How I vote...

                Now that this major election is over and as relieved as I am to be past the angry argument that we call an election, I encourage you to look deeper at how we "vote" every day of our lives.

We live in contact with people, in a space of sharing, interacting, and socializing with the people around us. We do this within a sphere or political contact and governmental involvement. So our actions, voices, choices often become political actions. They have an effect far beyond ourselves.

How we vote in an election also has an effect on many people's lives. It is not, however, the only way to affect the lives of your neighbors.

Yesterday, I chose not to vote in this year's Presidential election. I chose this route for two primary reasons. First, I feel that no candidate could offer adequate leadership in the various issues that I find to be of utmost importance to me. Top among those issues is our country's militancy across the globe. And stemming from that is the global violence carried out in the name of capitalism, economy, and open markets, and a general attitude of placing profit and power above people. Followed by the domestic violence we cause to each other in the inequality of treatment and opportunity within this country. I see no real difference between either of the main candidates in many or all of these areas. And as much as third-party candidates might uphold one standard, they as well lack in the others.

My second reason for choosing to not vote is that I believe our political system, our electoral system has become something of a horror. I believe we are blinded by this veil of democracy that does not actually give us choice. So as much as I am told that I have given up my choice by not voting. I hold firm that I have taken back my choice by choosing to vote against this system. Each vote within the system supports the system itself, therefore a choice to withhold that vote is to support a movement against this system. And my hope is that that movement is alive and growing.

But today, i still choose to make an impact. If only that impact is in the life of one co-worker; or, a smile shared the barista at a coffee house that hasn't had the best morning or week. Or if that impact is in the choice to reduce my fuel consumption by riding my bicycle today, and the ripples that stream down to the people whose daily lives are impacted by the violence that surround oil availability, production, and consumption. I believe in the right to pursue greater happiness in my life. Similarly, I believe in the right to freedom of speech. But these freedoms and others only go so far as that they do not impede another person's right to the same. And I believe this is not limited to those who live within this country or are citizens of it. We have to be aware of how our choices impact the rights of others and not blindly seek out our own rights.

I also believe that there is a better realization of happiness than the security that we so heavily lean on to be the foundation of our happiness. Whether that is financial security or physical security, I don't believe it is the foundation of happiness. I believe that the fulfillment in happiness comes from a redemption of the relationships in our lives. Righting the wrong relationship we have with each other, our families, our neighbors. Righting the wrong relationship we have with this creation, this planet, this nature. Righting the wrong relationship we have with our God. This is the work of Christ Jesus. This is the work of His followers. This is my work.

The Potter and the Clay

Jeremiah 18

The other night a good friend of mine gave a sermon on the church as pottery. Looking deep into the idea of pottery throughout history and how it relates to how the church is supposed to "be" in this world. The whole idea really jumped out to me and I thought I would give it some more thought and here is that working itself out as I run with a few thoughts that came up while working through this notion of the church being like pottery.

The Church is: the people of GOD, on the mission of GOD.

The first idea we're looking at here is pretty simple. Let's have a look at pottery. This is the point where I might hold up a picture of a clay pot or urn or something have that sort, or maybe we can just imagine it. What is the first thing that comes to mind when looking at pottery? I think initially we (as Americans) would be inclined to note pottery fairly singularly in the aesthetic sense. A beautiful piece of art. And really that is where we have relegated pottery these days. However, historically speaking pottery is one of the things that has really driven civilization and made population expansion possible in the early world. Pottery has driven economies to push past the bounds of pure agrarianism. Bringing to the world a way to store resources, whether they be food, water, etc. With storage comes movement, trade, and commerce. Arguably pottery is one of the more important things to civilization on the whole. And so the argument that pottery has both a use and very much a beauty or aesthetic as well. This is really the basis of the whole sermon. Pottery is both useful and beautiful. The church is like pottery (or should be). The church is both useful and beautiful.

