July 2003 archives

a little dittie....three areas that artist folks get into trouble: cistern gazing; idolzing their own spiritual experiences; serving other gods. The first is funny cause, on one hand you by nature are obsessive about your process, but when it starts to block your vision of Him...the second is a occupational temptation as you have lots of rarefied mountaintop exchanges anyhow-but it doesn't make you better and you really need the other "more valley" aspects of The Body-basically thisone is just pride; the last can happen subtly as you start to come under the influence of a governing spirit over a place. It happens in grad school or working for an advertizing agency etc..anytime we are using our expressive abilities to serve things other than Him...just starting to think about htis stuff as He keeps whispering about His Glory resting in our art...

lots of thoughts on what it means to be IN HIM this season, as He seems to be moving into His People more fully..to BE in Him; to BE His living temple...the whole shift from old testament to new-the shift from literal physical to spiritual metaphysical-when the veil tore, it then tears open IN us allowing us entry into the holy of Holies..this new level of incarnational reality as Leanne Payne puts it..as we start to move together and let Him integrate Himself in us..this sense of what level of living He offered His People and how shallow a depth we've entered....this as I'm listening to that cd of Bob Dylan which is just after He decided to enter the life of Christ...keep thinking of those days in San Francisco, the outpouring out there in the sixties..how spiritual reality became real to so many..then all these verses where He declares our metaphysical status in HIM...it seems more and more to me that it is mostly about being rooted and settled in Him-letting Jesus BE Gravity!

Jeremiah 3 and Isaiah 54, 55 have this dynamic of God as our husband. And once you are married-based on who He is-divorce is impossible. This has to do with once He has spoken and commited, by His Nature, He cannot backout. Israel played the harlot many times as we all do, but God remained faithful and has done it all to repair the breach-sending Himself incarnate for one, but also just endlessly wooing...

God does not divorce us. It is not in His Nature to Divorce.

trying to get this one out...over England a storm is gathering. It will shake fiercely everything that is not grounded in Him. Particularly, the institutional structures that are not actually founded on Him-pray for leaders. This shaking is refinement. I also see the smaller community houses of Him solidifying in this time as a place for many to gather-they will be caused to glow brighter in this time of turbulence..He wants the churches to be actual places of stability during this period of instability socially.
Leaders specifically coming under attack will come to know Him as their breath in this coming season. He purges who He loves. Leadership means being shaken first!

He who dwells in the SECRET PLACE...the "secret place is where it all begins-it is the East within-the origin point, The Source of all action without-that place of dialogue between our spirit and God's.
It is like the inner wellspring of living waters. The next part of the verse promises that if we DWELL in this inner conversation space which is just between God's spirit and ours, we will be shaded. This is the shade coming from the Tree of Life-Jesus the Christ.
Outer action flows out from this secret place between you and God-it has a unique shape and nuance for each believer who has entered this direct dialogue with His Spirit. We must return here often until it becomes our dwelling, your home. Returning is facilitated by word and worship and listening prayer...where you enter consciously the dialogue ongoing between His Spirit and ours. Psalms 91:1.

Derek and I were inspired by a whirlwind of blog-reading today... to be honest, neither one of us read online too much but we were really kind of awed by the level of organic community that's developed among our friends from different places. For some reason Derek and I are watching friends we've made at separate times from North Carolina, England, California, Texas, Ohio, Wisconsin, Berlin--go visit each other. It's so cool, and so God. He makes this invisible little webs and synapse points. He builds his own God-shaped bridges that are not really like the kinds of networks or bridges we often build by nature. God once gave me a vision of how Derek traveled when we were first married. I had never met anyone who traveled so much, and in so many different directions. He didn't always take the obvious route. Like, this summer, we were in France and had to be in Spain in a week but God told us to go back to Prague, so we took the long way through Italy. The road from France to Spain sometimes goes from FRance through Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Czech Republic, and all the way back to Spain. But in this vision I saw an intricate star--it was a spiritual network that he and I would be traveling. And it was clearly designed by the Lord's hand. It was watery, and jazzy, sure--and not a unilateral metallic direction--but it was strong in that it was a way of God connecting nations and teaching us how to listen to Him--where to go and when. I knew from there on out that our lifestyle was rather well-designed and orchestrated and uniquely us-shaped but for His purposes.

Anyway, all that to say, his web is very very strong and held at its rim points by the most unusual kingdom clowns. Can you see it forming?!

one little personal note... I am about to be an aunt. My sister, Kim (husband Tom), is due in a week--she is a vibrant, crazy girl and we love her. I'm praying that she is filled with hope and expectation this week as since it is her first she's a little anxious.

