Capitalism and the New Spiritual Warfare

This last year has been a whirlwind for many of us.  Trillions of dollars of wealth, savings, and income have disappeared.  Many people speculate that it's just the beginning.  Oddly enough, all of the economic turmoil has metamorphosed me into a deeper believer of Spiritual Warfare, but not in the way you think.  Spiritual Warfare is typically portrayed as an epic battle of prayer and discipline fought by demons and angels who are controlled and ordered around by our wizard-like religious spells.  We pray for, against, and with angelic beings we've never seen or understand beyond metaphors and fables.  This is the most traditional and common definition of Spiritual Warfare.  While this is valid and mysteriously attractive, I don't know about it, and frankly I have yet to be convinced of the presence of this type of Spiritual reality in our culture but I have, as of late, become increasingly aware of different Spiritual reality within our secular, post religious, capitalist culture that is even more pressing and urgent.  

I'll start by explaining the spiritual reality of a middle-schooler.  For some reason many kids between about the ages of 12 and 15 come to a life threshold where they must choose between becoming good or bad.  No matter how fantastic of a support structure they may have, the complexities of their heart come down to what they find more entertaining and compelling.  If a student finds the adrenaline of getting into trouble more magnetic than the fulfillment of doing the right thing often enough kids will go down the road of destructive, negative behavior.  It may start with goofing off in class but it potentially leads to damaging activities like deceitfulness, delinquency, and drugs.   A youths life direction can often hinge on wether or not they are drawn to the right activities.  It all comes down to what their heart longs for and desires to do most.  If I, as a youth worker, can convince a student to love making productive, positive, and redemptive choices they will likely lead a life of good rather than bad.  What I'm describing is an invisible battle over kids hearts'.  It is, in itself, a spiritual battle.    

Apply this battle of hearts to adults on a larger scale and you have the modern state of our economy.  The current recession was not spawned by a famine, global war, or natural disaster,or any other physical event or movement, but by the very ambiguous direction of mans' heart.  You see our capitalist system, which I'm a firm believer in, allows great freedom and liberty.  It provides the forum of creativity for people to accomplish historically unprecedented feats like modern medicine, technology, and philosophy while at the same time offers the same freedom for tragically negative movement and trends.  Our current economic meltdown was ignited by nothing more than greed, which is a state of man's heart, a state that is in essence spiritual.  People exploited one-another over and over until the system broke.  It was greed that caused investment bankers to package risky home loans together and greed that caused banks to give loans to people who didn't qualify.  As mass community, our national heart was corrupted by the intoxicating temptation of money, power, influence, and success (Don't we learn anything from the past?).

The challenge for us is to change our hearts.  The change of hearts is not a physical struggle.  Our hearts are invisible, they are spiritual.  I've become convinced that our current economic wake-up call is a lesson in Spiritual Warfare, to win over the hearts of men and women for things that are good, not bad, loving, not selfish, and giving, not greedy.  The warfare we are being called to engage in is a battle of hearts, a battle that is more spiritual than we may understand.  This is a moment of great opportunity as once calloused hearts have become softened to the uncertainty what may come next.  Let us begin to wrestle with the very core of the Spiritual reality, a mans' heart.

Sleepless from Seattle

Here are some pictures from this last weekend in Seattle.  They were taken on an iPhone so they're not the best quality, but I like em.  I've returned home in a much heavier place than I left.  This time around the Emerald city threw me some curve balls, leaving me with more questions than it feels like I can handle. Seattle is a great town and I love almost everything  about its' coffee-indie-artsy-outdoorsy-urban personality, I'm just in a state of mourning because I left a piece of my heart up there, in the Northwest.

No matter what the future holds Seattle will forever be a place that has scarred my soul, left marker in my path, and for now taken from me something I hold dear.  Now that I'm back home in Dublin, I find my self sleepless from Seattle, tossing, turning, and re-thinking everything. 

I have a fascination with cities and their character.  Each city is wrapped in a personal history draping it with memories and emotions.  What cities signify some sort of meaning to you? What places will you never forget for either their positive or negative sentiment?

The Pay Off.

