Pastor George Miner was my internship supervisor at Community Lutheran Church in Rancho Santa Margarita, California.  He died last week from cancer.

A true mentor is someone who believes in you, challenges you, pushes you, sees things within you that you don’t see in yourself, allows you to fail, and then helps you learn from your mistakes and try again (if you are willing to listen and change).  A mentor gives you space to grow, space to become who God created, gifted, and called you to be.  Pastor George Miner was a true spiritual mentor to me, and to many, many other people.  His mentorship and the lessons he taught me during my internship at Community Lutheran Church, a crucial year of my life and ministry, continue to shape and mold me.   In the years since serving CLC, when I have gotten lost in the wilderness because of my failures, or tempted to quit the journey altogether in the face of disappointments, I’d remember George, then say a prayer asking for God’s grace in my heart, put a song of praise on my lips, lace up my boots, tighten my pack, and keep going wherever God’s Voice would lead.  Backpacking metaphors always seem to arise when I think of Pastor George.

Pastor George showed me what it meant to have a passion for following God, especially by observing his interactions with people.  His ability to sweep people up into his enthusiasm and excitement for living the life of faith, ever growing and learning to be Jesus’ disciples in the world, was amazing to behold.  To say that George had an indomitable spirit would be an understatement.  To follow Pastor George was to experience first hand the power of the Holy Spirit in his life, not to mention the importance of a good cup of coffee.  OK, maybe not “good” coffee, just coffee, any coffee, and a lot of it!  Even if that meant drinking instant coffee grounds mixed with cold water while on the trail backpacking, bringing a new meaning to the term, “true grit.”

Of all of the wonderful opportunities and experiences serving, preaching, teaching, and growing while at Community Lutheran Church, I most looked forward to my weekly one-on-one meetings with George.  I cherished that special time I got to have with him.  I am sure the seminary gave him a handbook of topics and questions to cover, but he always seemed to have more important things to discuss.  After grabbing some more coffee, he’d close the door to his office and start talking about where and how God was working in the lives of the people in the church, and where God was leading this community of believers in ministry and mission together.  As he’d get more and more excited, his gestures would get more and more excited, splattering coffee all over the place!  But whatever the topic, issue, or ministry agenda item we discussed, Jesus Christ as always at the center; George made sure of that, for Jesus was at the center of his life, and it showed in who he was and in all he did. 

I thank God for the life, the friendship, and the ministry of George Miner, for the chance to hike along with him for just a little while.  And I hope we will all take with us the memories and lessons he taught, wherever the trail leads, until that day when we meet again on a heavenly mountain vista that will make the beauty and grandeur of the Emigrant wilderness look like a cheap copy (if you can imagine that!).  God be with you George, until we meet again.

Remember Easter?  We shouted for joy on Easter morning: “Christ is risen!  He is risen, indeed!  Hallelujah!” There was energy and excitement as we celebrated Christ’s victory over sin and death!  We sang songs of praise for Christ’s glorious Resurrection and the hope that is ours through Him.  The Spirit was palpable in our worship on Easter Sunday.  But by the next Sunday, when the lily cross and most of the flowers were gone, the brass players took their instruments home, and the crowds had gone away, I overheard some little kids saying, “This isn’t as fun as last week.”

They could just have easily asked, “Where is the Spirit at church?”  I wish I would have stopped them so I could have told them, “The Spirit is in you!”  In other words, the “fun”, the joy and excitement of Easter has been given to you!

“All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit…” – Acts 2: 4

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”  – 1 Corinthians 3: 16

            On a Wednesday night during Lent, I met a visiting older couple right before the evening worship service.  Both JIFY and Confirmation had let out, and kids were running through the halls as parents and adults milled around in the hallway, and I apologetically said, “It’s a little crazy around here on Wednesday nights.”  With a twinkle in his eye, the visitor replied, “Oh no, this church is alive!”  

 “I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.”  – Ephesians 3: 16&17

            A newer member of CV came into my office recently to talk about some new ideas he had, having a deep desire to contribute his many talents to grow the ministries of the church.  “People need to know that God has given them gifts and talents to share with others and contribute to the church,” he said.  And before he left, he came up with a great idea for a New Small Group that will start next fall (so stay tuned).  That man has the Spirit in him, and instead of bottling it up, he’s going to share his talents that the Spirit has put in him!

