The First Thirty Pages Of Don Miller’s New Book : A Million Miles In A Thousand Years

The first thirty pages of Don’s book is available for free and you can read them right here on my blog at the end of this post.

Full of beautiful, heart-wrenching, and hilarious stories, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years details one man’s opportunity to edit his life as if he were a character in a movie.

If someone tells you they’ve read this book and they “enjoyed it” or they “liked it” or they think it’s a “good hook” then maybe they didn’t read it – it’s well written and funny and interesting and all that, but it’s also disturbing. Really, really disturbing. Don is into provocative territory here, wrestling with The Story and the role each our stories play in it . . . this is very convicting, powerful, unsettling writing. I felt like this book read me more than I read it. —Rob Bell, author of Velvet Elvis

In the first few chapters of Don’s new book, Don got me thinking about Don and his interesting life. Then for several chapters, he got me thinking about my own life. And then for the rest of the book, I couldn’t help but think about God and other people and the kind of future we’re creating together. That sounds like solid evidence that this uniquely talented and sagely writer/thinker/storyteller has given us another wonderful and life-enriching reading experience. —Brian McLaren, Author, Speaker, Activist, brianmclaren.net

You can preorder the book here, follow him on twitter @donmilleris, find out about his tour dates here, and read his blog here.

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A Christian Perspective On Health Care Reform

 

 

(image of Creative Rescue Organization public option t-shirt)

This post is part of a synchroblog on Christian approaches to health care.

When it comes to the current health care reform debate I am totally dumbfounded that conservative Christians (for the most part) are against a public option and/or a universal health care plan.  I understand how Christians can fall on both sides of the abortion issue or both sides of the same sex marriage issue (for the record I am pro-choice but not pro-abortion and I am in favor of legalizing same sex marriage) – but I do not understand how they can be against a public option and/or a universal health care plan and not have it conflict with their faith. 

I know that there is contention over the issue of abortion but perhaps it should be considered that many of the private insurance carriers to whom we pay premiums presently cover abortion care.

I think the “socialistic” argument  is bunk.  We have medicare/medicaid and public schools – they are federally funded to educate and care for others and no one calls them socialism. 

The other arguments I hear seem to mostly have to do with individual rights and conveniences and it seems that those arguments fly in the face of the Christian faith.

Do I have scripture to support a public option and/or a universal health care plan?  No, I don’t – but neither is there scripture to oppose such a thing (although many twist and turn and contort scripture to support their position).  Although there isn’t a specific scripture that I can offer up to support a public option and/or a universal health care plan I would go so far as to say that it seems much more likely that the heart of scripture would support such a thing.  Scripture repeatedly calls us to care and provide for the poor and the sick, to give up our own rights, to put other’s interests above our own, to take action to help those less fortunate, to protect the most vulnerable, to share one another’s burdens, to be a voice for the oppressed and the weak.

From a Christian perspective it seems we must look at this from the perspective of the needy, of the poor, of the uninsured…and I don’t think we will hear many (if any) needy, poor, uninsured people rallying against a public option and/or universal health care plan.  From a Christian perspective it seems we must look at this from the perspective of Christ, the one who identifies himself with the least of these. 

Check out the other synchroblog participants:

How Healthy is Your Health Care? by Steve Hayes

Self-evident truths and moral turpitude by Steve Hayes

Christian perspectives on health care by Ellen Haroutunian

The Christian’s responsibility to healthcare by KW Leslie

Baby steps towards more humane humanity by Beth Patterson

Is Healthcare a Right  by Kimber Caldwell

Clowns to the left? Jokers to the right? Stuck In The Middle by Phil Wyman

Its Easy To Be Against Health Care Reform When You Have Insurance by Kathy Escobar

A Christian Response To Health Care In America by Jeff Goins

Carrying Your Own Load by Susan Barnes

Caring For Human Dignity by Lainie Peterson

Think on this…

I found this at Kingdom Grace (I love her blog) and thought it was one of the most beautiful things I’ve read in a while.  Here’s hoping it is a blessing and inspiration to you as well.  (It was written by Baxter Kruger)

As the light of Jesus shines into our darkness, we will not be yearning to escape the ordinary, we will be stunned and full of wonder at the ordinary presence of the blessed Trinity in our humanity.

