Heaven and Infinite Dimensions

I had a thought as I was drifting off to sleep last night that I want to capture someplace – and this is it. Pure speculation but I thought it was worth writing down.

• Any object we can see exists in at least four dimensions at once. (Length, Height, Depth and Time)
• Superstring theorists tell me the universe is probably made of at least ten dimensions, perhaps more.
• It seems reasonable to think that the same 4D object mentioned above does, or at least could, exist in those other dimensions at the same too.
  

All of that is only to say something pretty straightforward – that the things I typically know and interact with are multi-dimensional be their nature. I point this out because I have been trained by Sci-Fi movies to think of ‘alternate dimensions’ as wholly distinct worlds. Like some other 4D universe that is parallel to ours as opposed the more mathematical description of each dimension representing an additional ‘direction’ of freedom or motion. To that we can imagine the Flatland people who for some reason are limited to their 2D world (3D if you count time) where they are unable to move off their plane of existence even though we could look at and observe them without fear of being noticed. Likewise, if we are bound to this limited subset of dimensions, someone with even one additional degree of freedom could easily hide from us simply by moving in that direction.

This is connected to one possible understanding of little-h heaven. By ‘little-h’ I just mean something like ‘the spirit world’ or whatever you might call the place/ dimension / existence in which angles and demons do their thing as opposed to ‘big-H’ Heaven which is the whole God’s throne room paradise thing. Going back to superstrings, heaven could be nothing more or less than those six+ extra dimensions we suspect are there. For some reason, perhaps because of the fall, they are mostly inaccessible and imperceptible to us – but by no means are they illusory.

Up to this point, I’m just summarizing what other people have written as a starting point. What I was thinking about last night was building on these ideas.

• Quantum mechanics tells us that in some profoundly weird ways reality is shaped by our perception. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrödinger's_cat).
• Now add that to some interesting imagery and concepts in the Robin Williams movie “What Dreams May Come”
  

What if every soul that gets created, or perhaps every soul/spirit that remains ‘alive’ in Christ, somehow creates an additional dimension in the whole big manifold of creation. This dimension could be understood as going ‘into’ that person perhaps in the way Christ and the Holy Spirit dwell ‘within’ us. Within my dimension I have the ability, conscious or unconscious, to shape what it is like there. It is as responsive to my will as my attitude – and for that matter it may be as resistant to my will in the same way. There could be skill, training, and experimentation involved as we get used to this kind of ‘self-control.’

Also, if these are dimensions that stack into reality as opposed to self-contained and parallel worlds, then an object like a tree could exist in many. If not all, of those dimensions simultaneously. Then, just like walking around a car to see it from all sides, I could move from layer to layer to layer to see how that tree appeared in a multitude of ‘selves.’ How you saw the tree could be different than how I saw it and that perception would be realized within ourselves. Some ‘lesser’ objects, like a tree, may be limited to a subset of the existent dimensions/people – maybe I have to ‘opt in’ for it to appear in my space. Other ‘greater’ objects like the New Jerusalem appear in all dimensions as part of the ‘default kit.’

With every soul, a new world is born and yet all worlds remain part of God’s interwoven creation. We move between worlds or perceive many at once as we explore our degrees of freedom.

That could be pretty fun.

Hero Friendship

Because I decided to walk the half mile between the hotel and the restaurant, and because both traffic and parking turned out to be more difficult than expected, I actually arrived first by about 20 minutes. The three of us were in Colorado for a retreat and since Colorado Springs seems to be verily awash with Christian authors, speakers, and celebrities we took the opportunity to ask for a meeting with a man who I deeply respected from his writing and speaking – and he had said yes.

I can’t say that I‘ve ever been the star-struck kind of person. It’s probably born more out of my own pride and stubbornness than anything else but I don’t generally look at anybody as a ‘special’ and instead presume fundamental equality. But here I was chit-chatting with a guy who had made a real impact on my life and I was more than a little spun up. Once Dwennon and Rande arrived I was able to find my center fairly quickly but for a bit there I was a little giddy and I have to assume it showed. But more interesting (to me anyway) is that a year later I know this man on a first-name basis. We trade email and text-messages and I count him as a friend. It’d be a stretch to say we’re buddies but we’re more than acquaintances and contrary to that old saying that familiarity breeds contempt, I respect him more now than I did then, and that has got me thinking.

Staring up at the ceiling in bed last night, thinking about this post, I asked Rebekah, “Do you think we can know our heroes personally or does the nature of a ‘hero’ require some distance?” Something that was slippery to me seemed crystal clear to her. “No. Of course not. Parents are their kids’ heroes all the time.” And of course she’s right and of course parents are only one example of that kind of relationship – so I kept thinking about this new friend from Colorado.

Somewhere around 2003-4 I read Wild at Heart and I got totally rocked. I’m not really very good at keeping authors and their books together in my mind but folks had been talking about W@H and so I knew John Eldredge’s name. I didn’t have any sense of celebrity there but if I’d bumped into him in the airport I’m sure I would have smiled and said something positive...though unlikely I’d ask for an autograph. In 2005 I attended my first Boot Camp Northwest event and there I got really rocked. It’s odd to look back on it now but by the end of that camp I thought of the speakers as ‘special’ and approaching them was an act of courage. Of course now I look at all of those guys...as just guys. That’s not to say I think less of them, I only mean that I know them to be human, with flaws and fears and quirky senses of humor – and I haven’t lost any of my deep respect for who they are or how they impacted my life.

