the sanctuary blog

2006-10-26T13:49:00.000-04:00

[living along the fissures]

Matthew 17:1-13

After Jesus told his disciples about his death, he climbed a mountain with Peter, James, and John. He took them there alone, as unsettled as they may have been from all of this new talk about his death, and there his earthly appearance was stripped away and they beheld him as he was, in all his heavenly radiance "his face shone like the sun and his garments became as white as light" (Matthew 17:2).

Jesus spoke with Moses and Elijah about his work and about his death which was to come.
Peter, dazed by the light, but aroused by what he saw and heard said "Lord, it is good for us to be here" (17:4)—because there on the mountain Peter could see who Jesus was and it was easy to believe in everything he had said when he stood transformed and conversing with prophets.

"I will make three tabernacles here," Peter offered. "One for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah" (17:4).

But before Jesus could answer, the voice of God came thundering from heaven and all three disciples fell on their faces, unable to stand or speak in the presence of such power.

The transfiguration passed and Jesus' garments faded, and the three disciples came down from the mountain and spoke only of the event in secret. Christ was mocked and crucified and buried and Peter denied Christ before he proclaimed him.

But the Transfigured Christ did what he said, he accomplished those things that he discussed with the prophets, and the Transfigured Christ, who rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, and commissioned his work on earth, became the center point of Peter's life.

As a followers of Christ, we live in the midst of the supernatural, and as we follow him, we sometimes catch glimpses of his face revealed. These moments are like spears of truth that pierce the veil we let hang between ourselves and the brightest reality. As we go about our lives, caught in worry and in fear, we forget that there is a life beyond this life and that there are only a few very immediate things that we need—most elemental of those needs is to behold that Face, remembering Christ's death and living in his resurrection.

We must build our houses in view of the transfiguration, like Peter wanted to, as close as we can get to the remembrance of who he is and what that makes us to be, holding fast to all the visions that break upon us in his presence, shaken from the dullness of the present.

We must remember that our lives are a preface to a far richer reality as we eagerly await and labor to bring about all that Christ said would come through us in His kingdom.

We must live along the fissures that open between that which is fading and that which is dawning brighter and brighter as Christ grows in us and works amongst us. The God who spoke through prophets speaks to us and lives in us now, and we must fight to remember every fragment of inspiration, every word he speaks, and to know him as he stood transfigured before Peter and now in our lives.

by: hannah clarkin - a writer, singer, love who is apart of the sanctuary community. [for more info on sanctuary click..............here.]

2006-10-11T17:51:00.000-04:00

[i'm going out to find the rhythm of the ocean]

The sea rises up in the most unexpected places—the salt in your eyes and in your blood—the motion beneath everything, the commotion in your hollowed hand and ear, wallpapering the silence, rhythmic and haunting.

Swaying in the boughs of a walnut tree, pressed against the sky with the green paper leaves, you might think you hear the ocean in the tree tops, you might think you see the waves in the grass.

Spreading blankets on lawns and beaches to watch the cold slide of stars across a black sky. Drinking fluid night through the open windows of a train, shaking along the tracks, hearing a sound in all the vibration, reaching across all the red rooftops and grey bridges, in the middle of the land, on the top of a hill, the voice of that reaches your ears, hungry like the grinding of the surf over stones

Hungry like you.

You know that this is dangerous--waking up like the morning after a fever broke--trying your limbs and finding soundness instead of ache.

You know that real boldness is dangerous. Have a healthy sense of your own danger. Tread slowly. Don't let the fearlessness in. Don't loose yourself to hope. You might get reckless with your love again, and actually begin to forgive people for all the things they never meant to do. You might see beauty in everything. You might start to Trust.

You might start to pray recklessly again. You might ask for more than you can handle. You might try to walk on water again.

And, oh God, what then?

by: hannah clarkin - a writer, singer, love who is apart of the sanctuary community.
[for more info on sanctuary click..............here.]

2006-09-13T17:28:00.000-04:00

[sabbath]

When I stopped to take in the reality that I am loved just because I exist – I found out how much of my efforts were about earning something I already have.

