Abi links to a great post which asks: Is God Male....

Friends, you must simply take the time to read this beautiful post--shared on their Facebook page by the wonderful folks at The Junia Project:  Is God Male or Masculine? 

I have written posts about patriarchy and accommodation and about pondering the Spirit as the Grand Mother.  This post is an important background document to flesh out what I have so imperfectly tried to say in my broken, purple way....

Be blessed!

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 redefines and refocuses the controversy....

I have mentioned before that I'm not really comfortable with the terms currently used in the debates. I have had my synthesizing hat on for the past few years, looking to see if I could get my brain about things enough to describe what I have come to understand about the foundational issues that underpin the controversy.

Some of the key players in my thinking  these past 20+ years include: S. Scott Bartchy, Scot McKnight, C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald, Mont W. Smith, Lewis B. Smedes, Wayne Jacobsen, Alan & Deb Hirsch, Eugene H. Peterson, Neil Cole, Michael Frost, Tony and Felicity Dale, Len Hjalmarson, Wm. Paul Young and C. Baxter Kruger ... and all the thinkers of the past they have brought with them into today's arena. I would have a very difficult time separating the various threads each of these persons contributed to the wee tapestry I want to share today.

The following definitions are intentionally very dense as I try to squeeze 40 years and millions of words into something that begins to represent what I believe about how humans are meant to treat one another.  These concepts have been heated white-hot in wrath's purifying and restoring hell-fire (not sure whether I'm ready to join the May Synchroblog: What the hell? ... I may need a rest!) and hammered out on the anvil of spiritual formation over the past five years in my wee purple experience. And now they have been plunged to cool in the Living Water of Truth to harden and prepare for service.

My glasses are still a bit fogged from the steam...and I'm still a bit tender in places that have been pruned and cauterized...but I trust the love of Sarayu that sometimes wounds in order to heal.

I pull no punches today, so I know those brothers and sisters who have invested their lives in what is currently called Complementarianism will not be very happy with me.  The term "Patriarchal Subjugation" will probably offend them.  I am intending to be precise, not offensive. I endeavor to speak the truth in love, spritzing a bit of Trinitarian Windex on their Augustinian glasses, as Baxter says...but I know that they will not see differently until they get a new prescription.

And I realize that it is not my task to convince them and call them to repentance--that is the work of Grandmother! I trust that Jesus is on their journey with them right where they are and that the Spirit will lead them according to their readiness to follow.  I certainly know how long it took me to make this difficult transition. They are still my brothers and sisters in Christ, but that does not mean that I must agree with them.

If you've been following my thoughts over the past eight years, you will see how I've come to this particular synthesis. And, as Craig Groeschel told a group of us at a Church Planting Conference in Kansas about seven years ago:  I only guarantee what I'm saying for 90 days. The Spirit is always at work teaching and leading me toward deeper growth along this journey...and there's always something being pruned, weeded, mulched... hey, it's spring! ;^)

Here goes--I suggest that you read it slowly and out loud (if your surroundings allow!) 

Patriarchal Subjugation 

is a male-centered, domination-based 

functional social structure of scarcity 

implemented by coercion and aversion. 

It's Christian practice flows from 

Augustinian-based scriptural interpretation and tradition, 

which is influenced by the pagan Greek philosophy of Socrates 

as taught by Plato, Aristotle and others. 

(Interestingly, Socrates rose to influence 

as the 400 years of prophetic silence 

was beginning for the Hebrews 

and his philosophy was firmly entrenched 

in the dominant culture of the Roman Empire 

when, in the fullness of time, Christ was born.)

Its infiltration from Western Civilization into Western Christianity 

was as subtle as a pagan wolf in Christian sheep's clothing 

and its practice ultimately fosters bondage and stunted maturity—

both of the oppressor and the oppressed.

Its peace is built on the coercive order

and cruel efficiency of the PAX ROMANA.

[I will need to come back and unpack this later...

probably with lots of links

to things that have already been said better

 somewhere else!]

Perichoretic cHesed

is an other-centered, self-giving 

relational social structure of abundance 

implemented by gracious loving-kindness 

and manifests as unmerited favor, 

mutual submission and 

mutually-initiated helpfulness

based on the best interest of the other. 

It flows out of Trinitarian-based scriptural interpretation, 

which is influenced by the Hebraic covenant philosophy of YHWH 

as revealed to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, 

and given to Moses in the Law,

known as the Old Covenant, 

and taught by the prophets. 

