Happy New Year!

I want to wish everyone all the best for 2008. It's a new year and a good time to start fresh. Every day is new, so every day is a good time for change, but there is something about looking to a new year that makes people introspect and take stock of their life.

Thanks to all for your part in shaping my life! We are not meant to live in a vacuum, and so many of you have been very involved in the details of who I am and will become. I am forever indebted to my friends, family and community.

Here are some things that I'm looking forward to in this year:

1. Value sleep more...try to get at least 7 hours every night if not more...try to go to sleep around 11:00 PM more often.
2. Ride my bike at least 75% of the time, with at least 1 - 2 days per week in the winter months.
3. Take Sunday, or some other day and spend at least part of it in solitude/meditation, the rest just relaxing, reading books, hanging out with people etc. A true sabbath of sorts.
4. Try to play guitar for at least 15 minutes everyday or every other.
5. Go to the Homeless ministry every Saturday if possible.
6. Cook at least twice a week.
7. Get a setup for digital video and start making a movie.
8. Figure out if I REALLY want to go to grad school, and for what (aka: what do I want to do when I grow up?)
9. Call/write people more often, even if it's just for a few minutes. Especially my 93 year-old grandma. Sorry if I've been a punk and haven't been in touch...hope we can catch up soon!
10. Hold more babies.

I think slowing down and rest are the big priorities for this year. Slow down to enjoy the things in front of me, and rest so that when the right opportunities are presenting themselves, I'll be alert and ready to go for it. A little less fear, a little more trust, and a lot more grace. Keeping the number one priority of loving God and loving people ever before me.

I can't wait to start.

Wasteland

by MichiLauke
http://gimppac.deviantart.com/art/Wasteland-71797727

Agnostic Bible follower?

A.J. Jacobs is a guy who's done some pretty crazy stuff, not the least of these being his literal following of the Bible for a year...as a self-professed agnostic.

Check out the blog interview here.

Pretty crazy stuff! I guess this misses the point of faith and just sticks to the rules, missing the heart of why the rules exist...there is no relationship here. Still, it's pretty interesting for sure. Ha ha, I love it how he "stoned" an adulterer by throwing a pebble at him. :)

Any thoughts?

Hot Metal Bike/Pedestrian Bridge Now Open!

This is one of a few great accomplishments for the biking community of late. The new Hot Metal Bike/Pedestrian bridge was officially opened this afternoon with a ribbon-cutting ceremony that had a tremendous turn-out!! It started on the 2nd avenue side of the bridge...I was a bit late and was met by an almost literal wall of people walking, biking and blading, in the latest gear, in business suits and in regular Jo cold weather clothing. It was a bright sunny day, the bridge looked gorgeous and the Pittsburgh skyline looked fantastic in the background.

To the left is a photo of the event, taken by my friend Mike Vindler. You can see the rest of his photos by clicking on the following link: http://picasaweb.google.com/mike.vindler/HotMetalBridgeOpening

The festivities and speeches continued in REI (I'm sure they had some GREAT business that day!).

The completion of this project brings the completion of the Great Allegheny Passage (a trail that will eventually link Pittsburgh to DC) much closer to reality. On a more local level, this bridge will connect the Eliza Furnace Trail to the South Side Trail and bring a safer access point for walkers and bikers alike.

Other recent biking/bridge victories include buffered bike lanes on the redone Birmingham Bridge, and a pedestrian/biking sidewalk on the newly reopened 31st street bridge.

To find out more about biking or the trails in the Pittsburgh area, visit these links:
www.bike-pgh.org
www.friendsoftheriverfront.org
www.atatrail.org

My Art

Just letting people know I've posted a bunch of new stuff on my deviantART page over the past month...you can check it out here: http://gimppac.deviantart.com/

Stay tuned for a gallery collaboration with my friend Hongla next month! It will be in the Three Rivers Art Gallery, the show is called 30 Below.

Abba's Child - the rest of it...

I've been busy with Turkeys and families and other things, so I haven't had the chance to write lately. I have been reading though, and almost done with the book, so I'm going to attempt to sum up the final chapters in one go (this may end up pretty long).

Chapter 5 - The Pharisee and the Child
Basically, this chapter talks about the "inner Pharisee" compared to the "inner child". The Pharisee is the part of us who misconstrues the point of faith by bogging it down with "religiosity" (just as the Pharisees of Jesus' day did). The "inner child" is the part of us who knows s/he is beloved by God and fully forgiven with no strings attached. My resident Pharisee (as Manning calls it) craves perfection that is impossible to achieve and places an enormous burden on my shoulders and the shoulders of others. It not only affects my expectations of myself but also others. Instead of focusing on the end goal of love, I am focusing on the "means to an end" in my striving and blaming, which twists such noble things into quite the opposite of love. The Pharisee becomes the "religious face of the Imposter" because our desire to look good and be upright on the surface makes it hard for us to have intimacy. The "inner child" however, is in touch with his/her emotions, and is more receptive to God's Spirit moving in his/her midst. The power-hungry and controlling Pharisee cannot match the worry-free experience of the inner child...the child is humble, realizes his weakness, and relies on God's strength and rests his whole identity on the fact that he is Beloved.