It was an intense moment.  Our bus was packed full of gleeful children caked in salty-sand leftover from a day at the beach.  We were headed down the almost gravel road on our way home through the hazy countryside taking our time to gather water for the parched thirty year old bus engine.  What seemed like lifetimes led up to this moment.  

I surveyed the interior of the bus and inhaled the breath of humanity all around me.  Elderly women crammed uncomfortably three or four where we would normally sit two.  Kids packed on plastic chairs in the middle of the aisle.  Above me I could hear the metal bend under the pressure of at least ten more kids who rode atop our Burmese caravan.  Against my chest lay a young orphan boy we call Sawyer, fast asleep,  never knowing of the opportunities that passed him by the moment he was born in this land.  Altogether there must have been eighty souls trapped on this heavenly ride all breathing the same air of humanity.  

This was one of the greatest moments of my life.  To my right sat the guardian sage of the entire city who orchestrated this day and who I am called to bless.  He is a Mon born Pastor named Maung Ko Ko.  We call him Ako.  Further to my right sat a lifelong friend named Kevin who will never know how much I love him, how much he means to me, and how much I believe in him.  All around me were lives of children, women, and men who have been forever changed by the touch of an invisible God who made himself flesh to our humanity.  

For some strange reason we are allowed to play a part in helping Ako love and shepherd his people.  The years leading to this trip left me with dozens of unresolved emotions and broken callings.  I was unsure if we were suppose to know Ako and all the people on that Bus.  I questioned if we were doing the right thing, following Gods call, and being wise.  The questioning of our purpose left me heavy and depressed.  We were out of sync.  On this day at that moment all of those apprehensions were squelched under the burdensome weight of pure joy.  It had been months since I experienced joy.  Joy comes from being made aware and thus humbled by presence of God himself.  At that moment I knew where to give my life.  I knew why I was born.  

Our dream is to remain connected to these lives and be a gift to their ministry.  I long to see these children for years and years, to see them grow and change and become who they were created to be.  I smile thinking about the possibility of sending these kids to college, to give them the opportunity of education. The possibilities are endless and I can't wait to see how the next few years of our friendship with the people on that bus turn out.  We will be there for them as much as we can.  Some how in all of this I feel like this is what it means to crawl up into my Fathers arms and trust in His provision, grace, goodness, and love just like as young Sawyer did with me when he slept silently my arms.  This is the pay off I will endure any hardship, trail, or disaster for.  Oh God let me not forget that moment.  

Attentiveness

AT⋅TEN⋅TIVE   [uh-ten-tiv]

–adjective

1.            characterized by or giving attention; observant: an attentive audience.

 

I Want to be aware of all that is happening around me.  Each moment we breath away another moment of infinite activity.  I want to hear, smell, feel, see, taste, understand, and experience as much as I can.  Like the immeasurable rate of raindrops that fall in a storm, life is filled with captivating truths at every splash.  Some life occurrences are satisfying, others are painful.  How intense would it be if we could become more attuned to the events going on in our world and in our consciousness?  What if instead of hearing the collective white noise that comes with rain we could hear every single drop?  I fear that I'm destined for the callousing that seems to come with age, the type of numbness that loses sensitivity and can't even recognize when drops fall on the thick hardened skin of weathering time. 

 

This week has been a week of many exciting moments.   Hitting a bar with my father,  standing in front of my young friends and pour out my heart like water, a conversation with a wise mentor, finally seeing some one I love, time spent with the brethren laughing, and the screaming anticipation that comes with standing on the edge of so many things that are so much bigger than I, propels me into deep joy and a sense that I don't want to miss out on the touch of the divine in these days.

 

Monday I board a flight for Burma and I am genuinely filled with joy.  I'm so lucky to live this life, to know these people, to have these talks, to see these things, and to be here now.  We'll be carrying with us a very large sum of money that will be donated to some trustworthy people.  As I withdrew the cash from my bank and watched the teller count it out on the table in front of me I wondered about the strangeness of this occurrence.  No Doubt most of the money that we will be carrying was given away by amazing, generous people, many of whom I've never met, only to be carried half way around the world and given to an obscure Kachin man from Yangoon, Burma.  Each dollar was earned and donated, and trusted to me a young-naive white kid to give away.  What a bizarre concept.  How privileged I am to get to play a role in this exchange.  I wonder where the money came from.  Americans? Church-goers?  College kids?  Was it a sacrifice?  I wonder what it will be used for.  Music equipment?  Cyclone relief aid? Feeding orphans?  I wonder.  Its details like these that I want to be attentive to, the deep divinely connected nature of life. How everything is so improbable yet beautifully orchestrated.  I don't want to miss a single drop.

