May God bless you with discomfort
at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships
so that you may live deep within your heart

May God bless you with anger
at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people
so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace

May God bless you with tears
to shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger and war
so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and
to turn their pain into joy

And may God bless you with enough foolishness
to believe that you can make a difference in the world
so that you can do what others claim cannot be done
to bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.
- A Franciscan Benediction

This morning I read an essay by Elizabeth Berg in which she shares her resolution for 2008: to read more. It’s a really great essay, and I commend it to you.

Interestingly, though, my resolution is to read less. Sort of.

If I can still do math, which is not to be taken for granted, over the past four years (2004-2007) I have read, on average, 61.25 books per year. That is 245 books over the course of 1461 days (’04 was a leap year), or one book every 5.9632653 days.

After consecutive 50-book years in ‘04 and ‘05, I decided that in ‘06 I would cut back and read 40. Instead I read 70. So take my new resolution with a grain of salt. But here is my plan.

A couple of days before the new year I composed on a yellow legal pad what I titled “Daunting Books for 2008.” On the list are about fifteen scary books that had sat on my shelf for years in some cases, daring me into reading them - books with lots of pages and really small print. Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky (704 pages), Paradise Lost by Milton (512), and Christopher Ricks’ Dylan’s Visions of Sin (528), for starters. Or, for example, the book I am currently plodding through: The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman (672).

C.S. Lewis once advised readers that for every contemporary book we read, we’d do well to also read a book by a dead guy, as a way of exposing our own blind spots. I think I could do a better job at that than I do. But I also wonder if Lewis, were he alive today in our increasingly globalized world, might expand that advice. Recognizing that as a Protestant white North American male I read a lot of books by Protestant white North American males, I’m also trying to be more intentional about reading books from people who might see things from a different vantage point, including an assassinated archbishop from El Salvador and an evangelist from Sri Lanka and others as I come across them.

Finally, I’ve decided to follow the Book of Common Prayer lectionary for my daily Bible readings, complimented by readings in the African Bible Commentary, featuring the insights of 70 African pastors and theologians.

I hope you’ll find a rich and rewarding literary journey of your own this year, and I hope we can learn from each other. It’ll be exciting to see the previously uncharted territory into which this year’s readings will lead.

I recently received a forwarded email asking me to write to the chairman of GAP and tell him I was angry that he had taken Christ out of Christmas completely in his clothing stores, and all but twice on the company website.

Rather, I wrote him to say that while as a follower of Jesus Christ I identify strongly with many of those who are inundating him with emails these days, I apparently differ from them in that I see no mention of shopping for cool clothes in the biblical account of Christmas. I told him it is my understanding that Jesus came for individual people and for communities and even for humankind as a whole, to love and serve and heal and teach and forgive sin and ultimately to die and rise again and in all of it to show us who God is. And I said I’m not sure God is losing sleep over the fact that fewer corporations are invoking Jesus’ name in order to boost sales this time of year.

I went on to suggest that Jesus’ life and teaching indicate that he is much more concerned with how a man runs his business – that as the boss he leads with integrity, that he honors decent, honest, hard work and that he values justice and equity for all involved, from sweatshops in Cambodia to cash registers in retail stores in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to leather chairs in corporate offices in San Francisco.

So I ask this: if we’re struggling to find Christ this Christmastime, is it possible that we’ve been looking in all the wrong places? Could it be that if Christ is to be found at all in the shopping mall, it’s not in the flashing neon sign overhead but in the wrinkled faces and watery eyes of those outside, in the cold, with the ringing bells?

Could it be that we – Christians , rather than evil secular executives – have long since taken Christ out of Christmas by hijacking this holiday (“holy day”) on behalf of commercialism and greed? And could it be that the way to put Christ back on the throne in our hearts is by taking seriously his teaching that whatever we do for the least of these among us, we have done to him?

If you’re inclined to answer yes to any of these questions, World Relief and Advent Conspiracy can give you practical ways to truly begin celebrating Christmas.

“We cannot do it alone. We need good allies such as you. We need … the faith community to help be a voice to the voiceless people. Your engagement can push governments to push through on their commitments. Do not underestimate your power. With faith and the will, we can make a difference.” - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, speaking to a group of evangelicals recently.

Full article here.

I recently had the chance to write an article on Beth Good, who heads up the AIDS response for Eastern Mennonite Missions. The article was published in The Mennonite.

Yesterday, as it happens, was World AIDS Day, marked by thousands of events around the world stressing the urgency of the situation.

I urge you to learn more about the AIDS pandemic here.

