This is a rough draft, but I'm interested in people's opinions, whether or not I'm getting across what I'm trying to.


I find God in church.


I find God in church. I know it’s an odd place to look, for as Whitman and Emerson taught us God is romantic, found only in surprise, offering flowers on a wooded walk, perhaps.

But I find her in church as the formulaic repetition of lyrics with its copyright entrails flowing out on the giant screen is read and I stand mothering my child, swaying her in my arms and she lays her head on my shoulder for this lullaby.

I find God here when without instruction the whole congregation sits at once, and I squat to a mass-produced stacking chair mysteriously placed yesterday morning in this line of lines specifically for me and removed immediately after I leave.

I find God in this tabernacle that screams a dearth of imagination and romance: a rectangular gym, medium quality surface, with out-of-bounds lines and a three-point arch. On one side, where stands should be, is the entrance and on the other is a stage, flanked by artistically deprived banners that enshrine mere words.

She meets me here, mostly in the sermon, since up til then the children demand. But after my offertory of delivering my kids to the nursery, I sit and breathe. The can is opened and the words flow out from the stage and hover above, and I find peace, beneath them, in my own mind finally allowed to wander. Occasionally a phrase falls from the sky re-directing my ambling, but mostly I am left to my mental movements, where God often walks with me and talks with me.

Then at the end of the service, this first week of the month, I commune God. A table at the front, portable and made of faux glass, ignoring Jesus’ words “this is my body, this is my blood,” centers the experience on “do this in remembrance.” Sterile elements passed, salted crackers cracked and amassed on a silver colored, red carpeted plate and bulk-bought grape juice in non-degradable plastic shot cups.

I feel centered, I ask forgiveness in preparation, I eat Christ, I drink Christ, I attack Christ with acids and break down Christ and redistribute Christ in unseen forms to dying cells throughout my body, a distribution which occurs as I, with three kids, shop for Sunday dinner's groceries.

He loves the dips to the street

He loves the dips to the street. The three to four inch change in elevation over a four foot span of sidewalk exhilarates him; he runs to get the fullest affect. The three inches leaves his heart just about where his throat ends up. He slows to a stop on the asphalt, laughs his grunty delight and then heads for the other side of the street, anticipating the parallel but opposite thrill, with more giggly expressions of an endorphin rush. His heart returns to its home and remembers its tactile search for wonder. There are leaves aplenty fallen and dried for the sole purpose of being crunched beneath his boots. He runs over a long stretch of blanketed concrete. But other leaves are too precious for destruction, in bright yellows and warm oranges, near enough to death to contain all the beauty of the world. These are rescued, hoisted and clutched with unrefined motor skills against his gut. At least until the red one is witnessed, not as large, but exquisite in rarity, three large pointed tips connected by tiny jagged edges. The hand and mind, unable to hold two things at once, reach out for the prize and the yellows and oranges fall a second fall.

“Come on Quinn,” I encourage him from 8 feet in advance. He responds to my tone and takes a few steps toward me until he reaches a crack in the sidewalk. The parkway tree that graces our shared sky with feather-light gold, has unleveled the sidewalk squares beneath. He stops, looks up at me and smiles as though I should know and then lifts one foot slowly up the elevation. He plants it and bounds forward with another guttural laugh. Before he reaches me, though, he stoops again to separate the beauty of sight from the beauty of sound.

I step back to take his hand and move him along, but he does not want to be hurried, so I pick him up and put him on my shoulders. He ducks, pressing his chest against the top of my head, and giggles as his cheek brushes our golden sky. As the gold becomes distant and the sky turns blue, he sits up and begins tapping the top of my head with open palms, as though my cranium is a hollow drum. I enter his musical exploration and clack my tongue each time he bangs. He begins to coo what I imagine is a song, and I suddenly notice layers of music around us. Birds of all kinds are bidding their farewells to warm rays of sunlight soon to abandon them. I am happy and feel in tune with him and us with nature.

As we leave the oak canvassed sidewalks of our street and head toward the building-flanked rushing traffic, a vision out of the corner of my eye cuts at my heart. I turn my head to look and find only an empty lot. Where did it go? What was it? I turn forward to continue our walk and his leg again swings into my peripherial vision. Below my left hand's grasp of his ankle: Quinn's foot – tiny and delicate, little piggies sucking a stuffed sow – encased in a brown leather boot fashioned after a work boot with white stitching and a long shoe string. It felt like innocence and promise: the baby boy becoming a life.

And as these feelings sunk in, I recognized the lack of harmony between his drumming and our nature. His cooing now less a song and more a sonnet; his hands not drumming but patting. And I remembered four or five times in the last week when he patted me on my back, or on the crease behind my knee, when he was happy. As the music faded and I realized these were love pats, he clutched the sides of my head with his elbows at my ears, his tiny palms on my temples, his ring fingers brusing the outskirts of my eyebrows, and he pressed his stomach into the back of my head, laying his chest atop my cranium and softly planted his cheek just above my forehead. With refined motor skills, his fingers clutched me against his gut. His inner thighs tighened slightly and with his elbows and cheek squeezing me and he let out a long, singular coo: the fullest and most pure sonnet ever performed.

