A Different Kind of Mercy

It may be true that none of us can really imagine what our future is going to look like when it becomes our present.  Certainly, there are some things which come into focus as we make the significant choices of our life that shape it in terms of family, career, and faith, but even then, there are many unexpected things along the way.  Some of those surprises bring smiles to our face and some of them keep us up at night.  A writer often read commented in one of his books that there is mercy in not being able to know the future.  The longer I walk into the future, the more I agree.

 

As I think back over these ten years of retirement and the life which has unfolded here at the farm, there are things which come as the expected, but so many more have unfolded before me in ways I could not have anticipated.  One of the most fundamental things about my life is my faith journey and as I have moved through these years, it has changed in ways that make the journey significantly different.  There was a time when it seemed that matters of faith were nailed down, but during these days a lot of nailed down things have been pried loose. 

 

My life is no longer church centered, but creation centered.  Moments of holy revealing come not in the sacred space of sanctuaries, but everywhere and in everything.  While I have recited the poem about "every common bush afire with God" since high school, only now has it become such a reality that it seems that any moment might be the one for doing the Moses thing of taking off the shoes.  Life is no longer about moving in and out of the holy, but constantly living midst the holy.  Living immersed and surrounded by holy mystery is never taken for granted, but always experienced with the greatest of sense of gratitude. 

The New Kid

One of the things which happened without much fanfare when I retired was the creation of a new community.  When I was the pastor of churches, there was always a community around me.  As I moved into a new appointment, everyone was new but I knew that eventually those around me would become my people and I would become a part of their community.  The church provides many blessings for its spiritual leaders, but a ready made community is indeed one of the special ones. 

 

In retirement it was different.  Here on the farm and in the small one caution light town which stands on the edge of it, there was no ready made community eager to receive me.  Whenever I introduced myself, it was always as one who married a hometown girl and whose in-laws lived down the road.  Small towns have a way of claiming their own as the ones who were born and raised within its influence and so I was an outsider as I suppose I will always be. 

 

But, God did have a way of bringing people into my life who were certainly different from those who filled the community of churches I served.  Our connection had nothing to do with my being a preacher, although to some I am known as such, but as one who came and started to experience some of the things common to most folks around here.  Being the greenhorn farmer, my first friends were the helpers who got me started on the journey lived day by day on the farm.  It is a more diverse community than the one I found in the church.  There is more grime and sweat in it, more color in it, and more awareness that life is finally dependent on the creation and, therefore, the Creator.  I am grateful for each one of them for the way they have become people who know me and accept me as the new kid on the farm.

The Internal Change

During this season of reflecting on ten years of retirement which involved exchanging life centered around the sanctuary for life immersed in the creation, it has been easy to list the external changes.  At first glance it might seem that the significant changes have all been external, but such is simply not the truth.  The greatest and most significant change is the one not observed by the human eye, the one mostly invisible, and the one which is so life changing it would register off the scale of any seismic scale. 

The most significant change is one that is internal.  Hindsight enables me to see what were once present moments now a part of the past.  Even before I was aware of what was happening, there was an inner response to the reality that the God who had always revealed Himself through the church and its work was now going to reveal Himself in significant ways through the creation which surrounded me.  A recent reading about Celtic spirituality spoke of saints from that tradition who believed that there were two books through which God spoke.  One was the Holy Word and the other was the creation.

This Celtic theological viewpoint came only a few years ago in this retirement season, but it seemed to affirm what was growing inside of me without a name.  As I look back over the years since I stood behind the pulpit every Sunday, I am aware of how there has been this growing awareness of God making Himself known through the most ordinary things of creation which are actually not ordinary at all, but powerfully profound.  As the awareness that God reveals Himself in everything continues to grow, there is also growing a deeper understanding that we are always in the presence of God and never so far away that we cannot hear or see signs of holy presence. 

A Special Day

Three score and ten plus two is the number for the day.  It has taken me that long to get where I am today.  The way has been filled with enough towns in south Georgia to make a geographic crossword puzzle, more people than I can count who have invested their energies and prayers in me, and a family that has been a blessing every step of the way.  And, if the way I have walked these many years has any walking surface at all, it has surely been the mercy of God.  Why I am still on the journey when so many who started out with me are gone I have no answer. 

 

And, so I walk this way that God has set before me.  The past is filled with some successes, more failures, and an encyclopedia of lessons learned through experience.  One of the things I know on this marking day of the years is that I have more years to remember than I have years to work on dreams.  Even as I never knew what the future held, it is also true in this day that I do not know what the future holds.  I am thankful for the presence of God the Father, Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit in this present day.  Our tradition tells us that God reveals Himself in these three ways, but the longer I walk the more I realize they are only the tip of the ice berg. 

 

Nine months before my birth, my life started.  My mother who through death recently slipped into a greater sense of God's presence cared for me, loved me, knew me, and prayed for me before I took my first breath of this earth's air.  She and all those who have shared this life with me are but a part of the provision of God for my living.  As I reflect back on the years of blessings, I pray that somewhere along the way this life so undergirded with the love of others and the grace of God has been a small blessing and encouragement to some other soul who is on the road toward home with me.  More years than I deserve do I embrace on this day and I do so with the greatest sense of thanksgiving. 

