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!

The Abbess and Triads ... again!

I find it interesting that there are so many things that come in threes, don't you?

Recently I have been pondering what is essential, in terms of covenant community ... as I await the unfolding of the vision that is CovenantClusters.  Those of you who know me know that I am a cHesed girl ... someone who views everything through cHesed glasses.  Purple ones, at that!

But Papa has been broadening my focus ... and it started almost two years, when I met Wayne Jacobsen.  I have been pondering deeply what it means to live loved by our Father, and I have finally begun to, as Wayne says, relax into that love.  Relaxing is something that "driven" people frequently have problems doing....

Last Thursday (as I was revisiting Robert Bank's book, Paul's Idea of Community) I began to write some of my thoughts down together ... and realized that they would become this post.  I titled it " The order of understanding the gospel's power and purpose, as it is manifest in the already/not yet reality that is life in the Kingdom of God."  Clearly, too long a title for a blog post....  ;^)

Anyway ... it turned out to be another triad!  A triad consisting of a What, a How, and a Who.

But I am getting ahead of myself....

First, we have the What.  What is the first and foremost aspect of the gospel?  It is that God loves us.  God loves us so much that, even when we did not know him, he was hard at work implementing The Plan--the one where we become part of God's community.  We are to don our dancing shoes and join Father/Son/Holy Spirit in the Divine Dance ... the perichoresis that is the Eternal interpenetrating relationship that weaves its way between the Three-in-One and results in the accomplishment of God's Will.  We who are "in Christ" dance as part of His Body -- as His Bride, with whom he shares the "one flesh" mystery that is marriage.  It is part of the biblical construct called "covenant" ... and it is the primary context for all things concerning God.  It is the environment in which relationships exist.

If you do not know the reality of this love ... cannot relax into this love so as to live loved each moment by Papa ... then everything else suffers terribly and becomes distorted.

But there is a remedy for that distortion!  They're part of the second in our triad.

Second, we have the How.  There is no way for us to truly understand the Truth in the reality that God loves us without help.  Lots of help.  But, no worries ... this help comes to us in the partner of covenant:  covenant keeping.  I have come to understand and experience this through the richly nuanced Hebrew concept of cHesed:  looking out for the best interest of the other, according to the covenant.  To keep covenant is to do cHesed.  God's love is shown through cHesed.  Our love for God and others is shown through cHesed, too.

cHesed is, in effect, the glory of Love [apologies to Peter Cetera].  It is the visible manifestation of the reality of Love ... and none who are in its presence are unchanged or unaffected.  Love is the primary descriptor for God:  God is love.  God loves us with an everlasting, faithful, love.  (See #1 above.)

We receive God's love as a gift through the Holy Spirit -- actually as the gift of the Holy Spirit!  Those who accept God's love, as made known in and through Jesus, are "in Christ" because Christ has come inside them as the Holy Spirit ... another of the great mysteries of God.  And it is through the Holy Spirit that we learn the attitudes and actions of love, grace and mercy ... the components of cHesed.  We learn about God's faithful love, amazing grace, and gentle mercy for us -- so that we may show love and grace and mercy to ourselves and to others.

Third, we have the Who.  The right response to God's love/cHesed is to accept the covenant and keep the terms and conditions agreed to by the parties:  to love with deliberate affection in submission to the partner's need, to give grace as unmerited favor that serves the partner at their point of need, and to show mercy as kindness mutually owed to ensure that the partner succeeds in keeping covenant.

It boils down to what Scot McKnight calls the Jesus Creed.  (If you wanted, you could go through my 40 Days Living the Jesus Creed for lent series!)  What Dr. McKnight has coined as the Jesus Creed: Loving God. Loving Others, is the answer Jesus gave to the question:  what is the most important commandment? 

The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’  The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these. [Mark 12:29-31]

When we try to get more "specific (read:  legalistic) about what it means to love God and love others than doing cHesed, we can usurp the role of the Holy Spirit to teach and prompt us toward maturity.  When we have laws/lists, there can be perceived "loopholes" -- where the letter of the law is kept, but the spirit of the law is transgressed against.

With cHesed, it is very simple.  If you miss the target (looking out for the best interest of the other, according to the covenant), you have sinned.  Sin requires confession, repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation and restoration.  The greatest part of the Good News is that Jesus has perfect aim ... and the more we relax into his love, the more the Holy Spirit will be able to guide our aim.  Sin is not the boogey man ... just a fact of the "not yet" reality of Kingdom living -- one that has been completely dealt with by Jesus.  We just need to "take our medicine" when we take our eyes off the Target!

Triads ... this Triadial Abbess loves them!  God's Love is the what, Holy Spirit-empowered cHesed is the how, and living the Jesus Creed:  Loving God, Loving Others is the who.  This is the Gospel as well as the repeating cycle of maturity, eh?  Reminds me of a spiral stairway to heaven...just keep walking, one step at a time.

Sure ... there's more and more nuances concerning God's love and life in the Kingdom that we learn and understand as we get higher up on the stairway.  But if you don't get this triad right, the journey is so much more dark and difficult ... and peace and joy so much harder to find.

Today, I'm leaning into Papa's love for me and allowing the Holy Spirit to transform and inspire my love for Jesus and those that cross my path.  It keeps me plenty busy! ;^)

Be blessed.

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....

Waiting ... Not for Advent, but for Comments to be Moderated!

Thanks to those of you who commented on my Anniversary Blog Post ... I somehow didn't get the notification that there were comments awaiting moderation.  So, for those of you who wondered if your comments went into the Cyberspace Black Hole ... no.  There visible now.

