into great Silence

2011-08-29T19:05:00.000-07:00

I found you not as I left you,
Hiding away in the dark.
On a long journey home,
to a never ending sleep.

Your door tightly shut,
while many pass by making light conversation.
You wait patiently, patiently for someone to accept you,
to look upon you as you are; I wait.

The speeches are made, the pleasantries woven.
There are many who do not understand what lies behind that door.
They walk in and out, by and by; I wait.

The room clears and as the last person walks away the veil is shut.
Your door is opened as my heart drops and the blood courses through my veins.
I see you for the first time in what seems to be forever.
There you lay, asking for acceptance.
For so many are unable,
but I, having received your grace, are ready.

You ask me as I gaze upon your mortal wound,
"can you accept me as I am?" "but, of course!" I say.
For such is the way you had taught me,
and this duty was none but my own.
One last intimate moment,
acceptance of your pain,
acceptance of your reality, our reality.
I touch your cold hand, your cheek, your hair,
I see your scars.
You are lifeless.

Though this would often be thought of as such a gruesome act.
One that should scar me for life,
burning images of ones life taken of their own cognition.
It is no such thing. It is what we are.

See there will never be anything like us.
We were and are a phenomenon.
We rode the stars and touched the heavens.
We held the answers for the weary and the keys to heaven.
We galloped into the sunset, riding like a hell bent rebel, destined to rule.

We owe each other this reality,
we need this last moment alone.
And I accept you, and close the door, forever.

I stay and make sure things are in order.
You are lowered into the dark.
As I watch I say goodbye,
to the man who made me from clay.
To the mythical demigod who conquered my childhood dragons,
to the only one who would see me through in such a manner,
To my hero.

2011-07-27T21:30:00.000-07:00

So Mexicans are Taking Jobs from Americans

O Yes? Do they come on horses
with rifles, and say,
Ese gringo, gimmee your job?
And do you, gringo, take off your ring,
drop your wallet into a blanket
spread over the ground, and walk away?
I hear Mexicans are taking your jobs away.
Do they sneak into town at night,
and as you’re walking home with a whore,
do they mug you, a knife at your throat,
saying, I want your job?
Even on TV, an asthmatic leader
crawls turtle heavy, leaning on an assistant,
and from a nest of wrinkles on his face,
a tongue paddles through flashing waves
of lightbulbs, of cameramen, rasping
“They’re taking our jobs away.”

Well, I’ve gone about trying to find them,
asking just where the hell are these fighters.
The rifles I hear sound in the night
are white farmers shooting blacks and browns
whose ribs I see jutting out
and starving children,
I see the poor marching for a little work,
I see small white farmers selling out
to clean-suited farmers living in New York,
who’ve never been on a farm,
don’t know the look of a hoof or the smell
of a woman’s body bending all day long in fields.
I see this, and I hear only a few people
got all the money in this world, the rest
count their pennies to buy bread and butter.
Below that cool green sea of money,
millions and millions of people fight to live,
search for pearls in the darkest depths
of their dreams, hold their breath for years
trying to cross poverty to just having something.

The children are dead already. We are killing them,
that is what America should be saying;
on TV, in the streets, in offices, should be saying,
“We aren’t giving the children a chance to live.”
Mexicans are taking our jobs, they say instead.
What they really say is, let them die,
and the children too.
–Jimmy Santiago Baca, 1977

The Ghost

2011-04-02T19:54:00.000-07:00

Set forth to haunt me,
from a land distant and desolate.
Their memory so vivid and fresh.
Their blood so red and pungent.
It is never cold without remembrance,
the day never warm.

In my cross hairs,
rise a thousand others.
Faces so youthful are scattered and thrown.
From those dead,
I see so many more.
Whose not to say that they would be my own.

God have mercy,
Progeny of David, forgive.
I knew not what I do.
Nail in hand, as minister of death.
Warping power, relinquishing breath.

So it shall be, to those who break the cycle of life,
so is my destiny, my cross to carry, my thorn.
I will forever weep at the faintest of smell,
I will forever anger at the slightest threat.
Every backfire a bomb.
Every house to be cleared.
Every child a memory,
of those mothers that cry to this day,
on the streets of Baghdad,
as Ghosts.

2011-01-18T19:03:00.000-08:00

"When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world." [Jn. 16:21]

Our joy is born of pain. That which is truly beautiful is born of struggle. We arrive to the promised land after our sojourn in the desert. Was the church born without death? Was Mary's labor not hard? Is a family made on the mills of convenience? And is contemplation complete without a 'dark night of the soul'? The desert is where the Spirit is found, obscurity is God's favorite disguise and the anguish of our trials are the means by which God makes us holy, by which we lose ourself in Him.

Parenthood: Self Dissolution

2011-01-11T05:41:00.000-08:00

In order to arrive at having pleasure in everything,
Desire to have pleasure in nothing.
In order to arrive at possessing everything,
Desire to possess nothing.
In order to arrive at being everything,
Desire to be nothing.
In order to arrive at knowing everything,
Desire to know nothing. [John of the Cross]

It wasn't until about three years into parenthood that I desired to 'be nothing'. Nothingness is not a natural desire, which is indicative that the urge to be something is of the flesh. Part of the desire I have for monasticism isn't that I find in it some secret path or some mystical narrow way, though the ideals of monasticism definitely do offer some sort of secret way, secret in the eyes of the world. The reason is that monastic thought is quick to admit what some admit on their deathbed, that we are 'nothing'. We are nothing without God's indwelling and action, greatness only comes when He who is truly great acts in and though us. Contemplative thought is quick to admit that.

Parenthood is a good lesson in nothingness. You get none of the old 'pleasures' you once had. I remember when my wife and I were first married, how we would come and go at our own disposal, sleep in on Saturdays and take random road trips; needless to say those days are over, our pleasure is last on the list, that is if it even made the list.

Possessions--unless you are just that well off--tend to seep away. I used to walk into a book store and buy whatever stood out, whatever I thought would further my spiritual greatness. Not only have I realized that this was a fallacy, but I also wait months before I buy something I have been wanting to read. My bedroom set is a mosaic of water-rings, bite marks, hand shaped peanut butter smears and I am sure someone has urinated on it somewhere. Granted our house is in better order than some parents we know, I mean this to say it doesn't matter to us much anymore.

We live in constant tension, walking the tightrope that is the "poverty line", being paid only to feel we having nothing by dinner time that payday. Money doesn't matter as much as our children eating and sleeping in a warm house and when it comes to us, even the occasional latte is generally out of the question and that's usually a good thing. Target clothes are worn until they walk off and I just recently mourned the loss of my favorite solid light blue button up, I bought it the day after Jess' and I were married in 2005, the elbow blew out.