Sabbath is taking a day a week to remind myself that I did not make the world and it will continue to exist without my efforts

Sabbath is a day when my work is done even if it isn’t

Sabbath is a day when my job is to enjoy period

Sabbath is a day when I am fully available to myself and the people I love the most

Sabbath is a day when I remember that when God made the world he saw that it was good

Sabbath is a day when I produce nothing

Sabbath is a day when I remind myself that I am not a machine

Sabbath is a day when at the end of the day I say “ I didn’t do anything today – and I don’t follow that with “ I feel so guilty”

A day when my phone is turned off, I don’t check my email – and you cant get a hold of me

Sabbath gives humanity the energy it needs to exist for another week

2006-09-03T14:35:00.000-04:00

[lot's wife]

They say I looked back out of curiosity,
but I could have had other reasons.
I looked back mourning my silver bowl.
Carelessly, while tying my sandal strap.
So I wouldn't have to keep staring at the righteous nape
of my husband Lot's neck.
Wislawa Szymborska, Lot's Wife

I read a poem about Lot's wife, counting all the reasons she might have been innocent and looking back from natural sorrow or by accident. "I looked back in desolation. In shame because we had stolen away. Wanting to cry out, to go home. Or only when a sudden gust of wind unbound my hair and lifted up my robe." It's a little angry at God for His lack of mercy. "Checking for pursuers. Struck my silence, hoping God had changed his mind."

The story has always set me on edge, imagining the vivid horror of her fate, twisting from flesh to salt, humanity dropping from her, wrung from her bones in the place where she stood. I used to sympathize with her, blaming Lot, angry with him for his greedy eying of the fertile valley of Sodom, for dragging his family into the situation at all. He led his family astray, didn't he? She only followed him. It was his fault that his wife was climbing a path from this place, that she had ever lived there, that she could even miss it. Wouldn't any woman look back at the place she once lived, sorrowful at the destruction of her home?

But the angels of God did not have to listen to Abraham's plea and warn Lot, calling him out of the city. Lot and his family had learned the ways of the wicked city and lived comfortably there. If the angels had spoken to Lot only, then his wife might have a case. He had mislead her before, perhaps, and she was tired of following him. People cannot be your sole direction, after all, because people fail. If you let man be the voice of God for you without seeking Him yourself, when man fails you want to blame God.

But the angels took hold of Lot and his wife and his daughters. They spoke to all of them and their words were exact, "Flee for your lives! Don't look back, and don't stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away" (Genesis 19:17, NAS) They spoke to Lot's wife just as directly as they spoke to Lot.

When I return to the actual story, in its entirety, I find more mercy than wrath. No one knows why she looked back. Everyone knows what happened. She held the command of the Lord, the only thing that could preserve her life. She had it directly from His messengers and she could feel the heat at her back.

There is sometimes a struggle to take hold of truth, a struggle to discern the direction that God desires, but when the Word comes you must abandon your old city, you must take to the hills, you must chase your calling with fury, and you must not look back. You may hear the voices of others, see scorn on their faces, you may want to turn around, defend yourself or change your actions to please them. "It seemed to me they were watching from the walls of Sodom," says Lot's wife in the poem, "and bursting into thunderous laughter again and again." But even while they may mock you, they cannot run to the hills for you. Other people cannot save you.

This is not to say that the life of faith is lived alone, that following God means isolation and denial of community. There are times when God will speak through the voice of a friend. But there are other times when you must forsake the wisdom of others, forsake the places they have failed you. The voice of God must be sought above the voices of others.

When people fail, you must recognize that He is holy beyond their mistakes. His call must be the foremost in your mind. Christ calls, and asks you to follow without regret. "No one," he says, "after putting his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:23). Following Christ in light of His worth is the struggle of which Paul speaks, "Forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead. I press on towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ" (Philippians 3:13).

Lot's wife heard the call of the angels, felt their pull, their pulse of urgency. She knew what was coming. She could not blame Lot or anyone else, even if she wanted to. It is with regret that I read the story, with sadness for her, and also for myself, because I know that I do hesitate and doubt. I doubt the severity of His call; I listen to mocking voices; I don't always follow with the abandon that I should. So I read the story even more impressed with the depth of a mercy that seeks me out even in my faithlessness, seizes me by the wrists, tearing me from my apathy and burning down my cities of idolatry.

Salvation is not contingent upon the words of others; God is only responsible for His own deeds. You cannot escape circumstances, but you can grasp the truth that lies outside of them. Truth is the word and call of Christ, the person of Christ, who bids you to forsake all the things that bound you once and not linger upon them, who bids you to journey past the walls of your falling city and into the mountains of faith.

written by: hannah clarkin
- for more information and media go to the sanctuary website.

