We are hindered in our progress toward becoming spiritually competent people by how easily we can explain away the movements of God toward us. … We live in a culture that has cultivated the idea that the skeptical person is always smarter than one who believes. … Partly as a result of this social force toward skepticism, very few people ever develop competence in their prayer life. This is chiefly because they are prepared to explain away as coincidences the answers that come to the prayer that they do make… In their pride they close off the entrance to a life of increasingly confident and powerful prayer.
…
The greatest of divides between human beings and human cultures is between those who regard the visible world as being of primary importance – possibly alone real or at least a touchstone of reality – and those who do not. We live in a culture that overwhelmingly gives primary, if not exclusive, importance to the visible. … But neither God nor the human mind and heart are visible.*

*Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship With God, Dallas Willard, Intervarsity Press (September 2006).

Isaiah 5:1-6 (New Living Translation)
A Song about the Lord’s Vineyard

Now I will sing for the one I love
a song about his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard
on a rich and fertile hill.
He plowed the land, cleared its stones,
and planted it with the best vines.
In the middle he built a watchtower
and carved a winepress in the nearby rocks.
Then he waited for a harvest of sweet grapes,
but the grapes that grew were bitter.

Now, you people of Jerusalem and Judah,
you judge between me and my vineyard.
What more could I have done for my vineyard
that I have not already done?
When I expected sweet grapes,
why did my vineyard give me bitter grapes?

Now let me tell you
what I will do to my vineyard:
I will tear down its hedges
and let it be destroyed.
I will break down its walls
and let the animals trample it.
I will make it a wild place
where the vines are not pruned and the ground is not hoed,
a place overgrown with briers and thorns.
I will command the clouds
to drop no rain on it.

This passage of the Old Testament of the Bible makes me think of fruitfulness. Out of gratitude for what the owner of the vineyard has done, I want to be a vineyard that produces fruit; and in particular I want to produce sweet grapes. This is true of my own life but it is equally true for the church of which I am a part, the community in which I live, the country of which I am a citizen, and the world as a whole.

God has given us much: He has prepared the land and cleared it of obstructions to growth, He has planted it with the best of vines, He has guarded it and kept the vineyard safe, He has built the structures that will take care of the fruit of the land. Now He waits for the harvest. What will I produce? What will we produce?

My conversation with my young friend has continued. So, to carry on from where we left off, my analysis of what I see around me has left me with a rather limited number of possibilities.

1. There is no creator God and the universe is eternally expanding and collapsing.
2. The universe had a cause, a creator, a God.

As I analyze each of these possibilities, #1 depresses me. To be nothing more than a sac of organic chemicals capable of communicating with other sacs of organic chemicals would leave me between nihilism and existentialism, like a Woody Allen or Coen brothers movie. Yet, just because it depresses me does not mean it isn’t true. I must look further.

Because I believe a creator God would communicate with his creation, I look for signs of communication. Do I see things that seem to point to something beyond the bare atoms and electrons, protons and neutrons, quarks and Higgs bosons of our universe? The answer is yes.

I do see things which are difficult to account for in a purely physical world. Consciousness is something difficult to measure but I know that I have it and a rock does not have it. A kitten has consciousness of another sort and soap bubbles do not have consciousness. Certainly human consciousness points to something other. The love of a parent for a child; of a husband for a wife; altruism; these are noble qualities which point to something beyond us.

And then there are miracles. One day, I must write more on miracles but suffice it to say here that I have seen things that look like miracles. Miracles, by their very nature, are outside of the measurable universe. Miracles are occasions when the normal rules of our world are suspended and something happens which must have a super-natural cause. I have not seen many of these in my life but I have seen some. In forty-nine years of life I have seen a handful of things that fit my definition of a miracle. Prayers to God for healing that were answered or communication from God when I needed something to convince me that He was there.

And so, some of the wisdom I have gained in this life does indeed go beyond pure philosophy. Experience is something which has shaped my world-view. And my experience suggests that there is something beyond this world. My experience suggests that there is a creator God, a first cause, who wishes to communicate with his creation.

