The Good News of Repentance

My hunch is that few of us have had someone say, "Repent!" and received that as a positive thing. It sounds like scolding and none of us enjoy being scolded. But when Jesus announces the nearness of the Kingdom of God in Mark 1:15, the word repent is tied to the word gospel, or good news. "The time is fulfilled, the Kingdom of God is near; repent and believe the gospel."

I typically hear the word repent a little like the old song, "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." "You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I'm telling you why..." We receive it as a warning related to bad behavior. And when John the Baptist calls for repentance, its often attached to his dire warnings for the religious leaders who come to observe what is going on in the desert.

But I would point out precisely here that there were many who gladly received John's baptism of repentence. For them repentence was good news, and I think not because they felt particularly guilty about this or that sin. Rather, the appearance of an Elijah-type figure in the wilderness preaching baptism and forgiveness of sins signaled that the Kingdom of God might be finally coming. And that when the Kingdom of God comes, there might be a reversal of fortunes. The winners might be declared losers and the losers winners.

Jesus' announcement that the time is fulfilled and the Kingdom is near would certainly match this expectation. This announcement holds out the possibility that life might now be lived under different management. That regime change might be afoot. Those who benefit from the current power arrangements won't be happy, but those willing to turn their lives in the direction of the coming Kingdom of God will find themselves suddenly on the right side of history.

The Kingdom of God is not simply an improvement of conditions on the ground. The Kingdom of God is an alternative to those conditions. To belong to a new regime that exists as an alternative to all other power arrangements requires an entirely new set of commitments. To belong to the new age coming in the fullness of time necessitates more than change--it necessitates a turning, a reversal. One simply cannot stay the same and welcome the Kingdom of God.

So, repentance is the opportunity to align our lives with the interests of the coming reign of God. And to the extent that we believe that the Kingdom of God is peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, then the call to repentance will be received as good news. Repent and believe the good news.

Dylan on a Sunday

So, what to do about those pesky "Christian" albums that Dylan produced in the 80's. Most assessments of Dylan pan these years as a low point in his career. While his soul might have been saved, he was lost musically. He sold out, became preachy, turned his back on his previous work and his audience. You get the picture.

But I've read in the past few weeks a few reassessments of these years from Dylan devotees who had once been in that group that held that the Christian years were the low point for Dylan. Truth is, these reappraisals go, when taken now in relation to the overall body of his work, the Christian albums aren't really that much of an anomaly. In fact, some of his most interesting songs, musically speaking, are on these albums. And no one denies that Dylan is vitally engaged with the music in these works. If he's lost, no one told Dylan. And his concerts, these writers admit, were nothing if not passionate. From that standpoint, this may have actually been Dylan at his best.

So, as a theologian, it might seem that my take on this might be "told you so." I am glad if the knee-jerk because-its-Christian-it-must-be-artistically-inferior days might be waning. But that's less because I'm a theologian and more because everyone's work should be taken on its merits, Christian or not. Truthfully, as a theologian these are not his most interesting albums to me. I'm not sure what Dylan's personal beliefs are these days, but his current work is still shot through with biblical allusions and theological themes that are more interesting to me than his particular brand of theology in the "Christian" albums.

But what does interest me in this reappraisal is the issue of passion. In fact, its this characterization that makes me want to listen more deeply to these albums. I am convinced that the best art is done from the inside out, that passion communicates, that passion embodied conveys authenticity. And that passion comes and goes, or at least those times when everything is shot through with it.

I think this is true for artists, but also for being Christian. I don't think its unusual for there to be seasons when we're set on fire, completely sold-out, animated by some source of passion beyond ourselves. These are days to cherish. But I don't think it unusual for that to be only for a time. When your hair is burning, its tempting to think this is the way things should always be and that this is how everyone should be. This is understandable, and maybe we need people who are on fire to believe that so that we can remember what that's like too even if it feels a little condescending. But I think that these days mostly live on through something that burns on a little lower flame, one that doesn't flame out.

I think Dylan's recent stuff is his best, most interesting. And I don't think we get these last few cd's apart from his "Christian" period. So, here's to passion and its lingering genius.

