I have to start by being honest I'm not nearly as green as a should be and want to be. I'm still a relative new comer to being intentional about my consumption , more specifically trying to curb my consumption. I could go on about what we should do to be more green but that would be hypocritical.
Instead I want to suggest that we look at the universe around us with new eyes. It is far too easy to see the universe around us as if it was a machine, cold and dead. This is simply not the case the universe is infused with creativity. If you leave atoms alone long enough all kinds of amazing things happen.
If we begin to see the universe as alive and wonderful we begin to reconnect to the universe, to each other and to the source of it all. We must reconnect to our sense of wonder. Have you ever just stopped to be in awe at the natural things around us? Have you ever had a conversation with a tree? If you haven't I invite you to try it because I believe you will find it enlightening.
So today I challenge you to go out and be in awe today. Look at the world around you with wonder. After all God created and saw that it was good. Let us take time today to see for ourselves that it indeed is good.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
This I Believe : Creatitivty is a A Spiritual Act
I wrote this as a part of a study we are doing at the church I work at that is based on the NPR series "This I Believe"
I believe that creativity is a spiritual act. Creativity is at heart of the universe we live in. Too often we think about the universe we live in as being a dead and lifeless machine, but that is not the case. Science shows us this, if you leave elements alone long enough they will combine and create all kinds of things.
The act of creativity connects us. It certainly connects artist with those who view the result of the creativity but I think that it goes much deeper than that. When we are creative we connect with the very world around us and with the source of all.
This view has changed the way I see things, as the season changes it is more that just something that happens each year. It is instead creativity at work, I see the process of creation happening right in front of me.
God did not just create at some time in the past. Instead creation is continually happening around us. God has created, is creating and will create. So as God creates it gives us the opportunity to use our gift of creativity to be active co-creators of a more just, loving and caring world.
It is through this spiritual act of creativity that we will better our world. When we look at the world we can see that the same old solutions that we have been trying to use for years simple are not working. The good news is that when we see creativity as a spiritual act it allows us to create new solutions to the problems facing us and future generations. It allows us to be at the work of bettering the world with God, side by side with our creator. It allows us to more fully mean it when we pray “your will be done.“ The opportunity to use our passion to help God’s kin’dom come excites me and gives me reason for much hope.
I believe that creativity is a spiritual act. Creativity is at heart of the universe we live in. Too often we think about the universe we live in as being a dead and lifeless machine, but that is not the case. Science shows us this, if you leave elements alone long enough they will combine and create all kinds of things.
The act of creativity connects us. It certainly connects artist with those who view the result of the creativity but I think that it goes much deeper than that. When we are creative we connect with the very world around us and with the source of all.
This view has changed the way I see things, as the season changes it is more that just something that happens each year. It is instead creativity at work, I see the process of creation happening right in front of me.
God did not just create at some time in the past. Instead creation is continually happening around us. God has created, is creating and will create. So as God creates it gives us the opportunity to use our gift of creativity to be active co-creators of a more just, loving and caring world.
It is through this spiritual act of creativity that we will better our world. When we look at the world we can see that the same old solutions that we have been trying to use for years simple are not working. The good news is that when we see creativity as a spiritual act it allows us to create new solutions to the problems facing us and future generations. It allows us to be at the work of bettering the world with God, side by side with our creator. It allows us to more fully mean it when we pray “your will be done.“ The opportunity to use our passion to help God’s kin’dom come excites me and gives me reason for much hope.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Creativity
This week I have come in contact time and time again with discussion about how the creativity and spirituality are connected. Sense I believe in a creative creator God it makes good sense to me that creativity and faith are deeply connected.
The theologian Matthew Fox talks of creativity being at the very center of the universe we live in and I have to agree with him. The more I know about science the more I realize that the universe we live in is not some lifeless machine but is rather very much full of life and creativity.
If the world itself is creative and if God Godself is creative than does it not follow that we should be creative too. But creativity is not just something that is to be aspired to we must to have respect for it because not only do our most noble actions come from creativity but so do our darkest actions. We must always be checking our creativity with morality.
