Anhedonia

It’s amazing what happens when we try to shake things up.  I was listening to a broadcast from Focus on the Family, because it was playing while I did some dishes.  It was speaking about the condition of anhedonia, albeit speaking about it as symptomatic of pleasure overload, distraction and distortion overload.  I had to look it up, to see if it was being used correctly.  Turns out it’s the medical name for the condition of the victim of depression when they are unable to obtain normal or even abnormal joy from commonplace activities.  Now, this got me thinking about shaking things up, mostly because I’m in a sort of transition time myself.  Anhedonia does not allow for people to be shaken up.  They are melancholic and joyless, adrift in a world that seems to have nothing for them.  It’s the world’s name for spiritual depression, and it eliminates the quest and the boon of the Joy-Giver Jesus when it’s given that categorization.  I believe to the utmost that it is important to see Bible playing out in practical, real, and daily life.  So I call it spiritual depression when I detect it.

It’s hard to be told to become the most positive and enthusiastic person you know when a) you know a lot of people b) your temperament is melancholic c) You are looking for a reason for the joy you are told you should have.  Or, to rephrase, to have reason for the hope that we have.  That’s the Biblical version of what I’m saying.  I’ve been in a place of being demonstrative of all three of those…still am on many occasions.  But then it gets overcome with thanksgiving for the blessing of, for example, a beautiful day with a comparatively large amount of freedom from that which depresses.   Here’s hoping for beauty from the ashes, then.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Facebook Flipside – What You Consider Valuable.

I can’t really leave Facebook alone just yet, because you need to consider what it does to relationships outside of the computer screen and keyboard.  Sure, you can send Muppets or throw sheep.  But what happens when this becomes the only form of contact you have with people?  In my experience, it leads to a terrible isolation.  When you publish your status for others to read, it’s writing down how you feel, or something quirky, or inviting questions.  But how does that make up for time spent with friends?  How does that make up for going out for a coffee or some lunch and really taking the time to talk?

The direction that we’re taking is a dangerous one.  I can’t help but think of the desperate need for something to unify us that Facebook pretends to fill.  I can’t help but think of what it means when we no longer know how to interact with one another outside of, for example, playing meaningless games or ‘poking’.  I could go on a very long time about the nature of translating physical realities into digital languages.  Or about shorthand emotions, which eventually lead to us cutting off any wide-ranging passions.  In fact, I probably will go on a bit about that one soon.

The question really is, then…what kind of time do you consider valuable, and is it a correct assumption?

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

The Facebook Phenomenon

I was just thinking today about the meteoric rise of Facebook.  It seems to have literally come out of nowhere, and now dominates the lives of millions of people.  Games and apps seem to come out on a daily basis, and they range from the silly to the sublime.  For example, who wouldn’t want to send Muppets to people?  I mean, c’mon folks.  They’re fuzzy, they’re cool, they’re trendy.  They’re a North American icon.  Who do you know, for example, who hasn’t heard of Kermit the Frog?  Or how about throwing a sheep?  I’m good with that!  What really makes Facebook successful, however, is that it builds a different type of community.  It replaces quality time with feeds.  Bite-sized pieces of life.  And in a world that seems to really be looking for some sort of connection, something to bring us closer together, Facebook gives at least the semblance of fellowship to a content-driven society.

The thing with Facebook, however, is that you can reach such a wide number of people in such a short time.  Your profile updates with your status, links posted, what people have written you or what you have responded to them with.  It gives you a news reader for the personal lives of your friends.  But it also gives you a witnessing tool, if used effectively.  Not necessarily overhanded, swingeing statements about your beliefs, but something a little bit more subtle.  For example, I have a lot of friends who’ve taken to using a Bible verse-a-day application.  It’s not anything wild, just a little box that publishes, generally out of context (unfortunately) a Bible passage a day.  What’s really important to remember about this, however, is that it gets something of the word of the Lord out there.  Facebook friends are of all sorts, and if you can’t always spend time in fellowship with them, you can at least be a form of witness through simple tools such as this.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Holy Discontent

Holy discontent is a phrase that seems to come freighted with all sorts of associations. Let me skip right to what I mean when I say it. I am talking about a form of outrage which directs one into the path of holiness and trust, rather than into sin. If we have the mind of Christ, then our outrage likewise should be as the heart of Christ was outraged. In the perversion of the temple court, he was outraged, seeing it turned into a den of thieves. (See Matthew 21:12-17, Mark 11:15-19, and Luke 19:45-48) Regardless, when Jesus gets outraged, he goes ballistic. He overturns tables, drives the moneychangers and usurers out with a scourge, and cries out in vicious anger at the way His Father’s house is being treated.