Believe

In Mark's gospel, Jesus comes proclaiming the "gospel of God," saying, "the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is near; repent and believe the gospel." The last three words in this statement have always stood out to me. Most good news I am predisposed to believe. I think that this is because most of what I consider good news already conforms to what I value or believe. But this good news is connected to the word "repent," which indicates that believing might require me to see the world differently. Belief might require quite a risk, and seeing this announcement as good news might fight against my natural inclinations.

Whether or not you believe that this announcement of Jesus constitutes good news, the truth is there is no hope for anything beyond the way things are now unless there is some announcement of a reality that requires us to see things differently. And in the New Testament, the thing to believe to make a difference is often the resurrection.

Paul says in Romans 10, "if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord, and believe with your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." So, here's a reflection on "believe with your heart" and "you will be saved" in anticipation of Sunday's sermon.

I am convinced that "believe" in the New Testament means more than just intellectual assent. Believe here is something rooted in the heart, in our will and imagination. I want to be careful here not to make belief a quantifiable, a measurement by which we are thrown into perpetual anxiety about whether or not we truly believe. For instance, I think it is possible to "believe with your heart" and still entertain doubt, to still have moments of despair. What I think Paul has in mind here is the notion that the belief in the resurrection of Jesus (not the belief in resurrection in general, but belief in the specific person Jesus and what his life represents--that God honors this particular existence) evokes an entirely different world of possibility with an entirely new set of commitments and practices. And its not hard to tell if your life is oriented in a different direction in anticipation of a different reality even if we lack purity or consistency.

The most obvious difference here is that we no longer set our affections in life as if death has the final word. And this sets in motions all kinds of other commitments. We reckon time differently. It would be hard to prove from my life perhaps, but I think it would make mid-life less of a crisis. It would change what counts for progress or success and change our evaluations around words like strong and weak. And these kinds of changes are important in embracing the particular life to which Jesus calls people. The life of the Kingdom of God is full of risk. It requires us to love enemies, to turn the other cheek, to go the other mile, to always forgive. These kinds of commitments are unsustainable, and have been deemed by many Christians impractical and unrealistic, apart from a belief in the heart that God raised the one who lived like this from the dead. It is belief in the resurrection that makes sense of language like "whoever would save their life will lose it, but those who lose their life for my sake and the sake of the Kingdom will save it." This life is never wasted. God always honors it.

And this is what saves us. It's not simply checking the box "true" next to the statement "God raised Jesus from the dead." "Saved" is the actual lived existence of people who have chosen to live in a life framed by the world imagined by the reality of the resurrection of Jesus.

On a personal note, I frequently despair here. I often find myself living within a different frame of reference that suggests that I am the only one that can guarantee the kind of life I want or deserve or need. And I have from time to time serious doubts about the possibility of an actual resurrection in the first place. I think "believe in the heart" has to combine both the intellectual and practical side of this equation (notice here that I am not contrasting head and heart, intellect and emotion). There are times when my practice fails to point to my belief in this reality. In times like that, my understanding keeps me in the game. And in those times when my understanding fails, my commitments to practicing a particular way of life keeps me in the game. And all of this under the prayer, "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief."

We See in a Glass Darkly

So, what's my dissertation about? Thanks for asking. And I'll try to tell you without your eyes rolling back in your head.

First, its about theology, or how we think and talk about God. If God is living and active, engaging the world, then there should be some evidence of that. From this perspective, theology is about God, not just the history of ideas about God. And if this is the case, then theology should be done in the world and for the world, not just in a library. That's one thing my dissertation is about.

Second, its about salvation. God's engagement with the world, from a Christian perspective, is a saving engagement. Thinking of salvation this way requires a larger view than what we typically have, and in my estimation it requires a more biblical view. Salvation in the Bible is bigger than an individual's status or eternal destiny. If we expand our view, then we will look at what God is up to differently. That's another thing my dissertation is about.

