Okay, my fellow botanists: its time to get our hands dirty.
I don't know all that much about botany, actually. Funny, because I grew up on a plant nursery. My step-father was a landscaper/nurseryman, and from age 7 to age 17, we lived in front of my step-dad's business, with a 13 acre nursery as our back yard. Some summers I would weed with the migrant workers, trying to learn enough Spanish to understand their making fun of me. For a few days, I even went with them to cut people's lawns. I was awful at all of it. I deeply appreciated the plants -- loved them, actually. But it was clear that plants, shrubs, trees, lawns, or much of anything to do with landscaping was going to be in my long-term future. To this day, I can barely keep anything in my own yard alive.
But the referent of the metaphor here is (luckily) quite simple to grasp. Every plant is anchored deeply into the ground by a set of roots that soak in all the water and nutrients, spreading these out to all parts of the plant. The tree that grows and flourishes is the one that has unlimited access to water and nutrients and a great pipeline system that makes sure every part of the tree benefits. Healthy plants just keep growing and growing and growing. So, when you see healthy branches, full of bright, strong leaves, what you're really seeing is an excellent root system. But that root system is only as good as the leaf's ability to get all that good stuff.
As for the spiritual signifier, well, that may take us all year to fully grasp.
God uses the metaphor a lot. And he makes no bones about what it all means:
Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. 2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. 3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.
Psalms 1:1-3 (NIV)
I get it. When connected to the right Source, all is well. When not, well, then things die.
Getting there is another matter. I want to graft myself on, rather than grow out naturally. The Psalm says that it's a matter of behavior and meditation. I read that as "work yourself into the fruitful tree" but I don't think that's right.
Could I just be planted by streams of water and, not knowing it, keeping my roots from digging deeply in? Am I just barely hanging on the vine? And why, when the result is so obvious? What's the temptation to do it myself, without the help of the Source?
What's my problem, anyway?
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
December 28, 2009
I spent all day yesterday sulking. Can you believe it? Sulking. Just like Jonah. I can't tell you why. Overactive empathy of a character study?
I also reread Saturday's post and thought, "Well, this doesn't make any sense." Actually, I thought, "You have no idea what you're talking about." Maybe that's why I sulked. Maybe it was my way of saying, "See, God, I told you this would happen. I'll write something stupid, something that at least 1000 biblical scholars will scoff at, and this entire blog thing will be nothing but embarrassing."
This is not good "in-the-vine" thinking.
What got me hung up was remembering what Jonah told God when he first started sulking: "I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity." Jonah 4:2 (NIV)
So, if he knew that God was so abounding in love, why was he sulking? Just two verses -- minutes, I can only imagine -- after uttering those words, the book then says that "5 Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city." Jonah 4:5 (NIV)
What would happen to the city? Really? Even I know the answer to that one: nothing. They got it together. They reconnected. They were back in God's grace. So what on earth was Jonah expecting to see? God renege on the deal? The world's greatest bait and switch? Or did Jonah just say all that about God's unbounding love but didn't feel it himself?
I keep looking for answers to my own sulk. There are conditions to blame, of course. Problems that have hung around long and hard and don't show any signs of letting up. But I know better than that. I've just finished a four-month study in Joy, and all the answers that I found made perfect sense. Joy is not based on conditions. Joy is something that just blossoms out of a deeper understanding. At least, that's what unconditional joy is. Amazing how limited the effect of knowledge lasts.
Joy is also described as a fruit (Gal 5:22), which brings me right back to the entire "in the vine" thing.
"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing."John 15:5 (NIV)
No connection, no joy. Sunday's sulk was simply about me being disconnected. I woke up this morning and was determined to leap out of the funk. I focused on the positive. I let go of the many, many conditions in my life that are way out of my control and turned them all over to God. I tried rampaging my appreciation. I forced myself to rethink the false premises, to replace them with the truth: God loves me. God wants the best for me. Things are good. Chill.
And then I got to work.
