I am a big fan of two highly under-rated things: unstructured free time and long, meandering conversations.

This Summer, the summer before I plunge headfirst into the waters of Seminary and full-blown postulancy in the Episcopal Church, I have made an intentional effort to practice both with great regularity. Both of my girls are at camp right now, so my boy, wife and I have been a threesome since Saturday evening. Today, Aidan and I whiled away the morning, working hard at time-wasting activities like Legos Star Wars, the Video Game, Season 5 of The Simpsons and comic books. I hope I will always remember the image of my son, silhouetted by the emerging daylight in his pajama bottoms (not shirt!) with his sleepy grin he always wears as he creeps into the kitchen following his usualy 830 AM or so reveille's.

When I was growing up my home had a constant flow of overnight guests. During them summer, it was unusual not to have a family from out of town Mom and Dad knew from their Army days, choir members on a tour to our Church or some former exchange student friends staying in our house. Maybe it was because we lived on the lake or something or maybe it was our decidedly 70's split-level house with the private downstairs that made us and other people feel comfortable with visiting. One highlight of these visits were the hours-long conversations we would have with our friends that started in the dining room during the fantastic dinners my parents whipped up (chili, seafood chowder, burgers, fish fries, red beans and rice) and wound up in the living room.

I remember the ugly green faux Louis XIV couch placed against the long wall of the living room. Facing them were the other 4 "company chairs) that our guests usually sat upon while we talked about nothing and everything in particular. I recall listening to our friends from Turkey tell us all about this strange religion called Islam and inform us that "Esau" (our Jesus) was a great prophet. I recall Bozorg and Hussein, two Iranian students (I wonder where those dudes are now??) chain smoked Marlboro Reds (back in the day when one smoked indoors) and discussed their Economics degrees. Friends from church, the neighborhood, Atlanta and all over seemed to wind up in that living room after dinner and before we knew it someone would look at their watch and say, "Wow, 11:00, we have to get to bed" (or get going, if they were not staying).

This enormous house we live in was built during a stressful, adversity-ridden period of our lives- so much so that when we moved in, we did not want to live here. The antidote for the bad energy, karma, juju or whatever we felt filled this place upon our arrival, has been filling the house with friends and long, meandering conversation. Last weekend, we had a friend come over at about 3:00 and stay until 11:00. We had conversation the whole time with her about God, business, college, sobriety and what must have been a huge list of topics. I love the fact that our house is silent much of the time due to the fact that no TVs take residence here. Interesting people can come over and we can talk over good music, a couple of bottles of wine and silence. The bad spirits of the years we built this house are being crowded out, one by one, with each word uttered by guests finding comfort underneath our roof.

Make sure you make time to do nothing and to talk about whatever. Aggressively pursue boredom. Sit still long enough to remember that you are alive.

The Gospel of Gryffindor

Never mind the hystrionics of one of my fellow Georgians, I think Harry Potter has plenty of the Gospel (as in Good News) hidden within its mythology of magic and witchcraft. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was my favorite so far because it has a lot of challenging messages within it that are not inconsistent with my brand of Christianity. I liked the scene when Harry is fighting off the mind-control of Voldemort and Dumbledore says to him, "You are more unlike him than you are like him" and Harry winds up screaming to Voldemort, "I feel sorry for you! You'll never have what I have..." (which is love- real, selfless love). Hmmmmm... sound familiar?

John 15:13 "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." What saved Harry in the first book, as well as in this latest film installment, was nothing he did with his will, or his wizard skill. What saved Harry was his relationship with his friends and the self-sacrificial love that he practiced as a part of who he was. (Can we say "Holy Spirit" anyone??) "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" is a great sermon. As Jesus once said , "For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother. (Matthew 12:50)

See, even liberal Christians can use proof texting to serve our ends. At least the end I am trying to reach here is that, in the end, love wins. Argue with that, my fundie friends!!!

I've been making my way through 2 books slowly- The Seeds of Heaven by Barbara Brown Taylor and Subversive Orthodoxy by Robert Inchausti. One theme that seems to be going on in my head lately is the idea "The Kingdom of God is like _____."

I like the passage in Matthew 13 when Jesus seems to be tossing metaphors around left and right to describe the kingdom of God. Sometimes his all over the place description can be frustrating because he never seems to nail it down into one tangible idea. "It is this, it is that it is treasure, it is mustard, it is leaven," he tells his friends.

Wow I have found that to be really powerful because lately I have found the Kingdom of God to be a little bit of this and that as well.

