Abi Ponders Perichoretic cHesed...again!

My new Facebook friend, James Paul, asks great questions. I am wanting to learn to ask better questions myself so I appreciate hanging out with him on FB...this was the question he asked:

Flat Hierarchy

Are flat hierarchies tenable in the real world? The Superbowl XLVIII Champion Seattle Seahawks think so ... Danny O'Neil, Mike Salk and Dave Grosby discuss the outlier relationship between coach Pete Carroll and GM John Schneider. What are your thoughts regarding top-down vs. flat models of power distribution? Is consensus building worthwhile? What, if any, are the implications for the church? Leave a comment - let's have a conversation!

After reading through a number of comments about mutuality and consensus building and collaboration, I chimed in with this:

Organizational Management is my corner, in degree and work experience. One of the most powerful experiences I had was during a management workshop, where we were divided up into group of four or five and given a list of 100 tasks that must be done to start an organization. We each had to work alone to put them in order -- what came first, etc., all the way to what was the last thing you go. It took a bit of time to get your head around all 100 items and think through the process.

After everyone was finished, the group was tasked with negotiating a group order. The kicker was that everyone had to agree. No one could sit out and no one could give in. Everyone had to share why they picked the order they did and be convinced that they were wrong or convince others that they were wrong in order to come to a true consensus of which steps should be taken in which order.

Then, once that process was finished -- which took about twice as long as our personal ones -- we were given the "correct" order. We "graded" our individual efforts and then our "collaborated" effort. The results were striking.

The group got 95 out of 100 in the correct order. I got 95 out of 100 in the correct order. The interesting thing was looking at the precise ones each missed.

The five choices I made that were wrong were catastrophic. Like, what I put at 45 should have been at 3 and so on. They would have been difficult to recover from. It's not always how much you get right, but the nature of what you get wrong, eh?

Well, the group's five errors were all just one place off. Like 4 and 5 were transposed, or 33 and 32, or 73 and 74. None of those were even remotely catastrophic. It took the group to see where my five were so far off (and I had the best stats of the group) and negotiate together to see why a different order was better. We had one quiet person -- with great intuition but not much confidence -- that we had to remind many times not to cave to peer pressure...and it was this person's ability to articulate why they thought the way they did -- and the requirement that the rest of us HAD to listen and consider -- that brought us to the better decision almost every time.

That's a long example, but it has been a powerful lessons to me, almost 24 years later.

When Jesus, Creator and Sustainer of ALL, chose to be first among equals, it was the most important (and regularly the least recognized) example he set.

And he is still to be first. He is the source, the head, the initiator...but he includes us in each step of the process. He leads...so that we can follow and exercise all our gifts together. If we don't follow, he doesn't fire us or punish us or have a tantrum of blame and guilt. Because, in the end, he knows that it is our participation that is the real point.

This is the reality of perichoretic hesed -- the interpenetration of selves with one will, without loss of self, that moves with gracious loving-kindness for the best interest of the other...this is the Great Dance of the Triune God into which Jesus has brought us through his life, death, resurrection and ascension.

Jesus said we are to call no man "Father", because we have one Father in Heaven -- so the prestige and iron rule of patriarchy was set aside.

Jesus said we are not to be called "Teacher" or "Lord", because he is both Lord and Teacher ... and after his ascension, he sent the Spirit to continue educating the human race concerning our adoption as joint heirs with Jesus. [It is a long process, because we are not always apt students, eh?]

Jesus said we are not to lord it over one another. We are to participate in the Perichoretic cHesed of God, so that we might see each other in that same light and learn to dance in that same manner together in all our dealings.

It is breath-takingly simple, but also the most difficult of things to do, because it seems so counter-intuitive to those who have come to rely on experts to tell them what to do, instead of using their gifts and brains and hands and feet and hearts to see and hear with the Spirit is teaching them...so that they might be able to share it with the rest of The Body of Christ.

It's simple. But it's not easy...at least not at the start. Not until you have experienced your own five single-point failures, and have learned about your own blind spots, and have embraced with your whole heart that every person has an important perspective to contribute...but Jesus, with the Spirit, is the quiet voice of the Truth that we must train our eyes to see and our ears to hear and our heart to resonate with and follow.

James asked where he might read more about Perichoretic cHesed...so this is what I said:

I started thinking about perichoresis from the early days of Scot McKnight's Jesus Creed blog, back in early 2007. There were pieces of it floating around in my mind, but always just out of focus. I played with it, but just had to wait. The number of times I blogged about "I'm getting ready to blog about perichoresis" is pretty funny.

My long study of cHesed took an interesting turn in June of 2009, when I met Wayne Jacobsen at a weekend retreat for my small house church...and we talked about cHesed a bit and he said I had the order wrong...that cHesed is not something we do, it is something that we receive from God. My whole world began to spin as I pondered how I had managed to miss that we are to live loved by God first and foremost before we can ever respond to that love appropriately -- either to Love God or to Love Others.

Then, I had been introduced to C. Baxter Kruger and his Perichoresis organization, but it was not the right time yet...until his book, The Shack Revisited, came out in the Fall of 2012. It was then that the other shoe began to drop -- both for getting perichoresis to focus in my mind, and for cHesed to be married to it. I had not seen, previously, that they are interconnected.

That's when I coined the term Perichoretic cHesed as the reality of the Triune God, into which Jesus has brought all of creation through the Incarnation of the Father's Eternal Son.

It is as though Perichoresis is the Music of the Great Dance (as it has been often called, and Baxter has a book called The Great Dance), whereas cHesed is the steps of the Dance itself. The melody calls forth the footwork, as it were.
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So, there it is...the work on sharing Perichoretic cHesed begins in earnest.  I ran it past my Hebrew scholar cousin the other day and he thought it was on track. Not that I need approval, but it is nice to have every once in a while.

Of course, none of this will be new to those of you who have been hanging out in my wee purple corner of the interwebs, but I wanted to share the conversation with you.

Slowly but surely the concepts are beginning to gel well enough to be able to talk about them in a free-flowing manner.  This is good. It means it is making itself at home in my heart and mind.

Enough for today...off to do neurological exercises....

Be blessed!

Abi

Abi and May's Synchroblog..."What the hell?"

Update 6/10/14 -- interesting chart over at Jesus Creed.  Why am I not surprised that I don't seem to fit any of the options?

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Update 4/25/14 -- added another blogger at the bottom...

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This post of part of May's Synchroblog.  Please see the listing of other bloggers at the bottom of this post, and take the time to read the variety of responses with as much openness as your heart and mind will allow.  

I encourage you to follow J.R.R. Tolkien's advise and "suspend disbelief" long enough to enter into the narrative and let the Spirit speak--either to confirm what you have come to suspect (but thought you were the only one) or to challenge your own belief in what you have been taught.

If there were ever a time to be Berean, it would be for such a time at this!

Be blessed....

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As with just about everything else, my ideas about wrath and hell have changed significantly over the past five years. It has been a slow and confusing process of looking at things that I hadn't really thought about--just taken them for granted as they had been taught.

When one's foundational ideas shift, the whole house shifts....

So I need to start with wrath as an aspect of love. I started thinking about this after reading The Shack and meeting Wayne Jacobsen. There was plenty to ponder about in these conversations...and ponder I did.

But there was something that just wasn't setting right...and it wouldn't be until I finally took the time to read and listen to C. Baxter Kruger that things began to fall into place in a way that really helped my ideas about wrath and hell shift. I started sharing that shift in the April Synchroblog. A shift that I have begun to talk about as Perichoretic cHesed.

