When Christopher Hitchens died I could not help but be saddened.

His was a voice that cut through much of the garbage that is considered human dialogue and rhetoric today. Exceedingly sharp-tongued, witty and frighteningly intelligent he spent most of his journalistic life attacking human injustice, cowardice and hypocrisy head on.

While he may be remembered most for his staunch defense of atheism this truly does not come close to defining the person. As a follower of Christ I have come to learn a great deal about the nature of my own faith through the sharp edge of the debate that raged within myself as I would read his words.

He seemed at times a lion intent on consuming everything that stumbled into his path but of course this is the perspective of a person who never really knew him except through his words.

While many saw him as attacking faith, and he most certainly did not like religion of any sort, I would like to think much of his vitriol was directed rather at the darker parts of human nature…something we can both agree on if not on the source of this darkness.

If I have learned one thing from Hitchens it is that neither passion, nor intelligence are enough, by themselves, to engage the world in effective debate; However when you put the two together you get something formidable. I hope that in some way, myself and others would be able to present our views with passionate intelligence and not simply one or the other, alone and in isolation.

I for one am saddened at the silencing of Hitchen’s voice. The world will certainly be quieter for this loss…something that is not always be good.

black
is a lie
told
to convince
you
that
you are not

black
is
emptiness
absence
and
ever-nothing
when
there is
everything
always

so
in the
face
of
existence
black is not
black never was
black
is a lie
there
is only

white

blue is the colour of my sun
a robin’s egg cloak that spreads
behind its blazing grinning face
turquoise tempura wet with alive
never baked in this heated kiln gaze
but fresh-bright as an unfaded fresco
new, new, new
and mine

there upon the ocean moves
an endless dance of waves
a plain of peaks and rising grooves
filled pockets of azure enclaves
so too one finds far inland
that lake that place of peace
as unlike stretches of coastland
whose gilt edges never cease
both blue to eye
both sweet to ear
each shows the sky
sings songs for yearning us to hear
to swim in the arms of each
is cool embrace and light relief
moon-pulled sisters seek to teach
a way away from swallowing grief
but one is false
while one is fair
one spins a liar’s waltz
the other love’s lost prayer

how to tell the truth
this question begs of us
that in these days of naked youth
we might find life and live and thus…
we must bend forth pressing lips
drink deep from each her offering
till shivers from head to fingertips
divine the difference of their proffering
and in this way we come to know
what fruit does fall from each vine
a withering death or a cause to grow
for one is beauty the other brine

in the ivory light of dawn
things are quieter
than the mind
things are quieter
when the sun slides up
concave shell of sky

in these moments
we miss our hearts
we miss our souls
we miss innocense

maybe there is time
to carve a tusk of new hope
from the morning glow
to carry in the hollow of ourselves
cold bone to fill the endless empty

it is a dwelling upon these things
that drives a man to neutral
that slams the breaks hard
while all the while the world
ticks on and seethes ahead
stopping in the busy
is never a good thing
the moving ones lose sight of you
as motionless you fade away
collapsed upon yourself
a gravity well
bending eyes around
bending eyes away

not

really

there

 

There are a lot of books in the Christian publishing industry and most of them are garbage.

It’s no one’s fault really, publishing is an industry and as such there is a systematic need to fill millions of pages a year with content. Christian publishing, while popular, is a microcosmic niche in comparison to the broader world of publishing and as such has a smaller number of quality producers to fill the hopper with.  So what you get is a lot of filler. You get Amish romance novels that are shameful at best and Christian porn at worst. You get conspiracy minded apocalyptic writers who present subjects like eschatology in a pseudo-theological way all the while fanning the flames of racism and xenophobia creating Christians full of fear and anger.

I say all this because a book like David Kinnaman’s You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church… is a refreshing glass of cool water in the dry, parched desert that Christian publishing can often be.

The book is an example of what a good non-fiction mass market text should be – it is accessible, based on solid research and best of all – well written.