New Years Eve

New Years Eve is the closest thing to a global fresh start I can think of.  By the dropping of a ball or the turning of a clock all of our sins from the year prior are absolved and wiped away. We are free to freely become whoever we want to be from that moment on.  

Each year the world looks back and remembers the highs and lows of the previous year.  2008 in particular was a year many can't wait to forget as it was a year filled with war (Iraq, Afghanistan, Georgia, Israel),  economic depression (stock market crash, financial market crisis, national bankruptcy, the bursting housing bubble), and natural disasters (China Earthquake killing 70,000, Burmese Cyclone killing 80,000).  With all the bleakness of 2008, what will 2009 bring?  Will it bring any sort of change?  Can a make believe date really give us a clean slate?

Most of us will spend tonight in a room filled with people we sort-of know as we try to avoid awkward conversation waiting for the moment when the click of a clock will bring us into 2009.  Usually it means nothing.  Usually we remain the same as we were the moment before.  I want it to be different this year.  As I reflected on all of this I began to ask myself;  can I start over, or will my old habits and addictions keep me the same as I was in 2008?  If my fate and destiny are truly in my hands then I'm going to try my hardest to be a new person next year.  Here are some lyrics written by Five Iron Frenzy that incapsulate my thoughts on New Years Eve.

"It's New Years Eve and I'm full of empty promises, I half pretend to keep this time, just like last year. The band is loud and I'm wandering the shadows, wishing I was never here. I persevere. A crowded room, these whitewashed tombs, they raise their glasses high, they kiss the past goodbye. 

This New Years Eve, I'm waiting for tomorrow. My heart is on my sleeve, and yes I still believe, this New Years Eve, will turn out better than before, I'm holding on, still holding out, until they close the door... on me. 

It's New Years Eve and I feel my insecurities, are haunting me like ghosts, this sinking quicksand. And then with thunderous praise and lofty adoration, a second passes by, yet nothing changes. I hate my skin, this grave I'm standing in. Another change of years, and I wish I wasn't here. 

A year goes by and I'm staring at my watch again, and I dig deep this time, for something greater than I've ever been, life to ancient wineskins. And I was blind but now I see. 

This New Years Eve, something must change me inside, I'm crooked and misguided, and tired of being tired. This New Years Eve, I'm waiting for tomorrow. My heart is on my sleeve, and yes I still believe, in You." 

Dreaming Pt. 1

I've got some dreams.  They change from day to day and season to season, but they're always there, inside my soul.  I'm not talking about the types of dreams you have when your passed out on the couch, I'm talking about the dreams you have when you look at the world, your community, your friends, your family, and yourself and begin imagine how they could be so much better.  Often my dreams haunt me like an unresolved song that never made it through the final chorus.  I find myself itching to hear the end.  Because my dreams aren't reality yet, it feels like I'm stuck in a song that never quite finished.  Usually I'm scared to speak about my dreams because I'm unsure how to make them more than dreams.   I'm fearful that if I tell some one what's in my dreams I'll be held accountable when they don't become.  

I spent yesterday with an old friend named Nick.  We drove North a few hours to visit with a student that is very close to both of our hearts.  As we conversed and drove through a rainy Northern California day we shared with one another some of our dreams.  After the day finished I knew that I needed to dream more.  I concluded that I should write some of my dreams out to help.  This Blog will probably consist of dozens of updates and parts as my dreams evolve and mutate, and thats ok.  If only one or two of these dreams get accomplished in my lifetime, so be it.   My hope is to mark my moments of  dreaming by writing about them as a way of keeping those moments alive and fusing them into my life.  My quest is to reach deep into my soul and draw forth what's internal and imagined and connect it to physical and existing .   