Perichoretic cHesed is all about the very nature of God as Father, Son and Spirit. But that nature has been clouded by an infiltration of pagan Greek philosophy by some of the most influential church fathers--like St. Augustine and Martin Luther.

Baxter Kruger has done a tremendous job of documenting this subtle infiltration--and I'm so very grateful to him! In a nutshell it comes down to this:

• A Deistic GOD which is basically solitary, distant, impersonal, disappointed and angry--among other things--is mostly a reflection of Greek ideas about god. Those ideas made a lot of sense to people steeped in the Greco-Roman culture of Western Civilization. But those ideas appeal to the fallen mind...and that is problematic. A solitary God does not love by nature. 
• A Trinitarian God which exists in the loving relationship of the Father and the Son in the Spirit, that I have come to describe as Perichoretic cHesed, is consistent with the realities of the Hebraic culture of covenant that God developed as part of what Baxter calls "the womb of the Incarnation." This Triune God loves by nature.

And this is where all the troubles arise....

When God does not love by nature and is cast in the most of humanity's fallen mind, we're going to get an angry judge, offended and looking to punish sinners.  Jonathan Edwards did an unfortunately great job describing that God.... It is this God of wrath who condemns sinners to a Hell of eternal punishment and torment, as Dante's Inferno popularized.

But what if that God is not what God is really like?

What if God, dwelling eternally as Father, Son and Spirit, are a community of self-giving and other-centered love that always looks out for the best interest of the other? What if they planned, from before they even created, to include their creation in their relationship of Perichoretic cHesed? What if that is what Jesus took on human flesh to accomplish--our adoption? What if the task of the Spirit, for all these centuries, has been one of educating the human race concerning their inclusive adoption into the very Family of God? And what is part of that education is the pruning away of ideas and habits that hurt and destroy us and keep us from living in the truth of who we are in Jesus? What if the things we have build in this world have been made from wood or straw or stubble rather than gold and silver and precious stones...and when the fires of trials in this world burn up that which is flammable?

What if the fires of hell are not ones of eternal torment and punishment but rather are ones of purification and restoration? (HT: Wm. Paul Young and C. Baxter Kruger)

What if hell is what we experience when we separate ourselves from the love of God...and the fires around us are a way of herding us back to the Shepherd?

Hour #33, starting in minute 43:35, in Baxter's "Big Picture" series of lectures gets to this definition of hell:  "...it is the form of human existence that takes shape in wrong-headed believing...it takes shape in the "I am not".  It is false religion. It's the misery of your own soul because of what you believed under the lie and harassment of the Evil One. And that can be extended indefinitely. But even though we suffer eternal  hell and misery, it doesn't change the fact of who we are. Who we are is beloved children of the Father. The Spirit's been sent to us to help us know the truth.  Whether we believe it or not doesn't change the Real World. It just means we are living in an illusion. And, to me, as the New Testament testifies, we can live in that illusion for eternity. That's the scary part."

That means that heaven is living in the reality of the Good News that Jesus has laid hold of us and brought us to live with with him and his Father and the Spirit. We hear and receive by faith what Jesus has done, and if we believe it and repent (change our minds), we experience heaven.  If we don't believe it--because "I am not" ... you fill in the blank--then we experience hell, because of what Baxter calls "our stinking thinking."

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I think there is a lot of room for more thinking about this, especially because we just do not have that much really clear teaching about hell and a lot of murky teaching has resulted ... and I am looking forward to the rest of the folks writing about this.

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Here's the collection of links from the May participants in this Synchroblog:

Jeremy Myers – Does Jesus Talk About Hell More Than Heaven?
Wesley Rostoll – Hell, thoughts on annihilationism
K. W. Leslie – Dark Christians
Angie Benjamin – Hell Is For Real
Paul Meier – Hell Is For Real – I’ve Been There and Came Back
Glenn Hager – Abusing Hell
The Virtual Abbess – What The Hell?
Kimbery Klein – Hell, if I know.
Michael Donahoe - Hell Yes…or No?
Liz Dyer – Hell? No!
Margaret Boelman - Hell No I Won’t Go
Loveday Anyim – Why the hell do you believe in hell?
Linda - If you died today, where would you go?
Edwin Aldrich – What the Hell do we really know.
Mallory Pickering -- The Time I Blogged About Hell
Elaine – What The Hell?

Abi has finally come Home for Christmas...

Update:  I have added the rest of the posts for the Synchroblog at the bottom.  Please do check them out as you have time.  You will be blessed!  Abi

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It has been a very long time since I participated in any Synchroblogs out there ... but I had a feeling that I might have something to say this time around.

I grew up in a pretty tight knit family -- Thanksgiving and Christmas and (usually) birthdays were always family time. Family time for our family almost always included the church family's activities ... because we were the church-planting minister's family. If we weren't there and involved, well, things didn't happen....

There are lots of ups and downs to being a PK (preacher's kid)...and this post is not going to talk about any of that. But I have to say that this Christmas will be the first year that I will really "be" home. And that will need a little unpacking....

Regulars of The Virtual Abbess will know that I have been processing heavy things for many years ... and that this past year I've been processing what I have just recently come to call Perichoretic cHesed.  The reason things have finally come together is that I have finally unpacked the last piece of the puzzle (should I more humbly say the next piece?!?) as I continue the process of reconstructing what the journey of Kingdom Life is supposed to look like -- for me, at least.

Home is where family is -- and where one is always welcome. Home always means extended family, too. While I love my biological family, I have lived very far away from them for 22 of my 57 years. Most of the past 18 years have been spent away from them as our nuclear family left Southern California for Washington State.  I had no idea how difficult raising children would be without my extended family in a church family that was not full of relatives ... or people who knew me BK (before kids).

The sad thing that I have come to realize is that I, somehow, did not carry away many "traditions" ... because they were anchored in people who were not where I was.  When I was with them, the traditions lived on. But not here.  Not at the place I called home.

As I have pondered this source of grief, it has finally occurred to me that somehow, I have never really been "home" anywhere ... because I never felt like I fit in. I was useful, most of the time. And that's part of the problem.  Rather than relational, family had turned out to be something more utilitarian. And when you are a broken down person, as I have been for much of the past 18 years, sometimes you're not as useful as folks think you should be. Maybe you no longer fill roles that have come to be expected of you -- in the way that is expected.

Yes, I actually said that out loud....

But I have been pondering a different foundation for family.  One that has been seemingly lost to much of humanity for much too long. I have found that the truest foundation for family comes from the original Family: The Holy and Eternal Trinity.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit have been recognized as the Triune God for a very long time ... but I think that the familial nature of their relationship has not been.  And I think some of that comes from the fact that many have seen the Holy Spirit as either male or gender neutral. I, however, have joined forces with some who have embraced seeing the Spirit as female -- as God our Mother ... or perhaps, as our Grandmother.  There is lots of evidence in the Hebrew for the terms used for the Spirit as being female or feminine.  We know that there are many images of God which are maternal.  I'm not going to argue that here.  You will have do your own searching.  (But both of Wm. Paul Young's books, as well as Baxter Kruger's book, The Shack:  Revisited, may help you as they have helped me.) But in order for the image and nature of God to be seen in humanity, it needed to be expressed in what we know as male and female.  Both are necessary -- one is not more important the the other.  (It seems that even in the Trinity, there only needs to be one female to two males ... please be smiling!!!)