As it was radically reinterpreted by Jesus 

and introduced as the New Covenant, 

(cut in his very own body 

and shedding his very own blood,

to bring about our rebirth and adoption)

and taught by Paul and the very Early Church Fathers, 

its faithful and humble practice

results in the growing freedom

and growing maturity 

of ALL toward Christlikeness. 

Its peace is the very own peace of Christ Jesus, 

which is not at the world gives,

but rather removes both anxiety and fear

as all come to learn of their 

inclusion in the very Life Eternal

of the Father and the Son in the Spirit

as adopted children and joint heirs with Christ Jesus.

Perichoretic cHesed...

It's News...because we didn't know it.  And it's Good!  (HT: C. Baxter Kruger)

Grace and peace to you!

Abi

Abi and April's Synchroblog: Bridging the Divides

Updated update!  The last stragglers have been added to the list.  I hope you wander through these thoughtful posts...take your time, they're not going anywhere!  ;^)

Update!  The list of the other participants in this Synchroblog are listed at the bottom of the post....

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It is always a miracle when I am able to participate in the Synchroblogs of my friends ... and when I first read the topic on this one, I was filled with turmoil.  You see, there is entirely too much division in my house...and the bridge that used to unite us was effectively blown up five years ago. I have been pretty much in survival mode since then.

Some bridges cannot be unilaterally built -- they require cooperation between those who possess the land on either side of the gulf that divides.  And so I wondered if I would have anything to say this month...that I was willing to say in public, that is.

But today I find that I have a few things to say!

The house that Jesus was talking about is the house of the Triune God, where Father, Jesus and Grandmother dwell in Perichoretic cHesed. Where there is such unity and togetherness that there is no other word to describe their reality other than that they are One. Interesting that the last Synchroblog in which I was able to participate was on that topic...kind of like a warm up to this one, eh?

Take a look at the entire story in Mark 3...see that the context is about whether Jesus is of God's house and just who make up the members of that household.

This little story tells two important things:  the Household of the Trinity cannot be divided...but the neighborhoods in the Kingdom sure can be.  This gives me a firm foundation as well as a firm reprimand. If Jesus gave no special place to his flesh and blood family, I should consider my priorities carefully too....

When I get all caught up in the distinctives of various neighborhoods, it is all too easy to forget the distinctives of the Kingdom.  Kingdom reality carries the proper pH -- not too acid nor too alkaline -- that sweet spot described by the number seven:  complete, whole and full -- where human life flourishes and homeostasis is possible:  Just Right!

When Jesus became human, it was a distinctive he would carry for the rest of Eternity.  And in that blend of Trinity and Humanity he took hold of all of creation. He became the first truly fully human; one who was not divided by the knowledge of good and evil, but united with Father and Grandmother as he hammered out what it meant to be fully human and fully God. He laid hold on his creation and took us down with him in death, where he entered fully into our fallen darkness and blindness. He put to death fallen humanity and voided Adam's sin. He fell with us into our hell ... and turned on the lights! When he rose from the grave, he bought all of creation back to life -- recreated!  In Christ there is no gap left to bridge. We have been included in the Perichoretic cHesed of the Trinity because we are IN Jesus. All humanity has been adopted through the New Covenant in Jesus.

The challenge he sent Grandmother to work out, when he returned to Father, was the education of the newly adopted children. This is no small challenge:  most of the children have not heard about (or do not believe) what Jesus has done for them: They have nothing to earn. They have only to see and hear, believe and receive, repent and reorient to Kingdom life.

And that is where we come back to division. Or should we say poor vision? In and out. Us and them. Included and excluded. Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female. What a big gulf is represented by that little word: division.

The problems of division come when we look at our lives through our own eyes, rather than through the eyes of Jesus, as revealed by our Holy Grandmother.  We need new glasses for this new reality -- for our eyes will not be healed until that day when our bodied are transformed into ones like Jesus. Until then, we all need glasses. I call them cHesed Glasses....