2006-08-24T15:47:00.000-04:00

[blind man healed]
My baby brother wakes me up every morning as if he expects me to be gone. His feet stick to the hall floor as he tiptoes outside listening. Sometimes I catch the look on his face around the edge of the door, lips pressed together in silent concentration, eyes searching the bed for my shape. Then the burst of recognition – the quick smile of surprise – calling my name – and running to the bed to kiss me on the cheek over and over and tell me that it is morning. It is time to make pinwheels and build cities and blow bubbles in the lake, time to paint our faces and put on costumes and sneak around the house.

At three years old the world is bigger and mornings and sleepy older sisters are still miracles. There is marvel sketched across your face and your eyes will believe anything. There is mystery behind every piece of reality.

For most of my brother's life I've been away at school, home only for visits, and he asks all the time when I am going back. Yet even after months of being home, his excitement to find me in my bedroom is just as fresh, and I've been told that he goes into every bedroom in the house, before he gets to mine, and wakes everyone this way.

The world is lost a little in living, disguised by routines and expectancy. But there is a vision beyond that of the child, an instance of recognition that makes the world new. Flannery O'Connor compares the experience of conversion to that of the blind man that Christ healed, rooted in reality, but given a different layer of context and an intensity of newness. The blind man healed looks out on the world as if it was just created because he suddenly understands how it was created to be.

The vision of faith cuts through the film of familiarity, dethroning assumptions, messing up categories. The eyes touched by Christ may seem to behold strange visions – men like trees, walking around – but this is only because they no longer see impossibilities.

He who has been healed knows that there is such a thing as pain, but he also knows that there is such a thing as hope. So he speaks with confidence from his joy, knowing that the world arches widest in places of greatest pain. He runs to the darkest places unafraid, ready to wait to see them illuminated. In the shadows, the deepest miracles are born, and there the Healer will reveal the most of Himself. Watching with the attentiveness of the child, the blind man healed rejoices with the morning as if the morning had no need to come.

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:
Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him."
Lamentations 3

written by: hannah clarkin ( a resident of sanctuary )

2006-07-21T13:23:00.000-04:00

[merciful losses]

So this is the art of contentment: not to seek to add to our circumstances, but to subtract from our desires. ... Certainly that man or woman is rich, who have their desires satisfied.

Jeremiah Burroughs

I stumbled on this quote in an old journal today. It is from a little book called The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment that is both one of the most comforting and the most unsettling things I have ever read. Burrough's words are encouraging, exploring the contours of faith in a time of loss and uncertainty. It is written with firm assurance that the portion that God has assigned to each person is enough.

Burroughs's perspective is so placid that one would be tempted to accuse him of never experiencing loss. He writes of loosing a friend with surprising calm. "Was that creature anything to you but a conduit, a pipe, that conveyed God's goodness to you? 'The pipe is cut off,' says God, 'come to me, the fountain, and drink immediately.'" Statements like this seem removed from any engagement in the struggle and heartbreak inherent in human relationships. But Burroughs is far from naive about loss. He is speaking to a church that is under great persecution, to people who have had their possessions stolen, their houses burned, their spouses beaten, and their children killed. He is speaking as a minister to a church that is attempting to hold itself together in the midst of anarchy. The loss of which he speaks is his own. The book is his reconciliation of that loss with the abundance promised by God.

I think of my struggles with doubt and I often relate to the Israelites as they wandered through the wilderness. They lived on the bread and meat of miracles, their path was lit by a divine fire, their days were structured by the exact words of God and yet they doubted. I am just as demanding as they are. I am surrounded by the evidence of God and still crying out thirsty. I hear the promises of God and act on my own intuition. Moses struck the rock and so do I, every day. I am suspicious of God, that the words He gives me are enough, that His grace will pour abundantly from the rock face at only a word of faith. So I strike my life all over, with rods of disbelief, I hoard his blessings, treasure them like idols until the stench of their decay makes me ill.

I have illusions about what grace actually looks like. When it comes in the form of refinement, I mourn my losses.