One of my jobs (I have several -- so why am I still so broke?) is with a government contract run out of a medical school. It's a wonderful job with wonderful people and a wonderful purpose. And it's the most tense, harried, negative place I've been around in years. Today was no exception. Within an hour of arriving, the tension and frustration had already mounted to a palpable level, and by noon, well, the insanity had moved to its usual high. It's hard to describe much of what happens there, but it often doesn't feel good.
Now, I've prepared for this; I've shared with several co-workers that my goal is to stay positive, to retain my joy despite the insanity, and to NOT be one of the many who degrade to a daylong gripe about it all. I've asked them to hold me accountable, to call me out, when they see me start to get that same tired, apathetic, bitter look in my eye. But by noon, I was back in my project manager's office (a Christian with an amazing heart and one of my self-imposed accountability partners), unloading the bile about another sabotaged project. Catching myself, I said, "I'm sorry. I'm doing it again. I'm supposed to rise above this." And she said, "No, you have a right to be angry about this."
4 God said, "What do you have to be angry about?" Jonah 4:4 (MSG)
Good question.
Better question: How do I keep the connection to pure love, pure joy, pure peace? How do I keep such a strong bond to the vine that all I feel is the lifeblood flowing in rather than the harsh winds stealing me dry?
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers. Psalms 1:2-3 (NIV)
I also reread Saturday's post and thought, "Well, this doesn't make any sense." Actually, I thought, "You have no idea what you're talking about." Maybe that's why I sulked. Maybe it was my way of saying, "See, God, I told you this would happen. I'll write something stupid, something that at least 1000 biblical scholars will scoff at, and this entire blog thing will be nothing but embarrassing."
This is not good "in-the-vine" thinking.
What got me hung up was remembering what Jonah told God when he first started sulking: "I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity." Jonah 4:2 (NIV)
So, if he knew that God was so abounding in love, why was he sulking? Just two verses -- minutes, I can only imagine -- after uttering those words, the book then says that "5 Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city." Jonah 4:5 (NIV)
What would happen to the city? Really? Even I know the answer to that one: nothing. They got it together. They reconnected. They were back in God's grace. So what on earth was Jonah expecting to see? God renege on the deal? The world's greatest bait and switch? Or did Jonah just say all that about God's unbounding love but didn't feel it himself?
I keep looking for answers to my own sulk. There are conditions to blame, of course. Problems that have hung around long and hard and don't show any signs of letting up. But I know better than that. I've just finished a four-month study in Joy, and all the answers that I found made perfect sense. Joy is not based on conditions. Joy is something that just blossoms out of a deeper understanding. At least, that's what unconditional joy is. Amazing how limited the effect of knowledge lasts.
Joy is also described as a fruit (Gal 5:22), which brings me right back to the entire "in the vine" thing.
"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing."John 15:5 (NIV)
No connection, no joy. Sunday's sulk was simply about me being disconnected. I woke up this morning and was determined to leap out of the funk. I focused on the positive. I let go of the many, many conditions in my life that are way out of my control and turned them all over to God. I tried rampaging my appreciation. I forced myself to rethink the false premises, to replace them with the truth: God loves me. God wants the best for me. Things are good. Chill.
And then I got to work.
One of my jobs (I have several -- so why am I still so broke?) is with a government contract run out of a medical school. It's a wonderful job with wonderful people and a wonderful purpose. And it's the most tense, harried, negative place I've been around in years. Today was no exception. Within an hour of arriving, the tension and frustration had already mounted to a palpable level, and by noon, well, the insanity had moved to its usual high. It's hard to describe much of what happens there, but it often doesn't feel good.
Now, I've prepared for this; I've shared with several co-workers that my goal is to stay positive, to retain my joy despite the insanity, and to NOT be one of the many who degrade to a daylong gripe about it all. I've asked them to hold me accountable, to call me out, when they see me start to get that same tired, apathetic, bitter look in my eye. But by noon, I was back in my project manager's office (a Christian with an amazing heart and one of my self-imposed accountability partners), unloading the bile about another sabotaged project. Catching myself, I said, "I'm sorry. I'm doing it again. I'm supposed to rise above this." And she said, "No, you have a right to be angry about this."
4 God said, "What do you have to be angry about?" Jonah 4:4 (MSG)
Good question.