A Throw Away Culture

While it was not really expected, a small herd of cows have come to share life on the farm in these retirement days.   The plan was for one or two so there would be one to put in the freezer.  Knowing where the beef came from seemed like a good idea back in the beginning even as it does now.  However, seeing those cows grazing in the pasture every day and knowing one will be on the table throws a kink in a throw away lifestyle.

Knowing the cow makes a difference.  The difference is not in just feeling better about the quality of the meat, but also, in the way its value is increased.   Before the cows became a part of my life, I thought very little about the leftovers being raked in the trash.  Now when a bite or two of beef is left, it seems that throwing it away shows disrespect for the creature whose life now nurtures and sustains mine.  The problem is that we live too far away from the source of our food chain.  What I have realized in these ten years on the farm is the disconnect between most of us and what is involved in getting food on our tables.

We are a throw away culture.  It has become a part of our life.  When we eat we seldom think about the life often taken to sustain our own life, the hard back breaking work of farm laborers to get our food out of the field, and the endless number of people between them and its arrival in our homes.  A throw away culture is not a grateful culture.  When God put us in the places where we are, He did not intend for us to live without a mindfulness of how our lives are interconnected with other lives.  He put us here to live so mindful of our blessings that we live with an abiding sense of gratitude for everything and everyone which gives life to us. 

HST and SST

Coming to the farm ten years ago was like walking into another time zone.   All of my life I had been on Hurried Standard Time and suddenly I was living according to Slow Standard Time.  Living midst the creation had an affect so profound it became life changing.   One of the lessons taught by creation and learned quickly was the awareness that nothing about the created order is in a hurry.  We are the ones who hurry.  We even try to hurry the creation by wishing for the end of the day, or the weekend, or another birthday.  It does not hurry.  It goes on as it has since the days of the Garden of Eden.

It was a desire for home grown grass fed beef which put the first cow out in the pasture.  But, getting that beef on the table was not like going to the meat market of the grocery store.  It takes nine months for a calf to be born after conception.  The calf will spend the next two years of his life in the pasture grazing and growing and only after that much time is there meat for the table.  When I was planning that beef for the table, I somehow missed the part about it taking nearly three years to happen. 

Life is like that when we seek to live in step with the created order of the Creator.  Everything that comes comes in it own time, its own season.  To live inside the blessings of the creation is to spend a lot of time working and a lot of time waiting.  There are not shortcuts. There are no get rich quick schemes and no fast food.  When we begin listening to the Words of the Creator through His creation we hear a Word that tells us to slow down and live.  We hear a Word that begins to put our life in step with the order which was put in place long ago when the Creator worked and said "It was good."

Bovine Lessons

When I stepped out of the pulpit for the last time ten years ago,  I did not know that the dying echoes of organ music would soon be replaced by the evening sound of Canadian Geese honking overhead.  So many things have turned up as unplanned surprises.  One of the things planned was to have a couple of cows so home grown grass fed beef could be food on the table.  And while that goal has been realized I could not have imagined back then that there would be eleven cows grazing in the pasture across the way. 

 

The journey to having a small herd of cows was not exactly a straight line.  It was more like they came here than me going out to get them.  Two cows with two calves got things started.  Through the A-I work of a nearby bovine guru there was one calf after another.  Sharing the land with them has been a joy and an education.  The first thing I learned from them came when I watched them chewing their cud, or ruminating.  The work of a cow is grazing on green grass and eating hay when the green season is gone.  My work is to see that they have green grass and hay.  After eating their fill which goes in one of their four stomachs, they sit down, regurgitate, and chew and chew before swallowing again.

The writers of spiritual stuff would call the process meditating.  I have come to prefer ruminate.  Ruminating speaks of taking in some Word, or some experience with the Holy, and chewing on it awhile.  It speaks of resting with that Word, digesting it, and letting it become a source of energy and life. These cows have taught me the value of not being in a hurry.  Whatever it is that is out there for us will come if we can just learn to wait and chew on whatever it is that God has given us to chew. 

The Lost Pocket Knife

When retirement said it was time to leave the pulpit, I was blessed by coming to the farm.  Coming to the farm required a new and different set of tools.  Pulpit work required a Bible, a computer, commentaries, books, a desk, a calendar, and an assortment of such things.  And while I still have those things, they are, except for the Bible, mostly retired, too.  The new and different set of tools are things like a tractor, chainsaw, post hole diggers, other hand tools, and a pocket knife. 

 

As one who had never carried a pocket knife, I have been surprised at how much it is used.  Few days pass by that it is not pulled out of my pocket and used for one task or another.  I have used it so much over the past ten years, I have gotten attached to it.  I realized this the other day when it came up missing.  I spent a good bit of times retracing my steps hoping to find it, but it remained hidden from sight.  I finally resigned myself to it becoming one of those things someone in the future would find in the dirt and wonder to whom it belonged in the past. 