It’s that feeling, that experience, that I’m trying to roll out in this post but I’m looking for the right words. It’s been a singular experience to come to know a man first through his work, to respect and admire him on that basis, then to meet him and build a friendship and still hold him in high esteem. As part of BCNW I’ve had the pleasure of meeting some really great men and women who are talented, powerful, anointed – and also silly, hurting, uncertain. The reflexive egalitarian in me asserts that we’re all just people, those folks are really no different than me but isn’t it true that we typically experience that reality when our heroes fall? When we find out that someone we once respected is flawed in a way that disappoints us? In those moments we don’t want them to be human really. Perhaps we want them to be different from ourselves because we’re far too familiar with our own weakness and we desperately need to know that at least somebody is NOT like us.

Over these last several years I’ve had the pleasure of meeting folks like John Eldredge, Gary Barkalow, Craig McConnell, Bart (Does Bart have a last name?), Morgan Snyder and other fellow sowers in this ‘men’s ministry’ thing, but also a broader circle like Kris Vallatton, Michael Hyatt, Bill Johnson, Aimee Semple McPherson, Rick Joyner, etc. etc. Some have been little more than a handshake, others have become genuine friends, most somewhere in the middle. My goal isn’t to drop names here though, what I’m pointing to is a set of experiences much different than the one where a hero disappoints us upon closer inspection – and instead remarking on a place where I can meet these people, learn that they are just as human and imperfect as myself, and come away not disappointed but holding their person and character in even higher regard than before – and I’m trying to understand how that’s happened.

I think the heart of it comes from something Dwennon says all the time, that ‘One man’s glory should not diminish another man’s glory.’ There is a way in which I see these people talk about one another that conveys a kind of honor and respect that isn’t competitive and I see them act in a way that seems to genuinely seek and speak about the things God has done in that person’s life and far less about the things God has yet to do in their lives. The result is a kind of atmosphere of mutual support even if only from a great distance. Don’t get me wrong, I’m under no illusion that some perfect unity of the spirit is going on but to even TRY to act that way is a fair bit more noble than most of the world. Going back to my star-struck dinner (and a stunningly good bison rib eye...with garlic butter and peppered squash...and crème brule...)

Right!

What I was saying was that I look back at my evolving relationship with this man from stuttering and trying to be clever to where I’m yucking it up on the phone with the guy this afternoon in front of a bunch of other guys I know of as mighty warriors for the kingdom...and it feels perfectly natural.

That speaks to another part of this process that I’m just beginning to be aware of – part of this process has been in my willingness to let down my own guard and expectations. I have to allow these people to be human, releasing my own sense of their heroic identity, and in so doing I’m able to take a step closer to them as friends. They take the risk of making themselves available and vulnerable and I have to take the step to allow them to be flawed. You might say that when I accept their step ‘down’ I wind up taking a step ‘up’ - only to discover that the elevation difference was in my head all along.

I suppose I also ought to learn an important lesson here. Speaking at BCNW I’ve come to see how easy it is for people to conclude that somehow you must be a ‘spiritual elite’ in some way. After all, the microphone is our modern equivalent to the scepter, it denotes authority. But just like the scepter, the folks holding that thing know its nothing more than a stick. I’ve seen people approach me after a speech with a kind of star in their eye and I’ve always been weirded out by that but I think I see something that I’ve missed in the past. My impulse in those moments is to say, “Dude, don’t look at me like that. I’m just like you.” and I seek to equalize the situation by removing any sense of the ‘special.’ I want to ‘come down’ so to speak...but perhaps I’d do better to instead invite them ‘up.’ Not to say, “I’m just like you.” but rather “You’re just like me.” To validate whatever it was I may have said that inspired them.

Bill Johnson has this great line. Ever seen somebody sing a song really well and you go to congratulate them. They say, “Oh it wasn’t me, it was the Lord.” to which he’d reply, “Well it wasn’t THAT good...” Joking aside I understand the desire to give credit where it’s ultimately due but to close my loop here. What I‘ve experienced as I’ve walked with these men and women is where they are aware of how Christ has worked in their lives but instead of feigning humility they might say “Thanks. I’m glad God spoke to you through that. That was Christ in me...and He’s in you too.”

BTW – Aimee Semple McPherson is long dead, or ‘on to glory’ as she might have said. I just wanted to see if you were paying attention. ;)

God is good - even when you have no idea what's happening.

Proverbs 21:31 says "The horses are prepared for battle, but the victory belongs to the
Lord."

Coming home from work today caps off a lot of hard work, a lot of sacrifice and stress - and a "couldn't be better" entry to a much needed week and a half of rest, family and recharging.

A week ago today we finally released the game that we've been working on for about nine months. It's probably fair to say that four of those months were pretty light duty as we planned and tweaked and were at least partly distracted by other things but from July to December we were hard at it. And while the game was first imagined as something small and light and shallow it took on a life of its own. It morphed and deepened and grew a soul. Suddenly, a game we thought was a tiny time waster was recognized as somethig else. I remember the day we all sat down and started a prayer time and we all started looking at each other thinking - this isn't what we thought. This is a Soma game and a prequel to GRoG.

From there the metaphors, the details, even the delays started to look different in the light that God was actively engaged in the design process and now we were off making a game about spiritual warfare and destiny and guardian angels. It was awfully exciting. But it was also taking FOREVER. We were way over budget and a July launch got pushed tomseptmber, then to Thanksgiving and finally to Dec 15. To be true, by that time we were all freaking out more than a little. I'd love to say that we all had "peace beyond understanding" but we didn't. We all knew this was taking way too long and costing way too much money and the stress was building. But we also knew that we needed to get it right - it had to be solid. And the truth is, the bug list seemed to grow every day instead of shrink. Features were still being added even after we were supposed to have code lock and the project just refused to be finished. Now on the bright side it was truly getting better and better. Not only were bugs getting fixed but all the finer details were being polished. Lightning bugs in the backyard, Photon pushing monsters and Lamplighter healing the friends near her, these and more were all last minute adds that made huge differences. We also kept experiencing that joy of serendipity. The bonchows, giant versions of the enemies, started as a joke from a typo and become a built in feature on accident. The game was taking on a shape that we only barely glimpsed at the beginning and the time stress was counterbalanced by a real sense of discovery and excitement. Wind Up Robots was going to be a cool and well polished game.

