It occurs to me that darkness is not really a presence but an absence. This is very obvious to anyone who takes a moment to think about it, but we often assume opposites are competing presences when that is in fact not true. Darkness is not a presence at all, but the absence of light. The only way to create darkness is to remove light. Darkness cannot itself be created, yet we create light all the time.
This provides for me an interesting framework to use when looking at various topics. Let's go back to unity for a second. Division is the absence of unity, it is not itself a presence. We create division by removing unity. Peace, which I think is a core attribute of unity, is not the absence of conflict. Conflict, rather, is the absence of peace.
Why Presence is Important
I should explain why I think this is important, lest I begin to sound like the Sphinx from Mystery Men. We get rid of darkness by creating light. We get rid of conflict and division by creating peace and unity. Christ says "Blessed are the peacemakers" because peace must be made. When we pray for peace, when we talk about the "peace that passes understanding" we are talking about things that are given, a palpable presence.
Presences are powerful, they have weight they are "real". Absences on the otherhand are observed and felt, but they are empty, devoid of any true power. Darkness has no strength - turn on a light and it is gone. It cannot push back against light, it cannot exert force, it is helpless in the face of it. Likewise, when peace is present, turmoil and conflict dissipate - they cannot coexists.
Practical Implications
I think there are very practical implications with the absence/presence model. Going back to internal and external unity, let's consider why internal unity is necessary before external unity can be achieved. External division is much like darkness, it is overcome by a presence; in this case the presence of unity. But that presence is brought by individuals (God, cheif among them.) If an individual brings internal conflict, it is like bringing an unlit candle into a dark room - both the candle and the room remain dark.
A room is only lit when the candle is. The more candles there are, the brighter the room becomes. A person bringing an unlit candle into the room adds no light and adds an obscuring shadow from all the other candles. That person can choose to light the candle, but also extinguish others' candles. I think this is part of the conflict/unity dynamic. Do you bring light? Do you extinguish others' light? Do you simply stand there, casting a shadow behind you?
There is much food for thought here. Speaking of food, why not use this model for other "fruits of the spirit": Love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control. If you have any thoughts, pass them along!
Friday, June 24, 2005
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Wednesday's Big Idea: Unity 2, Inside-Out
You cannot have too much of this good thing. In our prayer time we continued our focus on unity with emphasis on unity coming from the inside and working its way out. As we begin to think and pray about unity here are a few ways to think:
1) Unity begins with worship and son/daughtership
2) We can't expect outward unity (interpersonal) if we don't have inner unity (intrapersonal)
3) What are the sources of unity?
4) What are the byproducts of unity?
5) What are the antonyms of unity?
Since we have posited that inner unity comes before outer unity, what does that look like? Here are some things I came up with to compare and contrast:
Unity / Division
Focused / Scattered
Clarity / Confusion
Purpose / Aimlessness
Peace / Stress - Chaos
Harmony / discord
Internal unity is necessary for external unity because of the plankeye factor - remove the plank from your own eye, THEN you can remove the speck from your brother's. Inner unity shouldn't come at the expense of outer unity, though. Continue to be a peacemaker, humble and encouraging, full of invitation to the best of your ability. But success will be more easily had if one's own house is in order first.
A good self-check, I think, is for me to ask "Am I living, doing, acting, saying for God or for me?" or put another way, is what I am doing eternal or temporal? For me this is a huge question and ultimately it comes down to faith. I continue to seek and trust God and by His iterative process, by Him molding me and forming me I begin to conform to what He wants me to be. If we think about the potter's analogy, we need to be centered, molded/formed, dried, fired, glazed and fired again.
A good way to start is in prayer - personal and corporate. See you Wednesday?
"And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints" (Eph. 6:18)
1) Unity begins with worship and son/daughtership
2) We can't expect outward unity (interpersonal) if we don't have inner unity (intrapersonal)
3) What are the sources of unity?
4) What are the byproducts of unity?
5) What are the antonyms of unity?