Third, its about what counts as data. Talk of God's involvement in the world is tricky business and much harm is done in the endeavor. An earthquake in Haiti or a hurricane in the gulf or the prosperity of a particular person or group are too casually assigned to God's agency in the world. We have, for a long time now, been conditioned to think of the world in relation to strict causation. If "a," then "b." This is a good way to think about some things, but not everything, and especially not complex things. As Paul says, we see in a glass darkly and need to develop both a particular perception and some modesty about our claims. How we attend to the world conditions what understandings we develop. I am suggesting that Paul's phrase "being saved" represents a particular way of engaging the world that produces a unique wisdom. It represents a particular type of practical reasoning that both uncovers and enacts a particular way of being with God in the world. This is another thing my dissertation is about.

Fourth, congregations are not typically good at this. Other kinds of practical reasoning tend to dominate congregational life--like problem solving or strategic planning. And these get in the way of an imagination rooted in God's saving engagement with the world. How would congregations actually develop competence in this way of viewing the world? So, my dissertation is about the work I'm actually doing with two congregations as we kind of experiment along these lines together. This is another thing my dissertation is about.

How's that sound? Thanks for asking.

Battlestar Galactica, Monotheism, Terrorism and Trinity

I'm not the big sci-fi guy in my family. Josh and Nancy are far more devoted to that genre, but I go along for the ride from time to time. In the last few years that has meant time with Battlestar Galactica (not the old one with Lorne Greene, but the new one with James Edward Olmos). It's well done, and interesting for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is its theology.

The basic story line revolves around a long conflict between the human race and their rebellious creation, the Cylons. The Cylons have evolved from "robotic" soldiers (what humans call "toasters") to human-like characters who cannot be detected within the normal human population. OK, I know, but its amazing how easy it is to suspend belief here because the story is well-told.

But here's the thing. The humans are polytheists, the Cylons monotheists. The humans thank the gods for their world, the Cylons view the world in relation to one source. This is a pretty interesting flip on things, one worthy of its own post by someone with more knowledge of both the show and systematic theology.

But here's the other thing. There's a new spin-off from the BG phenomenon that tells the back story, Caprica. The creation of the Cylons, it appears, comes out of a terrorist attack (in a round about way) committed by a religious cult that is interested in serving "the one true God." Monotheism and terrorism are related. The link is explicit. The belief in one God as the source for everything is inherently violent. With one God, there are only two sides, good and evil, with us or against us. The implication is that this is inherently violent.

I've stewed over this for a number of years now. Christianity is not only monotheistic, but historical. That is, the primary issue for Christianity is the outcome of history, and that is certainly a contested reality. I'm not saying that Christianity is inherently or inescapably violent, but I am saying that a monotheistic, historical faith has certain temptations along these lines.

Moltmann makes similar observations to those made by the BG crowd (don't want to oversimplify BG here, the question of God is dynamic, not wooden or static). Moltmann is critical of any theology that is monistic, by which he means any notion of God as a single source. He suggests that such a view of God results in an over/against view of the relationship between God and world. Much of Christian theology is susceptible, for Moltmann, to the label "monist." This is particularly true of Christian traditions, including most of Western Christianity, that define God in relation to a single substance (ousia) that is prior to an understanding of God as three persons. Pannenberg piles on at this point as well, criticizing any notions that reduce God to a single-acting-subject.

The antidote for both to Christian monism is a more biblical understanding of God as Triune. For Moltmann, if you start with philosophy, you emphasize one God and then try to explain the three persons. If you start with the biblical testimony, you start with the relations of the three persons and move from there to God's unity. As Moltmann works the biblical witness, particularly as it relates to the "history of the Son" and the drama of the Kingdom of God, we find a dynamic God with different centers of action and reciprocal relations. This God is not closed, like the god of classical theism; immutable, simple, persisting, free. The God of Scripture is open, passionate, understood as making room for the other in love.

For me, this is precisely the importance of the Trinity, especially as seen in the work of theologians like Moltmann and Pannenberg. It keeps God in history without the amplifier of monism. It guards the Christian imagination from an easy us vs. them. It makes possible visions of God's future that are rooted in non-violence which corresponds best to the story of Jesus found in the gospels.