Of course only Jesus, the Father's eternal Son, is actually human and male -- since that first Christmas so long ago.  The other two members of this triad are still whatever it is that they have all been for all eternity. We have been dressing them up in language and images that help us relate to them ... and it is only in Jesus that we have definitive answers.  So, I am finding it terribly helpful to relate to God as Father, Brother and Grandmother -- because of the reality of the new family forged in the New Covenant in Jesus Christ.

[It's okay ... no bolt of lightening has struck me.  God can handle this. It's all good.]

In this Eternal Family I have found my truest family -- the family that is always with me...from which I cannot be separated. They are the Truth about family as it is intended to be.

• I have a Father who loves me with deliberate affection regardless of what I do or don't do.  He is "especially fond of me" as Young has made so famous with his Papa from The Shack. He sees my true self and calls it out into being bit by bit -- regardless of what others think I am or should be.
• I have an Elder Brother who extends me the unmerited favor of grace because I am his little sister and he has crossed all worlds to joyfully bring me -- with  my Adoption Papers -- home to his Father and the Kingdom. He walks with me at all times -- he holds my hand (he holds everything in his hands!)
• I have a Grandmother who breathes wisdom and power on my baby steps -- while showering me with gifts of kindness and mutuality -- so that I make a difference in the family.  I have a part to play in each interaction with my brothers and sisters. I participate in the Eternal Will of God as it is lived out moment by moment. She isn't harsh with me when I don't do things "correctly" ... she is happy that I engage and embrace life.

This family reality I have described is, in essence, what I mean by perichoretic cHesed.  It is being part of the family while still being myself. It is resting -- relaxing! -- in the love of Father, the grace of Jesus, the mercy of Grandmother -- knowing that They are holding everything together, making everything work together for good, teaching me the family recipes and traditions.

This Christmas, I will be home for the first time.  I'm not quite sure exactly what it's going to be like compared with the previous 56 experiences ... but I do know that it will be filled with more hope and love and joy and peace than any Christmas I've known. I'm going to relax into it and be surprised by joy....

I am reminded of the line from Sleepless in Seattle, when Sam is describing to Dr. Marsha what it was like when he first held the hand of the woman who would become his wife:  "It was like coming home, only to no home I'd ever known."

As I finish typing this, I can almost hear them clapping and shouting:  "Welcome home, child.  We have been waiting for you for so long. Come on in and join the dancing and singing ... and you don't really need your dancing shoes anymore!"

Be blessed this Christmas -- may you find yourself coming home to no home you've ever known, too!  I'll see you there...  ;^)

Abi

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Other bloggers writing so far about “coming home” this advent:

• Christine Sine - Is There Room for Jesus to Find a Home In Your Heart?
• Jeremy Myers - It Sounds Like Christmas
• Nathan Kitchen - Coming Home
• Michelle at Moments with Michelle - Home 
• Mallory Pickering - I’m Kind of Homesick 
• Bobi Ann Allen - Coming Home 
• J.A. Carter - Going Home 
• Glenn Hager - Where the Adventure Begins 
• Marta Layton - Can You Ever Come Home Again? 
• Peggy at Abisomeone - Abi Has Finally Come Home For Christmas 
• Amy Hetland - Coming Home 
• Coffeesnob - Home 
• Carol Kuniholm - Advent Three: Redefining Home 
• Liz Dyer - Advent 2013 The Way Home 
• Harriet Long - The Body and the Sacred: Coming Home 
• Edwin Pastor Fedex Aldrich - Who I Was Made to Be 
• Emkay Anderson - Homemaking
• Anita Coleman - At Home in the Kingdom of God
• Kathy Escobar – Mobile Homes (Not That Kind) 

Abi and Brokenness....

Updated...see below!

I have written about Oprah a couple of times.  I have tremendous respect for her, although I do not agree with everything she says or does.  That's normal, I think.  If you have problems with Oprah, I humbly ask you to suspend disbelief (J.R.R. Tolkien's lovely term) long enough to hear what I'm saying.  You'll be okay.

Anyway, today's lead article in her Spirit Newsletter struck me as timely.  It came as an answer to a fervent prayer.  It is not perfect, either; but it gave me several bits of encouragement.  These I will share with you. Some come right out of the article, others are my thoughts that came from reading.  Please read the original article first, if you haven't already ... the rest of this post will still be here when you get back.  Go ahead; it's not very long.  ;^)

Here's the stream of consciousness that made me get out my pen and paper and capture some thoughts:

• Everyone is broken from time to time.  Um, this would resonate with the abbess of the purple martyrdom.
• Breaking is necessary for enlargement.  I could write an entire series on this profound thought.
• Enlargement comes by being present in all ways, in all directions. I struggle with this and I am astounded by the variety of ways this little gem keeps popping up in my journey.
• Being present is the practice of holding nothing back.  Dr. Brown would call this part of the courage that comes from being wholehearted.  Her thoughts have been echoing Dr. Kruger's thoughts, especially his teaching on the "I am not..." problem, which she states as "Never enough."  Profound.

He then gives four steps to finding wholeness and health and growth:

Accept the weather

• It is what it is....
• Every "crack" is an opening
• ...The Light of Jesus, there in the deepest darkness in our souls, shines out through our cracks.  Makes me think of this passage.
• ...What is opened is always more important that what breaks us.
• ...Don't get stuck in your list of legitimate grievances.  Yeah, this is very big.

Lean into the tender places

• Letting the wind of life rush in and tough the tender spots is the beginning of resilience.  This is very deep and I'm still processing it....

What kind of "part" am I in what kind of "whole"?  This is the whole "identity crisis" issue, right here!

• My response:  I am a daughter of the Heavenly Father, sister to Jesus, the Father's Eternal Son, and dancing partner with the Holy Spirit in the Life of the Blessed Trinity.
• This Truth is foundational and is what has been undermined by the "I am not..." and "Never enough" curse of human culture.  Sigh...it is pernicious!
• When blinded by the pain and darkness, I need to remember to look for the Light shining through those broken, cracked spots.
• ...Embrace what can emerge by allowing Jesus to clean away the broken bits.
• ...Sometimes we emerge like those beautiful Oriental bowls that have been repaired with gold....
• ...Sometimes we emerge like butterflies struggling to escape from their cocoon. Transformation is often mistaken for rejection or heresy by those who do not have eyes to see what the Spirit has been doing.

Look beyond the broken

• In each of us, the Holy Spirit has planted a unique seed.  Different seeds go through different processes of germination.  They remain dormant until the time and environment are right ... the fullness of time, as it were.
• ...what is too dry for some is just right for others
• ...what is to warm for some is not hot enough for others
• ...what is nutrient-dense to some is too rich for others

Sometimes I think I am one of those seeds that need a hot fire to neutralize my cocoon of enzymes and allow the seed to germinate.  Yeah, burning down the forest is not a good time. but if that is the only way to awaken the sleeping life inside my soul....

Be blessed as you persevere on your journey.  

• May the Light shine through the cracks of your broken heart. 

• May the Light that is in you overpower the whispered evil of the "I am not...never enough" that has flourished in your darkened soul.

• May the sweet burn of the cleaning pool restore you to your True Identity after Aslan's powerfully sharp claws have torn away the knobby dragon hide that imprisoned you.  Love C.S. Lewis!  Do you know Eustace?  (And, yes, I will forever be sorry that they did not put that powerful scene in the movie of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader....)   Update:  you can listen to the chapter here!