For a 'wannabe' scholar like me the desire to know 'everything' was something of an addiction, that is until I began to realize that I could know my brain into Jell-O. It is in the simplicity of not assuming, operating without pretense that we really begin to learn and know. Now having a small community within your household will drive this lesson home quick.

Parenthood has driven my past desires crazy, it has killed my old self and is still letting it die away. It has been the facilitator of my 'theosis', God's hand in making me less of who I want to be and driving me to absorb into the sea that is Him. In the past months my wife and I have not only scrubbed poop off of everything known to man, but anything we felt important or secure has been rendered impotent. Money, career, self, image and youthfulness.

If the 'arrival at being everything' is achieved by 'the desire to be nothing' then stripping yourself of the falsities that make your "false self"--or the person you think you should be--something is a good head start. Better yet God taking something as beautiful as three rowdy boys and a rather opinionated beautiful baby girl and using them as a crucible to melt away your flesh is an even better start. Not only do I realize I am nothing, but I realize that I am only everything in these, in my little community. And when you are broke on a snow day, with your peanut butter smears and poopie-diapers, with your bite mark mosaics and your newfound gray hairs, with your lack of sleep and lack of new things, you will be running around in the snow realizing that you have everything, and are richer than most.

the Holy Epiphany

2011-01-06T11:43:00.000-08:00

Today we celebrate Holy Epiphany, God the Son coming in human flesh as Jesus Christ. In the collision of God and flesh, God made theosis--the ability of man conform to the character of God--possible. God is flesh, God has suffered in the person of Christ and in doing so has healed our suffering by making it his own, so that we no longer suffer in vain, but identify with the salvation of the world in Christ's sufferings. But not only is the Incarnation about divine retribution, it is also an affirmation of humanity on God's behalf. Woman is so good that God uses the Virgin to conceive, leaving the seed of man out of the equation. Man is so good that God embodies himself as one. Human kind is so good that God dies and rises on their behalf so they can partake in true goodness and overcome the Antichrist of Empire which tried to kill Christ Jesus, they can overcome the false profit of Utopian consumerism and that old Serpent who is behind it all. How do we do so, in the theological realm the method is called 'kenosis' after the Greek word used in this verse:

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
   Who, being in very nature God,
   did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own
   advantage;
   rather, he made himself nothing
   by taking the very nature of a servant,
   being made in human likeness.
   And being found in appearance as a man,
   he humbled himself
   by becoming obedient to death—
      even death on a cross! [Phil. 2:5-8]

The call to self-dissolution is the call to 'theosis', which is the act of losing yourself to and in Christ and his body, the universal Church. It is what Merton calls love losing itself in Love, our absorption into the sea that is God. Just as a river loses itself in the ocean and no longer has the identity of river and the ocean the identity of ocean, so are saint and Christ rendered indistinguishable, lost in each other in an intimate love that looses the powers and principalities of cosmic order. Christ the baby has come at Christmas, now we celebrate that God came as Christ at Epiphany. When one loses himself in Christ they are pulled out of the pit of Hades and loosed from the chains of worldly care, from the grip of Empire, of Antichrist and of Death. The Incarnation is not only the call of salvation, but our call to be like God in Christ, to truly celebrate epiphany in a theology of Incarnation where we lose ourself in the sea of Christ; the nonviolent, prostitute loving, wine-bibbing Jesus. Thanks be to God!

+May this holy season be for each of us
A time of moving beyond what is “reasonable”
And toward the star of wonder;
Moving beyond grasping tight to what we have
To unclenching our hands and letting go,
Following the Light where it leads;
Moving beyond competition toward cooperation,
Seeing that all humans are sisters and brothers.
Moving beyond the anxiety of small concerns
Towards the joys of justice and peace.
May the transforming acceptance of Mary and Joseph,
The imagination of the shepherds,
And the persistence of the wise men
Guide us as we seek the Truth,
Always moving toward the Divine promise.
Always aware God can be hidden in the frailest among us,
Always open to the unexpected flash of Grace,
To the showing forth of that Love that embraces us all.+

Prayer courtesy of Marian Social Justice Collaborative.

Religare: Religion vs. Religiosity.

2010-11-17T08:05:00.000-08:00

Just remember with all of this talk about religion, and it's a relationship not a religion, that there are a few things to understand there. First of all the statement "it's a relationship not a religion" is usually meant to discount any form of religion that is traditional, that has some liturgical confessional aspect to it. This first of all stems from the radical post-Enlightment ideal that anything with an Orthodox or Catholic garb is religious and therefore not synonymous with right relationship with Christ. Second of all it is wrapped in the idea that a singular personal relationship with Christ is the total ideal, vice a communal relationship with Christ through His body the church. Third it is an assumption that the person quoting the said statement found the real way of approaching God contrary to how the first 1,800 years of Christianity felt was genuine.

Let me first say that the way in which I approach God is tainted and with flaw. It is not the way everyone was meant to approach God, because first and foremost it is not so much about "we" approaching God, but God approaching us. Christ stepped off of His throne, came born of a virgin without the help of a man, lived and breathed on earth and died here. It is not just about how we personally approach God in the quiet intimate times at night. But how God comes to us and saves us to spite our shortcomings which are many.

All of this talk of how a sect has found the right way and how the other is off chaps my hind quaters. It's as much as a damnable heresy as heaven forbid, "being religious", or finding value in a tradition. Because mind you religiosity is not following what you perceive to be the traditions of your fore fathers. Religiosity is the building of a moral and religious framework that is exclusive and leaves certain peoples out of the picture to spite their best efforts. Religiosity is feeling safe in that framework and building yourself a shelter of safety on the premise of excluding others. Religiosity has more deeply penetrated the same groups that accuse the traditional aspects of our faith of being religious, in fact it has penetrated them so deeply they look little like the Christ I know. See Jesus came not to destroy the law and the traditions. Acts tells us that even the Apostles still practiced the Temple prayer times of nine, twelve and three o' clock. These were actually a Jewish Liturgy of Hours conjured up by (gasp) the Pharisee's! Jesus didn't knock tradition or religion, he knocked the use of it for monetary or political gain, propaganda or the implementation of fear.