Dream #1: Church

I'd like to see church change.  Don't hear me wrong, I love church.  I love the community, the message, the support, the ministry, the care, the inspiration, and the force for good that the church is in its current form.   I just long to see it grow into its FULL potential.  To me the church is like an academic, athletic, and artistic genius in high-school that's doing the bare minimum to get by.   It gets all the necessary homework done, passes with B and C grades, and obeys the voices of authority as any good student should.  This high-school kid's goal is to slip under the radar of the world while always living beneath its full levels of influence.  The church has become an institution trying to survive and fit into a world of institutions and organizations while it could be a movement of individuals serving, giving, loving, and enhancing the world.  

I dream of a church in such high demand in cities and communities for the redemptive work it engages in that people move to places where churches are whether they are people of faith or not.  How refreshing would it be if people said to one another, "I wish there was a church in our city!" or "We really need the help of the church".  I dream of a church that is first and foremost known for its work with the poor, oppressed, widowed, downcast, and lowly, not for a backwards agenda of winning more converts.  

I dream of a church that isn't focused a program, but people.  What if some of the money that was spent on lights, set design, computers, buildings, pamphlets, etc was spent on people and communities?  What if we spent more time at homes and in public places and less time in our cement and steal buildings filled with expensive and unnecessary gadgets?  What if the world saw a group of people giving on their own accord to a cause worthy of attention like hunger or third world infrastructure instead of projectors or a new sound-system?  I absolutely see the value of having a place to meet and gather as a community and don't think that this is wrong, I just think we have put our focus on us and our buildings when it should have been on the broken, hurting, needy world.   

I dream of a church that unleashes and awakens people.  How awesome would it be if the church was known for people who changed history?  What if the most influential musicians, doctors, artists, writers, scientists, teachers, and police officers were birthed by the church? What if this was the goal of the church?  Not to get people to attend the service, but to awaken the divinely creative heart inside every individual.  

I dream of a church that people take seriously.  One of the problems in modern church culture is that people have accepted the state of church.  Millions experience church as a place you go on Sunday mornings instead of a counter culture movement to engage in.  What if everyone who was connected to the church was personally invested in the vision of being a redemptive force?  What if the church valued the contributions of its parishioners instead of just keeping track of attendance?  What if each member had a role and a stake in the church?  What if church wasn't seen as an hour on Sundays, but as something to be lived out every single day by being transformed and transforming the world? 

I could write pages and pages of descriptions of the church in my dreams, but what I really want is for this church to be.  I long for us to step out of the mundane average life we have been leading and into the exciting calling of becoming the hands and feet of Jesus on Earth.  Basically I dream of a church that can actually give the God of the Bible a name He's worthy of; His hope, compassion, justice, mercy, and abundant love.  See I believe the church is the greatest hope in the world, capable of endless healing, reconciliation, and peace-making.  We're just not there yet.  I find myself often caught up imagining a how it could be and dreaming about when it will be.  The question that remains is whether we can reform our current churches, or if  we are being called to create a brand new church, the one so many dream of. 

Sorrow is True

Two weeks ago I was seriously distressed by a news story I heard on my favorite A.M. radio talk program.  That same evening I came across the same story on the evening news.  The headline described a boy from Tracy who had been held against his will and tortured in a quaint neighborhood in his suburban community.  At some point, some how, the boy escaped and found his way to a nearby gym, probably the closest place with people.  Once inside the fitness center the employees couldn't believe their eyes.  They literally thought it was a joke.  The boy was shackled, hungry, and weathered.  Once workers understood the urgency of the situation, the local authorities were notified and the proper steps were taken to locate the boys' guardians and implement some sort of justice.  As I processed this story I reflected on the gravity of the boys mental, phycological, physical, emotional, and overall suffering.  Why does this stuff always seem happen? Will he ever be able to fully heal?    Will he ever be normal?   How could some one do this to some one else?  Why does our world suck so bad? 

 

The horrible truth is this:  Our world will always be filled with these stories. Humanity in its current frame is a forever long song of sadness sung from the hearts of both widows and thieves.  Our relentlessly insecure self worship has written a story through history that is overflowing with regret, shame, and disappointment. And it never ends.  Every year countless instances of human pain are documented and cataloged in the annals of infinite suffering that is our legacy.  