Reader, have you ever experienced anything that points to something beyond? Has anything ever made you wonder if there might be a God who is trying to communicate? Send me a comment and tell me what you see that points to something beyond this world. Tell me of a time when you experienced a miracle. You will be an encouragement to both me and my young friend.

As I mentioned before, I am carrying on a conversation with a young friend who is wrestling with his world view. I admire anyone who is willing to question what he/she has thought and ask others questions about their own belief system. I too must take stock of my world-view and “take captive every thought” (2 Corinthians 10:5 NIV). I invite you once again to listen in on the conversation.

In my 49 year lifetime I have considered a number of philosophies and world-views. In fact, I find myself continually reassessing and considering whether or not my belief systems make sense. I want to be sure that I am constantly growing in my knowledge and in my fair assessment of life. My understandings are based upon personal experience, the experience of others, and the things I learn from reading, meditation, and prayer.

So, I continually ask questions such as the one you now ask. “Must I include God in my world-view?” The way I assess this is by considering the alternatives. I believe the basic alternatives to the existence of God would be:
1. a universe without a cause; that is, a Big Bang that just happened, there was nothing before this and nothing caused the Big Bang,
2. an eternal universe; it has always existed,
3. a universe that is an illusion and does not really exist; some Hindus and some Buddhists would say that the universe exists only as a dream in the mind of Brahman.
The first of these is probably the most popular in our culture and yet even as I consider it I find myself asking, “If there was a beginning, what was before the beginning.” The second of these has some credibility especially when we consider that some scientists suggest that the universe will expand to a certain point at which time it will then begin to collapse back upon itself and reverse back to the singularity that was the Big Bang. Then the process would begin all over again. What we then have is an eternal expanding and collapsing universe within which we humans make a brief appearance. The third possibility is plausible but opens up a lot more questions and is unsatisfying to me.

So, in my reasoning, I find myself equally torn between the concepts of “a universe that is eternally expanding and collapsing” and “a universe that has a creator.” I am at a stalemate. Either one might be true. I must look for ways to get past this stalemate.

One point of agreement we have is that deism is unsatisfying and was really just a philosophical cop-out. Thus, if God exists, we would anticipate that He (and here I will use “He” for the sake of simplicity but please know that the use of a male gender is simply a short-hand way of describing the ultimate Creator Being) would interact with the creation and would communicate. So, one way past this stalemate is to look to see if I can find any evidence of communication from a Creator Being. This may be the crux of your question. Do I experience things that indicate a creator God is communicating with me?

More to come.

A friend recently asked me some questions about my faith, and in particular, my understanding of the Bible. Through Facebook, we have been engaging in a conversation of ultimate reality ever since. Rather than debating the validity of the Bible, I suggested that we might start back further in the discussion and see if we might find common points of agreement as a foundation for future conversations. What follows is a portion of that conversation and an explanation of part of my journey of faith.

Many times, not always, there is a natural progression of ideas. For me (and I have found that this was the same progression for others such as C. S. Lewis) the progression went something like this. I began to get curious about the universe in which we live. The nature of life on earth, the sun, the moon, and the stars inspired me to think of the vastness of the universe and I began to ask questions about what it was all about. I asked questions about how the universe came to be and why the universe came to be. I studied science that spoke of a beginning to the universe (the Big Bang) and wondered what was before that. This led me to theism, a belief in the existence of a God who was there before the Big Bang. Not everyone will look at these same things and come to this same conclusion but that is where it led me (and C. S. Lewis and others). Then I began to think of the nature of this God that I now was willing to admit might exist. I wrestled with deism. Deism suggests that God created the universe and set it in motion in such a way that he never needed to interact with it again. All of the potential and capabilities of the universe were there from the Big Bang. It is like he created a watch that he simply wound up and set it running. But deism was un-satisfying for me.