God's grace is not my house or my summer job, it is not my clothes or my friends, it is not my health or my security. God's presence is not felt in my comfort alone. It is sometimes manifest in these things, rising beneath them, working through them, but it is also sometimes obscured by them and when it is, the most merciful thing that God can do is cut them away. Burroughs was so desirous of God that he welcomed his losses, seeing scars that they left as marks of God's love, hearing in his suffering the notes of a higher and more sacred calling, drawing him deeper, freeing him from his vanity, and bringing him to a position of greater contentment.

So I am reading The Rare Jewel over again and relearning lessons that I thought I knew. Great is His faithfulness, but so much greater than I realized, for it is in both the things I see as blessings and the things I want to call curses. Great is His faithfulness both in provision and in denial of my desires. He opens the corridors of His will and closes up the avenues of my distraction, He sends me out alone only so that I will find Him in a truer way than I ever have before. It is in my greatest barrenness that He provides the greatest riches. His riches are dug from deeper mines than I expected and they are more valued for the depth of their struggle.

And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.
Phillipians 4:18

Composed by one of sanctuarys resident writers: hannah clarkin

// Go to the media section of the sanctuary website: sanctuaryworship.com for talks, music and other beautiful things.

2006-06-27T15:19:00.000-04:00

[the great disquiet]

Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."
John 4:10

To the water's edge I come, I run, to climb beneath the bridge, my cradle from the sky, my shadowed place and escape, when the world has lurched too hard and the horizon widened in chasms. I come to be guarded from over-exposure. I can hide beneath the old stone arch and loose my voice beneath the voice of the river. To the water's edge I come, I run, to climb away out of sight, where no one will find me, where the forest stretches green along the river banks outside of my enclosure and I sit with my back against the stone, water up to my ankles, skipping my thoughts across the surface, counting their leaps, watching them sink. I am auditioning ideas across the echoing air, and with the forthcoming clarity I drown illusions one by one .

Welcome to the great disquiet, my fear of uncertainty, the fury of my impatience. Welcome to the revelation of my own hypocrisy, the devaluation of my words, the new conviction that I can talk a lot about faith but that without action it means nothing—so mine means nothing. I've been living like I have to cover for God, like I have to be the source of my own wisdom. I've been living like my night watches contain paths to truth, solutions and answers, like I could wrestle until dawn and win. I 've been forgetting the miracle of direction, the hope of salvation and the peace of the Voice that will speak in due time.

I like to say that I avoid interior life, am concerned with others, push away from over-introspection, from solipsism. I like to say that I live in the exterior world and am rooted in the business of it, lost in the needs of others, lost in the rhythm of my work, satisfied by my place. But I cannot have outward serenity without inward peace. Oh the chorus of many voices, welling up in a new and throbbing dark . Oh the depth of the shades around me and the breadth of the words I cannot complete. Can I cover the lines of this struggle? Can I quiet other voices with my own? Can I light the path that calls me? Can I appear whole even as I divide?
I keep my inner house in order best along the water. This is the place I still my soul, running to the seaside or the lake, the brackish mouth of the bay or the river, stomping along the mossy banks, casting out my demons of doubt, shouting myself empty of lies, whispering the truest things I know. I will lay the air thick with words, like tiles to arrange, like words on a page, subject to edits, and addition, and subtraction. These are my most honest prayers, my truest moments. I've come to a bridge forgotten in the woods because here I forget myself and remember God. Here I see these seasons of rearrangement and stripping as momentary imbalance for the sake of finding my true center. This is the refinement and reappropriation. This is my recitation from memory of the things I really believe. Beneath the turmoil of my changing ideas and new understanding, God remains the same.

There is something about the water that grounds me, that loosens memories, that cleanses me. As the woods grow dark, I hear the voice of the One who calls, who has scars deeper than my wounds and vision greater than my own, water for me to drink and rest for my soul. I cannot live without faith or run without rest, I cannot sleep without peace. I am blind and I cannot lead myself or others. I am sick and I cannot heal myself or others. I am lost and I cannot lead myself home. My Savior will not spare me from the very best trials but he will give me Water to drink and he will lift up my head.

Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.
Give ear and come to me;
hear me, that your soul may live.

