( Image courtesy of David Hayward )
I am fast approaching birthday number fifty-eight, and it seemed over the last decade or more, a question kept surfacing on the monitor of my mind...almost like your hard drive telling you, that you are at the limits of your storage capability. It's time to dump some shit.
The older I get, it has come down to simplicity...in faith, and life. Someone recently told me I need to claim the the orthodoxy of the church. If I'm truly honest...I don't claim much. All the doctrine, dogma that I used to have stored, locked, secured safely in the recesses of mind I've deleted...dumped it in the recycle bin. It's not that I don't necessarily believe " some " of it, it's just in this new simplicity of faith...I do not need the heaviness of such things. I am reading more scripture, but, a lot less of "all "of it. It has become...focused.
I am consumed, captivated by the EXTRA-ordinariness of the gospels. I try to live in the gospels. In my comings and goings, I try and use them as a filter through which I look at life. If were honest, throughout our day there are endless redemptive possibilities. It is in the midst of the broken and shard pieces of everyday life...the marginalized on our inner city streets, the poor, sick friends and neighbours, friends struggling at work with the reality of life. We have endless possibilities to not only re-imagine life, but to change it.
I love that quote, " In a world passing through my fingers, I still chase the wind ." Such beauty, and profound wisdom. Don't be overwhelmed by the world, feel it's brokenness, but also try to see it's beauty. Try to see the God-like stuff in the midst of it. But most of all chase the wind...and most of all listen to the wind. Hear the gentle whisper of it's mysterious wisdom.
It's in the wind that the power of redemptive imagination lives...it moves, it gives life to words, it caresses with love. It was interesting on the street last Sunday with CARTS, I met Bill. He was living rough , someone had burnt his tent down along with most of his stuff. A less than polite way to tell someone to move, but it ensures they won't come back. He managed to get some camping gear and has found a new place to camp. He is disabled, and has a recently diagnosed brain tumour. So to say life is a struggle for Bill, is putting mildly. Living on welfare is the constant juggling of shelter, or food. The luxury of both never seems to be a reality. His ex wife is an alcoholic, living with another addict who has lost custody of Bill, and his ex's daughter. She is 2 1/2 and living in foster care in Victoria. Bill desperately wants to get custody, and hopefully move back to Saskatoon where is parents live and raise her in a family.
Myself, having two beautiful daughters, I can only imagine is anguish. We talked about hope...what he hoped for, and what God hoped for. The were hoping for the same things. There is the redemptive imagination, and the beauty. I said, " Bill, man...focus on that let that reality motivate you." " Let, that fuel how your going to live." Live in that hope until, it becomes real."
He showed me her picture " Kaylee ", she was precious. Bill's world is broken...but it is not hopeless. I believe in Jesus, the God-man of the Gospels who mysteriously moved into the neighborhood of humanity, and even more mysteriously exited humanity. But in his brief visit he showed us the Kingdom, the world re-imagined, tipped right-side up, and spinning in a whole new direction. And that redemptive imagination is filled to overflowing in the mysterious truth of the gospels. It is the abundant life humanity seeks today. It's not an exit strategy to give up on life now, throw in the towel, pack a bag and wait at bus stop for the mass evacuation to another world. It is life now, if we dare to re-imagine and live it.
We try so hard as Christians. We think such long thoughts, manipulate such long words, and both listen to and preach such long sermons. It really is the churchianity culture and the exclusive language that one must master to be " in." Each one of us somewhere, somehow, has known, if only for a moment or so, something of what it is to feel the " shattering love of God ", the whisper of the wind, and the invisible mysterious presence of the God-man. Once that has happened, we can never rest easy again for trying somehow to set that love forth not only in words, myriads of words, but into the life of the world around us.
In a world that passes through my fingers, I still chase the wind...and I believe in Love. The only thing I believe in now is Jesus, the God-man...his words, and life lived in the gospels. I don't comprehend it as a statement of belief. I only dare try to live it...because in it, is the redemptive imagination, truth and reality to change the world. I really believe that. In my simplicity of faith I left my baggage in the church...and am content to pursue the mystery of the God-man into the neighborhood he lived in.
