Life and Death is a Choice: Birthday Reflection

Lately I have been thinking a lot about life and death. Today being my 32nd birthday seems like an ideal time to sit and write some of these thoughts down. My birthday didn't really prompt any of these ideas in my mind but it has stirred up, or allowed space for the stirring of all the questions that have been swimming around my head recently.

Neither birth nor death are often the result of one's choice and volition. Life is hurled upon us at birth as either a gift or a burden, though we almost always meet birth with joy and celebration. It is very rare to find any expression of sentiments akin to those words penned by the author of Ecclesiastes, "The day of death is better than the day of birth." Death is mostly feared, avoided and mourned in contrast with the smiles that surround the beginning of life. We are dealt life and then cling to it desperately in our avoidance of death. While death, unlike birth, does stand before us as an option to be freely chosen. Very few, however, embrace death as an act of the will. We either despise or praise those who do. The suicide, we despise and the martyr we honor. Both make the decision to cast their life off though, as G. K. Chesterton pointed out, the suicide insults everything in existence as not worth living for. The martyr on the other hand so values one thing that it is worth all. It is for this reason that he places these two categories of the willfully dead as opposites. I agree with Chesterton's assessment and still think that a wise man would not take suicide off the table as a very real option. One, because it always is actually an option but also because of the value of choosing.

It has been said by the philosopher Albert Camus that the only serious philosophical question is whether or not to commit suicide. Shakespeare's Hamlet opens with the question "To be or not to be?" While this may seem at first to be a dark and disturbing question, it presents a very real and human dilemma. I wonder if our interpretation or uneasiness about such questions can stand as a correction to us about the deeper issues of our lives. We did not choose to be born. Thirty two years ago I was born a free man, though I was not free to choose life yet. It is in the 32 years that I have lived that I reflect on now and wonder why I have chosen to stay alive. Have I? Have you? It seems to me that it is only by facing the very real option of death that it is possible to actually choose life. I remember Ivan in The Brothers Karamozov saying that he has decided to live until thirty and then "dash my cup to the ground." What is one to make of such comments? I am forced by these comments and questions to acknowledge that not dashing ones cup to the ground is also a choice. It is a choice that takes courage if one is to actually live rather than merely avoiding death as so many unconsciously do. I am excited by the prospect of a real choice about existence. To be or not to be really is the question. It seems to me that one who daily faces these questions in a deep and real way might be the most sober and alive, for each day they live they have made a conscious decision for life! I am reminded of the opening monologue in No Country For Old Men which ended, and so began the movie, with the statement that a man would have to decide and say "OK, I'll be part of this world." It is the question itself that forces one to decide that the flower is worth living to smell. Chesterton criticizes the suicide for not valuing anything in this world enough to choose life and I might also extend that criticism to those who do not choose life, but continue to exist.

I am intrigued by our culture's love for the living dead and the zombie apocalypse. It may not be as fantastic and absurd as we think of it, for many among us are dead men walking. We, like zombies, roam from scene to scene driven by unquenchable desire. We hunger and consume without regard for the cost and compulsive addiction to escaping death or pain or any reminder of that great fate/decision that hangs over our heads. Though we can relate to the zombies we also relate to the uninfected fighting to stay alive. We, like those survivors, are not a lost cause without a hope for recovery, as are the undead. We still have a choice to make. In the zombie movies we sometimes see people choose death and commit suicide when faced with the world in front of them. It is in the context of such vignettes that we most sympathize and understand the suicide. Isn't Chesterton's criticism still relevant? Shouldn't we still condemn this decision? Why are we more understanding of these fictional suicides? Is it because the world that they are facing is dangerous, scary, filled with pain and loss or is it because death seemed so imminent anyway?  Isn't that always true? Isn't real life dangerous, scary, filled with pain and loss? Isn't death always the only thing in our future that we can count on? These things are a central part of life, as are joy, love and forgiveness. We get it all whether we choose life or just keep on being alive. It is in the honest look at life that acknowledges pain, suffering and death along with play, family and hope that one can fully choose it. If we understand the suicide in the middle of a zombie apocalypse then we should be able to similarly understand the suicide of a friend that wakes up, looks at our world, sees the droves of zombies, looses hope and dashed their cup to the ground. If we are to choose life it seems that our deepest reasons should transcend the conditions in which we find ourselves. We still might criticize the suicide with Chesterton, whether it is our friend or the character within the apocalypse and we might praise the hero that lays his life down for another. The man who chooses life may 'drink death like wine' and the man that only avoids death doesn't actually ever live. The choice is ours.