For me, I had the pleasure of writing the script and I enjoyed that even as I labored over it. It changed from three paragraphs to set a stage to a journey for th email character that included the whole Hero's Journey in miniature. A word here instead of there seemed suddenly important as it seemed crucial to me that I get every detail just right. In the middle of that process I had a very particular experience. In the middle of the night I found myself suddenly and completely awake. Somehow I knew that it was God who woke me up and I simply said, "Yes Lord?" and as plain as day I heard. "Your lives are the story." and in that I "heard" several implications. First, it simply wasn't that important that I tell this story in the game perfectly. After all, I wasn't writing scripture here. But more to the point, if anybody was going to be moved by the story, it wouldn't be for my brilliant writing, but by His Spirit moving in their hearts. In other words - don't take myself so seriously. But also that what God has been doing with Soma all along has been about our interactions with people.

When we started Soma I imagined folks getting wrapped up in the epic stories in the games and being moved or inspired the way I've been inspired by movies or books. And while I still hoe for that, what weve seen so far is that our biggest impact seems to be just our stories as people who decided to follow hard after Gods call. It's been in personal interactions with other people, or stories about what god has done for us or through us - that has been where we sit back and go Wow- that was incredible. And thats also why I feel compelled to share our stories publicly.

So to circle back to the proverb...

Along with Wind Up Robots we also found ourselves with a tiny window of two weeks and decided to throw together a silly little holiday game as a gag. It's cute, it's fun, it's a joke.

Today, just before we all went home for a break, we learned that Apple featured both games in the app store just as we start into the crazy Christmaas season. Time will tell what that actually harvests - but wow. What a wonderful blessing.

Look, all of us at Soma busted our chops for many months to get here - th ehorses were prepared for the battle. But what happens after that was 100% beyond our ability to influence or control. The victory belongs to the Lord.

Thanks you dad for all that you've done to, for, and through us this year as its been a powerful one for all of us. Whatever happens with this release is all to your glory - as it should be.

Merry Christmas everyone.

With revelation comes responsibility

I heard a sermon the other day that really got me thinking and returning to that ‘count the cost’ idea Jesus shoots out at us.

The guy was talking about Solomon and 1 Kings 11:19 where it says “The LORD became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice.” God had first appeared to Solomon in a dream where he makes the famous request to be wise, and then again after the dedication of the temple.

How often do we clamor for more and more of God’s presence, His revelation, for Him to speak and reveal and fall on us? And how often do we reckon with the notion that His typical “still, small voice” might actually be a mercy?

When God whispers I imagine there is a certain amount of grace for us to get it wrong. For us to say, perhaps even willfully, ‘Sorry Lord – what was that again?’ as we continue on our own disobedient, ignorant, or distracted path.

But if He speaks audibly to us, if he writes on a wall, if he calls our bluff and gives us exactly the ‘sign’ we asked for...how then does our wrong action (or inaction) look before the throne?

I’m not saying that I plan to shrink back from seeking God’s face, but I realize that what I’m asking for is not a trivial thing. Hearing God is not simply for my amusement or even my edification. His word is alive and in fact the more clearly I hear that voice, the more responsibility I have to act on it.

What if...?

OK, so go with me for just a minute here. IF - a big crazy if - IF you found a zombie shambling up your lawn this evening you would know what to do right?
You would know, from countless cultural touchstones, that zombies:
1. eat you - usually your brain
2. are dumb and slow
3. are defeated by popping them in the head.

Certainly there are exceptions to this 'rule' but generally speaking we all know what zombies are, how they operate, and what to do about them.

OK - change gears with me and read this:

Zechariah 14:12
“Now this will be the plague with which the LORD will strike all the peoples who have gone to war against Jerusalem; their flesh will rot while they stand on their feet, and their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouth. On that day a large-scale panic from the LORD will spread among them. One person will grab the hand of another, and one will attack the other.”

and

Revelation 9:6
"And in those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, and death flees from them."

What if - back to the crazy if - what if there is a hidden purpose to all of the zombie training our training our world has been getting over the last 20 years or so? Namely as a certain mercy to give some folks a framework to understand what is to come.

In Dawn of the Dead (I think) there is a bit where a guy says the zombies are there because hell was full and that concept struck irrational fear in my heart. Something about just the utterance of that idea really bothered me.

Anyway - I'm just dropping a stream of consciousness thing here today and not even something that well thought out...os IS it? ;)

I've lost my quiet

I've lost my quiet.

That's what I want to tell Rebekah this morning but even the words to express that thought only appear when I'm here, once I've begun to find it again.

Part of me wonders why I keep doing this, deliberately separating myself from man and his work to retreat up into the woods. This part grumbles that if God wanted to talk to me He ought to be able to do so quite well in church, in my living room, or in the quiet moments before I drift off to sleep. But even as I write that - I see the error.

I come up here to the woods and hunker down in a hidden dingle with a fire pit where the sound of the wind in the evergreens is like angelsong; my heart sways to the tune but my mind can't quite discern the words. The smoke washes over me like some kind of cryptic anointing as I wait for His presence to fall.

That grumbling part of me has it backwards. There is no question God can speak to me wherever I am, He does it all the time. It's not a question of Him finding me.

I come up here because I am seeking Him.
Not a word or a blessing, not even an answer to prayer really - just Him.
And I find Him here.