Yes there must be a "you and God" aspect to your faith, it is a relationship by and far. But before we go knocking religion, which mind you is a Latin Christian term to describe the Christian "binding. Latin-religare" of a framework in which we and our ancestors found Christ. The Trinity is mentioned in Scripture, its definition is tradition. The hypo-static union of Christ, tradition. In fact we are all bound to it, we just tend to miss the plank in our eyes more often than not. So do not let fear or accusation deter you from throwing down all liturgical like, it's OK. It's about God meeting you, not you making sure you are in the exact Christian framework be it religious or not.

Domestic Monasticism

2010-11-07T19:54:00.000-08:00

I love to read the Monastic works, from the earliest desert fathers to the more recent works of Merton or Rolheiser. Though Rolheiser is technically not a monastic he has taken to applying their life to what he calls the domestic. In his article "The Domestic Monastery" he covers how pretty well. Another great work is "Forgotten Among the Lillies" by him in which he covers applying the whole monastic ideal to your everyday thinking. In a world of secular thought, in a generation raised to think the logical, it seems that many of us have lost our ability to see the mystical, to see God in every situation. This is what Domestic Monasticism is about to Rolheiser and to me.

Really I have taken the liberty to apply what Rolheiser talks about in many of his articles to my life. With that I glean from the desert fathers and Merton and look to take their line of thinking and apply it to my perception of my world. Part of this is to stay within my context, to stay where God wants me to be. Which is to be content with being small, to suffer what some call the "Martyrdom of Obscurity". Saint Therese talks about this contentment with obscurity when she says, " Love proves itself by deeds, so how am I to show my love? Great deeds are forbidden me. The only way I can prove my love is by scattering flowers and these flowers are every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love."

Part of why I find so much value in the words Domestic Monastic and wish to apply whatever that may be to my actions, my relationship with Christ and my thinking is because to be a monk is to be content with being nothing in the eyes of this earth. To be respite, not popular, small and unseen. A person of prayer and contemplation. It cures the desire in me to be popular, to be heard, read and loved, it humbles me. The oxymoron is that I write about this online, which is an activity I wish to stifle to nothing more than a burning ember.

It also teaches me to live within my "cell", my calling, my context. The reason the word cell works so well is because (a) Rolheiser draws the analogy between a monk's cell and the domestics vocation and family, (b) it implies obscurity, contentment with being small and dedicated to your immediate community, family and church and (c) it helps me realize that God has not called me to great things in the worldly sense, but to the small and beautiful; the things that are truly great in the Kingdom of God. These are my wife, my children and the men that I work with daily at the boarding home. Those are my cells within the greater monastery of my life.

Something I don't wish to do is to make this something rigorous or legalistic. I find value in lectio divina, centering prayer and asceticism. These all are valuable tools in my life and really I had been practicing them long before I knew what they really were. And granted this is by no means a "life change" or some kind of life long shift. Really it is the culmination of everything I find of value in the Christian faith: prayer, dedication, being slow to speak, deep contemplation.

It really exemplifies the value of silence, something I am no good at sometimes, in the midst of a socially networked and loud generation. All over the web I see conversations, emotions and opinions being thrown around as if they were something to be thrown so cheaply let alone even real, because they are not they are electronic. Personally I have been one to throw mine around, but I feel a call to more and more silence. To me monasticism is more than what is containable within the walls of a monastery. It is something indicative to a deep relationship with Christ.

The word monasticism comes from a Greek word which means 'alone' but is better defined as the renouncing of all worldly pursuits in order to devote ones life fully to God. For me this means renouncing all of the values of this world within my familial and domestic context. To renounce vanity and everything the world is telling my generation it has to buy into. I don't have this all together or the balance it implies in a domestic context. I must support my family, but how much do I look to exceed what we need. I need a warm home for my children, but how much do I really need. It also implies I suffer the martyrdom of obscurity in order to serve my wife and children without the expectation of return or gratitude and to do so in humility. Good Lord help me!

the Domestic Monastic

2010-07-18T20:10:00.000-07:00

So I have pretty much decided that at some point in my life I will write "Domestic Monastic: Fatherhood as Asceticism". It will be tightly based on Ronald Rolheiser's essay on the subject and expand on his ideas but from a more intuitive perspective (Fr. Rolheiser is a Catholic priest and therefore celibate). One of my main ideas here is that our Western/Post-Enlightement mindset is so stripped of ritual and "naming our discipline" that we often fail to see those things which burden us most as beneficial to our relationship with Christ and our coming into his image. What I mean by "naming our discipline" is that we fail to attach a name to what we work hardest at. The early desert ascetics called it monasticism and the church followed suit for many years. However during the enlightenment and Protestant Reformation society began to strip itself of symbol and ritual for a more puristic faith. I will argue that this has been detrimental in many ways and that fatherhood is one area that will flourish under the designator of monastic, Domestic Monastic.

Currently Reading:

2010-07-11T18:49:00.000-07:00

God Is Here

2010-06-18T07:09:00.000-07:00

[From Upper Room Daily Reflections "http://www.upperroom.org" via Aunty Cara]

PRACTICE SAYING “GOD IS HERE” the next time you are assaulted by your neighbors’ quarreling, see someone carelessly toss trash from a car, get drenched in an unexpected rainstorm, or bite into a mealy and tasteless apple. From his own experience, Saint Francis of Assisi learned that the deeper lessons of God came when one embraced all things, even that which isn’t beautiful. When we turn our attention to both delightful and painful ways God can get to us through our senses, we discover yet another way to pray in the midst of our daily lives.

- Jane E. Vennard with Stephen D. Bryant Companions in Christ: The Way of Prayer Participant’s Book

Am I bipolar, or do desire truth?

2010-06-17T16:18:00.000-07:00

These past two and some odd years since I left the Marine Corps have been something of a intellectual, emotional and epistemological blender, all over the place and indistinguishable. People have questioned and chided me down to the bone as to why I would even think of being a Christian Pacifist vice a Marine Lieutenant, or why I would consider a more open Catholic faith than a exclusivist Southern Protestantism. To tell you the truth I could not have completely answered them until I read this excerpt from my Epistemology text for my Philosophy course:

"Persons who have 'a passion for the truth,' an abiding concern for the truth, are thereby disposed to a whole range of emotions, including anxiety when their beliefs are assailed by doubts, and discouragement when some research program undertaken to resolve the doubts fails."

People who need to know truth are a disturbed class, but what an amazing people we are. Of course I say this humbly. I was told in confession once, after confessing that I have mental images of performing military house raids and killing people (a trait that disturbed me rather badly), that this may be my cross to carry. The priest was a wise one. It wasn't that I was so scarred by my having been trained to do such activities, but rather I was scarred by the tendency within me to want to, or to lean in that direction. I was disturbed because I knew that the truth in Christ is something different, not one of killing the enemy, but rather feeding them and loving them. This mental agitator was not my being disturbed about my past military experience, but rather my being disturbed that the truth was otherwise. Or rather the agitator that served a motivation to find the truth.

