Part Two of Witnesses

In the previous blog, I looked at various responses of types of people to Jesus found in John 12.  As just some guy thinking about what it says, I find this moment in the life of Jesus hugely significant, a bit like finding $1,000.00 missing from the checking account. This has to be figured out!

This is the prelude to John's view and insights into the Crucifixion, after all. It's not a stretch of basic logic to infer the following: if my faith is ultimately an acknowledgement that the One who dashed off a few billion galaxies across a mind-bendingly expansive universe authored this through John; and if He thought so much of this moment in the life of Jesus as to invade the temporal and voice Himself aloud to these folks—and to you and me by extension—then there must be profound revelation laid bare within these verses.  Not that any other scripture is less profound given Who is the writer, mind you, but if we open our heart's eyes just a bit more than usual…

Jesus is about to proceed through the great Passion of God, the redemption of His fallen creation through an act of supreme love and grace. The Father will have to heap all the sin of the world upon the shoulders of His Son, then turn and punish this holy and wholly awesome man for everyone else's multiple and often vile wrong-doing.

All the sinners of the world are watching in the story and all turn away from Him rather than accept Him. I don't mean "all" by inferring all who are watching by reading the scriptures across time. Right there in the story, every sinner and every root of sin are displayed in the characters who are present.

The events begin as Jesus enters Jerusalem and the "crowds" rush to watch. They get a little emotional and heap upon Him praise hosanna's and palm fronds. Next, the Pharisees grumble their complaints having rejected Jesus from the first; the Greeks come poking in to ask Jesus a couple of things, as they ponder if He, in fact, holds any truth needing consideration; and the crowds come round again in the end with the truth revealed--they are not nearly so full of praise once it's realized Jesus is not giving out what they want.

There you have it: What's wrong with the world described in a handful of short verses.

Think about it.

Confessions Explored, Part 3

The first installment of this current series identified some deep fears that may plague some of the brethren. Fears that often go unshared openly among us, or I think it highly plausible, even remain unidentified in the heart of a person. Do I, deep within my soul, hold a fear of not having lived life, of having been deprived somehow? Am I motivated in anyway by a deep-seated doubt that I'm actually not redeemed? Maybe, but I don't think so.

Can any of us who claim Christ perhaps not recognize a thought or feeling consciously experienced as the evidence such fear is there?

The second piece was intended to express failings which are obvious to me and sometimes others in my character, the everyday self with whom others and myself live. In Part 2, I attempted to articulate an honest appraisal of that which is identifiable and clearly not of God in my life.

This raises two sets of questions:

1. Are there within us as believers very human feelings of fear that are actually driving our thinking processes, our perceptions, and within which are rooted our reactions to circumstances and toward other people? I ponder, that if such fear is there, ought we be able somehow to bring it under the Lordship of Christ, and thereby from such fear gain freedom in the truth of Jesus?

2. How do we move our character as a human from where it is toward a richer experience of maturity in the Spirit of Christ, which is clearly a state of obedience, trust and resulting holy behavior? Is this something God alone sovereignly does, or do we bear some responsiblity here?

I would be interested in hearing your thoughts, as I traverse this path in the Wild Wood.

The Endless Steppe

Have you ever read the book entitled The Endless Steppe? Probably not. Though it is a bit similar to Anne Frank's Dairy, (young Jewish girl recounting how WW2 affected her) it is not nearly as widely read. The book is written for readers roughly 12 to 15. In it, young Esther is the only daughter of a wealthy Jewish family living in Vilna, Poland. WW2 is raging, yet she is in Poland occupied by the Soviet Union, and the war stops at her garden gate. That is until her family's wealth is confiscated, and they are relocated to Siberia for the crime of capitalism.

The story then follows her journey barely surviving Siberian winters until what remains of her family is allowed to return to Vilna after the war: happier ending than Anne's but an equally compelling read.

For my purpose here, I will place The Endless Steppe alongside Gone with the Wind. I do this because of one similarity the books share, though Esther's true story is moving and not nearly the soap opera as that of the fictional Scarlett. What do these books have in common? The collapse of a social order in which the wealthy are stripped of their power and prestige radically and rapidly.