One of the church secretaries from the past always prayed over lost things.  Others say that we should let lost things come to us.  I don't know about those things.  I just got another pocket knife that had been kept on the shelf.  It is strange that we do get attached to stuff.  We often think we cannot get along without our stuff.  When the day of retirement came, I left a lot of stuff behind which I thought was necessary to live.  Surprisingly enough, I am still alive.  Stuff is nice, but building our lives around it is foolish.  Sometime after I said this to myself, my lost pocket knife showed up on top of the mantle over the wood stuff.  Go figure.

Afraid to Move

Our chickens were moved into their new house a few days ago.  The old one was past falling apart.  Since I am not a carpenter or a carpenter's son it took me longer than most to get the new hen house built, but just before Methodist preachers around here are moved, the chickens also made their move. Moving the two old hens were no problem.  They were probably glad to be moving from the old worn out house to the new one.  There were also five young hens and one rooster who had been living in a separate area.  For them moving was likely more traumatic, but the house was ready and they joined the old hens.

 

Before putting the young birds in the new house, I clipped one wing on each bird to prevent any attempts a flying.  One by one they were placed in the new house just before dark so when morning came they would come out of their new house for the first time.  Hopefully, this would mean they would return home the next time the sun disappeared.  What I did not count on was their fear of leaving their new house the next morning.  Three of them sat in it most of the morning before finally joining the others outside where there was feed in dish and fresh grass to scratch.

It seemed that those young chickens were a lot like some of us.  Facing a new situation, they were chicken.  How many times have we been immobilized by our fear of something new.  Everything might be screaming that the change is going to be better, but we still sit inside the comfort of where we are afraid to move.  Fear took away the better part of a day for those young birds.  I fear it has taken away more of my life than just one a part of one morning.  Too many times I failed to listen to Jesus Who kept whispering in my ear, "Do not be afraid." 

Under the Sycamore Tree

When I turned in the preacher's robe for the farmer's blue jeans, many things started changing.  One of the things which changed was my view of myself inside the creation.  Things around here are old, very old.  The dirt speaks of forever.  The towering trees speak of something just short of eternity.  The memoires hanging in the air speak of people who walked this land, worked it, made a living from it, and who left some of their blood, sweat, and tears mixed with it.  After a time of walking and working in this place, I started feeling like the newcomer. 

I have been blessed with years that count up to be just a shade more than three score and ten.  And while it might seem like a long, long time to my young grandchildren, it is a mere spit in the wind compared to some of the things which are all around me.  Two sycamore trees down on the edge of the branch remind me every day that they have seen many a story fleshed out in this place.  Once in awhile an old piece of fence or a tool lost years ago will re-surface from the dirt to remind me I am not the first here, nor will I be the last.  I am but one of many who have lived here.

 

Being midst the creation every day has not only brought me to a new appreciation for each day, but it has also given me a new perspective in which to live.  I have always known my days are numbered.  The Word by which I have sought to guide me through the decades tells me this truth, but here midst so many things which seem permanent compared to those of us who have walked for a few days in this place, life is lived differently.  Without any sense of being morbid, each day is like living in the middle of Ash Wednesday.  Everything around me seems to live forever, but everything dies to return to the dust.  So will I.  Ah, but to be here under the sycamore tree is a wonderful thing!

Sitting In Silence

Sitting in silence lets things come to you.  Back in the days before retirement sitting in silence was not my strong point.  And lest I offer a deceiving word, it is still a discipline that requires intentional purposing and continued practice.  In those moments when it comes, it is like a piece of quietness that settle and surrounds the soul and all the senses given to us to experience the world and its glory.  I am not one who has arrived, but one is learning the value of sitting in silence and finding blessings coming into my life when it does happen.

A moment last winter comes to mind as I think of how things come to us when we sit in silence.  The cold gray days of biting wind change the landscape here on the farm.  The knee deep green grass waiting for the baler to turn it into large rolls of hay is nowhere to be seen in winter's landscape.  Instead, the ground is brown as if burned and little resembling life is left.  In those moments the pecan trees are like skeletons suspended in the gray skies.  Harvest is past and with it every sign of life.  Some say winter is synonymous with death and dying.  But, I remember one day as I was sitting in silence a new thought came to me.  What I was seeing was not about death, but resting.  Everything was resting, waiting, pausing before renewal and continued life.

 

In the moment of sitting in silence what came to me was a reminder of the need for resting in my own life.  It is not necessary to always be in a hurry to get things done.  It is ok that life is not being lived as it was before retirement came to visit my spirit.  In fact, it is not only ok, it is better.  What came to me was the realization that there is built into the creation a season for resting.  If I am to live in step with the creation which is ever and always around me, seasons of rest will wash over me that I might be made ready for the journey toward the life inherent within God's purpose for my conception, my birth, my life, my death, and my resurrection. 

Time Goes By

A year or so before I retired, my watch quit working.  Instead of replacing it, I decided I did not need one.  Most preachers want a watch while preaching.  With some degree of drama some will take it off each Sunday as they stand up in the pulpit and lay it down.  Perhaps, it is a way of saying time is not important here, or maybe its movement can be watched without being so obvious.  Anyway, I decided I always preached until I finished so having one did not matter then, or any time. 