• May the great I AM embrace you in Their cHesed and gently lead you into Their Great Dance.

Abi and The Open Table Conference

It has been almost seven years since I attended the Missional Orders conference at Seabeck, Washington -- out of which this blog was birthed!  To say that I have gone through enormous changes during these seven years would be the grossest of understatements.

What is interesting, though, it to see how much I "knew" -- even just a few months ago, even -- that seems, well, rather Greek in it's knowing about ... instead of Hebrew and it's knowing by experience. We never do stop growing in our understanding.  There is so much to be experienced on this journey in Jesus -- in ways that we have not experienced before.  I am learning, still, to relax....

I spent this past weekend in Oregon's central desert with an interesting and eclectic group of folks at The Open Table Conference.  This was my first conference since Seabeck ... and it was just as (if not more, actually) life changing.

I did not know what to expect.  I only knew that Papa was asking me to just go.  I'm not sure exactly what my expectations were, but I tried to lean into the living verb and wait in expectancy for what Grandmother had waiting for me.

One of the things I learned at Seabeck, which was sponsored by Alan Roxburg's Allelon, was the importance of listening to one another.  (Allelon is Greek for "one another".)  They had a saying that remains so meaningful to me:  "Listening one another into free speech."

I don't know about you, but sometimes this very extroverted Abbess doesn't really know what she thinks about something until she is able to talk out loud.  This requires someone to listen.  And we humans tend to be less than stellar listeners.  Sigh....

One of the things I received this past weekend was the opportunity to listen and be listened to.

First thing Saturday morning, I was talking with Marilyn and Gordon ... and the next thing I knew, I was telling them things most would not be comfortable hearing.  Especially as related to my string of horrible injuries leading up the the last one four years ago.  The one I affectionately call The Fall...

Marilyn's ears perked up and she said:  "You haven't had just a concussion.  You have a TBI."  She and Gordon began to ask about problems that I was having without my saying anything.  Wow...it is truly rare to talk with someone who knows what I'm dealing with.  Their son fell from a horse 17 years ago, and they have been walking this harrowing journey with him.  Their encouragement alone made the trip worthwhile....

The worst part of most of my injuries has been that they are not necessarily visible -- or not for long.  But the cumulative effect of these injuries over the past 13 years has been fairly overwhelming ... because folks have a hard time understanding that the process of healing can be very slow.  I am in year four of this particular mid-brain TBI ... and have realized that I had suffered seven head injuries in my life -- at least two of which would also be considered mild TBIs.  It sometimes takes 10 years for even a mild TBI to resolve.  If you know someone suffering this way, be gentle with them....

Under the wonderful care of my homeopath and my chiropractic neurologist, I have truly made remarkable progress.  But I have come to a kind of crossroad of my own:  my level of stress has been so high that my brain is unable to heal...and it actually being damaged by the over-stimulation that comes from being in a fairly constant mode of Fight or Flight.  The reasons are many and I'll not burden you with them...but I did have to do something to bring the stress down.

Into this place of chaos, Papa brought Baxter Kruger and his series called "In".  I have already shared about his amazing book, The Shack Revisited.  Now he has released his Study Guide.  I can't wait to work through it!

Anyway, please download his "In" series -- I don't know how long it will remain up on his website -- I have been listening to it since the end of February.  Sometimes daily.  Do this while you're waiting for your copy of the book to be delivered (unless, like me, you got the Kindle version)....

Building on the important work of Wayne Jacobsen, Paul's and Baxter's work have helped Sarayu make another significant shift in my journey.  What I so appreciate about all three of these men is that they are humble and hold their knowledge and experience gently.  They want to encourage you in your journey with Father, Son and Spirit -- they don't want to be your leader.

Baxter, in person and in his writings, is my kind of folk:  say it simple with as little religious jargon as possible.  Having listened to him for so long, I can "hear" him in his books.  Love that....  I am so very grateful for you, Brother Baxter!

Anyway ... I am processing so much right now that I am a bit in overload -- and my brain is complaining!  But I did want to post this update and let you know how grateful I am for the faithful cHesed of the blessed Trinity.

More later....

...oh, yeah -- my eldest son graduates from high school this Friday, so it's a little busy around here.

Be blessed!

Abi and Baby Steps....

It has been a long time, friends.  There is a tremendous work going on in the wildly fractal garden Sarayu tends that is my soul, which I hope to be able to share with you soon.  But not quite yet.

I will say, however, that I will be embracing something I heard from Craig Groeschel back in 2007:  anything I say may only be good for 90 days!  Hahaha...this means that much of what I have pondered in this wee purple blog may have expired.  Not all of it, mind you, but enough to remind me that embracing uncertainty and mystery is a wiser path to travel....

One day, when we are face-to-face with God, we will all be overcome with a huge case of what Baxter Kruger calls "family embarrassment" ... when the family album comes out at we shake our heads at the things we did ... bless our hearts!

If we live long enough searching for what is true, we are already well acquainted with this experience.  I know that I am....

Last summer I began Tweeting my way through cHesed ... until I hit a rock in the road.  Who knew it was "The Rock", Jesus, saving me from more embarrassment?!?

I am hopeful that this summer will see the next steps toward sharing the richness of cHesed ... but I will be taking baby steps, because I have lots of, um, revisions to my thinking going on.  Some pruning.  Some serious weeding.  Some cross-pollination.  Some grafting.  Some staking and supporting. Some new seeds and seedlings.  Lots of feeding and watering and sunshine.  But Sarayu loves this soul work ... and Papa is smiling as we embrace the messiness of it all.

Be blessed during this weekend as we embrace holy suffering, waiting in darkness, and glorious resurrection -- the amazing grace of adoption accomplished in Jesus.

Abi

Abi and Paul Young's Cross Roads....

Well, Thanksgiving was busy around here -- North and South houses have reunited and we are all crammed back into the South House.  It is taking some getting used to ... not having a North House any longer....

Reading is still something that takes me so much longer than before ... sigh!  While I am still reading Baxter Kruger's book (and I agree that if you liked The Shack, this is an important book for you to read.  I may not have to write any more on my perichoresis stuff...or it may just help me fine tune my thoughts), I finished Paul Young's new book today.

Have you heard of this book yet?  I must say that it is important to let this new book be what it is ... and it is not The Shack, part 2.  It has some important things to say, and says them in some very interesting ways ... but I don't know if lightening will strike twice.  We'll see how it sells, eh?  Haven't had time to look at anyone else's thoughts about it yet....

Perhaps I am in such a different place ... and have traveled so many of my own Cross Roads since visiting The Shack ... that it just wasn't as much of a shock to my soul?  I am still ruminating, so I won't go on right at the moment.

* * * * * * *

I am hoping to do something fun for Advent this year ... we will see!  This will be our last Advent with our firstborn ... this is a year full of "lasts", as he will be graduating from high school in June and going off to college at the end of next summer.  He is in the throes of college applications and essay writing at this very moment....

* * * * * * *

Clutter ... my house and brain are full of extra stuff, and I am in need of some serious simplicity around here. I will work through that I can each day.  I will be back to process some of what Papa, Sarayu, Jesus and I have been up to ... when it is the right time and when the words begin to flow out of my fingers.

I am still hoping to finish my Tweetinar on cHesed that was going so well in early summer.  And then I will begin to put some of that good condensed work here for you to process.