Formation -

I realized today that I have not been allowing my circumstances to form me. I have instead been attempting to form my circumstances, which is of course impossible as long as God is still God and has not handed the reins over to me.

Lord, may I learn the lessons of patience you have surrounded me with. When I am punched by the blows of dishes piling and children screaming and bills demanding - knead my response.

May I be formed by the work you have placed before me. When the raw material is larger than the vision, and the discipline of chiseling is short-lived - sculpt my actions.

May rest breathe life. When time is free and stress calls for release, may I not comply with mindlessness, extricating life. Reveal in silence your Sovereignty, and know my inner thoughts.

The movements we make are making us.
---Kimerer LaMothe

Stay-at-home Controller -

They've done strange things to me.
My instant reactions are foreign,
for I knew a time when stress was
unknown.

But they have pressured me with the constant whining
with uncontrolled arms flung through calm surfaces of glassed milk
and uncontrolled volumes shouting infestivities.
They have pressured me with thoughts choosing unreason
and uncontrolled tongues
talking back.

They have, in fact, compacted my soul into a small, square box,
hard, determined and in charge - like a tank.
And as my stalwart box marches forward, with impenetrable demands,
it shouts orders and shame
obliterating free spirits.

But when roared order is reestablished,
I find their obedience and broken spirits
have chiseled my formidable box of a soul down
to reveal the idols that live there.

Idols of stone anger, hatred, disgust
idols of self
under control only when controlling.
Idols unbreathing, unalive, except when I bow.

The light of their humility now exposes me
on my knees.

LHC?

Somebody want to explain this thing to me?

http://www.lhc.ac.uk/

A dream -

I once had a dream
ten years ago
Overwhelmingly powerful
never before or since

I awoke with my heart just before me
drawing me up, forward
I laid there, stiff
my hands crossed upon my sunken chest
powerless to keep that caged bird safe

The dream was of my father. There were 200 mourning people in a horseshoe-shaped room, with a low ceiling and a low peninsular-shaped stage filled with flowers and a coffin. No one spoke, but the little air in the room was thick with grief like the early morning humidity of an April mountain.

I sat in the middle, on te 2nd row, and as I, with my head down and eyes shut, breathed, I could not help but take in their thoughts, absorbed into my bloodstream. Most of the atmosphere was grief, the weight of which was like the warm hand of a doctor, pressing down, searching, understanding what's below the skin and promising healing. Some of the atmosphere, though, was pity, which felt like foodpoisoning. "Those poor boys - they adored him." I didn't need it, not now, not ten years later. Couldn't they see I'm all grown up? Maybe they didn't know it's been ten years. Maybe it hadn't? My head dropped imperceptibly, and my breathing continued to grow heavier and deeper.

The silence was cut by the opening of a door at the back, center of the room. I felt the richness of the atmosphere flow out the open door; their eyes had all turned. I did not move, hoping I could continue breathing the thick grief, but with a couple more breaths, its healing movements were evacuated. Unburdened, I turned to see.

Before my head could get around, I was standing and in the aisle and moving backwards, away from the ghost moving along the ceiling toward me. Transfixed with fear, I backpeddle faster, stumbling as I neared the stage. The people, all still sitting, watched with realized expectation, devoid of response. The ghost, familiar and tremendum, matched and then increased my speed; headed, it seemed, directly for my chest. The coffined stage halted my frantic retreat. In a moment just long enough to realize I wasn't trapped, I changed gears and shot down a side aisle toward a possible escape. Within three steps, I realized I may be over-reacting, that the ghost was my father and his destination was finally the coffin, so my head turned, like that of a jockey's, but found my Father's ghost upon me. I dropped to the floor as though trying to avoid a low flying plane, and my heart jumped ahead of me, fearing its impending death. The ghost swept over me, with the wind of all the world at its heels, and my heart was caught up in the whirlwind. My father halted at the exit, and, without haste, went through the closed door. I got up, and with unbearable fear, began to follow my heart out the door.

As I laid in bed
sweat now coming to me,
and with it the possibility of movement,
I unfolded my hands
and reached out to replace my heart safely inside.
But I could not get a hold of it,
and for three days I walked around
completely afraid of and confused by
what I had no choice but to follow.

ATFP -

I'd like to know what you think of this:



http://www.myatfp.com/

Christ

Christ is born
again today eternally
In slums and playgrounds
and bedrooms born
Above waves and upon falling feathers borne
Along the strings of fiddles
and in foolish preaching voices borne
Within forgiveness and sin and rage born
In brilliant nightmares and ghoulish theophanies born
With the groanings of creation
and every movement of Creator
he is born
again and again born
before us and from us and
by us borne
in and for all
forever born again

righteous and sinners

I was reading this scripture this morning:
"And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" But when he heard this, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners."- Matthew 9:10-13

And it struck me that I spend my time calling the righteous and practicing sacrifice. Few in the church don't.