Since we have posited that inner unity comes before outer unity, what does that look like? Here are some things I came up with to compare and contrast:
Unity / Division
Focused / Scattered
Clarity / Confusion
Purpose / Aimlessness
Peace / Stress - Chaos
Harmony / discord
Internal unity is necessary for external unity because of the plankeye factor - remove the plank from your own eye, THEN you can remove the speck from your brother's. Inner unity shouldn't come at the expense of outer unity, though. Continue to be a peacemaker, humble and encouraging, full of invitation to the best of your ability. But success will be more easily had if one's own house is in order first.
A good self-check, I think, is for me to ask "Am I living, doing, acting, saying for God or for me?" or put another way, is what I am doing eternal or temporal? For me this is a huge question and ultimately it comes down to faith. I continue to seek and trust God and by His iterative process, by Him molding me and forming me I begin to conform to what He wants me to be. If we think about the potter's analogy, we need to be centered, molded/formed, dried, fired, glazed and fired again.
A good way to start is in prayer - personal and corporate. See you Wednesday?
"And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints" (Eph. 6:18)
Monday, June 20, 2005
Creation and Appreciation
I'm returning to my post Read This! Which was an exhortation to read an article in The New Republic titled:
On the Asymmetry of Creation and Appreciation
If you are at all interested in nature and the appreciation of it, you should read the article just to hear the author's descriptions of her delight in a visit to the botanical gardens. If you are philosophically inclined, it conjures interesting juxtapositions of creation and appreciation of works of art (and nature), if you just like good stories than I think this is one. There is much more in this article, which is why I liked it so much. Lots of blog fodder there.
This post won't be heavy on theology, simply because I feel like writing but have no particular inspiration. I suspect this will be meandering and obtuse, but at the very least read the above article and make your own impressions.
The first thing that grabbed me was the idea that an artist often spends much more time creating something than a single person spends appreciating it. For most artists this is true - I suspect there are artists that simply create for the joy of it. I know that I tend to create because I enjoy creating. If others enjoy it, even better , but often it is only I that appreciate the work.
For more famous artists, the appreciation of a work by a single person rarely matches the intensity, time and effort put into the creation. I think, however, about the collective enjoyment or appreciation of that work and come to the conclusion that the inverse is true. Surely the collective amount of time and appreciation of, say, Mozart's Requiem far outstrips Mozart's input - at least his quantifiable input. Whether anyone truly "gets" what Mozart intended is another question. As the author of the article posits, the appreciation and understanding can only be a shadow of the true intention of the artist. The meaning is diluted or lost, simply because we cannot be in that place of creative ecstacy, of divine inspiration, of myriad ideas coalescing into a final piece.
I think of God understanding His plan for His creation. As He creatively speaks it into being (and it was good) He enjoys the process, but He knows that He wants others to appreciate it and He wants others to share with Him. So humans are created and Adam tends the garden and marvels at what is around Him, Eve is created and Adam is enamoured. Together, they walk with God in that perfect place in the beginning (and it was very good).
This path leads me to consider the collective nature of appreciation and enjoyment. I may come across something beautiful or engaging, but rarely will I keep that to myself - I must share it (consider the above article!) How much better is enjoying something beautiful, interesting, great with others rather than alone? I suspect that is why we as humans are drawn to perform for others and attend those performances. Think about concerts, plays, movies - even books and television are collective experiences. Mass publishing for mass audiences. Enjoying something together profoundly changes the experience - it is deeper, more complex.
I suspect that the effect is bidirectional as well. Somehow our viewing of the Mona Lisa changes it from what Da Vinci painted into what we imagine he painted. Is the Mona Lisa even the same painting? Perhaps this is one measure of a great creation - it is living. It affects those around it and in turn is affected. It may be physically unchanged, yet its meaning grows and moves. Perhaps it has the same effect on its observers throughout time, but that effect is manifested differently.
At this point I'm simply guessing, wondering, rambling. But it does seem to indicate that a qualitative measure of something must not only be in the thing itself, but in those that the thing affects. I wonder - if someone created the greatest work of art ever and no one ever saw it, would the work actually be great? Granted, there's a built in tautology here, but conceptually, you get the idea.
I'm out of time, but you can make the connections to quantum physics (observing something causes it to be, reducing the number of possible states from infinite to one) and anything else that strikes your fancy. There's more to be said for sure. Read the article - see what you think.