Heaven is not a bodiless state in an invisible place. Heaven is the life of the Father, Son and Spirit coming to full and abiding expression in our human existence, and the earth and the cosmos are filled with the life and love and fellowship of the blessed Trinity.

Meantime we grieve over the self-centeredness, over the lust and greed, the social and racial, environmental and political and religious injustices that run wild around us, wreaking such havoc in our lives.

And we fast and pray for the Holy Spirit to reveal the truth to us in our darkness.

We pray for people to be given eyes to see and that the way things are in Jesus Christ would indeed emerge more and more in our human existence.

 

Is belief in Jesus the only way to get to heaven? Part 2

http://www.flickr.com/photos/doczork/533629985/

 

 

 

Wow – I know I don’t have very many people reading my blog but I thought someone would comment on my last post – but I am new to blogging and still learning so I am going to assume I took the wrong approach and I will try again…

 

As a Christian one of the things I have been thinking about during the last couple of years is the Christian belief that salvation is through faith in Christ alone and only those who have faith in Christ will be saved and have eternal life in heaven.  Everyone else (with maybe some exceptions, like infants/children or mentally challenged persons) will go to hell and be eternally punished.

 

Now let me throw a couple of things in here at the beginning so we don’t get too sidetracked.  I am opposed to the idea that the main reason to become a follower of Jesus Christ is to get a ticket to heaven and think that is a whole discussion in itself.  Also, I am aware there is a whole discussion to be had about understanding what heaven and hell are and believe there are a lot of different ideas worth hearing.  But, I am thinking I cannot be the only person who is struggling with the idea that anyone who does not believe in Jesus Christ is going to hell.  Don’t misunderstand and think I need you to convince me or need you to come here and “witness” to me.  I do have faith in Christ alone and I am a committed follower of Jesus Christ.  I am wrestling with the idea that people who don’t believe in Christ are going to have to endure some sort of eternal punishment.

 

Here are some of my thoughts:

 

Why would God limit salvation?  If Christ’s death on the cross was sufficient and paid the price for all then why aren’t all granted eternal life? I understand knowing Jesus has a lot of benefits but I don’t understand that not knowing Jesus would limit the effectiveness of his work on the cross.

 

One answer I get regarding my question about limited salvation is that I shouldn’t ask why God isn’t doing more but I should consider we don’t deserve to be saved and we should just be thankful and amazed God would offer a way for anyone to be saved.  In other words:  “Why would/should God save anyone at all?

 

But, that answer (or question) doesn’t help me.  I believe with all my heart God loves all of his creation and I don’t think love has much to do with deserving.  When I love I don’t say: “I am going to or not going to do this or that for this person because they deserve or don’t deserve it.”  When I love I do loving and good things because I love.  I can’t imagine that God loves the way I believe he does and at the same time believe he has an attitude that says “they don’t deserve it but I will offer one narrow way for them to be saved”.  I don’t think God has that attitude and I believe he even calls us away from such an attitude.

 

Then there are people who quote scriptures to me.  For instance, I might be told John 3:16 is the answer.  But when I hear John 3:16 I don’t hear anything about those who do not believe in Jesus.  Or I might hear John 14:6 in which Jesus says he is the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through him.  Again, I don’t hear Jesus saying if someone doesn’t believe they will be eternally punished.  That verse may make me believe Jesus (who he is and what he did) provides access to God – access which would not be there otherwise, but it doesn’t make me believe

someone must do something in order to gain that access.  Analogies are always lacking but just to give you an idea of how I am thinking consider that unless I turn on the light switch my child (who can’t reach the light switch) will not have access to light in the room he/she is in.  The child does not have to do anything – they don’t have to ask, they don’t have to believe (in me, or electricity, or the light switch, or anything).  I have a way to make the light accessible to my child and think it is a good thing and so I do what is necessary to make it accessible and  “ta da” they have light.  I know the analogy can be torn apart but I am not using it to convince you, just to help you understand my thoughts.  I am wondering why it is unbelievable (according to scripture) that what Jesus “did” took care of the “thing” which

was separating humanity from God and now no one will ever live eternally separated from God.

 

In addition to all of that there are scriptures like 1 Timothy 4:10 (and for this we labor and strive), that we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe.  This scripture seems to come right out and say Jesus is the savior of “all”.