When our creativity is at its best we can be co-creators with God in a world that is more just, more loving and more sustainable. It is through creativity that I believe we will learn to deal with the climate crisis, create equal rights for all sisters and brothers and find ways to help the poor and oppressed.
I believe that creation is not some event that has happened in the past I believe that God continues to create all the time and that we are a part of that process through creativity. We as people are in process. We are becoming and the sooner we realize that we are never at where we need to be but that we are journeying the sooner we can begin to creatively help each other on the journey.
The theologian Matthew Fox talks of creativity being at the very center of the universe we live in and I have to agree with him. The more I know about science the more I realize that the universe we live in is not some lifeless machine but is rather very much full of life and creativity.
If the world itself is creative and if God Godself is creative than does it not follow that we should be creative too. But creativity is not just something that is to be aspired to we must to have respect for it because not only do our most noble actions come from creativity but so do our darkest actions. We must always be checking our creativity with morality.
When our creativity is at its best we can be co-creators with God in a world that is more just, more loving and more sustainable. It is through creativity that I believe we will learn to deal with the climate crisis, create equal rights for all sisters and brothers and find ways to help the poor and oppressed.
I believe that creation is not some event that has happened in the past I believe that God continues to create all the time and that we are a part of that process through creativity. We as people are in process. We are becoming and the sooner we realize that we are never at where we need to be but that we are journeying the sooner we can begin to creatively help each other on the journey.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
My Interfaith Story
I attended training put on by the interfaith youth core (IFYC) this last week. Part of this training focused on telling our interfaith story and so I felt compelled to share my interfaith story here. So here is my story:
I grew up in Wyoming so I did not grow up around a ton of diversity but I was lucky enough to grow up in Laramie where the University of Wyoming is located where there is at least some diversity. I’m very thankful that I grew up in a family where knowing about diversity was seen as a value. Instilled with that value I have been always interested in other cultures and other religions, though I did not have much contact with people of other faiths.
When I went to college I went to a United Methodist School in South Dakota so while there was some ethnic diversity there was not a lot of religious diversity. I tried to seek whatever religious diversity I could in college feeling that it was important as a Christian to at least know about what people of other faiths believe, but there was just not a lot of opportunity to be in contact with those with different faith traditions.
As I entered into my adult life I continued to read books by those of other faiths, but I don’t think I could say that I really knew anyone of another faith. So when my wife and I got an opportunity to teach in Bahrain (a small Islamic island nation off the Coast of Saudi Arabia) we jumped at the chance. Though I never would have admitted it at the time and hate admitting it now looking back I defiantly felt some anxiety going to the Middle East. I worried about being treated in a hostile way simply because of my Christian faith. I was further made nervous as our excitement was often met not will equal excitement for us but with questioning. I will never forget the look people would get in their faces and the sound of concern in their voices as they grilled us about this being a good idea and if we were going to be safe.
So when we landed in Bahrain in the late summer of 2007 I brought all those concerns and anxiety with me. What I found there in the relationships with those people I met was very different than those fears that others and if I’m honest that I myself had had.
Soon after we got there it was the month of Ramadan and many of my students were fasting, I decided that I needed to understand as a teacher what my students were going through so I decided to fast in solidarity with them. The faith my students had in their fasting inspired reminded me of how Jesus had fasted in the desert to find direction and the focus that my students put on the poor during that month lead me to look again at how my scriptures dealt with who were less fortunate. My students through their Islam taught me to be a better Christian.
It is because of this experience and many others during that year, that I feel more connected to my sisters and brothers of other faiths. Through working and being in relationship with those of other faiths I have learned and continue to learn more about my faith. I become a better Christian through my friendships with those of other faiths and I hope that it deepen those others’ faiths as well.
I grew up in Wyoming so I did not grow up around a ton of diversity but I was lucky enough to grow up in Laramie where the University of Wyoming is located where there is at least some diversity. I’m very thankful that I grew up in a family where knowing about diversity was seen as a value. Instilled with that value I have been always interested in other cultures and other religions, though I did not have much contact with people of other faiths.