I just love morning--the first part of morning when the sun is barely breaking. Derek loves sunset--he becomes immovably quiet during this time. I like the beginnings, he likes the end--but they are both about rarefied spaces, the entrance and the exit, not the blare and overvoiced declarations of the middle of the day. It's too loud and busy, everyone clamoring for attention, everything, every color, every body fighting for equal space. But in sunrise and sunset, the subtle voices come forth. In Spain I somehow managed myself out of bed at 4:30 a.m. when I could feel the sun whistling from underneath. We were on the trail in time to see the most amazing and simple things--fields and fields for miles of cut hay with oddly arranged stacks of hay at various distances along the fields. There was a dance in that early light, the blue and pale pink yawning shadows, the odd sculptures with long shadows.

In Spain this is a welcome moment, as most of the day everything is so white, so yellow, so undynamic in its color. No wonder Spanish architecture and design often includes blue ceramic in its interiors--your eyes need a break and a relief from all the sun. At this moment I realized that all the beautiful monotony of Spain and its fleeting moments of diversity actually had a purpose. It has a gorgeous wholeness to it--her destiny has to do with some kind of unified theory. I saw it as a castle rising from sand--an entire castle that covered the whole country. Not like America which has a million bells and whistles and every flavor of revival movement, but one momunental queenly flourish--it is gold and red and like a dance as a man takes a womans hand and she smoothes out her wide royal red skirt.

We weren't in Spain to learn about Spain or meet leaders there... which is often the case when we travel some place new. This trip was about friends and journeying and the trail. But it was a taste of something I look forward to seeing again. As most of you know Derek and I are interested in learning about the nations as they relate to parts of God. We've written lots of broken fragments but I think this year we'll be telling more stores, writing more legibly--or at least more at length about why God loves nations, what they are in spirit, what they are in destiny. And not just writing--we write poems to them in secret, but we believe he is teaching his body about identity in general--personal, collective and national. What identity means in heaven... Like, regardless of how you feel on earth right now, what is your 'spirit man' doing in heaven? What is Spain doing in heaven?

We've both been moved by a number of teachers from our elder generation who have been given a "theology of nations"... if you are interested in praying for nations or feel that your destiny has something to do with understanding how to intercede for your own nation, I recommend highly reading some of Pieter Bos and his wife's writings... they are well-researched but full of real solid and I believe much-needed revelation. They have a site at Serving the Nations... lots of it in Dutch but major articles, especially about "Corporate Identity of Nations" in English.

"And He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes." Learning to see with spiritual eyes, and then judge or interpret the text of life in that spirit context. A place He wants to take the whole church-to see with spiritual eyes and hear with spiritual ears. In this Isaiah passage the new order is being named-when Jesus comes to sort out things. It says He will not judge by His natural eyes and ears, but "with righteousness He shall judge.."He will judge from spiritual sight-ie He will see things in their true context, as Joshua did when He was shown the heavenly host. We see this principle-that when things are set right, the spiritual vision will be higher than the natural-ie interpreting earth through eyes of heaven. As spirit is above soul, so soul should be interpreted through spirit...He's moving us out in this direction!

Fathering=bestowing from above. Abraham saw and bestowed what He saw. The Jews came out of that. God was bestowing the Jews onto the earth.

Psalm 81 starts with that funky joyful outburst-it is to celebrate the fact that God delivered everybody; then it goes to their wilderness period, wherein they wouldn't let Him repattern them, so He judges them-none of those guys got to enter (but a few spies). Then it ends with what He would've given them-honey from the rock.
He wants to give us honey and fine wine, but we got to let His Voice cast out the ways of foreign gods-the foreign gods ways are the patterns which got internalized when we were under.

letting things die off-old patterns learned in bondage..this process as He brings it up, of re-patterning. To be delivered in stages-first stage, egyptian=while completely unaware someone comes in and liberates you (while you were dead in your trespasses). At this stage you aren't even aware that you are enslaved, and were not able to ask for help..and yet bec. of who He is...NExt phase, you do have more choice, and in fact have to go through the awkwardness of letting go the inner patterns of how you lived while under slavery-these are thought patterns as well as lifestyle patterns..this is the first part of the wilderness phase, but then I think there is another part that usually isn't mentioned..it is when He is getting ready to take you in..it is like a quick deep purging into areas He is preparing to give you the promise. It requires trust that if you give Him old ways of being He will place the new into it...then there is the standing into and possesing the promises.....I'm just thinking about the stages of deliverance and possession again. I was struck by reading the spainish mystics that we don't really have a tradition of naming the stages of spiritual maturation anymore, and therefore nobody knows where they are at in their own journey.

