irrelevance

A Poem of Wisdom?

I’ve been thinking and meditating on wisdom lately.  Wisdom is one of those concepts hard to get your mind around.  What I have to say may add to the confusion. seriously.

What does wisdom mean?  

You hear the word used a lot in conversation in a plethora of ways.  You might hear, “She’s a really wise person,” after a soft spoken discourse on the horrible atrocities of Northern Uganda.  Of course we’ve all heard, “Alright wise guy,”  directed toward a particularly impish comment covered in the drippings of sarcasm.  

But I mean really, what does wisdom actually mean?

It must mean something about knowledge right?  But knowledge about what?  Knowledge about life, God, the human condition?  Here I think Pascal is helpful…

“The knowledge of God without that of man’s misery causes pride.  The knowledge of man’s misery without that of God causes despair.  The knowledge of Jesus Christ constitutes the middle course, because in him we find both God and our misery” -Pascal, Pensées, 7.527.

So In Christ is knowledge.  This is a potent idea.  The suffering Christ is an icon of an all-wise God sending an atoning savior into the world to enter into our misery and show us true knowledge.  

Knowledge is intimately connected to wisdom, and wisdom in intimately tied to Christ.  1 Corintians says,

” Christ is the power of God and the Wisdom of God.”- Corinthians 1:22-24.

Christ is the the wisdom of God.  Wow.  Okay, so I feel like im getting somewhere, and really I could mediate on Christ as the wisdom of God all day.

But I mean, really, what does wisdom actually mean?

I came across a poem by T.S. Elliot recently.  I’m going to close with him.  I’d love to interact with this for a long while.  The first time I read it, I was left speechless.   I wonder if that too is a part of wisdom.  Speechless.  ”Be still and know that I am God.”  Wonder. Fear. ” The fear of the Lord is the begging of wisdom.”  Reflection.

The Eagle soars in the summit of Heaven,
The Hunter with his dogs pursues his circuit.
O perpetual revolution of configured stars,
O perpetual recurrence of determined seasons,
O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying!
The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to God.
Where is the life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of heaven in twenty centuries
Brings us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.

The lot of man is ceaseless labor,
Or ceaseless idleness, which is still harder,
Or irregular labour, which is not pleasant.
I have trodden the winepress alone, and I know
That it is hard to be really useful, resigning
The things that men count for happiness, seeking
The good deeds that lead to obscurity, accepting
With equal face those that bring ignominy,
The applause of all or the love of none.
All men are ready to invest their money
But most expect dividends.
I say to you: Make perfect your will.
I say: take no thought of the harvest,
But only of proper sowing.

The world turns and the world changes,
But one thing does not change.
In all of my years, one thing does not change,
However you disguise it, this thing does not change:
The perpetual struggle of Good and Evil.

from ”The Rock”
by T.S. Eliot

What do you think wisdom means?

A Testimony to Grace

This weekend marked the celebration of the 5th anniversary of Grace Anglican Church, my home now for some time.  It also happened to be the day of my confirmation in the Anglican Church of North America.  The entire experience was something that I will never forget but it was also one that my words will in some way trivialize.  This isn’t to say that words aren’t powerful enough to express the events of this past weekend, but rather reflect my inability to articulate in a way holy enough.

Ethan, my Rector and good friend, asked several of us from the Church to write a short bit about what Grace has meant over these past few years and I happily obliged. Below is how I responded.

Growing up, the Church was something that I was raised to believe to be important. My parents came from Roman Catholic and Baptist backgrounds, and so a lot of my life was spent moving around from church to church.  By the time I reached college I decided that church just wasn’t for me.  I liked Jesus sure, but felt that my experience with the church was irrelevant and unauthentic.  After transferring to Grove City College, a close friend invited me to attend a service at Grace Anglican in the fall of 2007.  I distinctly remember how transcendent it felt. There was a seriousness and holiness to the liturgy that was inexplicably powerful. The preaching was authentic and raw, drawing me closer to what was going on inside of me, pointing me to a true, tangible, and objective grace available for me in Jesus Christ.  Through my time at Grace Anglican I have grown to love the Church, and for the first time in my life I can honestly say that I have found a home.