When I went to college I went to a United Methodist School in South Dakota so while there was some ethnic diversity there was not a lot of religious diversity. I tried to seek whatever religious diversity I could in college feeling that it was important as a Christian to at least know about what people of other faiths believe, but there was just not a lot of opportunity to be in contact with those with different faith traditions.
As I entered into my adult life I continued to read books by those of other faiths, but I don’t think I could say that I really knew anyone of another faith. So when my wife and I got an opportunity to teach in Bahrain (a small Islamic island nation off the Coast of Saudi Arabia) we jumped at the chance. Though I never would have admitted it at the time and hate admitting it now looking back I defiantly felt some anxiety going to the Middle East. I worried about being treated in a hostile way simply because of my Christian faith. I was further made nervous as our excitement was often met not will equal excitement for us but with questioning. I will never forget the look people would get in their faces and the sound of concern in their voices as they grilled us about this being a good idea and if we were going to be safe.
So when we landed in Bahrain in the late summer of 2007 I brought all those concerns and anxiety with me. What I found there in the relationships with those people I met was very different than those fears that others and if I’m honest that I myself had had.
Soon after we got there it was the month of Ramadan and many of my students were fasting, I decided that I needed to understand as a teacher what my students were going through so I decided to fast in solidarity with them. The faith my students had in their fasting inspired reminded me of how Jesus had fasted in the desert to find direction and the focus that my students put on the poor during that month lead me to look again at how my scriptures dealt with who were less fortunate. My students through their Islam taught me to be a better Christian.
It is because of this experience and many others during that year, that I feel more connected to my sisters and brothers of other faiths. Through working and being in relationship with those of other faiths I have learned and continue to learn more about my faith. I become a better Christian through my friendships with those of other faiths and I hope that it deepen those others’ faiths as well.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Spiritual and Religous
Sermon from 02/07/10 Sorry it has taken so long to put this up.
When I was younger I used to spend hours talking to the trees. I would sit and listen as the wind blow through the branches and I could imagine these noble plants imparting their wisdom upon me. After all they had been there before I was born and in all likelihood will still be there long after I’m gone. I felt connected, connected to the trees, connected with the earth, and most importantly connected to the creator of all of us.
Sadly, it has been a long time sense I have spent time with the trees and the reality is I’m coming to realize that I need to reconnect. You see that time listening in the quiet hearing the wind through the trees was truly a spiritual discipline that grounded me and routed me in connection to God and to the life that was all around me.
We are a people in desperate need of connection. Because we do not connect with other people we see violence, hatred, and indifference that degrades and strips humanity from ourselves and others. Because we are not connected with the earth we see climate change, extinction of species and loss of ecosystems that threatens life itself. Because we are not connected to God religion is used to draw circles of exclusion, to cause pain and heartache, instead of being the life giving, reconciling force that it can and should be.
There is a real want in our world to connect to something deeper, to be a part of more than ourselves. And yet for many they have been disenfranchised by organized religion, seeing it not as a place where life can be found and that connection can be nourished and grown, but rather as a place of rules and dogmas that get in the way of that connection, that spirituality. (recycle your faith video).
I would imagine that for many in this room that the story in the video connects in some way if not in many ways with you. I know it connects with me, I hear many of my thoughts spoken out loud when I see this video. I would hope that we here at Wesley Foundation and Collegiate UMC are doing our part to provide that safe place to talk about the hard questions of our spirits and journey in those questions together. But just because we are trying to be that kind of place does not mean that we do not have a lot to learn from those who consider themselves spiritual but not religious.
The fact that so many people are taking on this descriptor for themselves tells us that we as Christians need to make sure that we are not sacrificing that connection, that spirituality I was speaking of earlier for our preconceived notions of what is Church. In fact we need to make sure that as a church that we are nourishing those connections, that spirituality that so many are looking for.