Rather than just being living organisms that will naturally do anything it takes to survive we must decide what life is worth and how we shall spend it. So today, on my birthday, I am choosing life. I am choosing the pains, struggles, joys and love once again. I am deciding that the Kingdom of God and our prayer for it to come to earth is worth my life, dead or alive. Today it seems best to choose life but at my core the real choice is Jesus and I will dash my cup to the ground with joy the second that's what choosing Jesus will mean for me.
I must add here that I deeply believe that choosing Jesus is the truest way to choose life for it is only in Him that life is abundant & lasting....everlasting.

The Serenity Prayer

God, Grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the Courage to change the things I can and the Wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardship as the pathway to peace.

Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it.

Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will;

That I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with Him forever in the next.

Amen.

- Reinhold Niebuhr

Summer has been rough.

I guess that's nothing new, but it feels fresh right now. We're still shaking off the dust, gaining our bearings again, and beginning to figure out where to go from here. Or maybe we're still sitting in the dirt, wondering whether we can or should go on. Now more than ever are we blessed with memory. We look at what has come to pass so that we may know what is to come. We have seen our weakness, and seen a strength at work through it. We have known discomfort, only to find that we live in opulence. The road we walk has turned out to be tougher than we are, so that we can't possibly make it through, but we make it still. Our past calls out to our future so loudly that it almost drowns out the groaning present. Ever caught between memory and hope we live, and so we look to the One in Whom the furthest extent of both memory and hope dwell, in Whom we live and move and have our being.


Yet, in the maddening maze of things,
And tossed by storm and flood,
To one fixed trust my spirit clings;
I know that God is good!

Not mine to look where cherubim
And seraphs may not see,
But nothing can be good in Him
Which evil is in me.

The wrong that pains my soul below
I dare not throne above,
I know not of His hate,—I know
His goodness and His love.

I dimly guess from blessings known
Of greater out of sight,
And, with the chastened Psalmist, own
His judgments too are right.

I long for household voices gone,
For vanished smiles I long,
But God hath led my dear ones on,
And He can do no wrong.

I know not what the future hath
Of marvel or surprise,
Assured alone that life and death
His mercy underlies.

And if my heart and flesh are weak
To bear an untried pain,
The bruisèd reed He will not break,
But strengthen and sustain.

John Greenleaf Whittier

What is Love?

A Letter Home

Lakehousians,

Everything that has been happening has made me think about 'home' in a real way. Home isn't necessarily the house we live in and yet the Lake House is our home. Sometimes things feel like home or taste like home or smell like home. What is home then? It’s a question I've been thinking about all weekend.

Does home have to do with feeling safe?

What about being comfortable?

Our house is very uncomfortable in that we don't use a/c, there are ten of us here and its chaotic and dirty most of the time. But Home is that way for me now. I sometimes wonder, if a visitor from haiti or El Salvador were travelling in tampa, would our house feel more like home to him than other places he may visit here. And safe? Our home has felons crashing on the couch and thieves often trying to sneak into the yard but I just don't think it would be home if there weren’t.
Home is my community. Also, many people have joined our family and many have been called or just decided to go elsewhere. They are still family but they are not at home anymore. The most stable thing about our house and community are our values. All of the people may (and often do) change and the entire house may decay but the values are forever. They are a gift. It has really hit me that home is where we commit to Jesus and each other, home is where we share and give, home is where we experiment and build, home is where we welcome guests, home is where we fight and forgive, home is where we grow watermelons and okra, home is where we have a ton of fun and also take things seriously, home is where we, a family united by Jesus, are doing everything we know to do to see his kingdom come. I am a sojourner and a stranger with you, citizens of heaven. Our home is in Jesus and therefore we can be at home wherever he is being pursued. I am both excited to chase after God with this group of women and I am excited to visit and stay connected with you, my family, my people.
Friday at morning prayer we read from Matthew 12: While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
I just couldn’t take it. It was as though my heart had been ripped out of my chest and affirmed at the same moment. I wept from the pain of leaving but also the joy that is the gift of living among Jesus’ ‘brothers and sisters, and mother.’ I was overwhelmed by my love for each of you and my excitement to see you rise to the occasion and really really LOVE each other, and Jesus , and Jason, and Momma, and Benji, and Ryan, and everyone else that God brings your way. I expect so much from you all. I know your gifts and your struggles and I just want to ask you to fight harder, stand stronger, and push into God right now. You are each at a threshold and God is calling you into a new place of commitment and sacrifice. I know those words are hard at times, but it is worth it. I just pray that through all my anger, and belligerence and obvious weaknesses you were able to see an example of that. Jesus is real and risen and alive and among us! I see him walking among you and sharing in our life together. He is worthy of all glory, honor, praise, sacrifice, and love. The call is great and it is costly but his Kingdom is worth everything. Please push through temptation for the sake of each other. Don’t ever give up or let each other stumble. The Lake House is an amazing outpost of the kingdom and it is you who make it what it is. Thank you for every way your life is surrendered. The values are nothing unless you value them. Then they are earthshaking.
I know this reads like I’m moving to Australia or something and I promise that isn’t the case. I am committed to you all and promise to be around and involved and active in the life of our community. I am not breaking with you but I am moving down the street and am open to God doing what he will with me and us, and Natalia, and the women. I am hopeful that a women’s community will emerge from this that is more connected and ‘Lake House’ than anything we might have constructed ourselves. I’m reminded that “Unless the LORD builds the house, They labor in vain who build it; Unless the LORD guards the city, The watchman keeps awake in vain.”