I find that I have changed quite a lot in these past five years ... some of the things I have blogged about seem like a lifetime ago.  I am sure that there will be much more of that to come.  If I am beginning to get any kind of inkling about The Truth, it will turn me on my head ... again!  But it will also cause me to get out my dancing shoes.  Yes, those purple ones!  ;^)

Wondering whether I am turning into an introvert ... or just so exhausted by living life that I haven't got energy to talk or blog or even Tweet about it?

Well, I have meandered far enough.  Be blessed, friends, wherever your journey takes you today.

Abi-ezer

Abi and Original Sin....

Back in October I shared some of the reading and pondering I was doing -- especially from Peck and Jacobsen.  I have been reading through thoroughly cleaned cHesed Glasses....

Peck, you may remember, postulated that he believed "original sin" was the human tendency toward taking the easy way rather that the right way.  He called that laziness.  I think there is a great deal of merit in serious pondering of the meaning and implications along those lines.  I have benefited from such pondering....

Jacobsen talks about the Fall being a result of the human tendency toward independence -- rejecting God's place as Creator and guide -- in order to be able to judge what is good or evil for themselves.  Wayne's walk through the Bible in his project called The Jesus Lens expands on this idea.  I recently finished listening to all three parts (over eight hours worth) at his website.  It is a worthwhile endeavor -- each segment is around 20 minutes long.  [You can listen, watch video, follow along with PowerPoint here for free, or you can order the entire series on DVD.]

* * * * * * *

Now, I have known for a very long time that I am something of a synthesizer.  I take in lots of information from what seems to be very different spheres and find connections and patterns in them.  I think my recent pondering has resulted in another synthesis ... of Peck and Jacobsen and Abi (and all that means).

Original Sin as laziness/independence are two sides of the same, er, coin.  They both are ways to circumvent the work of relationship -- the extending of oneself for the best interest of the other.  Let's take a closer look:

Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden were given freedom to eat anything -- except the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  In their Innocence they walked with God and trusted in his provision for them.  All was well ... for a while. 

We don't know what interpersonal challenges may have been developing between Adam and Eve ... but we know that they were together when the Serpent challenged Eve's understanding of the edict.  We know that Adam didn't move to support Eve or defend her from this attack.  Maybe he was waiting to see if she dropped dead when she bit into the fruit ... we do not know.  We can infer that there was some kind of struggle between them in the relationship ... and perhaps it revolved around a desire to be independent from each other a little?  We don't know that, either.

Notice how little we know.  This should be a clue for us:  there is so much more to God's story than we can know or understand -- we just are not ABLE to understand it all.  But that's okay ... if we are willing to trust that God knows it all and will make sure that everything turns out okay in the end.  That does not mean that we will get what we want or that we will be healthy, wealthy or wise ... it just means that God's purposes in Creation will be realized.  Trusting God is always the right thing to do.  But, um, it is not especially easy because we do not want to depend on God.  We want to be independent -- to do our own thing.

This is where the laziness comes in.

It seems that it is easier to do our own thing that to wait for God.  He is SOOOO SLOW!  Have you noticed?  Impatience is a form of laziness ... and this is why children are so good at being impatient:  they have no sense of past or future -- only NOW!  Waiting is the most horrible awful thing to ask my kids to do.

But it gets worse!  Not only do we have to wait for God ... we have to cooperate with other people! 

Adam was there first -- he got to pick out all the animal names by himself.  Easy peasey!  But once Eve arrived on the scene, there was another opinion -- which required a "discussion."  UGH!  Then there is the listening and thinking and honoring and considering ... it is so much easier just to do what I want to do, isn't it?  Really?

So, we get power struggles and other "irritations" that erode relationships.  And all of a sudden we are not particularly looking out for the other's best interest.  We're looking out for our self -- independently.

* * * * * * *

Yeah ... I think lazy independence looks like a pretty good take on the core human issue.  We want what we want -- as easy as possible.  The sad irony is that it is always more work to do it our way, in the end.  It is always easier to do it right the first time than to fix it....

Which leads me to the other "shock" statement Wayne Jacobsen makes:  humans are just not smart enough to know what is best.  Pondering that has totally transformed the way I approach prayer.  But that is another topic for another post at another time.  Be patient!  ;^)

There is a reason that one of the big recurring themes in the Scriptures is the concept of already/not yet.  There are things that God is doing ... some that we can already see and know and experience.  But there are many more that are not yet fully revealed.  The fullness of time, as it were, has not yet come.

Relax.  Take a deep breath.  God does, in fact, know what They are doing.  Watch and wait ... you never know when they're going to be ready to do something amazing ... and if you're waiting and watching patiently, you will get to be in on the deal.  How sweet is that?

Ponder that yourself ... how does independence trip you up?  How does relational laziness, particularly, interfere with your ability to trust God with your life ... or that of your spouse ... or your kids ... or your parents ... or your extended family ... or the Kingdom where Jesus Christ is Lord and King? 

What do you think?

Be blessed....

Abi and the Wrath of God....

Well, all the buzz about Rob Bell's not-yet-released book, and his video (look at this article to catch the drift and see the video) brought me sharply back to something I have been pondering from The Shack as well as from Wayne Jacobsen's amazing book, He Loves Me:  have we totally missed the meaning of God's wrath?

I'm thinking that we have ... and that too often we have sided with wrath/justice over against love/grace/mercy as the big defining concept of God in our presentation of the Gospel.  And like so many, including Rob Bell, say ... that is not such good news, is it?

One of my new favorite books, The Hawk and the Dove, has an amazing chapter covering a debate by 13th century abbots (fiction) on whether God's justice or his love is the most important ... and I agree wholeheartedly that it is God's love that wins.  Hmmm, that sounds like what Rob Bell is saying?  We'll all just have to wait and read the book, now, won't we?!?

Anyway, the abbot arguing for love said something along the lines (I don't have the book handy) of justice being a branch, but love being the root ... and justice being the setting in which the jewel of love is set.

I have been pondering Wayne's way of describing the wrath of God for almost two years now, and it seems to be settling down to this:

God loves us, his Eikons.  Anything that hurts us incurs his wrath.  God's wrath is aimed to destroy whatever keeps us away from his love and life.  (It is really very deep, this topic.)  Those of you who are parents or first aid/medical responders know that it is very difficult for those who are injured to separate the pain of the injury from the pain of the remedy.  Sigh.  But this gives me great insight to the issue here....

Wayne describes sin and death as the main targets of God's wrath ... going to far as to describe them an a kind of cancer -- an illness that Jesus came to provide the cure for on the cross.  Jesus, as the God-man representative of humanity, was the only human capable of enduring the "treatment" and eradicating the disease.  Yes, the treatment was so severe it took his life in only six hours or so.  But once the "cancer" was gone, sin and Death were defeated and could no longer hold Jesus -- and God raised him from the dead.  And in the blood of Jesus we receive the antibodies that make us immune to the cancer of sin and Death ... and we have new Life in Jesus.  This Life is in the Spirit and is the "already" part of the already/not yet reality of Kingdom Life.  Already Jesus has cleansed us from sin and defeated Death ... but we are not yet delivered from the human struggle in our mortal bodies.  We must persevere in Papa's love for us.

