A White Line in the Sea Grass

I fixed my crab traps last night, and decided to watch the tide rise today. It sounds just about as interesting as watching the grass grow, eh?

If my prison is this house, with its beige walls, wireless bars that chain me to everywhere at once, and walk-in closets of man-made junk, then my salvation comes to me through my backyard bay with its deep unmistakable fragrance, in the vehicle of an aluminum boat and a 5 HP motor. However, if my imprisonment consists of this empire, with its oppressive meta-narratives that have us purchasing lies that keep us subservient and docile, then watching the tide rise is radical enough to be part of my salvation.

I’ve been reading a lot. (Not being employed allows for that.) Writers that insist on something more, something different then what is, or has been in place. Thoughtful and articulate Christians who look at Scriptures, peer through history, at church and our lives, and fearlessly accuse us not only of complacency, but also of idolatry and heresy. Thinkers who do not think for an ivory tower’s sake, but for the sake of our wholeness and a complete Gospel. Farmer-turned-poets who write manifestos in a mad attempt to reignite our imprisoned and emaciated imaginations. Ascetics who, in their unique experiments, have attempted to know the fullness and presence of God through the still and silent whispers of solitude. Broken healers who embrace, and in the process are simultaneously broken and healed by their communities.

A friend and I recently engaged in a discussion on “being,” the idea that our doing can only be authentic if it proceeds from our being. He talked about how there is far too much striving and faking, of chasing after and appeasing false gods, no less idolatrous than ones made of wood or stone. One writer claims that we have become turncoats towards God’s Kingdom. Whereas we should be living the lordship of Christ and the reality of His Kingdom, we have wholeheartedly embraced and whored ourselves to the Empire instead. If this is true, who are we to be? Another claims that our conclusions of the world going to hell in a hand-basket is full of old pagan philosophies and tenuous misreadings of proof-texts. If this is also true, what then are we to do? Old desert fathers gave it all up to hear a Voice in the silence, and ended up fighting against bad theology (See Anthony the Great and Athanasius vs Arius). People today give it up to fight a dehumanizing consumerist theology that allows for blind complicity in worldwide abuse and slavery, and end up hearing a Voice in the stillness of what’s left.

Now is the time to be. Silent, aware, and in awe. “Be still, and know that I am God.” As I sat in a creek and watched the tide rise, I realized that simply reading about all of creation moaning for redemption isn’t quite the same as partaking in it, since it is not only we who worship the Creator, but all of His good creation who sing as co-worshippers with us. It is as different as merely reading about babies, and finally participating in the joy and birth of your own child (not that I would know the latter...). The solitude gave volume to the silence, filled with sounds we have lost the ability to hear. For a moment, I believed that if people would stop fearing silence, stop inundating their senses with noise, stop their repression of questions and doubts, to live life as it comes, with a simplicity dictated by need and not excess, there would be a much smaller market for psychologists.

There is something intangible to being still. Perhaps stillness allows us to listen, to both the discord in our own hearts, and to God’s response and assurance that His love is greater than our fear. Perhaps the stillness allows us to see the fluidity and beauty in His created order, as well as how abusive and oppressive our dealings are to that peace. And if adage “time is money” is a creed of the empire Jesus came to overthrow, then reclining in a boat, watching the wind and listening to the tide rise for no particular reason on a Wednesday afternoon may just be the first step in seceding from and subverting the powers and principalities.

For once, I marveled at how everything fit together so well. It’s like getting pulled out of the Matrix and freed from its pervasive illusions, but instead of finding the real world to be full of gunmetal grey, tasteless slop and burlap rags, it was right here, all along, and beautiful, if only we have eyes to see, ears to hear, and One who will make things clear if we are willing.

I have so much to learn and live. (I believe. Help my unbelief.)

By our love, by our love. Yes they'll know we are Christians...

When my buddy and I were in Everglades City, Florida, with nowhere to stay at 10:00 at night, we saw a sign of someone who gave swamp tours. He had also painted a Jesus fish next to his personal contact information. I, being the most shameless Chinese person I know, called his cell phone and told him that we were two students from a Christian college in Illinois and were wondering if he had a yard for us to pitch a tent and crash for the night. In his southern drawl, he asked, "Ya'll are Brothers right?" "Yessir we are." "Well then set up right near that sign." "Thank you very much sir."