In His Hands,

Jon

Blood, sweat and tears...Actually, mostly sweat.

A couple of months ago, after praying and careful consideration, I decided to move into an intentional community in the inner city of Tampa. The Lake House is a community of men that has been around for about three years. Since its inception, about 7 years ago, the lake house has had women and men living in the same house (with a wall dividing the house), married couples living in the garage and plenty of visitors which are too many to name.

The house is located just a block off Nebraska ave and only steps away from the liquor store. There’s gang activity not too far from here and Nebraska ave turns into a walkway for lone souls late at night. According to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, since the beginning of this year there has been 101 crimes committed in a 3 miles radius. The bulk of it (43.56%) have been drug-related incidents with 44, which includes possession, trafficking and delivery. Common sense will discourage most people to live on a neighborhood like this. I mean, didn’t my family move to the USA to provide my sister and I with better opportunities? Am I not supposed to accomplish the American Dream? A nice job or business, a nice home, a family, enough money to travel and to give to charity? Is it not the pinnacle of our lives to be able to live comfortable and admiring lives?

These are questions that have plague my mind ever since Jesus became a priority in my life. Apart from the many questions about philosophy and theology, the questions about practice are the ones that have really intrigued me the most. What does the bible say about practicing our faith? How does that look like culturally, economically and socially in our context? These are questions that i don't have complete answers for, but as I dive deep into the relationship Jesus is offering for me i learn more and more. I hope that through living in the Lake House community I’m able to learn from these men that have been at it since a few years ago.

For those of you that know a little bit of the history of the Church, the Lake House looks like a modern monastic movement, currently referred as new monasticism. We’re not monks or take bows, we don’t shave our heads, even though sometimes it happens by mistake, we did not recluse to the farthest point possible from society, yet we live within the margins of society. We plant and grow food: Tomates, pimentones, cilantro, frijoles, sandias and mucho mas. We mostly love each other with an occasional hint of recent. We’re broken people reaching to broken people by pointing to the one true God.

Living here has been a blessing from God. From the late night conversations to the occasional bike rides. It all has been a blessing. I remember moving in in the first week having some expectations of what “community living” looks like. That very first weekend some of the guys went camping and i was left by myself to ponder on some aspects and choices that involved living with others intentionally. Living at the Lake House and sharing my life with its members has been in a sense transparent. I cannot recluse to my room and hide my emotions, i have had to confront my fears and realize that my life is not my own. While dealing with different issues some of the guys have gone through, i realize that those issues are not as foreign as i thought.
Those same issues have been concealed deep within my heart and now Jesus is using a group of men to bring those out. We counsel each other, we joke around, we stumble and we pray. Jesus is in the midst of everything, in our decisions to invite people, how we buy our groceries and how we used our energy. We are family because of Him, nothing else. If it was not because the Grace of Christ, this community would have folded ages ago.

This is still a journey and i have 8 more months of it. I sincerely pray that God will use the Lake House to shape and mold me to the His image. May His name be glorified forever and ever.