            So, the next time you come to church, instead of waiting for someone else to show a little energy and enthusiasm for their faith in Christ Jesus, maybe you are the one who needs to open up and share the Spirit that is in you!  Let a little Spirit into your singing and praying.  Show a little Spirit on your face as you greet people around you, and talk with people before and after church.  Look for ways that God will provide you to share the Spirit in you and use your God given talents and gifts!

            Where is the Spirit at church?  The Spirit of Christ is in you!

“But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him….  But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe – the best one – and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.  And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’” – Luke 15: 20, 22-24

The parable Jesus tells in Luke 15: 11-32, is most widely known as the Prodigal Son.   Remember the young son who asks for his inheritance before his father has died and then squanders it in “dissolute living” in a distant country?  You know the story: after blowing all his money, suffering amongst the pigs during a famine, he finally decides to go home to offer to be a servant of his father instead of a son. 

I have always focused on the behavior of the sons.  There is the young son who thought he deserved his father’s wealth, but then realizes he doesn’t even deserve the love of his father.  And then there is the older son who agrees that the younger son does not deserve the love of the father, because he is the responsible one who truly deserves the love and wealth of the father.  (I’d like to pretend I am like the younger son, but really I am just like the older son – I am first born after all).

 Prodigal = recklessly extravagant, lavishly abundant

 They are both wrong, of course.  You cannot deserve or earn the free gift of love and compassion!  You cannot deserve or earn grace, mercy, or forgiveness!  This isn’t a story about a Prodigal son, but about a Prodigal father, who is recklessly extravagant in his love and compassion, lavishly abundant in giving grace, mercy, and forgiveness to his children, both sons and daughters!

 We do not deserve, we cannot earn the love of God given to us through the suffering and death of His only Son, Jesus Christ, on the cross.  We can only receive the gift of the Good News with trembling wonder and thanksgiving, and rejoice, joining in the celebration when God’s sons and daughters return to be embraced by the reckless and costly love of God in Jesus Christ.

It seems almost ironic that we would be celebrating Christ the King Sunday and have the consecration of our pledges on the same day. On this Christ the King Sunday we acknowledge that Jesus Christ reigns over all; that Jesus is our King; that all of the powers, nations, and rulers of the earth will both bow down to Him; that no power, nation, or ruler will come before our Lord, Jesus Christ in our lives. This includes money.
Money has a huge power over us. We need it to buy the things we need to survive from day to day, and subsequently, whether we are conscious of it or not, instead of believing and trusting in God to give us our daily bread, we look to our job and even ourselves as the source of all we need. Instead of Jesus ruling in our lives, money and the pursuit of money rules instead. Such a subtle temptation to idolatry.
But when we intentionally give our money to God through our offerings, we are making a faith statement. It is God who gives us our daily bread, it is Jesus to whom we own our life and give our allegiance, and our offerings, our pledges, are a sign and symbol of our faith and fidelity to Christ our King.
So on this Christ the King Sunday, when we bring our pledges forward to the altar, be thinking of what this means as a real sign of you faith in Jesus Christ.

 

Our family at Christikon for their Family Camp/Theological Institute.

 

 

I’ve been away from the blog for a while – trips to the cabin, visiting relatives, taxi service for the kids, and we just returned from a two week family journey and road trip!

The first thing that I want to recommend to you and your families, is to plan a road trip together.  OK, I say that after the fact, because, to be perfectly honest, I was a little worried how the two weeks would go.  I kept having flashbacks to my own childhood family road trips, fighting with my little sister in the back seat of the station wagon.  There were good memories, of course, but I also remember the seemingly endless hours gazing out the window watching the world go by, not being able to read for fear of throwing up from car sickness.  Then there were the sing-a-longs, the alphabet game, the licenses of the states game (which we played this time too), and fighting with my sister again.  ”He touched my side of the seat!”  ”No I did not.”  ”Stay on your side!”  ”Stop touching me!”  ”If I have to stop this car…!”  Well, fill in the rest with your own happy memories.

Anyway, thank goodness for books on tape, or in our case, books on CD.  19 hours, yes, that’s 19 hours of “Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince.”  Can you say quiet and peace all across South Dakota?  Then more peace and bliss in the back seat across Wyoming into Montana, then Montana all across Wyoming into central Colorado.  And then, just as the reader finished the series, and my fears of unrest and growing hostilities from the back seat began to arise, the portable DVD player came to the rescue!  Thank you Pixar and Disney, you’re the best.