 

When I got out of the pulpit and started riding the tractor here on the farm, I came to realize a watch was not really necessary.  Paying attention to the movement of the day was time piece enough.  After some time had been spent walking through the days in the midst of the creation, it became somewhat easy to know what the watch was saying to those who were wearing one.  A rising sun means it is time to spend the best of your energy at whatever it is that is out there to do.  As the sun seems to hang overhead as if afraid to move, it is time for renewing and resting.  And, as the shadows finally start getting longer it is time to think about finishing and doing what needs to be done before the darkness takes over.

 

Time is experienced differently in these days.  It moves along without the push of watches, schedules, appointments, and the urging of others.  The seasons have become more purposeful.  Learning to listen to the moods of the passing seasons, and the changing of the days provides direction for life, and keeps those who walk mindful of the creation in sync with what it is saying about how life should be lived in the present moment.   

Awake to the Present

When this particular season of my life began some ten years ago, it seemed like I was entering into what would be the last season of my life.  After all, after retirement, what is left?  I remember saying in jest, but with some degree of candor, that the next move would be to the cemetery.  Getting settled into a new routine in a radically different place began to move me away from thinking that I had indeed moved into the final season of my life. 

 

While I know that I am closer to my death than I have ever been, I also know that there is a sense in which I am more awake to the present than any other time of my life.  More than in days past do I understand what Brother Lawrence spoke of as he wrote about practicing the presence of God.  What he surely grasped more completely than do I is something which is beginning to dawn within me during these days of being immersed in the creation.  Wherever I find myself being, there is always reason to take an extra glance or listen another minute.  What, or Who is out there just might be one the edge of coming into what seems to be empty of anything extraordinary. 

More than being a season with a note of finality, these days have turned into a season of becoming aware of the presence of the Holy One in everything.  Everything includes things as spectacular as a glorious sunset as well as things as ordinary as dirt.  There is no where we look where some manifestation of God cannot be seen.  He is constantly in the process of revealing Himself and speaking to us.  All we need are eyes and ears that are willing to seek what cannot be seen or heard.  All we need is to move into the future with our spirit open to the roving Spirit who created us and everything around us.  The present holds all kinds of possibilities for us as we stay awake to the present. 

New Symbols of the Holy

When the church had disappeared in the rear view mirror and the farm grew larger out the front windshield, I found myself thinking often of the Old Testament prophet, Ezekiel.  He was moved by God from a priestly ministry in the Temple of Jerusalem to a prophetic ministry by the River Chebar. (Ezekiel 1:1)  His training prepared him for service midst the holy things of the Temple, but when he found himself at the River Chebar all the signs of the holy were gone.  Everything was different.

 

The farm where I retired is not located by the Rive Chebar, or any river, but by what is called the runoff branch.  The runoff branch is like a creek that has no spring as a source, but depends on runoff water caused by rain clouds.  Some seasons make it dry and others make it like a gurgling mountain stream.  As I settled into life by the runoff branch, I discovered what Ezekiel surely discovered.  All the familiar symbols and signs of the holy were gone.  And along with their absence I wondered how God would be experienced in a world empty of all the familiar signs of His presence. 

Of course, this wondering was not something I brought with me into the place of retirement.  It took some time to realize what was missing and even longer to realize that while my world was empty of things like a cross, candles, and a communion table, it was not empty of symbols which pointed me to the Holy One.  What I finally started coming to was an awareness that the God who created all things, the God whose hand has touched all of creation provided an abundance of new symbols such as a hooting owl, a broken limb, or the sound of rain racing across the hayfields.  All that was needed was a new set of eyes and new set of ears to receive what had once been hidden and invisible.

Living Midst the Holy

Ten years have passed since the every Sunday pulpit was exchanged for retirement on the farm.  Much has changed in these years beside the obvious external changes, the slowed down lifestyle, and the loss of any interest in jumping fences.  As I look back I remember thinking of the church as an outpost of the sacred in the midst of a sacred world.  It was set apart ground.  It was set apart for holy purposes.  The sacred and the secular seemed separate and to step out of the sanctuary was to step into the secular, or the profane as one remembered author from seminary referred to it.

When I started getting more of the earth's dirt on my hands and clothing, things began to change.  While I am not exactly sure at what point it happened, there grew in me an awareness that all of the creation was holy ground.  It was not just the ground religious people chose to build what they defined and set apart as holy places.  Those places were surely holy and they surely pointed the passerby to the realm of the holy, but they stood on an earth that was holy from one end to the other. What I began to discover was the reality that everything around me was touched by the hands of the Creator God, and therefore, made holy by His touch instead of the prayers of those who wore the clothing of the religious. 

And, while this may not seem like such a big change, it changed everything.  Everywhere around me became a means by which God could reveal Himself and "every common bush" did seem afire with His presence.  In those ordinary moments of being immersed in the creation His Word could be heard as surely as it is heard when reading the Holy Book.  Living midst the creation every day is how life is offered here in these day and there is no part of it which the Creator cannot use to reveal Himself, or to speak a word to one learning new ways to hear.  It is all holy.

Paying Attention

To be young, as I remember it, is to be invincible.  Life seems full of so many years that they will never end.  To be young is to believe there will always be another year, another day, maybe, even another hour.  What is not finished today can be finished tomorrow.   My journey from the pulpit to the farm ten years ago brought me to a place filled with a startling revelation.  What the Word says about our days is true.  They are numbered.  They do have an end.  And, instead of thinking invincible, fragile seems the more appropriate word. 