From Ancient Rome to Modern Tampa: Empire, Occupation, and The Way of Jesus

This morning has left my mind spinning in reflection on the police in our neighborhood. We have lived in the neighborhood for a little under a decade now and I have only grown more and more uncomfortable with the police here. I have had police run up on a homeless friend and I as we talked on the corner of Nebraska and Lake. Their cars jumped the curbs and they catapulted from their cars in full force to stop what must be a drug deal. I, and many other white friends, have been stopped and either interrogated just for being in this neighborhood or offered help since we were obviously lost. One friend was robbed at gunpoint and then after flagging down a cop for help, he was interrogated for being here for drugs. The cops only added trauma to the traumatic. They never even considered that he was telling the truth. We have witnessed and reported a cop in this neighborhood push a little kid down. We have been pulled over constantly for the slightest of reasons and occasionally no reason at all. They fly past our house at a speed that will kill anyone in their path on a nightly basis, there sirens lull us to sleep each night, and the sound of that ‘ghetto bird’ is as much a part of our evening sky as the moon.

This morning we had a friend join us for prayer and breakfast. He is a black man with dreadlocks. We had a wonderful morning joining him in his ‘power breathing exercises’, eating, praying, and discussing Haiti. As he left our house with his backpack and two apples in hand a police spun around and pulled up on him like he was fleeing a crime scene. The cop starts accusing and questioning him. “Do you live here?” “What are you doing?” Our friend just hung his head and waited for one of us to come out and tell the officer to leave our friend alone and assure the cop that he was a guest of ours.

As I left for work I kept thinking to myself that this must be what it is like to live under a military occupation. I know this may be an exaggeration but I am not sure how much of one it is. Our neighborhood is under constant patrol by a hostile and prejudice force. Their presence is a constant reality to me and my neighbors. This constant presence is not a comfort to any of us. It is a threat. It is oppressive in nature. Our neighborhood has the feeling of an occupied territory.

This thought immediately led me to reflect on Jesus who absolutely lived in an occupied territory. Roman soldiers were a constant presence and threat in first century Palestine and his words from that context are relevant to us today. In that day a roman soldier could randomly choose any individual and force them, by law, to carry their bags one mile. This is why people used to set up ‘mile stones’ a mile from their house so when they reached that point they could drop the bags and return to their houses and lives. It is in this context that Jesus said if someone forces you to walk with them one mile…"Go two!”

I have got to be honest that I have no clue how to apply this teaching. I don’t like it and this reflection is far from over. This question is at the heart of Christian nonresistance and nonviolent resistance. I am reminded of Tolstoy, Gandhi, & King and can’t help but cringe on the inside at their ideas and lives. They are counter to every natural reaction in me and they are heroic for that same reason.

Tolstoy said “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

Jesus, help me see you and walk in your ways. I know that you embraced and died on the cross of that occupying people.

It is scandalous!

Prayer, Hospitality, Community, Sweat, and Initiative

So yesterday I woke up early to pray and eat breakfast with my community. We all gathered in the family room and had a great time of prayer. While we were praying 'Empress' Mary came to the door. Natalia went and sat with her while we continued praying. We just met Empress Mary the other day through a guy that was crashing at our house for a few nights. She is also on the streets and we have been doing our best to find female friends to put her up since we can't really host women guests in a house full of guys. She dropped in to get a shower and spend some time with us. We all chipped in after prayer to make a big breakfast to eat together and had her join us. It really was an awesome morning and I realized later how opportunities to love people literally just knock on our door. I am so grateful.

From the streets, to an apartment, to a Kingdom

My Friend Dave was a middle class man that hit the streets as we are seeing more an more lately. He is always talking about the conversions he has been having. His first conversion he describes as an intellectual conversion that took place as he got to know people who were on the streets. His mind was radically changed as he realized that he could no longer blame these folks for where they were and could no longer call them lazy or sorry. He got to know them and the weight of their reality. He then had what he described as a spiritual conversion as he realized that he was becoming more and more dependant on God and finding God among his new friends on the streets. We have known him and walked with him through these experiences as well as him getting an apartment! That was a very exciting day. Now after many discussions, debates, and joining the Lake House home church Dave has surrendered His life to Jesus! His birthday just fell on a Wednesday night which is when home church meets so we made a birthday party out of it at a nearby beach where we baptized him too! Its been a joy walking from the streets to the kingdom with Dave!