It is a dishwashing line and cooking asparagus for Rockell at Cafe 458.

It is hanging out with my children, reading them books and driving around Atlanta in my Mom-Mobile.

It is being with someone struggling with addiction, giving them over to God and sitting with them after their relapse.

It is all around us in everything we do, Jesus seems to be telling us. God's Kingdom is tiny, yet big.

So many people in our culture seem to think that God's Kingdom will be a big, magnificent, geo-political location. I couldn't disagree more. We are addicted to our own conceptions, molded by culture and personal history and ego needs, that God's Kingdom has to look and feel a certain way in order to be real or valid. God's Kingdom, Jesus seems to be telling us, is right under our silly noses. If we only stop looking far off in the distance for it we will see it , plain as day.

Generosity of Spirit

I just read a great book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer - "Life Together." Boenhoeffer was a part of the Confessing Church of Germany, a church that stood in opposition to the German Church who accepted and embraced National Socialism of Adolph Hitler during the 1930's and 40's. Before and during Hitler's rise to power, Boehnhoeffer was a pastor and a founder of a seminary at Finkenwalde. In the seminary, he began an intentional community ommunity called (and this is a translation) "The Brother's House." Life Together is a guide and rule for community and outlines some of the expectations, needs and requirements for healthy Christian Community.
One of the chapters that has gnawed at my mind is his chapter on Confession. One of the basics of confession that he asserts is that we must name our sins out loud to one another in order to begin healing the rift- the separation from God that the sins have caused. When I first read this, I had my basic Episcopalian aversion to this idea of Sin and confession, in that it seemed kind of severe. I pictured these harsh, uptight Calvinist types speaking German and sternly muttering their grievances and errors to one another.
Boenhoeffer believes, as do I now, that speaking our sins to one another in confession in order to seek forgiveness from God (first) and then one another, is of the utmost importance. Otherwise, as he puts it, we run the danger of just "praying to ourselves." Practically speaking, I have tried practicing this "speaking my sins" with my wife and life-partner first off before anyone else. I will admit right now that I do not do this as much as I can nor have I spoken all of them. In fact, if she ever reads this, my beloved bride will probably scoff and wonder when I EVER did this (but I know I did). I tried the experiment on my common sin of grumpiness (which, I have conjectured, translates into pride, but that is another entry). I said to her, " I was grumpy with you earlier and I should not have been and I am so sorry." Then, I took it to God and asked for forgiveness for being impatient and unkind and uncompassionate. This may sound like hooey, but I really felt forgiveness in a new way when I practiced this "Finkenwalde" form of confession.
Prayer is also about how we live, I have learned. I remember from my "Jesus Freak" days as a youth, I liked a singer named Keith Green who had this great song called "Make my Life a Prayer." It went like this

Make my life a prayer to You,

I want to do what you want me to,

No empty words and no white lies,

No token prayers, no compromise,

Using confession like DB tells us to in Life Together feels like life as prayer. I have noticed a ping-pong like pattern of prayer to life to prayer and it seems like we should move toward the two merging together. Prayer and life often seem isolated from one another. I crack open my Book of Common prayer once to twice a day on average, and many days (especially lately) it seems rote. The kids from our church went to Cayman Islands and did prayer 4 times a day. Most of them had an eye-rolling, "Oh it was something we had to do" attitude about it that I have often felt with my BCP, candle and early morning, solitary prayer service.
The isolation of the morning prayer alone, though, has moved me to unisolate it through things like the "Finkenwalde Confessional" (my term) of Bohnhoeffer. Both acts, in of themselves and alone, lead to empty stabs at piety. I sense a tension between the two, keep doing both of them, and this tension, I think, is God's voice.
It's like something else that occured to me today during the Eucharist I attended at a small church in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I noticed for the first time the words "Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again." We spend so much time trying to rationally defend, describe, convenantize, and make tangible those three assumptions that run to the very heart of Christianity and we always, inevitably, fail in the attempt.
I laughed when it hit me that that is why they call it a mystery. We can't figure it out with our heads, can we? It runs beyond our reductive, science-clad, rationally equipped brains.
I don't know why confession like DB recommends works for me, moves the separating agent of Sin out of my life in a more complete way and allows God to fill the hole shaped like her with her love instead of my notions of what that should be. I love the "mysteries of faith", but I most of all love the fact that we are given the gift of forgiveness from God. We can pray the "token prayers" in order to be led to make our lives, how we spend our time and energy, prayers as well and do what God wants us to do instead of what we will.