Moltmann And the Father of Jesus, the Son

This is one of those weeks I will always remember. I drove Wednesday morning from Detroit to Chicago to join around 300 others for a conversation with Jurgen Moltmann, a conversation hosted by the Emergent Village bunch. I will cap the trip with a U2 concert in Soldier Field on Sunday night. Bono and Moltmann, two of my favorite theologians. Awe and wonder all the way around.

Moltmann is 83 years old. His life is an amazing story (you might want to read his autobiography, A Broad Place). He was a German soldier in WWII, taken priosner, and found God in a Sottish prison camp. Amazing story, and consequently his career as a theologian finds few parallels. His work has sounded the themes of hope, justice, and ecology, all in the pursuit of knowing the God of Jesus Christ. His work is important for my dissertation in many ways. I am currently immersed in his books as I prepare for my comprehensive exams in a few weeks. I am richer for this engagement, by a long ways.

Here's the one thing you should know about Moltmann (from my perspective). HE refuses to think about God apart from the human experience of Jesus. Which sounds kind of obvious to many of us Bible-believing type folks. But Moltmann shows that for most of us, this simply is not the case.

Most of us begin with a version of God based on certain assumptions that we inherited from the Greek philosphical tradition. For God to be perfect, God must be simple, free, unchangeable, impassable, independent, etc. This is sometimes called classical theism, and Moltmann suggests that this view of God results inevitably in a kind of monism--God as a single acting subject and everything else as an object. Christian theology in the West has often assumed this view of God. God was thought of as a single substance, identified with the Father, and the Son and Spirit were sometimes thought of as modes of this one substance. The beginning assumption is the unity of God, the three persons being the hard thing to explain.

Now, here's the deal. There are a lot of problems one gets into when accounting for the real problems of the world if God is thought of as as single acting subject. For the Greeks, the problems of monism were expressed in the problem of theodicy. If God is all powerful, and if God is good, then how can bad things happen? Either God is all-powerful, and not good. Or God might be good, but not all powerful. There are current forms of Christian theology that opt to begin with the assuption that God is all powerful and the goodness of God will work itself out in the end. The tornado that swept through the Twin Cities a few weeks ago was God's punishment for the ELCA's decision to ordain homosexuals, says John Piper, the most prominent voice in the new Calvinism that explains every event as an event under God's providential control. But as Moltmann suggested yesterday, such a God is a monster.

In milder forms, Christian monism simply puts the world on the receiving end of all of God's stuff. The world is perpetual object to God's perpetual subject. All the arrows point one way, and the church is often thought of as being on God's side of the arrows. We've got all the good stuff. The world is simply our target, our strategic concern. This leads easily to mission as a kind of imperialism, or benevolence and evangelism as a kind of paternalism. This is the implication of the criticism Moltmann brings to Barth's theology. (God is a single-acting subject in Barth's theology, from Moltmann's perspective).

Moltmann does not begin with the assumptions about God located in classic theism. He begins with Jesus as the Son of the Father. We know God as the Father of Jesus, the Son. It is in this relationship of mutuality that we begin to understand God. This is true also of the relationship between Father and Spirit and Son and Spirit. God is not one substance in three forms, or one acting subject in three modes. God is three persons who each have centers of action and have a dynamic and reciprocal relationship. And in any relationship, any reciprocity, there is need and vulnerability. There is openness to the other.

In fact, it is this openness to the other that constitutes God as love. And it is this love that makes room for creation. And it is this love that leaves space for a free creation. And it is this love that marks itself as suffering, enduring love. As Moltmann said yesterday, God's power is not expressed by the fact that he controls all things (the opposite of love), but in that he bears all things and suffers all things. This is a game changer in so many ways.

At the conference yesterday, people talked to Moltmann about how his book, The Crucified God, gave them a lease on life--new hope--in the most tragic of circumstances. The loss of an infant son, the persistent struggle of disability, the opression related to class and race and gender. That's a pretty hefty theological legacy. I doubt that Piper's theology has many stories like that. The answer to why in Piper's theology is always God, and that causes more problems that it solves. For Moltmann, there is no answer to the question why and if there were it would not satisfy us. But in the crucified God there is a who and a where and a when related to suffering. There is a God who suffers all things, who lashes himself to the world on a cross, and whose resurrection will not allow suffering to be the last word.

