Wendell Berry reading

This Friday I will be attending a reading by one of Amanda's and my favorite authors, Wendell Berry. Mr. Berry has made his way into many of my blog posts. I have always love Berry's fiction. He writes mostly about the fictional town of Port William, Kentucky. He follows the town and its "membership" through generations. I have just recently begun to read his nonfiction. He writes mostly about Agrarianism. "To Berry, agrarianism is about applying the principles of respectful utilisation of resources to all walks of life." [Prism Magazine] It is a difficult topic. What I have gleaned from my readings of both his fiction and his prose is that we have become a country of disconnected technologs. The next innovation and the lowest price is more important than respect for ourselves or our neighbors. I am hoping to get a little bit more at the solution this weekend. I am digging deeper into his writings and the writings about him. If you're interested, check out Orion Magazine. My friend Jared Friesen turned me on to this. Authors like Rick Bass and David James Duncan also write for Orion.

Interestingly enough, Gregg (Amanda's brother) and I began some conversations about similar topics while we were on vacation. We have been continuing those conversations via e-mail this week. I am learning much from his dissection of the points that I raise. I will write more about the reading next week. This is the next step in my journey.

Questions

When I take a little time to think about what God is working on my heart about, I don't really like it. It seems that lately God has been pushing me to a radicalism that I am neither comfortable with nor understand very well. At times I feel God is pushing me to abandon the things that I have accumulated, the culture that I enjoy, the securities that protect me, the freedoms that I treasure and the reputation that I have established and put it all on the line for the sake of His kingdom. His kingdom? The poor, the creation, the lost.

How do I feel like God is saying these things to me? It seems as if God is speaking to me (and has been for about the last three to four years) through the authors that I have been reading, through the people that I have loved, and through the church to which He has led me.

Some high lights.

• I have been reading Wendell Berry for a while. I started with his fiction. His stories of how families and communities have crumbled over the years first moved my heart. I recently have begun to read a little of his non-fiction. Here he gets even more blatant about these deteriorations. If you're interested read this article.
• John Piper's sermons and writings about not wasting your life have been very influential. His thesis is "If God has been so merciful to you, to spare you from the destruction that you deserve, what are you going to offer him, save your entire life." Is that not the only viable response to the Gospel?
• It seems like every sermon where my heart has been truly moved has been about my response to the "least of these." I have cried over the Compassion International children, I have cried over the presentation of adopted babies at church, I have been frustrated with myself when the missions team comes back from Africa.
• Conversations with friends like Ben Arendt, Jared and Meghan Friesen and many of my friends that I made at Calvin College have been the ones that still work on my heart. The conversations have been around topics like creation care, the poor, politics, vocation and every part of life.

These have been the ways that God has been working on me. I'll list some scriptures that I feel anchor, guide and push me.

Matthew 22:34-40
34Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:

36"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'^[b] 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'^[c] 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

Matthew 25: 31-46

31"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

34"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

41"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'

44"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'

45"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'

46"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

Michah 6:7-8

7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousand rivers of oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

8 He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

Mark 8:34-38
34Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35For whoever wants to save his life^[c] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? 37Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 38If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels."

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If you've gotten this far in the post thanks so much for reading. I don't know what exactly to do with any of this stuff. I don't know if God is calling me to go to South America and serve him. (If he is I am totally ready for that.) I don't know if God is just calling me to get involved in the Latino ministry at our church or if God is calling me to sell our house and move to West St. Paul. Maybe God is calling me to sell our house and move out to the country. I would love to hear any of your thoughts on these topics.

Dreams and the sovereignty of God

I was talking with someone the other day and they asked me, "Where do you see yourself in 10, 15, maybe 20 years?" This was a difficult question, made even more difficult by the fact that I had been listening to a John Piper podcast (entitled "Doing Missions When Dying Is Gain") earlier that day.

Five or more years ago, I would have had lots of responses to that question. They would have been something like a Dean of Students or a Vice-President at a Christian college some day. The difficult part of that question is that I really believe and am coming to believe more and more that GOD IS SOVEREIGN. Sitting under the teaching of John Piper is part of this, but more, I think that it is coming under the prompting and teaching of the Holy Spirit. When God is sovereign on His thrown, dreams become difficult. I think sometimes as a part of God's sovereignty, He gives us dreams that will lead to His glorification. But sometimes God thwarts our dreams and leads us into times of suffering. God causes us to suffer and leads us into desert times in order to glorify himself and to make us more like Christ. That is difficult but it is good. So when someone says, "What is your dream for your life?" it is a scary thing to talk about. I talked with this person a lot more about what I felt God was asking of me (my calling as a follower of Christ) than what I wished my life were like.

If you get a chance to check out Piper's website, you really should do it. It is www.desiringgod.org and it is filled with helpful resources. He even has most of the books that he has written there for free in pdf format. He has 28 years of sermons, conference talks, and messages in print and audio. Check it out!

Dreams=Lament

Whenever you dream, you are disappointed. Who of us has not dreamed of something, only to have that dream dashed. A dream of a child is postponed in struggles to become pregnant; a dream of a fulfilling vocation is stalled in a frustrating job; a dream of growing old with the person you love is ended by death or divorce; a dream of many tomorrows is halted by one sentence from a doctor; a dream of "the perfect family" is smeared by the reality of sin and heartache.