Better question: How do I keep the connection to pure love, pure joy, pure peace? How do I keep such a strong bond to the vine that all I feel is the lifeblood flowing in rather than the harsh winds stealing me dry?
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers. Psalms 1:2-3 (NIV)
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Life in the Vine: December 26. 2009
Holidays make me nervous.
Holidays are the time when disasters feel especially poignant and disturbing. This morning's Chronicle was full of these stories: the single Mom found murdered by her children on Christmas Day, the terrorist plot on a Christmas Day flight. The heart attacks. The suicides. The family fights. I want to rush through the holiday, get it over and done with, so that somehow the associated risks of tragedy will diminish -- as if the holiday itself brought them on.
It's like that all year for me. Thanksgiving, Easter, Fourth of July. My birthday is the worst.
I (and my therapists) have decided this comes from years of growing up in an alcoholic family, which actually turned out to be a family with a bipolar mother who used alcohol (and anything else she could get her hands on) to medicate herhelf. The result was the same: I never knew what to expect, so I expected the worst. The birthdays have more to do with abandonment. Somewhere in my dim memory is an image of me being left alone on my birthday at a neighbor's house while the family was tending to some Mom-based emergency. I think I was five.
I've made a life-long habit of not celebrating much of anything for fear that it triggered some kind of disaster. I would rest in good times with one eye open, convinced that the better the circumstances, the more ready for disaster I should be.
The leaf on the vine doesn't expect anything but more nutrition headed down the pipeline. It doesn't expect to be ticked at the last minute with herbicide.
So, here's Jonah, sitting around, ticked at God for saving people and telling God that he'd rather die than face the futility of it all. He's sitting and waiting for disaster -- God wiping out all those people. He expects it. But instead, this vine grows up around him and gives him shade -- the Bible says pleasure -- in the middle of expected disaster.
I love the version of the story from the Message translation:
5 But Jonah just left. He went out of the city to the east and sat down in a sulk. He put together a makeshift shelter of leafy branches and sat there in the shade to see what would happen to the city. 6 God arranged for a broad-leafed tree to spring up. It grew over Jonah to cool him off and get him out of his angry sulk. Jonah was pleased and enjoyed the shade. Life was looking up. 7 But then God sent a worm. By dawn of the next day, the worm had bored into the shade tree and it withered away. 8 The sun came up and God sent a hot, blistering wind from the east. The sun beat down on Jonah's head and he started to faint. He prayed to die: "I'm better off dead!" Jonah 4:5-8 (MSG)
I can't help but wonder if Jonah thought, "See -- nothing good ever happens to me. The minute I get a little shade tree growing, some worm comes and wrecks it. How typical!" I would have.
But finally, God explains the entire deal:
9 Then God said to Jonah, "What right do you have to get angry about this shade tree?" Jonah said, "Plenty of right. It's made me angry enough to die!" 10 God said, "What's this? How is it that you can change your feelings from pleasure to anger overnight about a mere shade tree that you did nothing to get? You neither planted nor watered it. It grew up one night and died the next night. 11 So, why can't I likewise change what I feel about Nineveh from anger to pleasure, this big city of more than a hundred and twenty thousand childlike people who don't yet know right from wrong, to say nothing of all the innocent animals?"
Jonah 4:9-11 (MSG)
Part of me wants to say: So, God is fickle? He changes his mind? That makes me just a pawn in God's game -- the recipient of random acts of kindness or punishment, all of which live outside of my control? But that would be thinking like Jonah (something I'm good at). Jonah, like me, is a control freak. I like to make things happen on my own, and don't trust anything that happens under some other source of power.
But that thinking represents the major flawed premise, the missing fact: God isn't focused on disaster and more than the vine is focused on the death of the branches and leaves. The whole point is to make it thrive. Ninevah wasn't thriving. It was dying. God reconected the Ninevah branch so that the leaves could flourish. Jonah saw a wrathful God, and expected the wrath to mess up his life as well.
