
They follow me, from a distance, peeking
Around corners and hanging from trees
A secret network of folly and conspiracy, secret only
from Me.

That they're all in on it is hardly the point -
They met again last night in the dark caves -
I dance, naked and twisting, twirling choreograhped to the sound
of Soul defined and defiled by hysterical
Fits - equal parts laughter and rage.
Eyes blind with wool, those Corinthian
Fools damned by days I'm not alive in.
But the language of yesterday is not my language, and I
Can not be its' minion. But whose eyes
are blind? The jesters or those who mock?

Complexity killed the cat

I walked to work this morning. Not for any great cause, though if you pressed me the particular part of my brain that loves to rant would immediately spring to life as champion of some great cause or other. Maybe its that champion that kills me so often? But no, I walked to work this morning because I'm a simple person. Sometimes the complexity of life nearly drowns my soul in grief. Walking - at least for today - was all I could manage. Even my bicylce was too fast for my overstimulated braincells. So I, unawares and tired, walked. I'm not even sure why. But then again, why drive? Why the hell should I ride my bike? To save myself 5 minutes in a days time? So I can "rush" out to minister if the call arises? Or is it because in the driving I stop being normal and I begin to be "pastor"? This "game" that we're taught to play is so tedious. And I'm not interested in trading in this game for any other game.
Walking, somehow, was the only thing I could do that didn't make me feel like a machine. Maybe it was one small line I drew to say, "This far and no farther." A grasping at the spirit through the means of the physical. Whatever reason I had I do not know. But I do know it was hardly even a choice. It simply happened. It felt right. I think I'll stop now, so I can walk home.