On the Asymmetry of Creation and Appreciation
If you are at all interested in nature and the appreciation of it, you should read the article just to hear the author's descriptions of her delight in a visit to the botanical gardens. If you are philosophically inclined, it conjures interesting juxtapositions of creation and appreciation of works of art (and nature), if you just like good stories than I think this is one. There is much more in this article, which is why I liked it so much. Lots of blog fodder there.
This post won't be heavy on theology, simply because I feel like writing but have no particular inspiration. I suspect this will be meandering and obtuse, but at the very least read the above article and make your own impressions.
The first thing that grabbed me was the idea that an artist often spends much more time creating something than a single person spends appreciating it. For most artists this is true - I suspect there are artists that simply create for the joy of it. I know that I tend to create because I enjoy creating. If others enjoy it, even better , but often it is only I that appreciate the work.
For more famous artists, the appreciation of a work by a single person rarely matches the intensity, time and effort put into the creation. I think, however, about the collective enjoyment or appreciation of that work and come to the conclusion that the inverse is true. Surely the collective amount of time and appreciation of, say, Mozart's Requiem far outstrips Mozart's input - at least his quantifiable input. Whether anyone truly "gets" what Mozart intended is another question. As the author of the article posits, the appreciation and understanding can only be a shadow of the true intention of the artist. The meaning is diluted or lost, simply because we cannot be in that place of creative ecstacy, of divine inspiration, of myriad ideas coalescing into a final piece.
I think of God understanding His plan for His creation. As He creatively speaks it into being (and it was good) He enjoys the process, but He knows that He wants others to appreciate it and He wants others to share with Him. So humans are created and Adam tends the garden and marvels at what is around Him, Eve is created and Adam is enamoured. Together, they walk with God in that perfect place in the beginning (and it was very good).
This path leads me to consider the collective nature of appreciation and enjoyment. I may come across something beautiful or engaging, but rarely will I keep that to myself - I must share it (consider the above article!) How much better is enjoying something beautiful, interesting, great with others rather than alone? I suspect that is why we as humans are drawn to perform for others and attend those performances. Think about concerts, plays, movies - even books and television are collective experiences. Mass publishing for mass audiences. Enjoying something together profoundly changes the experience - it is deeper, more complex.
I suspect that the effect is bidirectional as well. Somehow our viewing of the Mona Lisa changes it from what Da Vinci painted into what we imagine he painted. Is the Mona Lisa even the same painting? Perhaps this is one measure of a great creation - it is living. It affects those around it and in turn is affected. It may be physically unchanged, yet its meaning grows and moves. Perhaps it has the same effect on its observers throughout time, but that effect is manifested differently.
At this point I'm simply guessing, wondering, rambling. But it does seem to indicate that a qualitative measure of something must not only be in the thing itself, but in those that the thing affects. I wonder - if someone created the greatest work of art ever and no one ever saw it, would the work actually be great? Granted, there's a built in tautology here, but conceptually, you get the idea.
I'm out of time, but you can make the connections to quantum physics (observing something causes it to be, reducing the number of possible states from infinite to one) and anything else that strikes your fancy. There's more to be said for sure. Read the article - see what you think.
Forgive Us Our Debts
This post continues the unity discussion and dovetails nicely with my earlier posts on the Lord's Prayer.
One of the difficult things about unity is that it takes more than one person to make it happen. I can desire unity all I want but if those with whom I wish to be unified want nothing to do with me, then I find myself alone and divided. Sometimes, though, we choose this place of division and dischord for ourselves. A wrong, real or perceived, is done against us and we harbor bitterness or indifference or simply feel unwelcome in the presence of the person who has wronged us.
While we shouldn't minimize the pain that has been caused us, we must take the first step towards healing both ourselves and that relationship. Jesus' prescriptin for healing is given in the Lord's Prayer: "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." This is a vital portion of the Lord's Prayer for two reasons:
Our debt to God is unpayable. We have sinned against Him and the wrongs we do are first and foremost against Him. We humble ourselves to ask for forgiveness and "He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9) It seems, though, that this forgiveness is conditional. The word "AS" seems to indicate that we are asking God to do something AS we do it. Further indication that this is the case comes later in Matthew 18:21-35, the parable of the unmerciful servant. The parable ends quite harshly:
"Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart." (32-35)
I have to admit this is one of the verses that I would like to play down. We want to make God softer than He is. There is no way we can deny his immeasurable love - after all, in the parable the master cancelled a very large debt. Yet, He expects something from us as well - that the forgiveness He gave us changes our hearts and we are able to forgive in turn. The servant in the parable was greedy and unwaivering, unwilling to forgive a small debt, though his debt, several thousand times as large had been forgiven.