 

I could go on but I would really like to hear your thoughts and beliefs (or even any of your own questions you wrestle with).

Is belief in Jesus the only way to get to heaven?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/john/4776861/

 

Before you proceed let me encourage you not to get upset or feel you have to convince anyone of anything here - the idea is to explain your beliefs/thoughts/questions and to listen to the explanation of someone who sees things differently than you do and engage with each other in a kind manner.  Now – proceed reading…

When you read the following words:

 Christianity, Jesus, God, Salvation, Heaven, Hell 

which one of the following questions resonates more with you? 

Why would God limit salvation?  

                            Or 

Why would God save anyone at all? 

Now – in connection with the question you would most likely ask,

how do you explain/understand the following verses? 

1 Timothy 4:10 (New International Version)

¹⁰(and for this we labor and strive), that we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe.

John 3:16 (New International Version)

 ¹⁶“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,^[a] that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

John 14:6 (New International Version)

 ⁶Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Best “Be Like Jesus” List

John Smulo posted this two years ago on his blog and reposted it recently.  It is the best “be like Jesus” list I have come across.  Every link is worth checking out.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/archiemcphee/533874090/

1. Get baptized by the craziest guy in town.

2. Say and do things that are guaranteed to make religious people want to kill you. Repeat again, and again, and again, and again, and again and don’t stop unless forced.

3. Do amazing things for people and ask them to not tell anyone.

4. Hang out with the most despised, marginalized, looked down upon, and shunned people you can find.

5. When possible, forgive and restore people, even if they betrayed you.

6. Live in a way that provokes gossip.

7. Win the most grace competition.

8. Keep the party going.

9. Serve people (note: nose plugs may be required).

10. If you’re sad cry.

11. Empower people to do the extraordinary.

12. Act like a rock star in a hotel temple.

13. Radically simplify theology.

14.Break human-made religious laws. Repeat consistently.

15.Prioritize the most important over the important.

16. Let women with questionable backgrounds pay your bills.

If you would like to copy this and put it anywhere feel free.

Film Contest

Have you created a short film full of passion and imagination for your church and/or ministry?

Go here to check out the Reel Spirituality and LAFSC 2009 Film Contest.

Hurry – you must enter by January 30, 2009.

Dreaming Quantum Dreams

This post is part of the January Interfaith Synchroblog.  The theme is “Religion and Science”.  Links to all contributors are listed at the end of this post.

 

Before I begin I just want to make it clear that anyone out there with the least bit of knowledge about quantum physics could easily prove that I don’t know a thing about it.  Sure I could talk a little bit about entanglement, which is the quantum physics theory that some form of communication, faster than the speed of light, allows particles that have become entangled to know and respond to what the other one does no matter how far apart they are, or I could talk a little bit about the amazing double slit experiment that basically says nothing is real unless it is observed – but like I said, just “a little bit”.  However, in my defense, even Richard Feynman, the American physicist who received the Nobel Prize in 1965 for his contributions to quantum electrodynamics said, “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.” 

.

I first became interested in the connection between quantum physics and faith when I read the essay “Physics and Faith: The Luminous Web”  by Barbara Brown Taylor.   She absolutely astounded me with the way she allowed science to enhance her perception of God and his creation. Below are a few paragraphs from the essay that really spoke to me (you can find the whole thing  here):

“When I am dreaming quantum dreams, the picture I see is more like a web of relationships–an infinite web, flung across the vastness of space like a luminous net. It is made of energy, not thread. As I look, I can see light moving through it like a pulse moving through veins. I know the light is an illusion, since what I am seeing moves faster than light, but what I see out there is no different from what I feel inside. There is a living hum that might be coming from my neurons but might just as well be coming from the furnace of the stars. When I look up at them there is a small commotion in my bones, as the ashes of dead stars that house my marrow rise up like metal filings toward the magnet of their living kin.

Where am I in this picture? All over the place. Up there. Down here. Inside my skin and out. Large compared to a virus and small compared to the sun, with a life that is permeable to them both. Am I alone? How could I ever be alone? I am part of the web that is pure relationship, with energy available to me that has been around since the universe was born.

