California Roll

Trying Out Wings

An invitation to read an original poem at our church's women's meeting this week inspired me to read about eaglets and their aeries since the night's theme is "nests."  I was astonished to learn that an aeries as big as 9.5 feet (three meters) wide and 20 feet (six meters) deep has been discovered.  I surmise that the depth of the nest  comes from building upwards on their nest as a pair of eages resuse it for many years.  Eagles themselves can be as big three feet from head to tail and their wingspan more than seven feet.

In Deuteronomy 32:10-12 God depicts himself as an eagle that shields and cares for his young like an eagle.   Here's how I have experienced God.

   Trying Out Wings                           

Newly hatched, tiny - just the width
of an outstretched hand - an eaglet takes
sanctuary in her four-foot nest. 

Mother found the branches, stacked, interlocked them,
added to the triangle til sides of the nest stood high. 
Sticks could jab, but she softens with needles, moss,

then pauses, sits, until her egg cracks.  I hear
her call, imagine myself
that little one.

You re safe on a tall cragg. I go, but I ll
return.  In my nest no one can reach you,  -
a sanctuary made for me.

Mama soars back, carrying fish.  I gobble
and gorge.  Look, feathers have grown in!  Wing
feathers like yours, mama.   

She eyes me.  Don t just sit and eat - Get ready
to fly.  Exercise!  I ve made this nest large
so you can run, stretch your wings, flap them hard.

She goes again, leaves me alone
with her words and the whistling wind.  I want to fly
like her, so I practice, run, move my wings, hit the wall,

ouch!  One day I flutter up to the nest s edge, peer out.
Ehh!  What s this all below?  I m so tiny,
it s so far a drop!  No flying for me - what if I fall?

Mama comes and pecks me, rustles me out,
though I m flapping my wings I m dropping -
panic, peril push me down. Then mother swoops under,

with her wings she cushions my fall.  I ride to our nest,
and rest in its safe walls. She gazes at me;
as I look in her eyes, her promise and call stays clear: 

in time I ll soar, bank, and land with her. 

What Kind of Life?

    Today's slate is full with a friend driving two hours to attend a team meeting that I'm leading.  I need to prepae to lead and prepare a room for this friend to stay in and prepare to dol some prayer-healing ministry with her (see www.Theophostics.com).  But before that I want to continue on the question and conversation I raised in my blog yesterday. Why should anyone care about the promise of eternal ilfe that Jesus offered.
    If you think of "eternal life" as being quantity of life, longetivity, then, sure, who would want to have just more of the same, more weariness, confusion, disconnectedness, pleasures and sorrows for an unending period of time.  Or, if you think eternal life makes no difference for right now, then who care?  Just wait until your near death to look into  or commit to the narrow path Jesus beckons us to travel.  But the premise, and the promise is much more than that.
    Jesus has given me eternal life now, not for tomorrow but this day, this moment.  The life he gives is one of purpose and joy right here in this physical, time-bound world.  When I live in Him and He in me, I'm looking for his assignment for me each day.  I find meaning as I try to do what He wants, as I listen to someone, write an e-mail,  share my money or my home, or even as i'm doing the dishes.   All of life can be lived with Him and for Him.
    Life with him is a life lived in love.  Instead of trying to earn love or prove myself to others I can start with completion.  I know God loves me, I know he sees my every action, knows my every thought.  Without this I would be looking to others to feel this restless, this void in my soul.  Without out this I would end up compulsively working to trying to please others.  Instead He frees me to love others. Not a need based love, but a love starting from completion.
   My husband Collin wrote a somewhat longer essay about this, which you can see at http://www.sonic.net/~cpark/gol/meaning.htm
    I welcome reader's thoughts and posts on this.

   

Me-a Sinner? Me care about eternity?

    "I have problems wtih the idea of sin, of being a sinner.  And what's the premise? perhaps I mean promise.  I don't care about eternal life." 
    The woman who asked me this yesterday  has been attending church and even taking part in two Christian homegroups for about six months now. She's looking hard for truth but hasn't stepped over the line yet to give her full loyalty to Jesus.
    I explained to her that being a sinner is not the same as being a criminal.  Sin is falling short of perfection, short of selflessness of Mother TEresa or the passion for social justice of Martin Luther King.  Sin is making our deicsions just in regards to our own self-interest without regard to God   
    I found her second question intriguing.  Perhaps many Christians are assuming that etertnal ife is what people are after.   Wrong-oh, not with post-moderns.   And that eternal life is the main thing Christ promises.  Not so, I think.  Any thoughts from my readers on this?
    More on this tomorrow.  I need to pick up a friend from the car repair shop and go for a walk with her.

