The Forest For the Trees and All That Jazz

"He said to me I was a tree in a story about a forest, and that it was arrogant of me to believe any differently. And he told me the story of the forest is better than the story of the tree." - A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, p. 198

As the story goes, these words were proverbially whispered into Donald Miller's ear by Victor Frankl. And now they're being whispered into mine. I've heard the adage about not losing the forest for the trees over and again, but I'd never found it as liberating as the whispered words of Frankl.

As a pastor, it seems that I am charged with the cultivation of a small section of the forest. This means sometimes paying extra attention to certain trees at certain times. Yet my ultimate call is to serve the forest. My call is to recount the story of the forest to a bunch of trees, and hope that they can see beyond themselves enough to get excited about the forest which they've been planted in all along. My call is to lead our little section of the forest faithfully, that we may bring glory to the One who created and planted the entire forest.

The metaphor falls apart if I try to take it too much further, as the differences between trees and people become too great, but it seems to work well to illustrate community. As far as I know, trees don't have thoughts, but how silly would it be for a single tree to think the entire forest revolved around it? Or that it could survive without all the other trees? Or without water and sun?

May we live for the Kingdom of God, not our kingdom. And when our kingdom comes crashing down around us, may the Kingdom be made evident in the loving words and works of His church. And may we be so caught up in the magnetic pull of the Kingdom that we forget our kingdom ever existed.

The story of the King and His Kingdom is better than the story of little kingdom that tried to compete.

Re-Entry

Ok, so when I got back from vacation, I felt like I needed to post about the vacation, but I thought it would be awfully dull without pictures, so I waited. Well, I still don't have the pictures on my computer, and we've been back from vacation for 9 days now, so I'm just moving on.

My wife's recap of our vacation is pretty good, so read her posts here and here. (Sorry to those of you who don't have xanga, as you will likely not be able to view the pages).

We saw fireworks at Plymouth (it seemed quite historical), spent a wonderful day in Boston walking the Freedom Trail, took in the beauty of Cape Cod, celebrated Jake and Karen's beautiful rehearsal dinner, wedding and reception, enjoyed New York City with the Gustines, rode on an Amish buggy in Pennsylvania and got to visit Chocolate World in Hershey, PA. Addison was great throughout the trip, traveling well, and even sleeping in a tent through the rain. She's a trooper, just like her mommy. It was a wonderful first vacation for the three of us.

Since coming back, I've been settling into the fact that my time left here is so short. Just over two weeks left now, and each day goes faster than the last. Marcie has begun her job at Calvin College in G-Rap, so I've been home alone all week, and will be for the next two weeks as well...thank God for weekends. Her first day on the job, Marcie found out about a house that was recently made available for rental, owned by Calvin. She took a look at it on Tuesday, took some pictures, and it looks like we're going to be signing a lease on it soon.

It amazes me. When I juxtapose the events of my life with some of the events occurring around me, I feel simultaneously blessed, confused, overjoyed, embarrassed and pissed.

In the last two days, at least four people have either called or visited the church seeking assistance. Help with bills, groceries, finding a job, etc. One woman was 52 years old and had a masters degree (in music), but couldn't even find a job as a receptionist in the area. She wondered if she could sing a solo at our church or do some secretarial work in exchange for payment.

I drove downtown with a couple guys from the youth group yesterday to bring some groceries to a man in need. I wasn't sure what to think about this man who seemed so desperate over the phone (but that's how you'd want to sound, right?), but when he opened the door to his apartment and I looked into his eyes, I knew that we had done the right thing. This man was truly in need. Would this food change the course of his life? No, but it might just interject a little nutrition and a bit of hope into his situation.

In the midst of all this, I look at our life. Marcie got the first job she applied for up in Michigan. It is an ideal fit for her, and exactly within her college major emphases. On the first day of said job, she finds out about this amazing housing opportunity which we couldn't have even imagined.

I sat there looking at the resume of the 52 year old woman who came to the church door, and I felt so weird. As I mentioned earlier, I felt blessed, but embarassed that things seem to be coming so easy to us right now. I certainly am grateful to God for all this, but I want it to come to these other people as well. I became angry about how difficult it is for so many to get from one day to the next while I'm enjoying a charmed life. I don't want to be that guy - the charmed one to whom everything comes easy.

So I consider my role in all this. I start to realize that there might be some truth to the fact that I am blessed in order to bless others. It's not much, but I give a man in need a Kroger gift card. I give my neighbors a ride whenever possible.

And yet others I let walk away with nothing more than a prayer.

It sucks.

Dorothy Day would often say that "Love in practice is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams."

When the rubber meets the road, am I truly able to love in the harsh and dreadful way that changes the world, or do I let it remain in my dreams, parked comfortably next to my ideals?

I don't have an answer to that question right now, but God's giving me plenty of opportunities to find out.

Church and Culture, Part 2

One of my dearest friends, affectionately known as Gus, wrote the following in response to my first post on Church and Culture. (Note: Gus generally does use his shift key occasionally, but neglected said key due to the informal nature of the blog comment). I found it to be quite well put.

"the thing i think we need to learn to do is to learn to see truth and beauty everywhere it exists (as you suggest) and then re-learn to see the beauty of the gospel...not just a vitamin-fortified cure for what ails you, but a sweeter song than is actually possible to sing apart from this amazing life in God...then as we readily look for truth and beauty we can sing this sweeter song as we live in the midst of other people's lives...I just dont think we know how to recapture the beauty of the gospel, so it still seems lame, trite and out of touch with the truly "profound"...if the gospel is not more beautiful than anything else, I am not sure I want it"

I don't really need to expound on this a lot, but I want to dive further into the idea of the beauty of the gospel "live[d] in the midst of other people's lives." It harkens in my mind the metaphor laid out by Rob Bell in NOOMA Rhythm / 011. Bell's thesis is basically that many of us have a far too distant view of God, as if he's somewhere else and intervenes occasionally. As a corrective, he invites us to look at life as a beautiful piece of music that God is putting together, and we all can live in tune with this great music when we live in the story of the gospel of redemption, when we live in tune with God's score.

Whenever I watch the film, it always challenges me to think that if I am truly living in tune with the "sweeter song," which reflects God's glory perfectly, that my life and the life shared by my community (church) would actually be attractive, exciting, sweet and beautiful.

I mean, if God really knows what he's doing, then if we follow him right, our lives will be the best lives possible. We'll be blessing as many other people as possible, loving as much as possible, seeing beauty everywhere possible and knowing its source. It does not diminish the fact that the call to discipleship is a hard one, wrought with sacrifice and tough calls, but if we truly believe that making these tough sacrifices is exactly what God desires of us, then won't our lives be better on the other side of that decision?

Perhaps if we are able to stop being paralyzed by fear, to truly live out the liberation that is proclaimed by the Gospel we profess, then we will be part of a song whose beauty nobody can deny. It is not a song invented by the mind of one great genius, but the sound of thousands upon thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand singing the same song, each of us using our creativity within the structure of the greater piece of music.

What this looks like practically will be addressed in the near future, but in the meantime, let's play the song together.


[Also, see thoughts from David Fitch on this exact same topic, including plans for a forthcoming post on Kevin Vanhoozer's book on the topic of the Church and cultural engagement]

Aaron Weiss, Bad Hygiene and Vegetable Oil

mewithoutYou is an amazing band, and this makes me love them even more.