Week 14: Joy Bombs

(Photo from original Star Trek television series.)

For behold, I create a new heavens and a new earth;

And the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.

But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create;

For behold, I create Jerusalem for rejoicing

And her people for gladness.

I will also rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people;

And there will no longer be heard in her the voice of weeping and the sound of crying.

(Isaiah 65:17-19)

And the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which shall be for all the people...." 

(Luke 2:10)

"It is a sin to be sad on the Sabbath day."

(Abraham Heschel)

"Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth."

(Pharell Williams)

Our Sabbath was on Sunday this week.  In the wee hours of the morning, I heard our eight year old screaming from his bedroom. I thought he had fallen out of bed...maybe he was having a bad dream.  Maybe, it was a mouse! (gasp.) No. It had snowed two inches over night. These were glee-filled screams!  God had just dropped a...

Joy Bomb!

Woot! Woot!

After breakfast, we rushed to Target to purchase items for Operation Christmas Child. After all, it was the last day for us to drop the goodie-box off at the goodie-box drop-off spot! (www.samaritanspurse.org) On two unsuspecting young kids in Africa, the Snook family had just dropped a...

Joy Bomb!

Sweet.

After church, a nap and some hot cocoa, our oldest son went outside to shoot some hoops in the snow. Our youngest put ornaments on the Christmas tree. Our eight-year old dusted off his sled and I was reminded what our true Sabbath work really is...

Joy Bombs!

(x3)

I know. I know. We live in a world where the word "bomb" is usually utilized in a sinister way.  In this world there are real bombs that hurt real people. The bad news has taken over the use of this word.  I think it is time for us to take it back! Especially in a world where parents "work-out" instead of play and eat kale instead of ice cream; in a world where pastors speak of "holiness" without cracking a smile and heaven as a far away place; in a world where angels sing only once a year, let's take back the word, drop a bomb, and resume our true Sabbath work:

"It is a sin to be sad on the Sabbath."

Believe me, these are difficult words for me to hear because I have pretended for too long that "responsibility" means "worry" and "holiness" means "humorless." So...

I'm mixing it up.

I'm going to laugh more and dance more...even when the basement is flooded and the weather is cold.  This year, I do not vow to get in shape. I vow to play. I do not promise to loose any weight. I vow to save room for dessert. I promise to rejoice not only when things are going well, but even when they aren't...and when they aren't, I will find someone who is rejoicing and invite myself to their party. It is an easy and lazy drift towards despair.  Sometimes it's hard work to warble but someone told me that singing is the second-most created command in the Bible.  And I believe it is kind of the point...

For behold, I create Jerusalem for rejoicing

And her people for gladness.

After all, it is no good to keep the joy, joy, joy down in our heart to stay.  Therefore, I decree in the face of this fallen world, to embrace the miracle of myrth, and not just on Saturday or Sunday. Today it's Monday, and it is time to go where no man had gone before.  T.G.I.M! You might be next on my list. So be ready. In fact, join me. It's time, people, to embrace your calling and drop a....

Joy Bomb!

(Who's with me?)

Church Stopping. Less doing. More being.

Week 13: Menuhot

"Plenty of us take an hour here or there and call it Sabbath, which is like driving five miles to town and calling it Europe." (Barbara Brown Taylor, Christian Century, May 31, 2005)

Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. And by the seventh day God completed His work which He had done; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. (Genesis 2:2)

This week, my parents came to town.  Our Sabbath consisted of visiting and cooking and cleaning and, most importantly, no work on the kitchen project for the whole weekend. Our oldest boy enjoyed shooting his grandfather's twenty-two.  The youngest showed off his new reading skills to his grandmother. Our middle son busied himself drawing pictures for both Grandpa and GG to take home to Wyoming. 

But mostly, there was good food and long visits.  In the evenings, we stayed up late and visited. Often, the visits were about my parents little church. Their former pastor retired. As a result, some congregants have taken the opportunity to move their membership to the bustling Baptists on the other side of the traffic light. The remaining members can't really afford to hire a new parson...at least not full time and not at this time. In the interim, my parents have been filling in; visiting the sick, preaching to the faithful, and even remodeling the manse. They have been helping out to the point of wearing out.  They need a break, but if they stop can the church is to survive?

I remember hearing a message at a large church that I was attending a while back. In that message the pastor said sardonically, "What if all the churches in North America were to close there doors and there were no pastors preaching about the pride of Judah? Surely," he continued, "An entire generation would grow up without the good news." I remember wondering about that statement.  If the church in North America were to take a break, would our faith survive?

Yesterday, I joined a friend for lunch. He is a successful businessman and family man and a strong Christian.  He is also an ecclesiastical transient.  "Why is it," he asked, "that every church I have ever been too...large or small...modern or traditional...is exactly the same? They are filled with good people doing good things but when I read the Bible, I read about some not so perfect people who changed the world."

And it sounded like something more than survival. "What is it that we are missing," I asked, "miracles?"

"No," my buddy blurbed between bites of his Philly cheese steak, "Miracles happen in secret so that they can't be sold.  No. We have forgotten how to play. Where's the joy in our grown-up faith?"