One of the reasons why I have had to step away from institutional forms of Christianity is kind of like keeping 3D glasses on after you leave the 3D environment. Thinks just don't look right. Images look blurred and flat instead of crisp and bold. I have talked about the 3D quality of my cHesed Glasses, but there is an update needed.  I guess they need to be called 3D Perichoretic cHesed Glasses! ;^)

These 3D pH Glasses are kind of like those glasses said to have been made by Benjamin Franklin for reading the secret map on the back of the Declaration of Independence in the movie National Treasure, staring Nicholas Cage. Depending on which lens combination was being used, different things on the map could be seen....

3D pH Glasses see through the lenses of love, grace and mercy. They show us not only how God's love, grace and mercy are poured out over us at all times...they also show us opportunities for us to share this gracious loving-kindness with all of Creation -- humans, animals, plants, planet.

I have come to see that the glasses that Western Christianity has ground out for us to wear have a prescription that looks more to Plato and Greco-Roman legal constructs (which influenced Augustine, and through him, Luther and Calvin and so many others) than toward Moses and cHesed as covenant relationships. I have become more and more convinced that this is one of the biggest sources of division within the neighborhoods of the Kingdom.

It seems to me that all divisions come, um, from vision problems. I love how Baxter Kruger says that theology is basically just Windex to clean away the dirt and smudges that mar our ability to properly perceive God as they exist as Father, Son and Grandmother. We need to remember to not only wear our 3D pH Glasses, but to regularly clean them with Trinitarian Windex!  That Platonic Windex just doesn't work.

When I am looking out through glasses that are ground to help me see the amazing relationship between Father, Son and Grandmother -- where there is no competition or hierarchy, but only the freedom of Perichoretic cHesed for one another and for me -- it is such a fresh and beautiful sight. But when I look at structures of law and judgment, expectation and responsibility, organization and hierarchy, power and control that so many churches have adopted...well no wonder it gives me a headache!  And when our Platonic Windex only smears without cleaning, we multiply the problems.

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In the end I have to keep reminding myself the division in the Kingdom is not really Real. It's just a bad case of distortion -- one that requires new glasses and proper Trinitarian Windex!  That being said, poor vision is the cause of many an injury...and neighborhood divisions in the Kingdom are the most tragic form of "friendly fire" that exists!

May Jesus help us find ways to replace division with his vision....

Be blessed!


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Here’s the list of other bloggers contributing posts related to healing the divides this month:

• Caris Adel - Emotional Pacifism: Laying Down My Weapons 
• Ty Grigg – Speak Truth 
• Jon Huckins – Gay Marriage, World Vision, and a Unified Church? 
• Mark Votava – Faith Presence in the Parish 
• Mary at Lifeinthedport – let us meet in the borderlands
• Michael Donahoe – Healing Divisions in the Body of Christ  
• Jeremy Myers – Unity vs. Uniformity in the Church 
• Juliet at Still Learning – A Catholics Love Letter to Evangelical Women 
• Dago at Scripture Insights – Jesus the Divider 
• Glenn Hager – The Lowest Common Denominator 
• Sarah Quezada - Standing on Church Bridges 
• Doug Webster – Truth Is Not a Process, Belief Is
• Michelle Van Loon – Bridging the Divide 
• Happy at Simple Felicity – are we there yet? 
• Travis Klassen – The Church: Coming, Going, or Being 
• Bec Cranford - Biblical Interpretation and Inerrancy: Moving beyond myopia to a grander vision of unity
• Teresa Pasquale – Bridging the Divide: Translating Between Dialects, Culture Contexts, and Heart Stirring 
• Miguel Labrador – I might be willing to reconsider church hierarchies, if…
• Paul Meier – Healing the Divides Begins Within 
• Liz Dyer – You Can’t Get There From Here 
• K.W. Leslie – Humility 
• Kathy Escobar – 10 ways we can build bridges instead of bomb them 
• Loveday Anyim – The “non-Gospelized Rituals” of Pentacostalism 
• Caedmon Michael – Bridging the Divides
• Carly Gelsinger – “Church Shopping” at the Wrong “Mall”: A Story of Easter Sundays
• Mallory Pickering – A Splintered People
• Pastor Edwin Fedex – Tearing Down Fences and Building Sidewalks
• Jen Baros – Bridging the Divides: How to Heal 
• Burning Religion – The Impossible Space Between Us 
• Bronwyn Lea – When My Children Squabble
• Christine Sine – Unified by Love Not Doctrine 

Abi ponders the roots of sin....