Wrath came because the Law shone its light on sin ... and its consequence:  Death.  Love and grace and mercy came to the fore when, in the fullness of time, Jesus came to show us what the Father is like ... and triumphed when love transcended wrath on the Cross.  For those who walk in the Light of Love there is no Wrath.  Read John chapter 3 ... all of it.  The wrath was appeased because that which enslaved his Eikons was dealt with.  Finally.  No more blood spilled over terms of the Law.  Ever. 

...some narrow presentations of the Gospel, it has been postulated, act as a kind of immunization against the real power of the Good News for the current generation.  I have seen this at work ... and I prefer my children come down with a full-blown case of the Good News, eh?  That is the only way that the immunity-rich blood of Jesus can remove the cancer and bring them Real Life.

We do not know all the ways the Father has chosen to apply the remedy Christ provided on the cross.  It is advisable to do the best we can with what we do know and be humble enough to leave room for the Spirit to work in ways that we cannot understand.

Really I think it comes down to the story of the two sons and their prodigal (extravagant) father.  The father loved both of his sons equally.  The problem came when the younger brother who was "lost" returned to his senses and came home ... and the elder brother resented that the father received him gladly. 

Give Luke 15 a read ... and the rest of the parables of Jesus, while you're at it.  I see threads of a common theme....

Lots of issues in Jesus' day were elder brother problems ... and I think it is the same today.

Brothers (and sisters!), love one another!

Wandering with a Waiting Abbess....

I am happy to be inspired to contribute to the December Synchroblog - Advent As A Journey.  I am still relatively new to the whole idea of "Advent" ... coming from what I have learned is a "low church" background.  Once I got over feeling slighted...  :^) ... I've enjoyed embracing this -- and many other "high church" traditions.  But, of course, in my special "abi-normal" manner!

My third year with Advent (you might have noticed that I did not blog through Advent last year ... I was, well, journeying through it) finds me in a very different place in my Journey with Jesus.

As I have been deconstructing "religion" over the past few years, my journey has been one of asking hard questions and being willing to be led out into a kind of desert detour -- where the bustle of life does not intrude so much and the heart is better able to hear that still, small voice of our amazing Papa.

No one comes out of a desert detour without being changed.  I am no exception.  I would also suggest that no two desert detours are the same journey ... for that is one of the things I have learned over the past four years:  just as each of us are unique, our journey with our Triune God is unique.  Formulaic responses are less than satisfactory.

This, then, is my Advent of Reconstruction.  I have pretty much finished deconstructing my religious experience and have begun reconstructing my relationship with Jesus ... as sister and as part of his Bride, the Church.

But there is an interesting leg of the journey between "de" and "re" construction.

Grief ... mourning ... letting go of all the expectations which have disappointed -- sometimes enslaved -- my heart and kept me from joining the Great Dance. 

Part of the problem is that I did not have dancing shoes.  Or, more precisely, I did not take off my steel-toed shoes necessary for the process of demolition, where dangerous pieces of brokenness threatened harm.  I was nearing the end of my desert detour when I realized that I had been slogging through the desert in battle boots!  How they slowed my steps, draining my energy, tripping me up with their "protection."

Then, I arrived at an oasis.  With a lovely pool of water.  How I longed to put my tired, aching, dusty feet into that inviting pool.  But like Eustace-the-Dragon, Aslan needed to "undress" me ... lest I foul the water.  So Jesus helped me take off my boots.  He drew water from the pond and washed away years of caked-on debris.  My feet were so refreshed that I no longer needed to wade in the water.  And then he did the most amazing thing:  he brought me dancing shoes.  Beautiful, purple (of course!) satin shoes.  Shoes that will not wear out -- like the sandals of the Hebrew people in the desert -- because they are Eternal shoes.  They are shoes made by the Spirit / Sarayu.  They ARE because God perceives them.  They are Kairos shoes ... and like Dorothy's Ruby Slippers, they can take me Home at any time ... when I understand their power.

So, this Advent, I am journeying in my new purple dancing shoes.

I have put all white candles in my Advent Candelabra ... because I am embracing a life of greater and greater simplicity ... and I could not find the right colors this year as I did back in 2007 ... and Papa helped me see that the color of the candles is not important.

This year, we are going through Advent with the Mosaic Bible ... in a relaxed and simple time before dinner.  (I am excited to go through the entire year with this wonderful tool.  It is a very Ancient/Future kind of thing!)

Last week we read and thought about Longing -- Waiting for the treasure that Jesus is.  We talked about how some things just take a long time.  (Like grieving the loss of everything familiar that you had built your life around -- beware the process of deconstruction, it will tear down more than you are expecting!)

And this week we read and thought about Hope -- Hoping for Hope that shines like a light in the darkness.  We talked about how difficult it is to wait for things we really want ... and that sometimes we just have to hope for enough hope to be able to wait until the time is right.

So, this wee abbess is grateful that the Waiting of Deconstruction and Mourning is passing ... and is Hoping for the Hope that comes with her new purple dancing shoes.  (Perhaps now the Spirit will release me to write about Perichoresis ... that Great Dance!)

Hope does not disappoint us, because our Hope is not in people or religion or any other human ideas or institution.  Our Hope is in the Lord Jesus Christ ... for whose birth the whole of creation longed, waiting until the fullness of time had come.

As each of us wait, may we all come to realize that the fullness of time is unique to each of us as we journey with our God.  May you wait patiently for your dancing shoes ... I hope to see you in yours in the Great Dance.

Be blessed....

Abi and The Great Sadness

I have recently gone back to read The Shack a second time -- two years after my friend, Annette, loaned me her copy and said that I must read it.  This time I was reading my own copy (a hardcover), so that I could make notes as I read.  This time I was also in a very different place -- physically, emotionally, spiritually ... but not geographically.   ;^)

As I read I realized that I was in the midst of my own version of The Great Sadness -- that place Paul Young describes as where our heart is so broken by pain and grief that the resulting pool of secrets feed a shame that allows those around us to unwittingly help us build something he has called The Shack.

What is The Shack?  Paul says it is a metaphor for being stuck by The Great Sadness ... the facade we build to hide our pain and secrets and shame from those around us -- those who think they know us.  Sometimes -- especially? -- it is built to hide us from seeing ourselves and from recognizing our warped ideas of God.  

But what Paul Young does in his book is to ask us to consider the "what if" involved were God to invite us to hike back out to the wilderness where The Shack is hidden -- run down and desolate and frightening.  If we will accept this invitation, we will see that Paul has provided another metaphor for the loving Papa who (with the help of Jesus, Sarayu and Sophia) helps us dismantle The Shack in order to finally heal our broken heart and mend our relationships -- with God and with others ... and especially with ourselves.

The challenge, of course, is that Paul puts into one weekend for Mack what took him 11 years of hard, hard work.  There is no "magic wand" -- it seems very much like Eustace having to be un-dragoned by Aslan in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  We scratch and scratch and are successful in shedding a few thin layers of dragon skin.  But we cannot dig deep enough on our own to free ourselves from the result of "thinking dragonish thoughts".  It takes Aslan's powerful and sharp claws to sink into that thick, knobby dragon skin and peel it away and release our true selves from bondage.

Little did I realize over two years ago, when I first thought of the Purple Martyrdom, that it would include hues this dark -- almost black.  God's amazing grace only tells us what we need to know when we need to know it, eh?  The reality is that even as I fear I have let go of that knot at the end of my rope ... I find I have always been safe in the strong hands of the Love that will not let me go.