I don't know Jonah's life-story -- it isn't given in the book. But if it was like mine (and I suspect it was), then Jonah was one pessimistic man, perhaps for as good of reasons as I have. But the reasons are unimportant. The premise is flawed. So God sends Jonah to watch Ninevah get reconnected to the vine and flourish -- just to show him that reconnecting branches and leaves so that they'll flourish is what He's all about.
It's the expectation of disaster that is the problem. For Jonah. For me. I look at the shade tree, and assume the worm is coming tonight. And in doing so, I don't see the gift of the shade tree at all. Or realize that some worm had a marvelous meal that night, and that a new tree can -- and will -- take its place for me tomorrow.
Holidays are the time when disasters feel especially poignant and disturbing. This morning's Chronicle was full of these stories: the single Mom found murdered by her children on Christmas Day, the terrorist plot on a Christmas Day flight. The heart attacks. The suicides. The family fights. I want to rush through the holiday, get it over and done with, so that somehow the associated risks of tragedy will diminish -- as if the holiday itself brought them on.
It's like that all year for me. Thanksgiving, Easter, Fourth of July. My birthday is the worst.
I (and my therapists) have decided this comes from years of growing up in an alcoholic family, which actually turned out to be a family with a bipolar mother who used alcohol (and anything else she could get her hands on) to medicate herhelf. The result was the same: I never knew what to expect, so I expected the worst. The birthdays have more to do with abandonment. Somewhere in my dim memory is an image of me being left alone on my birthday at a neighbor's house while the family was tending to some Mom-based emergency. I think I was five.
I've made a life-long habit of not celebrating much of anything for fear that it triggered some kind of disaster. I would rest in good times with one eye open, convinced that the better the circumstances, the more ready for disaster I should be.
The leaf on the vine doesn't expect anything but more nutrition headed down the pipeline. It doesn't expect to be ticked at the last minute with herbicide.
So, here's Jonah, sitting around, ticked at God for saving people and telling God that he'd rather die than face the futility of it all. He's sitting and waiting for disaster -- God wiping out all those people. He expects it. But instead, this vine grows up around him and gives him shade -- the Bible says pleasure -- in the middle of expected disaster.
I love the version of the story from the Message translation:
5 But Jonah just left. He went out of the city to the east and sat down in a sulk. He put together a makeshift shelter of leafy branches and sat there in the shade to see what would happen to the city. 6 God arranged for a broad-leafed tree to spring up. It grew over Jonah to cool him off and get him out of his angry sulk. Jonah was pleased and enjoyed the shade. Life was looking up. 7 But then God sent a worm. By dawn of the next day, the worm had bored into the shade tree and it withered away. 8 The sun came up and God sent a hot, blistering wind from the east. The sun beat down on Jonah's head and he started to faint. He prayed to die: "I'm better off dead!" Jonah 4:5-8 (MSG)
I can't help but wonder if Jonah thought, "See -- nothing good ever happens to me. The minute I get a little shade tree growing, some worm comes and wrecks it. How typical!" I would have.
But finally, God explains the entire deal:
9 Then God said to Jonah, "What right do you have to get angry about this shade tree?" Jonah said, "Plenty of right. It's made me angry enough to die!" 10 God said, "What's this? How is it that you can change your feelings from pleasure to anger overnight about a mere shade tree that you did nothing to get? You neither planted nor watered it. It grew up one night and died the next night. 11 So, why can't I likewise change what I feel about Nineveh from anger to pleasure, this big city of more than a hundred and twenty thousand childlike people who don't yet know right from wrong, to say nothing of all the innocent animals?"
Jonah 4:9-11 (MSG)
Part of me wants to say: So, God is fickle? He changes his mind? That makes me just a pawn in God's game -- the recipient of random acts of kindness or punishment, all of which live outside of my control? But that would be thinking like Jonah (something I'm good at). Jonah, like me, is a control freak. I like to make things happen on my own, and don't trust anything that happens under some other source of power.
But that thinking represents the major flawed premise, the missing fact: God isn't focused on disaster and more than the vine is focused on the death of the branches and leaves. The whole point is to make it thrive. Ninevah wasn't thriving. It was dying. God reconected the Ninevah branch so that the leaves could flourish. Jonah saw a wrathful God, and expected the wrath to mess up his life as well.