This made me shift back and forth from belief system to belief system in order to evaluate and weigh each. I seriously thought that I was bipolar and some may have judged me the same. People would ask, why do you question this, why do you question that. Say the legitimacy of the American conquests in Iraq and Afghanistan. Or say the legitimacy of Protestant accusation against a more historical faith, such as Orthodoxy or Catholicism. But I have learned I am not bipolar, I love truth, God's truth. For as Aquinas so intelligently perceived "all truth is God's truth" and therefore I do not discount any truth on the basis of its cultural framework. Many do and this is why you cannot question wars, America, Republicanism and the likes without receiving a nice large proverbial bomb from the proponents of such cultural particulars.

I am not bipolar, I am a lover of God's truth. Beside's I might be crazy! But that is only because I refuse to be crazy in the sense that the world already is!

Rationality

2010-06-14T06:53:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been rolling over Thomas Aquinas' statement, "A man has free choice to the extent he is rational." Let's say a human has free choice to the extent they are rational. There is such a mental laziness purveying our society. People have forgotten to think for their self be it in the arena of politics, what we eat or what we ingest mentally. This is how we have given up our rights. We think we vote therefore we are free, but this is a facade. We vote based on the propaganda we are fed by mainstream media. We eat what we a told to, by commercials or whatnot. We support wars we know nothing about, sure we may know the reason they say we are there, or that were fighting for good. But the minute a soldier tries to tell us what really happens we begin to scream and argue and tell them they are some kind of pacifist wimp. The kingdom of God needs rational beings. Those who will critically evaluate everything they come across to test its validity. Those who will question the powers that be. Those who question wars and their Just War basis, if there even is one. Those who will not be fed a scriptural interpretation, but will learn Hebrew/Greek language tools and search out the true meaning their self. We need these people and we need them now!

Day at the Zoo!

2010-06-13T15:34:00.000-07:00

2010-06-09T18:42:00.000-07:00

Things I Love:

The Father of Lights,

Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God,

My amazing wife,

My amazing . . . wife,

Avery, because he loves me just the way I am,

Ezra, because he is me, twenty four years younger,

Trevor, because he speaks like a bubble sounds,

Eden, because she already has me pinned,

Running,
the Runners high,

Tapatio Hot Sauce,

Cucumber water,

Coffee,

a cold shower,

an open mind . . .

relevantism:God

2010-06-02T04:37:00.000-07:00

Relevant-ism: the word relevant means to bear upon or be connected to the matter at hand, ism is a suffix that denotes making an absolute out of the prefix. Examples are Calvinism, Communism, Capitalism and the likes.

Relevant-ism then makes an absolute out of what is pertinent or at hand. More so it makes an absolute of being relevant, or using relevant descriptives, such as "your life is like a flower, you must bloom" or something to that effect. It is to point to the immediate in order to make a deeper description, this is of course not all wrong. But made an absolute it can fill ones life with relevant pithy statements and when coupled with faith that can be an endless commentary of relevant equations to God.

It is a philosophical style that is the most basic and boiled down of philosophy. Everything that is past comprehension, such as God, salvation, certain scriptures or the like is equated to something immediately within grasp, such as a soda, a condition, a t-shirt or a movie character. We have all seen this in one way or another and again it is not bad, until made an 'ism. We have had one to many "God is like a ______." You fill it in, and these work at an elementary level.

But what relevant-ism forgets is everything but now. It forgets the two-thousand years of collective Christian thought, philosophy and theology. It forgets such rich terms as imago Dei, Agnus Dei, and the likes. It is naive of any the ancestral thought of the church, for all it seeks is to supply a quick simile which burns as fast as high-fructose corn syrup as soon as it is ingested.

2010-05-31T17:16:00.000-07:00

Listen to this, with a warm cup of tea and a nice sunset!

2010-05-30T16:12:00.001-07:00

Happy Birthday Schnark!

2010-05-29T19:41:00.000-07:00

War Journals

2010-04-28T20:58:00.000-07:00

So my sneaky little wife dug into my journal from '04-'05 tonight (I was wondering why she was so quiet in the next room), and she came into our living room and told me I should read the first few pages, that there was some pretty profound things I had written in there. This was my journal from my second deployment to Iraq as a Marine Corporal and to say the least I was surprised, I didn't know my pacifism went this far back because for the most part I was pretty "Just War" back then, so I thought. Just read these few excerpts to see what I am taking about:

December 3, 2004
"Peace, love and understanding, wow what a lack of them there is today! War, the last option we should use has become our economies staple, food for thought."

"Set aside peace and give us a war, just like clockwork I'll keep sending more, more of your fathers and more of your brothers, and give them the duty of burying each other . . ." [A poem from that same day]

I didn't realize I had this struggle back then. You can tell it hadn't quite solidified but I was definitely leaning in the direction of peace. This subsided as I got home and forgot my experiences in Baghdad, but it resurfaced as I began my undergraduate work in Biblical Studies. I began to ask the question "is this compatible with the love of Christ?" Thank you Lord I kept a journal, it makes my convictions feel completely real to have read those entries made while I was a Marine Corporal in an Infantry Battalion.

2010-04-26T19:20:00.000-07:00

While mommy went away to away to her ICAN meeting me and the boys had Bible time. One highlight was Avery's rendition of the Gospel, "Jesus died on the cross and he's alive, Amen!" We need to stamp that as a new creed, the Averian Creed or something. All cheesiness aside I read Isaiah 2:4 to them, it never gets old so I thought I would share:

[God] shall judge between the nations,
and shall decide disputes for many peoples;
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war anymore. [Isaiah 2:4 ESV]

Love never fails . . .

2010-04-25T14:45:00.000-07:00

I ended my Facebook sabbatical recently with high hopes I could reenter the world of social networking without having to engage in any politico-religious dialog. That was until I saw a group which name practically implies a prayer for the death of our current President. Immediately a status went up quoting 1 Timothy 2:2 which exhorts us to pray for our leaders. I awoke to find that someone had retorted with Psalm 109:8 which practically calls for the death of a ruler and that he be replaced by another ruler. I found it better to ignore, it's abusing a text to warp it so strongly, besides the psalms take precedence over the epistles? Well not that one trumps the other but the psalms are hymns of worship and common identity with the human emotional and spiritual struggle. Granted I could see how one could apply that text twice removed, but I do think that 1 Timothy 2 has a lot more on the subject of praying for authorities:

I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone—for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men—the testimony given in its proper time. And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I am telling the truth, I am not lying—and a teacher of the true faith to the Gentiles. I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing. [vv. 1-8]

The context of the whole seems to imply that our prayer ministry be one of goodness, where we subvert our opinion by voicing goodness. The context of the verse with words like peaceful, without anger and holiness all imply goodness in the said prayers. As well Paul makes sure to mention the Evangel, the Gospel of which he is a herald, again goodness.