Think of the Romanovs, the last ruling family of Russia before the Bolshevik Revolution. How startling to find one's self at the center of tradition, heritage of family and state, and believing that you are fully within God's will living life as it is has always been known for generations. (Esther in Steppe did not address the God angle so much as I recall--read the book forty years ago now--but it is easily inferred as a complicating factor for the emotions of her family who are Jewish.)

Are we as American Christians prepared for what lies ahead of us? I am not so much addressing this from an eschatalogical viewpoint as I am simply extrapolating the consequences of a bankrupt US government.

I am not one to write about politics, so don't read that last sentence as a political statement. It is more economic and sociological. What will become of society as we know it, if our government's debt is called in by those lending to us and we cannot pay? Have we assumed the US Constitution faced no real threat of abbrogation or that our society would endure as it is now long past our short lives?

Two Perspectives on Truth

In my last post, I stated Christianity may be divided into to two differing perspectives. For the three or four of you who read here most often and have followed this blog since '07, I don't think what I am about to say will come as surprise to you.

I am thinking about Christianity in its earliest form through the sweep of the past 2000 years into its many varied expressions today. Attempting to reduce that broad topic into two categories may be a ridiculous exercise in over-simplification. Nonetheless, I do.

Perspective number one is the current dominant perspective and is the root of the mainline denominations, as well as the multitude of splintering into a proliferation of sects evident today. Greg, commenter on the last post, divided Christianity into Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant. These primary branches are really a function of one perspective: I'll give it a label--hmmm......well......uh........hour glass icon on forehead......

How about the "Follow God by the Book" perspective. Under such a heading one can trace the development of western Christian thought in which rationales and exegeses are anchored in a temporal view of the scriptures addressing the natural existence within time and space. (Thanks Carey for helping me articulate my thoughts.) Natural here referring to both our fallen natures and our physical bodies. The human experience is described as a living mortal within the confines of a physical realm defined by the five senses of the body and the inexorable passage of yet another day with the rising sun.

This view does not exclude the reality of the spiritual realm nor shrink back from teaching about such topics. Not at all, in fact, the various divisions within Christianity are a function of individuals and groups attempting to find the correct and ultimate understanding of things spiritual as revealed in scripture. Divisions come as disagreements about the spiritual realm surface. Follow-God-by-the-Book folks are continually shaping discussions and deriving doctrines based on scriptural interpretations of God's intended spiritual meanings. Usually followed by a strong expectation that "true" believers will hold to these doctrines. This is done fairly often as an apologetic of thought not intended to undo pagan falsehoods of the Most High God, but against other Christian belief systems deemed as inaccurate on spiritual interpretation or resulting consequences of behavior. In either case, from my observation I assert the critique of another view or of a particular behavior is usually based on assumptions that are created by forming the parameters of thought strictly within the time/space box.

The second perspective has a smaller following, but I think the current exodus from mainline and institutional expressions of Christianity is rooted in either the understanding of the contrasting perspective or the search for its meaning. This perspective might be labeled "Follow God from Within."

The emphasis from this perspective is on having a knowing of the the direction of God's leading from within one's heart. The written word is not ignored, but the primary inspiration for decision-making is from within. This perspective attempts not only to understand God as existent beyond time and space on the earth but to know the human experience within the earth's boundary as an existence joined to limitless God and participating in His eternity even as the body breathes temporarily. Consider Colossians 3: 1-3.

Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

There is violence done to meaning sometimes by analysis which pulls parts of the whole open for examination. This delineation of thought here for the purpose of discussion is in some ways artificial. Clearly we Christians live life as some composite of both views. Hence my assertion in the last post that I am not calling one side wrong over the other. Based on Romans 10: 9-10

that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses resulting in salvation.

God knows above and beyond us whose confession is from a true heart and produces righteousness unto salvation. However, this does not alter the idea that there exists two different ways to approach understanding God and walking with Him. The letter kills but the spirit gives life, taken from 2 Corinthians 3:6 is a mainstay of Christian thought and living. Though God is not blocked from reaching the true heart who is within a construct that is based on living to the letter of the written word, I believe an ever deepening relationship with God will develop further and further along the path of living in the moment in union with an eternal God who is not bound by time and space.

