Ten Thousand Places

What does it mean to be a Christian? March 21, 2009

Filed under: Ministry,holy writings — tenthousandplaces @ 4:46 am

plan

S. D. found the irony in this; I think it’s incredibly profound.  Why do we expect God to give us an easy life?  What do we think this is all about, anyway?  (And by “we” I mean “me”).

Another friend emailed me this recently, a wonderful reminder of our purpose here:

“The chief purpose of life is not happiness, but the knowledge of God. One reason that the problem of evil seems so puzzling is that we tend to think that if God exists, then His goal for human life is happiness in this world.  God’s role is to provide comfortable environment for His human pets.  But on the Christian view this is false.  We are not God’s pets, and man’s end is not happiness in this world, but the knowledge of God, which will ultimately bring true and everlasting human fulfillment.  Many evils occur in life which maybe utterly pointless with respect to the goal of producing human happiness in this world, but they may not be unjustified with respect to producing the knowledge of God.”

 

In other words… October 15, 2008

Filed under: Ministry — tenthousandplaces @ 10:47 am

“We take our own spiritual consecration and try to make it into a call of God, but when we get right with Him He brushes all this aside. Then He gives us a tremendous, riveting pain to fasten our attention on something that we never even dreamed could be His call for us. And for one radiant, flashing moment we see His purpose, and we say, “Here am I! Send me” ( Isaiah 6:8 ).

This call has nothing to do with personal sanctification, but with being made broken bread and poured-out wine. Yet God can never make us into wine if we object to the fingers He chooses to use to crush us. We say, “If God would only use His own fingers, and make me broken bread and poured-out wine in a special way, then I wouldn’t object!” But when He uses someone we dislike, or some set of circumstances to which we said we would never submit, to crush us, then we object. Yet we must never try to choose the place of our own martyrdom. If we are ever going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed— you cannot drink grapes. Grapes become wine only when they have been squeezed.

I wonder what finger and thumb God has been using to squeeze you? Have you been as hard as a marble and escaped? If you are not ripe yet, and if God had squeezed you anyway, the wine produced would have been remarkably bitter. To be a holy person means that the elements of our natural life experience the very presence of God as they are providentially broken in His service. We have to be placed into God and brought into agreement with Him before we can be broken bread in His hands. Stay right with God and let Him do as He likes, and you will find that He is producing the kind of bread and wine that will benefit His other children.”

~Oswald Chambers

 

What I will be doing in twelve days… March 2, 2008

Filed under: Community,Literature,Ministry,Peripatetics,Photography — tenthousandplaces @ 5:59 am

bagshot-row-2.jpg

Sans the attic, Tyler and David… :( But avec Graeme, Ashlee, Riley, Jacquie, Jordon and Aaron. Hopefully Aaron. I’m not sure whether R2D2 will be there.

“Bagshot Row is an artistic community which seeks to apply the values and lessons of true, good, and beautiful art to both the spiritual and practical elements of life. Originating in Dubuque, IA and founded by Graeme Pitman, David Kern, Tyler Smith, Justin Phelan, and Riley Miller, Bagshot Row is a mixture of faith, literature, word (both in essay/blog/musing and poetry), photography, prayer, design, music all bound up in the belief that our very lives can be worship. We meet infrequently on Thursday nights at 9pm to discuss things we have written or read or sometimes just to hang out in an attic.”

 

From the Desert Fathers February 8, 2008

Filed under: Ministry — tenthousandplaces @ 5:24 am

Abbot Lot came to Abbot Joseph and said:  Father, according as I am able, I keep my little rule, and my little fast, my prayer, meditation and contemplative silence, and according as I am able I strive to cleanse my heart of thoughts; now what more should I do?  The elder rose up in reply and stretched out his hands to heaven, and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire.  He said:  Why not be totally changed into fire?

~Desert Fathers LXXLD