Chapter 6 - Present Risenness
The risen Christ must be realized as not only a past event, but a present reality. This is the whole power of the gospel and what makes followers of Christ different from any other faith. Jesus is alive right now and present in our lives. Not only can we get caught up with Christ of the past, but we also get caught up with the Christ of the future. We feel this resurrection is only something that happens at the end of time, in the future, removed from our present day situation. Christ is with us NOW, and our cynicism often blocks the signs and little miracles of every day life that show us this is true. For when we realize that Jesus is truly risen and in our midst, we view life differently, especially the mundane and routine. As we grow closer to Christ, we see more of the Father, we feel driven to compassion as He did and we see a little more revelation of the mystery of life. Following Christ is a discipline and a decision that must not be made lightly...it requires awareness. This "awareness of the present risenness of Jesus is intimately linked to the recovery of passion...

Chapter 7 - The Recovery of Passion
This chapter talks about how we recover passion by listening to "Christ's heartbeat". We do not merely know about Jesus, but know Jesus' essence: "the human face of the God who is love." It is like discovering a great treasure and selling all you have to possess it. We are so often distracted from true passion in Christ by the "little trinkets" of the world.

The recovery of passion begins with the recovery of my true self as the beloved. If I find Christ I will find myself and if I find my true self I will find Him. This is the goal and purpose of our lives. John did not believe that Jesus was the most important thing; he believed that Jesus was the only thing. For "the disciple Jesus loved," anything less was not genuine faith.

Manning goes as far to say that the essential quality in church leaders should be in their passion and love for Christ, not "biblical scholars, administrative geniuses or spellbinding preachers." God doesn't work through those who have it together, but through those humbled who love as Christ loves.

Chapter 8 - Fortitude and Fantasy
This chapter deals with the truth of life and death. Either we have the fortitude to face life (and death) or we deny death (and life). Feeling secure in my own accomplishments actually creates more anxiety in the end for fear of losing all in death. True security lies in realizing that in Christ we have "enough" each day. Brennan Manning speaks more about passion in this chapter:

Passion is not high emotion but a steely determination, fired by love, to stay centered in the awareness of Christ's present risenness, a drivenness to pay the price of fidelity. To own my unique self in a world filled with voices contrary to the gospel requires enormous fortitude...The truth of faith has little value when it is not also the life of the heart.

Manning notes that many of these voices of human approval are the stumbling block in our way of an authentic faith in Christ. We are afraid to be the Beloved in fear of losing our relationships with others. I've seen it revealed in this book that while we are meant for community with others, it is our primary relationship with God that directs our relationship with others. The value we place on each other cannot compare to the value our Abba places on us. Faith in the present risenness of Christ (who is God and who is love) is more powerful than death...this is true Hope.

Chapter 9 - The Rabbi's Heartbeat
Manning says that there are a few responses to the radical love of God: Over analyzing, Acceptance and Hope, Cynical, Emotional yet uncommitted. When we allow it, "the love of Christ (not our love for Him but His love for us) impels us. The integration of mind and heart shapes a unified personality living in the state of passionate awareness." Manning speaks of the "unaffected heart", which is one who doesn't get beyond the surface of life. Commitment and confession of sin are the way to dig deeper according to Manning. We commit to something beyond ourselves and we realize we desperately need our Father. With confession of sin comes humility, something that even Mother Theresa felt driven to do.

In Christ is reconciliation for ourselves and the world. He did this through becoming broken, by fully experiencing our own humanity and still being God. In His life and death he turned everything upside down: making foolish things wise, turning "sin into honor", curses into blessings, and death into life. This doesn't mean he makes all bad things good, but that being hurt, being forsaken, being cursed, we are somehow blessed. He went through the same. The most intimate we can be with someone is to show them all of our brokenness, shallowness, and anxieties. We can only fully do this with someone we know we can fully trust will forgive these things and accept us as we are. Christ not only forgives and accepts, but also has the power to transform us. When we listen to the Rabbi's heartbeat, we grow closer to God (Father, Son, and Spirit), we see others rather than ourselves, we learn Christ's passion, and we regain mystery and awe for the world around us, and the God who created it (and Loves it all).

That's about it, in a very large nutshell. I wish I could expand more, but I really feel I'd be missing the point. Instead of thinking about it and over analyzing, I think I will try to learn how to listen to Christ's heartbeat myself! Oh how hard it is to let go and Trust like a child. Abba, show me how to meditate on your Love...