What do we do with these dashed dreams? Where do we take this heartache? Michael Card (who I wrote about in this earlier post) was facing similar questions when he decided to work on an album of songs of lament. I was listening to one of these on my way home from lunch today. On his radio program, In the Studio with Michael Card, he was talking with Pastor Donald Cole about Psalm 73. In this psalm, Asaph, the writer struggles with seeing people all around him doing well, while he struggling.

1A psalm of Asaph.
Surely God is good to Israel,
to those who are pure in heart.

2 But as for me, my feet had almost slipped;
I had nearly lost my foothold.

3 For I envied the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

This didn't make sense to him at all, until he sought out God.

16 When I tried to understand all this,
it was oppressive to me

17 till I entered the sanctuary of God;
then I understood their final destiny

23 Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.

24 You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory.

25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.

27 Those who are far from you will perish;
you destroy all who are unfaithful to you.

28 But as for me, it is good to be near God.
I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge;
I will tell of all your deeds.

In an interview with Christianpublicity.com, Michael Card described his eventual conclusion about shattered dreams and lament. "'We think we need answers from God for life’s struggles,' says Michael. 'But in actuality, we just need Him. The answer is His presence. God moved off the throne to meet Job face to face, just like Jesus left heaven and came here to feel our pain. He was a ‘man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.’ Like Job, our theology will fail us in times of intense sadness. But the presence of God, made plain to us through Jesus, is exactly what we need in the midst of our suffering. He is the only One who truly understands how cruel life on earth can be.'"

Whether you are in a place where all of your dreams seem to be coming true or whether you are in a dessert of frustration, God can be with you. It is up to you to offer him your pain and your heartache. Michael Card's song "Come Lift Up Your Sorrows" from his album The Hidden Face of God is a great place for that to begin.

If you are wounded, if you are alone,
If you are angry, if your heart is cold as stone,
If you have fallen and if you are weak,
Come find the worth of God
That only the suffering seek.

Come lift up your sorrows
And offer your pain;
Come make a sacrifice
Of all your shame;
There in your wilderness
He's waiting for you
To worship Him with your wounds,
For he's wounded too.

Download "Come Lift Up Your Sorrows" at emusic.

What am I dreaming about?

Most of my dreams are pretty tame (again self-protection). I dream about things like going home to Amanda's pot roast that I smelled at lunch, someday going back on lala, watching my kids grow up, not disappointing my family, having a job that I like to go to every morning. Sometimes though, often on my way to or from work, my mind wanders to an unsafe place: a place of BIG dreams.

Yesterday I was home sick. In the morning Amanda took Matthew for a walk and I played Legos with the boys. We had lunch together. During nap time, Benjamin and I went to the hardware store and to Toys R Us to get sand for the sand box. It was a great day. It was hard too. I lost my temper a few times, but I felt very present with my family. Amanda and I have often talked about what it would take for me to have more days like this-for me to be home with the family more. This is what my dream would be.

• Move to the country. We love being outside. Our souls are more comfortable when we are out in the sun or the cold. I feel more myself when I am doing work outside-gardening, shoveling, mowing, building. We feel like it would be a good thing for the boys to have some room to grow and run and learn outside.
• Find some means of support. I'm not thinking of sending out letters to you to ask for money. Don't worry. I would like to find a job where I could work four 10 hour days or work part-time or something like that. This would allow us to have a huge garden, cut our own wood for heat, maybe even have some animals (chickens, maybe a goat.) We wouldn't need to make much money. Amanda figures if we had a house that was paid for (that's the clincher) we would need to make about $10,000-20,000 a year.

We have gone so far as to checking books out of the library upon such subjects as self-sustainability, homesteading, and gardening. The thing that I love about this dream is that it would be one of the hardest things that I would have ever done. For it to be a good and realistic dream, it must take a lot of work. This one fits the bill. My friend Jared Friesen, who lives in a shack in Belize, has challenged us to follow this dream. I love him and his wife and their willingness to follow a dream.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for allowing me to share my dreams. I'll keep writing about them. I'd love to read any comments that you might have.

Dreams--A new blog topic

In my never ending pursuit of interesting blog fodder, I have been thinking lately about sharing some of my dreams. Not the dreams that I have at night, rather the dreams I have at midday, wide awake. This is scary, because as Springsteen says, "Is a dream a lie if it don't come true, or is it something worse?" How many of use have shared something that we are thinking about, a job we'd like to have, a life-change that we'd like to make, a goal we'd like to reach, just to have it not happen. We feel foolish, ashamed, thwarted.

When I was 18-26 or 27, I was full of dreams (see picture at right.) All I could do was dream. Now that I am 30, I have entered the slough of reality. I have been turned down for more jobs than I've gotten; I've disappointed myself at every turn and those that I love even more; I've lost people that I love . . . All of this has led to an aversion to dreams and dreaming. Self-protection? Of course.

I am blessed though. My dreams have not all come true. God has granted me dreams that I never had. I always dreamed of being married to my best friend. God gave me Amanda. I vaguely had dreams of being a father, but they weren't paramount. God has shown me that this is where dreams come true. The three boys that He has given me daily challenge me, shape me, bowl me over and make me grateful.

As I begin to share some of my dreams (I will do another post after this introduction), please post comments about your dreams. It is a risk. Yes, but maybe we can love each other more as we come to celebrate the dreams come true and lament the ones dashed.