God Talking or My Subconscious?

At my church this summer, we've been making our way through the book of Acts.  I've been noticing how those early Christians got their marching orders directly from God.  This past Sunday, I thought about how different their understanding would be from mine.

Our pastor talked about Paul having a dream where God spoke to him.  How different Paul's response would be from mine.  He talked to his compatriots, and together they determined the best course of action.

I, on the other hand, would wonder if it was God talking to me or my subconscious.  I would have to wrestle long and hard with that question if I had a dream where God told me to go somewhere I wanted to go anyway.

I remember one summer years ago, when it seemed possible that we might move away from Florida.  It had been a tough hurricane season followed by a tough job year as Goldman-Sachs bought the corporation that owns my school.  All the signs seemed to be telling us that it was time to go.

I was visiting my grandmother in South Carolina and also visiting friends along the way.  There seemed to be all sorts of opportunities in other places.

I was driving through the night, and I said, "O.K. God, if you want us to move to South Carolina, have a U2 song come on the radio in the next 3 songs."

Sure enough, a song or two later, I heard Bono's beautiful baritone.  A sign from God?  Or did I know that U2 was likely to play on that classic rock station, because the d.j. had said a U2 song was coming up, and so I set God up for the answer I wanted to get?

I am not as faithful as those early Christians.  I assumed it was my not-so-subconscious at work on me. 

Those early Christians probably didn't own hurricane damaged property in an imploding housing market.  It was easier for them to pick up and go where God told them to go.  That's what I tell myself when I'm trying to let myself off the hook.

Those early Christians also didn't have the knowledge of psychology that we have.  Does our knowledge of how our brains work (or don't work) make it easier to have a true relationship with God or harder?

Whole books could be written on that subject.  I will not be writing that book.  But I will continue to ponder these questions.  I will continue to wonder how I can differentiate God's voice from that of my own desires.

And here's an interesting possibility:  what if those two voices didn't have to be so different?

Why do I assume that my desires will be base and non-sacred?  What if God plants visions and dreams directly into my deep desires and yearnings?

Or, what if God can make use of me--hopes, dreams, desires, yearnings--in whatever soil I find myself planted?

Still, on some level, I do envy those early Christians, with their assurance that they were following the will of God, with their confidence that they knew exactly what God wanted them to do.

I would also point out that some of that assurance comes from their community.  The book of Acts is not a narrative of one person having a dream and heading out on a journey.  It's the story of a group of people who live in community and constant consultation.

Maybe that's what I really envy.  I have glimpses of that kind of community, but it's a fragmented vision.  I have to balance that community with my other obligations.  I envy those early Christians, who seemed to live their whole lives with a kind of balance that seems so hard to maintain.

Cosmology Questions on a Plane above the Continent

On our recent trip to California, we shared a row with an 8 year old girl.  Her family boarded late, and she sat beside us, with family members all around.  I was in the middle seat.  If it had been a shorter flight, I might have offered my seat to one of the family members.  But since it was such a long flight, from Fort Lauderdale to Las Vegas, I really wanted to be able to sit by my spouse, to lift up the armrest, to share our backpack.

We were flying Southwest, which doesn't have assigned seats, and every seat was taken.  But the 8 year old proved to be an easy person to sit beside.

She slept for the first part of the flight, as the landscape below us was green.  When she woke up, the shift had begun, from green to brown.  Much of our trip was over Texas, which was fairly dull.  We talked about the roads we saw or didn't see.  We wondered who lived down there.

As the landscape changed to a more rugged desert with canyons, with mountains in the distance, she turned to me at one point and said, "How did all of this get here?"

Oh, so many ways to answer that question.  I didn't leap immediately to God.  I talked about continental plates and the shifting which heaved up mountains and the seas which once covered the landscape and before that, the glaciers which carved so much of the continent, although not the part we flew over.

She said, "Yeah, but how did that get here?"

I said, "You mean, how were the planets formed?"

She nodded, and we talked about the big bang.  I said, "But the question that you still have is how that matter that exploded came into being."  She nodded again.  I said, "Nobody knows for sure.  Maybe it was always there.  Maybe God put it there."  She nodded again and changed the subject.

I thought about what a delicate balancing act it can be, to answer these questions in simple enough terms for an 8 year old, to talk about the beginnings of creation without denying the possibility of God, but also without denying the science of it all.

Of course, of all of us, 8 year olds are probably most capable of dealing with the paradoxical nature of these questions of cosmology.

My larger question:  how can we deny the beauty of this creation as we see it from afar?  And how can we not want to save it?