In those days of beginning here at the farm a word came to me as clearly as if I had read it in and book and it came with such authority that it had the smoke and fire authority of a divine word. "Pay attention," was the word.  With the awareness that there was more behind than ahead came this word calling for nothing to pass by unnoticed.  If something passed by unnoticed, it might not come again as the sunrises were short and the days not so long. 

It was not just about one thing that this word from deep within came, but instead, it was a call to pay attention to everything.  Pay attention to every sunset.  Pay attention to every moment within every relationship.  Pay attention to the smells that come across the land.  Pay attention to every living creature who shares the space of the earth.  Pay attention to the dirt, to the broken and rotting limbs.  Pay attention to the creation for within it comes revelations filled with evidences of the Holy One.  Pay attention to the life that is unfolding.  Pay attention to every day, every hour, and every moment.  Pay attention to every single gift given by the Creator for each one is precious as it comes to grace the fragile life once so taken for granted. 

The Cathedral of Creation

This month marks ten years away from the pulpit and here at the farm.  When I was a mere boy being asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, my first answer was "a farmer."  Of course, there were other choices after that first one and obviously one that stuck for a life time, but here I am now at where I said I wanted it to be back in the beginning.  While I hesitate to speak of myself as a farmer when there are so many "real farmers" around me, I do put my time and energy into a rural lifestyle. 

 

As I was getting used to a life that no longer was centered around a church building, I began to sense that the God who always seemed to be revealing Himself in some way through the church and its ministries was still around and still revealing Himself as surely as had always been the case.  It was the medium of revelation that changed.  Instead of experiencing Him present in the church, the creation around me became the primary means of experiencing revelation of the holy.  The signs and wonders of the Book of Acts seemed to be every bit as real and powerful in the unfolding creation.

One thing which has surely changed in these ten years is the awareness that I have become a creation watcher.  Never have I been so aware of the things which have always been around; yet, unseen.  Perhaps, I was too busy with other things.  Or, maybe, I did not have eyes to see what appeared invisible, but was actually in plain sight.  One of the first things which came in those beginning years that started ten years ago was the understanding that I no longer lived close to a church building, but inside a cathedral defined by horizons instead of walls.  And, inside that cathedral of creation, God could be counted on to reveal Himself.

One Step at a Time

No question about the faith of Abraham.  When the writer of Hebrews put together his roll call of the faithful saints, Abraham received much more than just notable mention.  "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out not knowing where he was going..."  (Hebrews 11:8)  And, of course, as we read his story as it stretches through a major section of Genesis, we see reason after reason why his faith is held up in an exemplary manner.

When we read that story of Abraham, what we do not see is a picture of a man who always got it right the first time.  He made more than his share of mistakes.  When he made the decision to have a child by a slave woman, we see him choosing to take matters in his own hands.  It is as if he needed to create a Plan B since God was not delivering on Plan A.  There were other times he maneuvered things around as a way of protecting himself instead of trusting in God to provide the protection implied in the promise which was to take him to a new land.  Despite those moments when he seems to waver, he kept coming back to this trust in God in such a way as to merit his place in that great roll call of the faithful saints.

 

God does not require perfection in performance from us.  What He asks is a radical dependence on Him to do what He has said He would do.  Some times we seem to get it and some times we obviously miss the mark.  Like Abraham we are to keep pushing forward into that life of learning what it means to depend on God to be God.  It is never as easy as some might pretend it to be, but as we continue to move forward aware of how the Spirit is working in our lives, we are able to see the way forward which is really just the next step.  When we are called to this journey of faith, the call is about taking the next step with faith.  Some live by the one day at a time motto.  We live by the one step at a time. 

The Church's Struggle

One of the things with which the church struggles is giving God room to work.  While this sounds rather strange and while it may sound like something which a disenchanted, or burned out old preacher might say, it is something that carries with it more than just a little truth.  The church is constantly being bombarded by external forces which seek to steer it in one direction or another.  The steering force may be an organization which needs the food of funding, or the secular culture which seeks to define how the church should do its business.

One of the things missing within the psyche of the church is an awareness that it is primarily a spiritual community.  A spiritual community is steered and directed by the current and the wind of the Holy Spirit.  Such an existence requires the kind of faith modeled by Abraham when he got up from the comfort of Heran at age seventy-five and started a journey forward with God even though there was no clear destination in view.  The church and its leadership will always be uncomfortable with that kind of spiritual ambiguity. 

It needs a clear sense of where it is going, who is going to pay for the journey, and what will happen once arrival has been achieved.  Trusting in the Holy Spirit to simply lead without some person or group in control is  impossible.  Too many control freaks fill the pulpit, the pews, and the committees to allow such a thing to happen.  Ever so often the Spirit breaks in anyway bringing a kind of spiritual chaos that disrupts the status quo in such a way that the church takes an unexpected turn toward the vision God has had for it since it was first conceived with the blood of His Son.  And, when it happens some run for cover and some fall on their knees. 