I don't know Jonah's life-story -- it isn't given in the book. But if it was like mine (and I suspect it was), then Jonah was one pessimistic man, perhaps for as good of reasons as I have. But the reasons are unimportant. The premise is flawed. So God sends Jonah to watch Ninevah get reconnected to the vine and flourish -- just to show him that reconnecting branches and leaves so that they'll flourish is what He's all about.
It's the expectation of disaster that is the problem. For Jonah. For me. I look at the shade tree, and assume the worm is coming tonight. And in doing so, I don't see the gift of the shade tree at all. Or realize that some worm had a marvelous meal that night, and that a new tree can -- and will -- take its place for me tomorrow.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Life in the Vine (My Ninevah Project)
Christmas Day, 2009
If you've ever read the book of Jonah in the Old Testament, you'll appreciate the experience of doing something out of sheer obedience, even if it doesn't make full sense at the time, and only to get all the nagging to stop. This blog is a lot like that.
Don't misunderstand. I don't have an important message from God to share to strangers in a strange land. I'm not sure that I have a message at all. But I do share something in common with Jonah, which is why I'm subtitling this blog "My Ninevah Project:" I'm heading off on a task with a great deal of resistance and hesitation.
Quick backstory so that this all makes sense: God tells Jonah to go to Ninevah and deliver a message to the people there. Jonah thinks the idea is stupid for many reasons (most of which we don't learn about until much later in the story), and simply refuses to go. In fact, he gets in a boat and goes the opposite direction.
You know the rest, or at least you know the most famous part of the story, the part talk people talk about in some children's Sunday School class: There's the boat, the storm, the big fish. The very frightened Jonah, praying psalm-style inside the fish with one of those fervent "ohpleaseohpleaseohplease" prayers (I thought I was the only one who prayed those). Sitting on land covered in fish vomit (I know, right?), God asks again and, low and behold, Jonah agrees to do the task he was assigned.
But that is not the end of the story. Far from it. Jonah goes to Ninevah, tells the people what God has to say, the people repent, and God forgives them. Happy ending. But not the ending. Here's what happens next: Jonah gets ticked. Ticked. At God. Read for yourself:
"But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. He prayed to the LORD, "O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, O LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live." Jonah 4:1-3 (NIV)
I like Jonah. I like his spunk. For most of my life, I've spent a great deal of my time talking to God in quiet and sniveling low tones, with lots of compliments and praises and very little inner honesty. Most of the real feelings -- especially anger and confusion -- would get buried in shame for the very feeling of it, and telling God that I thought his plan was stupid is, in my book, a lot like telling anyone in my polite WASP family that I didn't care for their Christmas gift and did they have the receipt because this gift is heading straight back to Sears. It just doesn't happen.
Jonah tells it like it is. He's way, way off base and doesn't get it, but he's brutally honest about it. I am often way, way off base and somehow know that if I speak up, I'll be shown to be the fool I am. But that didn't stop Jonah.
Good thing, because here's where things get interesting. God lets him be mad. Then God teaches him a gentle lesson about His love -- for Jonah and everyone else. No shaming, no lightening rods. Just a little vine that grows and then dies to make a simple point. I assume Jonah got it. I assume he thought about that vine for the rest of his life.
I don't have a message from God. That's not what this blog is about. But I have, for years, felt the nagging, the restlessness, the tugging at my sleeve from God. There's something that I need to work out about my faith walk, and for some reason, God wants me to work it out publicly. For whatever reason, I need to write it down, and someone needs to read it.
Let me be clear: I write for other people all the time. I write academic papers and publications. I write for a government contract as well. The writing is often slow and difficult, because there are high stakes for what others think about what I write: tenure, future contracts, respect from my peers. I speak a lot, too. In fact, I'm much more comfortable presenting than writing -- it feels so temporary and in the moment.
But the nagging, I can tell, has to do with me writing about God. I'm supposed to write about my daily walk, about the constant metaphors and images and insights that He sticks in my head. I'm supposed to wrestle on my keyboard for the world to see. I thought it was supposed to be in a book, but it looks like He's satisfied with a blog.