This idea strikes me at the very basic level of what it is to be a Christian. And much of the teachings of Jesus resonate soundly with this idea of use and aesthetic. Here are a few of the direct teachings that come to mind. In Matthew 5, Jesus says, "You are the salt of the earth [...] You are the light of the world." I've heard these verses taught on multiple occasions with most of the thought being given to the straight-forward idea. Light shines and enables sight, and salt flavors and preserves. But what came to mind after listening to this sermon the other night was taking a deeper look at both of these things.

Let's start with salt. I think most of us would admit and rightly so that salt is useful. It makes things taste better. I fact, when we describefood the default label is for it to be perfectly salted. Food can be "too salty" and it can be "bland." Salt also can be used to preserve food, historically this use is nearly impossible to calculate its importance. Salt has the ability to change the boiling point and freezing point of water. I appreciate that as I drive a rear wheel drive quarter-ton truck that drives kinda like a sledge hammer tapping in a tack in Colorado winters. Anyway, salt has a great deal of uses. However, I think we rarely think of salt as being beautiful. But one the more memorable times I can recall and maybe just about the only thing that I can recall from my high school chemistry class is the day we took a look at salt. I remember the teacher bringing out a cube of table salt, probably about the size of your fist, and a hammer. He set the salt cube on the table in front of the class, took the hammer, raised it and smashed the cube into smaller pieces until it was in enough pieces that each person in the class had there own piece of salt.

The teacher then remarked at the structure of each piece of salt that we held. Each one was a cube. This was followed by showing a series of photos that displayed salt's cubic structure if you were to continue to smash it into smaller and smaller pieces, even to the point that we would recognize it as a fine powder. These pictures are similar to those shown back then. And I think we can all appreciate the structure of salt and view it with an aesthetic eye and just remark at the beautiful perfect crystalline structure that salt holds.

Secondly, have a look at light. And I won't go into as much depth here because I think it is easier to understand both the useful

properties of light as well as it's aesthetic qualities.

Maybe Jesus is telling us a little more than to simply light the world or season the earth. The way I see it, Jesus is telling us to do what I have for you to do, or be useful in fulfilling God's mission. And also be what God has created us to be, beautiful and

reflecting the very image of our creator.

A Holistic Faith

Salt, light and pottery... With both use and beauty, Jesus instructs us to be like these things. This thought guides me into another area of my faith that I often negate the importance of. And that is the area of the aesthetic faith. That I can reason my faith to some use. But I also appreciate that God is very much about the aesthetic, the inherent beauty. God is about inspiration. God created more in man than the ability to reason, but the ability to appreciate the aesthetic qualities of the world. For me, the aesthetic is what really speaks to my soul, whereas the logic is what speaks to my brain. Sometimes I want faith to be merely the usefulness part. What does it do in reality? How can it help the people around me? But faith also incorporates the aesthetic, the appreciation for things of beauty to inspire a feeling and to announce our creator's desires and strike up that feeling in my heart that thing is beautiful just because it is.

I had a conversation with the same friend that gave the sermon, a couple of weeks ago about the role of the aesthetic and tradition in the church today. We walked around a building noting the quite amazing structure of the building that seemed to be negated by its focus on being merely useful. It is a building that could be profoundly inspirational and fairly breath-taking if some more focus were given to that area of our faith. And I say 'our faith' because I think it is some what of a trend that I am proud to see waning in the Christian church today. I think we're nearly at the end of the era of the santi-gymna-torium. A space that is profoundly useful, and yet it is also profoundly un-inspiring; maybe to the point of being anti-inspirational. I love to view my faith as being complete with both the usefulness and the aesthetic quality of it.

God is both useful and beautiful, and we as His people are both useful and beautiful. Everything we do show display both our use to this broken world and the beauty in which our creator has instilled within us. We should be both in the world doing what we can to help the world in every area that we can and also be reflecting the glory, the beauty of the Lord that created us.