Huffing and puffing up the steep muddy hills, building a fire with numb fingers, it's all a kind of sacrifice in an effort to act out the verse, "you will find me...when you seek me with all you heart"
...and fire falls on sacrifice.

Still, I see that I am drawn to higher or more distant places over time. It's not that He demands more of me so much as I seek more of him. What was a breathtaking experience last year is less so today as I realize the infinity of His grace and love. Wading in the river isn't what it once was, neither as frightening nor exhilarating, knowing I might swim, and even to drown.

Remember Permission

There’s a place near the end of The Legend of Bagger Vance where Will Smith (playing the Holy Spirit) tells Matt Damon that in order for him to move forward he needs to go back and ‘remember.’ To remember what it was that he was made for in the first place – something he’s clearly forgotten.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Mk2Tca88Xo

I’ve been writing on this blog for years now and a lot of it has either been directly about or derived from a book I read many years ago called Wild at Heart. Since 2006 I’ve also been a part of a ministry called Boot Camp Northwest that is a deliberate spin-off of the Wild at Heart Boot Camp events Ransomed Heart Ministries does up in CO. I’ve never been to a RH boot camp but a donor recently pitched in some money and I get the chance to go see how John Eldredge and his crew do these things in March. As part of that, I’m going back and re-reading Wild at Heart 7 or 8 years later – to remember.

Line two in the intro says “we [don’t] need another book for men...we need something different. We need permission. Permission to be what we are – men made in the image of God.”

It’s the first line ion the book and I remember how invigorating that concept was when I read it. It spoke to a promise that the rest of the book indeed carried through – that it wouldn’t be about tips and tricks and techniques to read more pray more worship more. No – in fact the whole thing rests on an entirely different presupposition. That when we are saved by Christ our fallen hearts are made new and that there is goodness in us that needs to be let out far more than any wickedness needs to be suppressed. I remember in the early days of BCNW when we would get a question from the campers there were a lot of times when the answer was “walk with God” - in other words, “You don’t need me to answer that. I trust you to find your strength and your answer in your own walk with the father.” Sure, it was in some cases a bit of a cop out on our parts when there were questions we simply didn’t know how to answer but most often it was a “I know you can do this – I believe in you” kind of thing.

Lots of time and more experience has indeed led to more knowledge and more answers (after a fashion), though as I read this first page again I’m struck by the fact that more knowledge on our part may in fact lead to less freedom, less trust, and less empowerment that we’re giving to our campers.

They don’t need our answers.
They need our permission.

Advanced Words

We got back from PAX today and while the expo was fun I found myself missing the kind of Jesus-tinged experience that I really have come to expect on these things. It's not that we totally missed Him but in most spiritual ways it felt more like a day at the (non soma) office.

But just as I was rolling into my driveway something came to mind that I want to capture. It has the feeling of a fleeting and incomplete thought though so I don't know where this will wind up.

Whenever we get ready to go intonation boot camp we pray that god would give us "advanced words" for that event and he's always there to do so. Now I don't to go too far here lest it turn into some kind of superstition but I realize today that we've seen something similar with soma in that we often see our first experience of a trip to be somehow a pre-taste of the trip in general, or at least a vivid picture that tells us were walking with god. At first I thought this trip lacked such an event but in hindsight I'm not so sure. The first meta-experience of e trip was how rushed I was trying to get out the door. I just couldn't seem to get things wrapped up. That sense of work-pressure was in fact a constant struggle for me in this trip and took me out most of Saturday as I was too focused on ND and barely felt like I was in gods will at all - I was clearly working and not walking. But the first real "experience" came when we stopped by County Cousins for dinner. I've come to really enjoy this place on i5 but when we arrived we were shuttled off into the lounge where our waitress, while nice enough in her fashion, was a kind of dirty old lady making constant lewd jokes. On the one hand you try to laugh it off but it was not the kind of holy spirit encounter I would have liked...or was it?

I've observed before that I don't feel like the gamer community is hostile to god, they just don't know him and in a sense they don't know any better. I think this waitress was like that. She wasn't evil in any sense that I saw, just worldy - in fact very much like the kind of person Jesus got grief for hanging out with. And in that way she was like a focused in-your-face picture of what we s at PAX all weekend. People whose hope rests often in distraction and something like grave humor - you might as well laugh lest we cry our eyes out.

It made for a couple of days that felt thirsty but I was IN it all, as opposed to being separate, maybe to help me remember what that feeling is like. I wasn't feeling oppressed or opposed or anything like that, just dry. Vaguely missing something though I didn't know what.

Perhaps god was showing my something this weekend that I almost missed entirely.

Then again, maybe not...still need to chew on it.

Sent from my iPad

Welcome Back Weary FB Refugees

It may be a bit premature but I think I’m stating to see a return to blogging in my circle. For a while it seemed that the demon Facebook had siphoned away all the people I cared to read about and forced us al into short little snippets and pointless pokes. But I was starting to miss the blogs a lot. Though in truth, I think Kathie soldiered on alone and I too long neglected to read her ongoing adventure.)

Anyway – I’m glad to be blogging again, and gladder still to see others back in their respective saddles. Now somebody bug Holly.

Informed Innocence

We were singing a song in church yesterday where Jesus was described as being innocent. In the context of the song they were using the word as the opposite of guilty but in one of those strong moments of  insight I found myself drawn down a different path.

We also use the word innocent to describe a child and while the root thought is certainly related to a lack of guilt we mean something subtly but importantly different. A child’s innocence, for one thing, is understood to be temporary, even illusory. We loose that kind innocence not when we do something sinful but when we first understand the world to be broken. Perhaps we loose that innocence first when we eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and its only after that knowledge arrives that we try a little evil or ourselves. Indeed, when an innocent toddler says he didn’t spill the milk (the dinosaur did) we don’t generally condemn the child for lying because we perceive that there is no ill intent only the active imagination.