DOOR: Being an evangelist, you must have heard of the four spiritual laws?

BUECHNER: I can’t say that I have.

DOOR: And you call yourself an evangelist? Bill Bright would not be happy.

BUECHNER: Who is Bill Bright?

DOOR: Seriously? You have never heard of the founder and president of Campus Crusade, an evangelical organization committed to reaching the world by 1984? An organization in the process of raising one billion dollars to reach the world for Christ?

BUECHNER: He hasn’t reached me.

DOOR: Your religious books don’t seem very religious, which is a compliment, by the way.

BUECHNER: Well, I’ve never learned to talk about the Christian faith in the accustomed way. I’ve talked about it the only way I can. In some ways it has created a dilemma for me as a writer, because my religious books are too colloquial and too secular for church people, yet too churchy for secular people.

DOOR: So are you primarily a writer who happens to be a minister, or a minister who happens to be a writer?

BUECHNER: People sometimes say to me, “Why did you get out of the ministry?” I find that deeply upsetting, because I don’t, in any sense, think of myself as giving up the ministry. But I do think of writing as a ministry.

An excerpt from The Door interview with Frederick Buechner, by Mike Yaconelli. Read the complete interview here.

If you’re like me and have traveled very much at all, you’ve likely stumbled upon instances in time, generally between the stubborn language barrier and the annoyance of pushy tuk tuk drivers, when all that is right in the world coalesces for just a moment, and you’re left breathless, wide-eyed, dying to know if anyone else is noticing the magic. In these moments you experience - you taste - something of perfection.

Of course, while traveling you also experience moments of aching loneliness, if you’re anything like me, because those who wander off the beaten path in life must be prepared to go it alone, perhaps for only a season, we can hope, but alone nonetheless. In these times, more than anything, more than a million dollars, all you want is to all of a sudden find yourself in the company of those you love, who also remarkably love you.

Maybe it isn’t surprising that on journeys travelers experience both magic and loneliness, but it can be perplexing to discover that these moments are often one and the same. But one and the same they are, because when you happen upon something inherently and unequivocally good, something in you demands that it be shared with those you love.

Last year in October, I went to the beach in Cambodia by myself for the weekend. By night I slept in a simple bungalow with a bed and a bare light bulb, and by day I sat in the open-air beachside bar, reading, writing, staring out at the Gulf of Thailand, sipping on a banana and coconut milkshake. As Day said hello to Dusk, who then ushered Evening into our midst, the staff at the bar set candles out on the tables and my milkshake was replaced with white wine. I sat there in the beachside bar with the seabreeze swirling lightly around, sipping on my Chardonnay - surrounded by strangers from Europe and Australia I would never talk to, who would also never talk to me, along with the Asian waiters and waitresses who had lived all their days in this lazy beach town. In this moment, all was well; all was right. And yet there was the emptiness. It was the same emptiness I had felt in other magical places in other parts of the world. If only, I kept thinking, if only. This is too good. It shouldn’t be kept to myself.

But of course you don’t need to travel to know what I mean. God in his grace is always slipping bits of goodness into the tedium of our days and the darkness of our nights, and these graces are ours for the taking, for the enjoying, if we’ll only reach out and accept them, not as rights, but as undeserved gifts. And it’s not entirely uncommon, even among otherwise self-seeking creatures like you and I, to respond to the receiving of an undeserved gift not by hoarding or devouring but in some unexplainable way by turning around and extending to others an undeserved gift of their own, and to do so with next to no rational thought and yet with all the firm resolve in the world.

I don’t think it’s an accident that God has placed us in real places to live our lives among real people, just as I don’t think it’s an accident he slipped a bit of goodness into my life on the beach that night in Sihanoukville. And I certainly don’t think it’s an accident that he has slipped bits and pieces of goodness into your life here and there, amidst the tedium and chaos and darkness and distraction and unknowns of it all, and I’m guessing that these bits of goodness in your life have in all likelihood at least occasionally been accompanied by aches of loneliness, reminders that gifts are not to be enjoyed alone.

May we heed the reminders, friends. And as we delve deeper and deeper into the mutual enjoyment of these God-given bits of goodness, may we not forget those for whom these doses of goodness might at least appear to be fewer and farther between, for whom the communal enjoyment of God’s goodness is not yet a reality.

[a letter to friends, originally via email]

Like you, I normally cringe when someone sends me an email asking me to get on board with the latest cause or boycott. Then I hit delete and curse the day I gave out my email address in the first place. Rest assured, I promise not to become a mass forwarder of worthless emails, but I wanted to warn you up front that this particular message concerns a cause (though hopefully not a worthless one), and if your conscience prohibits you from reading further, I understand.