Impotent Idols Part 3

In this post, I would like to consider two consequences of idolatry in the life of the believer. These are loss of authority in loving others and an undermined faith, two fairly significant aspects of walking with Father.

First, we should examine two sections of Scripture in which Paul addresses the issue of idolatry to Christians. These are I Cor. 10 and Col. 3:1-5.

I Corinthians 10 is a whole chapter themed by idolatry. It begins with a discussion of the failure of the Hebrews in the wilderness to fully discern the spiritual evidence of Christ in their experience and consequently to fall into idolatry listed first followed by other sins. This history is explained as an example for NT believers (vs. 11), then Paul says the following:

12 Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall. 13 No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it. 14 Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.

This is followed by a discussion of when and when not to eat meat sacrificed to idols.

The conclusion I posit is that idolatry in the NT believer’s life is central to sin, and the issue is NOT small statuary! Consider that after Paul has stated that we are able to stand against every temptation we face, he exhorts us to flee idolatry. However, he then describes a way of dealing with meat sacrificed to idols which clearly assumes that statues have no power or meaning in the lives of believers. Idolatry is, by inference of the total chapter, not about worshiping actual statues.

In the second Scripture reference, Col. 3: 1-5, the last words are

Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.

Greed is idolatry. (Since the translators have chosen to use the singular form of amounts, idolatry here refers only to greed and not the whole list. I can only assume that is a correct rendition of the original.) The love of great gain is the root of all evil. Wanting more for ourselves is NT idolatry.

In the Lord of the Rings, as Frodo quests for Mordor, we are often given a view of a form for the great evil source against which he struggles. It is a tower, topped by a single eyeball. Did you notice this form is in the shape of a lower-case “i”? Tolkien’s symbolism for evil could not be more lucid. The singular, lowly sense of self raised up as power and full of greed.

When we allow our own life to be the end of why we are living life, though we may claim Christ, our experience will be selfishness itself and none of the Spirit of the Lord Jesus. A Christian, who does not deal with their idolatry of self, will find they struggle with unloving attitudes toward others. Such a believer cannot find the source of love, as the idol has been placed before Him. Hence, when in fellowship with others, the spoken “I love you, I will pray for you, I care about you,” will lack authenticity. The words will ring hollow in one’s own heart and in the spiritual connection between the believers.

Further, in interacting with the lost, such a Christian will speak one way and feel differently in the heart. It is possible to speak words intended to evangelize or demonstrate empathy and feel no compassion. This is a state lacking authority, and has no effective, positive, life-giving spiritual bearing on the hearer!

Additionally, such a person who trusts basically in his or her own righteousness will interpret all of life’s obstacles and trials as a game of blessing and cursing between self and God. This is not a position of faith. In this scenario, the individual calls the mental assent to the Truth of Jesus to be faith. However the practice of trusting in Jesus is lost and replaced by trusting in one’s own works.

It boils down to this: Seeking to gain materially (and I do not intend the term to be limited to stuff but inclusive of all of our natural body experience) under the guise of experiencing God’s blessing, is seeking to gain one’s own life and life will be lost. It fails the faith God would lead the believer into, when God is a force that helps one achieve the desired car, the desired job, or in anyway is a construct of the imagination that simply supports the image we hold for the self. Rather in the actual experience of God in a relationship, we seek to lose our total sense of self image and self desire in order to worship Christ alone, to hold Him in the heart in communion as a state of abiding in the love of God; and He brings to pass abundant life, a spiritual state, as part of His own.

Impotent Idols Part II

Well, my wife’s critique of the last post is, “It didn’t sound like conversation by the clothesline.” Yeah, the last post didn’t make the everyday conversational cut, I know. However, as the basis for a continuing topic, it struck me as necessary. Perhaps part II resonates a bit more with practical living.