This is especially implied with the Greek word for "giving thanks" from which we get the Christian word for communion, Eucharist. So with these prayers are to be general giving thanks for the rulers above us, to spite our personal opinions. Pray for Bush, Cheney, Obama and Biden all the same. But with groups like "LORD TAKE OBAMA" or bumper stickers 109:8 we fall very short of this, we miss the mark or using the Hebrew word for missing the mark, we sin.

See, when our last President was in office the super right realm told me to pray for him and the left bashed him, poor guy. Now the right bashes the current President and the left lauds him. Look both were fallible, both have gotten it very wrong in different aspects, both have kept us gridlocked into expensive wars and both are human. Both have a wife, daughters, mothers and friends and both are created imago Dei. So while I am for equality, family values, health care reform and the right to life (at all ages), a distinction that makes me a political bastard, I will look past my political opinions, which are worthless in the big picture, and pray for Barack Hussein Obama, for health, for peace and that he know Christ immensely. Because "God so loved the WORLD, that he sent his only son" and that means that Jesus died for him too. I will make a point to do this more often, because in the past I have failed. I will make a point to see past his political title, agenda and whatnot and pray for him like I would my mother. Besides, even if you find him a political enemy listen to Saint Paul:

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited; Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay,"says the Lord. On the contrary: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. [Romans 12:14-21]

Earth Day: A Day for Creation

2010-04-22T19:21:00.000-07:00

Like the two sides of a cow patty, Earth Day will expose the two extreme opinions on the condition of creation. There will be those red blooded free enterprise zealots who dismiss creation care all together and there will be those militant environmentalists who use as much proverbial ammo as the other end. Then there is the generation of progressive Christianity which will find itself confused. While most of their predecessors in faith will utterly dismiss Earth Day, creation care and the likes, they will find that they do care about the condition of the Earth and do find that while its condition may not be as bad as the militant environmentalists might say, we could do more to take care of creation.

A good start is our view of creation itself. Most evangelicals in times past, mainly the fundamental sector, dismiss any kind of global crisis on the basis that we are to have dominion over creation. But might I ask what kind of dominion, the kind we practice in exploitation or the kind God practices in undergirding every process. Jesus defines proper dominion well when he tells us not to lord over, but rather to wash feet. We rule through servitude and care, this is Godly dominion.

As well we often think that God is removed from creation, but as far as I have researched God is still undergirding creation and is absolutely involved in each and every process, God is sovereign in other words. Therefore if we are exploiting creation we seem to be working against the grain of God. If God's intent is to tend to the sparrows and to constantly provide care to this earth, and we are exploiting it for everything it is worth, then we are in direct contradiction to the will of God.

So to spite the arguments I am thankful for creation and realize the many ways I exploit it and the little things I do to try not to. God is on the throne of creation, this is in part what the opening words of Genesis 2 mean when they say God rested, he sat on the throne of all of creation to rule. God is not done creating, every new seed and every new child are all within the providence of God, when we work against that process, we are working against the created order, the will of God.

Creation: Miracle

2010-04-12T21:40:00.001-07:00

"Another central feature of Christian creation theology is the notion that creation is a continuous process. God's creation exists at every moment of time because it is upheld by his sustaining power, the work both of the Word and of the Holy Spirit, "the Lord and Giver of life." This doctrine lies at the heart of the covenant God established with the whole of creation in the beginning and renewed after the Flood (Gen. 9:8-17). Thus, theologians did not take the statement that "God finished his creation"(Gen. 2:3) to mean that God no longer creates. It would be more accurate to say, and the biblical tradition is explicit about this, that God is at every moment creating, for the creation would cease to exist altogether if God were to withdraw his sustaining power."

_______________________________________

The rest of that article can be found here alongside some other very insightful essays on Creation. I have been thinking of creation, my view of it, and the implications of my view. The guys over at Biologos are another intelligent group of people exploring the issue of how to interpret the creation epic in Genesis. Augustine was one to use the literary framework view in his interpretation as well as others through the ages.

I'm not convinced either way nor am I really working to be convinced. I will say that it is becoming progressively absurd to read the first few chapters of Genesis without realizing a deep symbolism, whether it be a literary framework or literal. The emphasis I am really enjoying from Augustine and Aquinas is the idea that God is continually creating in his sustaining of Creation. That means that God sustains your every breath and heartbeat.

I have been speaking to a few agnostics lately and the issue of the miraculous has come up. The point I make with them is that there is a deistic style miraculous and a sustenance style miraculous we can choose to believe in. What I mean by a Deistic Miraculous is that we see God as uninvolved until certain moments when he performs a miracle. By what I have dubbed sustenance miraculous we can instead view God not as distant and only intervening from time to time, but that God is always intervening at different intensities.

Deistic Miraculous is often manifested in the faith healing, or word of faith realm. God is not involved unless there is an outward sign. The Sustenance Miraculous is spoken of by Aquinas when he refers to a God who sustains creation and thus is continually creating every moment. So God is performing the miraculous in my lovers heartbeat, in the fact that for eight hours every night all four of my children breath at a repetitious rate. Then at times of heightened involvement God can and will subvert the laws of nature of which he works through and perform what we have classically and exclusively called the miraculous.

This is my mere spiritual thesis as lately. When I mentioned it to one friends that person asked if I was some sort of materialist that thought that the miracles in the Bible had natural explanations. Well, yes and no. But for the most part no! I still believe in this grandeur massive parting of the Red Sea, but again remember, God didn't come down with a hand for us to see and part the waters, he did it through his agent, the laws and process, by subverting that process and literally parting the waters.