Isaiah 55

Composed by one of sanctuarys resident writers: hannah clarkin

// Go to the media section of the sanctuary website: sanctuaryworship.com for talks, music and other beautiful things. //

2006-06-11T04:35:00.000-04:00

[peaceable ways]

I have an insatiable appetite to know, a burning desire to understand, the ways in which my life moves in places I cannot control. "The end of man is knowledge," writes Robert Penn Warren "but there is one thing he can't know. He can't know whether knowledge will save him or kill him." And I am strung between these options, at once eager to know and resentful of what I do know. There is always something I've wanted, witheld from my hand, or something I had that I didn't want.

When I attempt to control my life, there are places where I collide with something that is beyond me. In those places I am edged out of my schemes exactly, edged out on details, by seconds, in tantalizing turns of events, but guided by the hand of God to a place that can only be understood in terms of faith.

James talks about the dissatisfaction of man. "What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God." He pinpoints the frustration of man, attempting to fill his own hungers by the strength of his own hand. The wanting, the doubt, the complaint and the jealousy of others that arises from a lack of faith.

The end of man is to know that all his knowledge will solve very little. James prefaces his discussion of man's discontent with a description of wisdom, "But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness."

Peaceable ways belong to those who feed on heavenly wisdom, who are not concerned with the furies of the world, who have set their minds on Christ. I have been thinking often of a verse in Isaiah, " You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you." Verses like this say everything and reveal nothing, they promise everything we need but do not tell us what that will be; they give no specification, but urge us to seize a faith that is tempered by patience and watches the plan of God unfurl, content to see what will occur at the appointed time. It is only the knowledge of God, held steadfastly, that will quiet our longings and set us at rest.

James 4
Isaiah 26

Composed by one of sanctuarys resident writers: hannah clarkin

// Go to the media section of the sanctuary website: sanctuaryworship.com for talks, music and other beautiful things.

2006-06-04T00:54:00.000-04:00

[between two waves of the sea]

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.

Little Gidding, T. S. Elliot

We long for the garden. We want to believe that it exists, close at hand, so we may slip away, carried far from the madness which is the earth, away from the tyranny of the day, outside the motion of our own mind and into a place of rest. We crave the garden of our childhood, unspoiled and fresh, walled and protected, safe and undisturbed.

Yet this is the place that exists, although we doubt it, the garden is the reality in which we walk, even when we do not see it. We live like children, enclosed within the hands of God. Even in our growing old the world unfolds only to show us what we do not know. For we cannot understand the mind of God, the great unseen logic on which all events turn. We can only feel the wind of his motion, down the corridors of our days, hear the opening and closing sounds of doors, drawn by his breath as we walk, comforted by the creak of his tread behind and before us.

The garden is all we have, it is the place we must remember and the place we must live. Not because we cannot see the chaos of reality or because we would deny it, but because of our faith and greater knowledge: that things are not what they seem. There is always a hidden beauty and always a hidden meaning, enclosed within each event. Our God is the God of foresight and restoration; he breaks us open only to rebuild us, reveals our lacking to make us whole, cutting away the things that bind us, turning our scars into beauty marks along which we trace the imprint of his love. And our life is lived within the security of the garden; although it rages on the surface we are afforded perfect peace.

All our life is soil and the seeds from the discarded fruit, the dead plant, the shriveled pod, germinate in the refuse. We are born out of all that has died in or around us, yet rises up cleaner and stronger and more fragrant because of the death, out from the death. Every piece of us has a purpose. For we live beneath a Mercy that stretches further than we can see, supported by a Knowledge that--when revealed--will only unhinge our minds, and by all this we are cradled gently--more gently than we know--above shifting and obscure paths.

He calls to us, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." And he builds gardens within us, between two waves of the sea, reservoirs of peace where he restores our souls.

Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well

Matthew 11:29

Composed by one of sanctuarys resident writers: hannah clarkin

// Go to sanctuaryworship.com and go to the media section for sermons, music and other beautiful things.

2006-05-25T13:53:00.000-04:00

[the turbulent path]

I know so well how to speak of you. What part of you to show, what angle to frame, what words to say. Because, at bottom, I am a little afraid of who I'll become if I ever look at you straight on or ever really let you loose and I am a little hesitant that if I present you wholly, without preface or disclaimer, I'll be tied to a company of tactless fanatics who have no relation to reality.

Somewhere my fear of you became a fear of who you would make me. I started to believe what that if I really got close I'd be reduced to neat little paragraphs of rules, exact and unyielding, answers for everything that console no one and solve nothing. I got unsettled by the ways you've been figured out by others. You became someone I was compelled to hide, to poise when I describe, to apologize for. Haven't you inspired a lot of madness? Haven't you inspired a lot of extremists? Hasn't your name been tied to a hundred things that I cannot associate myself with? How can I fully associate myself, then, with you?

