There is so much to do –

Books to read,

                        Houses to clean,

            People to meet,

Errands to run.

We have little time to share with each other what matters

In between the lines.

At the end of the day,

            The end of our life,

We look back and see our life wasted at high speed

When we never took the time

To sit with you, to walk with you.

To commune

With You.

My frenetic nature keeps me

Looking over my shoulder at all the things that need done,

And for even this moment I am tempted

To forget to be.

Who am I? 

How will I ever know, if I never am?

Hold me, clasp me, and gaze into my eyes.

I am - I want to be - hypnotized. 

                        With You.

The Future of Food is the name of our most recently watched documentary that has us leaning even further toward neo-hippyism (I just love making up words).

Apparently for the last 30 years, a multi-billion dollar company named Monsanto has been genetically modifying crops, developing a insecticide-resistant plant that is genetically part corn, part pig-virus. (Sounds delicious, eh?) This is good in the sense that it has allowed many people groups from worrying about plagues of locusts or other pests destroying whole crops - and has supposedly brought some out of poverty situations.

But it has also come with a price. Just like any multi-billion dollar company, they are out for a buck, anyway they can find it. These new crops are called genetically modified organisms (GMO’s) and are patented (humans are patenting life now?) by Monstanto and local farmers (in America and abroad) are forced to pay for a liscense to grow their product.

This is problematic, because Monsanto sends out inspectors into fields all over the world, checking for their patented crop. If they find any (even if the farmer is unaware that some Monsanto-seed has blown onto their field) the farmers are penalized with outrageous fees and usually puts the farmers out of business or in debt to Monsanto forever. In truth, no one is getting out of poverty; they are simply getting into debt with Monsanto. Think of this as your typical comic-book global domination strategy.

Not only this, but insects and crops are growing resistant to the insecticides sprayed on these crops, so farmers are now having to use chemicals which are very similar to Agent Orange (insert YIKES! here) just to keep the bugs and weeds away, making the food we eat very dangerous.

——-

All of this makes me think - there’s got to be something spiritual going on here. We may be avoiding famines, but are we really eating food? Allergies, infant deaths, obesity, emotional disorders, and crime are on the rise. Pick out which of these you think might just be related to GMO’s. I’d be inclined to say that they are at least indirectly related to ALL and more.

What sort of company patents life? Right now they have patents on corn and have homogenized the species. 150 years ago, America grew over 200 types of corn, now we have 4, and most are GMO. Where will patenting stop? The US constitution originally stated that no one could patent a living organism, on moral grounds. Now Monsanto is pushing to patent most everything you can buy in the produce section; can human life be far behind?

Call me crazy, but I believe in good fresh soil growing good fresh produce. It seems that we have tried to industrialize the earth, and it is refusing to cooperate. Carson’s Silent Spring still speaks to us, and Jesus’ words about the sower, his seed and the soil speaks too.

The above is some art produced by one of my good friends and co-conspirators John Doublestein. Now there’s a boy with an active imagination!

It seems as if I need to repent of something pretty significant that I have suppressed for a long time now. It seems as if I need to share with you something that is holding me back from going any deeper with Father and with what He is doing in the world.

I read a few months ago in the Irresistible Revolution that we are Christ-followers are supposed to have a “prophetic imagination” for the world in which we are a part. Because we are living in an already/not yet reality in God’s Kingdom, there are parts of our world that don’t sync with the Kingdom that is breaking in. Christians are called to speak out against the darkness and describe the Light.

And we are supposed to do so in a way that catches people by surprise.

Holy, Holy, Holy is the LORD God Almighty

Who was, and is, and is to come.

This phrase plucked out of the book of Isaiah describes God in a way that is catching my attention as of late. The LORD is, was and forever will be HOLY. Holy means different, or separate, or other. This kind of God needs no introduction, because you immediately sense his presence when he walks in the room. His foreign nature is at once repelling and compelling. God is, was, and will always be – a surprise.