I have recognized through my experience of regeneration in the Spirit of Christ how blind I have been to my “idols” and all to the detriment of my walk with Father. Consider Isaiah 44: 9-20. The prophet describes a man who fashions an idol out of wood with half a tree and uses the other half for fuel and cooking. Certainly I have never blatantly fashioned a wooden statue and declared it to be my god. However, there are descriptions of human experience from Isaiah 44 pertinent to thinking about our modern day idols.

“He works it with planes and outlines it with a compass, and makes it like the form of a man, like the beauty of man, so that it may sit in a house.” He bows down to this object and prays, "Deliver me, for you are my god."

Consider my assertion that an idol simply reflects back to the idolater a sense of self. In this OT scripture, the power of the idol is nothing. Another verse in the selection describes the wood used to make the idol as useful for fire, alluding that the chemistry of fire from wood is only attributable to the One True God. Yet, the human who is the subject of the reference, replicates the “beauty” of man, something the human aspires to no doubt at some level of the imagination, and he then dispatches trust upon the object. My inference is self-inspired work and emotional hope concerning this person’s future destiny wrapped up in an image of... him who made the idol.

In our world, overt idolatry conferring imaginary supernatural power to objects does occur within world religions and modern paganism. (Christian relics, icons, and much hyped and marketed Christian stuff are a related discussion, no doubt.) The crystal rock is an example. This is fairly easy to recognize and identify. However, I believe the more powerful idolatry is our cultural fascination with self. Self-help books, pop-psychologies in magazine articles and respected medical journalism focused on substantive scientific research all address issues of self-image. Educational strategies focus on the development of self-esteem. Encouragements from gift shop posters to main line pulpit sermons lift up the power of having a personal dream and persevering to achieve such. The plethora of these examples is exhausting!

Let’s reduce this to “clothesline” conversation. Ever bought a car? How did it make you feel? Brand new or just used but sporty and the first little while of driving probably made you feel pretty good. (I bought a brand new Mercury Capri at age 18, and these feelings of self-worth tied to the car persisted well past the new stage!) Did it cross your mind how others perceived your purchase? Or, what if you had to purchase an old vehicle with some rust or dents? How did you feel driving that vehicle?

The levels of personal emotional response to this modern world activity are certainly diverse. Nonetheless, if not the car, then something else has perhaps evoked a strong personal awareness that the activity/object caused feelings either positive or negative associated with how you imagined others perceived you. Ever wear a new suit or dress? Is this wrong or just natural?

It is natural, and the natural man is from whom we need salvation! This is my exact point. When we live our lives making choices which spring from our natural desires for ourselves, I suggest we have made ourselves an idol.

Next up: consequences of living as our own idol even as we profess Christ.

Impotent Idols Part 1

We humans need to find something greater than ourselves. A purpose or cause motivates us. Being motivated stirs us on all levels of our being: the body feels more willing to expend energy; the heart is encouraged and diligent, and the mind actively analyzes and determines effective courses of action toward achieving the purpose. Ironically humans, even ones claiming Christ, often substitute idolatry as a counterfeit for motivational purpose.

There is more to know here than simply the prohibition of the Ten Commandments against the making of graven images. Why the prohibition, if the idol holds no real power?

Idols reflect a sense of self back to the self. Herein is the downfall of all who trust in an idol, and the reason for God forbidding their fabrication. An idol’s power is the deception that the idol is significant. This significance is simply a projection of a person’s imagination onto the idol. When captivated by the idol, a person is in effect captivated by his or her self. Behind every emotional stirring fostered by an idol, all that is encountered is one’s own being, whose needs are teased but not met.

The circle of self -- idol -- self cannot foster true life. The idol is an illusion of life. It does stir something in the soul; the fallen nature is gratified for a brief moment. This fleeting gratification motivates a person through rationalization that a substantive and valuable outside-of-self experience is achieved. Consequently, pursuit of the idol continues.

There is a larger human quest the individual believes they have begun to gain, the quest for the illumination of spirit within the self. The gratification of idols means the idolater will put faith in the idol to know the feeling of being alive. The seeking soul of an idolater thus defines self through the idol, which is effectively only a self-by-the-self function. This consuming the self to gain life is a spiritual state and results in immaturity which cannot love others. All the emotional potential of the individual to love is cannabilizied by the self. Such a state of loving self in isolation is not life. The idol is devoid of the life which only love sustains.