If God existed, it seemed rational that he had created the universe so that he might interact with it and so that he might communicate with his creation. I began to wrestle with the question, “If God wanted to communicate with the universe, how would he/she/it do so?” Here is where I began to investigate the religions of the world and their answers to this question. But, before I go any further in the explanation of my journey, perhaps I should pause here and see if we have yet found any common ground for conversation and discussion. Do we share any common assumptions? Tell me a bit about what your journey has been. I would truly like to hear how you have wrestled with such questions of ultimate reality.

I invite all who read this blog to join the conversation. What does your journey look like? What is the story in which you find yourself?

During the season of Lent, I receive a daily devotional thought from Goshen College. Let me share the March 2 devotional with you:

Ho, ho, ho. It’s a wonderful life! What we most need for nourishment and delight is free of charge. There’s a banquet set before us and we’re invited to the table. Smacznego!*

Yet the cult of cornucopia has convinced us that our happiness and the health of the economy depend on what we feverishly buy and voraciously consume. So we charge around buying bread that is not bread, and selling labor without love. Bloated and hollow we are desperate for things that numb instead of nourish.

The wine and milk that quench our deepest thirst may indeed be free, but are not without cost. The rich food that truly satisfies is priceless, but not beyond all medium of exchange. If we want to live, we must listen. Carefully listen. Ears attuned, eyes peeled, tongue-nose-and-fingers tingly with attentiveness. The LORD can be found. But we must look in order to see. We must see in order to find. The LORD is near and may be called upon. Now is the time. This is the season.

At their best, conservatives admonish us to hold on to that which stills the deepest hunger and satisfies the longings of the heart. Liberals inspire us to let go of the ways and the thoughts that clutter and cling and occlude. With reckless conviction we equate our ways with God’s ways, our thoughts with God’s thoughts. The wisdom of the prophet invites us to taste and see that the thoughtful ways of God are within our grasp but beyond our grip. – By Paul Keim, professor of Bible and religion.

Isaiah 55: 1-9 (NRSV)
Ho, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and you that have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labour for that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
Incline your ear, and come to me;
listen, so that you may live.
I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
my steadfast, sure love for David.
See, I made him a witness to the peoples,
a leader and commander for the peoples.
See, you shall call nations that you do not know,
and nations that do not know you shall run to you,
because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel,
for he has glorified you.

*Smacznego! is Polish for bon apetit! which is French for good appetite!

Wayne Watson is a singer/songwriter who often captures my own feelings very well. Here are the lyrics to one of my favourite songs by Wayne Watson.

Rock Steady
Written by Wayne Watson © 1995 Material Music/Word ASCAP

Sometimes I feel I can walk on water
Sometimes I feel like I’d sink like a stone
Some days I feel like a king in a castle
Other days I feel like a man with no home

Sometimes I feel like a man on a mission
Sometimes I feel like I’m lost in space
Some days I hold to the law by the letter
Other days I lean on mercy and grace

Welcome to my rollercoaster
These ups and downs don’t bother me, you see

God is rock steady
Faithful ever ready
Through the good and the bad
Through the pleasure and pain
God is rock steady
Faithful ever ready
This world keeps changing
He is the same.

Sometimes I feel I’ve got faith to move mountains
The tough get going…well, you know the rest
Some days I feel like old doubtin’ Tommy
Crashing and burning with every single test

Welcome to my rollercoaster
These ups and downs don’t bother me now, you see

God is rock steady
Faithful ever ready
Through the good and the bad
Through the pleasure and pain
God is rock steady
Faithful ever ready
This world keeps changing
He is the same.

I have been meditating upon Psalm 27 for a couple of days. Verse 3 says, “Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then will I be confident.” I have difficulty relating to these words. Perhaps it is because I lack confidence. The writer says that he is confident even if a war breaks out against him. Wow, I find it hard to be confident when one person criticizes me. A negative comment about how we function as a faith community can make me defensive. Worse yet, a bad hair day can be enough to shake my confidence.

