Aj Schwanz

Conversation a while ago with my Pappy, as I can remember (i.e. not word for word, which is okay, cause my dad probably won’t even remember it taking place):

Me:  Okay, so you’ve said that God is the initiator:  all things come from God.

Pappy:  Yep.

Me:  And we were created to be receivers:  all things come from God.

Pappy:  Yep.

Me:  And we spend most of our time falsely believing that we really are in control, but really we should be practicing a posture of receiving from God, of releasing the control stick, of saying “We got nuthin”?

Pappy:  That’s what I’ve found to be true.

Me:  So, what does that mean for prayer?

Pappy:  What do you mean?

Me:  Well, say a friend is sick.  Should I pray for them?  I mean, that’s like *my* idea to pray for them:  that’s initiating.

Pappy:  Who says that’s your idea?

Me:  Me.

Pappy:  What if your desire to pray for them really is a desire place in your heart by God to intercede?

Me:  . . . . Oh. . . . So, how do I pray, though?

Pappy:  You could ask for them to be healed:  that would be a nice thing to do.

Me:  But what if that’s not God’s will?  What if God’s allowed the illness to enter their lives for some redeeming purpose?  Then praying for them to be healed wouldn’t be the best thing to do.

Pappy:  Very true.

Me:  So what do I do?

Pappy:  Well, I’ve found that prayer is a lot about listening, on both sides.

Me:  So I could like visually hold them in the Light and pray for strength to endure?

Pappy:  That would be nice.

Me:  Huh. . . .

I’m still uncertain how to procede.  Today at Bible Fellowship we had a similar discussion:  someone was asking God to help them out with something and then realized that God was telling her that her desires were planted in her heart by God, so really it was her joining God’s process rather than the other way around.  So then:  what does that mean for prayer?

I think Madame Guyon has some insight:  “Our activity should consist in placing ourselves in a state of susceptibility to Divine impressions, and pliability to all the operations of the Eternal Word.”  If I can ever unpack what that means, or rather if I can receive the meaning of that statement as God unpacks it, I think I’ll really dig it.

[Sidenote:  a number of folks have passed on the following information, one noting it was a bit ironic that it came out the same day as my last post:  "Like you said,  'I don't want to deal with all of this.  Let's just sweep it under the rug [counter] and move on.’”  Hmm . . . ]

A few years ago when I started off on my quest of “why don’t any of my friends go to church anymore?  I know they’re spiritual people; where did they go?” and it meshed with “heavens, how does one maintain sanity when one has a demanding newborn and I can’t get out of my townhouse because it’s naptime or feeding time or I can’t find a clean pair of pants?  Hurrah for the internet!”, I discovered blogging and the emerging church.  I crept around different places like delicious and technorati and bloglines to try and assess who was worth reading and what they were talking about in the first place.

One day I noticed that my name was mentioned on a site that I considered to be well-emersed in the current pioneering spiritual scene; the post was calling for recommendations of emerging women bloggers.  “Well, that’s odd,” I thought, not that my name was mentioned  because I *am* a girl (and honestly, I was totally flattered), but that there was a request for such a thing at all.  Aren’t there a lot of emerging women bloggers?  Aren’t they getting equal screen time?  Because sexism doesn’t seem to be a value of post-modernity. . . .

That may be true, but the female voice is still lacking, which I find really interesting considering that I find women to be online moreso than men, at least in the searching-for-info, shopping, social-networking areas.  At any rate, one day I was reading the list of speakers for some hip, emerging-type conference:  boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, girl, boy, boy.  Wait, girl?!!  Who is this person?  Her name was Margaret Feinberg.  And she was a writer.  !!!!  Be still, my little womanly writer’s heart.  I immediately went to her website, subscribed to her blog, and pine over her description of adventures in Colorado and Alaska because deep down inside I wish I were that cool to romp around in the wilderness.

One day Margaret posted that her new book was coming out, and her publishers were sending copies to blog readers who would post a review.  And y’all know how I feel about reviewing books.  Oooh!  Oooh!  Me!  Me!  I requested a book.  Alas, too late:  the copies had already been given out (I recieved a personal email from Margaret letting me know:  hello!  Personal touch!).  But then, one day, walking to the mailbox, key in my slot, open the package door:  hurrah!  Book package for Aj:  rock on.

