Ron Cole : off the map...navigating life.

Bill Dahl...mythic storyteller rekindles the human imagination

" When civilizations start to die they go insane. Let the ice sheets in the Arctic melt. Let the temperatures rise. Let the air, soil and water be poisoned. Let the forests die. Let the seas be emptied of life. Let one useless war after another be waged. Let the masses be thrust into extreme poverty and left without jobs while the elites, drunk on hedonism, accumulate vast fortunes through exploitation, speculation, fraud and theft. Reality, at the end, gets unplugged. We live in an age when news consists of Snooki’s pregnancy, Hulk Hogan’s sex tape and Kim Kardashian’s denial that she is the naked woman cooking eggs in a photo circulating on the Internet. Politicians, including presidents, appear on late night comedy shows to do gags and they campaign on issues such as creating a moon colony. “At times when the page is turning,” Louis-Ferdinand Celine wrote in “Castle to Castle,” “when History brings all the nuts together, opens its Epic Dance Halls! hats and heads in the whirlwind! Panties overboard!" ( Chris Hedges: Welcome to the Asylum 2012 )

We live in an age of immense knowledge yet we seem to live in the moment of absurd reality. We are content with fantasy to create the illusion everything is OK.  More from Chris Hedges in Empire of Illusion, “Most of us speak at this level, are entertained and think at this level. We have transformed our culture into a vast replica of Pinocchio’s Pleasure Island, where boys were lured with the promise of no school and endless fun. They were all, however, turned into donkeys — a symbol, in Italian culture, of ignorance and stupidity.”

It was Einstein that said, " “I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” We are living in the midst of a global crisis and somehow we are able to play in the sandbox of humanity, as the world around us falls apart. We have erected our building blocks of knowledge that teeter precariously as the earth quakes around us. Who will awaken us? Who will re-boot the human imagination to move forward?

Will it be science? Will it be religion? Will it be politics? I believe it will profound imaginative storytellers. People who can capture the human imagination to see clearly the seriousness of the moment. But rather than drown people in despair these storytellers will kindle a fire of " hope " that will engage, attract people to see and talk about new possibilities.

 

Bill Dahl is one of those unique engaging storytellers. I had the wonderful opportunity to read a draft of Bill's " untitled " soon to be published book, likely in November 2012. It was funny talking with Bill after reading the draft, which was loosely titled, but as we talked there were two very mysterious objects that weave their way through out the story. They may in the end, shape the book's title.

This is one of those books that pulls you in from the start. It is fascinating how Bill shapes the characters in the book. From seemingly distant and isolated locations within the global village, the characters are moulded and hued from life's circumstances. Huntley a research ecologist in the amazon jungle haunted by his past, frozen in the moment by the sense of failure, he finds condolence in a bottle.

Amos who tragically finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time is left blind. Mysteriously as the story unwinds the characters emerge and find their relationships are deeper and more profound than any of them imagined.

It is a story of global and human consequences. It will make you think deeply of where we find ourselves to day in the midst of capitalism run wild, in the midst of global warming and as we continue to rape mother earth for her resources. Bill paints a picture of the future that is like having ice water thrown in a drunk man's face. It should sober us to our core, it should send a shiver down our spine.

It is an earth in which the gas tank is empty, immense solar panels drift around the skyline casting long ominous shadows in our lives. Extinction becomes more real than ever. Reproduction will produce no more. Eco terrorism is a constant threat.

Bill Dahl, makes us confront " now." We can no longer ignore truth, the facts that stare us in the eye. But Bill talks as a wise sage, a storyteller and prophet. This is story that is profoundly human. It should engage us " all " beyond religion, and beyond race. This is an urgent story about life.

In the epilogue of the book Bill says this...

" Clearly, an essential part of the answer involves the terms we use in the stories we tell ourselves; new narratives about this place; our earth, this time - the generations currently inhabiting this planet; this species - mankind. Our challenges - the inertia and magnitude of threats to the survival of our species, and the sensitive environmental balances we as caretakers are responsible to nurture, defend and protect. Our hearts  - the capacity to compassionately come together. Our minds - the belief that we may honor our differences and come to believe that we must and can collaborate in ways that currently challenges demand. Our feet and hands - to mobilize coordinated action with other, arm-in-arm dedicated to the creation of a constructive force for the common good. A force that is woefully insufficient; mired in the mayhem that " me and mine " manufacture; marginalizing the impetus that " us " so desperately demands."

Consider the possibility, the distinct possibility - that sometime has evolved into the reality if sum time - the moment that time has selected our current generations to live today as the one. We are the body that must come to a new appreciation for this thing we refer to as human civilization. Could we be living in the place in time where the choices we make regarding what, how and way possess unalterable consequences for the survival of a myriad of species - including our own? Perhaps as Reinhold Niebuhr has observed, a shared sense of faith and hope can be laid hold of by the innumerable flavors of believer and non, whereby we harness the brutal reality of " a sense of life - by virtue of which man does not destroy himself, but lives on.."

This book has everything; tragic broken lives redeemed; the profound interconnectedness of humanity and all creation; mystery; good and evil; terrorism; science; futuristic; humour; faith; suspense...and filled with hope.

This book captured me from the start, the urgency, the suspense, and Bill's incredible storytelling created a gravity that wouldn't let go of me. I told Bill, when I put the draft down and looked out the family room window into the woods, everything looked different...profoundly different with a clarity I had not seen in a long time.

Great storytellers have a way of capturing mind and heart. Thank you Bill Dahl for awakening that human spirit...may we all set it free, and let it fly.

A Jesus to worship...but to Godly to imitate

The cross must be raised again at the center of the marketplace as well as on the steeple of the church. I am claiming that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves; on the town garbage heap, at a crossroads so cosmopolitan they had to write His title in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. At the kind of place where cynics talk smut, and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble, because that is where He died and that is what he died about and that is where christians ought to be and what christianity should be about. 

