miracles

David Atkinson

This morning, wakened early by yesterday's indulgence in an iced coffee drink, I joined royal wedding viewers.  It wasn't something I'd planned to do, but chagrin faded with the realization that television stations in the U.S.A., with those in Great Britain and around the world, were covering a worship service, and without commercial interruption.
What constitutes a miracle?
This was a convergence of human choices.
A couple's choice to marry.
A country's choice to maintance the symbols of monarchy.
Western culture's choice to go all out celebrating love, commitment and family. Media businesses' choices to give the people what they want, unobstructed viewing.
As a result of these cumulative choices, millions of people around the globle simultaneously "took part" in worship.  We listened to prayer saturated,  God-centered scripture, message, and music.  The couple made their vows in sacred time and space.  It was a stark contrast to the previous day's dominant wedding topics:  what would people be drinking and when & what would "the dress" look like?  Millions of people experienced "reverenance."  For some it will remain a novelty.  Others' souls will be permanently stirred. Some will busily adjust their own wedding staging.  Others will take to heart words that grounded the new marriage in God's love and purpose.
A miracle is evidence of God's grace overcoming human convention and physical limitations. What we make of a day like this, generously shared, is evidence of how open we are to experiencing God in what we are given.

Hanami season: beauty & mourning

On Monday morning US time, an American morning show reporter in Japan stood framed at dusk by cherry branches in full bloom. Deep in my memory something tried to call to him, "turn around, turn around." How could he speak in ordinary words while turning his back on such breathtaking beauty?

During Hanami season in Japan, people drop what they are doing and succumb in awe while nature mysteriously wraps the world in a delicate day-lit scherenschnitte blanket.  White, pink, lavender, the blossoms exert a exquisitely irresistible  pressure to pay attention.  At night, moon, stars, and paper lanterns transform the sprays into earth's fireworks. 

Later on Monday, NPR announced that Tokyo Governor Ishishihara had banned hanami parties this year.  Ishihara made news a couple of weeks ago by invoking the ancient Buddhist concept of tembatsu, heavenly punishment, in this case the Governor said, for egoism.  In prewar Japan, the judgement of heaven rested on the people's willingness to sacrifice individual needs and desires for community goals.  (Interestingly different from Chinese culture's "mandate of heaven" which rests on the ruler's responsibility to attend to the welfare of the people.)  He has retracted his statements, affirming compassion for those who had suffered the earthquake and tsunami's devastation.

Unlike ume (plum blossom) viewing parties, which tend to be more sedate, sakura (cherry) blossom parties unleash silliness and spring exhuberance.  This year, walking under unlit lanterns hanging in the cherry boughs, people spoke of the poignant absense of light.  Yozakura, evening viewing parties are more an observation than a celebration this year.  And yet the beauty endures and comforts, connecting souls at a level deeper than words.

In a nation turned toward rebuilding, toward hope, the blossoms provide a wordless way to touch inexpressible loss and grief.

Dancing Trees

Resting my eyes, I lay my head down on the work table for a minute.
My perspective changes entirely.  Not just tipping, but drawn out the window where branches of the neighbors' trees are dancing.  I've been so focused on the unwanted piles of snow that I haven't looked up today.
And there they are, waiting, in all their lyrical beauty.  They dance whether I notice them or not.  They'll still wave their lovely long arms when the sun goes down shortly.  I have no affect on them, but to notice, and to celebrate the lifted heart, and to say, "thank you," God, "for showing me the dance.

Beyond

Hmmm, I just realized that the last time I updated this blog was the last storm.  What kind of theme is this?  This snow, like last month's ice, is beautiful.  But it come at time when my heart has turned toward spring. It doesn't fit my expectations.

Yesterday I was imaging recreating the United Methodist Church. (What do you do in your free time??) I find it easier to visual patterns, so I went into my pre-loaded graphics.  Nothing fit.  All the charts and templates, created for business models, follow existing patterns (Duh, my logical mind interjects).  But we're reaching for something totally new.  That's probably why there's more than a little hesitation about business models, even new ones, framing the way forward.  I'm willing to fill in "dashboards" so that leaders can collect better congregational data, but I"m under no illusion that data is the portal to the future. (Even though one of my favorite authors, James Gleick, posits in his latest book that everything real is information).

Something is happening among faith-full people, some folks say "emerging," that doesn't fit existing models. Its just beyond, where we can almost touch it, but not quite.  We can almost visualize it, but not yet.

Last Sunday in worship, several people shared things about our present reality that are beyond our little church's control.  The earth's population is pushing 7 billion.  Technology is offering choices to make our heads spin.  We have access to more stuff, more knowledge, more experiences than ever.  Shopping is coming to us, via social networking techniques, like groupon and open table, rather us going and searching out what we want. Inter-racial families are no longer unusual. We travel and bring back new customs and insights.

Phyllis Tickle says that about every 500 years culture experiences a sea change that forces faith communities floating on the sea to re-examine their boats.   Alot of us get attached to the baggage while others start to scan for the horizon.  We can't ignore what's going on outside the boat. (Tickle says that in the "tick-ups" to those sea-changes churches have an every five hundred year garage sale, emptying out our attics of what is not longer useful, and reclaiming things we'd tucked away and forgotten about.).

So no matter what size our own community is, population changes demand that we rethink how we use the earth's resources.  And no matter what technology we prefer, what becomes normative in our culture will develop new communication patterns.  (Did you know that in many work setting people text or use a social network to set appointments for phone calls?  Unexpected calls are startling in some of these sites).

How will we share the gospel as more people get out of the habit of church-shopping?  How can we take what God's given us to where people are instead of trying to attract them to where we are? How can we celebrate the diversity of cultures and customs enlivening our communities?

Because its not that what God's given us isn't needed any more.  The gospel is not ours to tuck away in an attic hoping that someday someone will come along and dust it off. Some of the ways we've grown accustomed to offering it may become obsolete.  But study after study (PEW trust, the National Study of Youth, Barna, ....) finds a growing hunger for spirituality, a way of saying that religious options aren't working for a god-hungry world.  There's also a growing hunger to serve.  To know that your life matters for something.

So welcome to the garage sale, as we share each other's best memories.
Welcome to the horizon watchers, as we live into God's ever growing kin-dom.