The Changing of Seasons

I am preparing to leave within the next week and a half to go on quite a different adventure than the last couple years have provided me. I am nervous about this change. I do not like leaving because I know I will miss my brothers and sisters. I know the application of all I have experienced will be tried and I will have to toil in quite a different way. Living at the Lake House has been quite a different experience. Moving in I thought "How exciting. I'm living in community and experiencing a new environment with some of the most liberal Christians I have met. I can experience God in a new and more real way than I have before." And I did just that; it was awesome. In the beginning parts of me were pealed away. I have compared this to an onion. In the beginning I was challenged on parts of myself that I expected to be challenged on, the outer layers of the onion were pealed as expected. But then challenge and conviction came closer to the heart, parts of my life that were not up for grabs....they were mine to hold onto. And this hurt. Among all the joy and wonderful life that I have had living with these men, I have experienced the most convicting pain of my life. God stepped in and revealed things in my life that I had not even thought of. Areas of my life that were not as he wanted them to be. I dug my feet into the ground , the stubborn ass that I am. I would not move of my own accord, so I was dragged kicking and screaming through conviction and trial and purification. Goodness and righteousness is not a fairytale land , it is not even a place at all. It is a process of burning away the imperfections that exist within your life, most of which we don't even know exist. I thought myself much better than I actually was. And like any good refiner does, he heats up the metal that the imperfections may rise and be scraped away. This fairytale land of goodness that I thought would happen when moving into the Lake House was not the paradise that I had imagined. It became a fire that began a burning process that will continue throughout my life. It ignited, or maybe flamed a fire that began the refining process. God has taken parts of my life captive through these men and they have put up with my inaction, my fear and my stubbornness.

So, because of all of this, I thank them for allowing God to use them in this process. For not being afraid of staring me in the eyes and telling me I am wrong. I thank them for loving me in spite of the ass that I can be. I thank them for patience when all I want to do it flee the environment that hurts. I thank them for enduring the blame I have placed on them at times for the pain I cause myself. More than anything I thank them for allowing God to use them as a tool to help begin this refining process. So as I leave for the summer I pray that they will continue in the wrestling with God; that they will continue on this course of peeling away the layers of life that we have covered over ourselves in spite of the pain it may cause us. Continue to encourage, whispering into the ears of all those who are on the brink of running home to comfort that they were made for much greater and that should they endure the pain, God will bring peace into their lives in spite of the pain. Continue to be Barnabas to all those who are encountered, the sons of encouragement. Thank you for being my family, and I do love each and everyone of you.

And so to end this blog I must do what is expected and end with a quote by C.S. Lewis:

"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of — throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself."

Lent: Week Five

“To keep united to God through the suffering humanity of his Son–-that is the aim of Lent. “ -Dorothy Day

In his last dying words, Jesus quoted a previous King of Isreal who prayed:

In you, O Lord, do I take refuge;

let me never be put to shame;
in your righteousness deliver me!
Incline your ear to me; rescue me speedily!
Be a rock of refuge for me,
a strong fortress to save me!
For you are my rock and my fortress;
and for your name’s sake you lead me and guide me;
you take me out of the net they have hidden for me, for you are my refuge.
Into your hand I commit my spirit;
you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.

The work of Christ's suffering for our sake continues today as his Body is beaten, killed and persecuted throughout the world.

Lent: Week Three

As we make our way towards the death of Jesus, and then afterwards to his resurrection, we reflect on his suffering as more than man's inhumanity to the Son of Man, but as God's suffering our oppression, and his identification with the oppressed. Jürgen Moltmann guides us to an understanding of the cross from the point of view of the downtrodden:

Why and in what way did the suffering, crucified God become the God of the poor and abandoned?

In Europe, Christmas and Easter are the high points of the church year, in custom and folklore and popular piety. This is not so in Latin America. The Christian 'feasts of life and hope' mean nothing to Indians and Mestizos. Their feast is Holy Week. The suffering and death of Jesus, the pain and mourning is something in which they can share. There they are at home. That is their life. The submission to fate and ability to suffer of the original inhabitants of Latin America has long been assisted by particular devotional forms. These include the stations of the cross, intercessory processions around representations of the fourteen biblical and legendary stations of Jesus during his passion.