Blessed are those that mourn

News reached me yesterday that a friend of mine died.  It hit me like a speeding train hits you in a dream…or rather a nightmare.   

Do you know what I mean?  

It hit me head on and I gasped at the harsh and true reality of it while at the same time wondering if what I was hearing would turn into nothing more than a missed alarm clock.  But it didn’t. 

Blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Jesus says these words in Matthew 5, and I happened to be reading them on the same day that I heard the news.  There is something Blessed about those who mourn, something holy.  I ponder these words even as I sit here, wondering what they mean.  

Kenneth Bailey, in his book Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes points out that when Jesus uses the word blessed he does so in a way that affirms the quality of spirituality that is already present in the hearer.  This means that Jesus isn’t saying, “Blessed are you if you do X because you will receive Y.  Instead he is saying that those who are bless-ed will experience his comfort. 

I went over to Grove City to mourn with a few mutual friends and something very incredible happened. A number of us spoke about how we knew our departed friend and how he had distinctively left his mark on us.  As we shared the courage, love, passion and faith with which he lived, I realized that something powerful was happening.  There were tears and silence yes, but I think all of us felt the Spirit lifting us.  In a strange yet profound way, we were experiencing the blessedness that is ours because of the One who mourned perfectly.  We were being comforted by the great comforter.  

There will be a day when tears will be dried and sorrow will be no more.

There will be a day when I will see my friend again in a Kingdom that knows no death, only life.  

For now, I rest in the fact that that day will come, and until then we are blessed.

Do you love me?

One of the most powerful books I have ever read is by a man named Henri Nowen. Its called “In the Name of Jesus.”  His book is written for  ”the next generation of Christian leaders.”  Centered around the three temptations of Jesus in the wilderness, Nowen invites us with him on a journey from relevance to prayer, from popularity to ministry, and from leading to being led.  Its a journey with Jesus.

This summer, I went on a journey of my own to Montana with my close friend Palmer.  Together we wrestled with our desire to be relevant and competent in a fast-paced and demanding world.  What we both didn’t realize is how tangible and practical these abstractions would become in just a few short months.

I arrived on campus at Westminster College in the fall to begin my mission in life… that college students would know and be transformed by the light and truth of Jesus Christ.  Here is the problem with that mission.  Jesus is primarily interested in my transformation.  My desire was to make a difference, God’s desire is that He make the change.  God is really pretty good at changing people,  I have a spiritual gift at getting in the way.  It was in this realization that I began to learn the value of irrelevance, and of my own desperate need for the initiating love of God through Jesus.

I need to move past the need for personal gain and recognition.  I need to forget about being hip, cool, and popular.  I need to let go of the things that had previously defined me and made me relevant.  Here at Westminster, none cares about how fast I ran in high school, how many things Ive lead in college, or the amount of theological and biblical knowledge I have acquired. Here I have nothing to offer except me.  I can only offer my vulnerable, irrelevant self.  I am completely exposed and open.  I can only give and receive love from others, and I do that brokenly.

But here is the thing.  I can’t even be irrelevant that well!  I’m bad at it.  I want to prove myself on a daily basis, to make people aware of what I have to offer and how sweet I actually am.  I am a needy lost boy who isn’t even very good at realizing he’s lost.  

So whats the answer?  How do I become irrelevant in this relevant and self-loving culture?  Nowen says the answer is in a question that Jesus asks Peter in John 21.                                         

Do you love me?

My answer is at once “Yes” and then “No.”  I know that the correct answer is “yes, Jesus I love you.”  But when the Spirit shows me my heart I hear the answer, “no, I actually love some other stuff a little more.”  So here I am, about as vulnerable as one can get, a lost boy in desperate need without anything at all.

Thankfully, the truth of the gospel is that Jesus loves me more than I can ever comprehend or even imagine.  He proved his love by dying for me on a cross. He offers me his life instead of mine.  

This is where the power lies.  

The power to give and receive love from God and others comes into me from the outside.  It comes ripping into my heart and busting open the seams of my soul.  

It is the power of grace.

Through this first love of Jesus I can  begin to offer a lonely, isolated, bored, and depressed world a little bit of second love.  I can enter into solidarity with the anguish underneath all the glitter of success and bring the light of Jesus there.  

This is the power of irrelevance.