A Violent Wind

It was one of those moments. I was yelling at the TV. Not so much in anger as frustration. It was the second Bush-Kerry debate and the question to each concerned the role of faith in their life as a political leader. Dubya went first and talked about his faith as a deeply internal thing. It's what gave him peace in the midst of the trials of being president. It's what I expected.

Kerry went next and talked about his life-long relationship with the Catholic church. And in very similar ways, he talked about his faith as a private, inner thing, something that gave him inner strength and conviction.

I wanted a very different answer from each of them.

Not that I should be surprised. For most of us faith is primarily an internal thing, something that gives us inner strength. In my dissertation research, I am conducting interviews with members from various congregations. One of the interview questions is "As you understand it, how is the Holy Spirit related to salvation?" Every single answer to this point--every single one of them--has something to do with inner peace or strength. Salvation and the Holy Spirit, it appears is my own private possession.

Again, this is not surprising. When you read a book like Charles Taylor's, Sources of the Self, you get sense of just how much Western society has been dominated by notions of a buffered self--or the person as a completely self-contained entity. The personal is the primary horizon of interpretation for most Westerners. We are hard wired philosophically to think of reality as consisting of subjects and objects with self-defining essences and characteristics. A world of subjects and objects becomes also a world of fact/value or public/private splits. And on those splits, faith gets placed on the values and private side of the ledgers. Bush and Kerry were well within the mainstream of Western/American spirituality.

But this is not the only way it has to be. Nancy and I are dwelling in Acts 2 these days. I was struck the other day by the NRSV's translation of the coming of the Spirit as a "violent wind." When the Spirit comes, representing a new age in which the rich will be brought low and the poor raised up, the wind isn't just soothing and peaceful. It is also violent, disruptive, disturbing, commotion causing.

I wanted Bush or Kerry, one of them, to say faith is what keeps me up at night. It's what won't give me rest, keeps me stirred up. It's not my safe-haven from the world, it's what keeps driving me into the world. It's what won't let me rest with my wealth in a world of hunger. It's what is causing me to want me to see the world new each day. It's a violent wind.

I often have people tell me that they know a personal decision they have made is a "God-thing" because they have such peace about it. That might be right. But in a world where we have made such peace with the way things are, it might be a sign of just the opposite. God is just as likely to be in the option that gives no peace.

Missional Think Tank

I have spent the past few days with about 70 other people who are all interested in missional church. It was a diverse group. There were pastors and other church leaders, denominational execs, seminary faculty and administrators, and students. We were from all over the world: Naga, Myanmar, Korea, South Africa, Malawi, Kenya, Germany, England, Texas, and other foreign countries. We were young, young-ish (my category, of which I pressed the upper limits), and seasoned. We were Church of Christ, Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Charismatic, Baptist, Mennonite, Episcopal/Anglican, and probably some unaffiliateds (perhaps like George Clooney in O Brother, Where Art Thou). There were founders of the GOCN and persons who only recently have discovered the conversation.

The most moving moment of our time together for me was when the young cohort (leaders under 35) blessed the founders, those who have been at this for a long time. The under 35's were our most international cohort, representing at least five languages. They stood around the founders in a circle and each offered a blessing in their native language. After all the sharing and struggling that had taken place in our interactions, this was a profoundly moving act. It struck me that it only made sense liturgically. I recognized only the English words offered, but I comprehended the meaning of the others given the setting, the circle, the occasion. Their words did not need to be translated to be understood.

I was asked to preach in the opening worship Sunday evening. (I'll post the sermon here in a few days). One of the images I used was the Letterman bit, "Is This Anything?" You know the bit. The curtain comes up with the hula hoop girl and the grinder girl (how else would you describe her?) doing their thing and between them is an act. The act could be anything--fire eater, juggler, contortionist--and Dave and Paul decide whether or not this is anything. Being a representative of missional church can feel that way. Sometimes missional can feel like a novelty act, minus the hula and grinder girls, with people wondering "is this anything" as you perform.