Sprouting Mustard Seeds

On Sunday, my pastor is away.  My spouse will preach a sermon my spouse has written.  I'll have the children's sermon.  A few weeks ago, I found a fairly cheap jar of mustard seeds.  So each child will get a baggy of mustard seeds.  We'll talk about the miraculous nature of plants:  from such a tiny pod, a big plant can grow.

My spouse has been tending some seedlings for several weeks.  They're not mustard plants, but they'll help with the message.

This week I decided it would be cool if we had something in between seed and seedling.  So I'm trying to sprout some of the mustard seeds.  I've spread some seeds between layers of damp paper towels.  We'll see what happens.  I may have waited until too late in the week.  It may not be possible to sprout seeds that one finds in the spice rack.

I plan to talk about Christians as seeds that can grow into sturdy plants.  I plan to talk about the things that support that growth.  We'll have seeds in a baggy--will they grow like that?  No.  They need soil, water, and sun.  I expect that thinking about how plants grow will be news to some of them, while some of them will have watched this process in family gardens.  I'm fairly sure that few of them will have been to a farm or any other large-size operation--there aren't many left in our area.

In the meantime, I'm feeling a bit of that feeling of wonder that comes from planting seeds.  I move my plate of damp paper towel layers from the table that gets a slant of the morning light to the shady counter because a website said that the mustard seeds won't sprout with very much direct light.  I wonder what's going on down there in those damp paper towels.  I feel a strange urge to sing to these seeds.

Yesterday as I moved the plate, I took a look out of my kitchen window.  I saw a backyard full of butterflies framed by my small window over the sink.  My spouse has planted all sort of butterfly attracting plants, so it's not quite the miracle it may sound.  Still, I saw several colors of butterflies, a yellow hibiscus plant, the blazing glory of the dwarf Poinciana tree, and some pale pink Bougainvillea flowers.  Breathtaking.

Or, as my friend's children used to exclaim, "Great show, God!"

Jesus and Miracles and the World

A month ago, I was going to the Lutheridge retreat to plan the Create in Me retreat.  For 2012, we're focused on Jesus and miracles as art and invitation.  So we spent some time reading the passages about miracles and discussing them.  Here are some things we noticed:

--More is possible than we humans imagine.

--The world is full of raw materials.

--The laws of physics (as humans understand them) don't constrain Jesus.

--Each miracle is individually tailored to the recipient.  For example, not every healing miracle is the same:  some times Jesus uses dirt, some times spit, some times touch, some times commands.

--Many of the miracles require the participation of the recipient:  seeking Jesus out at the very least, washing, . . .

--The miracles show the abundance in the world.

--my group was intrigued by Mark 8:  22-26.  This miracle needs fine tuning!  After Jesus' first attempt to heal the blind man, the blind man says that the people look like trees walking.  So Jesus tries again.

Divine Spit, Human Saliva

Over at my creativity blog, I wrote this piece about how spending time with my 5 year old nephew reminds me that we live in an abundant world.  I wrote:

"I wish you could have seen my nephew's joy when a huge leaf washed up beside him as a wave swept in. He pounded on it, and said "A leaf!" as if he'd found true treasure.


But, of course, he had found true treasure. I know that I've spent the first part of this week at Lutheridge, studying the miracles of Jesus as art form so my perspective is different right now. The life of Jesus and many other spiritual leaders teaches us that we have everything we need, if we had eyes to see it. There are too many times in my life I forget this basic principle."

I will write a longer post about the miracles of Jesus within the next few days.  But one thing that leapt out at me during our study was that Jesus used the materials at hand.  Jesus didn't say, "Drat.  We've only got bread and fish.  I was hoping for some olives and a lamb."  Jesus took what he had and what the crowds had and transformed them.

I'm also intrigued by the earthiness of the miracles.  So much can be done with spit!  Several thousand years later, we might protest, "But Jesus had divine spit." 

I would counter that Jesus came to show us how to live our human lives as fully as possible.  He came to show us what a human life could really be, if only we would live expansively.

Madeleine L'Engle addresses this point more eloquently, in her book,  Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art: “God is always calling on us to do the impossible. It helps me to remember that anything Jesus did during his life here on earth is something we should be able to do, too” (page 19).


Let those words sink into your Saturday consciousness and think about how we'd live life if we had no excuses.  Anything Jesus did, you can do.  Yes, that would include raising the dead--and raising ourselves from death.

Most of us have trouble with the literal version of this idea.  So, think metaphorically.  What death do you need to release you?  What grave cloths are holding you back and making you stink?  How can you reject this death and embrace resurrection?