Later that week, not having very much money to spend on food, we went to a church with pews full of people with white hair. We were the youngest there. They gushed hospitality and nearly forced us to stay for lunch afterwards (not that we resisted at all.)

"Someone told him, "Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you."

He [Jesus] 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." -Matt 12:47-50

With those words, Jesus redefined "family." Family was no longer limited to blood, clan, cultural, or national ties. "Family" transcended dividing borders, and in Matthew 10, in highlighting the radically offensive nature of the Gospel, lists allegiance to earthly family as a possible hindrance to taking up our cross.

On one hand, communication and access to travel has brought the world to our front door. But on the other hand, we seem to be trying harder than ever to remain isolated and insulate ourselves from the neighbors that have been brought to our front doors... or, have physically and spiritually inoculated our consciences with the readily available vaccines against our guilt and the Holy Spirit.

I love the story of the Rich Young Man. There is so much beef and umph in those verses. I love it (yet am secretly a little afraid) when Jesus says that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom, and Mark says, "The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, 'Who then can be saved?'" In their minds, wealth indicated God's approval and blessing. I can see them in their amazement; John nudging Peter whispering, "Wait, did he just say that?" and Peter responding, "Dude, I'm not sure..." Without missing a beat, Jesus surprises us again and says, "With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God." Yes, even a camel through the eye of the needle, says Jesus, is possible with God's grace.

Mark ends it by saying, "'I tell you the truth,' Jesus replied, 'no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.'"

In my selfishness, I wonder what it would look like to really treat others as family, to be truly generous, not just when I have a vested interest. I listened to my brother and his "me first" worldview today, dripping off of every sentence that came out of his mouth. (Granted, it was his birthday.) In my family in which the best has always been reserved for my brother and I, I wonder if I would be hearing a different way with words if we had lived a bigger vision of family.

Come and die, that you might live.

"Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." -John 12:24

So I am nearing the end of my walk through "Irresistible Revolution," though the real journey has just begun. I cannot, without counting the cost, follow in Shane Claiborne's footsteps. But I don't think he would call us all to follow his footsteps. He would call us to follow the Jesus he knows, who, without compromising, calls us to lay down our lives and pick up our crosses. If I concede that Shane's interpretations of certain parts of scripture are correct, then I too would be led to his conclusions. I think some of those conclusions warrant much further study, though we should be aware of our tendency to "prove" the status quo and explain away Truth. Every single issue he (scatterbrained-ly) brings up is worthy of our serious consideration as Christians. (If he spent more than a semester at Wheaton, I think he might have hung out with HNGR groupies :)

Whether or not one agrees with Shane's conclusions or manifestations of chasing after Jesus, I would whole-heartedly say that he is dead-on in his holy recklessness (in the eyes of the world) to live for Him. Read the book, if only for the reason of vicariously catching a glimpse of what it can mean to be alive (though there are plenty more).

The Lord will not all call us to live like Shane does (but don't let that be an excuse...). The Lord has called us to our own battles. The challenge is to recognize what the Lord calls us to, and to keep our grubby hands and crusty ideas from distorting it, and then to live it.

One thing I will echo John (and Shane) on... that we must die to live, and that this death just might look very different than what much of us are living right now....

I will not tiptoe my way towards death. Nor will I call the conventionally held measures of "life" and be content.

Love.

When I hear about the Spirit moving...

... I tear up.

I was sitting in the waiting area getting my overdue drivers license renewed, reading Shane Claiborne's Irresistible Revolution. Have you ever had to set down a book so that you could compose yourself before continuing onto the next paragraph? It doesn't happen often for me, but I was only in the third chapter when I had to do it, lest I start bawling at the NJ Department of Motor Vehicles waiting room. (Wouldn't be good for the license picture, ya know?)

Whether I agree with all his propositions or not is secondary. One cannot deny the punch in the gut that his words and experiences have. I'm not done with it, so I can't recommend it quite yet. But I have a feeling that I'll probably recommend it pretty soon.