But King David is confident and the reason lies in verse eight: “Your face, Lord, I will seek.” Seeking God’s face means to seek His favour and to seek His will. To seek what the Lord wants. “Seeking the Lord’s hand” is to ask for what we want. “Seeking the Lord’s face” is to ask for what He wants. Seeking God’s face will give us confidence. If we seek what He wants, how can we fail? And as we seek His face, we can trust that we will “see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living (verse 13).” Perhaps I can have confidence.

In Colossians Remixed the authors tell the story of Nympha*, a prominent woman of the Roman Empire who gets introduced to the community of people known as Christians at Colossae. She comes to realize the revolutionary nature of this community. Their

hope was rooted in the memory of Jesus – a memory they kept alive with an astounding meal. At this meal none appeared to be superior to the other. All received equal portions of bread and wine, and none went without. I was amazed at the love they had for one another and for this Jesus they worshiped.
What also astonished me was how they saw their actions as a prophetic witness against the rule of Caesar. They knew that their actions, the way they embodied their faith together in their community, challenged all that Roman society held dear. They spoke of themselves as a new family, new humanity, those who had left darkness for light, who were now bringing, through their small house meetings, nothing less than reconciliation for the whole world. They saw themselves as a living embodiment of the forgiveness and healing Jesus had brought for the world.
I went away deeply disturbed and wrestling with what the worship of Jesus would mean for my life. These Christians had such a comprehensive vision, but following Jesus would come at a high cost for me. Living such a life would mean ceasing to be a benefactor for the emperor cult, giving up my position as provider of wheat and oxen for the imperial festivals, purging my house of all that bore the image of Caesar and his victories. It would mean ceasing to participate in the imperial festivals and games. It would mean refusing to participate in the give-and-take of benefactor and client, bestowing monetary and social favours on those who sang my praises and danced attendance on me. It would mean distancing myself from the communities and societies that had given my life meaning.#

I like to believe that people visiting our community of faith would have similar reactions. But would they? Would they see that we are a community with a hope rooted in Jesus? Would they be amazed at our love for one another and for Jesus? Would they see that our actions are a prophetic witness against all that our consumerist society holds dear? Would they see that we embody the forgiveness and healing brought by Jesus? Would they see us as a people wrestling with what worship of Jesus means for our lives? Would they see us as a people who have paid a high cost? I pray that they might.

*Colossians 4:15.

#Walsh, Brian J and Keesmaat, Sylvia C. Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004, p. 56.

I am once again reading Brian J. Walsh and Steven Bouma-Prediger.* They speak of this culture of empire which tries to sell us the dream that “economic growth and abundance is a never-ending dynamic of a capitalist society.” But the resources of the planet do have a finite limit and never-ending economic growth is not a reality. As this fact slowly sinks into the minds of a post-modern world we may be slowly realizing, as Bruce Cockburn described it twenty-nine years ago, that the candy man is gone.

The Candy Man’s Gone

Sun climbs toward high noon,
Glints metallic off the bowl of the spoon
Sliding through the air toward parted lips
Watch the expression when the straight taste hits
Face crumples, tongue’s quickly withdrawn
I hate to tell you but the candy man’s gone

Oh sweet fantasia of the safe home
Where nobody has to scrape for honey at the bottom of the comb
Where every actor understands the scene
And nobody ever means to be mean
Catch it in a dream, catch it in a song
Seek it on the street, you find the candy man’s gone
I hate to tell you but the candy man’s gone

In the bar, in the senate, in the alley, in the study
Pimping dreams of riches for everybody
“Something for nothing, new lamps for old
And the streets will be platinum, never mind gold”
Well, hey, pass it on, pass it on,
Misplaced your faith and the candy man’s gone
I hate to tell you but the candy man’s gone

Bruce Cockburn, NYC, Boston 3/12/81

The remedy for this empire which refuses to see that the candy man’s gone lies in an “indwelling God and a sojourning community.” But, we will speak more of this later.

*Bouma-Prediger, Steven and Walsh, Brian J. Beyond Homelessness: Christian Faith in a Culture of Displacement. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2008, p 108.