A Spiritual Model

When the Celtic monk was led to a pilgrimage, it was a pilgrimage without a destination.  Instead of leaving home with some holy place in view, they left going for the love of God to know not where.  With no destination as a goal, they put themselves in a small round rudderless boat and pushed off from the shore leaving the oar behind them.   They trusted God to use the wind and the current to take them to the place where He wanted them to be which they came to call the place of their resurrection. 

 

Their spiritual model for this type of pilgrimage was Abraham who was called to journey in response to the call of God without knowing where he was going.  "Go from your country...to the land that I will show you."  (Genesis 12:1)  Even though Abraham did not know where he was going, he was willing to go.  In the New Testament letter which bears the name "The Letter to the Hebrews" the Word says, "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going."  (Hebrews 11:8)

 

When I reflect back on the genesis days of my setting forth on the journey with God, there was a sense of being willing to go wherever, but the truth is, I had mostly claimed out the definition of wherever as the itinerant ministry within the Methodist Church.  And while I have confidence that a part of my calling was specific to that purpose, had it not been, it would have taken major intervention of the part of angels to get me to see a different way forward.  Too often our willingness to go is more about our own agendas than it is a kind of abandonment that welcomes the wherever calling of God.  It is no wonder the Celtic saints chose Abraham as their model.  Abraham had it right at the beginning. 

Faith for the Journey

With the call of Abram in Genesis 12 the story that began back in Eden now takes a different direction.   Prior to this moment the relationship with God has been based on obedience and doing the right thing.  While Abram is still called to live in an obedient relationship with God, faith is now an operative part of the equation.  This is made clear in the very beginning of the Abraham narrative.  "Now the Lord said to Abram, 'Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.' "  (Genesis 12:1) 

 

It is no small thing which God puts before Abram.  Everything familiar, everything which speaks of  security, and everything defining thing about his life is what he is being challenged to put behind him.  At age 75 what God is calling him to do is an extraordinary thing.  What is surprising is that there is no Moses like battle, or no rich young ruler hesitation.  Instead when God finishes with what He had to say, the Scripture says, "So Abram went, as the Lord told him..."  (Genesis 12:4)

 

As Celtic spirituality developed long centuries ago, Abraham became a model for those who felt the call of God to submit themselves to the discipline of pilgrimage.  Unlike those who traveled to some shrine or designated holy place, the Celtic pilgrim would cast out into the water in a round basket like boat called a coracle.  As the pilgrim cast off the shore, there was no oar for steering the boat.  Instead the pilgrim set out to go wherever God led him.  As we catch the image of these ancient saints casting off to go wherever God would take them, we can see why Abraham was such a powerful spiritual model for them.  And, we can also see how hard it is for us to turn loose all the controlling mechanisms in our journey with God.

Leaving Eden

While the Garden of Eden is set geographically in the fertile region of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, there does not seem to any major tourist attraction there to attract religious pilgrims.  When the Lord God drove Adam and Eve from that land, it seems to have disappeared except in the memory of those who told the stories of faith.  Actually, as we carefully read those early chapters of the narrative, it seems that the descendants of the Garden of Eden couple lingered in the region a long time. 

 

It is only with the story of Abram (later to be called Abraham) that the movement away from that region really begins to take place.  After Abram's father moves the family lock stock and barrel away from Ur, they end up settling not in the land of his destination which would have been Canaan, but Haran,  a place up river.  The Lord God finally gets them back on the road as He says to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you...So Abram went..."  (Genesis 12:1, 4)  If we could pick the mind of God, we might be curious enough to ask why He wanted them to go to Canaan instead of back to Eden. 

 

Perhaps, Eden was about the past and Canaan was about the future.  Perhaps, the Garden of Eden spoke of the origins of all of humanity and Canaan was about the origins of a people who would be set aside for the worship of the One true God.  Whatever the divine reason, from the time of Abraham on through the story, the Promised Land, the land of Canaan is in clear view and not the Garden of Eden.  In the land of promise a new chapter in the story of God and humanity would be written which would finally provide a way for the failures of Eden to be redeemed. 

The Harder Way

When the Garden of Eden couple listened to the talking serpent and ate fruit from the tree to be left alone, they did not have eyes to see up the road.  If they could have seen up the road where their choice would take them, maybe they would have made a different choice.  Or, maybe not.  Who knows?  We make terrible choices knowing they will have terrible consequences, but we often go ahead and choose the terrible choice.  Perhaps, they are more like us and we like them than we can really comprehend.

 

Most likely they could not see that their choice would take them outside the way the Lord God had planned for them.  Maybe they figured He would not have to know.  Maybe they figured He would not  know since He was not around when the fruit went in their mouths.  Regardless of the possibilities, they did make a choice which took them on a road they had not planned to walk.  The walk inside in the Garden was not a utopian kind of walk, but it was an easy walk compared to the walk they would have to take outside the Garden.  When the entrance to the Garden was closed to them, the easy way became a harsh, more difficult way. 