It is this kind of God that controls the universe – a God who is faithful to those whom he loves, but yet radically unnerving the status quo, speaking prophetically to those in power, and challenging our notions about who he is and what life is all about.

Jesus challenges our comfort zone by using his imagination. “How shall I describe the Kingdom of God? To what shall I compare it? It is like…” and immediately Jesus launches into a story that symbolizes both the unknown Kingdom that is coming to parts and pieces of ordinary, everyday life.

It’s the imagination of Jesus that gets him killed. His visions of the Kingdom of God were not unique, and his passion for God was common in his day. It was his unique ability to creatively critique his culture with a prophetic imagination – using all sorts of medium and story.

For most of my life I have considered myself a fairly creative guy. I was in musicals, symphonies, TV-shows, and I drew comic strips, authored books, and consistently created new characters and ideas somewhere from the deep recesses of my brain. Some dismissed me as crazy, but what I didn’t realize was that this sort of imagination was God-given, and could be God-driven, if I saw ushering in God’s Kingdom as a priority in life.

Enter the college years. I feel as I look back on my days in higher education as if I had to choose between creativity and orthodoxy. My missions and ministry teachers at ACU, while forming and shaping me into the man I am today (of which I’m grateful) never told me much about the importance of simply daydreaming, imagining, and creating my way through ministry. Missions and ministry seemed more like a ship to be run, rather than an adventure on the ocean seas.

If you want to build a ship, don’t summon people to buy wood, prepare tools, distribute jobs, and organize the work, rather teach people the yearning for the wide, boundless ocean.

– Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I feel like in most of my education, I was taught all the intricacies of buying wood, preparing the tools, handing out jobs, and organizing the work…all the while slowly losing my love of the deep, expansive ocean. What I believe I am just beginning to realize again is the need for Father to redeem my own imagination for his purposes, and to see what flows from that.

What might that look like for my personal life? It might mean you might be seeing more artwork, videos, and even…dare I say…poetry on here. What might a redeemed imagination look like in my social circles? It might mean painting murals together or writings songs with other musically-inclined friends. What might it mean in mission to my city and world? It could mean assembling a dramatic performance for Earth Day (which is like…tomorrow!) or making a GIANT slip n’ slide in the poorest neighborhood in Abilene just to bring joy to people there, or producing a YouTube film that parabolically critiques an individualistic society that refuses to meet their neighbors, yet has a “second life” online.

The point is not what people come up with, the point is the imaginative impetus that sparks the action. It stems from a intimate connection with Father which develops into a dreaming together of what could be possible if we teamed together, Spirit and Flesh. The adventures born out of a prophetic imagination are endless.

And this is only the beginning….

Things are heating up around ACU - we are having our annual “Summit” which is sorta like a wannabe Lectureship in the Spring.  Richard Hays is coming to speak which should bring on some interesting thoughts.  And I’m really looking foward to my good friends Chadd Schroeder, Ben Cheek and others are presenting their discoveries on the Pathways Project - a multi-year, multi-continental conversation on incarnational community.

Their ongoing question: how do we bring someone to a commitment in Jesus Christ (many churches have become effacious in this regard in American history), and then how do we move them past a simple decision for Christ to a healthy leader in an incarnational community - fully capable of reproducing his own missional leadership in others?  This second question has been entirely neglected by most churches in our age.

You can find times/places for this here.  And some written thoughts from Ben here.

Is it even possible to “move them” at all?  I believe it is something we can do, since Jesus told us (not to make converts or church goers, but) to make disciples of all the peoples by baptizing AND by teaching them all the ways He showed us.

But have we ever taken this command seriously?  What is it like to do this?  How do we “teach” in a way that people will actually learn?  What kind/whose of a disciple are we making?  Many have tried to ask this question, and many have gone down unhealthy roads.

But the question must be asked.

I’m looking forward to hearing what God has shown them.

Just a quick note to invite any and all to read through Josh’s Subverting the Empire blog series. They’re quick, thought-provoking, and a great opener for conversation. Many blessings.