And, let's be honest: I think it is a stupid plan.
Stupid because I have NO credentials for this. No advanced theological degree. No shining example of a life. True, I have surrendered my heart to Jesus, but so has millions of other people, most of whom have a better track record than I do. The world does not need another book or blog, especially about Christianity. And I don't have the time. And I don't have any of it figured out. I have nothing to say.
That is what my argument to God has sounded like for several years. But God is persistent. Relentless. The nagging in my head won't stop, and I think the entire point is to help me overcome my spiritual ADHD. Writing every day will create a discipline for me that I need -- a chance to focus my spiritual thoughts and get them down in my own heart rather than watching them float away without the lesson being learned. Maybe God wants to show his people struggling for answers. Maybe He thinks the religious teachers have become to glib with their insights. And maybe this really will help a person or two along the way. That would be great.
But I'm still not feeling very confident, and I'd much rather curl up on the couch and watch mindless reality television, or play endless rounds of Spider Solitaire. I can feel the digestive juices of the big fish turning me into jello every time I try.
So, here I am. Obeying. Writing a little bit each day about life in the vine. That's the real lesson from 2009, a year full of adventure, fear, debt, doubt, unresolved illnesses and endless struggles to ignore the unhappy circumstances and find true joy. The big revelation from 2009 is that we are (or can be) connected to the Vine. We're plugged into this energy source much like the alarm clock next to my bed, the one I use to charge my iPod. Without the connection to the electric current that runs through my house, there's no power, no charge. No music.
Simple concept. Profoundly challenging task. I often feel powerless, uncharged. Life just drains me sometimes, and I find all the wrong ways to get some energy, some of which drain me more. Looking for love in all the wrong places, even though I know better. I've read the Scripture hundreds of times:
"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8 This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. John 15:5-8 (NIV)
But living it? I mean, spending every day fully attached in the Vine? Hasn't happened yet. So I'm going to try and use this blog to take on a year in the Vine. I invite you to come along with me. Let's do it together. I promise to share the real "Jonah" gripes and even, I'm sure, a few "ohpleaseohplease" moments.
But the goal is to bear some fruit. in 2010 I turn 50. Hard for me to believe. Living around college students makes me feel much younger. I'm determined to figure this out -- to enjoy the time I have left on this planet and make the most of every moment. And I now think that the only way I'll be able to do that is to strengthen my attachment to the power source. It's time to thrive.
If you've ever read the book of Jonah in the Old Testament, you'll appreciate the experience of doing something out of sheer obedience, even if it doesn't make full sense at the time, and only to get all the nagging to stop. This blog is a lot like that.
Don't misunderstand. I don't have an important message from God to share to strangers in a strange land. I'm not sure that I have a message at all. But I do share something in common with Jonah, which is why I'm subtitling this blog "My Ninevah Project:" I'm heading off on a task with a great deal of resistance and hesitation.
Quick backstory so that this all makes sense: God tells Jonah to go to Ninevah and deliver a message to the people there. Jonah thinks the idea is stupid for many reasons (most of which we don't learn about until much later in the story), and simply refuses to go. In fact, he gets in a boat and goes the opposite direction.
You know the rest, or at least you know the most famous part of the story, the part talk people talk about in some children's Sunday School class: There's the boat, the storm, the big fish. The very frightened Jonah, praying psalm-style inside the fish with one of those fervent "ohpleaseohpleaseohplease" prayers (I thought I was the only one who prayed those). Sitting on land covered in fish vomit (I know, right?), God asks again and, low and behold, Jonah agrees to do the task he was assigned.
But that is not the end of the story. Far from it. Jonah goes to Ninevah, tells the people what God has to say, the people repent, and God forgives them. Happy ending. But not the ending. Here's what happens next: Jonah gets ticked. Ticked. At God. Read for yourself:
"But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. He prayed to the LORD, "O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, O LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live." Jonah 4:1-3 (NIV)
I like Jonah. I like his spunk. For most of my life, I've spent a great deal of my time talking to God in quiet and sniveling low tones, with lots of compliments and praises and very little inner honesty. Most of the real feelings -- especially anger and confusion -- would get buried in shame for the very feeling of it, and telling God that I thought his plan was stupid is, in my book, a lot like telling anyone in my polite WASP family that I didn't care for their Christmas gift and did they have the receipt because this gift is heading straight back to Sears. It just doesn't happen.
