Breadmaking

Just moments ago, I pulled two loaves of absolutely beautiful homemade bread out of the oven. The delicious smell has been slowly filling every nook and cranny of the Stork's Nest, and now they are finally ready - tall, golden and well-rounded, by far my best looking loaves ever. I'm still looking at them in choked-up astonishment.

If you've ever tried to bake bread, you probably know that it is no simple affair. In fact, my own first attempts always ended up in sullen frustration - the bread would most typically not rise like it was supposed to, yet I would try to bake it anyway, and the result usually resembled a brick rather than bread. I think it was just tonight that I finally put my finger on the secret... As so many brilliant conclusions, it dawned upon me by accident. As I was making the dough, I miscalculated how much time I had until Billy and I were leaving for dinner at our friend's house, so I had no time to bake it and had to leave it alone for a couple of hours. When we came home, the dough had actually doubled - just like it said in the recipe! It had been there in the cookbooks all along; I just never really believed it. In my impatience to finally taste a real sandwich - a desire only augmented by the local prevalence of yucky imitations of the Wonderbread sort - I quickly concluded that the dough was ready to go and tried to rush the delicate process. What I got in return were dense bricks - perhaps still wholesome and nutritious, as Billy c0mpassionately reminded me, but nothing like the deliciously fluffy wonders that came out of the oven tonight.

I'm sure I've made many other discoveries like this one and soon forgot their impact, but this one stands out as an image for a vague inkling that's been with me for some time. The struggle to wait seems like a common malady of our "microwave society." We are impatient to grow up, to get a degree, to get married; impatient for the various pieces of our lives to come together, for pain to make sense, for churches to grow, for the Kingdom of God to come. If things don't happen like we'd hope, we often conclude that the dough needs some speeding up - so we rush through childhood, graduate early, put band-aids over wounds, borrow marketing strategies from business or try to take over the government. Meanwhile, the organism of God's Kingdom operates on an independent schedule - like yeast rising when the cook is away or a seed growing in the soil regardless of whether the farmer is looking. The kind of bread that I long for - as well as the kind of marriage, friendship, community - grows in effortless mystery, but not without my effort of faithful waiting. The beautiful part? Once I give in to the present moment, the bread grows peacefully on its own while I flirt with Billy, notice the full moon on the way to our friend's house and enjoy an evening of lovely conversation.

It is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

Neighbor

A man was returning home from a visit to the International House of Prayer via a country road when his Timing Belt suddenly broke, startling him and sending him into the ditch. He emerged with a dazed look and a bleeding forehead from hitting the dash. The man knew that he was in the middle of nowhere and that it could be hours before he saw another car.

Just then he saw what looked like a tour bus driving towards him in the distance. He couldn't believe his eyes - it was the bus of one of his favorite televangelists! He cried out in joy and began to wave frantically at the bus with his shirt but the bus picked up speed as it passed him on its way to the next major city. The man stared in disbelief and sunken hope.

As he swaggered back to his car he again caught the glimpse of a vehicle in the distance coming towards him. It was the unmistakable outline of a 15 person church youth van complete with luggage trailer and an emblazened cross on the side door. The man's heart leaped once again as he waved his shirt and cried out in distress. He slowly lowered his arms as the van sped by him full of teenagers pointing and laughing at his predicament.

No sooner had this van passed when the man noticed another car coming his way. He started to raise his shirt once again but then stopped when he noticed a large rainbow sticker on the front of the car. He momentarily cursed himself for his prominent bumperstickers touting his political and religious views. To his surprise the car pulled to a stop behind him. Out stepped a well dressed young man who, with an effeminate tone, asked him if he needed some help. The man was dumbfounded. The stranger drove the man to the next town and, while he was in the emergency room, arranged for a tow truck to get his car and paid for his hospital bills...

"Go and do likewise"
Lk. 10:25-37

Billy the Bunny

I just had to share this one - not only the name, but the subversive style fit someone we know whose name starts with a B.!

Counterscript (I)

Last Saturday, the Storks' Nest once again became a bustling seat of activity as our home filled up with some of our favorite people in the world, gathered once again to remember the story we have all chosen to live by, and to nurture one another as we all seek to follow the alternative scenario of the kingdom of God.

Those gathered in our living room come from various religious traditions - some have been raised in Evangelical megachurches, some graduated from a Pentecostal Bible college, others grew up Catholic, were part of a house church, watched preachers on TV or attended liberal churches with a strong emphasis on social justice. We've gravitated towards each other not just in reaction to our respective traditions - although we do vary in our level of criticism towards where we came from and openly bring those to the table, open to the realization that we've each been equipped with a set of key questions, commitments and preconceptions.

What pulls us together is a common sense that the dominant scripts of our culture, including the religious ones, fail to deliver the safety and happiness they promise. At the same time, we've all stolen glimpses of a very different story, one which makes my heart sing. It seems implausible, impractical, counterintuitive - and yet it is here that the blind see, the poor inherit a kingdom, those in mourning find their tears carefully counted; it is here that being takes precedence over having or doing, happiness is not an impossible goal but a pleasant side effect, and we find the heavens friendly and near.

The trouble is that those glimpses are fleeting, and we live in proximity to many powerful idols: Consumerism, Progress, Technology, Militarism, Romantic Love, Therapism, Liberal Guilt, Prosperity Gospel - to list just a few of the ones we mentioned the other night. They are compelling and popular stories that we repeatedly give in to, only to come full circle with Qoheleth - "all is vanity and striving after wind." That's when we remember the strange distant music of the Gospel. We gather again in someone's living room to hear the Counterscript, perhaps in the Beatitudes. We hear the truth about the shape we're in, and that truth telling makes us free.