With gratitude to Mont Smith, Scott Bartchy, Scott Peck, Alan Hirsch, Paul Young, Wayne Jacobsen, Penelope Wilcock, Baxter Kruger...and so many others who have challenged my thinking. Thanks be to God....

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I have come, over the past 20 years, to believe that understanding sin requires that we back up and understand the primary will of God...so that we see clearly the target that sin misses.

Belief is certainly part of the will of God, but perhaps that is too narrow, or not specific enough. What is it that we are to believe?

Scripture tells us repeatedly that God is love. Love is a relational term that needs the context of the Trinity --Father, Son and Holy Spirit -- for proper understanding. Too many see God as alone and distant in his holiness (Greek thinking) rather than engaged as an eternal relationship of love that includes all creation.

If God is by nature a loving relationship of mutuality and equality, where there is such unity of desire that can only be described as Oneness, then we have to ponder the meaning of creation.

I believe They created in order to share Their life of loving relationship with humans. History has been the process of humanity's education. And this is where sin comes in.

I believe that the problem of human sin is one of laziness -- of taking the easy way rather than embracing the necessary work of growing through loving relationships. This laziness partners with a desire for independence, because it seems easier (better!) to do things our way instead of entering into the growth required by love that fosters the other's best interest and finds a way in unity. This is why sin almost always is manifest as coercion -- trying to get our way by force.

This coercive way is sin because it misses the mark of loving the other as we love ourselves. It weakens or destroys relationship and introduces fear...and I don't mean holy awe....

And when we are afraid, we trust less...and, boom -- we get unbelief.

The serpent sowed seeds of fear by suggesting that God was not to be trusted -- that he was holding something back -- and the rule against eating of the forbidden fruit was a form of coercion. Laziness took that seed and gave it place instead of running straight to God for the truth.

The serpent stole their innocent dependence on God as Guide and they turned to independence instead of growing toward greater interdependence.

I have come to realize that much of Western Christianity is mired in the unfortunate blending of Roman/Greek philosophy, which forms a pair of legal/rational information-as-knowledge contextual glasses. This moves away from God's Hebrew experience + information = knowledge philosophy, which is founded on cHesed -- gracious loving-kindness -- within God's series of covenants. When that happens, misinterpretation will follow about the very nature of God and humanity...with the horrific results too many accept today as God's will. So very sad....

Only by the continual renewing of our minds by the Spirit will we have eyes that can see the Truth in Jesus, and this calls us to die to self so that we can be alive in Christ.

Lord have mercy on us in our blindness...and lead us out of the darkness of our own fallen thinking!

Amen!

Abi and the Fabric of Accommodation

Inspired by Kate’s post at The Junia Project and a brilliant spin off post on how racism and patriarchy are cut from the same cloth….

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Back in the spring of 1997, I watched a riveting speaker rebuke the folks at TBN – from TBN’s stage.  I don’t remember his name or the response, but I’ll never forget what he said.  The bottom line of his rebuke that spring afternoon was:  Do not confuse the apparent blessing of God with a stamp of approval on your methods.  Wow.  So much of what is wrong with the world can be attributed to this issue….

I think that this rebuke rightly joins with another important concept I learned while a student at PCC (now HIU):  frozen accommodations.  The late Dr. Mont Smith coined this wonderful phrase in his important book, What the Bible Says About Covenant (College Press, 1981, pp. 370-371; unfortunately out of print), as part of a larger discussion on the Doctrine of Implied Power. He begins this section with:  “Inherent in the doctrine of implied power was the danger of holding a group at a point of accommodation after the social situation changed.” Then he gets to this:  “What the Apostles would have insisted upon was a return to the standard of full Christlike service for all and to all, as soon as possible.”

The problem has always come when that which was meant as a temporary accommodation becomes frozen in time and custom and culture.  Then it is no longer seen as an accommodation to human weakness; it becomes “the will of God,” complete with out-of-context proof-texting.

God always stoops to accommodate our immaturity, because They love us and are always looking out for our best interest.  They are not willing that we should perish.  When there is an issue we have problems with, rather than just blowing us away, God woos us bit by bit…beginning right where we are and slowly nudging us in the proper direction.

The Apostles, as they helped the young churches live out the mind-blowing freedom Jesus brought, had to continue God’s use of temporary accommodations to the weakness and hard-heartedness of men during the process of growing up in the kingdom family of God.

In their writings we see more of the same problems with the fluid nature of growth being frozen into structures of power and domination, rather than freedom in Christ by the Spirit.