Truth is, I still don't know for sure the answer to that question. Obviously, I think it could be or I wouldn't spend so much of my energy on it. And I do see enough and hear enough stories to be encouraged along the way. And this gathering falls into that category. Whatever the merits of various arguments or theological planks, this appears to be something, at the very least because it possesses a massive and productive ecumenical impulse. We are not trying to figure out how this brings us together, or if it could, it just does. And those who gathered had no problem calling this the work of the Spirit.

I have some hunches about this. I think most of it is because the focus of the missional conversation is about God's mission, his acting in the world. This is both more productive theologically than asking how God is related to a set of philosophical categories (though this work has an important place), and more open ended, leaving room at the table of theological discernment for people as diverse confessionally as Church of Christ, Lutheran, and Roman Catholic. And it does not privilege the tradition of Western philosophy that has governed theological discourse, leaving Asia, Africa, and Latin America always as junior partners in the discussion. It was pretty clear at this meeting that the Africans in particular had much to teach us.

So today, I think this is something.

U2 on a Sunday

I know I'm probably the last one in the blogosphere to comment on U2's new release. It takes me awhile with U2. They are so idosyncratic as a group that your ear takes awhile to make sense of what it is that you're listening to. My friend, Scott Hagley, thinks this is why their music sticks with you, doesn't end up in the pile of sings you used to listen to. I'll go with that.

So, for me the jury is still out on the musical achievement. But again I feel myself comfortable in the horizon of their lyrical world. This cd is more shot through with specific biblical or theological allusions. You don't have to wonder whether or not there are biblical or theological overtones. They are right on the surface. This is a mixed bag for me because I think explicit references in a pop format can trivialize both the reference and the pop format. On the plus side, its not hard for me to find my bearings.

The faith on display here is no easy belief. The world is dark and God is not an obvious certainty gleaned from the facts on the ground. This is a grainy place to make out a clear picture. This does not, however, keep these songs from some beautiful pictures. Love that heals. Forgiveness where forgiveness is not. Magnificence. Joy and celebration. It is simultaneously realisitc and hopeful. Where else could joy spring from?

And there are moments of conversion. Life and faith are not all settled at once. This thing is hills and valleys. And the atm, the gaze of a stranger, and other ordinary places are also at the edge of the known universe. Every moment bears a transcendent possibility. I like that.

And I like that its all sensual, that sometimes you can't tell if they're singing about God or a woman.

So, today its a day with U2. Did I tell you that I met The Edge? He was at a Starbucks in Malibu a few years ago. We walked out at the same time (I timed it perfectly). I held the door for him, and he said...wait for it...wait for it..."thank you." So, then we're walking toward our cars and I'm trying to think of something to say without sounding like an idiot. So, finally the words tumbled out of my mouth, "Hey, thanks for what you do." He smiled at me and said, wait for it... "thanks, have a great day."

I am thankful for what they do.

From "Magnificent"

I was born to sing for you
I didn't have a choice but to lift you up
And sing whatever song you wanted me to
I give you back my voice
From the womb my first cry, it was a joyful noise

Only love, only love can leave such a mark
But only love, only love can heal such a scar
Justified till we die
You and I will magnify
The Magnificant.

Dylan on a Sunday

First blog of a new year. Dylan. Did I tell you I used to have a dog named Dylan? Great dog. Someone stole him. He was that great of a dog.

Sean Palmer, a friend of mine, recently commented in my presence that Dylan holds some weird fascination for every 50 year old male he knows. With friends like Sean... First, I'm only 50 if you round up, which is an important distinction. Second, the phrase is "50 year old dude." And third, I can leave Dylan if I want. I've quit several times. And rumors to the contrary, my hand tremors are not worse during those times.

It could be worse. It could be Manilow on a Sunday, or Abba, or Neil Diamond, or show tunes. I know this is a weak defense for Dylan on a Sunday. I'm just saying that there are other musical obsessive figures that are not as worthy of blog meditations. I mean, "I Write the Songs"? Give me a break.

Truth is, Dylan's stage allows me to talk about a lot of the things I'm interested in. And I'm of the opinion that the best theology is not delivered in a creed, but in a song, something that is a bit more three dimensional. And theology that is not poetic is necessarily a step closer to ideology, and from there idolatry. In fact, one of the things I like about Dylan is that he doesn't play it straight with Scripture. He alludes to it all over the place, but not in some kind of straightforward quote, and often with a weird twist. After all, the letter kills, but the spirit gives life.