Now, we face the same points of outrage in our society, in a number of different circumstances. I am outraged at the impoverished hearts and minds that see the perversion, the pissed-on rug of holy days and Sabbath days as normal, and even as acceptable. I am outraged at the depravity of society that would allow some very dark places of the heart and mind to exist, and I am outraged, too, at myself for seeking them out on occasion. But that, as I’ve already mentioned, must be lifted up in heart-sabbath, given up to the Lord that we might glorify Him more fully through praise, through prayer and through spiritual discussion. The very point, as I’ve said, of holy discontent is not a restlessness to do something contrary to the Lord’s will; it is rather to examine our lives daily through the knowledge of the power of Christ and His ability to do anything He wants. We are to look at our hearts, I believe, and see them as desperately sick, but saved by grace for the glory of Christ Jesus. That is to be our discontent. That we are far to easily enthralled with the world and its hollow and empty pursuits, and

that we are comfortable in them.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Restoration

This is the second and concluding post on community and exile. They’ve taken a different form than I’d intended, as writing usually does, but I think a better one than I’d planned. Regardless, I want to use this post to talk about restoration, the return to a blasted ruin with the hope of rebuilding.

Honesty in my own heart leads me to the conclusion that as much as I may examine the lack of community within the churches I’ve had experience with, I can’t maintain the argument in all experience, nor can I make a judgment call on all churches from my own limited view. What I can say, however, is that there is a lack of Acts-like fellowship in the age I find myself in, and that the needs and directives to – as in Colossians 3, allow the Word of Christ to dwell in me richly, speak and admonish in hymns and spiritual songs, and as in James 5, confess my sins to others and pray for others – live in community and interact in community are kept less than adequately. In less awkward phrasing, I find that I can’t live these imperatives in the regular community of the church, but rather in fellowship with a rather heterogeneous crew of Christians assembled outside of the Sunday service and even outside of the church I call home. And I doubt that I would be wrong in suggesting that many others are in the same position.

Zipping back and forth between the Testaments, I find myself thinking of the return of the exiles in Babylon to the burned and wrecked Jerusalem…mostly due to the Nehemiah sermons that began coming out of Mars Hill in Seattle last spring. The applications, however, are different. In my view, the very point of the rebuilding of Jerusalem is the restoration of a people’s identity and self-respect. And I do see an upswing in the establishment of a solid foundation in the church that parallels this rebuilding effort, although, sad to say, it is not taking root where the wounds of religion run deep. At least not in the mainstream denominations. So, as I move into Ezra in my personal reading, I keep this hope in mind: That much like the scars in a burned forest slowly heal and flourish again, so to do the scars of religion and the needs of the brethren to find strong community.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Sufficiency I

I am nothing.

This is the most important thing to remember as we get into it. I have friends who disagree with this statement, preferring to add glory upon glory to the human, to the victory of reason and achievement over faith. It’s a very old argument, however, and it’s one that we’re not likely to emerge from as long as we listen to what culture says.

One of my struggles, right now, is with self-sufficiency. I’ve let mastery pass from Christ to me, and I’ve smiled doing it. As a result, I have to grapple with God’s ability to provide. There’s nothing in my past that gives me the faith to trust Him with everything, even though I’ve been a ‘churchie’ all my life. What does that say?

That gives me cause to think that the foundation I need was never built. It gives me cause to think about what those who haven’t been brought up Christian have to deal with, if I can’t even claim a sustaining faith. No wonder there’s a trauma of despair that infects so many.

