community life...

early friday morning we went walking to a patch of woods situated with the railroad tracks on its north, the grand river on its south, a factory on its east, and the highway on its west. we filled a bucket full of old railroad spikes and other rusty metal for our house mate that couldn't be with us at the time. we were armed with field guides of all sorts - mushrooms, trees, wild edibles, birds, and one zine particularly about morels. we didn't end up finding any morels, but we'll be back out foraging again. it might just be a little too early for them. we need a little more rain. if you'd like to hunt for morels with us sometime this spring let us know. especially if you know anything about it, as we could use the help. we haven't even identified for sure which trees are elm (the mushrooms are often found under dead elms).

thurdsay night, after some delicious tempeh salad, we went over chapter two, titled "in heaven", of the book about the Lords's Prayer we are studying. we don't have the whole thing up for you to read this week, but we'll post a few excerpts here:

"that we pray to God in heaven is a reminder that we become part of a large struggle by praying this prayer. this thing between us and Jesus is not merely personal; it's cosmic. the God whom we have been taught by Jesus to address as 'our Father' is the one who rules the whole cosmos, who speaks in earthquake, wind, and fire. any less of a god wouldn't do us much good. the good that needs doing in this world--good for the poorest of the poor, the sickest of the sick, the most desperate of the desperate--tends to be considerably larger than our mere social activism, charity, or politics. things are cosmically out of hand. evil is not just the nasty little things we do to one another. it's as if evil is organized, massive, subtle, deep, cosmic.
"if Jesus is no more than a helpful moral example, a wise teacher of ethics, an empathetic friend, then why pray at all? what good can even the best moral exemplar do for our ensnarement? after even our best moral efforts, after all our good deeds are done, there is still a great surplus of suffering and pain left over, still too much untouched evil. therefore it makes a great deal of difference whether or not God hears us and acts when we pray. otherwise our prayer is merely autosuggestion, self-therapy, not up to the battle.
"it also makes a difference where God is when we pray. if Jesus resides safely tucked in our hearts, if God is only a wish projection of the very best of human aspiration and experience, then forget it. these little gods are no match for our big problems.
"however, because we call God the Father who is 'in heaven' we are bold to pray for such absurdly extravagant gifts as bread for the world, peace among the nations, healed marriages, cured cancer, rain. we are bold to pray for such gifts because we pray to the Father in heaven, the one who rules.
"our God is placed, located, has an address--heaven...heaven is the name given to God's realm
"our kingdoms are constantly being threatened by God's kingdom. heaven is breaking out all over.
"it may seem odd to you that 'our Father' is located, by the prayer, 'in heaven'. most of us think of ourselves as persons who want to get close to God. that is the god for whom we grope, if we grope for a god at all, a god to whom we can 'get close', 'a friend in need'. this need to make God over into our own image has led some folk to speak of the need to develop 'user friendly churches'. these churches are meant to be so much like the surrounding culture--churches fitted with padded pews whose sanctuaries resemble carpeted bedrooms with basketball gyms attached--that there we are never bumped by anything odd, never challenged by something weird.
"heaven is weird.
"just to pray to a God who is 'in heaven', is a warning against contemporary domestication of God. here is God who is not some pale image of ourselves and our best aspirations. this God doesn't live here in our country, is not housed within our sanctuaries. God the Father rules from heaven. so don't' be confused by some Christian talk about 'a personal relationship with Jesus' as if this were the whole point of the Christian faith--to get cozy and comfy with God.
"of course, some will say heaven is not a place. heaven is an idea, a metaphor, a state of mind. no. when the Lord's Prayer speaks of God, it locates God. God is not some mushy, generalized pantheistic presence always and everywhere, therefore not now and nowhere. God is placed, enfleshed, incarnated through the people of Israel and in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. the God who is thus located is not some ephemeral presence who may have set the whole thing in motion and then slips into eternal elusiveness. paul says that the same Spirit who teaches each of us to cry out, 'Abba! Father!' is much more than merely personal--this is the cry of the whole cosmos itself.
"God chooses to be located within, not aloof from, God's created order in the person of Jesus. the person who purports to find God in every rock, tree, and glade is too often a pantheist who assumes that God is everywhere the same. but if God is everywhere, God is finally nowhere, and the world is empty. Christianity is really much more immanent (God is very close) than pantheism because our God promises to be in real places--jerusalem--and actual faces--Jesus.