Jonah tells it like it is. He's way, way off base and doesn't get it, but he's brutally honest about it. I am often way, way off base and somehow know that if I speak up, I'll be shown to be the fool I am. But that didn't stop Jonah.
Good thing, because here's where things get interesting. God lets him be mad. Then God teaches him a gentle lesson about His love -- for Jonah and everyone else. No shaming, no lightening rods. Just a little vine that grows and then dies to make a simple point. I assume Jonah got it. I assume he thought about that vine for the rest of his life.
I don't have a message from God. That's not what this blog is about. But I have, for years, felt the nagging, the restlessness, the tugging at my sleeve from God. There's something that I need to work out about my faith walk, and for some reason, God wants me to work it out publicly. For whatever reason, I need to write it down, and someone needs to read it.
Let me be clear: I write for other people all the time. I write academic papers and publications. I write for a government contract as well. The writing is often slow and difficult, because there are high stakes for what others think about what I write: tenure, future contracts, respect from my peers. I speak a lot, too. In fact, I'm much more comfortable presenting than writing -- it feels so temporary and in the moment.
But the nagging, I can tell, has to do with me writing about God. I'm supposed to write about my daily walk, about the constant metaphors and images and insights that He sticks in my head. I'm supposed to wrestle on my keyboard for the world to see. I thought it was supposed to be in a book, but it looks like He's satisfied with a blog.
And, let's be honest: I think it is a stupid plan.
Stupid because I have NO credentials for this. No advanced theological degree. No shining example of a life. True, I have surrendered my heart to Jesus, but so has millions of other people, most of whom have a better track record than I do. The world does not need another book or blog, especially about Christianity. And I don't have the time. And I don't have any of it figured out. I have nothing to say.
That is what my argument to God has sounded like for several years. But God is persistent. Relentless. The nagging in my head won't stop, and I think the entire point is to help me overcome my spiritual ADHD. Writing every day will create a discipline for me that I need -- a chance to focus my spiritual thoughts and get them down in my own heart rather than watching them float away without the lesson being learned. Maybe God wants to show his people struggling for answers. Maybe He thinks the religious teachers have become to glib with their insights. And maybe this really will help a person or two along the way. That would be great.
But I'm still not feeling very confident, and I'd much rather curl up on the couch and watch mindless reality television, or play endless rounds of Spider Solitaire. I can feel the digestive juices of the big fish turning me into jello every time I try.
So, here I am. Obeying. Writing a little bit each day about life in the vine. That's the real lesson from 2009, a year full of adventure, fear, debt, doubt, unresolved illnesses and endless struggles to ignore the unhappy circumstances and find true joy. The big revelation from 2009 is that we are (or can be) connected to the Vine. We're plugged into this energy source much like the alarm clock next to my bed, the one I use to charge my iPod. Without the connection to the electric current that runs through my house, there's no power, no charge. No music.
Simple concept. Profoundly challenging task. I often feel powerless, uncharged. Life just drains me sometimes, and I find all the wrong ways to get some energy, some of which drain me more. Looking for love in all the wrong places, even though I know better. I've read the Scripture hundreds of times:
"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8 This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. John 15:5-8 (NIV)
But living it? I mean, spending every day fully attached in the Vine? Hasn't happened yet. So I'm going to try and use this blog to take on a year in the Vine. I invite you to come along with me. Let's do it together. I promise to share the real "Jonah" gripes and even, I'm sure, a few "ohpleaseohplease" moments.
But the goal is to bear some fruit. in 2010 I turn 50. Hard for me to believe. Living around college students makes me feel much younger. I'm determined to figure this out -- to enjoy the time I have left on this planet and make the most of every moment. And I now think that the only way I'll be able to do that is to strengthen my attachment to the power source. It's time to thrive.
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