You Ought to be in Pictures

The verbal church is dying. The church based solely upon the talking head in front of the room espousing profundities and relying upon printed text to convey truth is on life support and most people do not even know it is sick. I think I began this discover process a few years back and have seen it become more and more a reality in the past few years.

We are visual people. As a matter of fact, if you were cruising blogs you probably stopped because of the picture rather than the title of the entry. We are people who receive information through environment, metaphor and our multiple senses. I would venture a guess that most of us could not go more than a few days without receiving or conveying information in picture or metaphor. Movies understand that. They create the full environment. They are changing culture not reflecting it and are delving into much deeper spiritual issues than some churches. I’m not saying they are proclaiming the truth but they are testing the boundaries of acceptability about the truth. Movies are challenging us to think (now that’s a change) and to discuss what is reality and what is truth.

Now while some of you are aghast, others are realizing that this need to teach on multiple levels in not new. As a matter of fact, this is the way Jesus taught. He spoke of fish on the beach where the smell of fish would be hanging heavy in the air. He spoke to farmers of planting and reaping, taught while eating with sinners and even the Eucharist is a completely multi-sensory experience embodying sight, sound, taste and touch.

So, what do we in the church do to embrace this move? We have to return to using all the senses to share the Gospel. We must be intentional about creating an environment that teaches. Creating metaphors that teach, using visuals that illustrate and music that inspires are the first steps toward becoming multi-sensory. The other step we can make to teach with sight, sound, taste and touch is by sharing the Eucharist at every worship service. Not only does it make every worship service multi-sensory, it assures that Christ is mysteriously present (another value on the rise!) amidst the body of Christ gathered.

There will be controversy. Revolution always causes controversy. The change will happen, whether we embrace is or it is forced upon us, it is on the way. Will we learn and grow or continue to whither away? I remain:

Lost in Grace,

Marty Cauley

Gracious God who teaches us in many ways, help us not be limited by our own prejudices about methods but be willing to embrace the move of your Spirit. Help us to share the gospel like Paul by doing whatever it takes to help others discover You. In the name of Jesus, the Christ, we pray. Amen.

It Looks Like Rain

Have you ever had a dry spell? A time when everything was hard? Relationships were hard, work was hard, and play was even hard? I usually think of myself as a relatively creative and positive person. Now don’t get me wrong, I have my “Downer Dude” days, but most days I can get up and keep going. Lately, however, I have been in a dry spell.

There are a lot of desert times in the Bible. Almost every prophet has those times of complete desperation. The people of God wandered around the desert for forty years, now that’s a dry spell (literally and proverbially). Even Jesus spent time in the desert and faced some of the biggest challenges of His life until he was crucified when He was tempted. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised by the dry spells.

Tonight, or rather early this morning, an amazing thing happened. For the first time in months I awoke with an idea that wouldn’t let me sleep any more. Now it wasn’t an idea that’s going to change the world. It was, essentially, a new way to share a message that just hasn’t been working during the teaching times at the winter events at Lake Junaluska. The key thing is that the idea woke me up…the passion to write it down would not let me sleep. I can’t remember the last time that has happened. During my more creative times it happens all the time. I usually keep a legal pad and a pen beside my bed so I can dump these midnight brainstorms onto it and get back to sleep. Now I’m up at 4 a.m. writing down these ideas and my mind is going 100 m.p.h.

It looks like rain. Now this little spiritual rainstorm may not be the end of my season in the desert, but it is enough for God to encourage me now to keep going. The desert times won’t last forever. Thank you God for the rain…let it pour! I remain, waiting for the storm…

Lost in Grace,

Marty

Gracious God, who does not abandon us in the desert, who sends the rain when the drought seems to be never ending, thank you for your grace. Help me to be willing to accept the dry spells and trust in your everlasting love. Let my soul yearn to be quenched by your Spirit. And help me to dance in the rain and give you the praise with it pours! In the name of God our Father, who holds fast in the desert, Jesus, the giver of Grace, and the Holy Spirit, who rains upon me, I pray. Amen

Cosmic Disconnect

“The dispute concerns an unbearable mismatch between lived reality and traditional explanations that proceed by their own logic without reference to lived reality.” Walter Brueggeman

I have a friend whose father is dying. That sounds harsh and I wish there was a gentler way to put it but that would reinforce the purpose of this meditation. Though, admittedly, it may be less meditation and more ranting and raving.

Don’t you wish Christians would occasionally live in the real world? The world of pain and suffering. Of struggle and discontent. That they would put away their pious platitudes and see that original sin is alive and well in the twenty-first century and that though we can seize our God-shaped destiny we are still guilty of only living a shadow life of what God has for us. There is still sickness and death. Still hurt and loss, and to be honest I don’t like it.