It really is, as Lewis perceived, a severe mercy.  As severe as the death of the life I knew ... yet as merciful as the Love that promises to bring me back to True Life.   Perhaps it is not unlike Ramandu (the burned-out "star at rest" from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) who was brought one fire-berry from the valleys in the sun each day.  And each fire-berry takes away some of his age ... until he is again as young as a newborn child.  Then ... he will rise again to take his place and once more tread the great dance....

I do not know how Papa will accomplish this task.  I am often wide-eyed and somewhat pale as I feel Aslan's long and sharp claws dig in and do their work.  Sometimes my heart shudders as I feel the scales being pulled -- firmly yet gently.  But I choose to believe that this is a work of Love ... and that I am safe in the hands of the Great Physician.  The Master Craftsman.  The Good Shepherd.  The Lion who is The Lamb ... that was slain before the foundations of the world were laid ... because He has always been especially fond of me.

In the hope of embracing Abundant Life, I surrender my grasping perception of life.  I trade life-affirming and spontaneous expectancy for death-inducing and stifling expectation ... and childlike and trusting response for controlling and legalistic responsibility.  It may not be neat and pretty from an earthly, human perspective ... but I hear that it is full of glorious fractals where Sarayu is at work in a wildly unconventional garden known as Peggy's Patch -- watering with the precious tear drops that She collects in a little bottle....

Be blessed....

Relaxing into the Dance....

Well, it just might be that the long-anticipated blogging about perichoresis is about to begin.

It started yesterday, with Don Miller's "What If?" challenge (by the way, I don't know what's up with Don's blog showing up as being suspended, but I hope it gets figured out soon). 

I spent some time processing Don's challenge and posted this reply yesterday.  It was striking to me that I would process all the scads of things that I would like to do for others ... and the thought about water just popped into my head.  I didn't see it coming ... Sarayu just popped that one in there to see if I was paying attention.  Since I type pretty fast, it got out of my thoughts on through my fingers before I had time to discard it.  Good one, Papa!

Here's the deal:  I have sensed for a while that my body is finally going to come out of this Decade of Decay and regain some significant vitality ... that is, before The Fall (no, not that one ... the one when I fell on the way to the mailbox and almost bought the proverbial farm).   While it did a good bit of physical damage to face and hands and knees, the worst of it has turned out to be a whopper of a concussion.  A year later, I'm still not 100% recovered. 

It has been quite a year ... one in which I began to journal in earnest.

Using a pen and paper, even.

And I'm still at it ... just got a new journal the other day (even found a purple one!)

Part of the concussion-processing has been a different kind of depression ... and that's a whole different story we're not going to talk about today ... through which Papa has been peeling back layers of stuff.  Stuff like disappointment and discouragement and isolation and loneliness and abandonment and guilt.  Stuff that has been hanging around for just about my whole life.  This, against the backdrop of processing Wayne Jacobsen's book, "He Loves Me" -- and trying to understand what it means to relax into Papa's love.

So here's the deal:  relaxing into Papa's love means living in expectancy rather than expectations.  To do that means to trust Papa's love for me and give up trying to earn it.  (It especially means giving up trying to earn the love and respect of others.  Yet another story for another time.  Get it straight with Papa first, or everything else is a no-go.)  Relaxing means recognizing that expectations are the doormat in front of the house of guilt and shame we have all built in order to survive in our harsh realities.  Paul Young has called this house The Shack.  We all have one.  No really.  Believe it.

Some of us have to get whacked on the side of the head (literally) to shift paradigms and let go of expectations.  (Please, don't be this stubborn ... unless that's the only way.  In which case, keep the Arnica, a cold compress and butterfly bandages handy.  And receive my heart-felt condolences.)

Anyway....

I have been stuck in my Shack and at a loss as to how to get out.  Looking back it reminds me of that scene in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone when Harry and Hermione and Ron are being strangled by a huge, root-like plant ... the more you struggle, the tighter it gets.  Hermione remembers from Herbology studies that the only way to get it to let you go is to relax.

This is where Don's post today comes in.  It is called "How I learned to like exercise..." -- which I have linked, but since the blog is not working, I'm going to repost it here (hope that's okay with you, Don!):

The first time I joined a gym the trainer worked me out until I nearly died. She put me on a machine and had me lift the weights in sets of ten, decreasing the weights each time, doing as many sets as it would take until I literally couldn’t lift an empty bar. She wanted me to know what a workout felt like, and wanted to make sure the initial work out was as hard as it could be, so I’d have something to compare my subsequent workouts to. I think she hated men. The result was that I could hardly get out of bed the next morning, or the morning after that, and I hated the gym. I associated the gym with pain and emasculation. And even when I went to the gym, unless I nearly killed myself, I felt like I hadn’t worked out at all. After a year or so, I just quit going.
Years later, though, I met a personal trainer at a coffee shop. He was hoping to write a book and I struck up a deal with him. I told him I’d give him some pointers on writing if he’d reintroduce me to the gym. He agreed, and I definitely got more out of the deal than he did. My trainers name was Dave, and he was great.
For our first workout, I showed up and he gave me a tour that stopped at the exercise bikes. We got on bikes next to each other and I started to pedal hard, trying to impress him. He quickly told me to slow down, to get my heart rate up to a level where I had to open my mouth to breathe, but could still talk. I did so, and it was pretty easy. We rode for about twenty minutes and then he told me to stop. I assumed we were going to move on to the real workout, but he said we were done. He told me to go home, that I’d done a good workout. I stood there shocked, nearly feeling ripped off. After all, I’d given him valuable information about writing, like the fact that books are often broken up into chapters.
Dave explained to me, though, that if I showed up at the gym and got my heart rate up for twenty minutes, I’d worked out. He said I needed to do that every day, and if I did, I had nothing to feel guilty about. He then told me to come back the next day, and we’d do the same workout, only increase it a little bit. The next day we rode for twenty minutes and he congratulated me on working out two days in a row. Then he asked if I wanted to do anything extra. I did, of course, so we ended up doing a mildly difficult workout with weights. Within a month, Dave was working me out so hard I once had to stop him and ask if I could go out in the alley behind the gym to throw up. And no kidding, he moved the rest of the workout into the alley so I wouldn’t throw up on his floor. But he kept working me out, always reminding me that what we were doing was extra, that I’d already finished my workout.
That was three or four years ago. These days, I almost never exercise for under an hour, and I exercise at least every other day, if not more often, depending on whether or not I am traveling. I love going for long walks or hikes or bike rides. What changed? All guilt went away. Before, I’d nearly kill myself and feel guilty for not doing enough. But now, I feel like anything over twenty minutes is extra. Before there was negative association with exercise, now there is positive association with exercise.
The same technique can be used with all sorts of areas in our lives where we are defeating ourselves. The question is, what constitutes a satisfactory job? What do we really need to do to be a good father, a good employee, a good wife, a good teacher. If we do that, we’ve done a good job, and anything else is extra. What you’ll find is you’ll do a whole lot extra, and feel great about it.
Any other tips on learning to like exercise? Or learning to do the things you don’t want to do?

Here's what clicked for me:  I have been trying to get to the "anything else is extra" stuff without getting the basic 20 minutes in.  You can only get the extra through the basic.  This is fairly simple, you think it would be easy ... but because something is simple does not mean that it is easy.  Not when you're stuck in The Shack.  Not when you have never really been good at taking care of yourself.  But when you have a husband and three growing boys and have spent 10 years in physical brokenness, everything gets broken.  And I do mean everything.  There is so much to do that it is just overwhelming to begin.  Wayne helped me learn to start by relaxing ... and I've been working hard at learning about relaxing for the past year.  Whew!  I had to learn the hard way (is there any other way?) that if I am not well, I cannot help my family be well.  (And that applies to spiritual family as well as physical family!)