Now before you think, wouldn’t it have been cheaper and easier just to stay home and listen to a book and watch movies, think about driving by all of those Wall Drug signs for miles and miles before finally arriving at this temple of Americana!  Can you say, “over priced trinkets and food?”  Well, I can!  And so can the kids!!!  Then there was the excitement of driving into the Black Hills.  Rounding each corner with glimpses of Mount Rushmore in the distance.  Driving through the Wildlife Loop in Custer, through the Needle and up and down the switch backs.  Getting caught in a Bison traffic jam and being faced down by a huge bull Bison, who, in the words of Melissa, “snorted and snotted all over the road at us!”  Then there was the slow and bumpy two hour drive up the dirt road and mountain valley to Christikon.  Every turn opening up a new vista of beautiful mountain views, with the roaring Boulder river always close by, seething down the mountains to the valley from which we came.  ”Oh give me a home, where the Buffalo roam, and the deer and the antelope play….”  We lived it, baby!

 

"Do not mess with me, city boy!" snorted the Bison.

 

 

Now don’t get me started on the Sunday traffic jam on I-80 heading out of the Colorado Rockies toward Denver.  And, no offense to my Husker friends, but Nebraska isn’t the most titillating drive I’ve ever been on.  But all in all, a great road trip, and that’s only the time we spent in the vehicle.  Stay tuned for the Claussen Gubrud, “Diners, Chuckwagons, and BBQ too!”

Saturday night, under the glimmer stars, I started a campfire at the side of the lake.  The moon’s glow was just peaking over the trees on the far side of the lake.  The chilly wind blew across the waters, making the reflection of the stars twinkle even more.  Owls were hooting and loons were calling in the dark.  But as the pine needles, leaves, and twigs slowly smoldered and then caught fire and began to cast a flickering yellow glow all around, something shifted in my mind.  Mesmerized by the flames, my face and front now suddenly warm, while my back bore the brunt of the cool night wind, the inner and outer space was transformed into a sacred space.

That’s what fires do to and for me – transport me into a different place.  In the Bible the Spirit of God is often represented and experienced as fire.  Fire is ever changing, yet ever the same.  Fire is power that is both dangerous and a blessing, it burns as well as warms.  The campfire creates a sacred circle of space, that when people enter it they become part of the community of the fire.  To stand on the edge, in the shadows, and the cold, with the fire reflected in glowing eyes, somehow you are outside of that sacred space, literally and figuratively, “in the dark.”

I’ve been thinking about the connection between fire and the Spirit.  In our church all we have are a couple of candles lit by the altar and the eternal candle hanging by the back wall.  Only twice during the year is fire/candle light a powerfully present symbol of God’s Spirit and presence – Good Friday at the Tenebrae service and Christmas Eve at the evening candlelight service.  Yet growing up, the most powerful and meaningful times of worship for me were at various church camps around the campfire.  There is something about the crackling fire that focuses my mind, heart, body, and soul to God’s presence – fire and Spirit.  It is elemental, touching something primordial in each of us, drawing us out of our profane spaces into a sacred space.  

Can you imagine what a campfire church might look like?  Classes and fellowship for all ages in the morning, and then come back at night for the worship around the fire.  Hmmm… what do you think?  What have been your experience around the fire?  Have you had a sense of the Spirit’s presence?  Have your conversations gone deeper?  Have you been able to quiet your inner mind and just be still while watching the fire, in a way you find it hard to do in other settings?  Or do you just hate the smell and getting smoke in your eyes?

It has been a week now since I went through the Male Rites of Passage in Sandstone, MN.

I went on this week for a variety of reasons.  My main interest stemmed from the work I’ve been doing with our men’s ministry at church, helping men get beyond the shallow b.s.ing over breakfast and coffee into deeper questions and issues of soul, spirit, and life.  It has been gratifying to have so many men who are interested in connecting with other Christian men, to encourage and support each other on this journey of faith and life.  It is an honor to call these men my brothers in Christ.  They teach me so much about putting faith into action in their lives, not because they do it perfectly, but because they are honest in their struggles and joys.  Their lives reveal God’s grace to me, as Christ continues to work in their lives, and by reflection, I am able to see God at work in mine as well.

I also went because of the encouragement and example of my friend and soul brother, Brad.  He introduced me to this ministry/movement and experienced his own rites of passage in 2005.  In our conversations it became clear that this was something that I needed and wanted to do for my own spiritual growth.  There is a saying, “You cannot lead others beyond were you have been.”  I have found this does not only apply to life experience, but to the spiritual life of faith in God.  Not knowledge gained, but wisdom given.