Homosexuality.


So, last fall I had an assignment for all my students, where they were to go to some ministry that was dealing with some social issue and then come back and do a presentation on that issue. I had a number of students choose the issue of homosexuality, I think because they are confused by the discrepancy between what they see on TV and what they hear in church. In any case, a number of the groups went downtown to A Church 4 Me? and visited a gay church. I emailed the pastor after the semester explaining my assignment and letting him know how the presentations went over in class.

Today I received this email:
"Hi Tim, I got your name from Pastor Kevin Downer at a church 4 me in Chicago. I'm doing a video story on the church for the Northwestern News Network, and it's going to air on WYCC, Channel 20 this Sunday evening. If you have the opportunity this morning or afternoon, could you please let me know what your thoughts are on this church? Are you opposed to it, and if so, why? Are you a proponent for gays having their own place to worship, and if so, why? Also, Tim, if it would be easier for you, I can be reached at . . . , and I look forward to hearing from you today. All best, Amy Wolf
Amy WolfReporter, Northwestern News Network"

I wrote her this (perhaps too long) response:
"Amy,
Thanks for contacting me. Sorry if the following is more information than you wanted. It's something I've been thinking about a good deal, though, lately.

I find this subject to be terribly complicated. The church I attend recently spoke up on this issue (perhaps a feat in itself). The sermon and discussion was full of love and compassion and criticizing the church for not be accepting enough, or more precisely criticizing the church for so strongly condemning homosexuality as a sin while ignoring greed and so on. The answer that was given in the end was that God can change people, homosexuality is a sin, and as we invite people into the church, into relationship, God will deal with their sin (with the obvious outcome of changing them).
For the conservativeness of our church, this was an appropriately challenging message.
I grew up in an extremely conservative (fundamentalist) atmosphere in the south, where gays would be as likely lynched as accepted into church. Perhaps that's putting it a little strongly, but not much. Where I grew up, the people's stomachs still turn inside out if you say the word "homosexual," and their faces inevitably bear witness to their intestinal discomfort. If Christians can move away from that and toward what was preached in the church I now attend, we will have made some progress at least.

Now more to the point of your question (hopefully). On an ideal level, there are two reasons I am opposed to gays having their own place to worship. First, and most importantly, I am ideologically opposed at some level to any specific group having their own place to worhsip. The picture given in Revelation at the end of time is of all peoples, languages, cultures, etc. worshiping God. This beautiful picture of the kingdom of God, however, is not just for some future time after all the wars have been fought. Instead, Jesus inaugurated the work of said kingdom in his life on earth, and to follow Christ (to be a Christian) is to carry out this kingdom in the present. A huge part of this has to do with the "body of Christ," to use the apostle Paul's language, where we are reconciled to God, and also to each other. In fact, Jesus said others should know us (non-followers should know followers) by our love for one another. When we divide into different churches so we don't have to argue as much, surely no one is knowing us by our love. When we divide into these separate groups we are NOT being one body, and we are NOT carrying out the work of the kingdom of God that Christ calls us to.

The second, and much less important reason, I am opposed (on an ideal level) to gays having their own place of worship, is that I do believe the act of homosexuality is a sin. Gay churches argue it is not a sin, and so the discussion becomes very polarized, which harms both sides. Perhaps if we were in the same church, living together, being Christian together, we would have more balanced dialogue on the issues at hand.

Now, those two reasons are the ideal. That being said, the church is currently far too screwed up, particularly on this issue, to try to enforce these ideals. There is too much anger, even hate, in the current "debates," if you can even call throwing crap at each other "debates." From this perspective, I am all for A Church 4 Me and others like it to exist. I much, much, much, much prefer gay people to have their own place to worship, even if I disagree with a point of their theology, than to have no place to worship. It is not as though they are doing something wrong. It is the fault of the church at large, which has abandoned gays, that gays have to have their own place of worship. The onus is upon the church at large, not upon the gay church. The confession of wrongdoing must come from the church at large before we can begin to attempt any true dialogue or any movement toward the reconciliation with one another that the kingdom of God demands of us (and for us).

This is why I encouraged students I was teaching at a very conservative, Evangelical school last fall to attend A Church 4 Me and to see that they worship and how they worship there. Many of the students returned with their eyes wide open. Many experienced at that church a level of acceptance and love they had not experienced in church before, and from gays, the very people many of their home churches had demonized their entire lives. They hopefully at least began to see that the issue is not so wrong and right as sin and righteousness, but that there is sin on both sides and righteousness on both sides. Only when we move beyond the impass of us vs. them will the church at large be able to recognize and confess its own sin in this area, thus opening the door for the first time to true dialogue.

Thanks for inquiring about and then reading my thoughts. Please let me know if I was unclear at any point, or if you have other questions. But note, and perhaps you've learned from this response, that further questions may require a good deal of reading on your part :)
tim basselin"


I'd love to hear your thoughs.