Why is this so hard to get?  It this just a female thing?  I don't think so ... I think different folks just manifest the same struggle in different ways.

So, after doing great with my water drinking yesterday, I got up and did all the right stuff again today.  And after reading Don's post, I decided to go to the garage and lug the recumbent stationary bike out into the driveway and spend 20 minutes processing this with Papa while getting my Vitamin D fix for the day.

Not worrying what the neighbors driving by thought about the crazy woman talking and crying and cycling, I forged ahead.  After about 10 minutes, my legs began to tire (part of my problem is too many years of varying levels of muscle atrophy -- yet another story not going to be told).  But instead of stopping (or worse, continuing on and courting injury to already broken-down systems), I just dialed the tension on flywheel down to where I could keep the same pace without fatiguing the muscles.

I must have stopped every five minutes and dialed the tension down.  But here's what happened:  it suddenly dawned on me that it was perfectly okay to do that.  No guilt necessary.  There is no "exercise police" out there checking my work (or, more importantly, giving me a failing grade).

And while I was feeling the sun on my face, I decided to take off my glasses and just close my eyes and talk with Papa about what I've been learning in this ... when something else clicked:  it was like I was riding tandem with Jesus.  My job is to get on the bike and pedal.  I don't steer.  I don't pick the route.  I just get on and go wherever he's going.  Years ago I wrote about prayer as learning to walk with God, and I included that in my "Getting In Shape" segment of each day in my 40 Days of cHesed series on this blog -- and the idea of the tandem bike struck me, having ridden a tandem bike with Robert in the early years of our marriage.

Well ... long rambling story short:  the only way out of this Shack of mine is to let Papa dismantle it.  And the only way to get my broken down body back into shape is to start taking care of it at a pace that is appropriate for me.


Water first and foremost -- how many years have I been preaching about the myriad complications and symptoms of dehydration?  Duh....

And when the sun is shining, I'm gonna drag out my bike and ride for at least 20 minutes and see if I can't knock out this Vitamin D deficiency I've got going on, too.  Heck, even if the sun is hiding, I can dress warmly and pedal away in the garage!

What was that?

What happened to perichoresis, you say? 

Well, I've heard it's a Dance -- one in which I have to relax and follow Jesus' lead.  (Listen to Wayne talk about What do I do to live loved? at the bottom of the page -- the dance story is near the end, but the whole talk is worth hearing!)  And when I stiffen up, it means I'm trying to lead -- and boy that's tiring ... and fruitless.  So when I start cramping up, I dial my resistance down until I can relax into his love ... and away we go!

I'm sure that I will be processing the implications of this for quite some time.   But I'm going to keep my focus on the basics and let Sarayu take care of the extras.

Time for a water break!  ;^)

Abi

Does God Suffer?!? -- Heretic Watch!

Scot McKnight, over at Jesus Creed, has been working through a book on heresies. This week's heresy concerning whether God suffers. The gist of it goes like this:

The Church, our collective faith, has held to the "impassibility" of God: "God can't be changed from without and that he can't change himself from within" (61). God can't change from a better to a worse state -- that's impassibility -- and if he did that would be suffering.

... well, you really need to read the post and the comments to understand what Scot thinks the author meant. Really, read all of it!

Here is my comment:

Very interesting discussion, everyone!

Dan, I'm finding your comments are triggering my best thoughts. Thanks for commenting so frequently! ;^)

For those of you who have been around Jesus Creed for a while will know, the primary context I use for everything biblical is one of covenant, and consequently, hesed. The nature of God is covenant maker and keeper. God is therefore completely faithful to the terms and conditions of the covenant ratified in the blood of Jesus on the cross. In this there is no thought of change. It is, as it were, a done deal.

However, covenant keeping is relational -- that's also part of the perichoretic nature of God that the Spirit is drawing us into. And there is no way to be involved relationally without suffering.

I do, however, agree that the kind of suffering that God does is not the kind that "changes" their nature, as in making more mature or more open or more anything. When we suffer, we do change -- we become more like Christ!

This Christ-like suffering is not something that God considered "beneath" their sovereignty. Perhaps it is part of its very fiber? The suffering of Christ as human was, in part, to provide for us an advocate who has suffered in all ways as we do.

The point of the divine being associated with this suffering is not to "damage" God, but to help us remember that we matter to God -- and that God is at all times actively working in and through all of our suffering to bring about that which is best for us. This is the very nature of hesed: acting so that the best interest of the covenant partner is served.

The point is that Christ, the human, knew that the suffering he was going through would be made glorious by the Father. And we need to remember that Christ was right.

The Abbess asks: Purple Martyrdom, anyone? Very interesting discussion, everyone!

And I'm grateful to be reminded, as we close out Holy Week, that the suffering of our Savior was something Papa and Sarayu participated in ... without making anyone a heretic!

Shalom

AbiSomeone
The Abbess of the Purple Martyrdom

Take a few moments to help out....

My friend Mark sent The Abbess a link to Wayne Jacobson's blog ... where he invites readers of the amazing best-seller to take a survey about Paul Young's book, The Shack.

I have ... and encourage you to do the same. I will be interested to see if they do make the book into a movie. There are lots of pros and cons. What do you think?

And I am amazed that there are now over 7 million copies sold. WOW.

Hmmm ... I may have to read this book (that would make three times) again here soon.

Be blessed,

Abi

Abi's Links to Articles about The Shack

Well, friends...I continue to see so many comments everywhere about the swirling controversies about Paul Young's book, The Shack, that I felt it might be a good service to offer a series of links to blog posts and on-line articles that might be helpful to folks trying to find their way through the fog.

Some of these links have been highlighted elsewhere in this blog, but I'm going to keep this post as a place to update what's happening...so I don't have to keep wondering where those links are! And if it is helpful to someone else, that's a plus, eh?

So, here goes...the following are links to a really broad look at what this book is about and what it is not about. I have included those that I feel balance the strengths and weaknesses of the book and do it in a generally thoughtful manner. This should be more than enough to assist you in "being Berean" about it all and do some critical thinking for yourself!

The Shack's Home page

Willie's Personal Journal

Wayne Jacobson's Blog

Windblown Media's Response

Internet Monk's Blog Posts

Professor John Stackhouse's Series

Brother Maynard's Blog

Ben Whitherington III's Blog

My Post from 8/2/08

My Post on 7/29/08 about Scot McKnight's Post

The Jesus Creeders Comments on The Shack

Derek R. Keefe's Christianity Today Article

Abi's Guide to Reading Fiction

Tim Challis' Review

Christianity Today's Review by Cindy Crosby

Andy Rowell's Excellent Post with Amazing Links!

David Hayward's Balanced Review

Happy reading!

Some links about The Shack....

Updated update ... you must watch this video of Paul speaking at a church last week. You must.

* * * * * * *

There have been lots of things popping up about The Shack lately. Here's a couple of links:

This one is from The Columbian. Some new insights come out -- especially that the "Missy" character is also a representation of the author, in addition to Mack. Read this article, please!

And Bob Hyatt has a whole bunch of posts on his blog about talking with Paul. Don't miss any of them.

Update: just finished listening to the OPB interview. Please take the time to listen!