Hashed Browns Holiness

I love the crusty potatoes
Along the sides and bottom of the pan.

The concentrated heat changes them
From, what you might call, their old nature.

Mama says, they are good enough for heaven
Made that way.

And what is the alternative?
Even State fair blue ribbon potatoes
Turn to mush, to black, to stench.
They cannot be preserved forever!

But me, I love the potatoes who have seen
The hottest of the fire
And it takes a really good cook
To get them just right.

Curt Mortimer

The astonishing Boston shot that went toward an open net… only to bounce off the right bar and fall right in front of the goal… and the diving Blackhawk who knocked that puck away one instant before another Boston stick would have shoved it in to win the game for the Bruins.

And then that final — double-ricochet — shot that won it for the Blackhawks. I was jumping up and down on the couch… though quietly, so as to not awaken my wife!

Here’s the thing, though… this morning, I have a little guilt about this. Because, you see, I’m a fair-weather hockey fan. When Chicago’s Blackhawks are winners, they’re suddenly *my* team. But otherwise, I pretty much ignore them.

This isn’t like how it was with the Bulls during Jordan’s era. I was a fanatic. Despite having extremely little money (that’s how it is in intentional community) I was gifted Bulls tickets two different times to see them play… once against the legendary Larry Bird with the Boston Celtics. (We crushed ‘em by over 30 points!)

And — only celebrity dream I ever had — I once dreamt that Mike and I were expertly hurling a basketball back and forth… while running between speeding rush-hour traffic on Chicago’s Lakeshore Drive! What a great, if weird, dream that was! I woke up laughing with the joy of it.

I played basketball. Never that well. But loved it and worked hard at it. Hockey? I tried it on our dinky little Fort Benton Montana skating rink, but my too-quickly growing body was about as coordinated on skates as Shaquille O’Neal would probably be doing ballet. The sport just was not a good match for this guy.

But there I was late-night, rooting for a team I pretty much ignore most seasons.

And it made me think about faith, about living for Christ, being a disciple. Am I a disciple today… or just a fair-weather fan?

See, the play last night was an end result of hard — maybe harsh — training. Those guys played over 50 minutes of extra hockey — the equivalent of two games instead of just one. And they played it at a skill level beyond my understanding.

It challenged me to be more than fair-weather. Following Christ, being shaped in Him and by Him, walking out faith in the presence of other learners who in turn challenge me with the level of their “game”…

Maybe it is a cheesy punch line, a preacher’s trick, to start off talking hockey and end up talking discipleship. But Paul started it.

Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it. Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one. So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air; but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified. [I Cor. 9:25-27 NRSV]

That’s what I’m thinking about… embracing the discipline, the struggle, even the suffering, because at the end there is a prize to be won. And that prize is… to dwell in the Presence of the Beloved for all time and Eternity.

Meanwhile…. Go ‘Hawks!! (I say they do it in four!)

Please be sure to add your comments below!

Community is the place where people you’ve lived with for decades still have a peculiar knack for getting on your last nerve.

Community is where some cheerful voice quotes that “isn’t life in community neat” proof-text, Psalm 133:

“How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity! It is like the precious oil on the head, running down upon the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down over the collar of his robes. It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord ordained his blessing, life forevermore.”

Oh please (you say this only to yourself because we’re not rude in community)… SHUT UP! Or, and this maybe aloud, I’m not feeling any precious oil right now, brother!

Community is where the honeymoon phase wears off in a few weeks, maybe months, and the heart covenant you’ve made with God and yourself is often about the only thing keeping you holding on.

Community – where the question “Is this really worth it?” tends to occur on a semi-regular basis.

Community is the place where inefficiency — fueled by a thousand different ideas on how to do every task — drives ya nuts.

Community is the place outsiders think is a cult of mind-controlled zombies, while insiders wish there was such a thing as mind control — community members are some of the least-easily influenced folks on the planet, or they’d never live this counter-cultural way in the first place. Take sheer stubbornness, mix with a healthy dose of rebellious individualism, and multiply by 400-plus people. What do you get? Intentional community, that’s what.

Have fun storming the castle.

Community is why well-meaning (and some not-so-well-meaning) friends and relatives ask you, “When are you going to stop living such a sheltered, safe existence and get a real job and a real life?” Oh, baby, it don’t get more real than this!!

Community is the place where you find your niche… just in time for that ministry to be phased out.

Community is the place where you stumble on one of the pastors sitting in a room crying… because that day, they hate community, too!

Community is the place where you’re struggling with your faith, tell a friend, and they quote a few Bible verses at you without hearing what you’re actually trying to tell them. That’s okay, you grit-teeth-tell yourself… you’ve done it to others, too.

Community is the place where you learn nothing is to be relied upon. Nothing except the Love of God. And sometimes you’re not too sure about that!

Community is the place where you get hurt by people who are supposed to heal you, and you hurt people you’re supposed to be helping heal.

In other words, community is sometimes a collective FAIL. Yes. Community is where you learn that human beings, individually and collectively, suck at love.

And then, in your lowest moment, without any change in feeling… you remember the gift of silence. And you quiet yourself, look around at your broken brothers and sisters, and realize that this is the Mystical Body of Christ. These faces. This anger, that self-righteousness, her know-it-allness, his self-aggrandizement.