 

Inside the Garden was pain.  After the conversation of confrontation, the Lord God said to the woman, "I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children..." (Genesis 3:16)  To have her pain increased is an acknowledgment that the Garden was not empty of pain.  And while Adam had tilled the ground since the beginning of his days in the Garden, it would now be more difficult.  "..in toil you shall eat of it (ground)...thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you...by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread..."  (Genesis 3:17-19)  Life would be harder outside the way God had intended.  It is still that way for us. 

The Way Home

As we walk through the verses of the Garden Story in Genesis, we encounter first the sublime relationship between the Creator and the created ones who tended it in His behalf.  After a time came the sin.  After the sin, came the conversation of confrontation, the confession of what had been done, and the spelling out of the consequences.  It was not a moment when the divine Creator could turn His head and pretend He did not see.  Such would have compromised His holiness and His integrity.  In that moment of looking the other way, He would have ceased to be the God whom the Scripture proclaims.

 

Beginning in verse 14 of that 3rd chapter of Genesis the consequences of sin are rolled out on the stage of human history.  As the Lord God spoke, He spoke of things that had never before been seen or experienced in the short history of the creation.  As He spoke words of judgment over the serpent enmity and danger appeared.  "I will put enmity between you and the woman...he will strike your head and you will strike his heel."  (Genesis 3:14-15)  Prior to that moment all of creation lived in a life giving relationship.  No part of the creation had reason to fear another.  All of that now changed.  The world suddenly became a dangerous place where fear and strife would always be present. 

 

The prophet Isaiah would much later describe the restoration which comes with the Kingdom of God as a Garden of Eden moment.  "The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them...The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp..."  (Isaiah 11:6, 8)  Sin not only puts us out of sync with others, but it puts us out of step with the whole of creation.  Instead of experiencing God's presence in all those around us and in all of the creation, we find ourselves living like exiles in a land that is really not our home.  The good news is that there is through the cross of Christ a way home. 

 

 

No Laughing Matter

Back in my earlier years there was a popular comedian whose trademark line was, "The devil made me do it!"  He meant it for laughter, but when those words first appeared in the holy story of God and His people, it was no laughing matter.  As the taste of the fruit of the to be left alone tree soured in her mouth, Eve heard the Lord God asking, "What is this that you have done?"  (Genesis 3:13)  Her husband had already blamed her, so as she sought to move the blame elsewhere, she saw the serpent who had lingered.  She seized the moment and said, "The serpent tricked me, and I ate."  (Genesis 3:13)

 

The Lord God did not laugh.  Neither did He shrug His shoulders in disbelief.  He did not say, "Oh, I see, now I understand.  It's ok.  After all, no one is perfect."  As we read the story, we learn none of these were the responses of the Lord God there in the garden.  Instead, He turned directly to the serpent saying, "...cursed are you among all animals..."  (Genesis 3:14)  The Lord God did not excuse the woman, but neither did He dismiss the power of the temptation she heard whispered in her ear.  There was even in a place like the Garden of Eden the possibility of making wrong choices, choices that would be disappointing to the Creator, and choices which would sever the special relationship with Him.

 

With His response we see evidence that the Lord God took the possibility seriously.  Even on those primal grounds of beginning there lurked the possibility of choosing evil over good.  It was not a possibility at which to laugh, or take lightly.   Both of the two who had lived in the garden were driven out of their home with the Lord God and would endure the consequences of their choice, but the way God responded to them enables us to see that the one bent on doing evil is powerful and that God understands how powerful is the lurking evil in the world.  He did not excuse their choice, but they were not eternally condemned because of it.  Instead, they continued to live inside His mercy.

The Common Denominator

Since the very beginning God has sought out folks like you and me.  One of the things we learn from the story told from the Garden of Eden is that God did not create us with intentions to leave us alone.  As we read the story told in those first few chapters we come to those words, "They (Adam and Eve) heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden  at the time of the evening breeze..."  (Genesis 3:8)  There is nothing in the story which speaks of this being a surprise.  More than anything else, it was expected.  It was so expected and anticipated that the "man and his wife hid themselves  from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden."  (Genesis 3:8)

 

They knew the habits of the Lord God.  They knew He was coming and for the first time, they were fearful.  And while there were consequences for their sin of choosing to ignore God's way for their own, they were still not left alone.  He replaced their itchy fig leave clothing with soft garments made of animal skin.  Even after the moment of great disappointment, the Lord God came to them.  Though driven from their garden home, they continued to know the presence of the Lord in their lives as did their children. 

 

Can it be that we have come to know the habits of the Lord as He comes to us?  Is our relationship with Him such that we have learned to expect and anticipate His coming presence?  Are there signs which speak to our senses enabling us to know that He seeks to walk into our presence?  The one thing which is a common theme throughout the story told in the Word is that God can be counted on to show up in our lives.  It is the common denominator of the Biblical characters and those of us who continue to walk the road of faith in their footsteps. 

Faithful Since the Beginning

After the Garden of Eden couple tasted the fruit of the tree to be left alone, everything about their world changed.  Suddenly, they knew fear.  They feared the One who had been nothing but a source of blessing to them and Who had graced their lives with His presence in the cool of the evenings.  And, they knew shame.  Embarrassment.  Not wearing clothes had never been an issue.  It had always been natural for them.  But, with the fruit to be left alone in their bellies, they no longer wanted to be seen.  They did not want to be seen as they were for they knew that something had changed. 