At the rites of passage, there were a few men in their twenties, but most were well above 40, up into the 70′s.  This surprised me.  With the average age around 50, why did so many older men feel the need to experience these male rites of passage?  I do not presume to speak for these men, my initiated brothers, but after listening to so many different life stories that resonated with my own, it seems that none of us ever had older men, elders, to help us put all of the scattered pieces of our lives’ lessons and experiences together.  The founder of these rites of passage, Richard Rohr, once said that this is not about Theology, but about Cosmology; a big picture, or framework where all the pieces, even the broken and painful ones, have a proper and meaningful place.  It was not that I learned anything totally new, but through the rites, rituals, and experiences, the disconnected and even fractured pieces of my life have begun to come together for me in a way that had eluded me for most of my life.  And again, without speaking for my brothers, it seemed that they experienced some of the same “re-ligio” (re-binding = religion) of their lives that I did.  

But why so many older men?  I would agree with the leaders of these rites of passage that it does no good to initiate younger men and then send them back to their communities where there are no elders to continue to help and guide them.  This was affirmed by two younger men that I talked with at the rites who were both excited about their experience but also more than a little afraid to go back to their homes, work, and church, because they did not have any elders to whom they could go to talk to and learn from.  This from young men who are very active in their own churches!  They couldn’t name one older man from their church whom they felt they could go to for the elder-ing they needed and wanted.  Thankfully there are phones and email, as well as local and regional networks of initiated men and elders for ongoing support and encouragement, if they seek it out.  Younger men need spiritual elders in their lives to build friendships of deep trust and respect to help them develop into mature spiritual men.  

So it seems a two pronged approach is needed, continue to help and encourage the spiritual growth and life of older men, while at the same time connecting them with the younger men in the church, to build those friendships of trust and respect.

The rock and the old oak tree

 

On the cold, hard rock I sat

Feet on the damp, dark earth

Rain and blustering wind swirling around me

Naked and afraid, yearning and anxious

Shivering in my discomfort

My bloody, wounded self for all of creation to see

Silence and solitude speak loudly to my soul

From the Great Silence I cry out – here I am, I am listening, speak to me

 

But only the old oak took notice of me

 

A slap on the head for a greeting

The acorn fell to the ground

A gift, a lesson – life comes from life, but only after you go down into the deep earth to die, if you make it that far

 

Ravenous ADHD greedy squirrels are on the prowl

Take only a bite and leave the rest to rot

Empty acorn shells liter the earth of the woods floor

Broken, cracked, rotting, empty of new life’s potential

Slowly they will add to the humus and renew the possibility of life

Out of failure the deep earth for another acorn is made

 

Old oak knew I was afraid

 

Leaves and branches sheltered me from the rain

Hid me from the looming angry clouds above

Lively leaves and strong branches swayed not only above

At my feet their sisters and brothers lay

Broken and lifeless their energy spent

Not necessary or so important, not the sum of the tree

Another gift, another lesson – leaves and branches will only find their life and their true importance as part of the big oak tree

 

More lessons the old oak had to teach

 

The oak pointed behind me to the slender pines

So tall and orderly they stood side by side, yet

Passionately they danced and gyrated to the lusty embraces of the wind

In their midst, here and there, empty spaces cried out

Clean cut stumps the only monument remaining

Of the once tall and energetic trees

While the living brothers and sisters danced on

Celebrating, rejoicing, and losing themselves in their dance with the wind

 

Then old oak bared his broad rough chest for me to see

 

Deep cracks filled with moss

Scars weeping, crawling with bugs

Further up my eyes he drew me

Dying limbs, shattered branches, dead leaves hanging from their noose

Higher and higher my vision leaped

Until old oak led my gaze

To see the life towering and spreading out above me

Reaching for heaven and deeply rooted into the earth

Holding hands with friends, maple, pine and birch

Leaves, needles, and branches raised up in praise

Grass, flowers, bushes, and seedlings

Flitting birds and chattering squirrels

Even rock and moss and mushroom down below growing from the dead

Join in the worship

The gloomy clouds part to let the Sun shine through

My wounds now slowly healing

Transforming into something sacred

My heart and soul swell so large

Out bursts a river of tears from my eyes

I add the voice of my true self now found to the song

Thank you, thank you, thank you!