But you remember other things as well.

The look of wonder on students’ faces as you, leading a Bible study on the Gospel of John, read aloud the heart-breaking passages from the Last Supper. Their questions so vulnerable, so hungry, to know more about Jesus’ Love. You shocked, awed, that you were being allowed by God to communicate this tenderly relational heart of the Christian Gospel to such as you once were… young, hungry, eager. (Are you still hungry? Are you?)

The laughter and joy of all your friends as they help you celebrate your dear wife’s birthday; she is surprised, shocked, tearfully overwhelmed by the graciousness of your communal friends. Their joy in her joy mirrors, you think to yourself, the heart of God.

You remember times you could not (sometimes even would not) call out for help in your distress. And they, these holy broken others, came to comfort and restore.

You see some faces now lined and middle-aged. Like yours. You have walked with such people through this life, and “unity” though imperfect is real. On days like today, you endure. You don’t have joy. But you do have endurance. And that has to be something!

And then you see your own monumental lack of trust. Isn’t the one unforgivable sin the sin of unbelief? Whoa, man! That’s laying it on a little too thick, eh?

So okay… Yes, you are right. Community does — today — suck. But what has changed since that long-ago day you walked in the doors, sure that Jesus had led you to this motley crew of marginalized people, this island of broken toys?

Nothing has changed. You are broken, too. Remember?

It does all come back to the beginning. “Has God said?” the Serpent asked Eve in the Garden. My heart answers, Yes. God has said that for me, my specific life calling is with these people in this place at this time.

The pain of community and the joy of community commingle. And I, this frail and ridiculous man, cannot turn away. Community is not my salvation; Christ is. Yet without community, without His Body the Church, am I much more than a phantom?

In the end, it is Christ’s voice in my own heart that keeps me here.

But that doesn’t mean I will always like it.

Please be sure to add your comments below!

My Worry

I worry about high blood sugar
You can just pass out, you know
And I get real dizzy
It might be my heart pumping too fast
I checked, it was.
And there’s this tingling
And tinnitus, that’s ringing in the ears
My legs go weak
And I taste sugar on my tongue
What’s that mean?
I’ve been keeping up a list
And I got it narrowed down
To every time we’ve kissed.

Curt Mortimer

Today was not a bad day, I cleaned  a little, slept a little, and hunted for bugs in the yard with Eden and his friends. Drank coffee and laughed with someone I have missed. Don brought Jude out and the kids filled up his new watering can and he watered the flowers that didn’t need watering. Friends laughed and talked in the yard, and I saw someone looking sadly at Jude’s leg, which is now noticeably smaller than the other. Jude used to run so fast in this yard I could never keep up. I complained about it all the time. Now I wish I hadn’t.

I excuse myself to get coffee and ask Andrea to pray for me, because I am sad, and I wish I wasn’t. I have friends visiting that I thought I had lost, and I am trying to soak up the joy a little. Somehow all the love and sweetness is bringing the tears right to the surface. Maybe that is okay.

It is a good life, one that doesn’t have to be a certain way. A life where we can just be, surrounded by love that is sure, even when we our hearts are breaking, who could ask for more than that? Not me. I never did.

It is dark and we  have gone upstairs. John is playing hammer dulcimer in the dark for Jude, and Jude is intermittently crying out and writhing in pain. There is golden light shining from the other room, just enough so he can see to make the notes. I am rubbing Jude’s feet with hippie pain lotion a friend gave us. My hands look like a woman’s hands, not a child’s, and for a moment I am struck with how much they resemble my mother’s. Neil stops by to pray for Jude, and Jude stops crying, and shows Neil his fire truck.

Sometimes I look at my life and wonder what my fourteen year old chain smoking hitch hiking self would think of it. That girl just wanted someone to accept her, love her even if she screwed up, and not leave if things got tough. I think she would approve of this happy /sad rag tag life I lead. There will be many tears cried before the sun comes up tomorrow, because my friends are leaving, and my child cries and cannot be comforted. I am not sure how I wound up being so wonderfully happy and so terribly sad at the same time. I only know I am exactly where I am supposed to be.

Please be sure to add your comments below!

Just maybe Mr. Moore gave thought to God. Or maybe he just wanted a cool title for an instrumental. We needn’t make a judgment on that score to hear this music as yearning music of the most intense kind. From the 1990 Montreux Jazz Festival – Gary Moore, “The Messiah Will Come Again.”

Standing Stones

My books are my standing stones.
Like an old druid I come
To meditate before them.
Not to worship, no . . .
But to see how the light bends
Around and through their masses.
To see how they frame the stars
And focus the sun.
Shoulder to shoulder they stand,
A circle of doorways out. . . or in,
depending on perspective.
Promising meaning but mostly
Mysterious, full of questions
In answer to my askings.
An eternity of wonder.

Curt Mortimer

1. What is our basis for belief and action? That is, what source or set of sources do we use to figure out our calling as Christians?
2. How does our existence as creatures of this time and this culture affect our understanding of something as rooted in Eternity as faith?
3. How do we address sexuality, much less homosexuality, in a culture that has little to no interest in hearing from us about such matters?

And those questions are just for starters. Please add your own questions and thoughts (including answers?) in the comments section below.