On Taking Up Your Cross (Luke 9:10-27)

Zoe (a song)

Zoe is dancing again in the daylight
She comes to me lovely and full of delight
Skipping and spinning with all of her might
And she sets my heart free

Richer than milk, sweeter than honey
Stronger than wine, more precious than money
A blue sky divine all brilliant and sunny
She dances lovely

Life! Springing up from the ground
Like nothing that I've ever found
On this sweet earth
Joy! Filling my heart like wine
Now that I know that you're mine
I'm filled with mirth

Zoe is shinning again in the twilight
She's burning like starts in the darkness of night
She's casting off blindness and putting on new sight
To make my heart see

Flowing like water, burning like fire
Sent from the Father to lift me higher
Anointed with laughter, delight and desire
By Christ my master

Love! Bubbling up in my soul
Your mercy has made me whole
And gave me new birth
Zoe! flowing out like a spring
You teach my spirit to sing
TO sing your worth!

Zoe is running again in the rain
She is leaping and falling and rising again
She is there in the joy and there in the pain
The life Christ gave me

Richer than milk, sweeter than honey
Stronger than wine, more precious than money
A blue sky divine all brilliant and sunny
She dances lovely
Dances lovely
Dances lovely

Life! Springing up from the ground
Like nothing that I've ever found
On this sweet earth
Joy! Filling my heart like wine
Now that I know that you're mine
I'm filled with mirth

Love! Bubbling up in my soul
Your mercy has made me whole
And gave me new birth
Zoe! flowing out like a spring
You teach my spirit to sing
To sing your worth!

Singleness and the Church, Part I

Here’s a quick mental exercise for you.  If you are a church-goer, ask yourself: when was the last time I heard a sermon or Christian teaching on the topic of marriage, family, children, or sex?

Now ask yourself: when was the last time I heard a sermon or Christian teaching on the topic of singleness?

This purely speculation on my part, but I’m willing to bet that the former (teaching on marriage and family) was both more recent and more frequent than the later (teaching on singleness).  Christians have an unnoticed tendency, I think, to idealize, romanticize, and over-emphasize marriage, and ignore, under-emphasize or subtly denigrate singleness as a legitimate way to follow Jesus.   I don’t have a lot of hard data on this, but my gut and my experience tells me it’s so (hence the quick mental exercise at the start of this post).

I wonder a lot about what impact this idealization of marriage has on single people in the church.  I wonder this in part because it is, in fact, quite unbiblical. The Bible actually puts singleness on even par with marriage as a very good way to follow Jesus, and, if anything, portrays marriage as a concession for those who can’t walk the walk when it comes to singleness. (But that’s gonna have to be a post for another day.) More importantly, I wonder about the impact of our emphasis on marriage, because on a spiritual level it seems like a bit of a double standard, to tell unmarried people that they ought to walk a path of celibacy, on the one hand, but offer them none of the spiritual support and recognition in the church that married people get.

Whether or not I’m on to anything here, all the signs in Canadian society suggest that this issue—how does the church relate to, make space for, and spiritual care for the singles in its community—is going to become increasingly relevant in the coming years. In a 2005 study of Canadian social trends, Susan Crompton suggests that Canadian singles, what she calls the “won’t marry’s,” represent a “small but distinct” segment of Canadian society who face a whole slew of unique social pressures related directly to their single status.  Statistically, wont-marrys have fewer socio-economic opportunities, have a higher likelihood of not entering the work-force, and tend to have a median income 16% lower than that of “will-marrys” (Crompton, “Always the Bridesmaid: People Who Don’t Expect to Marry,” Canadian Social Trends, 77, Summer 2005).

These pressures are likely to sharpen and intensify as more and more Canadians opt to remain single. A 2011 Stats Canada study, for instance, found that the percentage of single Canadians has increased from 39$ in 1981 to 54% in 2011.  Most notably, this study found that for the first time ever there were more people living alone in Canada than there were couples with children.