Maturity in Christ means becoming free from the power of idols over the soul. Idols strengthen the sense of self in the soul; but as strength built on nothing but the self, it is the utmost state of human weakness. One’s own soul is the object of one’s will. The idol is used as the justification of how and why the soul interacts with the outside world of symbols, social structures, and conflicts. The idol is treated as a reality both important and larger than self. However, the idol and its justification intellectually is a natural world construct. It offers nothing of the power of life and love which are the supernatural domain of the Creator God alone. Only the life of God which exists outside the natural world the self inhabits satisfies the quest for illumination of the soul by the spirit.

Why Practice Meditation?

We understand our lives by analyzing, categorizing and decision-making at three levels. We know things from the perspective of our physical life, our cultural life, and our common universal life. The narrowest view involves our personal bubbles--my body, my feelings, my likes, my dislikes, my fears, my dreams and aspirations. A view larger than ourselves is the one shaped by culture. We tend toward ethno-centrism or the view that our way of life culturally may not always be right, but it is the best to be found. Our commonality with other humans is often not fully developed, but all of the human race has some core motivations centered on the emotions: love, hate, anger, sadness, depression, jealousy, pride, fear. These three levels of understanding are the essence of our natural lives. (Notice the three areas of life susceptible to temptation and expressed by the world fallen man has created? The lust of the flesh--the body, its needs and desires; the pride of life--intellect and cultural structures; the emotions--the lust of the eyes and our hearts' imaginations.)

I believe there is a fourth level of understanding, life according to the spirit-birth in Jesus. Living by the spirit, living in the spirit, being spiritual all receive verbal repetitions in Christian exhortations, but what is it?

It is the level of understanding that is illuminated by God. It is above and beyond the physical, cultural or human experience. However, it releases us from none of these levels. Rather, by learning to abide in the Spirit of Christ through understanding the division between soul and spirit (Hebrews 4:12) we become better decision-makers regarding the three natural levels of our experience. Simply, it requires the illumination by God's Spirit within our spirits to develop the fullest maturity and the deepest sense of life as a human. The three levels of understanding that are of the earth only begin to make sense as we approach all levels of earthly knowledge with our knowledge of God in spirit.

Our sense of the Presence of God within us and our ability to live from a position of faith in His divine Presence is the key to maturity as a Christian. I do not propose that meditation is a requirement to facilitate this level of spiritual knowledge and the resulting level of faith. However, I do believe it is a missing element in the lives of many Christians, at least as a deliberate discipline. I think it is useful in developing Christian maturity.

Meditation is a unique Christian discipline which takes place utilizing all three levels of our human experience. Our bodies, our intellect, and our hearts all combine. This unity of being is in itself a strengthening time. As meditation opens one to knowledge of the spirit and of His Spirit, an individual grows in ways teaching alone cannot facilitate.

Meditation's Connection to the Imagination.

I have traveled this line of thinking about meditation in my own life for a practical reason. Teaching, the delivery to my intellect of the meanings of Scripture and doctrines to be understood and followed, was not having the full effect I felt it should. That is, I still found myself behaving in contradictory ways. I didn't understand me, or why I acted the way I did. Likewise, I found this to be true in those around me. People I considered devout would evidence odd opinions or behaviors that I could not reconcile with "living in the spirit of Christ." Reducing such to considerations of maturity was accurate but incomplete. I was most aware, of course, of my own feelings. Honestly, there were times when I knew I was "behaving" like a Christian because it was the socially acceptable thing to do within my sub-culture, the church group. More painfully, as an elder I knew there were moments when people searched me out for my opinion/insight, as if I held some understanding that would help them. I found myself giving rote answers, a "doctrinally" correct intellectual stance and socially correct disposition of our belief system. I truly, deeply wanted to help them; I said what I thought would help, but some place in my heart knew I didn't fully believe everything I said. Or was it that I simply didn't fully comprehend? I lacked understanding. This left me desolate at times and empty. I never doubted God, I doubted me. Later by extrapolation I doubted all of my fellow elders and some of the practices of traditional religion all around me which I had identified as my "theological home", the Evangelical movement.