Blessings to you ... and I'll get over to respond to them just as soon as I put up my post for the December Synchroblog - Advent As A Journey.

Three years later, Abi is still blogging ... kind of

I am hoping that I will return to regular blogging soon.  However, I didn't want the day to pass without saying what a terrific experience blogging has been for me these past three years ... and will continue to be, I hope.
 
Mostly, I have continued dwelling deeply in the blending of the Mosaic Bible and the Celtic Daily Prayer ... facilitated by the memory card in my LG cell phone, onto which I have saved the mp3 versions I purchased of Peterson's "The Message" and Northumbria's sung version of their "Daily Office" (which also includes the spoken version)... along with Tyndale's Bible Alive NLT (although I am not much of a fan of Stephen Johnston.)

Sometimes my youngest climbs it bed with me to sing the Morning Prayer ... if I start before 7am and he is awake.  MidDay  and Evening Prayer are more challenging, but I am going along at a slow but steady pace in this new discilpine.  It has become especially precious to me to go to sleep with the thoughts of Compline floating around in my heart ... and I find that I fall sleep more quickly and rest more refreshingly.  I am grateful for both results.

I have also been listening frequently to The Message's Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) ... and am being slowly changed by a focus on these foundational words of Jesus.  I'll have more to say about that one of these days.

I just this week read an amazing little book -- the first in a 3-part fiction series -- called "The Hawk and the Dove" -- about the very purple abbot at a Benedictine abbey in the 1300s.  I am not done processing the surprising and profound resonance I experienced and am feeling very much in common with Father Peregrine.  I have ordered the entire 3-in-1 book set, as well as another book from the author, Penelope Wilcock.  I hope I get some other stuff done before they arrive.... ;^)

I have joined a local Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) for the first offering of a new study on Isaiah.  While I am not crazy about all their hermeneutics and structure, I am happy to be studying Isaiah in this kind of depth ... as well as encouraging my Mother-In-Law as she returns to BSF after not having one nearby for years.  My hopes, other than a better familiarity with Isaiah, are that Papa will use this time to help me become a better listener and to be more restrained in what I say and how much I say.  This is a very important discipline for me....and I think that Papa may be bringing me a new friend in my discussion group.

Mostly, I find that I am being asked to move away from reading and talking (even blogging!) about what it means to follow Jesus -- and get on with the business of living it.  As always, I am grateful for your company on this journey.

Be blessed!

The Mosaic Bible and Celtic Daily Office

Well, this wee abbess is very happy!

I have finally got a rhythm that works for me ... using the weekly meditations and bible readings from The Mosaic Bible in conjunction with the Northumbria Celtic Daily Office.  And, even as I type this post, I am downloading the music file from Northumbria so that I can learn to sign the daily office.

Woo hoo!

With the singing version, I just may be able to get my children to join in....

I start with the daily office and when I get to the meditation, I go to the current week in The Mosaic Bible and read the four scripture selections and variety of writings.  The I go back and finish with the rest of the office.

And I have the mp3 version of Eugene Peterson's "The Message" bible ... and am listening to the Beatitudes daily, as well.  I'm going to be adding the daily prayer music to my microchip so that it is on my cell phone, too.  Wow....

Yep ... one very happy girl, here!

Blessings to you....

The Virtual Abbess and the iMonk –Part II

Part I, which I didn’t know was going to be the beginning of a series, was posted shortly after Michael Spencer, the one and only iMonk, passed from this life. He has always been someone I appreciated, but I followed his journey with cancer especially close, since he also left this life too early and very quickly – as did my sister-in-law last year. Her first grandson was just born last Tuesday … and that just isn’t right, you know?

I had been considering reading his book and just hadn’t put it on my list … until a couple of weeks ago. And so I just recently finished reading Michael Spencer’s one and only book, Mere Churchianity: Finding Your Way Back to Jesus-Shaped Spirituality. It was just the right thing at just the right time … truly a kairos time moment with Papa.

The front and back covers of my copy of this book have notations from 37 pages throughout the very important little book. Notations that I wanted to be sure I could find again. But the one for page 184 is the reason for this post today.

Near the end of the chapter 15, The Good and Bad of Being Alone, Michael says:

Jesus is the Model for faithfully following God no matter what the group advocates, teaches, legislates, or demands. He was the most distinctive individual of all time, and he possesses the power to make us both like himself and fully, completely ourselves. In Jesus is the power of holy solitude and Jesus-shaped community…. (pp. 183-184)

When I read those words, something clicked in my brain. I wrote this in the space following that paragraph:

Hmmm … our first community is to be with Father, Son and Holy Spirit – Perichoretic Community.

Contrary to some of what I had heard, the iMonk is not advocating an inappropriately individualistic version of Christianity. He is suggesting that our primary community is to be Perichoretic – intertwined with the Eternal Community. Until we can be one with Them, we will not ever be fully ourselves. And until we can be fully ourselves, we will not be able to fully give ourselves to others.

... I'm pondering this well ... and there is a good reason why perichoretic is purple.... But we'll get to that as we go along.  ;^)

* * * * * * *

I have been waiting for a very long time to write about perichoresis … but I have been waiting for the right time. And it seems that the right time has finally come. Thank you, Michael, for handing that final Jesus-shaped piece to me … I am so very grateful.

So … I will be looking over some of the things I have scribbled in journals about perichoresis over the past four years and seeing how they look with this piece in place. I have a feeling that it will be much simpler and more straight-forward. I was waiting until the complexity resolved … and, as always, the time has been important for me – so that I was ready to receive this piece at this place in my journey.

Stay tuned ... and, in the meantime, be blessed!