The Canadian dream of a spouse and a house and white-picket fence enclosing a yard where 2.5 kids gleefully play the day away seems to be evaporating.  And as it does, I wonder if the Church realizes that in the gospel, which clearly affirms singleness as a good way to follow the Lord, we have all kinds of spiritual resources to minister well to this growing segment of the population.

My gut tells me it does not realize this.  Partly because of the results I get when I conduct the aforementioned mental exercise (and I'm the preacher in my church!), but more because when I look around the Church in general, I see all the highlighter ink getting used up emphasizing the ministries we do for kids, families, and marriages, and very little of it getting spent on highlighting the special issues and unique opportunities that single Christians face as disciples of the Lord.

I offer this mostly as a word of encouragement today to any of the single Christians who stop in at terra incognita from time to time to peruse some of my thoughts on God, life, faith, love, words, and spirituality.

But I also offer it by way of a preamble to the series I’m starting this month here at my blog.  For the next few weeks, I’m planning to use this space to explore some biblical, theological, pastoral and practical issues related to being a single Christian in Canada. I’ll be travelling this road as a foreign pilgrim, of course.  I married young (20 years old) and have been happily married for going on 25 years now, so I speak humbly and from inexperience on this matter.  But still, I am a pastor, and I care very much that all God’s children should find their place in the life of the church, whether they are married or not.  It is a place of joy, freedom, service, and worship for all, and if the church has been subtly (or not-so-subtly) communicating that you can only find it well if you’re married, than I believe it’s something we ought to repent of, and learn to do better at.

On Miracles and Obedience (Luke 9:10-17)

The Windhover (a song, for Gerard Manley Hopkins)

I caught this morning's morning minmion
Kingdom of daylight's dawn-drawn falcon
Riding on the whippling of the wind

High there how he rung the wind reign
My heart in hiding stirred with wond'ring
The ecstasy, the mastery of the thing

I want to soar, to soar, to soar with you!
To soar, to soar, to soar with you!

Brute beauty, valor, act here buckle
Oh, air and pride and plume a thousand
Times more dangerous, my chevalier

But the fire that breaks from thee, a billion
Times more pure flash gold vermillion
O Christ, my Lord in wonder I will say:

I want to soar, to soar, to soar with you!
To soar, to soar, to soar with you!

I caught this morning's morning minmion
Kingdom of daylight's dawn-drawn falcon
Riding on the whippling of the wind

But the beauty that breaks from thee, a billion
Times more pure flash gold vermillion
O Christ, my Lord in wonder I will say:

I want to soar, to soar, to soar with you!
To soar, to soar, to soar with you!

Ash Wednesday (a poem)

And is this what all my best efforts—
My highest aspirations
And meager achievements,
The joys and sorrows and stops and starts,
The world-building and storytelling
And dreaming of dreams
And befriending of friends
The words, words, words
(flying out like endless rain into a paper cup)—
Is this what it all
Amounts to in the end:
A smudge of dust and ash
Smeared across the brow,
Teaching everyone who looks at me
To number well my days?

May it be so.
And if so, may that ash be
Fragrant with great delight
And shadowed with the darkest of loves
Smouldering with profound hope
And set just so, on the skin, above the eyes
To accentuate the twinkle of the iris.

May it be so,
And may I wear it well until I hear Him
Call my name at last.

Women in the Ministry of Jesus (Luke 8:1-3)

First Song (a poem)

Speak to me softly with voices ancestral,
     Whisper tongues ancient and dripping in mead:
The smoke-pop, and sap-hiss of hall hearth your hymnal--
     Shield clash and lute wind and snorting of steed.

Unlayer the dank earth of archetypal digging:
     Marsh mist and peat moss and thyme-mottled wolds
Chant drumlins of darkness, shift dolems in singing
     And wend with the oak-root through Earth's clinging folds.

Or flutter a whisper by ancestral moon-light
     With air-tremor, wing-shudder, heron ascends
The soul-mousing owl and thrush-knock and rook-flight,
     From distant horizons the merlin descends.