Here, of course, the dominant church has from earliest times so formulated the texts of the stations of the cross that the believers are made aware only of the pains caused to Christ by their individual sins and their private immorality. But the poor no doubt recognized all their suffering in the crucified Christ: what they suffered from society and what they suffered from their fate.

Similarly, the piety of the Negro spirituals sung by black slaves in the southern states of the USA concentrates upon the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. For them his sufferings and death were a symbol of their own sufferings, their despised condition and their temptations in an unfriendly and inhuman world. They saw their fate in his sufferings. On the other hand, they could say that when Jesus was nailed to the cross and the Roman soldiers stabbed him in the side, he was not alone. The black slaves suffered with him and died with him.

"Were you there, when they crucified my Lord?" begins one of their songs. And the answer is: "We, the black slaves, were there with him in his agony." They knew the agony of rejection and the pain of hanging from a tree...Because black slaves knew the significance of the pain and shame of Jesus' death on the cross, they found themselves by his side.

By his suffering and death, Jesus identified himself with those who were enslaved, and took their pain upon himself. And if he was not alone in his suffering, nor were they abandoned in their pains of slavery. Jesus was with them. And there too lay their hope of freedom, by virtue of his resurrection into the freedom of God. Jesus was their identity with God in a world which had taken all hope from them and destroyed their human identity until it was unrecognizable.

"What a wonderful God we have--the source of every mercy and the one who so wonderfully comforts and strengthens us in our hardships and trials."

These words from Paul's second letter to the Corinthians take on greater meaning to me when I see them printed next to a painting of a young black girl, her face streaming with tears, her head turned upward in appeal, under the visible strain of generations of persecution, murder and slavery. Her image and these words hang on the wall in our house as an icon of the suffering Christ.


2 Corinthians continues after this verse to say "So that when others are troubled, needing our sympathy and encouragement, we can pass on to them this same help and comfort God has given us."

As Jesus has said, "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God."

Lent: Week Two

As we continue our Lenten fast and reflection, as we consider the pain in this world and the Incarnation I want to share a few pieces from the pen of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

"No man can look with undivided vision at God and at the world of reality so long as God and the world are torn asunder. Try as he may, he can only let his eyes wander distractedly from one to the other. But there is a place at which God and the cosmic reality are reconciled, a place at which God and man have become one. That and that alone is what enables man to set his eyes upon God and upon the world at the same time. This place does not lie somewhere out beyond reality in the realm of ideas. It lies in the midst of history as a divine miracle. It lies in Jesus Christ."

As Paul wrote 'He is the image of the invisible God.' -Colossians 1:15

With the incarnation making it possible to bring both the Glory of God and the pain of this world into our gaze, consider the depth of the incarnation. In one such reflection Bonhoeffer writes:

"Ecce homo!- Behold the God who has become man, the unfathomable mystery of the love of God for the world. God loves man. God loves the world. It is not an ideal man the He loves; not an ideal world, but the real world. What we find abominable in man's opposition to God, what we shrink back from with pain and hostility, the real man, the real world, this is for God the ground for unfathomable love, and it is with this that He unites Himself utterly. God becomes man, real man. While we are trying to grow out beyond our manhood, to leave the man behind us, God becomes man and we we have to recognize that God wishes us men, too, to be real men. While we are distinguishing the pious from the ungodly, the good from the wicked, the noble from the mean, God makes no distinction at all in His love for the real man. He does not permit us to classify men and the world according to our own standards and to set ourselves up as judges over them. He leads us ad absurdum by Himself becoming a real man and a companion of sinners and thereby compelling us to become judges of God. God sides with the real man and with the real world against all their accusers. Together with men and with the world He comes before judges, so that the judges are now made the accused."

This week we stand with the hungry of this world, just as Jesus has always stood with them.

The Paradox

There are many days that it seems I can not go on. I can not care for another person, meet another need, or welcome another visitor. The weight of giving yourself to others becomes too great and I want to give up. I want to crawl into my room and hide from the world, from the pain, from the call of Christ. However I am always surprised by the joy that wells up in me at these moments of disillusionment. There is a joy that I find nowhere else in this world than at my wits' end with a life among the poor. It may be the reminder that God is with me, or maybe the knowledge that I am exactly where Jesus has called me to but it is truly ineffable. It's like being caught by the safety net of purpose and meaning which really is the grace of God. Like the idea that too much of a good thing is bad; it seems like too much pain is really good. When you empty yourself for another you are filled. When you have mercy, mercy is yours. When you weep with another, your tears turn sweet. Tonight I was sharing these thoughts with a community member and was reminded of these words of Mother Teresa :

I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.

