just a thought...about metanarratives...

metanarratives have been lost in our society and in our cultural. i know this isn't a common term for most. the best way i can explain it is that a metanarrative is about the "larger story" that our lives are really about. instead of buying into the quality of the whole,  we tend to submit to the smaller in-between-the lines-text of our selfish existence. how unfortunate is this for both our lives, our churches, our world? this is the death of purpose. the inward thinking of our society has lead to the pursuit of our stuff, our desires, our wants, and our satisfaction. but how can we neglect the world and its aches, hurts, and slavery? if we begin to neglect these people, what else have we neglected? i submit that we have missed love. we have missed truth. we have missed wholeness. we have missed Jesus. note that Jesus consistently pursued the greater missio Dei (mission of God). he is constantly in communication with the Father, regulating his situation and submitting to the command of the Father. let's just begin to think about how often that his personal story was shadowed by the story of redemption that the Father set forth from the beginning in Gen. 3.15. what if we did the same? submitted to the thelema Theou (will of God) at every thought, action, and decision...wait, even every relationship. i believe that this is the key of the metanarrative. that is relationship and love. it is dripping from every page of Scripture and every wound that Jesus bore. Jn. 13.1 says that Jesus "loved them to the end." this does not mean that he loved them until he died. it means that he loved them to the end of time, to their completion, to their ultimate result. later in that passage, Jesus sums up the metanarrative so poignantly. he says, "a new commandment i give to you, that you love one another, just as i have loved you, you also are to love one another. by this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." (Jn. 13.34-35) i was recently reading a book that  was discussing this very idea. the book is The Three Hardest Words by Leonard Sweet and it is about the words "I Love You." Here's what he says about metanarratives and love: "If the metanarrative is about anything, it's about live. And more specifically, it's about love as the form and function of life. To put life and love in their necessary context, the metanarrative tells us not only who we are, but also who everyone else is - helping us understand and live well in relationship with the 'other'...It is the story of "I love you" like no other love story. (p. 24)

so i dare you live in metanarrative and not "subtext" (as Sweet calls it), where we are function and living in love and not in selfishness and anthropocentricity. our philosophy should be as Cameron Crowe's epic film Elizabethtown says concerning life and failure. "Loving life, loving you" is the only way to live. 

-peaks out.

encarnacion!

"encarnacio-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-hon....i love when Jack Black sings this powerful word in Spanish in the film Nacho Libre. incarnation is not exactly what he was singing. regardless, it keeps it in my memory's grasp. 

for this year, i really sensed as i prayed for this year that God spoke very clearly about this being a year of incarnation. i know that seems mystical and elusive, but really it literally means 'in the flesh.' or for some reason my mind thinks about carne being meat, so i thought, hmm, the incarnation - in the meat. what does that even mean? i don't even know. just go with it. 

nonetheless, i digress. my thoughts on the incarnation was spurred by an excellent essay by Lesslie Newbigin called Proper Confidence, which i reviewed for my hermeneutics class last semester. it truly is a must read. as i was telling my best friend about both this book and the concept of manifesting the concepts of the traditions of Christ's followers, he told me about reading a quote from Henri Nouwen. I thought it was appropriate,

"...There is so much fear, so much distance, so much generalization, and so little real listening, speaking, and absolving that not much true sacramentality can be expected.

How can priests or ministers feel really loved and cared for when they have to hide their own sins and failings from the people to whom they minister and run off to a distant stranger to receive a little comfort and consolation?  How can people truly care for their shepherds and keep them faithful to their sacred task when they do not know them and so cannot deeply love them?  I am not at all surprised that so many ministers and priests suffer immensely from deep emotional loneliness, frequently feel a great need for affectivity and intimacy, and sometimes experience a deep-seated guilt and shame in front of their own people.  Often they seem to say, 'What if my people knew how I really feel, what I think and daydream about, and where my mind wanders when I am sitting by myself in my study?'