So the first few steps are looking at insufficiency, when we get down to it. Insufficiency in three parts: Of doctrine, of community, and of institution. I’m going to look at all three in the next little while.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Conviction

This is a blog about beliefs, absolutely.

It’s also a blog about questions, mine and many others. Representatives began to cover that.

It’s a blog about the tenuous things of faith, why they seem to make no sense in a world that has moved inside of itself, isolating one from another. We’re not solitary creatures, despite whatever conspires to make us that way. But by the same token, we’re creatures that seek community.

Somewhere along the way, we lost what it meant to sit by an oil lamp and share the closeness of a storm with family. We lost the support of friends, brothers and sisters in arms who want to bear our burdens with us. And we lost the greatest treasure of all.

The knowledge that there is more, that this is not the way it’s supposed to be, that there is something greater.

We lost what it means to have Christ. For many, such a treasure has never been in their lives. For some, the rank and file of a consumed life has dulled and deadened the keen edge of faith. I certainly include myself in the mass of men at work, lost in the morass of more, and out of a sense of the renewed waiting upon Christ the advent season brings to Christians I’ve been struck by how important it is to stop, to assess, the reflect, to act in love.

The most important thing to have is a sense of task, of purpose, of project. Not the mindless labour of the undirected soul, nor the busyness of the soul lost in service. I began the Fathers and Sons posts because I was touched by the Lord’s charge to Solomon to build His house for Israel, but I have not recently revisited that initial passage, and as I think about it now, I realize that what strikes me about that passage, in addition to the test of manhood, the charge of a father to his son, and of a Father to his child, is the simple fact that it is purposeful work, and it is work blessed and ordained by God. He will support it; he promises David and Solomon that Solomon’s reign will be one of peace and rest.

In all of the hustle to work, we sometimes forget to do, to act as the Lord commands. In fact, to be honest, that is the default mode of our lives. To simply fill our days with stuff, with things that are going to have no significance in the long run. They will not last.

So what this blog is really about, then, is the need to accomplish, to connect with a greater and more hopeful sense of work, and an ever more crucial need to hope for the Lord’s mercy and grace to a culture lost in its own purposelessness.

I wrote these words when I ushered in blog 2.0. I revisit them now with an understanding that these…these are the purpose of what I do here:

“I write to bring the Word to a culture where words define life, where life defines truth, rather than Truth defining life.
I write to a culture that has given itself over to a search, an endless search for meaning in words, in thoughts, in actions, in deeds.
I write because I know there is more.
I write because I know that there is a hunger in the minds and the hearts of those who are being turned out into a wild world without any understanding that they are not alone, and that that hunger can be filled.”

I write for myself, yes. I believe that in this sharing I glorify my Lord in one of the ways He has gifted me to do. But I write because hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and being satisfied, are a promise. And they are a promise to this generation, and to this time, and to me. They are a promise that I need to share.

I hope you will see it too.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Legacy – Fathers and Sons V

The legacy of a father.

The inheritance of a son.

This pattern defines the Old and New Testaments both, and is the foundation of the life of a man of God. Whether it is words of blessing, stores of riches or land, or the gift of abilities, authorities, wisdoms and traits, the legacy of a family is the fundamental point of relationship between fathers and sons. These are incredible stores of information, if we ask the right questions.

This is a mini-arc topic; I’ll be spending a few posts on leaving a legacy, the inheritance, and building a future. This is an introduction.

I”ll refer you back to I Chronicles as we go through this, and I’ll also be looking all through the Old and New Testaments. There is great wisdom in looking at patrilineality, and I’ll start by defining this word.

Patrilineality – through the line of the father. Large chunks of I Chronicles, Numbers, I and II Kings deal with tracing the line of the father. Bloodlines, consequences, providential interventions are all aspects of how the Bible deals with the father, the fathers, and the Father. These are a rich vein of revelation, in my opinion. For where do sons get their traits and their dispositions, if not from the f(F)ather? He is the example…he is why the son can do nothing of his own accord. I know that this is a f(F)atherless generation, and I know that we are lost without guidance, without the building of manhood as the Bible teaches. When men are forced to construct themselves, they can often miss out on important parts of what it means to be a father, and what it means to be a son. I do want to acknowledge John Eldredge here; his Wild at Heart and The Way of the Wild Heart are both superb books, although they only address some aspects of the great void that we see before us. My own thoughts are certainly, too, only humble reflections.

