I am reappropriating spiritual mentors in my life these days. Most of my life my list of “saints” has been tragically truncated since I grew up in a religious fellowship that shunned the idea of “sainthood” and the basics of Church history. As a child, I had heard of the Christian Calendar, but thought of days like Christmas as a day associated with Santa Claus and presents (certainly not the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ).

Recently however, I have been discovering saints like Francis of Assisi, Benedict of Nursia, and Augustine. As you know, I am never one for putting the lid on any box, so I have been starting a unwritten “list” of people that might or might not be in any denomination’s list of saints, but are nevertheless a saint in my (and the world’s) mind.

What is a saint? To me, a saint is simply a man or woman who are a incarnated capsule of the Kingdom of God. In other words, they uniquely remind me of the already/not yet reality of God’s pervasive heavenly presence.

A recent addition to my own personal list of Kingdom capsules (saints) is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He is absolutely a genius, and if you haven’t just sat and listened to some of his speeches, stop whatever it is you’re doing right now and listen to them! (Check out this and this).

King looked at the world through compassionate eyes. His relentless pursuit of a transformed society grew both from grassroots levels and from policies made in Washington. His active commitment to nonviolence in revolutions most likely reoriented the quickly devolving civil rights brawls into a respectable movement that went places and changed the nation. His “dream” for his country was spoken out of the goodness he saw in peoples’ hearts as he spoke the reality into existence with powerful words before those realities would even have a chance to take hold. In other words, much like God at creation, or a minister presiding over a wedding service, his “words created worlds”. His compassion dug deeper than simply “flinging coins to a beggar”; he believed that the world could actually become a better place for ALL, and he gave his life to that end.

King’s view of social change in the Kingdom of God:

“A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life’s roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: “This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: “This is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”    (emphasis mine)

Thus saith the KING!

This is language that points to another world; an alternative reality that is more real than the rotting and corrupt world order set before us.  We have a choice: live in the world that King describes, or continue ripping each other apart.  That is why he is a saint - he speaks and acts in a Kingdom that is still coming.  I lift him up as a fellow brother, and as a incarnate capsule of the Kingdom!

Click below for an added bonus for reading the post! ~ by my beautiful wife!

For the past several years I have been learning to appreciate the Christian Calendar as a means of connecting with Christ and Christians around the world. As I see it there is an inherent organic nature to the Liturgical Calendar in that it brings us closer as humans to the seasons of the earth, causing us to fast and feast according to harvests, to pray as the sun rises and as it sets, and to celebrate the coming of Christ, Lord of the Earth.

Ash Wednesday reminds us of the earthen soil of which we were born, and gives our carbon bodies a destiny - a reconciliation to the ground. “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” How much more organic can you get??? We are truly God-grown; we spring up from the earth, we produce fruit (physical and spiritual), and then we die, returning to the earth that brought us life.

So this Lenten season (which starts February 21st) I am going to begin making peace with the earth. I am prayerfully considering taking a fossil fuels fast over the 40 fasting days in Lent. What does that mean? At this point I’m not sure. It may mean all crude oil, coals, and fossil fuels. Over the past several months I have been strongly affected by movies, websites and conversations regarding our earth’s fragile state. The environment is on the verge of a tipping point toward a global heat wave, and we have no way of predicting just how dangerous this will be to our climate. I wonder: is it possible to live our lives without utter dependency on fossil fuels that emit dangerous greenhouse gases into our atmosphere? I intend to find out.
Our new apartment is now set to run off of 100% wind and solar power. I am close enough to my new job that I can ride my bike or even walk. It’s possible in our town to buy foods that were grown locally and therefore don’t take as much fuel to get here. It’s a start.

This is obviously going to take some more sorting out and thinking through. I am also looking for others who want to challenge themselves to “make peace with the earth” during this season of fasting, penance, and prayer. We can share together what we hope will become a sampling of a better life - a life that is Good News not only to others, but to the earth itself! Feel free to pray about this, and email me or leave on comment on my blog if you want to talk more about this.

Happy (late) Easter everyone!  He is RISEN!

Yesterday morning we had the chance to experience our first "network gathering", where both house church networks in Abilene(Abilene Mission Church and Jesus Family Network) came together for food and for praising our resurrected Lord.  It was a really great experience; we met many for the first time, and yet there was already a deep connection of love and appreciation we all had for each other because we were connected through a network of friends and prayer.  

Isn't this much of what every Christian gathering should be like?  I think there were a few things that made yesterday very special for Katrina and I.  1. This was a new thing.  While for many they had been meeting regularly in house churches and celebrating occasionally in larger gatherings, this was a first for us.  I know that the newness of anything can rub off eventually, no matter how sweet it is!  2. Perhaps the deeper cause for all the the intentional love, hugs, loyalty etc. came from the true web of relationships that are born from natural connections throughout the network, rather than a crowd of people gathered around a preacher because they like his Power Point outlines.  3. We all had stories to tell of resurrection life, because we have truly been on a journey to see God change us.  Of course, this is happening all over the Christian world, but where are the conversations where we share openly about it all?  Confession of past sin and celebration of new life…I can't think of a better way to spend my Easter morning!  4. It was at one of my favorite parks in Abilene, outdoors under a few trees with some great food…what more could you ask for? 

While growing up in my family, Easter didn't exactly have the same focus we put on it today.  For one thing, I was younger and didn't appreciate Christ's Passion as the "reason for the season".  But the reality was, my Christian tradition as a child specifically didn't recognize Easter because it wasn't celebrated in the New Testament.  Its true that much of Easter is today is simply pagan transference, (see a good book by Frank Viola for more on pagan influences in our faith) but is it wrong to abandon the worldwide/church wide remembrance of Christ's death, burial and resurrection just because they didn't think to celebrate each year the resurrection before the close of the Canon?  Today, any chance I get to intentionally and communally embrace my Lord's story of Good News I take it.  

Right now Katrina and I are creatively thinking through the Christian holidays and trying to find fun, Christ-centered ways of celebrating.  Purposely inviting a poor family we've built relationships with into our home for Thanksgiving, reading the story of St. Nicolaus and celebrating the 12 days of Christmas, tossing out the Easter Bunny lie and remembering Christ's new life in a fun way with games and friends.  We're trying to sort all this out - and we welcome all ideas…we don't want to fall into the trap of just "enjoying" our holy-days the way we enjoy a hamburger or a good praise team - we want to savor the Christian calendar, and share a distinctive message of grace with our friends that surround us.