Please understand that I am not attacking the Evangelical movement. I do not suggest such is wrong. I believe it lacks understanding because it is a product of Western culture. From before the Renaissance, Western thought has developed along a philosophic path that traces itself back to the Greeks. Church scholarship developed and held the lamp of knowledge for Western culture through the Medieval period such that church and culture existed in a symbiotic relationship of sorts. This philosophic path has a practical component through which it meanders, the rational mind. Western culture emphasizes rationality and thereby cuts itself off from the human heart. There have been a few reactions like the Age of Romanticism, but the onward development of a rational explanation of the human experience has never lost steam. The Evangelical movement is both product of this combined history of church and culture and remains a participant today. It does not do so without consequence to its intellectual and spiritual constructs.

Remember my discussion on Christian diversity wherein sociologists define human social experience in terms which I contend reflect the whole human? (Oct. 10 post) This is our three-part being of body, heart, and mind. Western culture focuses primarily on the intellect and secondarily (pop culture in particular) on the body. The Western Christian church preaches there must be a changed heart, but I believe as an institution lacks in its understanding of how the heart affects the whole human. (I cannot here take the time to validate this assertion of mine, maybe another post.)

Our culture has developed a "heart" obsessed with the lust of the eyes. Literature, drama, the visual arts, musical arts and tech media are overrun with imagination applied to expressing the fallenness of the human heart. It isn't just pop culture of the day either. Ever read the lyrics of great operas or pay close attention to the themes in Shakespeare? Western religion's answer to this problem is to preach against lust. This is an intellectual exercise; and from a practical standpoint of the state of the human heart, is an ill-fitting application producing mixed results. In Western culture, we do not understand the effective application of meditation in overcoming our own hearts' vagaries. Consider this quote from scripture:

Psalms 77:3-12
When I remember God, then I am disturbed; When I sigh, then my spirit grows faint. Selah.
You have held my eyelids open; I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
I have considered the days of old, The years of long ago.
I will remember my song in the night; I will meditate with my heart, And my spirit ponders:
Will the Lord reject forever? And will He never be favorable again?
Has His lovingkindness ceased forever? Has His promise come to an end forever?
Has God forgotten to be gracious, Or has He in anger withdrawn His compassion? Selah.
Then I said, "It is my grief, That the right hand of the Most High has changed."
I shall remember the deeds of the LORD; Surely I will remember Your wonders of old.
I will meditate on all Your work And muse on Your deeds.

The author of these words is sorely troubled in heart over his relationship with God, the core relationship of life. His answer is to meditate on God and His work. Of all the words in the Hebrew which can be translated meditate or meditation, they share one common possible meaning. That meaning is muse. Actively, muse can mean in our language to meditate or ponder. Interestingly, another use in our language is drawn from Greek mythology. This use is muse as in "a guiding spirit". Within artistic expressions, to find one's muse means to discover inspiration.

I submit that to meditate as a Christian means to find guidance from the Holy Spirit by filling the eyes of our hearts (requires the faculty of the imagination) not with lustful concepts from the world but with the purity of God Himself. In so doing, we access a source of growth for both our souls and spirits which is of God. Further, this growth will not be stimulated by teaching our minds, the intellect.

I am driving at... Imagination, Part three

One last disclaimer before I delve into developing the "Christian" imagination. I am not suggesting that Christians begin to use the imagination to create alternate realities. That is, I am not suggesting that imaginary products are to be achieved. This is not about being creative and producing an interpretation of Scripture never conceived before. What I am thinking here is not an outcome, it is a process wherein we access the ability to alter the depths of who we are by support found surprisingly in using the faculty of imagination. I also am not suggesting anything which cannot be supported scripturally. Of course, we all knows how that still don't free what I'm saying from subjectivity!!

Ps 19:14
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.

Meditation is an act of focusing on God, deliberately, for an extended time period, with an openness to Him, with an intent to be impacted, and to bring Him pleasure.

Meditation is accomplished using all of our faculties including the imagination.

More in the next post.