- George McLeod ( founder of Iona Community 1938 )

 A mysterious star navigates through the dark space of infinity, through the star fields that God told Abraham would be as numerous as his descendants. It stops on the fringe of humanity and it illuminates the spot where God will become one of us, taking on flesh and bones. I am always captured by the profound reality in the gospels that Jesus the God man is birthed on the periphery of humanity and religion and dies in the same place...abandoned by religion and humanity. Even in the gospel of John when the writer pens that he pitched his tent in the midst of humanity, into our neighborhood...Jesus lives on the margins.

It is easy when your stuck in the " church bubble " to forget what Jesus was all about. We have been indoctrinated to believe that Jesus is all about personal salvation, he died to forgive your sins, guaranteeing a ticket in your hand for flight and accommodation in that eternal retirement home called heaven.

We forget that Jesus was the culmination of the prophetic voices that still echo along the corridor of history. Like resonating sound waves that join in unison and finally collide with Jesus he speaks with crystal clear passion about one thing...the Kingdom of God, and his passion for justice.

We need pause, to be still and listen deeply to the prophets. They speak about God's passion, and Jesus is the fullfilment of the passion.

"The Lord is exalted", proclaims Isaiah. " He dwells on high; he filled Zion with justice and righteousness." ( 33:5 )

" I am the Lord " announces Jeremiah in the name of God. " I act with steadfast love, justice and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight." ( 9:24 ) 

Again Isaiah, " Is such the fast I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and lie is a sack cloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord? Is not this fast that I choose; to break the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? ( 58:5-7 )

From Micah, " He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. ( 6:6-8 )

Lastly from Amos, " I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. ( 5:21-24 )

 We forget Jesus the God-man lived on the margins of humanity. He lived amidst its poverty, its injustice, its oppression, its sickness and its sin. He lived so deeply in the midst of the human wreckage that the Pharisees could not really tell him apart of the sinners. As profoundly strange as it sounds he was one of them. We as christians have a real problem with a fully human Jesus, it's extremely uncomfortable to wrestle with that reality. We like a Jesus that is 90% God and about 10% human. That is a far more comfortable Jesus. We keep our distance from that kind of Jesus. We can worship that Jesus without having to imitate his life, and live out and reenact his profound mysterious parables.  

We have pulled Jesus out of the world, out of the stench, out the filth and brokenness of humanity and put him under house arrest in the church building convincing ourselves that Jesus is far more concerned about the sterile vacuum of a sacred holy space. Do we imagine him wandering around a church that stands empty most week days eagerly waiting for Sunday morning when he can inhabit the praises of "his" people?

And when did this Jesus of the gospels all of a sudden aquire an appetite for worship music to appease him, and keep him happy?The prophets seemed quite clear on the type of worship God desired and music didn't seem to make the cut. Jesus profoundly seems to inhabit a more worldy, a more human...a more secular worship space.

   I was hungry and you fed me,
   I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
   I was homeless and you gave me a room,
   I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
   I was sick and you stopped to visit,
   I was in prison and you came to me.'

 "Then those 'sheep' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?' Then the King will say, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me." ( Eugene Peterson's The Message; Matthew 25 )

We come to the profound conclusion that we worship Jesus in the face of broken humanity, not before the altar of the temple.

As christians we are very good at compartmentalizing life and people. We draw lines all through life, barriers, the boundaries of sacred and secular. We draw circles around people, groups of people...we have insiders and outsiders. Life in the context of the profound mysterious reality of Jesus is seen different way.

He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he's there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross. ( Eugene Petersons The Message; Colossians 1 )

Jesus is the intermolecular force, the gravity that holds all reality together, sacred and secular. Despite how tarnished, filthy, broken and cracked the human image was, Jesus could always see past it...and see the image of God hidden in everyone.

I want to encourage people to really think, reflect deeply on that reality...of finding Jesus in the midst of life. When I hear people say, " I wish we had a space where we could sing christian songs, worship songs." Or, " I can't sing those songs because there not christian." It saddens me deeply.

We forget in the gospels Jesus wasn't speaking christians. He didn't speak christianeze, theological garble when to talked to people. He used a mysterious language, of parable that captured the imagination of humanity. People had to wrestle with them, moving them into a liminal space where they saw God and humanity differently. Often it wasn't the obvious black and white, it was more color that spilled out over the lines...it was more mystery as truth. It gave people a glimpse of a new world, of abundant life. It left people in awe.

I think of how often I listen to music today, so called " secular music " and a line of lyrics will awaken me like a flash of light.  And at the same time the neurons in my brain begin to spark, and the harddrive in my mind begins to whirl...and I think. You could almost say it's an " epiphany."

1. a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something; 2. an intuitive grasp of reality through something; 3. an illuminating discovery; 4. a revealing scene or moment; 5. an appearance or manifestation, especially of a divine being.

 

03 God Put A Smile Upon Your Face

Is it only in christian music, worship music that this can happen? I don't think so. There is so much good music out there, with profound, mysterious spirit-filled lyrics...deeply human and divine. We just need to have the same redemptive imagination as Jesus and engage people in conversation. Draw them into that mysterious place where the Psalmist proclaims. " deep calls to deep ", where spirit talks to spirit.

 

 

 As long as the church retreats, stays in the building, reinforcing and protecting itself, our culture will never experience an epiphany. 

Over the last few decades, the church has been pushed further and further onto the periphery of culture. Or in many instances, the church has retreated to the comfortable confines of its Christian subculture. So we are inside our churches looking out, but we really find ourselves on the outside looking in. God is calling the church out of the church and back into the midst of humanity that Jesus lived " in."