see with their eyes; hear with their ears, and understand with their heart...
I lived in California for four years, then I thought God would take me to Austin-instead He moved me to the nations..there is this whole process of being made ready to occupy the spaces of your inheritance-I thought I was ready back then-nope! I had gotten over anger at the church, but had no idea what I was called to do..I had begun to see who I was, but not what my part in His Drama was.
It seems there are stages to deliverance and possession--it is the Egypt thing-starts with getting unenslaved technically, then moves into a wilderness stage where you are having to let the patterns of being a slave pass out of you, then there is this turning towards the land-which is all about faith and getting rid of the remaining patterns which are still there from egypt which He is about to displace with the things which were intended to go there, and then there is the fight for the actual inheritance. Stages of deliverance. Sing the songs of deliverance all the way through! Let the old patterns die in the wilderness and receive the faith to believe there are new ways available, then let your old ways die-Rosemary from Germany talks of this part as exchanging your patterns or ways for His-"letting Him kill you in that area." Then there are these little funerals as things pass-then one is able to begin to receive what God intended to go into that room of you house. I've been thinking of the whole lifelong processes of deliverance and possesion of the promised life in Him...

Ok, I'm going to slowly make my way back into posting land, recovering from a traveler's bug and all. We made it to Spain as a group, and hit a dusty, hot trail all together... which was a miracle in and of itself. If you know this tribe at all, we find our joy in a multiplicity of directions, and that we somehow communed as one on the road, in a somewhat (somewhat) straight line for almost two weeks was really a new wondrous thing. ...None of us felt compelled to take cameras, and I suppose that was to spare the women from feeling caught walking in afternoon spain dry heat--certainly not at our prettiest.

I know all of us felt we were participating in something symbolic that had more to do with relationship and lifetime pilgrimage--getting to know new people--traveling without knowing when it would end or if we would get to the end. Which was understandably hard for some of us... Some of us were forced to rest for the first time in our ministry 'careers', one of the Jones kids was going through a real rite of passage, even little but strong Tamar at 15 months walked about a mile of dusty rocky monastic desert terrain. But somehow here were 16 people walking a trail--it was so strange! Derek Amy Andrew Debbie Samuel Elizabeth Abigail Hannah Tamar Shannon Linnea Erika Jessica Theresa Robbie Grace ... It wasn't about monuments or even encounters with others--of course we met a few special ones from all the nations along the way--but about our togetherness, stretching and pulling like a rubberband, not being afraid to snap a little bit. Not all of us are California hikers, darnit. For Derek and I it was learning how to handle the ropes of holding group dynamics together. We are not community builders or strong on shepherdy qualities, but this year he is integrated some of those parts of himself in us so that we can parent--us wacky mystic art parents--others into their spiritual growth and callings.

I think pilgrimage is a good idea--it doesn't have to be a real road toward someone's venerated bones--but is a lifestyle choice and can actually be a real journey to a place. I think my personal transforming pilgrimage happened last year when I left for Scotland on my own before Derek and I were married. I had had a lifelong dream of going to Scotland, and so I drove all over the whole country, even stopping to indulge my childhood fascination with the Loch Ness monster by taking pictures of the famous Loch. I'm still having trouble unpacking what I experienced, but it felt like I traveled to my origins and discovered old family treasure... I cried a lot.

At least on this Spanish trail you get into a rhythm of moving forward, being eager for the next but also knowing the limits of your bodies and of the sunshine you become as eager for the resting part. We all discovered the joys of true siesta. But the only people in history who have seem to really grasped pilgrimage as a lifestyle intuitively were the Celts and Jews. Moving towards something ineffable, eternal. It's easy to over-romanticize the idea--just as the Celts are becoming slightly over-romanticized--but He is definitely releasing the Pilgrimage paradigm into Protestant parts of the church as a new way of the church breaking forth into real relationship and journey into unknown.

Slavery-unpleasant word, God who is deliverer detest in that it reflects the ways of which are not His.
I will remember in America-land which should have and did for many cover and protect other nations-esp those who were not free to express their true identity..an evil seed got planted, slavery..
This week George Bush went to africa and stood before the nations in a slave house. He did not go under the weight of false shame, but as a strong leader to stand on the threshhold between his nations past and God's future. The time of retribution is here for those africans who were forced to come to america...after all the angry trying to grab retribution, the time which God has selected to re-tribute this strong high authoritied people.
There is great authority about to rest on the black american church-out of detroit, atlanta and other cities you will se My Power. I have remembered this blight of My Own Intensions-I have not stopped hearing their prayers. Not through violence, but in My Power-the whisper of reconciliation will be heard from church to church.
Black men will be called on to speak My Words to the whole church and the world will listen-this is my retribution.