And older than all, the seeping of water:
     The scarring deep fissures through granite of time.
The wave pound, the rain-tap, a well spring of wonder
     The hoar weight in winter, a burden of rime.

So come: with the rhythms of three-in-one dancing
     To earth-songs, and star-hymns, laments of the sea.
With trees clapping hands and hearts rising on eagle-wing,
     Carry me there to the hall of the First King,
Who chants me the lay of the hill, cup and tree--
     A very First Song for our very first mem’ry:
To hear it and know it and join it and sing.

3 Minute Theology 5.3: Prayer and the Mediation of Christ

The Little Lighthouse, a Parable

(My retelling of a traditional story I heard many years ago.)

Once upon a time there was a lonely little lighthouse, set on the edge of a rock at the lip of the sea.

This was a dangerous part of the sea, with many storms and huge waves, and it was very common for ships to get blown off course and crash against the rocks.

The lighthouse was small. It was really just a hut with a tiny light on top. It only had one little life boat and a small crew of just a few men and women. But that didn’t matter, because this small lighthouse crew kept constant watch over the sea. With no thought for themselves, they went out day and night, tirelessly searching for people who’d been lost in shipwrecks on the coast.

They were so good at saving lives, in fact, that soon the lighthouse became famous. Some of the people that the lighthouse had saved were so thankful that they joined the lighthouse crew themselves. Others heard about the good work it was doing, and started to support it with their time and money.

One rich man who had a passion for sailing bought some brand-new life boats for the crew, to replace the little dinghy it had been using. Another man, who knew all about sailing, started offering yatching lessons, so that people would know how to use their fancy new boats.

Slowly the little lighthouse grew.

Some of the members were unhappy with the crude little lighthouse hut. They felt that people who were rescued should have a more comfortable place to rest in while they were recovering from the shipwreck.

So they enlarged the building, and added nicer furniture.

Some members felt like there should be something to do when they weren’t out rescuing people, so they decided to add a tennis court. Others felt achy and chilly when they came in from rescue missions, so they decided to add a hot tub. Still others wanted their children to enjoy being there, too, so they added a playground.

Soon people from the town started coming out for visits to the lighthouse, on holidays and days-off. It was, after all, a very beautiful spot, with its yatching club and tennis courts, all overlooking the sea like that.

The lighthouse crew was so busy tending to these visitors, that they didn’t have time for many rescue missions anymore, so they hired some full time rescue crews. Someone even paid for them to get fancy “Little Lighthouse Rescue Team” uniforms.

One day a very large ship was wrecked, not far from the little lighthouse. The hired hands went out and brought in boatloads of cold, wet, and half-drowned people.

They were very ragged looking.

Some of them were sick.

The beautiful little lighthouse was considerably messed up, and the regularly scheduled activities were all disrupted as everyone tried to find room for the newcomers.

At the next meeting of the Little Lighthouse Management Board, there was a long discussion. “What should we do about all these shipwrecked castaways?“ they wondered.

“They put muddy footprints in the lobby!” said the Head of Lighthouse Décor.

“They’ve thrown the tennis schedule all out of whack!” said the Program Director.

“They’re crowding out the playground!” said the Facilities Manager.

“I think we should get out of the rescuing business altogether,” called out someone from the back.

As the discussion got heated, one small voice in the corner tried to speak up. “I though we were a lighthouse,” she said. “Isn’t rescuing people from shipwrecks what we’re here for?”

But she was completely voted down. “Saving people is important,” agreed the President of the Little Lighthouse Yatching Club, after the vote. “But if that’s what you want to do, maybe you should start your own lighthouse further down the coast. We’ll even donate some money to help you get it started.”

After the meeting, a small group did try to set up another lighthouse, but before long, the very same thing happened there as what happened at the Little Lighthouse.

In fact, if you visit the seacoast today, you will find a good number of exclusive Little Lighthouse Clubs along the shore. Shipwrecks are still very frequent in those waters, but now, most of the people simply drown.