Inherent Worth

This brings me to my final thought, that as the artist is that which gives art value. Our worth as the people of God has nothing to do with what we do. In other words, our use means nothing to our worth to God. And this is where viewing our faith in the realm of the aesthetic is so helpful. A work of art is granted value on two planes. One is its creation, the artist gives value to the creation because it is his creation, his inspiration made concrete, his made passion made visual. The second value is art's ability to inspire, to reflect the nature of the artist. If we view ourselves as God's work of art, then we are inherently valuable because He created us, he formed us, made us beautiful in His sight. We are valuable because we are a work of art, and as such we have the quality of reflecting God's divine inspiration throughout the world. Nothing you do has any effect on your value. You are valuable because you are. To me, this is freedom. Its hard to believe this sometimes because we want to believe the lies that say you are what you do, and if we believe that then we are bound to our actions.

To me this is grace. Not that God takes what we have done and throws it away. But that what we have done was never taken into consideration when God values us.

The movie Across the Universe puts it perfectly, "Why is it always what will I do? "What will he do", "What will he do," "Oh, my god what will he do", Do, do, do, do, do. Why isn't the issue here who I am? "

The end of this scene is incredible and true. The world lies to us and says "what you do defines who you are" leaving you in chains bound to your actions. God says "that who you are defines what you do." And you are His creation, and because of who you are, you are free to do what you were created to do, reflect the Glory of the Lord.

Special thanks to Jared Mackey, whose sermon inspired much of this thinking.

Noise

I pressed play on my ipod as I drove the twenty minutes into town. Its been fairly warm lately and I rolled down the windows. I turned up the volume a few notches as the wind whipped in the windows. I still couldn't make out the music, so I turned it up again, and again a few minutes later. The car I was following down the road slowed to turn off, and I, too, slowed so I would not rear-end him. In that moment, the wind ceased to blow through the windows and a sudden rush of music blared through the speakers so loud that I quickly reached for the volume, and it still was not music; I couldn't even comprehend any of it. Back to driving, I experienced the same sensation a couple more times on the short trip. By the time I reached Wal-Mart, at least six songs had played, and I don't remember any of them.

It seems this phenomenon happens in life much the same way. I've been feeling, lately, a pull to a new place, maybe a new ministry and I have been trying so hard to listen to where it is that God is leading me. But with all the intent listening, I feel as though there is wind whipping through the windows, making it impossible to hear the words. So intently, I turn up the volume; I focus harder and try to make specific time available to quiet life away. And yet even in the quiet morning, I hear and feel the draw of temptation, the press of fear and pressure. All these things just culminating in noise beating through the windows as I drive down the road. Work is busier than ever, and to add to it, work is also more stressful than ever.

So when I try to stop it all and listen, I find that I'm listening so intently and so fervently that the response I hear is just as loud. And it beats on my head like a migraine. I'm crippled by the noise. The blaring radio that I've been trying so hard to hear through the wind has only added to the noise, and the feelings of guilt and my fears of failure flow in and further drive me down.

God, I pray for peace. I pray for calm. I want to know You and Your will for me. Give me Your presence to turn down the noise and the patience to hear Your voice.

I relinquish the pen.

I have been reading a book lately called A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by one of my favorite authors Donald Miller, and it got me thinking about comfort. Exactly what does it mean to be comfortable? and Who is in charge of my comfort? Does God want me to be comfortable?

Maybe I'll define some terms first; I want to call comfort that thing that makes you feel good about life. You know what to expect; you can see what is about to happen next so that you can be prepared for it.