I've chosen who to become and I can't let you get that far in actually transforming me, because that might end in cliches and false-piety and a mimicry of all the hypocrisy I hate. I know who to love and how. I know where to give of myself and how. I know what face to raise to the world and what words to choose. And no one is going to be unsettled by me.

But you are the most unsettling thing of all. And you see through my facade, all the pride and fear of my reverse-legalism, of my token cynicism, as I strike out against being marked or measured by others who say that they bear your name. How much do I believe in the life that you led? How much do I believe in the words you spoke? How much do I believe in what you demand of me, of anyone, who chooses to follow you?

You are the most unsettling one of all and I am to be changed to reflect you.

Your unconditional love is not blindness; your joy is not cheap; your peace is not naivety. I've been afraid lately, of purity, that it will mean self-denial that might lead to irrelevancy. I've been afraid of rest and peace, because they might require ignorance. I've been afraid of generosity, that it might defame my own good taste.

To follow you is to choose the turbulent path, but a path which encompasses both the need for righteousness and the presence of grace, the depth of joy and the strength of love. To follow you is to be changed but never by our own power and never into our own expectations. To follow you is not to ignore reality but to enter the very center of it. The purity you demand is not bondage but a calling to return to the freedom in which I was meant to live.

This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.

John 2:6

By one of our talented resident writers: hannah clarkin

// Go to sanctuaryworship.com and go to the media section for sermons, music and other beautiful things.

2006-05-14T04:58:00.000-04:00

[greater things]

It’s been so long, so long since I’ve tasted these fruits, and experienced what it looks like to walk in your truth. I’m beside my self, I can’t stop moving, and your spirit ignites a flame unlike, any I’ve seen during these lazy and inconsistent nights. Praying that my knees will bleed, and I will never lose your spirit that has freed me. My own thoughts are so often a distraction, but it is those same thoughts that inspire these days of action. Action has no language, so I ask my self, am I speaking to soon? Too soon, no I’m jumping though the sky and running across the moon, as the stars illuminate the skylines, while the darkness becomes apart of the path that screams out in silence over the lights that have covered it’s atmosphere. Running to your arms I gaze upon the wonders of your outer space, as the planets rest in the sky like beautiful art work, as I yearn to run through this path and into your arms. But before I arrive, I seek to stand next to Michelangelo, so that he can help me paint the pictures that are exploding viciously throughout the outer spaces of my own mind. I seek to sit next to Shakespeare so that he may give reason and rhyme to these words that so desperately seek direction and description, And oh the joy, oh the wonder of kneeling beside Christ our Lord, while he washes my feet, and reminds me, and pleads with me to seek first his fathers kingdom. So that through the days and moments to come, the Giver of life, will be given my life in return. So that these words will be used to challenge and encourage the hearts of men, and that we as a community will live out his kingdom now! Running still I see that the darkness is now behind me, as I sprint towards my fathers arms, the light is blinding my eyes, as I dance and shout, trying to convince myself that I am dreaming, for these thoughts are not mine. When I was younger I would always sit out side and gaze upon the outer realms of this universe. I would gaze upon the stars that were millions of miles away, yet seemed to rest in perfection, gently over my tired eyes as they sparkled and danced across your skies, captivated by how through such darkness light could shine so bright, and I am amazed that such pictures are being painted inside my mind tonight. It is now that you ask to have my feet, all washed and purified by the hands of your son and let my eyes sprint to your psalms, and let my mind climb the mountains that David walked upon. So that I may see what it looks like to be brokenhearted and honest before the Lord our maker. Oh to rest in the caves as his enemies chased after him in pursuit of his life, all while you oh GOD where in pursuit of his heart. Oh the same GOD that met David upon the mountains as he played his harp with the beauty of a 1000 angels is the same GOD that is with us now. I don’t believe it, who is this GOD that brings oxygen to our lungs, a beat to our hearts, legs to walk, and hands to serve. Oh the wonders of your name, wonders that mere mortals will spend lifetimes trying to explain.