 

Sin still works to bring fear and shame in our lives.  It causes us to be filled with a desire to avoid the ones we love.  We do not want them to see who we have allowed ourselves to become.  We do not want others to know of our sin.  We clothe ourselves not with fig leaves, but with pretend.  We wear a mantle of pretend which makes it seem that nothing has changed when, in fact, everything within us has changed.  We fear what they would think of us and we are ashamed of what we have done to bring such disharmony into our life and theirs. 

 

Even as our sin sends a ripple across the waters of our relationships, so does it also disturb the peace that we have known with our Creator God.  Sin is about taking charge of our life when He has promised to be faithful in caring for us.  Sin is about taking out an insurance policy just in case God is not able to come through.  Sin is about doing things our way instead of according to the way of God.  It affects us as it did Adam and Eve.  It takes us out of His presence.  We are exiled in a land which is far away from the land our soul knows as home.  And, like them, we need the grace of His forgiveness and mercy.  Thankfully, He is as faithful now to be merciful as He was in the very beginning. 

The Order of Eden

Eden was not a place where a carefree couple ran naked in the garden, eating and drinking, being merry, and doing whatever it was that they fancied doing.  It was not a place of unbridled pleasure, nor was it a place where everything came free and easy.  Instead, the Eden described in the first chapters of Genesis was a place of order.  Those who lived there lived within the order established by the Creator of the creation. 

 

The order of Eden starts to be revealed in the middle of the second chapter as the Word reads, "The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden, to till it and keep it."  (Genesis 2:15)  While the ground did not fight against the tiller of soil with thorns and thistles as it would later (Genesis 3:18), it was not a free ride for the one known as the first of those like us.  There was both work and responsibility.  And secondly, the Lord God issued a command, or a perimeter around which life was to be lived, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that eat of it, you shall die."  (Genesis 2:16-17)

 

Eden and life set forth from the beginning was about the order established by the Creator.  And while there is no tree such as the trees in the Garden of Eden, there is an order by which we are to live if we are to live rightly.  The order by which we are to live is not an order set forth by common consensus and personal preferences, but the One set forth by the Word inspired by the Holy Spirit.  From beginning to end the divine order is set forth enabling us to know how to live in sync with all of the created order including those who bear the DNA, the heart, and the soul of that first couple who made the mistake of thinking that they could live outside the order ordained by the Lord God Who brought them into being.

Trust and Sorrow

To meander around in the Garden of Eden narrative is to walk in mystery as old as creation.  There is one of the most profound expressions of disappointment on the part of the Lord God that is recorded in the whole of the Word.  In verse 13 of chapter 3 when the horror of the moment is revealed in the fading light of the day, we hear the Voice speaking and asking with great sorrow, "What is this that you have done?" 

The divine sorrow can, perhaps, be partially understood as we consider the great trust the Lord God had placed upon the created ones who shared life with Him in this Garden.  It represented a piece of creation entrusted to Adam.  He was to till it and care for it.  This one spoken of as the first of creation was also given authority to name every other living creature which shared the dirt of his DNA.  "So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal...and every bird...and brought them to the man to see what he would call them..."  (Genesis 2:19)  A partnership was established by the Creator with the created.  It was a partnership based on trust and faithfulness. 

 

The Genesis story is not just about origins and beginnings, but also about divine trust and the breaking of that trust on the part of the created one.  The depth of the trust is somehow given expression in the greatness of the sorrow as the partnership lays in ruins midst the glory of the Garden called Eden.  When the couple who knew the Garden as home were driven from it because of their own willfulness, they became sojourners on a broken road that they had no power to mend and fix.  We have all seen them on this road we share with them.  And, like them, we are dependent on the Lord God to make a way for us to once again live inside His trust. 

Home to Eden

Some places never cease to exist.  Some places always seem to be known by the name of someone from long ago.  My mother's home place was located out in the country and was accessible only by a series of dirt roads.  I grew up calling it the old home place.  Some years ago I went back down those dirt roads looking for it only to find nothing except pine trees.  It was gone.  There was no sign of the place where my mother and her eight siblings grew up. 

 

Not long ago while exchanging some emails with a distant relative who still lives in the area, she told me the old home place had been sold several times and one of her family now owned it.  What was interesting was the fact that she spoke of it not just your home place, but the Hale home place which was my mother's maiden name.  No one from my family has lived there in such a long time, but still it is known in such a way.  It is the same in these parts.  Places still go by the name of some previous owner even though the house and land has changed hands several times. 

 

I wonder if in the mind and heart of God there is a place on which He looks and thinks, "Eden...once I walked there."  After that evening when the Garden of Eden couple hid from the Lord God because of their sin, the Word says, "...therefore the Lord God sent him (Adam) from the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken.  He drove out the man..."  (Genesis 3:23-24)  The story says nothing about the Garden being destroyed.  It was just no longer accessible to the ones who had known it as home.  It was a home not defined so much by geography as a home defined by a spiritual oneness with the Creator of the Garden and all the rest of creation.  And, so it is that we are all searching for the way home to Eden, the place where we first knew a spiritual oneness with our Creator.