Where is God in this picture? All over the place. Up there. Down here. Inside my skin and out. God is the web, the energy, the space, the light — not captured in them, as if any of those concepts were more real than what unites them, but revealed in that singular, vast net of relationship that animates everything that is.

It is not enough for me to proclaim that God is responsible for all this unity. Instead, I want to proclaim that God is the unity — the very energy, the very intelligence, the very elegance and passion that make it all go. This is the God who is not somewhere (up there, down here) but everywhere”

Like Barbara Brown Taylor, I also dream quantum dreams – dreams of unseen connections and unexplained phenomenon, dreams of a broken world made whole again, dreams of unity without uniformity and diversity without fragmentation, dreams that allow me to imagine that when science and faith meet, secrets buried in the physical universe will be revealed, secrets that bear witness to the glorious attributes of its creator, secrets that will urge us to seek, to marvel and even to doubt in order that our theology will be edified. 

At times science can be alarming for many of us, stripping away answers without providing new ones…and yet I sense that it may be from these uncertain places that a fresh and more robust gospel will emerge.  A gospel that is not just scientifically sound and spiritually alive, but a gospel for all things - a whole gospel for the whole world – a gospel that dares to imagine a world where God’s dreams come true. 

Here is a list of all the contributors to this synchroblog:

Reality Isn’t What It Used To Be at Notes From Underground

Dreaming Quantum Dreams at Grace Rules

How I Taught Science instead of “Christian” Science at the Evening of Kent

Is Evolution Atheistic? at glocal Christianity

Post-Modernism: A Challenge to Science? at Fr Ted’s Blog

Faith, Reason And Unreason at The Musings of a Confused Man

 

 

Our God Is A Consuming Fire

Photo found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ottoman42/455242/

With Advent, the December synchroblog, Christmas decorations and the approach of the Winter Solstice I have been thinking a lot about light lately. Between thinking about light and using Amy Carmichael’s poem “Make Me Thy Fuel” as an Advent Prayer I began to think about fire and that reminded me of Hebrews 12:29 which says “Our God is a consuming fire.” Through all of this thinking and pondering and praying I stumbled across a great article written by Frederica Mathewes-Green that was published on belief.net back in 2006 called Transfiguration. It was so good I wanted to share it with you. 

You really have to read the whole article  but here are a few excerpts:

“But there is something about light that most previous generations would have known, that doesn’t occur to us today. We think of light as something you get with the flip of a switch. But before a hundred years ago, light always meant fire. Whether it was the flame of a candle, an oil lamp, a campfire, or the blazing noonday sun, light was always accompanied by fire. And fire, everyone knew, must be respected. That’s one of the lessons learned from earliest childhood. Fire is powerful and dangerous. It does not compromise. In any confrontation, it is the person who will be changed by fire, and not the other way round. As Hebrews 12:29 says, “Our God is a consuming fire.” Yet this consuming fire was something God’s people yearned for. In some mysterious way, light means life. John tells us, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4). Jesus says, “I am the Life” (John 11:25), and also “I am the Light” (John 8:12). Light is life: we live in light, and couldn’t live without it. In some sense, we live on light. It is light-energy that plants consume in photosynthesis–an everyday miracle as mysterious as life itself. When we eat plants, or eat the animals that eat plants, we feed secondhand on light. Light is converted into life, literally, with every bite we eat.”

“Through prayer, fasting, and honoring others above self, we gradually clear away everything in us that will not catch fire. We are made to catch fire. We are like lumps of coal, dusty and inert, and possess little to be proud of. But we have one talent: we can burn. You could say that it is our destiny to burn. He made us that way, because he intended for his blazing light to fill us. When this happens, “your whole body will be full of light” (Matthew 6:22).”

“On the far side of everything–the Last Supper, the campfire denial, the Resurrection, and the Pentecost outpouring–Peter tries in a letter to make sense of what happened on Mt. Tabor that day. Peter saw God’s glory, and he knows it is for us. He says that God’s divine power calls us “to his own glory.” Through his promises we may “become partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:3-4). “Partakers of the divine nature.” The life that is in Christ will be in us. In Western Christianity, we tend to take Scriptures like this metaphorically. When St. Paul refers to life “in Christ” some 140 times, we expect he means a life that looks like Christ’s. We try to imitate our Lord, and sing of following him and seeking his will. We ask “What would Jesus do?” We hope to behave ethically and fairly in this life, and after death take up citizenship in heaven. But it appears that Peter had learned to anticipate something more radical and more intimate: true oneness with Christ and personal transfiguration. We partake of, consume, the light and the life of Christ. We receive, not mere intellectual knowledge of God, but illumination.”