And it made it to my pile of “books to review” where it sat for what I thought wasn’t all that long but apparently her publishers did because I got a polite yet inquisitive, “Did you get the book?  Have you posted a review?” email.  Apparently they don’t function on Aj Time which is generally “wearing two-week contacts for six months is okay, and regular bathing for the children means throwing them in the tub before they’re going to be seen by the public, and did I tell you about the time that I drove around with unregistered car tags for about nine months because I kept forgetting to go into the DMV but my father-in-law would see my car and shake his head and comment that next time he’d be visiting me in jail?”  So thank you for the reminder that The World does not function on Aj Time (phew).

So, my review of the Sacred echo:  Hearing God’s Voice in Every Area of Your Life (I’m spelling it like this because this is how the title is printed on the book, all post-modern “we don’t have to follow capitalization rules” and such - rebel rebel).  Honestly, at first, I was a bit skeptical.  Having read some pretty heavy hitters lately, I’m finding myself looking at every book wanting it to be a major spiritually-formational revelation, and this did not strike me as that.  This book is about prayer:  would she as detailed as Richard Foster?  This book is about life as a post-modern:  would she be as hip at Rob Bell?   This book is about listening:  would she be as prophetic as Shane Claibourne?

No, because she is Margaret Feinberg, and she brought her self to these pages, in clear words with questions and ponderings and proddings and God-infused words of hope and love.  She shares stories, her stories, of folks that she prays for.  Through these journeys she questions, “Why *do* we pray?  Is it worth it?”  I know of a number of books that tackle such a topic, and I don’t know that she brings anything necessarily new, but she brings things that are *real*, that shed light on the picture, that model what a life spent listening to God looks like.

Instead of forcing her stories down the readers’ throats, giving an air of “this is how your life of prayer should look”, she acts more as a midwife, encouraging the reader with queries and thoughts that allow the reader to find these echoes in their personal lives.  When my name was added to the list of emerging women bloggers, the commenter stated that they didn’t even know I was a female until many posts down the road:  I took that as a compliment, that my words were relatable to either gender.  I somewhat feel the same about this book - the words speak truth and can be applied to folks from a range of experiences.

the Sacred echo:  do I listen for the repeated phrases and words of God in my life?  What is God saying?  How do I respond?  Thank you, Margaret, for being a voice that questions, for sharing when prayer is answered in the ways that we want and the ways that we don’t, for being transparent.  And thanks for the being a voice present in the boy-dominated world of the emerging church:  if you ever need a side-kick, feel free to let me know. 

A few moons ago (okay, shamefully, *many* moons ago) I received a package in the mail.  “Delightful!” I thought.  “I LOVE to receive packages in the mail.”  This can be confirmed by my husband’s amazement at collecting all the boxes of free samples I’ve requested online that seemingly arrive all at once when I leave town.  But this package did not contain a trial size of Kashi granola or another Shick Titanium razor, but rather a book.  A BOOK!  That I didn’t even request, but was sent to me to review!  And post about!  On my blog!  I did a little dance, but you never would have known that, because I failed to post a review:  somehow it got lost in books like “Your 4 Year Old:  Wild and Wonderful” and “How to Cook Everything Vegetarian”.

But the other day, while giving my free Swiffer dusting kit a whirl, I came across it:  my book!  I read it, and now I am ready to report.

Barclay Press has released a book written by Susan McLeod-Harrison titled Saving Women from the Church:  How Jesus Mends a Divide.  The title threw me for a bit as an image of a Monty Python Jesus crossed my mind, galloping on the ground while someone follows him clopping with coconuts.  Why?  I dunno:  probably a lack of adult interactions, or at least adult interactions that don’t involve the words “playdate”, “timeout”, or “exploding diaper”.

The book begins, “I began writing this book in my mid-twenties, as a single Christian woman trying to identify her place in the church” (1).   From there McLeod-Harrison shares her worship experience of a church hierarchy dominated by men which drove her to studying and reading and exploring and questioning if the church believes or is manifesting the equality of genders that is evidenced in Christ’s interactions.  She then moves on to tackle specific issues in each chapter by sharing a fictional (yet personal) story and a story from the Gospels.  The chapters conclude with questions for further reflection (personally or in a group setting) as well as an image/healing prayer experience.