To me, this says that God expects not only that we be forgiven, but that we repent as well. I think this also goes to a bigger question: Why do we want to be forgiven? The servant was selfish, wanting only to be kept from prison and out of debt. Once safe, he remained unchanged and immediately demanded payment from his debtor. I think this is why I've always had a problem with the "fire insurance" line of evangelism. God isn't selling insurance, He wants His sons and daughters back in His home.
Softer Heart = Better Unity
What does this have to do with unity? Our command is to forgive those who have sinned against us. If we are unable to do that, there is no way we can come to a place of unity. Forgiveness is no guarantee of unity, but it is most certainly a first step. When we go from raised fists to open arms we are half way there.
Forgiveness does another thing - it softens our hearts. When our hearts are hardened towards our brothers and sisters it tends to also harden towards our Father. Forgiveness opens the door not only to other people, it also opens the door to God. When God is allowed to work in us and through us, great things happen! It is better to have God working WITH you than ON you (although He is most certainly doing both.)
As always, there is more to say than I have time for, but hopefully this gets us going in some right directions.
One of the difficult things about unity is that it takes more than one person to make it happen. I can desire unity all I want but if those with whom I wish to be unified want nothing to do with me, then I find myself alone and divided. Sometimes, though, we choose this place of division and dischord for ourselves. A wrong, real or perceived, is done against us and we harbor bitterness or indifference or simply feel unwelcome in the presence of the person who has wronged us.
While we shouldn't minimize the pain that has been caused us, we must take the first step towards healing both ourselves and that relationship. Jesus' prescriptin for healing is given in the Lord's Prayer: "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." This is a vital portion of the Lord's Prayer for two reasons:
- It acknowledges our debt to God and our need for forgiveness
- It gives us the implicit command to forgive those who are in our debt (or trespassed/sinned against us)
Our debt to God is unpayable. We have sinned against Him and the wrongs we do are first and foremost against Him. We humble ourselves to ask for forgiveness and "He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9) It seems, though, that this forgiveness is conditional. The word "AS" seems to indicate that we are asking God to do something AS we do it. Further indication that this is the case comes later in Matthew 18:21-35, the parable of the unmerciful servant. The parable ends quite harshly:
"Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart." (32-35)
I have to admit this is one of the verses that I would like to play down. We want to make God softer than He is. There is no way we can deny his immeasurable love - after all, in the parable the master cancelled a very large debt. Yet, He expects something from us as well - that the forgiveness He gave us changes our hearts and we are able to forgive in turn. The servant in the parable was greedy and unwaivering, unwilling to forgive a small debt, though his debt, several thousand times as large had been forgiven.
To me, this says that God expects not only that we be forgiven, but that we repent as well. I think this also goes to a bigger question: Why do we want to be forgiven? The servant was selfish, wanting only to be kept from prison and out of debt. Once safe, he remained unchanged and immediately demanded payment from his debtor. I think this is why I've always had a problem with the "fire insurance" line of evangelism. God isn't selling insurance, He wants His sons and daughters back in His home.
Softer Heart = Better Unity
What does this have to do with unity? Our command is to forgive those who have sinned against us. If we are unable to do that, there is no way we can come to a place of unity. Forgiveness is no guarantee of unity, but it is most certainly a first step. When we go from raised fists to open arms we are half way there.
Forgiveness does another thing - it softens our hearts. When our hearts are hardened towards our brothers and sisters it tends to also harden towards our Father. Forgiveness opens the door not only to other people, it also opens the door to God. When God is allowed to work in us and through us, great things happen! It is better to have God working WITH you than ON you (although He is most certainly doing both.)
As always, there is more to say than I have time for, but hopefully this gets us going in some right directions.
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