What the heck…

This post is part of the December Synchroblog: Darkness and Light as Motifs of Spirituality. A list of contributors can be found at the end of this post.

I almost backed out of participating in this month’s synchroblog. To begin with, I am new at this blogging thing and still have a little anxiety about putting myself out there. In addition, I wasn’t that comfortable with the subject as I have been going through a spiritual transition over the last couple of years and am somewhat hesitant to declare what is light and what is darkness. But then I said, “what the heck”…so here goes:

 

 

image found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamelah/124906800/  some rights reserved: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/deed.en

 

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. John 1:5

I went to an old time revival with my mother when I was nine years old and ended up “walking the aisle” and “accepting Jesus as my savior.” I was baptized, started attending church and was satisfied that I would “go to heaven” when I died. My parents were believers but not committed and I went away to college with a shallow faith.

I married in my late 20s, had two sons and got divorced all in less than ten years. When my husband left me I went through a very “dark” time (for the record, my husband and I remarried seven years later and are happily married today). After a lot of emotional ups and downs I did some serious reflection and decided that I wanted and needed my faith to amount to more than “life insurance”. I found a church, began to study the bible diligently and over time became a good evangelical Christian. I was a near perfect attendee, a generous volunteer and a sincere seeker of God. I was committed to following all that I was taught.

Fast forward…A couple of years ago something happened in my life (that’s another post for another time) that left me reeling and asking questions about a lot of stuff, including spiritual stuff. Through the course of processing what was happening in my life I began to realize that I thought some of the stuff the church was teaching was wrong or at least misleading. And that began a spiritual journey that I am still on and will probably be on for the rest of my life.

This journey has been a difficult and unsettling one for me. I was accustomed to having answers, being certain and able to argue my case. It seemed like all of a sudden all I had were questions, doubt and confusion. I experienced anger, sadness, resentment, shame, guilt and loss. I felt displaced and alone. How could I have believed that I was “in the light” when I had obviously been “stumbling around in the darkness?”  How could I keep from being deceived again? What if I was no closer to understanding the light now than I had been before? What was I supposed to do about all the times I had taught the wrong things to others, modeled the wrong things, thought the wrong things, said the wrong things? What was it about myself that made me enjoy the darkness so much that I remained in it for so long? How could I live out my faith in the place I was now inhabiting?

Over time, with the help of many of you in the blogging world, my husband and sons, and a few from my church community, I am learning to cope with the tension of living out my beliefs with enough humility that it doesn’t feel like I am being thrown off a cliff every time I have to come to grips with the possibility that what I believe may be wrong.   

I am learning that sometimes understanding the light means saying “I don’t know,” that light doesn’t always equal clarity and that things usually look a lot messier in the light.  I am learning that light seems to be a lot more about relationships than about facts and precepts, a lot more about love than law, and a lot more about inclusion than exclusion.  And I am learning as Henri Nouwen said:  in all forms of light, there is the knowledge of surrounding darkness.

________________________________________________________________________________

For thoughts and musings from different perspectives check out these posts:

Phil Wyman Darkness: A Thin Place For My Soul

Adam Gonnerman On Being In Darkness

Lainie Petersen What The Mirror Doesn’t Tell Me

Jeff Goins Walking in the Light with Jesus

Bethany Stedman Light is Coming

Julie Clawson Darkness and Light

Kathy Escobar Light- I’ll Take a Sliver Anyday

Susan Barnes  and here’s a photo of one I made earlier

Joe Miller Discover Light in Darkness

Beth Patterson Advent: Awaiting the Ancient and the Ever New

Liz Dyer What the Heck

Sally Coleman Light into Darkness

Steve Hayes Lord of the Dark

Josh Jinno  Spiritual Motifs of Darkness and Light

KW Leslie Darkness versus blackness

Erin Word  Fire and Sacrifice

Ellen Haraoutunian Holy Darkness