So, with this apology, there will be more Dylan on a Sunday this year. He makes me seem smarter, and gets me in the neighborhood of cool without making it seem obvious. That just won't happen with Abba.

"No reason to get excited," the thief, he kindly spoke,
"There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.
But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate,
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late."

The Miracle of Being Known

I have been confronted yet again this week with the reality that I am the one in who in some ways knows myself the least. It is always startling to come to this realization. After all, I'm the one who knows what's going on in my head (a very interesting place most days). No other person is privy to my inner dialogue. And for this inner dialogue to occur at all, there has to be some sense of who I am, some authorial voice in my head that narrates my actions, perceptions, judgments, etc.

But I am not simply a self in my head, I am a self in relation to others. And others are accounting for my life as well, putting my actions in meaningful relationship to any number of factors. They do this from a greater distance than the inside of my head, and that distance allows them to have perspective that I simply can't gain. It's not that their perceptions are necessarily more true than mine. Often they are not. But sometimes it takes the very distance of the other for my own tightly wound little account of reality to be overthrown.

Now I am an intensely introspective kind of person. By temperment and training I am constantly interpreting myself as a symbolic presence among others. I think this is why it is particularly unsettling for me to be brought up short. To learn that the person I think I am is not the same thing as the person I am is always a humbling experience. Usually, I have found, that realization is a negative one. Yikes.

Self-knowledge is not a stable thing, at least not in people worth knowing. I am highly untrusting of people who act always out of total conviction, without a shred of doubt, assuming only two options--the wrong one and the one they have chosen. Still, the lack of center in a self, a self always given over to review, a self always in flux, makes for a very neurotic existence.

It is with this in mind, that I am reminded of a passage in Galatians. It's actually a parenthetical statement in an argument very different than the one I'm laying out here. But I am learning to place a lot of stock in it. Paul is talking about a former time when we did not know God. But now that we know God...and then the parenthetical statement. It seems like almost an afterthought. He says, "Now, however, that you know God, or rather are known by God, how can you turn back..." (Gal 4:9).

I have no doubt that there is great benefit in knowing God. But I wonder if salvation doesn't consist in resting in the fact that I am known by God. This is more than just saying, God knows all my secrets and still accepts me (though those are no small potatos). This is saying, I think, that I am a definable self, a knowable self, in relation to God. It's not that I have to figure out amid all the contradictory evidence exactly who it is that I am. I am a known quantity to God. I am not in the business of constructing a self, or of figuring out a self, but of receiving a self secure in the knowledge of God. My life is a gift, secure in God's knowing.

This idea offers me both more openness to change and less subjectivity to volatility, a greater chance in both cases to develop into a dependable character in both my life and the lives of others.

I am often struck by the way we elude each other, and even ourselves. But in the grace and freedom of Christ, we are known by God.

Dylan on a Sunday

I walked out of church today and found a flyer on my car that warned of the last days (not placed there by someone from the church I attend). Nuclear bombs, health epidemics, dogs and cats sleeping together (I added that last one, a tribute to Bill Murray in Ghost Busters. Go ahead, fact check me). You know, the usual stuff. Stuff focused on the end of all things. We're all history.

Now I like apocalyptic imagery as much as the next guy. Seriously. It says, in essence, that what what peeks out at the edges of life cannot be reconciled to anything. It just doesn't make any damned sense. And it doesn't. But there's an alternative coming. Not a day that's just the logical outcome of this one, but a new day bringing an alternative history that will bring resolution.

In some churches, we sing this song, Days of Elijah, where the Lord is coming riding on a cloud. We sing it joyfully thinking its all glory and bliss. But prophets like Ezekiel, Daniel, and Dylan know different. It might be our salvation, but its in the form of a hard rain.

So, this Sunday's Dylan song to live with, in honor of the warning fixed to my windshield, is A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall.

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin',
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world,
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin',
Heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin',
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin',
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter,
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.