Blowing Sky High

        From the Depths

When you think you have it dammed, shut up
in the deep, cool earth--or at least diverted
into some far away place, it bursts out,
springs forth, a blowing sky-high geyser.

It's this sadness, this longing, for a mother,
or at least a sister, who could understand me,
devoted to sharing life together.  Long ago,
I lost that.  I search for it now, but it's not

to be had here and now.  Tonight
again an illusion's shattered.  Tonight
weeping comes, but some child wisdom
whispers from within--joy comes

in the morning, just as it did long ago
for those women at the empty tomb.
He told them, "It's me."   The one they
thought gone, came to be always

with them.  with me.

In This Place I Find Him

God comes sometimes when I sit on slick wooden benches
and exchange smiles with eager faces of well-dressed people
on Sunday mornings  but here, here as I sit on a cracked, rough bench,
sensing ghosts of celebrations in this empty picnic spot, I find him.

In the stained glass building, heat comforts in winter, air con cools in summer
Here I look up at the curving branches of this oak with moss greening the grey-brown
cracked limbs.  I breathe in the chill, keep hands in my pockets and say,
" Breath on me breath of God, fill me with this spring-green life."

In the crush of people and social exchanges, I lose me,
here in the twitter of birds and the big empty silence
I hear my thoughts, I read God's from this burgundy leather
book so dear to me through the years.  It rings truer still in the silence.

Though He was a Son He learned obedience through things He suffered.
His obedience came as he left the safe place of home and carpentry,
preached truth to people who labeled him crazy, welcomed into his
close knit for three years, trained and loved the man who sold him out.

I hear in those words His words to me:  "Keep going out, don't stay
in this safe places.  Travel along the nerve most painful to you-be with all
different people, not just the friends you would choose.  Go -
not to some foreign place, but go and risk the pain of being

misunderstood, unvalued, unwanted, disrespected. If he had to learn
obedience through what He suffered, much more I. 

Whites, Move Aside!

Today my husband and I had  lunch with church friends.  Husband Collin was the only truly black haired person among them (our daughter has dark brown hair). I casually mentioned that we whites at our church need to step away from any arrogant holding on to power and accept changing demographics at the church as calling for some changes in leadership.  One friend--daughter of a Commander, one who easily and quickly speaks her mind--asked, "Why? What changes do you see?"
     "Many more Asians than six years ago."
    "But they come to MPPC to be a part of us."  (they want to/should adopt our ways, all of our culture was her implicaiton.) WHy do you think it's going to change?"
    "Just intuition," was my first reply.  I thought some more and on the way out, I caught her eye and ear again.  "The mission study of our church noted how odd it is to have a mostly white church (roughly 92%) in an urban area that is largely non white  Implicit in those remarks was a belief that we should be reaching out to the wider community."  (Granted that the city our church is located in is largely white, but it's only a baby marshmellow inside a large chocolate.) 
    My friend, whom I consider a loving person who loves to care for others, objected.  I was astonished.  It seemed so obvious to me.  She asked why I thought we should change.
    "Because God wants people of different races and cultures to find unity through Jesus." i would have gone on, but she butted in. (Yes, I'm showing my prejudice.)
    "I disagree with that.  I think we all ought to be able to worship God in our own way." 
    I started to speak, but in a typical dominating Caucasian way (at least this Germanic-Irish-English white thinks so), she seized the platform and wouldn't let me speak until we were at my car.  I told her I thought this deserved more conversation, but at a later time (when our families weren't tapping their feet inside their cars).  Also, I was a bit balled over by her direct charge into conflict and force of her statements--so  unlike the Japanese with whom I lived and worked and played for six years.
    Tomorrow more about what I'd like to say to he--why it's key that white churches let other cultural and racial groups within the church express and act on their values and viewpoints--i.e. share power.   Now from the other side.  Why are these people from other countries coming to our church where all the paid people you see up front, leading the service,(twelve or so in our huge church) are white.
    Tonight after our Home Group with two couples from our church (one from Japan and one from Taiwan), I asked the Taiwanese man, "Did you go to a Chinese church prior to this one?"
    "Yes."
    "Why did you change?"
    "The Chinese culture affects the classes for the kids."
    "Ahh, they view the Bible through Chinese lenses."
    "Yes.  More rigid and strict  Not so fun for the kids. And our kids are used now to American way."
    "So they didn't want to go to church anymore?"
    "Yes."
    I'd like to ask later how he feels about leaving the Chinese church culture for our Bay Area Presbyterian culture.  What does he miss? 
    I'd love to receive some comments from readers on this!