To enter and reflect different aspects of Christ, as a way of getting to know Him Himself-the prophetic is to bless and help build up the church which is Him in His People; it is also then a way of getting to know hIm-lesser motivations quench and bend towards self-the inner motivation for prophecying is to get to know God and His Ways-the more I do it, the more I get to notice how He works, what are His Orientations, the specificities of His Actioning...somewhere along the line the church started doing ministry from a wrong inner motivation-something less than a way of getting to know and love God...it then became either about the person doing the ministering, or about spiritual experience for its own sake. God gives certain parts of Himself bec. He likes to make Himself known-prophecy is one aspect of who He is-the part which likes to reveal and express Himself, and the part which likes to encourage into Life His People. This is why Paul says to seek this gift above others-it is about getting to know this part of God which want to be known-the cross was an action of prophecy-it was God making His inner core be known to humanity. When we look at the cross as an act of prophecy, we see that this part of God is at His Core. Usually the grace or love of God is what is emphasized in interpretations of the cross, but there is also this prophetic dimension to it. God likes to express His Own Nature and make it known-this is prophecy-His Son being the fullest expression of God making a prophetic gesture towards all of creation.

Watching Abraham watching God watching Jesus watching the Father-how the universe gazes towards God!

Peter reflecting the rock part of God; John the wind and watery parts. How they worked together-the one close to His Heart sees Him on the shore, then the rock jumps in....how they both raced to the tomb, John getting there first, but stopping and allowing Peter to enter...different parts of God....how nations also reflect different aspects of their Source..Italy this firey arrow tip point of contact, Germany this father power place....read a very funny article by an italian on why the German chancellor is not taking his vacation in Italy this year-there were some comments by an italian leader about german tourist which were incendiary...watching these two men nations wrangle, thinking about how those two parts of God were meant to relate...

How He sees the overall pattern of our lives, and doesn't judge from the particular instance-this is a father's perspective, to watch the overall shifting or transformational patterns in individuals-this is also Brennan Mannings rich understanding of Grace Vision-Grace sees the whole persons life when it interprets today's activities.
This year, Ai-the second city of conquest-it symbolizes friendships for us. God giving us consistent and full friendships-peopling our lives for His Pleasure.
The first city was Marriage itself and the richness of a core intimacy..we took our anniversary on the spainish coast with the community, as a symbol of coming back out of our chamber after a year and starting to let Him give us as a gift to others...sunset crimson and pale green over mediterranean aquas..sharing wine and prophecies among friends-people speaking hope into our lives and whispering His Promises--a great anniversary!

so rich-the pilgrimage had a way of facilitating a stepping back to notice patterns-patterns of HIM in a community...it seems our whole life is symbolized by pilgrimage in that it is a getting to know God as you go lifestyle-thinking much of Abraham and that way of journeying into and from the unseen-the already not yet space...we are tired but it is clear that He has formed more of Himself in each of us for having journeyed together-felt a closeness to the Jones, and others who weren't even there-Bryce and Sam, Whitney and Brian and those He has placed within our hearts this year-also getting to know Ericka and Linnea the rich textures of His Life in them! In Joshua this journey of getting to know Him in motion as a group possesses land both within and without..this is the journey that the larger church is being called into a present-as it moves it will begin to be transformed as a mobile tabernacle for His Dwelling..
softer spots, getting to really respect more deeply shannon and really begin to see Jessica as a true leader...just to watch Him working so subtly and deeply in friends made the summer a joy for us

so...made it to Pamplona Spain to start pilgrimage that we re already on somehow. God would not let us do it officially not sure all the reasons, but very cool to be intentionally not doing for several weeks and just letting God do His thing..pretty large group-five tents...thinking about this whole notion of places being Holy...seems to me that only He Himself is Holy, and yet over time as He is allowed to move in certain areas-like Lindesfarne etc, the space becomes saturated...odd however to look to places themselves as a mediator..still, it seems in such a goal oriented moment in church history to have a lot of ministry people dong nothing but taking a long walk in spiritual expectancy seems like a good idea--no programs, no ministry goals, no agenda...feels about incarnation to me....we´ll see