I’m sad to admit that my first reaction to reading this book was one of apathy, “Ugh.  Another book on how women are oppressed.  Stop moping; let’s just get up off our butts and do something!”  I also felt a bit smug, “I come from a tradition that is above all of this women-oppression stuff.”  But really it was more, “I don’t want to deal with all of this.  Let’s just sweep it under the rug and move on.”  Except when that happens, wounds just “fester, fester, fester; rot, rot, rot” (as only Meg Ryan says in “French Kiss”).  The Spirit gave me a nice check, and I proceded to read with a bit more humilty.

This book would be an excellent read for a study group.  I could see some excellent discussion being had in an all-female or mixed-gender group; it could also prompt some times of confession and repentence or space for healing no matter what tradition was reading.  The questions posed are not threatening or accusing but rather prompting, similar to Quaker queries.  Again, I’m not really a fan of the title:  yes, the church can be oppressive, but Brother Yun talks about how he prayed for his oppressors, knowing that God allowed them to come into his live for a reason.  But I would not let that stop me from recommending the book.

{And no, the humor of me finding this book while I was dusting (i.e. being the “good little housewife” did not escape me, because if you will note when the book was released, well, it’d been a while since I’d engaged in that activity.]

When I was pregnant with Abel, my dad gave me a chapter out of a Merlin Carother’s book titled “Good-bye Grumblings” which dealt with praising God for all things that God allows to come into our lives.  I told Dad that it was a fairly bold move to give such a chapter to a very pregnant woman with a highly active toddler (me, grumble?). 

The author talked about how God is all omni (knowing, present, powerful); everything that comes into our lives is allowed by God (as we are cupped in the palm of His hand, it passes through His fingers) and is for our good.  The object/experience might not necessarily be a good thing, but if we accept it (without grumblings - oy, the hard part), God uses it to transform us more into the image of Christ for the sake of others.  Graham Cooke says it another way, that “God allows in His wisdom what he could easily prevent by His power.”  My head acknowledges this, but the heart is another thing . . .

What a beautiful picture seeing someone live this out!  But the true beauty and value only comes as you know the journey . . . the hardship . . . the suffering that has been experience.  I never watch The Office:  it’s funny, but it’s SO awkward that I squirm before getting to the humor.  Same with viewing someone who’s living out a normal (i.e. not normal) Christian life:  it’s beautiful, but it’s so costly.  Can I hold my gaze long enough to be transformed, or will I become to embarrassed or ashamed and avert my eyes?

Brother Yun shares:

We have also come to understand that the past thirty years of suffering, persecution and torture for the house churches in China were all part of God’s training for us.  The Lord has perfectly fitted us to go as missionaries to the Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu worlds.

Once I spoke in the West and a Christian told me, “I’ve been praying for years that the Communist government in China will collapse, so Christians can live in freedom.”  This is not what we pray!  We never pray against our government or call down curses on them.  Instead, we have learned that God is in control of both our own lives and the government we live under.  Isaiah prophesied about Jesus, “The government will be on his shoulders.” Isaiah 9:6

God has used China’s government for his own purposes, moulding and shaping his children as he sees fit.  Instead of focusing our prayers against any political system, we pray that regardless of what happens to us, we will be pleasing to God.

Don’t pray for the persecution to stop!  We shouldn’t pray for a lighter load to carry, but a stronger back to endure!  Then the world will see that God is with us, empowering us to live ina way that reflects his love and power.

This is true freedom! (287)

When I share about how I see the current state of the church - Quaker, Emerging, or otherwise - I grumble.  I complain, I accuse, I judge.  But what if I started practicing - training - to see how God is using the state of my world to shape me?  To shape my faith community?  To shape the larger church?  Conforming it more into the image of Christ for the sake of others?

During this political season, what if we took Brother Yun’s stance?  That would be radical, eh?

So how do we train?  He only mentioned it casually, but I think Brother Yun hit right at the heart:

When believers focus on serving the Lord and reaching the lost, God blesses them and the church remains sharp.  When we become self-centered and critical of each other, Satan has won already and the church will become a blunt, useless instrument. (289)

A praising, sharp instrument, or a grumbling, blunt object.  Hmmm . . .

How are you being trained?