The implications of our 'black and white' theology, a theology that creates a biblical distinction where it is neither warranted or implied has caused us to take a rather deistic (or separated) view of God at times. We see God as up there and not here, but the implications of the doctrine of Pneumatology (Holy Spirit) tells us otherwise. We can see a miracle here and now and it need not be something of a side show, or fireworks display. We simply need to meditate on the Word and our God to see that the miraculous happens every second of every day!

jus in bello: distinction

2010-04-06T08:33:00.000-07:00

There comes a time when, as our Lord has told us, everything that is hidden will come to light [Luke 12:2,3]. Recently after being pressured under the Freedom of Information Act the military released a video of twelve Iraqi citizens being shot by an Apache helicopter gunner. I will let you see for yourselves but from what I can tell (and it's pretty clear!) the gunners were just looking for an excuse to shoot, and in response the military has said that they adhered to the rules of engagement. When the van shows up at the end to pick up the dead and the gunner fires, this by no means follows the ROE (Rules of Engagement)! "Jus in bello" or the "Justice in War" clause of Augustine's and Aquinas' Just War Theory makes the distinction between enemy combatants an innocents caught in the crossfire and yet there has been no disciplinary action on these service members part. Is the true realist the Just War Theorist who imagines that we somehow are able to withstand the temptation of collateral murder in light of Augustine's command? Or is true realism in the phrase beati pacifici, "Blessed are the peacemakers"?

Me: On the boundary of the Church!

2010-04-02T21:49:00.000-07:00

“The expansion of Christianity and the increasing secularization of the church caused the awareness of costly grace to be gradually lost…. But the Roman church did keep a remnant of that original awareness. It was decisive that monasticism did not separate from the church and that the church had the good sense to tolerate monasticism. Here, on the boundary of the church, was the place where the awareness that grace is costly and that grace includes discipleship was preserved…. Monastic life thus became a living protest against the secularization of Christianity, against the cheapening of grace.” [Dietrech Bonhoffer "The Cost of Discipleship" p. 46]

No Difference: Shel Silverstein

2010-03-28T17:30:00.000-07:00

Small as a peanut,
Big as a giant,
We're all the same size
When we turn off the light.

Rich as a sultan,
Poor as a mite,
We're all worth the same
When we turn off the light.

Red, black or orange,
Yellow or white,
We all look the same
When we turn off the light.

So maybe the way
To make everything right
Is for God to just reach out
And turn off the light!

They build empires, we build playgrounds!

2010-03-26T17:32:00.000-07:00

I was recently at a conference with a decently acquainted friend and well known author. Another person who was speaking at the conference approached my very tired and weary friend, this guy was conservative and my friend though indistinguishable could be judged as liberal at the first glance. The speaker approached my friend and said "I think we disagree on some things here . . . " knowing well my friends stance on Christian interaction with the government, which is very Anabaptist. After venting for a minute the speaker asks "so what have you been up to lately". My friend who works and lives in intentional community in one of the worst neighborhoods in Philadelphia simply says, "well we just built a playground, it's pretty fun!"

So for the past week since I have been digesting that statement. The speaker obviously putting a good amount of his opinion out there was probably digging for some super relevant answer, but what he got was something simple, and profound. My acquaintance who could spit out a laundry list of very "revolutionary" or relevant things he has been doing, didn't. Of course as I am learning that is pretty well in keeping with his character, and even more with the character of those who are genuine in the "emerging church", new monasticism or whatever you may want to call it. The focus isn't on what they are doing.

After I came home from work today I sat in our back yard watching my boys dig in the dirt of our flowerbed. I sat there looking at them rolling over the profundity of my friends statement. Not that he is some old wise sage who intended the deep strains that run through his response. I may have created the profundity myself, either way for me those words were a deep pool of revelation. Here was this speaker, a conservative, boisterous speaker who believes that Christianity will reform though the channels it has flowed through in the past decades. Those mainly being conservatism, moral majority style reform and in general Christian reform initiated by being in cahoots with the powers that be. His faith was in what Boyd calls the "power over" mentality.

What does the response of my friend say, the fact that the only thing he could think of was not his speaking tours, his amazingly reformational book or his resume, but a playground built in the heart of the ghetto for a bunch of amazing kids (I had the honor of meeting three of the little girls who live there as they ran up and "ogled" over Eden and told me that they were going to "take her"!). It to me says that while some believe in the "power over" of politics, relevance and resume, we believe in the "power under" or the servitude of Jesus. They may build an empire, but we will build a playground.

Now allow me to continue to reduce this statement to its atomic minimum. As I sat there looking at the three most amazing children in the universe in my backyard today(any child I look at is amazing, but of course my paternal bias shows here) I realized that using the strong arm tactics so common to the "power over" mentality may show itself in many different ways. Sometimes it shows in the way we try to dominate others, be it a nation or our neighbor. Sometimes it comes out in our racism and the way we tend to dominate those who are not a clone of ourselves both in context of melanin and polis. However it may also come out in our self promotion and resume. That is why it is said "Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth." If our concern is for what we are doing and not the little ones around us, were a little off!

Why was Jesus so concerned with children and the "least" in the Gospels? Why was my friend so concerned with a playground even in spite of being asked about topics more "relevant"? Because revolutionary discipleship is meek, concerned for the least and as an outworking very concerned with children. Children playing on playgrounds are much more relevant to us than skyscrapers, politics or big money. We are not called to change the world as Caesar does, by war and false peace, by blowing up Trade Centers and dominating politics and the Middle East. We are called to change the world through Christ by planting the seeds of peace in future generations and being concerned with meekness, littleness and being small and insignificant. Spreading the Good News as heralds not by what we say, but by what we do!

It is the call of the contemplative and the monastic to efface to such an extent so as to not even be perceived by ones qualifications or achievements, but to be perceived by the profound simplicity that surrounds you; the beautiful children running around on the playground you just helped build. Now I realize I may have made my friends statement more than he meant it to be, in that sense God owns the statement, so my illumination and elaboration are allowed! And I realize that really my friend was probably trying to disarm this guy a little. Which I think worked! Either way the lesson I pulled from this statement is that our war is fought on the grounds that were once tainted with blood but are now painted in primary colors, our wars are fought as we rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, monkey bar by monkey bar!

2010-03-21T20:58:00.000-07:00

What a momentous day! I spent the majority, well the entire day at the Truth Commission on Conscience in War with cohort Logan and friend Shane amongst many others. A collective of documentary, testifiers and expert witnesses speaking on the issue of individual conscience in war. The testimonies and the witnesses were moving. I believe that the most profound statement came at the end when author Chris Hedges spoke of America as "speaking a language of violence in the past", he then went on to say that the "world has learned to speak that language back." Wow!

I don't think that I realized how important this whole ordeal might be until Shane told me that out of all of the "events like this" that he has been to, this was the most unique and that it had all the right people there at once, something never done before. It made me a little excited about the whole thing. Tomorrow the commissioners (me being one) will begin to digest the testimonies and scholarly discourses from the expert witnesses and talk about the next step. This could have a tremendous ripple effect!