Here are a few other quotes to meditate on:

To endure the cross is not tragedy; it is the suffering which is the fruit of an exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ.

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

- Galatians 6:9

Pass the bread

"When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you."

Happy Thanksgiving

The Evolution of Service

Jesus had fish and bread, we have open sourcing. There is a new wiki that's been created as a one-stop shop for the homeless community. Some of us from LakeHouse will be there on Friday to participate in the launch. In a world that pursues innovation for profit and status, this is very refreshing to see. We need more people engaging in new and innovative fields to expand the Kingdom and serve the poor.

You Wanna Change the World...

...but you don't wanna change your ways.

From Claibornes comment about doing dishes to Durden's advice about ownership, we hear a common theme: idealism and dreaming vs. real life, habit, and craving for security. In community the battle is brought to the front lines of sharing, sacrificing, and learning to be patient. We come here to learn and we miss the lessons. We come for community and we cling to our independence. We dream of revolution and we dont take up our cross. Sometimes we don't even lay down our lives. We look outward and struggle inwardly. We cry for justice on the Earth while there are theives in the temple of our heart. Surrender is imperative, we say that we agree and we walk in disagreement.
Jesus, chase them out! help us to desire the means to the ends that we really desire. May your kingdom come and may we your people learn to let go and love.
God help us.

And the effect of righteousness will be peace...

This is a catechism adapted from the writings of Adin Ballou, whose work was used by Tolstoy in his The Kingdom of God Is Within You. It takes the form of question-and-answer to explain simply but thoroughly the idea that violence, accompanied by our well reasoned excuses for it, is strictly opposed by Jesus. The writings and example of those who question such a basic part of human civilization as violence serve as an unsettling challenge to us Braveheart and Gladiator fans.

Q: Where does the phrase "non-resistance" come from?
A: From the command, "Do not resist the one who is evil."

HOSPITALity

I was healed, cut, comforted, and visited.
When I was there, I was not feeling well and was tired from pain medication. The last thing I wanted to do was socialize and I wasn't much to talk to when others came. They came though. Lots of people. Mother, Father, sister, wife, Waton & Enslie, David. Will, Robbie, Patrick, Drew, Matt, Brian...
I felt like I needed to be hospitable.
I had nothing to offer. No energy to entertain. I could only receive. I became poor and got to encounter my community and family who love me as weak, poor, embarrassed, and humbled and I realized the strength and presence of God's love in them in a new and powerful way.

Commune

In the past month, my life decisions have become the life maze of God as He is pulling me from the comfort of white middles class America and calling me to truly care for the marginalized. Hence, I move to the Lake House.

Today I spoke with a pastor from my childhood, someone I greatly admire, about the decisions I have been making, most significantly my moving into the Lake House. Telling him with excitement in my eyes about the new house and opportunities, I described it as an intentional community. He fired back, in a half-hearted joking way, like a 'hippie commune' of the 70's. I was confused and startled. Wasn't this biblical? Are we not called to live with one another, each eat other's bread, weep in each others tears? I guess he saw the confusion on my face when he quickly changed his position to support (with reservations) the decision to live with a brother intentionally and confirmed the biblical nature of such communities. After much thought I realized that from the outside it could very well be seen as a commune, I mean what other kind of environment do crazy Jesus people pack as tightly into a house as they can. But as I am nervous walking into this lion's den of a house, I am overcome with excitement. I realize each moment I spend within the walls of this house, although this will be my first night actually sleeping here, this is not anything like a commune, it truly is the biblical representation of how we are called to live. I am surrounded by people who understand the calling of God to live and share in each others sorrows and joys. Men (and a woman) who strive to not live in a commune separated from society, but a community that interacts with society to spread the love that surrounds us and moves through us so that maybe, just maybe we might get it right one day and let Jesus be reflected in our faces, and get lucky enough to see Jesus in each other. I'm reminded now of a word Shane Claiborne used in his book Irresistible Revolution, one used in Calcutta when he saw Jesus in the eyes of a leper: namaste, or "I bless the holy spirit I see within you." I pray that each of us here has the opportunity to say such things, not only to each other, but to those who are the poor in spirit, to the surrounding community so desperate for the love of God.