Maybe there is another way to put this. We loose our innocence to the degree that we no longer assume the world and the people in it to be good and safe.
And sadly, we say that childlike innocence is, in point of fact, erroneous. To “grow up” often means to loose hope, loose faith, doubt love, and expect bad. At the pinnacle is when we accept our own mortality as inevitable, normal, and even good. Innocence in this way is in many ways simple ignorance.

So I’m wondering how (if?) Jesus could be somehow innocent and fully informed. I don’t think I can say that Jesus always expected the best in every situation. After all, he wept over Jerusalem knowing something dreadful was about to happen. And while I might think, “Sure, but he also saw the even greater good behind it” - I’m not sure that really washes with me. Maybe there’s a place where we know without doubt that the very best thing could happen, even that it ‘wants’ to happen, but also that the same possibility exists for evil.

It was only a glimpse but this image of our king knowing every rotten, horrible thing in the universe but remaining in some way childlike...it was an infinitely beautiful image for that instant I caught it. I pray I’ll catch it again.

Hebel

So back in March I had the honor of being quoted in the Wall Street Journal. 

In another day I'll get he honor or appearing on-stage at Computex during a keynote presentation.

The way things have been going, I suspect there will be other honors to come.

Jesus talks about the things we do and the way we do them (Matt 6) and how for those who act in public and seek the validation of men, they'll most likely get it - but that's all they'll get. Solomon talks about fame and fortune and all of that as chasing after the wind - he's right. (yeah, big surprise there...)

I gotta tell you, the whole thing with the WSJ, I had a lot of people who thought it was a much bigger deal than I did. I mean, I can see how it confers a certain kind of credibility to what we're doing, it helps get the name out and all that but who really cares? I need to be clear here, I really do see these things as genuine honors. I don't put the word in quotes as though the name is somehow dubious. It's just that I find myself pretty darn uninterested in them except insofar as I see them as things God has been doing. These are doors He is opening and I don't know to what end. So I do the interview or write the article, or get on the plane not because I seek the column inches...but it is remarkable fun to find yourself on God's adventure.

Ecclesiastes 6:1,2 says "There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy on mankind: a man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor, so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires, yet God does not give him power to enjoy them, but a stranger enjoys them. This is vanity (hebel); it is a grievous evil."

I want Soma and Code-Monkeys to succeed, I really do, but I also find myself at least mildly nervous. I can't seem to read the Bible without seeing that God wants to bless his children, he wants us to prosper, and in some cases that might mean fame and fortune. But I am also very aware of Jesus' words to and about the rich. Money seems to be the only thing he says might in fact cause us to loose our eternal souls. I'm convinced that success is usually a blessing, but it is also a test, a challenge. And it seems to me that nothing in this world temps us to isolation and unaccountability like fame and fortune. Rich people are allowed all manner of character flaws that a more modestly endowed person would not. 

It is of ultimate concern to me that Soma's success not cost me my character. Nor by extension my integrity, friends or (heaven forbid) my family.

And yet I don't think it would be wise to turn away the gifts that God hands out either. I'm reminded that Moses tries to get out of his calling that day at eh bush several times and eventually God just gets mad, "But [Moses] said, "Oh, my Lord, please send someone else." Then the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses..." I know we need to remain humble but at some point we cross a line between humility and disregard for God's gift, spitting on his desire for our lives. What's more, it seems fair to say that God lifts people up for a larger purpose, a purpose beyond merely blessing - though He needs no larger reason to simply dote on his children.

We've started to see this more and more often in Soma. Somehow people find out about us and we get letters from folks who are moved or encouraged or inspired by the simple fact that Soma exists. In the last 12 months, we've made friends in the highest and most unlikely places all over the world. It's been a fantastic ride. ANd from where I sit now, it's obvious that it was providence and guidance and blessing. Sure, we all had our roles to play in those meetings and conversations but we haven't been actively seeking this stuff. In fact, I look back on this season and while it's been "busy" in one sense it's been effortless in another. I know what it's like to be really busy and come away feeling like all that effort availed nothing but if anything this season has been the opposite of that. I'm generally more relaxed, I  feel more 'present' and things just happen. How long that will continue is anybody's guess but so long as I can keep telling the sorry and pointing up...then I'll keep doing it.

OK, so I think I've wandered just a bit, but the point is just this: when I feels God's pleasure in what we're doing, whether that's on a stage in the spotlight or in deep obscurity, I have joy. When men bestow honor on me - I really don't care and I think that's the right attitude...I only pray that I can keep it.

Just thinking...

One of the things many people have asked me in regards to healing goes something like this:
“If there were people being miraculously healed of anything, anywhere – even one genuine case of a broken arm being fixed – it would be all over the news.”
In other words, “I’d already have heard about it.”

My response is something like this:
“Not so. The news reports what it is interested in and the church in general is something they are deeply uninterested in. That’s doubly true about God himself, especially anything that smacks of a present, supernatural God who is active in daily affairs. It’s not that these events go totally unreported but you have to dig a little beneath the networks.”

Check this story out
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=110605

60 THOUSAND Christians flooded Time’s Square on 20 Sep to do nothing but sing and pray. This was a purely ‘human’ event in the sense that there was nothing woo-woo about it. And yet the news basically ignored this gigantic event...

Reflection

One of the most shocking ways ways we can get insight into our lives is to have somebody close to us make a matter-of-fact observation or comment that is so incongruent with our internal vision of ourselves that it sounds as though the comment were about some stranger. Rebekah, wife, love of my life, bearer of my churlin...this post’s for you.

