When A Girlfriend Visits

Living in California is great. New friends, a new community, new weather, new foods, and a whole new challenge. But what has been missing is family around us. With my ill father in Minnesota, Isaac and my brother and family also there, Liz in Atlanta and Luke in Chicago, not to mention Martha's family in Virginia and Washington, there are times where I ache for the sounds of family around us.
This week Luke and his girl friend Kelly have been staying with us, filling the house with laughter and the smells of food and tv shows in different rooms. Today we spent the afternoon and evening at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Kelly is an art major and she and Martha had much to talk about in the various exhibits.
One exhibit was titled "California Video" and it was something altogether new for my eyes/mind. I distilled the show like this: if my home tv screen looked like that, I know it needed serious repair or replacement!

Banks: they don't get it

One of the magazines I subscribe to is the British based "Economist." I like it because of its coverage of world affairs and its unique take on American life. Well, with the sunny days on us, I am going to the beach each day for my ocean swim and then I sun myself to dry off. This week's Economist has an 18 page special on "the future of banking." So being a non-economist, I thought their summary article would she some light on what's happening in the US economy and global economy. I was wrong. I read (at least half-way through) each article and got stopped, no, hijacked, by language and words that made absolutely no sense at all. Let me share a few quotes:
"many banks and other financial institutions loaded up on debt in order to increase their returns on equity when asset prices were rising"
"...they overindulged in liquidity leverage, using structure investment vehicles (SIV's) or relying too much on wholesale markets to exploit the difference between borrowing cheap short-termed money and investing in higher-yielding long term assets. The combined effect was that falls in asset values cut deep into equity and triggered margin calls from lenders."
These are portions of sentences that drag on for five, six and seven lines. There is no subject, object and sometimes they are even missing verbs. The nouns? I think they are made-up neologisms. It reminds me of seminary days when we would sit around over coffee and try to impress each other with the big words we just learned in class: proleptic, amphyctyonic league, heuristic, and other winners.
When you get into the church, you need to know your Bible, know Jesus and love people. The bank up above held money and lent money and cared for the customer. Those guys in the Economist don't get it and they lost it.

Trinity II Corinthians 13:11-13

Grace, Love and Fellowship bound and describe the community of the Trinity.

Trinity Sunday

It's a later addition to the liturgical calendar, somewhere in the 11th or 12th century. Few pastors consider this a favorite preaching topic, in fact some pastors call this their least-favorite Sunday (a good Sunday for a new associate or guest preacher). Other than the baptismal formulation and an occasional benediction, we Protestants and evangelicals do not use trinitarian language very much. I've noticed over the years that the language of contemporary worship songs is very Christocentric and cross-oriented, but not very trinitarian. Why?
Different denominations have reputations for emphasizing one person of the Godhead: Presbyterians love the sovereignty of God and Covenanters love the warm-hearted tenderness of Jesus the good shepherd, and our Independent, Calvary Chapel/Vineyard churches are totally energized by the presence of the Holy Spirit. What's with this? How does an everyday Christian keep a trinitarian theology?
In teaching confirmation, I've always turned students loose in the sanctuaries on a hunt for trinitarian hints in the architecture: 3 window panes, 3 steps up to the chancel from the nave, the pulpit/font/table, 3 sections of seating, 3 doors of entry. Look for the 3's I say. And then when we go to visit a Roman Catholic Church, they go wild with the architectural reinforcement of the trinity.
This week's epiphany for me is that the Trinity is God's way of telling that true life, abundant living is always in a dynamic community, just like Father, Son and Holy Spirit, bonded by grace, love and fellowship. God models for us the way we are to live together; creatively distinct and diverse, yet loving and delighted with each other.

Pope Benedict's Cool Word

"Diachronic Koinonia" smacked my on the side of my head. What a cool word. It was the Pope's answer to the problem of Protestantism. We do not have enough "diachronic koinonia" or fellowship across time. Each new denomination, each new church, each new pastor invents their own theology without keeping in fellowship with their long-dead friends. This word made special sense as I worked on the Trinity Sunday texts and had to go back and read about Arius and Eusebius, Alexander and Constantine, homo-ousia and homoi-ousia. Our dead friends have a lot to say to us today.

The Challenge of Joy

I'm feeling a bit guilty right now. Life is too good. A great church is willing to let me be their pastor and many actually show up on Sunday to worship God and stay awake during my sermons. I get paid a decent salary so there is always food in the refrigerator and money enough for a Starbucks or magazine. I have a great wife who likes to do what I like to do and eat what I like to eat. We cannot wait to head off to France to adventure together. I have three healthy adult children who delight me with their differences. Today I had an outdoor lunch with a church attender and then bumped into several people on the street I know. With my sermon done I headed to the ocean for about an hour for a long and leisurely swim and then baking in the sun with Time magazine. Life is seriously sweet right now.
The challenge is that I know too much about other people's pain, like my dad confined to a bed with a feeding tube and other tubes. Life is tough for him right now, fighting pneumonia and infections and just the energy to walk. I have a friend facing the collapse of a career and another with a dissolving marriage. A friend in town just got fired from a job he thought he was doing well at and another pastor was fired by the elders. I'm heading to jail tonight for a service with guys whose future is less-than-certain and bleak at best. From jail it's off to a retirement party for a faculty member we know at a very affluent home. It's all kind of weird.
My joy cannot become arrogant or insensitive. I dare not be flippant or cocky with those who enter my arena. This joy is more subdued, that I get to fly off to France for a paid vacation while others face unemployment. This is not my entitlement, but it is certainly sweet.

Sobriety = Truthfulness

I was talking with a guy today who is in the midst of a recovery process. He asked me if I knew the definition of sobriety. My immediate impulse was "yes", it's not ingesting those chemicals that enable addiction (alcohol, cocaine, heroin, ....). He said that the in-patient director used the phrase "sobriety is truthfulness: truthfulness with the group, sponsor, family, self, God" Boom! That's a powerful twist, away from the object onto the heart. If I am living truthfully, with no lies and secrets, is that sobriety?

Photos needing captions

"Yes, floor hockey on the basketball court will do damage!"
"See what happens when you have swing dancing with street shoes!"
"The finals tore up the court"
"Earthquake hits Montecito"

Nobody Does It Like Salem

It's a grey and foggy Monday after Pentecost. I received a dvd from the church I used to serve, Salem Covenant in New Brighton. It was the performance of Brahm's "Requiem" in German with two pianos, harp and tympani. This is a choir's choir. Under the direction of Bev Scripter, they worked several years on this monster and to listen to it is to be transported into another time and realm.
I guess the Salem community did not get the memo that choirs are out of sync and this kind of dedication is impossible. Nobody commits to the length of time and rehearsal discipline anymore. And in German? Are you kidding? Nobody will come and sit through several hours of this.
Yet the dvd shows a full sanctuary attentively grabbed by this magnificent sound. Blessings to you all!