So how do things become frozen?  I think it stems from what M. Scott Peck, M.D., thought about original sin.  Peck came to see original sin as laziness:  “attempting to avoid necessary suffering, or taking the easy way out.”  Laziness is the anti-cHesed.  

(Terminology break:  cHesed is a Hebrew concept usually translated something like gracious loving-kindness -- I believe it is the concept used to describe the primary nature of God as Love -- it describes the activity of faithful covenant keeping. I join it with the Greek concept of perichoresis, which describes the Life of the Trinity: mutual interpenetration without loss of distinctiveness.  The result:  Perichoretic cHesed.)

And so the Fabric of Accommodation is woven with threads of laziness … because growth is hard work.  Life is difficult, and learning to think clearly – not simplistically – is the weak link in all humans. Paul tells us that this can only be done by the continual renewing of our minds by the Spirit. We must learn to think with the Mind of Christ!

The drive for independence actually leads to a worse kind of dependence.  Rejecting dependence on God as faithful covenant partner, the human drive for independence (at the Fall and since) was a rejection of the necessary suffering required for growth and interdependence and cHesed: mutually seeking the best interest of the covenant partners.

The cross Christ has asked us to take up daily is the dance of Perichoretic cHesed:  to both receive and give love that submits, grace that serves, and mercy that initiates and leads. To allow ourselves to be drawn into the Eternal Perichoretic cHesed in order to share it. This is a profound paradox -- his yoke is easy and his burden is light....

• Patriarchy as a system of social order was allowed as an accommodation by God to the social order of humanity in its infancy. There are many examples of how God rejected patriarchy when new lessons were being taught.  (Think about what Jesus meant when he said that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.)

• The subjugation of women (and children and slaves and other members of the family/tribe) is a foundational principle of patriarchy. As a consequence of the Fall, God foresaw that women would desire their men (even with increased pain in childbirth) as protectors and providers (a mere shadow of their originally intended dynamic partnership), and that their men would use their power to rule over them. To state that this has always been the intention of God in the creation of humanity is a bizarre kind of blindness.

• Polygamy, as a sub-system of patriarchy, was also accommodated and used by God to educate humanity and provide justice for those involved – as a part of experiencing kingdom life that was already, but not yet fully, being realized. From creation God intended that marriage would be a permanent bonding between one man and one woman for the purpose of experiencing a foreshadowing of the blessing of the Perichoretic cHesed of the Eternal Triune God – including being sub-creators under God (HT J.R.R. Tolkien) and procreators.

• Divorce, then, is abhorred by God – but is yet another accommodation to the hard-heartedness of men. It was provided as a protection of the wives (and children) from abuse and abandonment. It shows the immaturity of those who are not willing or ready to do the hard work required for intimate relationship and community to flourish as Perichoretic cHesed.

• Slavery was a reality in every ancient human society. God tolerated slavery as an accommodation to human social and economic circumstances. However, he fostered maturity in humanity when he gave slaves a frequent place in Their kingdom work – offering protection, respect, and ultimately hope for freedom as well as adoption in the redemptive work of Jesus!

• Racism is a subset of slavery in that those races that were victorious in battle took slaves both as a way to humiliate the defeated (put them in their place, as it were) as well as to provide laborers. The history of slavery in America is full of talk about slaves not being fully human. Makes me ill to even think about it, especially having recently read the original manuscript of 12 Years A Slave….

• Monarchy in Israel was an accommodation by God to the weakness of humanity, who wanted a human king – even knowing that a king would tax and dominate them – rather than accept God as king.  "Lording it over" others is NOT the plan of God, as Jesus clearly taught.

All these are forms of accommodation God made to the hardness of men’s hearts.  Each of them represents a rejection of the will of God that They were willing to accommodate in order to lead humanity home.

But in the fullness of time, God came in the flesh as Jesus – God With Us – and set the record straight for those with eyes to see and ears to hear.