The words from Isaiah we read earlier tonight speak to this connection, this wholeness that we can find through God. It tells us to seek God and poetically describes what that connection can be like. As we read the scripture it is striking that when one connects or reconnects as it may be to God, we not only connect with the creator we connect with creation.
As we spend our time connecting with God we should feel more connected to the very world we live in. By cultivating spirituality we can feel that care that God has for this world. We begin to see others through God’s eyes making us more compassionate, caring and willing to build up others humanity. We begin to see the natural world through God’s eyes. We recognize that we cannot continue to consume without thought of the impact. We begin to see ourselves through God, not as mistakes of the past, not as our insecurities but we see ourselves as what we are and may became. By cultivating spirituality we cultivate hope.
So the question becomes what can we do to connect with God, to revitalize that spirituality that is within us. We can turn to the spiritual disciplines to study, prayer, creativity, meditation, silence, fasting, service and many, many more.
You see these practices are not ways simply to be holy or to appease an angry parent in the sky. No, the reason for these practices is to cultivate a connection to God, to each other, and to the world around us. It is through cultivation of our spiritual selves that we are given the strength and energy to carry on and fight for social justice, to feed the hungry, to care for the forgotten, and to love our enemies.
Our spiritual disciplines and practices should spur us on. Spur us on to creativity. They should enliven us and invigorate us to be co-creators with God of a world that is more just, more loving, and more connected.
I think the fourth affirmation in the Phoenix Affirmations puts it well.
As Christians, we strive to respond to God's artistry in Creation by integrating the arts in worship, education and proclamation. We encourage the reclaiming of artistry and artistic expression in all Christian endeavors, both personal and communal.
We affirm that the Path of Jesus is found where Christ's followers make sincere and vibrant worship of God as central to the life of their community as Jesus did. We further affirm artistic expression as a way of reflecting God's creativity, joy, and prophetic voice in what may be seen, heard, felt, tasted, sung and spoken.
We confess that we have moved away from Christ's Path when we have failed to make worship the product of our best efforts to experience and express love for God, neighbor and self in community with others. We have moved further from this path when we have considered the arts as trivial or merely tangential to the life of a mature Christian community.
In this affirmation about worship we find a call to artistry in responding to God’s artistry. The great leaders that have gone before us who have made a differences are at their heart “social artists.” Connecting what is bigger than them and using that connection and creativity to better the world around them furthering that connection.
So what of religion then? Is it just something to be thrown to the curb? I don’t think so. We can be both spiritual and religious. At its best Christianity acts as a wide path up the spiritual mountain. It has nurtured many different people from many different backgrounds. I find that my religion works to deepen my spirituality through the understanding of those who have come before me. Our religion can act as a well marked path that keeps us from wondering around the spiritual mountain aimlessly.
I think that we can be both spiritual and religious. If we are keeping that balance right our religion deepens our spirituality and our spirituality energizes our religion. Spirituality and religion can be two sides to the same coin. When we can hold the two together in balance we can be not only in closer connection to God, but we will be more ourselves.
So I challenge you today to get connected. Pray, meditate, have a discussion with one another, talk to a tree, dance, do what it takes to be in connection with God. Because the more we are connected the more we can co-labor with God so that God’s Kin’dom can truly come. Amen.
When I was younger I used to spend hours talking to the trees. I would sit and listen as the wind blow through the branches and I could imagine these noble plants imparting their wisdom upon me. After all they had been there before I was born and in all likelihood will still be there long after I’m gone. I felt connected, connected to the trees, connected with the earth, and most importantly connected to the creator of all of us.
Sadly, it has been a long time sense I have spent time with the trees and the reality is I’m coming to realize that I need to reconnect. You see that time listening in the quiet hearing the wind through the trees was truly a spiritual discipline that grounded me and routed me in connection to God and to the life that was all around me.
We are a people in desperate need of connection. Because we do not connect with other people we see violence, hatred, and indifference that degrades and strips humanity from ourselves and others. Because we are not connected with the earth we see climate change, extinction of species and loss of ecosystems that threatens life itself. Because we are not connected to God religion is used to draw circles of exclusion, to cause pain and heartache, instead of being the life giving, reconciling force that it can and should be.