I bring this up because I'm beginning to sense the depth of our state of sorrow both internally and communally.  I feel like my hand has touched the cold surface of an iceberg that stretches miles beneath the surface of the ocean.  And in contrast to my last post, I've begun to become joyless in context of my relationships to God, people, and myself.  I'm disappointed with the details of life that describe a reality where nothing ever seems to get better.  I'm burnt by people who constantly make decisions that lead to deep regret.  And I'm often filled with shame when I think of the man I could be and compare it to the man I am.   I'm processing what it means to reconcile what my heart says the world could be like and what the world in reality is like.  

Part of my questioning and struggling in this issue has been the result of a student I had named Josh.  I met Josh when he was in seventh grade.  Josh grew up in numerous meth-houses where watching him mom get taken advantage of was a regular occurrence.  He was fully accustomed to violence, abuse, and addiction.  His school record was marred by expulsions, fights, and failures.  His heart was full of unimaginable brokenness and sorrow.  I'll never forget dropping him off at a house he shared with his mom and a dozen other druggies.  The garage of the house had a large city sign notifying the neighbors of the  home being condemned by the police.   Josh had it hard.  My response as a youth worker was to offer my time, finances, support and love to Josh as much as I could in hopes of easing his sorrow. 

After years of endless crisis', prayers, and heartache a solution to Josh's situation seemed to finally present itself to us.  A welcoming family offered to take Josh into their home and provide for him the safety, stability, and help he never had.  It was nothing short of miracle.  It seemed like our hopes were met as he started a new chapter in his life.  Unfortunately this solution was short lived.   After a few months Josh decided to go back to his mom whom he had admit-tingly described as addicted to drugs and unfit to parent. My attempts to talk him out of going back to his mother were futile.  Years of pouring emotion, spirit, time and energy into helping Josh were instantly erased as he chose to throw it away.  I was and still am devastated.   I don't understand why Josh has had to experience the life he has.  I'm saddened that no matter how hard I tried to help I was powerless to make a lasting impact on the iceberg of Josh's situation.  I'm filled with sorrow when I think of the pain he still feels and I wish with all my heart that things could be different, but they can't.  

I feel that most attempts to explain our state of suffering in theological or philosophical terms as a result of sin, selfishness, or desire are patronizing and fall infinitely short of the infinite truth a person experiences when they are filled with true sorrow.  How can you tell a kid who lost his parents that it shouldn't have happened, that it wasn't in Gods plan, or that everything is going to be ok?  How can any short and contrite response to suffering every fully address the issue?  How can a theological explanation ever actually bring comfort to wounds so deep?   In my wrestling I've been reminded that Jesus suffered.  He did not avoid it or try to explain it away.  He lived in it and experienced it to a depth I never will.  Why would God allow his Son to experience such a degree of sorrow?  Why does sorrow never end, even in our most noble attempts to bring an end to it?   How am I supposed to respond to constant fatigue and an endless uphill battle against this sad reality?  

I just don't understand what I'm supposed to do with stories like that boy from Tracy.  I'm confused with how I'm called to help people like Josh.  I hurt and cry over my depravity and the worlds'.  I don't get why people I love have to suffer.  I'm constantly horrified by stories of human exploitation from around the world.  And I'm terrified of my own inner darkness.  I just don't get it.   Maybe thats the point.

I think that Sorrow is True.  It is inescapable and insurmountable.  I think that the sooner we accept it, the sooner we can decide how we will act in leu of this realization.  We can either let the storm of sorrow and suffering stop us dead in the water, or we can accept it as the weather conditions of life and do the best we can to navigate home.  I don't think I'll see an end to sorrow and suffering in this life, but I don't know what else to do with my time on earth besides trying to chip away at the iceberg.   It's just so tiring.  

"Sometimes when I lose my grip, I wonder what to make of heaven

All the times I thought to reach up

All the times I had to give

Babies underneath their beds

Hospitals that cannot treat all the wounds that money causes,

All the comforts of cathedrals

All the cries of thirsty children - this is our inheritance

All the rage of watching mothers - this is our greatest offense"

-Dan Haseltine