Could he be right? After all, the Biblical word translated as "rest" in Genesis 2:2-3 is menuhot.  This is also the word translated as "still" or "quiet" in Psalm 23:2.  Even this, though, doesn't capture the depth of meaning.  Menuhot means tranquility, peace, and happiness.  God wasn't finished creating the world until God celebrated it with menuhot. God "finished" what was made with joy!

So maybe, just maybe, my buddy is right.  Maybe, just maybe, it would be good for my parents to stop trying to save the church if it doesn't bring them joy. I'm sure the church will be just fine. And maybe, just maybe, it would be good for the North American church to stop preaching Jesus if they can't do it out of a spirit of menuhot.  Not only would faith in North America survive, it might actually become something closer to the Author's original intent.

I am convinced that God's kingdom is unfolding all around us and usually through children who make sticks into scepters and wagons into rocket ships.  Our Savior came not as an acerbic ascetic, but one accused of eating and drinking just a little too much.  Our King didn't overturn the Roman occupiers, he turned water into wine and made the lame to dance and the mute to sing. When Jesus came to town, the tax collectors partied, common-folk sang praises to their king, and demons dove into the sea. 

In a world full of heartbreak and disappointment, shouldn't menuhot still be our marching orders? In a fallen world, isn't mirth still the miracle? Let's not settle for a five-mile drive to town when our gamboling God invites us to join Him in an all-expense paid trip to Europe.  Let's not settle for a solemn piety when our Savior invites us to a joyful feast.

Church Stopping. Less doing. More being.

Photo from www.freeimages.com #1371446

Week 12: Anchor's Aweigh

"Follow me." Jesus.

(Mark 1:17)

Our Sabbath this week consisted of going to church, coming home, staying at home, and then watching a movie at home.  These are very dangerous activities.

For in this twenty-four hour respite from our crowded lives, I suddenly began to think about the hours I spent looking at National Geographic magazines as a boy.  The world seemed so big then...and strange and exciting.  There was so much time.  Much of it I spent sprawled out on the turquoise shag rug in the living room with my World Book Encyclopedias.  In high school, our family moved to rural Wyoming.  That was like traveling to a completely different country in itself.  In college I entertained the idea of the merchant marines and the Peace Corps.

At home, surrounded by people I love, in a place I am very familiar with, in a disengaged moment of reflection, I remembered it's in my DNA...I am prone to wander. Lord I feel it.

But somewhere along the way, the subscription to National Geographic expired. The World Book Encyclopedias and the dreams about traveling the world started to collect dust. I stopped dreaming about those far away places and tried to focus on making a living and being a responsible young man. I became active in church after a collegiate hiatus. I became gainfully employed. I bought a home and a dog and started a garden.

Good things, but my world became smaller. Even my Sabbaths covered familiar territory.  They involved camping and hunting with my dog and traveling back to Wyoming. These were all good things and enough, it seems, to keep my drifting dreams at bay.

Then, I married a fellow dreamer.  Together we read, "Dove" and "Mutant Message Down Under." We watched, "Lord of the Rings," and traveled to South Africa and spent a summer in Sitka.  We dreamed dreams of going to Italy and Sweden and the Tibesti Mountains of Chad.

After a couple of years of gallivanting,  we had children and settled down.  The dreams of going to Italy were tabled for Legoland.  The dreams of going to Sweden were put on hold for soccer games.  The dreams of the Tibesti mountains began to gather dust with the World Book Encyclopedias.

We dropped anchor on our dreams.

Thusly moored, this prudent little notion of taking Sabbaths together as a family blew in from the surging sea.  "It would bring us together," I thought.  "It would help us to grow in our relationship with our Lord and Savior," I mused. It turns out this idea of Sabbath was God breathed and perilous.  It turns out that our Lord is one who likes to let His hair down and get out on the open road, walk on water, and cast colorful worlds against the tapestry of infinite space.

As a result of our Sabbath experiment, there has been more time to dream.  Our children have begun to show signs that they too have inherited the vagabond DNA.  Our middle son wants to learn to surf in Hawaii.  Our oldest son wants to eat Chinese food...in China. Our littlest son wants to drive monster trucks and be a police officer. My wife has started to talk about learning Italian and I have an almost insatiable desire to visit my college buddy in Kosrae...and kayak the Snake River in Jackson Hole...and learn to sail...and find that remote swimming hole in the Owyhees.

I've discovered that my DNA hasn't changed. It turns out that I can't change my spots. I am still prone to wander. Lord I feel it! And maybe that's okay. Maybe it is even good.

During these first few weeks of Sabbath, I've noticed a change in our family.  There's more relief...but not in the sense of a celestial calm. By "relief" I mean more contrast in our lives. There are more contours to our dreams.  And more color...more excitement and more joy.  And yes, even more peace, though we've discovered that it is harder to keep up with the adventurous Jesus than the affluent Jones's.  I believe that it is the Lord that dusted off these dreams.  "Anchor's aweigh!" our Savior calls, "I am creating a new heavens and a new earth. Who's with me?" Deep calls to Deep. Maybe I have discovered just a little too late, that there is an inherent danger in Sabbath-keeping with dreamers.

Church Stopping. Less doing. More being.

Photo from www.FreeImages.com #1358495