There is a real want in our world to connect to something deeper, to be a part of more than ourselves. And yet for many they have been disenfranchised by organized religion, seeing it not as a place where life can be found and that connection can be nourished and grown, but rather as a place of rules and dogmas that get in the way of that connection, that spirituality. (recycle your faith video).
I would imagine that for many in this room that the story in the video connects in some way if not in many ways with you. I know it connects with me, I hear many of my thoughts spoken out loud when I see this video. I would hope that we here at Wesley Foundation and Collegiate UMC are doing our part to provide that safe place to talk about the hard questions of our spirits and journey in those questions together. But just because we are trying to be that kind of place does not mean that we do not have a lot to learn from those who consider themselves spiritual but not religious.
The fact that so many people are taking on this descriptor for themselves tells us that we as Christians need to make sure that we are not sacrificing that connection, that spirituality I was speaking of earlier for our preconceived notions of what is Church. In fact we need to make sure that as a church that we are nourishing those connections, that spirituality that so many are looking for.
The words from Isaiah we read earlier tonight speak to this connection, this wholeness that we can find through God. It tells us to seek God and poetically describes what that connection can be like. As we read the scripture it is striking that when one connects or reconnects as it may be to God, we not only connect with the creator we connect with creation.
As we spend our time connecting with God we should feel more connected to the very world we live in. By cultivating spirituality we can feel that care that God has for this world. We begin to see others through God’s eyes making us more compassionate, caring and willing to build up others humanity. We begin to see the natural world through God’s eyes. We recognize that we cannot continue to consume without thought of the impact. We begin to see ourselves through God, not as mistakes of the past, not as our insecurities but we see ourselves as what we are and may became. By cultivating spirituality we cultivate hope.
So the question becomes what can we do to connect with God, to revitalize that spirituality that is within us. We can turn to the spiritual disciplines to study, prayer, creativity, meditation, silence, fasting, service and many, many more.
You see these practices are not ways simply to be holy or to appease an angry parent in the sky. No, the reason for these practices is to cultivate a connection to God, to each other, and to the world around us. It is through cultivation of our spiritual selves that we are given the strength and energy to carry on and fight for social justice, to feed the hungry, to care for the forgotten, and to love our enemies.
Our spiritual disciplines and practices should spur us on. Spur us on to creativity. They should enliven us and invigorate us to be co-creators with God of a world that is more just, more loving, and more connected.
I think the fourth affirmation in the Phoenix Affirmations puts it well.
As Christians, we strive to respond to God's artistry in Creation by integrating the arts in worship, education and proclamation. We encourage the reclaiming of artistry and artistic expression in all Christian endeavors, both personal and communal.
We affirm that the Path of Jesus is found where Christ's followers make sincere and vibrant worship of God as central to the life of their community as Jesus did. We further affirm artistic expression as a way of reflecting God's creativity, joy, and prophetic voice in what may be seen, heard, felt, tasted, sung and spoken.
We confess that we have moved away from Christ's Path when we have failed to make worship the product of our best efforts to experience and express love for God, neighbor and self in community with others. We have moved further from this path when we have considered the arts as trivial or merely tangential to the life of a mature Christian community.
In this affirmation about worship we find a call to artistry in responding to God’s artistry. The great leaders that have gone before us who have made a differences are at their heart “social artists.” Connecting what is bigger than them and using that connection and creativity to better the world around them furthering that connection.
So what of religion then? Is it just something to be thrown to the curb? I don’t think so. We can be both spiritual and religious. At its best Christianity acts as a wide path up the spiritual mountain. It has nurtured many different people from many different backgrounds. I find that my religion works to deepen my spirituality through the understanding of those who have come before me. Our religion can act as a well marked path that keeps us from wondering around the spiritual mountain aimlessly.