Out of the day my favorite conversation was with an orthodox priest, i am infatuated with orthodoxy, it was a cool point in my day and defined the whole air of ecumenicism and respect amongst the Christians, Jews, Muslims and others at the commission.

As I sat at the commission the House passed health reform and as expected my wife informed me that the conservative end of Facebook is throwing the "eMaltov Coctails" left and right. Time will tell what this bill does, but today is too early. Government intervention or not we cannot know what this change will bring. The social justice nut inside of me jumps for joy, but the minimalist in me cringes. So I tell both of them to be contemplative and monastic until God unveils in time what this change will bring. To my conservative friends, hush, your ruining your repoire, to my liberal friends, don't get too excited just yet, wait and see. As for me, the political outcast, who cares as long as the Government and powers that be allow me to snuggle my beautiful wife and my fluffy baby Eden, I am going to sleep content, Goodnight!

New York City

2010-03-20T17:25:00.000-07:00

So we have arrived in New York City after a night in the heart of Camden, NJ. We spent the night over at the Camden House with friends Logan, Cassie and Chris and were able to take a "reality tour" of Camden and then later that night head over to Kensington to check out the Simple Way. All-in-all the experience has been humbling and enlightening. As we drove through Camden I caught a glimpse of a young boy, with his backpack, full of innocence and I thought of my little Ezra with his "pack-pack" on. I have to say it expsed a bias in me.So we took the rail up to NYC and Jessica and I spent the day seeing the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, which looks something like this . . .I got to give my wife a small lecture on Gothic Cathedrals, which apparently this one is the largest in the world, it was pretty immense to think about it. After that we took in Times Square and bought the boys the "airplane" toys that we promised them. We talked to them today and they think we are still in an airplane. So every time we talk to them they tell us to "come down" or everytime they see an airplane in the sky the say "slow down mommy, come back." My heart melts, I cannot stay gone for too long.As we sat down in Central Park today I stepped away for a minute and came down to find Jessica sitting on the bench chatting with a young Middle Eastern woman in a headscarf. She was just oogling over Eden and asking many questions, turns out she moved to NYC from Baghdad eight months ago. A refugee of War. I told Jessica that situations like that help me, I really love meeting people from Iraq, it kindof helps the healing and perspective from my time in "Combat". So with that meeting in mind I will head out tommorow to the Truth Commission for Conscience in War to discuss Selective Conscientious Objection, in other words soldiers being able to resign from conflicts and ask for a reassignment. I will give more perspective tommorrow after I hear testimonies from those who have been through combat.

Who Are You . . . God?

2010-02-24T20:37:00.001-08:00

I woke up from a long afternoon nap just now, stepped outside on a rather clear night, looked up at a sky that seemed so immense and clear and just thought, "how can we ever really know God all of the way?" In four years of theological training I have been presented with plenty theories pertaining to this question. Lately I am liking the ones less sure about the whole thing, those who don't go to far past the biblical witness. It seems to me that those who allow God to be a mystery tend to better define Him, because, well, He is a mystery.

Calvinism seemed alright for a while, and then I thought, "well I am just not satisfied saying that there is a God who loves in such a perfect way that he predestines some to burn in Hell!" Granted this theology is just fine when going to war (you can say, "hey there not predestined anyways and I am so . . .") or say having someone burned at the stake (no judgement on Mr. Calvin). But what if your really trying to get at the brass tacks of who this amazing God is. The Calvinists and the whatnots seemed to have God so figured out. Sure, God does fore see those things He wishes to control, but in a world of free will is that us? Besides what gave the 16th Century an intellectual providence more rich than the previous 1,500 years of church history? Surely not the Enlightenment from which our American Founders inherited a dry Deism, or our generation a dead Atheism!

"The heavens declare the glory of God . . ." says the Psalmist. Looking out into that cool and crisp night sky I am not sure if any of us have God in a box. But we know He sent us the most perfect gift in his Son. We know that we continue to receive wonderful gifts such as the Church, His word, Grace, traditions and prayer. We may never be able to get it all together and should be readily weary of the theologians that seems to have it all together. The voices I am looking to hear from are those who were a wreck. The Mother Theresa's, the Saints such as Francis of Assisi, all of those who struggled and would readily admit that God is a Mystery. All of the rest, well, they are of great value, but I suppose that since they have it all together I need not take too much advice from them, because I especially have little together in the realm of having God so duped as to be figured out in some theology volume . . .

Truth Commission on Conscience in War: NYC

2010-02-22T13:39:00.000-08:00

I have officially been asked to be a commissioner at the Truth Commission on Conscience in War. Of course I am honored and gladly accepted! I will be there with cohort Logan Laituri as a representative for Centurions Guild! We will be exploring selective conscience for active duty members. Basically as of now you have to be a strict pacifist in order to be an objector in the military, meaning you must separate. This does not fall in line with the Just War Principles set forth by the Catholic Church or by society. We will be exploring a middle ground on this issue, selective objection, which would allow people to serve their country while holding the ability to selectively object to certain wars or conflicts if the said conflict or war casts a shadow on their conscience. Being a pacifist I will offer my two cents I guess. Though I am pacific I greatly admire the Just War Theory, which in its original context was to be used to greatly stifle war and not promote it(as it does today). The positive side to Just War Theory can be seen in the adherance of the Catholic Bishops to this set of guidelines. Their position is well defined in their initial statements on the Iraq War.

So with all of this in mind I look forward to setting down with both pacifists and Just War theorists to further explore this issue!

Litany of Incompetence

2010-02-17T19:54:00.001-08:00

Lamb of God,
You died to take away the sins of the world,
Yet I cannot even die to myself,
I cannot overcome vice,
I cannot withstand addiction.

Christ have mercy.

Lord, you hold me within your hands,
Fear of your glory and power are healthy,
Yet my flesh overcomes me,
And my love for you is inadequate.

Lord have mercy.

As I survey the cross,
The death of your Son,
And as I look into the empty tomb,
I am awestruck at the profound audacity of your liberation,
That you care so for those in exile.
Yet as Israel in the desert,
I erect a Golden Calf a day,
A graven image an hour,
An altar to indulgence a second.

Christ have mercy.

Father of lights you give us every good and perfect gift,
Abba, give us this day the gift of total liberation.
From fear, addiction and libation,
From greed, envy and lust,
From consumerism, racism and distrust,
From hate, judgement and oppression,
Deliver us Lord from our obsessions,
From guilt, shame and fear,
This season to us draw near.