As the Lord cries out
“Wake up sleeper, Wake up” I don’t want to wake, I want to climb back to those mountains, see your eyes glare into mine as you wash my feet, write beside Shakespeare, paint next to Michelangelo, and stay on that moon and glare upon the stars, I want to see your arms reach out for mine.

Yet his words continue to roar from the heavens!
Go and love, go and serve, go now, GO”! Lord I don’t want to leave this moment, I don’t want to leave you, this is were I want to be, Go my child and love, I will never leave you, for I love you, set your eyes on my fathers kingdom, seek first, seek first”
Oh yes! I can feel it now, the joy that is consuming—to stand here and know that it is true, to know that the joy of our salvation is commanding us to go and serve, to love, knowing that he is with us, his spirit is in us,

So I ask!
Am I drunk, am I deceived to say such words of blasphemy, to say such words that make the minds of men shiver in utter disgust and absolute bewilderment. Or am learning to walk in faith! Faith like Abraham, faith like Moses, like Elijah, like all those who have walked before us, faith that can move mountains as we close our eyes and sing, and let our thoughts dance upon this joy, this wonder, moving, sitting, kneeling, crying smiling worshiping, it’s’ all the same, unity is our anthem. Unity is our Anthem! As we sing and sing Lord most high be glorified, as we leave this place, and wake each morning with the words of our Risen Lord echoing throughout our distracted, preoccupied, yet eager and transformed hearts.
Saying
John 14:12-14
“I tell you the truth-anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things then these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it”.

This reality, the Kingdom that needs to reign in our hearts, hands, and feet tonight and tomorrow—has been the same reality for the past 2000 years. Yet tonight we pray that like never before we have been reminded and encouraged and challenged to rise as one and live out this reality. Live out a Kingdom that has come. Live out a Kingdom that lives in us now and a King and a Kingdom that the world will never be able to turn their hearts from again.

A King and a Kingdom that the world will never be able to turn their hearts from again!

this piece was written and performed at sanctuary by stephen mook.

//For the latest TALK mp3 go to the media section of the sanctuary website

2006-04-30T00:57:00.000-04:00

[willow weep]

how shall we measure our love?
by the whiteness of a dove?
or the size of tree she rests on?
what makes the willows weep, and
is it the tears that let it live long?
much of speech is in the tongue,
but that's not where
communication comes from
the sun sets, but the day's not done
our eyes cry, but the heart aches
the queen has rank
but there's strength in the pawn
the chief is held high
but finds inspiration
in the tom-tom

is rhythm found in the hollow of a drum?
where does the beat come from?
where does the beat come from?
what came first, the dance or the song?

without an instrument an musician longs
and soon he'll make one
and when he's done
some will sing a long
to bring redemption
singing, "we won't quit till' it comes"

life is just as much in the root
as it is the leaf
a spoon is useless without a mouth to feed
how can a train be helpful unless it leaves?

how does a dreamer exist without a heart to tease?
the tallest of trees comes from a sprouted seed
faith comes when you can't see to believe
a child not loved is an orchestra without strings

just like when
a flower does not exist without a stem
a poet will write without a pen
he words dry up if he does not share them
if they are strong he will share them again
and again and again and again

only when man finds silence does she find herself
when she has given it all away she finds wealth
passion wells up from the feet up and does not give up
a dreamer belongs in the treetop
when we stop to see beyond you
and me we have common-thought
a snare is placed and you are caught
let's not let this happen
let's begin to dream again
let's go out past the hill's in the horizon!

this piece was written and performed at sanctuary by able parris.

For the latest TALK mp3 go to the media section of the sanctuary website

2006-04-16T05:07:00.000-04:00

[and also with you]

May you who are restless
Find rest
And in rest, restoration
And the healing
Of your hollow soul
May peace be yours
-
May you who are frozen
Find freedom
And in freedom the faith
To face the fire
And the thawing
Of your ice-gripped heart
May peace be yours
-
May you who are conflicted
Find convergence
And in convergence
Confidence
To be the one new child
Of your old divided self
May peace be yours
-
May you who live in tension
Find tenderness
And in tenderness the tendency
To kindness
And the creativity
Of a caring character
May peace be yours
-
And you who are Godless
May you find God
And in God,
The grace and growth you need
For fruit and fullness
And the love that will last you
Through the long-haul
Of a lived-for-others life
May peace be yours

for recent media and talks go to http://sanctuaryworship.com

2006-04-14T01:39:00.000-04:00

[truth is a person]