Talking about jobs and careers and that kind of thing Rebekah said something to the effect that she could not imagine me spending any time whatsoever in a scholarly setting. In as many words, “I can’t see you spending your time reading or studying for a living.” It wasn’t meant as any kind of a dig or really even a note of commentary. For her it was a statement of factual observation about as deep as “you would make a poor hair model” but it popped me in the mouth in a way that made me think, “just how DO you see me?”

I wanted to point to the house and a half full of books I brought to our marriage. Shelves overflowing with classics, epics and poetry; Shakespeare and Mallory, Homer and Plato. I wanted to tell her of the days and weeks spent squatting between shelves in Just Browsing or B.Daltons with Jeremy O’Kelly, or the inappropriate sums of money spent on leather bound Easton Press editions of literature’s great works. Surely my love of words and language (and the love of study that implied) was manifest in our own flesh and blood – Odin’s obvious and oft-noted verbal acuity – must suggest a scholarly pursuit has SOME believability!

But then I thought of the dust. The piles of books that sit in #3 unshuffled and undisturbed since we moved them there nine years ago. I realize that I’ve probably read fewer than six books a year since we’ve married and most of those have been non-fiction and very specific to the spiritual journey of the last several years. Good books to be sure (most of them anyway) and profitable...but nary an epic or romance in the mix. In short I realize that despite certain indications that I may have once been somewhat scholarly there is no hint of it left in 2009 Chris.

Re’s comment is reinforced by the (non-fiction) book I’m reading now, The Narnian. It’s an odd kind of biography of CS Lewis in that it’s really more about his mental and spiritual development than it is about the events in his life. And by the end of chapter four I’m watching a precocious young man, who at four tells his family that he will no longer be called Clive but will only respond to Jacksie, come to conclude that the bookish life is the only one he’s suited for. In watching Lewis I’m reminded of a part of me that’s been put on hold for many years now, a part that loves nothing better than the smell of yellowing paper; a part that would sip tea and crack leather spines in cold, silent, upstairs libraries for days on end hoping only to avoid being disturbed.

In the years between high school and the Navy I saw parts of me making a certain kind of pact. I wanted to study at a certain kind of liberal arts school but I knew I’d never afford it. So I decided I’d join the Army and get school money from them. There was a certain Faustian angle to the whole thing, and only a few weeks before I was set to ship out Dead Poet’s Society came out and the romantic/ivory tower part of me rose up in protest. I went back to the Army and said, “On second thought, I’m not the right guy for this.” In hindsight it’s remarkable that they were willing to cancel my contract but only 18 months later I was enlisted in the Navy. I was basically willing to sell my body (soul and mind remain with me thankyouverymuch) for four years in order to go to school someplace with ivy on old brick buildings. It’s an interesting parallel with Lewis as well. As he’s approaching the end of high school WWI is in full tilt and he decides that he will join the army and postpone Oxford.

...sorry, off on a tangent I think.

In my mind, that part of me has never even come close to dying but Rebekah’s comment makes me suddenly and painfully aware that in ten years of marriage it might as well be that she’s never met that Chris if indeed she even suspects his existence. Still, I’m not willing to say that the last ten years have somehow been a mistake by that yardstick, only occupied with other things...mostly really good things that have awakened and cultivated other parts of me that are now integral parts of my personality but would likely stayed latent if I’d gone full-bore into the whole academia thing.

More to the point, her observation comes at a time when I think that side of me is feeling a little neglected and put off. A time when I feel like God is fanning some long dormant coals though I hadn’t realized what was happening until I’ve just now started to think about it.

A dusty leather-bound pat of my heart misses long silent afternoons filled with nothing but reading and reflection and I’m sensing that maybe life will be shifting to make that more possible once again. Perhaps more than anything I miss the peacefulness of the life of the mind, though I confess the solitude runs a short second and that seems generally incompatible with small children. The last several years have been a lot of things, peaceful isn’t one of them.

Rebekah, for the record – a few years of reading, walking and writing sounds to me like one of the best possible things to me right now though I realize you have no reason to believe me save my assertion.

On Healing

Since shortly after the birth of my son I’ve found myself on a kind of extended quest to explore, critique and even to experience the phenomenon of miraculous healing in the context of modern Christianity.

It’s been a heck of a ride.

Healing touches on a lot of different things in our lives and there’s no space (or desire) for me to write a book here. But I did want to create a kind of summary for what I’ve come to believe on the topic since I know several people who read this blog have been part of my journey. And to give the punch line away at the very beginning, I’m convinced beyond my own reasonable doubt that God heals people today – and He likes it.

I know that my first impulse on this journey was to do a lot of reading because the most obvious thing to me when I started was the glaring hole of stories. If something like this were going on today then it should be something I’d have heard about. I mean sometimes that crazy stuff maybe happens in distant exotic lands, but not here – right? Well one of the most shocking things I found, and it still blows my mind, is that the reliable records of healings are massive and always growing. I mean serious and voluminous medical record stuff, newspaper stories, video, on and on and on. It’s staggering. But is equally staggering how quickly some people dismiss this evidence because they really don’t want to know about it or simply don’t know what to do with it.

The truth is that I’ve never seen a topic with so much potential to divide people, particularly inside the church – something I found rather shocking. For me, I was doing research but I really didn’t have a dog in the fight so the often extreme reactions I saw from people really took me by surprise. I think I understand some of that in hindsight, but it remains shocking to me that something so obviously present in Jesus’ ministry could be so volatile to the folks who follow him lead.