With that said, I have limited the recipients to those I feel would at least consider acting upon what follows. Those who know me (congrats, you qualify!) know I am particularly passionate about certain things I consider to be important, and one of those things is extreme poverty. I know it is probably annoying most of the time, and I certainly don’t enjoy being an annoyance, but I can say with a rare confidence that I’m with God on this one, and that should count for something. The Bible has more to say about how the rich treat the poor than it does about heaven and hell (though matters of both economy and eternal destiny are sometimes mentioned in the same passage), which leads us to believe that while our eternal destiny matters very much, poverty and justice are very important in the scheme of things here and now. And in a world where all too many of us are dying of obesity or drug addictions while vast numbers are at the same time dying for lack of food or water or access to basic life-saving drugs, common sense should force us to pay attention (even if, to be blunt, we have grown numb to certain passages in the Bible).

Doing something about extreme poverty is less about charity than it is about doing what is right and just. Good people disagree on what should be done, but we must all consider on a very personal, practical level what God requires of us: “To do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”

And while the goings on all around us every day remind us that we certainly can’t and shouldn’t count on the government to fix everything in the world, it seems to me that as dual citizens, both of the Kingdom of God (which lasts forever) and of the most powerful nation on earth (which lasts for a moment), we ought to speak up for those God is particularly concerned with – those considered “the least of these.”

It may strike you as way too early to be concerned about the next presidential election since it is still a year away, but as the candidates develop their platforms and tell us why we should vote for them, are they aware that in order to get our vote they’re going to have to let us know they are committed to using their position to fight for justice and to do what’s right? As a member of the ONE Campaign, I just sent a message urging the 2008 presidential candidates to go on the record and tell us exactly where they stand on extreme poverty and global disease, because to me, this issue is neither optional nor peripheral. If you deem it worthwhile, you can do likewise at the ONE: On The Record site.

Thanks for your consideration and your action.

A co-conspirator in the justice-doing, kindness-loving, humble God-follower movement,

Tim

I’m heading up a book discussion blog kind of thing called Inside Out People in conjunction with Student Ministries at Calvary Church. Believing that we are changed on the inside and that this ought to show on the outside, we are seeking to reach outside the walls of the church building and into our community in practical ways. I invite you to join us for our first book discussion as we read Good News and Good Works by Ron Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action. It is our hope that beyond reading and discussing we will begin living inside out lives for the glory of God and the good of others.

“Creed” by Steve Turner

This is the creed I have written on behalf of all us.

We believe in Marxfreudanddarwin
We believe everything is OK
as long as you don’t hurt anyone,
to the best of your definition of hurt,
and to the best of your knowledge.

We believe in sex before, during, and after marriage.
We believe in the therapy of sin.
We believe that adultery is fun.
We believe that sodomy is OK.
We believe that taboos are taboo.

We believe that everything is getting better
despite evidence to the contrary.
The evidence must be investigated
And you can prove anything with evidence.

We believe there’s something in
horoscopes, UFO’s and bent spoons;
Jesus was a good man
just like Buddha, Mohammed, and ourselves.
He was a good moral teacher
although we think His good morals were bad.

We believe that all religions are basically the same–
at least the one that we read was.
They all believe in love and goodness.
They only differ on matters of
creation, sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation.

We believe that after death comes the Nothing
Because when you ask the dead what happens they say nothing.
If death is not the end, if the dead have lied,
then it’s compulsory heaven for all
excepting perhaps Hitler, Stalin, and Genghis Khan.

We believe in Masters and Johnson.
What’s selected is average.
What’s average is normal.
What’s normal is good.

We believe in total disarmament.
We believe there are direct links between warfare and bloodshed.
Americans should beat their guns into tractors
and the Russians would be sure to follow.

We believe that man is essentially good.
It’s only his behavior that lets him down.
This is the fault of society.
Society is the fault of conditions.
Conditions are the fault of society.

We believe that each man must find the truth that is right for him.
Reality will adapt accordingly.
The universe will readjust.
History will alter.
We believe that there is no absolute truth
excepting the truth that there is no absolute truth.

We believe in the rejection of creeds,
and the flowering of individual thought.

“Chance” a post-script

If chance be the Father of all flesh,
disaster is his rainbow in the sky,
and when you hear

State of Emergency!
Sniper Kills Ten!
Troops on Rampage!
Whites go Looting!
Bomb Blasts School!

It is but the sound of man worshiping his maker.