Kinnaman avoids alarmist language but the message of the book is clear – the body of Christ in the western world is bleeding – badly and in a way it has never done so before in its history. Focused on a large scale study of 18-29 year old Christians the book reveals that this demographic is leaving the church…but (and this is an important but) they  are not leaving faith.

Kinnaman clearly presents the proof of this and then spends time presenting the many reasons why young Christians are disengaging and unflinchingly points the finger back at you and I. The church, its leadership and older generations have failed to understand and keep up with dramatic cultural change to such a degree that the language being spoken now in our sanctuaries and sermons, in our songs and liturgy, is so foreign as to be complete nonsense – even to those who have grown up in the church.

Refreshingly Kinnaman does not leave the reader hanging, after defining the problem he presents some possible solutions in chapters like What’s Old is New, and Fifty Ideas to Find a Generation.

Let me be clear – this is an important book. I also want to state that this is not something a senior pastor or board chair can simply throw at the youth pastor to read to solve the problem…this is essential reading for every church leader. The content must be synthesized into the psyche of the church, prayed deeply over and responded to in radical fashion. Unfortunately the study Kinnaman bases his book on suggests that the very attitudes that have led the church to this place of loss is probably an attitude that will lackadaisically  ignore these warnings until it is too late.

In short – an excellent book. A must read.

Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc. Available at your favourite bookseller from Baker Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

these are gentle hands
that pull so sweet and soft
that tug insistently at my legs
warm currents like fingers
they are want, want, want

shall i sink
submissive submersion
into a deeper place
that may hold grace
is it a drowning place

to dive beneath the waves
to swim beneath it all
washed in brine and blood
perchance to surface again

new

Picture by yours truly…

The service this morning was enjoyable. I realize that statement is thin. To enjoy a service a lot can be involved…those who plan the worship, the presentation of the word of God and those who come ready or not to receive it. I really don’t know what state I was in as far as ‘ready’ is concerned but I enjoyed it nevertheless.

The reality is, no matter how much theology you throw at people and how many well crafted articles about how much joint effort is involved in coming to worship people will generally come as they are.

It is a good thing God can be a God of the gaps because we leave lots of gaps for God to fill be we pastors or participants. This is ok. God came to earth whether we were ready or not and so I think God knows us for who we are…God understands.

There were some great texts read today out of Luke, 1 Corinthians and Romans. I would like to park on Romans for a bit. In my mind perhaps the peak of the New Testament but that says more about me than the Bible. I love Romans. I will never be able to unpack Romans.

Romans 8:14-17 says –

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.  And by him we cry, “Abba,” Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

We are children, we are heirs, we are adopted, we are family, we are free…we are bound together by these things. We are not heir, nor called child but heirs and children. There is no isolation or sense of aloneness…only community. Family.

So these are the texts, the word of God and yet there persists without a doubt a very real sense of ex communio…outsideness from the family of God by many, many people. The feeling exists even in those who insist that faith means simply “being there” or “serving there” wherever there may be.

Why when we are clearly bound is community so difficult to find? Genuine, loving, forgiving, patient, selfless community. We crave it and are wired for it.

Perhaps one of the secrets to being in communio is to remember and embrace the reality that the church is bound together not by humanity, not by attendance, not even by faithfulness although surely we are to be faithful. Rather the church is bound together by the spirit of God.

I for one yearn for the passionate worship expressed through singing, word and prayer and I receive it on a Sunday morning however briefly. But it is not enough. Perhaps the trick is not to convince yourself that community only exists one hour on a Sunday morning amidst the trappings of a four walls and a select group of the saved, apart from the world rather than a part of the world.

Perhaps one must try to pray and becoming increasingly aware of the communion of saints that bear witness to who we are and are ever-present with us. To know that we are in communio even when we are apart from our sisters and brothers for a time be it the six days till next Sunday or whatever the space may be.