After and during the search for evidence, I was reading a lot of books, listening to a lot of sermons, even visited several places in person to try and get my head around this thing. To be candid, I’d say that the slight majority of folks seem at least slightly unbalanced in one direction or the other. But there is a group of folks who strike me as comprehensive and thoughtful, able to successfully walk the uneasy seam between mystery and knowledge, theology and common sense observation – there need to be more of these people. But as noted before, healing has a way of making people rabid.

There’s an old saying that a man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument. As I read more and listened more I started to think that knowing was one thing – experiencing was another so I made it a point to start praying for the sick people around me and ask other to pray for me when something was wrong. I’m no John Lake, but I know that there are now multiple times when I prayed for somebody and they were immediately helped. Likewise I’ve seen my own pain and illness respond to the prayer of others. (Just to be clear, the majority of my prayers have gone unanswered in this regard. I’d say something like 25% get answered these days, but I only note that as a point of reference)

Anyway, those are the ‘summary’ results of my journey, but I also wanted to share a few thoughts on what I’ve seen. I expect I’ll continue to reflect on these things, and this list is by no means exhaustive, but here it is if you’re interested.
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But It’s So Unfair
In our limited vision we can’t help but have a sense of priorities when we see suffering around us. It’s a kind of built in triage system that we all bring to the table. As a result, healing has a tremendous potential to offend our sense of fairness when it doesn’t happen the way we want it to, or doesn’t happen at all. For example, we can easily find ourselves saying, ‘If God feels like healing, He should head over to Ronald McDonald House.’ It’s very difficult to keep our hearts humble here and keep ourselves from accusing God of being fickle or mendacious. Because in all honesty the whole thing does look unfair from my perspective, or at least to display a set of priorities so different from mine as to be unrecognizable...and I think that’s the way off the dilemma. God’s ways are higher than my ways and as a necessary result...I don’t get it.

The thing here is to accept the enigma of it all in a way that refuses to judge what I am patently incapable of understanding. I don’t demand that God do it the way that I would do it. I don’t take offense at how it happens and instead I watch to see what God is up to in the hope that He’ll reveal his face in this, not just that he’ll solve a physical problem or ease a physical pain. The ‘unfairness’ of healing is entirely an issue of my own limited and biased perception.

That Long River in Egypt
God never asks us to lie and call that faith. The person who gets prayer for their illness and then ‘claims it’ when there is no evidence that the prayer was answered...nine times out of ten, they are simply in denial and in time risk great damage to their walk with God, and often make the whole topic of healing look silly for their obviously false claims. Don’t get me wrong here, there is clearly a place for faith in this and I know many cases where healings take some time to work out (they aren’t all instantaneous) - that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the person who many of us have seen on TV – the person who wants it so bad that hey have a kind of “fake it ‘til you make it” kind of air about them and an enthusiasm that we can sense is an affectation.

There’s also the other side of this coin that looks at healing prayer with a kind of polite tolerance that I think mostly comes out when folks have seen to many of the people above. One place I see this is when I pray for somebody, let’s say for a sprained ankle, I’ll ask them right away, “Any better?” Many times I get this shocked look from the person like, “What? You want to know right now?” Yes, I want to know right now – if your ankle gets gradually better over the next three weeks, that’s not a miracle, that’s what happens to anybody with a healthy body that repairs itself. And to call that kind of thing a ‘healing’ is disingenuous and often misleading. Yes, I know the human body is ‘miraculous’ in many ways, but I think we all know that that is not what we’re talking about here. We don’t help the faith of Christ’s body by calling a natural healing by supernatural names.

Healing and Medicine
For some folks there seems to be a built in tension between the notion of God healing and going to the doctor...honestly, I just don’t see the tension here. Medicine is a blessing from God that saves and improves countless lives. That said, it is by definition a work of man’s hands and clearly incapable of curing everything. If we fall into the humanistic trap and wind up thinking that doctors take God’s place...well that’s just folly. But to shun doctors and medicine and insist that God heals us miraculously or not at all...that’s again trying to force God to operate on our terms. Odin lives today because of a long series of medical blessings. And I don’t thank God any less that his life was saved by talented and gifted doctors and nurses anymore than if there was a magical poof of healing.

For myself, I want to make sure that God get’s first dibs on everything to act in his own special way. If the prayer for healing fails (and typically I try several times) then I have no problem going to the doctor and seeing what they can do. I always want to make room in my life, and invite God to act supernaturally – but if He declines that invitation I see no problem in looking to the other opportunities and blessings that He’s given us in skilled medicine.

Anchor Point: God is good.
This might seem a strange place to wrap-up this post but I’m convinced that this one statement does more to clarify the topic than any other. It’s contrary, though never actually spoken, rests at the center of many of the doubts folks have on this topic. To expand on this we might add, ‘The devil is bad’ and ‘mankind is fallen’ - There is a necessary tension between these statements that does magnificent work to clear so many theological fogbanks, but maybe here most of all. Always keeping God’s goodness in mind helps keep me from the major pitfalls here like blaming God for the healing that doesn’t happen or saying prayers like “If it’s your will God...” that actually belie a deep doubt that he wants us healthy.

I’m convinced that God heals primarily and simply because He’s just that kind of guy. He loves us so very much and wants to see us thrive. And I must say that the most common reaction from folks who are healed of something is the far more potent awareness of His goodness and His love.

In the spirit of full disclosure I should mention that I write this post from a hospital room. My unborn daughter is in significant jeopardy because her water water broke when she was only 24 weeks old. The truth is that I really want a miracle to restore what’s been damaged and allow her to come to full term. As such, we are praying all the time for this pregnancy to be restored. But we are also in a hospital like 30 feet from a top-notch NICU. I want to give God all the room in the world to heal our daughter’s amniotic sack, but I bear no animosity or disappointment if modern medicine saves her life as a preemie – either would be a blessing and I’ll shout ‘praise the Lord!’