Lack of Contentment May Mean a Lack of Imagination

The word for me today is contentment. I get home from work, which has been demanding but rewarding this week, and find an e-mail from an old friend. I am separated from him by distance but our contact is always warm, if somewhat infrequent. I had e-mailed him to let him know I had started the blog and am approaching a personal milestone of which he is aware. Dave emailed me encouragement in his gentle way. He finished his e-mail stating he thought I was a contented man. Perhaps, but there is more to know. I have every reason to be content, though like anyone I suppose, I have to address the content of my thoughts.

Then I check the blog of another old friend, he can be read at Looking for the Long Ride link on the right. He has written his latest blog entry exploring among other things, contentment. I do not find such overlap a coincidence. God is in every aspect of my life, and such circumstances as these described here occur continually in my life. I always accept them without question as God calling my attention to something. This may cause you to question, but I don't anymore. I have seen this proven over and over. It a reason I am content in the Father. His faithfulness to communicate with me never fails.

Last year at work, a colleague lamented, "I want to hear from God, if that's possible." I ached for her. Her Christian tradition has shaped her by liturgy and tradition. Her concept of God is deeply carved but limited by the cut marks of her particular system. It has informed her for years on end how to perceive God, and so she does. The culture she participates in communicates strict boundaries for the structures she must abide in, the symbols she must reflect upon and draw inspiration from, and the conflicts which are hers in the natural.

After we left the church we had been in for 18 years, I visited many local congregations. I was open to the Lord leading me again into the arena of organized groups. On one Sunday, I entered a congregation to discover in attendance there a family whom my wife and I knew from community soccer. The husband was an usher and led me to the pew in which his wife sat. I slid over near her, and we greeted we another. Since I was seeking, and she was "full-time", I led off after the pleasantries with, "So how do you like it here?" She was visibly shaken and turned to me with newly formed tears and spoke of her disappointment and disillusionment with this particular system. I did my best to sound supportive and remain neutral. I began imagining what could cause such a reaction. She was a chronic complainer, though her example on the sidelines of soccer disproved that muse. She did not clearly understand her circumstances and was overwhelmed by life, though her respected position in a local public school undercut that possibility. Her true feelings erupted when I touched on the sore spot of her life. That clicked with me as the truth of that moment.

At another prominent evangelical church in our community a week or so later, after I had been handed a "Prospective Member" card to fill out in Sunday School. (I filled this in with the questions "Why do you automatically put me in the category of prospect?" and, "If I am in Jesus like you, am I not part of you already?") During the Sunday School class itself, a regular member (some one with far more status within this group than most) delivered a scalding message of condemnation against anyone who was not actively witnessing for the purpose of expanding the roles of the church. Hmmm...it was clear from these two social mechanisms, the card and the message, that the church was focused on numbers. Additionally, the abject disparity between Romans 8:1 and the empty-hearted scolding I had just heard demonstrated this group 's spiritual lack.

What did these three people have in common? My takes is a lack of contentment because of a failed or inactive spiritual imagination.

Imagination 1A (?)

In the comments section of my last blog post, Craig V. suggests that delineating thinking from the imagination might be helpful. He mentions how imagination is readily accepted generally, but the fruit of the Arts in particular is held somewhat suspect.

I understand. Well it should be suspect. The imagination has been used to promote much ungodliness in our world, and not just in the Arts. How about in education and philosophy in particular? Consider Foucault...no don't, he is nihilistic and hedonistic, but he is a good example of the imagination run amuck. Yet, I believe that when the Father redeems us, He lifts our whole being out of the miry clay, including our imagination, by virtue of the new creature referenced in 2Co 5:17. The imagination is part of our being. My renewed mind, and yours, has an imagination. This series of posts is about how to use the imagination in pursuit of a deepening relationship with our Father and His Son.

In my last post, I attempted to establish how the imagination is a part of us in ways beyond creative applications. Imagination is not simply about bringing creativity in arts, math and science applications. Our imaginations are a running sub-program of every one's thinking. I write this series of posts to encourage brethren to recognize the fullness of the whole being we are and learn, as commenter Josiah noted, "Our freedom to imagine is thus found in the charge to bring every thought into obedience to Christ."