In the section on Increasing Interpersonal Competence, Chris Argyris developed and articulated his Immaturity-Maturity continuum as a way to show how institutions always tend to foster immaturity because they value order, efficiency and conformity over creativity, effectiveness and diversity.  (Management of Organizational Behavior, Sixth Edition, Paul Hersey and Kenneth H. Blanchard, Prentice Hall, 1993, pp. 64-69)

I believe the theory known as Situational Leadership, developed by Hersey and Blanchard (Management of Organizational Behavior, Sixth Edition, Paul Hersey and Kenneth H. Blanchard, Prentice Hall, 1993, pp. 183-219), is so powerful and true because it is a representation of God’s leadership style as They exist as Three who mutually submit, serve and lead together as they live out their Oneness as Perichoretic cHesed.

As They work to help humanity see the reality of our inclusion via adoption in the New Covenant in Jesus, They submit and serve and lead us for our best interest.  Their actions are always about growth and freedom and participation in the Great Dance of Perichoretic cHesed (which I call the perfect relational pH).

Leaders with the proper pH lead according to the readiness level of the follower, not according to their preferred leadership style.  Hersey and Blanchard identify four paired styles of leading and following, and humans need to recognize themselves in each style. The challenge is that our leader or follower style will be different depending on the situation.  We can’t just turn on auto pilot – we have to think clearly in order to discern the proper style. Here is a quick summary and a handy chart.

Pen Wilcock’s fabulous Lent book calls the name of God – I AM THAT I AM – Present Presence. I think that’s just right. Our Eternal Triune God lives in Kairos time…it is always NOW. Their presence is always present – we are never alone! Perichoretic cHesed is a dance of expectant responsiveness.

Jesus said that his yoke is easy and his burden is light.  Jesus shares the cross/yoke that is the perfect pH for us to bear: he stoops in cHesed to bind himself to us, so that we may walk out that cHesed together as we do God’s will.

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Well...my firstborn is on his way home from college for spring break.  Woo hoo! 

May you be swept up into the Great Dance, beloved....

Abi

Abi's Graphic Wound...be forewarned!

Update!  On April 11th, I was back at the "scene" with my youngest son -- and had him take pictures of the log (which is about 4' long) with a close up of the infamous "stump" that did the damage...that's his hand (which is the same size as mine) there to show you just how big that sucker is!  I am in the midst of Week 10...and the healing sure seems slow!  Months more to go....

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This picture, taken on Day 5, seems to show me taking this purple martyrdom a bit too far...and the extent of this bruise grew for two more days, until it covered the entire back of my right thigh.

...but this is week six since the sledding accident that saw me impaled on the broken-off branch of a hidden log.  Lesson:  trailblazers can get hurt!

And yet, there is a deeper lesson...

...one that is learned after the bruising is gone, and the sutures are removed, and all the scabs have fallen away:  the wound that cannot be seen, yet was the deepest and most dangerous, is far from healed.

But it looks so much better!  Yeah, looks can be deceiving....

I still cannot sit down or put any pressure on the back of my right thigh.

Really...after six weeks?

The doctor says it may take three month for the internal wound to just stabilize...and six months to finish reconstruction...and nine months for full range of motion...and a year or more for strength and the lessening of the scar tissue and any accompanying adhesions. Ugh!

I have never had a wound like this...it's exhausting.  But I am going to be well in time. And I am going to remember these lessons. The sharp stabs and the aching and the shocks as nerves reconnect.  And I will marvel at the brilliance of God's creative masterpiece with humility and gratitude....

So that when I see the wounds of others, I will remember the deep pain. I will listen to their pain and frustration. I will remember how long it takes to heal.

And I will shed tears of seeing over them. So they will know they are not invisible. Their pain is seen with gentle eyes that know woundedness.

And I will not make them have to ask for my help. To see if they can do things for themselves. There will be hours and days when they have no one to pamper them...when they will have to spend so much energy just shifting to be comfortable in bed that they break out into a sweat.

No, no...love that submits to their needs with deliberate affection, and grace that serves with unmerited favor, and mercy that initiates kindness mutually owed...this is what perichoretic cHesed does when one's beloved is in need.

But more than what small comfort I can give, I hope to remind them that our amazing God -- Father, Son and Spirit -- are I AM THAT I AM. They are the Present Presence...always there with us in our pain and suffering. Not to save us from our suffering, but to walk through it with us.

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You still have time, during this season of Lent, to pick up Penelope Wilcock's lovely and insightful book, The Wilderness Within You. I finished it yesterday and am going back to make notes of the many profound insights she shares. I picked up Present Presence from this book...and it has been such a bit of comfort to me! This is a woman who gets it -- and I am grateful to have her friendship.

Be blessed!