My friends laugh at me because I don’t like movies with sucky endings. You know the type. The one I use most often as an example is Message in a Bottle. The “hero,” some lovelorn man who lost his wife, throws messages in bottles out into the ocean. A woman finds them, follows them and they enter into a relationship. He (of course he because in romantic movies it is the man who always screws it up) pushes her away only to later realize he loves her. So he gets in this blasted sailboat he has been working on the whole move and sails off to find her…getting ready for a happily ever after ending? Yeah, so was I, then he hits a storm, tries to help somebody and dies. What? That ending sucks! Don’t we have enough of suckily ever after?

This is where the “unbearable mismatch” exists. Traditional explanations offer things like, “it must be his time” or “God must need him in heaven.” What a bunch of holier than thou bull-oney. Lived reality is that our world is separated from God and as such it is plagued with death and pain.

The lived reality is that my friend appreciates that, even though I’m a spiritual person, I don’t offer platitudes. Actually, I make her face some hard realities so that she will be better able to deal with things as they come. Certainly, I offer a shoulder to cry on, but I also offer faith balanced reality. I believe that God heals, but I also believe that people die. In the Old Testament, those three guys are about to get toasted in the furnace and they say the coolest thing to the king who orders their execution. To Marty-phrase it they say, “Our God can save us, but even if God chooses not to we won’t worship you.” That is powerful faith balanced reality. That is how I want to live.

We mess up when we think Jesus came to give us an easy, happily ever after life. People who believe that really didn’t actually read the Bible. Jesus said his yoke was easy, he didn’t say life would be easy. Jesus was crucified. Paul, who wrote the majority of the New Testament and planted churches all over the place, was shipwrecked, beaten, stoned, run out of town and eventually martyred. That does not sound like a positive career path. Are we saying he wasn’t Godly enough? Faith balance reality allows us to understand that our God is able to do exceedingly, abundantly amazing things but that that we live in a world separated from God where sin, pain and death are real. That sometimes God does not deliver us from pain but travels through the pain with us. God bears those burdens, shares the load and carries us through.

One last thought on pain. I used to think it would be cool not to feel pain. Actually I intellectualized my emotional life and was attempting to control all my feelings, but especially pain. What I’ve learned is that to understand real happiness, to experience bliss the pain is a small price to pay. Now, I don’t go looking for pain, but the other side of the coin is an amazing thing. I think that maybe that is what Jesus meant when He said he came to give live and to give it abundantly…real life. Life lived to its fullest.

I still don’t like pain. I still hate movies with sucky endings, but I know God can take the crap the world throws at us and redeem it. How do I know, because God redeemed me. That is yet another reason I’m glad I am:

Lost in Grace,

Marty Cauley

Gracious God, I grow tired of pain but I know you are with me in the midst of the struggle. Help me to be the kind of friend that tells the truth and offers a shoulder of hope and support. Help me carry the pain of others when their burdens are too much to bear and help me to release my own when I can carry them no longer. God, allow me to embrace the bliss of life and enjoy its blessings and not be bound by its pain. In the name of our pain-bearer, Jesus, I pray. Amen

People Who Make You Better

One of the things I have been learning during the past year is to hang around people who make you better. People who challenge you. People who make you think and who think with you. People who, when you work together, synergy happens.

My friend Maria is an excellent example. I had been struggling with summer themes and helping young adults understand grace at a whole new level. Maria came and spent a few hours over a long lunch and an idea session with me and we worked out a lot of what to teach this summer at the LJ youth events and how to teach it. She took my ideas and compounded them, enhanced then and allowed the explode with potential. My other friends, Rob and Emilie, are working on creating a teaching atmosphere and set design that will bring the young people into the environment. My friend Danelle is helping me learn a whole new set of young adult teaching and coaching skills as well as providing a whole new set of group building games. All of these people understand my passion to help young people experience God at a whole new level and share some of that passion in their own area of expertise. They get it! What I provide them is an opportunity to create something completely new with a spiritual underpinning that could affect young people and their churches across the southeast and beyond. It is true that you are defined by those you hang around. The cool thing is all of these people are way ahead of me in a myriad of areas but the choose to hang out with me to see what God’s gonna do next.

Isn’t that why the disciples hung out with Jesus. They wanted to be defined by the ultimate rabbi. They knew of his teachings, they knew he would challenge them at a whole new level. I’m not sure they had any idea that he would push them to amazing levels such that the movement they started would eventually change the world, reconstruct reality and redefine faith.

Choose who you hang out with carefully. Choose people who challenge you and your ideas. Who push your reality and make you think. Change in you is usually caused by change in your concepts of reality and how you think about it. That change comes by hanging out with people who push you to see clearer and farther. I only hope that I push others and add value to them the way they do to me. Praise God for friends who love you enough to push…I remain:

Lost in Grace,

Marty

Gracious God, thank you for those who push me to live a better life for You. Let me be the friend that pushes them to pursue their God-shaped destiny with passion. In the name of the ultimate Rabbi and teacher, Jesus, I pray. Amen