I think that we can be both spiritual and religious. If we are keeping that balance right our religion deepens our spirituality and our spirituality energizes our religion. Spirituality and religion can be two sides to the same coin. When we can hold the two together in balance we can be not only in closer connection to God, but we will be more ourselves.
So I challenge you today to get connected. Pray, meditate, have a discussion with one another, talk to a tree, dance, do what it takes to be in connection with God. Because the more we are connected the more we can co-labor with God so that God’s Kin’dom can truly come. Amen.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Our Best vs. Their Worst
Over the last year or so I have spent a lot of time thinking about how divided everyone seems to be and how no one seems to be able to communicate with one another. I believe deeply in spirited debate and that two people can believe very different things yet still be respectful and learn from each other. But I don't see a lot of this kind of debate out there. So I have been wondering why that was.
As I have pondered this one thing I keep seeing is people comparing their best with other people's worst. If I'm honest with myself this is something that I myself am guilty of so as I talk about this I recognize that I have been part of the problem.
The reality is that when we begin to compare our best with others worst we do much more than than just shut down conversation we also begin to label the person or group that we are disagreeing with as "the other" or "the enemy." By making this best vs. worse comparison we deny others their humanity and we deny ourselves the ability to grow and learn by hearing other points of view.
The fact is that I have seen this vs. attitude in many of the pressing issues of our day. In conversations about religion and science, in conversations about other faiths, in conversations about politics, and in conversations about theology. We can not continue to try to make ourselves right by looking at the worst of the people we disagree with because they can look right back at us and do the same thing.
If we can learn to disagree and have a real discussion and debate where we allow both sides of issues the opportunity to speak and truly hear, not just listen to, but truly hear both sides I believe we will have a new found respect even for those who believe very different things than we do. Even if we can't find common ground we can at least hear each other.
We live in a world and a nation divided, the challenges we face each day are becoming more and more complicated. We can not longer parish as fools by blaming one another for every evil known to human kind. Instead we must face the challenges together as sisters and brothers knowing that we are not always going to come to the same conclusions. We must remember the next time we are tempted compare our best with others worse, that in the world we live not all are guilty but all are responsible.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Peace
Issues of war and peace have been on my mind a lot lately. To put it simply I am a pacifist, I mourn war whenever and where ever it happens. I was deeply saddened by President Obama's announcement that we will be escalating the war in Afghanistan . I don't want to see more young men and women put in harms way. It saddens me to see the collateral damage and the civilian casualties. Even the death of an enemy should never be celebrated.
I'm troubled by a justification for just war being given at the noble peace ceremony.
Many of my heros are nobel peace prize winners. When I think of the prize I think of those like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa and Gandhi, people who were committed to the cause of non violence. Don't get me wrong I deeply respect President Obama, but that does not I have to agree with him on every issue.
I think my faith calls me to stand against the use of force and violence as means to farther foreign policy. The thing is I understand how people can see the pacifist position as unrealistic, but I think it is important that someone is communicating with those in power the need to try to seek peaceful solutions in all things. I don't see it as a moral failing for others to see war as an acceptable option but that is just not my opinion. My understanding of my faith doesn't allow me to support war, but I would never make that claim that a person who supports war cannot be Christian.
It saddens me that the different sides of the war debate spend so much time making generalizations about each other. I seriously doubt that there are a large number of people out there who truly are happy to see war happen. Most people see war as regrettable so I don't buy into the rhetoric that sometimes comes out from fellow pacifists that equates supporting war with enjoying war.
Lastly I want to speak to a issue that is near and dear to my heart. I respectfully disagree which anyone who says that it is not possible to be a pacifist and support those in uniform. I have a number of family members and friends in the military and I think about them everyday. I think about our military women and men everyday, I pray for their safety and I respect the fact that they are willing to put their lives on the line for what they consider to be a just cause. I think that is possible to respect and disagree with people at the same time. Just because one persons path is not mine does not mean I have to demean it.
To those of you who might be members of the military who are reading this I understand you put yourself on the line everyday believing deeply that you are protecting the principle that I can without fear hold my beliefs as a pacifist, I truly thank you for that.
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