Watch and see where it takes us, and I hope that the Father may hear the cries we make, and come to comfort us.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Builders – Fathers and Sons I

I’ll be on the topic of fathers and sons for the next little while, springing from an encounter with 1 Chronicles 22 : 6-16. There are many facets of one relationship between a father and a son that come to light from this passage, but, as in all Scripture, there’s so much more when the Lord speaks through it. So I’m going to spend the next little while looking at what it means to be a son, what we are shown about being a father through Scripture, and a few more examinations of what we can really mean when we call God ‘Father’ I’ll also be interjecting comments on what it means to be a man of God from my point of view. Keep always in mind the greatest Father-Son team in Scripture: Jesus Christ, who is God the Son, and God the Father.

1 Chronicles 22 tells the story of David charging Solomon to build the temple, and the complete text is found in Representatives Series VIII, my last post. I’m going to spend a few days drawing some of the implications of that passage out, and then I’ll move on to a wider look from there. This time: Builders.

Men are fixers and builders. They accomplish tasks, take on projects, and work at things obsessively. It is an essential quality in their lives, because men must be responsible for building and maintaining their family as spiritual and, ideally, physical heads of the household.

How crucial it is, then, that David gives Solomon this task!

Fundamentally, Solomon is entrusted with a great responsibility to the Lord and to his father, who has laid up for him materials to accomplish this work. The crucial part is that Solomon must add to what David has already done. David directs him to add to the materials stored up, working for himself and learning how to accomplish things as he needs to. This is one of the most important parts of what it means to be, simply, a man.

So where have we lost touch with this? We look at men in sitcoms, proudly slovenly as they are, and we look at ourselves…

And we mimic them.

Thankfully, the new icon of manhood, Jack Bauer, is making his appearance on the screens of millions, and the men are coming back to themselves. I can’t say as I’ve seen 24, but I know many who have. And here we have a father, a fighter, a solver. Jack’s the guy who guys need to be.

But then, more importantly, so is Christ. A builder himself – his trade was carpentry – he worked at this for many years before he started his ministry. And who did he have to train him, to look up to when he was young…Joseph, his earthly father, chosen by God and lauded as ‘A righteous man’ in Matthew’s gospel among others. Master of his craft and well-respected, Joseph laid up in Jesus the materials to which he would add when he himself was nailed to the wood of a cross, rather than nailing wood himself. Here’s a meditation for you:

How many crosses might Jesus have made, connecting himself to the fates of so many others?

Next time : Providers

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Christ : Supernatural 1 – Gifts

In tackling gifts, it’s important to make it clear where I’m coming from

By gifts, I mean the existence of gifts on two distinct levels: Supernatural gifts – prophecy, speaking in tongues, angelic ministry, miracles, and supernatural discernment form one level, while gifts of character and of spiritually-empowered abilities form another.

It’s an imbalance between these two levels that is in part the cause of many turning away from the church. Debate rages about the place or non-place, and the importance of, supernatural gifts in the West, while the gifts of character and abilities that could enhance or transform the churches are often unremarked upon or, even worse, ignored completely. As a result, congregations dwindle in ignorance because they are not equipped with every good thing to perform their ministry. So we have huge buildings designed to hold hundreds of people, now home to a few souls whose abilities may perhaps be forgotten, or whose lives could be so much more fulfilled if given a chance to exercise their spiritual giftings.

After all that, I say that the supernatural gifts have not ceased in the West, and most certainly not in the larger world, but that they have been corrupted by sinfulness and relegated to horror stories. Prophecy becomes fortune-telling, angelic ministry becomes angel worship and New Age transcendentalism, tongues becomes gibberish and perverted isolationism, miracles become magic tricks. We live in a world where sin is active, where Satan is active, and where nothing divides one from another so strongly as perversions of good or holy hypocrisy. And that’s where the gifts cease. Not in the Lord’s good plan, but in the crooked and sinful generations of man, who start to claim powers not their own and lord them one over another.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer