Tina and I memorized St. Patrick's Breastplate early in our sabbatical. It's the one that starts "Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me ..." It helps center us, and we especially love it when we are walking.
As I sat on the beach at San Simeon last weekend, I wondered what St. Patrick would pray if he were with me. Here's my go at it: St. Patrick's San Simeon Breastplate
Christ in ebb and Christ in flow
Christ as tired tides recede
Christ on sand at sunset’s glow
Christ in driftwood and seaweed.
Christ as cares expand to oceans
Christ as oceans crash ashore
Christ as crashes cause erosions
Christ, remove what’s not secure.
Christ is carved in pelican beaks
Christ is pooled in crags with glee
Christ through snails and starfish speaks
Christ through green anemone.
Christ I come, though feebly so
Christ your wideness beckons me
Christ I come to face the flow
Christ to shape and make me free.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Monday, June 18, 2007
Build something tangible
"What do you do?" I get asked on planes, trains and in rental car agencies. I get asked in polite company, and in the heart of the 'hood. My answer is always something like: "I mobilize and train students to follow Christ by moving into high crime, high poverty neighborhoods, and make a transformational difference there." Sometimes it ensures a quiet flight, sometimes elicits a blank stare, sometimes entices a genuine conversation. But the conversation inevitably leads to the question of our product. What kinds of outcomes are we seeing? How do we measure success? After all, success is everything in America.Even my sabbatical has to have outcomes. Here they are as I described them three months ago: 1) Decompression. 2) Discernment. Now at the mid point I have added: 3) Demolition and 4) Design. Its because after three months of contemplating, writing, reading, thinking, watching, walking -- I need to DO something; I need an outcome I can point to. A wall removed between our kitchen and back office, new ceiling fans in both rooms, the range repaired, the plumbing fixed, a writing desk designed and built with my son. We NEVER have time for this stuff, and we are on a roll. Next month it will be the stairs that have fallen down and the back deck that has suffered under the feet of a thousand neighborhood kids.
FUNNY THING about fixing stuff. With my mind relaxed and my body engaged in physical activity my thoughts are freed to chew on all the lessons we were taught during the first three months. And now that we have a table in the kitchen, I have a place to sit while thinking.
Monday, June 11, 2007
productivity vs. fruitfulness
Tina and I like to get things done. To watch Tina at 6:30 am, when her resevoir of energy is at its fullest, is like watching one of those speeded up movies with the characters buzzing to and fro. It's a blur. And nothing gives me greater pleasure than attacking a project. I am focused, nothing deters me and I don't stop just because I'm tired, dehydrated, experiencing chest pains -- little things like that. When we do things together, we are productive. It's how we're wired. We've always been that way. I really don't expect it to change much. In fact, there's not much incentive to change. American culture rewards that makeup -- it's the standard. I often resent it when I don't feel others approach their lives or ministries in the same way -- when they're not working as hard as us, when they seem to judge everything by how well it fits with their gifts, their energy level, their need for peace or time off or fun. After all, its better to burn out than rust out, right?
Being on sabbatical has challenged me. To be sure, we have time for productivity. We have accomplished household projects with delight. We have checked things off the list. Whether we have been at home or abroad, we have arisen to each new day with the knowledge that it is a gift not to be wasted. We are to be stewards of it. And for the most part, this has meant being sure that I work on the sabbatical assignments I was given, that I maintain productive spiritual disciplines, that I not engage in trivial pursuits. I even researched and wrote a book. So why am I feeling challenged?
It is from the the idea of letting my field lie fallow. Unproductive. It is living in that place where my life circumstance dictates that I believe in the idea of replenishment. That soil, when given a rest, will become more fertile. Sabbath -- ceasing from work -- becomes the seedbed for greater productivity.
Enter Henri Nouwen, who would take issue with the way I am using the word "productivity." He would applaud my desire to be a good steward of my life. But he would give a gentle corrective. "A call to live a fruitful life does not necessarily imply a call to be productive." (Lifesigns: Intimacy, Fecundity, and Ecstasy in Christian Perspective, Image Books, 1986) While acknowledging that productivity is good, he addresses the potentially improper motivation in productivity, and the false promises of productivity to deliver what it does not have the power to, when he says, "in our contemporary society, with its emphasis on accomplishment and success, we often live as if being productive is the same as being fruitful. Productivity gives us certain notoriety and helps take away our fear of being useless." He goes on to say that lives that are anchored in God's love, and not lived in fear (fear of rejection, fear of uselessness, etc.) are free to bear fruit, fruit that is a gift, an automatic outcome of who we are. "Whenever we trust and surrender ourselves to the God of love, fruits will grow." "Some of us might be productive and others not, but we are all called to bear fruit; fruitfulness is a true quality of love."