Abba's Child (with the chapter of the same title)

This chapter at first seemed to be a bit jumpy, but after reading through a couple times (ya, I actually have time to really read this), I think there is a cohesiveness. The main thought I pulled out was that God is Compassion, and we learn this compassion from his human form in Jesus, who is "Abba's Child". Once we realize God's compassion for us, we can then begin to be compassionate to ourselves and to those around us, even our enemies.

The idea that we can call God "Abba", which is the Aramaic form of "Daddy", is pretty crazy, but that's what Jesus did. Learning how to find this intimacy with God as Christ did confirms our identity as His children:

The greatest gift I have ever received from Jesus Christ has been the Abba experience. "No one knows the Son except the Father, just as no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" (Matthew 11:27). My dignity as Abba's child is my most coherent sense of self. When I seek to fashion a self-image from the adulation of others and the inner voice whispers, "You've arrived; you're a player in the Kingdom enterprise," there is no truth in that self-concept. When I sink in to despondency and the inner voice whispers, "You are no good, a fraud , a hypocrite, and a dilettante," there is no truth in any imaged shaped from that message. As Gerald May has noted, "It is important to recognize these self-commentaries for the mind tricks they are. They have nothing to do with our real dignity. How we view ourselves at any given moment may have very little to do with who we really are."

How funny, I find myself going between both of these extremes in one sitting!

Intimacy with God and others involves tenderness or compassion. I love Manning's description of the power of compassion in the following paragraph (all quote and not much analyzing...I just love the quotable-ness of this section):

Tenderness awakens within the security of knowing we are thoroughly and sincerely liked by someone. The mere presence of that special someone in a crowded room brings an inward sigh of relief and a strong sense of feeling safe. The experience of a warm, caring, affective presence banishes our fears. The defense mechanisms of the impostor -- sarcasm, name-dropping, self-righteousness, the need to impress others -- fall away. We become more open, real, vulnerable, and affectionate. We grow tender.

Jesus did what he did (hang out with the sinners and the outcast) because his Father loved him. We do the same...we can only truly love when we realize our Belovedness. This growing compassion is what allows us to love others especially when it is difficult to do so. It allows us to forgive indiscriminately. However, showing compassion to our enemy is hard! Manning says that this takes time, and we need to be patient:

Experientially, the inner healing of the heart is seldom a sudden catharsis or an instant liberation from bitterness, anger, resentment, and hatred. More often it is a gentle growing into oneness with the Crucified who has achieved our peace through His blood on the cross. This may take considerable time because the memories are still so vivid and the hurt is so deep. But it will happen. The crucified Christ is not merely a heroic example to the church: He is the power and wisdom of God, a living force in His present risenness, transforming our lives and enabling us to extend the hand of reconciliation to our enemies.

This is pretty amazing and breaks down many barriers. Manning says that "The heartfelt compassion that hastens forgiveness matures when we discover where our enemy cries." He also says that, "Wherever the gospel is invoked to diminish the dignity of any of God's children, then it is time to get rid of the so-called gospel in order that we may experience the Gospel." We are not only called to forgive, but also to look at our own deep-seated prejudices. A prejudice often comes from either fear (which comes from a lack of understanding of the "other") or from an inflated sense of self-importance and comparison.

...Whenever I allow myself anything but tenderness and compassion to dictate my response to life -- be it self-righteous anger, moralizing, defensiveness, the pressing need to change others, carping criticism, frustration at others' blindness, a sense of spiritual superiority, a gnawing hunger of vindication -- I am alienated from my true self. My identity as Abba's child becomes ambiguous, tentative, and confused.

To deny that we have these prejudices, whatever they might be, is self-defeating in getting rid of such thoughts. Manning quotes Sister Barbara Fiand as saying, "Wholeness is brokenness owned and thereby healed." We need to give up acting like we have it together and let God fix us in his time!

I see a correlation between forgiveness, compassion and "knowing". When we spend time with God, we get to know him and his Complete love for us. When we spend time with others (especially those not like us, or the object of our hatred), we find that we see our brokenness in them, acknowledge their Belovedness as equal to ours. We don't have to like them, but we can love them. Also, knowing others helps us to put away the fear that causes prejudice, fear that comes from the "unknown". We need to fully realize that all of us are Beloved without exception...he made us after all. This is what we need to understand in order to do God's work on earth.

What makes the Kingdom come is heartfelt compassion: a way of tenderness that knows no frontiers, no labels, no compartmentalizing, and no sectarian divisions. Jesus, the human Face of God, invites us to deep reflection on the nature of true discipleship and the radical lifestyle of Abba's child.

I hope I can see the prejudice, hate and fear, as well as the self-importance and down-playing of myself that I have allowed to pervade my heart. Especially hatred toward myself. God will mend in his time. Let me be patient and wait on Him.