Amicus Dei

As 2007 comes to a close, here are The Top 10 Posts on Amicus Dei for 2007 —

1. Why I Preach From The Lectionary — This post recently was picked up by the Religious Herald and quoted by Baptists Today.  More of us Baptists are realizing the wisdom of following the Christian Year, and preaching from the revised common lectionary. 
2. A Baptist Using Prayer Beads — Another odd thing for a Baptist preacher to do, use prayer beads.  But there they are.  Sadly, the beads in the photo broke this year and some went missing.  My other set  is hanging here at my desk now. 
3. The Church as Abbey — This is the first post I did on the-church-as-abbey concept.  Several more followed with lots of comments and interest over the year. 
4. Prayer for the Wandering Heart — This is one of my favorites because I was living the poem’s story. 
5. Doing Justice:  Don Imus Has To Go — Remember the Imus affair?  Off the airwaves in disgrace.  Less than a year later, he’s back.  With the same guests.  But hopefully not the same tired routine.
6. Where Is God?  — Portion of a sermon I preached after the killings at Virginia Tech.  ChristianityToday.com picked it up on their site.
7. Groundbreaking for The Community Center — Two years of work came together as 40-kids donned "hardhats" and kid-size shovels to break ground for our new community center here in Chatham.  We’ll move in April, 2008.  I’ll keep you posted.
8. Why Are We Putting Children in Prison? — I was stunned by this story of the incarceration of young children and their mothers who came to the US seeking asylum.  Thankfully the ACLU won a lawsuit, and now these same children who are still in prison can have teddy bears and crayons.  What happened to give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free? 
9. Mother Teresa and the dark night of the soul — my take on the controversy surrounding the publication of Mother Teresa’s memoirs, and her confession that Christ seemed far from her.
10. Nothing Personal — a true story of friends of ours and their encounter with anti-Semitism now and as history. 

So there they are — the top 10 from 2007.  I hope this year has been good for you.  See you next year!   — Amicus Dei 

6 For to us a child is born,
       to us a son is given,
       and the government will be on his shoulders.
       And he will be called
       Wonderful Counselor, ^[b] Mighty God,
       Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

7 Of the increase of his government and peace
       there will be no end.
       He will reign on David’s throne
       and over his kingdom,
       establishing and upholding it
       with justice and righteousness
       from that time on and forever.
       The zeal of the LORD Almighty
       will accomplish this.

Isaiah 9:6-7 NIV

Slate has a couple of articles that believers in the virgin birth of Christ should find interesting.  Brave Old World is one about parthenogenesis, or the apparently "virgin" conception and birth of a whole slew of animals, fish, and other forms of life.  The other is Can a Virgin Give Birth?  Both are interesting reads fraught with numerous opportunities for Christians to say, "See, I told you this could happen."

However, I’m not interested.  I suppose I should be, but I’m not.  Trying to explain the virgin birth as some sort of scientific possibility that maybe could occur in some freak perfect storm of genetic events is very much like trying to explain love.  You’re never going to come close, not even for one second. 

Why?  Because the point of the story of Mary is not some scientific anomaly, but God.  God intervening somehow, some way, doing something that we don’t have words for.  Or even a concept for. 

No, I’ll not be explaining the virgin birth this year.  But I will be telling the story of God this year.  Of God coming to a young woman.  Of God reassuring her distraught fiance.  Of God bringing hope to a hopeless world.  Of God giving life where life seemed impossible, just as God had done with Abraham and Sarah, and Zechariah and Elizabeth, and a lot of couples more recently than 2,000 years ago. 

Because the story of God gets told using the only words we have to explain the inexplicable.  Sometimes those words are very inadequate to express the monumental grandeur of the work of God.  But we use them because we have nothing else.  No other words, no other means to capture these acts of God that defy our attempts to tame them.   

But in the face of the inexpressible, the words we can say are Mary’s words — "Be it unto me according to your word."   That’s the marvel of the virgin birth in my opinion.  — Amicus Dei 

Watch this video of Daniel Goleman’s TED talk about why we are sometimes compassionate and sometimes not.  This is a great follow-up to my post "I Can’t Care About Everything."  Goleman is the author of Emotional Intelligence, and this is worth your time.  Good stories illustrate his point that we are compassionate when we notice those in need.  — Amicus Dei

I can’t care about everything.  I’m sorry, but I can’t.  I get emails and posts on my feedreader about the latest injustice, outrage, or crisis.  Usually they’re asking me to do something — write a letter, send an email, sign a petition, mail a check.  Some I do, most I don’t.  Because I can’t care about everything. 

I don’t have the energy, or the resources, or the emotional capacity to devote equal attention to all the crises that come along.   And when I do something, I wind up on the national direct mail list of that organization as though this is my only commitment. 

So here’s what I’m doing.  I’m trying to do what I can actually make a difference in.  Most of that is local stuff, I admit.  But local is also where I live.  Local is the people I know, and the needs I see everyday.  Local is my first priority. 

Not that I’m not globally-minded.   We responded to the southeast Asia tsunami of 3-years ago, which has resulted in an on-going relationship with a small orphanage in India.  We gave money to help them help new orphans from the tsunami.  Now they’re building a new building and caring for more kids.  Global is good, and this is one global spot we can make a difference in.

It’s not that I don’t care about all the other things in the world that are offenses to humanity.  I want to.  But I can’t.  I can only care about what I can help change.  So I have to choose.  And in my choosing I close myself off a little to caring.  Which is not a good thing, but it is the only thing I can do.  At least right now.  Maybe someday I will be able to care about everything.  But today I can’t.  And there is a sadness in facing my own incapacity.  — Amicus Dei

It could have been on a picture postcard, this little country church with the old church bell.  Perched on a hill overlooking the little village, across the valley from the old town cemetery, the church looked like a painting by Currier and Ives.  I had been appointed the pastor of this small congregation just a few weeks before Thanksgiving.   A couple of weeks later, one of the ladies announced at the Sunday School assembly, "It’s time to start rehearsing for the Christmas play." 

I thought it was well past time, but they seemed unconcerned.  And so it began like a thousand other small churches in a thousand other small villages.  Shepherds in bathrobes, wisemen with gold-painted gifts, a homemade manger, a babydoll Jesus, and a young couple playing Mary and Joseph. 

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Thanks to Steve Collins at small ritual for this great set of slides on flickr titled urban church set.  I had posted some of Steve’s work earlier here — his design for a meeting space for new expressions of church.  That was on the micro level, urban church set is the macro level. 

Steve sees the whole community as a potential set — venue, stage, space — for the church.  This is a wonderfully reimagined version of the Celtic church-as-abbey as a multi-structure village.  Only in Steve’s version, which I really like, he takes public and private spaces and repurposes them for "church" — which gets loosely, but relevantly defined depending on the experience going on in a space.  You have to see the slide show to get the idea, but this is the first really good undestanding I’ve seen of this concept.  Thanks, Steve! 

Oh, check out Steve’s other stuff, too.  Creative guy.  – Amicus Dei