Undoubtedly Tina and I will maintain our list of projects. We will check things off the list with vigor. Weather on sabbatical or in the heat of ministry we will "work as unto the Lord" (Colossians 3:23). But I know that one outcome of this sabbatical for me will be the greater freedom to let things rest and trust that fruit will grow. At the end of the day, the point is to live a fruitful life, not just a busy one. Jesus said, "I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last" (John 15:16).
Being on sabbatical has challenged me. To be sure, we have time for productivity. We have accomplished household projects with delight. We have checked things off the list. Whether we have been at home or abroad, we have arisen to each new day with the knowledge that it is a gift not to be wasted. We are to be stewards of it. And for the most part, this has meant being sure that I work on the sabbatical assignments I was given, that I maintain productive spiritual disciplines, that I not engage in trivial pursuits. I even researched and wrote a book. So why am I feeling challenged?
It is from the the idea of letting my field lie fallow. Unproductive. It is living in that place where my life circumstance dictates that I believe in the idea of replenishment. That soil, when given a rest, will become more fertile. Sabbath -- ceasing from work -- becomes the seedbed for greater productivity.
Enter Henri Nouwen, who would take issue with the way I am using the word "productivity." He would applaud my desire to be a good steward of my life. But he would give a gentle corrective. "A call to live a fruitful life does not necessarily imply a call to be productive." (Lifesigns: Intimacy, Fecundity, and Ecstasy in Christian Perspective, Image Books, 1986) While acknowledging that productivity is good, he addresses the potentially improper motivation in productivity, and the false promises of productivity to deliver what it does not have the power to, when he says, "in our contemporary society, with its emphasis on accomplishment and success, we often live as if being productive is the same as being fruitful. Productivity gives us certain notoriety and helps take away our fear of being useless." He goes on to say that lives that are anchored in God's love, and not lived in fear (fear of rejection, fear of uselessness, etc.) are free to bear fruit, fruit that is a gift, an automatic outcome of who we are. "Whenever we trust and surrender ourselves to the God of love, fruits will grow." "Some of us might be productive and others not, but we are all called to bear fruit; fruitfulness is a true quality of love."
Undoubtedly Tina and I will maintain our list of projects. We will check things off the list with vigor. Weather on sabbatical or in the heat of ministry we will "work as unto the Lord" (Colossians 3:23). But I know that one outcome of this sabbatical for me will be the greater freedom to let things rest and trust that fruit will grow. At the end of the day, the point is to live a fruitful life, not just a busy one. Jesus said, "I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last" (John 15:16).
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Oxfres - a tale of two cities
Oxford its not, but Fresno is home. It is a mercy of God that we returned to a Fresno June that contained temperatures in the 70's. It's been beautiful. We are glad to be home.
Fresno has no Thames but it has the Kings. It has no Lewis or Tolkein but it has Saroyan and Masumoto. It has no Eagle and Child but it does have Sequoia. It has no Christ Church Cathedral but it does have St. Johns. Students here are in shorts and flip flops, not the scholar's gown and formal attire of the high table, but they are students aspiring for something better nonetheless. There is only one Oxford, and it will forever move nand inspire me like no other city can. But there is also only one Fresno, and holds me like no other city.
I shared with my friend Matt this morning that if Oxford reminds me how I am wired, how God put me together, why I notice and care about the things that I care about, and frees me be that person, Fresno reminds me of my resoponsibility to put who I am into service for the sake of God's Kingdom.
Its a tale of two cities, and the way they speak to my life.
Our friends have welcomed us back, and the house was in pretty good shape too, thanks to Jameson and his friend Tim who held down the fort in our absence. Tina is back at work full time, and I have turned my attention to framing the next three months for maximum focus on what's ahead both institutionally and professionally.
Fresno has no Thames but it has the Kings. It has no Lewis or Tolkein but it has Saroyan and Masumoto. It has no Eagle and Child but it does have Sequoia. It has no Christ Church Cathedral but it does have St. Johns. Students here are in shorts and flip flops, not the scholar's gown and formal attire of the high table, but they are students aspiring for something better nonetheless. There is only one Oxford, and it will forever move nand inspire me like no other city can. But there is also only one Fresno, and holds me like no other city.
I shared with my friend Matt this morning that if Oxford reminds me how I am wired, how God put me together, why I notice and care about the things that I care about, and frees me be that person, Fresno reminds me of my resoponsibility to put who I am into service for the sake of God's Kingdom.
Its a tale of two cities, and the way they speak to my life.
Our friends have welcomed us back, and the house was in pretty good shape too, thanks to Jameson and his friend Tim who held down the fort in our absence. Tina is back at work full time, and I have turned my attention to framing the next three months for maximum focus on what's ahead both institutionally and professionally.
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