Donald Miller, in his book puts it in terms of a story. Relating the elements of a story to our lives. In this way he relates some heavy topics, and some that I know I struggle with sometimes and that I believe a lot of people do as well. Donald says that naturally we feel like we are the authors of our story, when that is exactly not the case. God is the author, we are the main character in the story that God is trying to write with our lives. And like many main characters, as many of writers can tell you, sort of have a way of making their own decisions, leading the story that the author doesn't necessarily intend for it go. I hope you can see the commonalities that this is going to hold as I discuss life. I don't know about you, but I often find myself making decisions, taking control of my surroundings. Doesn't the world tell us that the way to fulfillment is to take control? I think that one's overall mental and emotional health is generally better if he/she is making their own decisions; writing their own story, rather than allowing another person have total control over their story. I think I've lived that one to some extent, giving up authorship to someone else. But inherently that cannot work well. How can another person have your best interests in mind as well as their own best interests? They can't. And at some point along the way you realize the setting and surroundings of your story are completely infamiliar to yourself. That's when I decided to stage a coup for authorship of my own life; which, through a series of paradigm shifting experiences, I came to realize that I wasn't the author. I'm the main character. Not only that, but I had relinquished authorship to the supporting cast of the story. It can't be a good thing to have a story driven by the side character of the story, it would be the hardest story to follow, and frankly, I think most people reading it would give up on it all together.

Back to reality for a second, it is human nature, I believe, to seek out steadyness, commonality with the surrounding. I think that we as humans enjoy comfort not because it is the true longing of our souls but because it is the closest substitute that we can create on our own. By that, I mean that we have control over our comfort and we can provide ourselves comfort by taking control. However, I believe the true longing of the human soul is the peace of God. And by that I mean the total trust that God is going to write a masterpiece with your life.

Imagine the most beautiful sight you've ever seen. Imagine the sight that gives you tingles all over, and makes you cringe. God created that, and created you in His image so that you might enjoy that scene the way that He enjoys that scene. I consider myself to be a fairly creative person, but I wouldn't be able to create something as beautiful as the Aurora Borealis, or even the sunset over Central Texas that I was present for last year. God is the most creative thing that I can even imagine. I don't even come close, and with that I relinquish my pen.

As I was saying, I believe the true longing of the human soul to be the peace of God. However, there is a pretty good substitute for that, and one that we can create on our own, comfort. So I think there are two things that must happen to get from self-authorship of our story to GOD-authorship of our story. One, being the paradigm shift that I am not the author of my story, but the main character. And as such, I can have control of where my story goes and what happens, but ultimately I don't have the bigger picture. I can only see my immediate surroundings, and just like the tool of irony that many authors use, there are many things happening in my story that the character is totally unaware of. It's like when you're watching a movie, and the scene pans around the corner of a building, and the viewers are aware of the burglar hiding in the alley, but the character does not have that view and cannot foresee the scene that is about to take place. So just the realization, that I am in many ways in control of many things in and around myself, I am most certainly not in total control. There must be something else, some other author.

Secondly, one must make the realization that God, the author, desires our story to be a masterpiece. And we must give up control, allow God to write our story. It's like this, I can control my own comfort much of the time. And much of the time comfort seems to be a really good substitute for what I long for. But it's simply that, a substitute. And it is usually those times in our lives where we lose control, when the pen falls out of our hands that we make these realizations. I picture it like this: Imagine yourself. Now imagine the pen that is writing your life as a story being the size that God (being the author) would use. I think the instrument would be extremely unweildy. I think I could get a few words written down, maybe a paragraph or two. But I think the thing would eventually fall over, tumble out of my grip. And that is usually when we see the Author pick up the pen, and we make the realization that we can't write the story because we're not meant to, we're not the author. And this is when God says to us, I am the Author and I am the only perfect author. I don't make mistakes. I don't wad the bad ones up and throw them away. I make masterpieces again and again and again.

And that is when the true longing of our souls is realized, not that I need to be comfortable with my surroundings and in control and seeing everything that is coming. But that I trust in a God that writes beautifully, that will write my life to be a masterpiece. And that trust is followed by a sense of peace.

God, I am not a good author. I'd rather you do the writing.