Still – I’d prefer a miracle because my experience to date is that they are incredibly fun and I hear God laugh when it happens.

And now for something completely different...

Home From Bethel

So I got back from my trip at 4am on Wed. morning...long drive. When I came back from MorningStar last year, I think it took me something like three months to process what I’d seen. No, that’s not quite right, I’m still processing parts of that, but it took me three months to write anything. I was just dumbfounded. This trip to Bethel was in some ways less dramatic, in many ways far more personal and in the end...somehow more familiar. Which leads me to be writing so soon.

I want to say something outright that people were asking me about last year, the idea that we should have to go to a specific place to see God really rubs some people the wrong way, but that response is simply pride wrapped up in religious happy talk. Every story in the Bible, and every story since then, happens in a specific place at a specific time. To see where God is moving is easy and any child could do it. To be offended that He’s not moving at your house and refusing to go meet Him is arrogance. I always hear it go something like this, “If God wants to heal/speak to me, I shouldn’t have to go to Israel/Bethel/the corner revival tent. He can move right here just as well as He can move there.” Of course the sentence is true in it’s factual assertion but it presumes that God should go out of His way to seek you instead of me going out of my way to seek Him. It’s a feeling that accepts God only on my terms instead of His and the result is like a kid who wont go out to the ice cream truck until it parks in front of his house...it might happen, but in the mean time you’re missing a lot of good ice cream.

More to the point for some though is something Jesus said, “A prophet is not without honor except in his home town.” There is something very good that happens in out hearts when we open up to the value of a pilgrimage. Among other things, the value of a pilgrimage lies in the way it asks us to step through the ‘veil of inconvenience’ and follow hard after God in a very deliberate and practical way. It also makes a crystal-clear picture of the old saw that the journey is the point of life and not the destination. Regardless of where God is or isn’t, each time I take one of these trips I have my heart open and expecting in a way that is almost impossible to be at home where everything is familiar.

Anyway, I guess I’d just say that I would recommend this kind of journey to anybody, and if you can listen to God about the where and the when that will be so much the better. He says that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. For my part, I’ve seen Him to be abundantly faithful on that part.

Juxtaposed

I may have witnessed the most remarkable miracle of my life this weekend...but then again I may not have. A member of Bethel opens his house for visitors like me and there was a family in the house with me with a 28 year old daughter who needed help. In short, this lovely young lady had a heart with only three chambers and it was on the wrong side of her body. She’s dying. After prayer yesterday she and her family swear that they can now feel her heart on the right side...meaning the left...you know what I mean. It’s the kind of thing that you can’t confirm from the outside which is why I say I ‘may have’ witnessed a miracle, but she’s headed to a doctor today to verify what would be a pretty darn fantastic miracle...or not. But regardless of this particular healing, I’ve been seeing many other less dramatic cases including a woman who says she’s never had rhythm but was doing the human beatbox thing yesterday...um, that’s an odd one but way cool.

I’m now sitting in In-N-Out about two miles from the church and I’m struck by the paradox of miracles. People are coming to Bethel from all over the world and thousands of people have been touched by God and released from everything from back pain to terminal cancer to missing limbs (yes...God heals amputees). And yet here in Redding, which isn’t a very big town, most of the folks have no idea what’s happening a short walk away.

I don’t really know what to say here except the overlay of the profound and profane is striking. At noon I was watching miracles and feeling God’s presence, at 3 I’m eating cheese fries, and in another hour I’ll find more God, and probably see more miracles. It’s just weird.

So far...so much love

I’ve tried to keep my expectations in check or this trip. I’ve wanted to come here to Bethel for a good long while now but I didn’t want to load the thing up with all this pressure that it had to answer any particular question or be some certain thing. I just wanted to come. If there is one thing I am looking for it’s an interpretation of my soto ensei dream, but frankly I’m not too worried about it.

I hit the road yesterday and got to Ashland where a friend’s dad owns this ski lodge and he agrees to put me up for the night. The place is like one of the ski lodges I grew up around in Big Bear or Lake Arrowhead but this one is less than a year old and you can still smell the saws on the wood. My first thought was how much this place reminded me of home; the pines, the ski lodge, the giant mountain of red road cinders... At dinner is this monster pork chop that’s been soaking in pear brandy for three days, the guitar player is doing Neil Young and the Beatles and there are frogs serenading me from outside my window. It was so perfect.

As I’m eating dinner I hear god say “Savor” as in – take this in, enjoy it, don’t let anything escape too soon. Along with that came the verse from Psalm 34:8 – Taste and see that the Lord is good.

In the morning, driving down I5 is so pretty and Mt Shasta explodes into your view all of a sudden with glaciers and encircling clouds – it’s really impressive (not as good as Mt Hood though if you ask me). When I pull into the house I’m staying at, I’m introduced the various guests and the guy in the pool looks exactly like my dad maybe 15 years ago – spitting image as they say.

...you know, there’s more to tell but it’s after midnight and I’m bushed. If I try to write all of this now I’ll botch it.

For the moment I’ll just remind myself of this post
http://the-m-blog.blogspot.com/2006/06/incoming.html
The event it describes happened three years ago tomorrow. But since then, the ‘incoming’ part has yet to come in.

My song

Your love is better than wine.
Draw me after you and let us run together.
I am my beloved's and He is mine.
...truly, He is mine.

Sent from my iPhone

One more time...

So after several delays it looks like I’m taking another shot at visiting Bethel church in Redding, CA.
There’s no conference that I know of or anything like that but I’m going just to see what God does.
Whatever that is, even if it’s only to turn me around again, I’ll try to stay current here.