It is precisely the men and women who are dedicated to spiritual leadership who are easily subject to very raw carnality.  The reason for this is that they do not know how to live the truth of the Incarnation.  They separate themselves from their own concrete community, try to deal with their needs by ignoring them or satisfying them in distant or anonymous places, and then experience an increasing split between their own most private inner world and the good news they announce.  When spirituality becomes spiritualization, life in the body becomes carnality.  When ministers and priests live their ministry mostly in their heads and relate to the Gospel as a set of valuable ideas to be announced, the body quickly takes revenge by screaming loudly for affection and intimacy.  Christian leaders are called to live the Incarnation, that is, to live in the body, not only in their own bodies but also in the corporate body of the community, and to discover there the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Confession and forgiveness are precisely the disciplines by which spiritualization and carnality can be avoided and true incarnation lived.  Through confession, the dark powers are taken out of their carnal isolation, brought into the light, and made visible to the community.  through forgiveness, they are disarmed and dispelled and a new integration between body and spirit is made possible." - In the Name of Jesus (pp 65-68)

I don't believe I can add a whole lot to that. 

-peaks out. 

house or home...

so i was with this amazing friend of mine last tuesday. he's one of those guys you like to do about anything with, work, talk, drink coffee, etc. so as we were hanging out, we were "removed" from the local coffee shop for they were closing, so we went on a drive. we drove all around my quaint town and for some reason started talking about houses. largely due to him remodeling this old home he is currently dwelling. nonetheless, we went to my favorite part of town, where all the "rich" folk live. 

the area is called riverview and it is a lovely place. the best part about it is that all the houses are completely unique. you can tell that different homes were built at different times, for different kinds of people, and even in very unique styles. you have the tudor mansion sitting right next to a colonial masterpiece with its opulent columns, which is adjunct to a late 70s art deco home that has more angles than a geometry textbook. as we discussed my love of architecture, we just reveled in the craftsmanship of these homes, pointing out dorian columns, keystone artistry, and sumptuous foyers that were seen through massive windows every home we gazed.  

the funny thing was that the day before as i was waiting to eat grecian food with a new friend, i traversed another of my favorite places - ghent. as i drove through riverview, i immediately resonated the same sentiments as i meandered the ghentonian neighborhoods. there was uniqueness overwhelming me in each home. i was able to see the time period and recognize even the people who lived in these homes as i glimpsed through the windows for further insight into their lives. both of these places are "historic," however, their historicity was not bound, it randomly had a "not" in their patterns of home style for each street. i was amazed to see a house that was royal blue. not that faded blue that you find in most kitchens but a blue so vivid that all i could think was of peacock's and their color palette. i was so intrigued by these houses. 

and then something hit me. what makes a house a home. what is a house? my thought was a house is merely an edifice that holds people for when they do not occupy their work. and then i thought, when you walk into a house, you don't say, "wow, this feels 'housey,' you say, this feels 'homey.' " why? because a home is a place that people don't merely stay, but it is where they live. a home is a place that invites and welcomes and extends and comforts. it a house that hugs. it makes you feel cared for and loved. and then God just blew my mind. 

people are like houses. we are all unique, we are all styled, we are all aged. we are edifices that hold things and guard things, or merely occupy a space. none of us are exactly the same, we are all unique, but in that uniqueness our houses are telling people different things. some houses have 4 foot walls around them. some homes don't have windows. some homes only have one door. in that same regard, people are the same way. we have walls, we don't let everyone in, we make people relate to us only through the door of our choice, etc. but then i looked back to those houses. 

the ones i wanted to go in, where the ones that were open for all to see. they were the ones with the huge windows, they are the ones that you could see the art on their walls, their huge furniture, their books, their tvs, and their kitchens. the ones that were inviting were the ones that were truly homes. so now as people are, how are we being homey and inviting? or are we houses that have never been called homey? have we failed to let others in because we are selfish and are fearful of what they might say or do in our house? or maybe they will want to come to secured places and we don't want them to. 

my heart was challenged as i thought that i often am probably not as homey as i should be. i still pull a house on people and make them stand from the street to engage in my life. then i thought of Jesus in the upper room discourse and how he said, i go to prepare a place for you. or in other words, i go to make my father's house homey for you. jesus shows that in our relationships we should be as the early church and be people who are hospitable. not just merely in the natural sense of our homes, but of our lives. how are we inviting and caring and warm towards those that we come in contact with. do people want to be let into our homes? or do they sense our cold house and decided to not tread on the "no trespassing" sign we have plastered on the door to our hearts. 

what if we opened our lives to others, not merely for others, but for the benefit of us as well. everyone knows that when a house is not lived it, it will fall apart. i wonder how many people are falling apart because no one has been sitting on their heart's couch. 

i want to open my doors and welcome people into my house. so that my house may become a home for both others and for Jesus. when's the last time you invited someone over? i plan to do so today. 

- peaks out.