Lord Have mercy.

Father, as children you chastise us.
Let us accept this day your wisdom.
Change us, free us, in the name of your Son,
Who for us suffered at the hands of an Empire,
At the hands of your people,
At the hands of me!

Christ have mercy. AMEN

2010-02-16T12:19:00.000-08:00

One of the first things to learn if you want to be a contemplative is how to mind your own business. Nothing is more suspicious, in a man who seems holy, than an impatient desire to reform other men. A serious obstacle to recollection is the mania for directing those you have not been appointed to direct, reforming those you have not been asked to reform, correcting those over whom you have no jurisdiction. How can you do these things and keep you mind at rest? Renounce this futile concern with other men's affairs! Pay as little attention as you can to the faults of other people and none at all to their natural defects and eccentricities. [Thomas Merton]

2010-02-13T14:49:00.001-08:00

Strong hate, the hate that takes joy in hating, is strong because it does not believe itself to be unworthy and alone. It feels the support of a justifying God, of an idol of war, an avenging and destroying spirit. From such blood-drinking gods the human race was once liberated, with great toil and terrible sorrow, by the death of a God Who delivered Himself to the Cross and suffered the pathological cruelty of His own creatures out of pity for them. In conquering death He opened their eyes to the reality of a love which asks no questions about worthiness, a love which overcomes hatred and destroys death. But men have now come to reject this divine revelation of pardon, and they are consequently returning to the old war gods, the gods that insatiably drink blood and eat the flesh of men. It is easier to serve the hate-gods because they thrive on the worship of collective fanaticism. To serve the hate-gods, one has only to be blinded by collective passion. To serve the God of Love one must be free, one must face the terrible responsibility of the decision to love in spite of all unworthiness whether of oneself or in one's neighbor. [Thomas Merton]

Holy Ground

2010-02-07T21:05:00.000-08:00

In Bethlehem, at the Church of the Nativity, there is a fourteen pointed silver star on the floor of that church which commemorates the exact spot where Christ was born to us. I have always wondered at that sight, it seemed rather peculiar, somewhat too traditional for my taste. Granted in the past year, as I have taken a stronger leaning towards the more liturgical practices, this feeling has subsided; even after I still thought it was something peculiar, a little to ornate.

Then this past week my daughter Eden was born in the comfort of our own living room. Never before had I experienced a home-birth, let alone one involving my own children, but I began to realize something. Right there in between our red woven rug and our antique green bookshelf was the exact spot where Eden was born to us. When I have had my previous children in a hospital I didn't have to live in the same place that my children were born, I didn't need to continually look at that spot and remember my child's birth. But now I wake and sleep to that exact place where Eden was born.

The mystery of why Christians in Bethlehem need to make such an ornate deal out of the Nativity began to open up to me. For when I pass that place in our home it feels holy, God was there. In my mind that exact spot is ornate. It may not have some floral arrangement or silver star (and granted this is not Jesus' birthplace either), but in my mind it is ornate, it is consecrated. That line of reasoning began to spill over into other areas of my mind. What other places are holy? If in God we "live and move and have our being" [Acts 17:28] then anytime life is born, peace is chosen, marriages are consummated, arguments are resolved, tears are shed, tears are wiped or a child is tucked to sleep in a home thick with praises to God, are these places not holy? They are! For in birth, life and death if we shine with Christ's light, make him incarnate in us, in these moments we have taken one more piece of this corrupted earth and made it holy. We have conquered that ground for Christ. Is this not worth paying attention to?

It is something peculiar and something comforting when I look at that spot in our home. In my mind it is the most ornate place in our home stocked full of dim light candles, beautiful icons, deep incense and full of wonder. I wonder if Mary ever visited that cave in her later years and if in her mind she put that proverbial silver star in place long before the Byzantine emperors Constantine and Justinian I ever did? There is something of a realization in commemorating a place holy. Be it the Church of the Nativity, or that spot on my wooden floors in between the red rug and green bookshelf. Not only do these places serve to remind that God was here, but also that God is here and comes in the most beautiful of manners.

Eden Evangeline Caldwell & Homebirth

2010-02-04T17:28:00.001-08:00

My Eden is here, after what has seemed like the biggest blur of a 'nine-months' Jessica and I have ever experienced, another amazing human being has entered our family, this world and God's kingdom. Jessica was in her fortieth week of pregnancy and on last Tuesday night labor began to pick up. After I had come home from work Jessica had decided to get some "last-minute" shopping finished unbeknownst it would truly be "last-minute". When Jessica arrived back home labor slowly picked up. After I had bathed the boys and put them down for the night we popped in "Julie&Julia" but when eight-o-clock came around we knew it was time for Eden to come into this world.

So we called our midwives Jeanne and Joy who arrived when labor was just getting intense at around ten-o-clock at night. By that time I was filling up the birthing tub, a rather "MacGyver" style endeavor fashioned from a large kiddie pool, a fifty gallon fish tank sink adapter and a aquarium thermometer. It proved to be great for labor and transition. We set the temperature at about one-hundred degrees and Jes' dived in and began to labor peacefully and when I say peacefully, the woman was amazing. She embodied what labor saturated in the Holy Spirit means. I mean look at her. God is so wonderful, silent yet speaking, full of mystery and with an innate wisdom as to what it is to be a Mother; He gave that to Jessica that night and continues to do so. Labor was a short two hours and then our midwife Jeanne said with a sense of urgency in her voice that it was time to get to the bed in order to push.

Jessica stepped out of the tub and knew that we were not going to make it to the bedroom. About two peaceful and intense pushes later our Eden Evangeline was welcomed onto this earth with a multitude praising, I don't mean that metaphorically, the room erupted. The following hours were followed by post-partum procedures which Jeanne and Joy handled magnificently.

All the while our good friend and doula Raelyn cooked some Taco Soup and a birthday cake for Eden, afterwards running to Steak and Shake to grab Jes' and I a three-o-clock burger. Jessica's sister Jeorgi snapped all the great pictures you are looking at and her mother and father helped with the boys, but given the boys didn't make a peep they were able to observe the birth. Everything was perfect! All of the fears we had surrounding a home-birth were put to shame. God was truly with us and His peace that surpasses all understanding was evident.

These first few days have been trying, of course. Trial is implied when you birth life into this crazy world. Whether you birth it through living peace, making change, bringing the Spirit or our Lord Christ into every situation or just serving in humility it goes against every grain in your flesh. But we refuse to let inconvenience become an excuse! Besides, God made coffee for times like these!