It’s no surprise to regular blog readers (if there are any out there:  hello?  is this thing still on?) that I’m struggling with a direction to write.  Initially I blogged about the emerging church, but I connected mostly with Quakers (and funny enough, Quakers from “the other side” of our denominational spectrum).  Connections were forged, thoughts were shared, relationships were built.

And then a lull came.  It coincided with having my second child, so I figured it was just “adjustments to not having enough limbs or detachable ears” (with which to ignore the yowling) syndrome.  But it’s been a while, and I’m still unsettled.

The idea of writing about or studying Quakerism has no draw.  Talking about Quaker Distinctives makes my face scrunch up in a not-so-pretty way.  Likewise with the Emerging Church Conversation.  Yes, culture is changing; yes, young people don’t relate; yes, we need to come up with a new language; yes, this culture values discussion and talking about Relative Truth and lauding the independence of Doing Church When and Where I Feel Like It, Preferably St. Arbucks, And Don’t Tell Me That’s Not Right (see the aforementioned Relative Truth element).

I used to think of denominations more as manifestations of personality types:  more contemplative folks are drawn to Quakerism; extroverts bound with glee in the Charismatic movement; Nazarenes serve as the busy little bees that they are.  And I’ve gotten into trouble for saying that, folks saying, “I don’t fit in that mold!”  Of course not, not everyone does.  But at some point somewhere at some time it has to be okay to make a generality, yes?  Self Talk people say not to talk in absolutes, that they usually aren’t true:  “You *always* do this!”  “I *never* say that!”  But I’m talking *generally*:  if you know me at all, there’s almost always a loop hole that I can wiggle my way out of (even in that sentence, note the wiggle room).

I’ve been reading a really challenging biography:  The Heavenly Man - the Remarkable True Story of Chinese Christian Brother Yun.  He’s a contemporary that shares stories and thoughts and revelations and truth in a way that seems so relevant, so timeless.  I enjoy reading other authors such as McLaren, Claibourne, Campolo, Kimball, and have resonated with their ability to try and bridge the cultural gap; to note how culture is changing; to challenge complacent, birthright/inbred Christians to action.  I say inbred because our complacency reminds me of how DNA seems to become weak and flawed when continually mixed in the same pot.

Yun has been imprisoned, tortured, starved, all in present day China because of his faith.  He quotes scripture thoughout his stories, and it relates dead-on to his situations because he pretty much lived out the persecution of first century Christ followers!  So many times I read the Bible and wonder why the writers wrote what they did:  it makes so much sense in his life story.

At one point he mentioned that the house church movement was unified doctrinally until government rules were easing up some and other countries were able more easily to smuggle Bibles in.  Instead of just Bibles, they would put in denominational/doctrinal literature, and soon the house churches were aligning themselves with certain theology rather than being Christ/Bible followers.  These organizations also started sending other supplies to “help” the ministry - cameras, money, etc; and then the house churches started dividing over who got what and why they were “entitled”.  Yun does not blame the other organizations; he states that the house churches “succumbed to tempation”.

Yun shares how the Lord placed the call towards unification on Yun’s heart.  He and other house church leaders gathered together, disagreeing though they were.  One of the brothers, the leader of the largest house church movement in China, had a message from God that he needed to wash the feel of another brother whom he had had significant disagreements.  Before he got the chance, folks started arguing, nitpicking, taking sides.  As they were praying and getting ready to leave, abandoning hope for unification, the brother jumped up and started washing the man’s feet.  The man was amazed that such a respected individual would do such an act that he cried out and embraced him.  This started a movement of unifcation within the house church movement in China, with leaders being convinced that being united in Christ and forgiving one another and confessing sin was so much more important than the other quibbly stuff.

“We don’t want to follow our own pet doctrines any more.  We want to learn from one another’s strengths and change in whatever way the Lord wants, in order to make us stronger and closer to Jesus.”

“Although not all differences were ironed out, the leaders got to know each other for the first time, and saw how they had for more in common than they had reasons to remain separate.  They also found their theological differences centered upon issues that weren’t essential to the faith.”

He closes the chapter noting that the house church networks have joined a unity movement titled “Sinim” (although they’ve since dropped the name) and that the estimated number of believers in the network is 58 million.

!!!!

Now, what do I do with that?  It’s so beyond emerging church or Quakerism or anything like that:  it’s essential and core and fundamental (but not Fundamental).  And *that’s* what I want to blog about.  But I don’t quite know where to look  . . . .