HE INTERPRETED TO THEM IN ALL THE SCRIPTURES THE THINGS CONCERNING HIMSELF. Luke 24:27

The two disciples on the road to Emmaus had a most profitable journey. Their companion and teacher was the best of tutors, the interpreter one of a thousand, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. The Lord Jesus condescended to become a preacher of the Gospel, and He was not ashamed to exercise His calling before an audience of two persons. Neither does He now refuse to become the teacher of even one. Let us court the company of so excellent an Instructor, for till He is made unto us wisdom we shall never be wise unto salvation.
This unrivaled tutor used as His class-book the best of books. Although able to reveal fresh truth, He preferred to expound the old. He knew by His omniscience what was the most instructive way of teaching, and by turning at once to Moses and the prophets, He showed us that the surest road to wisdom is not speculation, reasoning, or reading human books, but meditation upon the Word of God. The readiest way to be spiritually rich in heavenly knowledge is to dig in this mine of diamonds, to gather pearls from this heavenly sea. When Jesus Himself sought to enrich others, He mined in the quarry of Holy Scripture.

The favored pair were led to consider the best of subjects, for Jesus spoke of Jesus and expounded the things concerning Himself. Here the diamond cut the diamond, and what could be more admirable? The Master of the House unlocked His own doors, conducted the guests to His table, and placed His own choice foods upon it. He who hid the treasure in the field Himself guided the searchers to it. Our Lord would naturally discourse upon the sweetest of topics, and He could find none sweeter than His own person and work. With an eye to these we should always search the Word. O for grace to study the Bible with Jesus as both our teacher and our lesson! /devotional by C.H. Spurgeon.

Until we realize that the truth is a person, we will be chasing after the wind of human teaching. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in him...that excludes nothing. All is included: science, literature (he's the living Word), arts... and we will then be \nwise unto salvation, instead of wise unto our own self-aggrandizement. We will no longer abuse knowledge by making it into a bulwark against the roaring tide of our own insecurity and emptiness.

What is the best and fullest kind of knowledge? What does it look like to begin to acquire it? It\'s parenthetically included, but in the book Amusing Ourselves to Death\n, Neil Postman puts forth the concept that intelligence is the capacity to posess truth. Couple that with this thought: C.S. Lewis footnoted a quote in one of his essays which reproached the man who would look down at an uneducated singer of repetetive Christian songs. The simple-minded person, it was stated, may well understand the content of the song leagues more deeply and fully than the intellectual. I have been thinking that the posession of truth which may be called devotional may constute the highest amount of intelligence in so far as intelligence is the capacity to grasp truth if absolute Truth is a person: He who is the "way, the truth, and the life."

by one of our creative team members and resident writers - melissa carmen.

for recent media and talks go to http://sanctuaryworship.com

2006-04-02T04:53:00.000-04:00

[a monument]

Philosopher Hannah Arendt remarks that pain is transient and intangible to those who are not directly experiencing it. When one is in the midst of pain, it is an inescapable presence, but when one is removed from it, it is distant and foreign and nearly forgotten altogether (1). As the opposite of pain, I think joy has a similar quality--the two positions are equally consuming--one is forgotten in the throes of the other. This is why it is so important to keep a record of where we have each been in our lives, to raise Ebenezer stones as monuments to God, for the sake of encouragement and also for the sake of empathy. On my desk right now I have a stone that I picked up on the beach last week, representative of a place in my journey. Even now I find it hard to identify with the self of several weeks ago, hard pressed and weary, but I know that my present peace will be hard to keep and is consequently important to remember.

In my favorite allegory, Hinds Feet on High Places, Hannah Hurnard tells the story of Much-Afraid, a crippled shepherdess who is following the Good Shepherd from the Valley of Fear to the High Places (2). He has promised that when she reaches them she will no longer be lame and will be given the ability to truly love and be loved in return. Her journey takes her through valleys and dark forests, across deserts and along lonely shores and the road to the High Places is marked by sacrifice. Over and over, her trust is tested and her love for the Good Shepherd tried as she builds wayside alters and offers up parts of herself to be consumed in holy fire. From each alter she takes a stone, to remember both the sacrifice and the blessing of peace that followed. The greatest test comes when she has almost arrived at the mountaintop and the Shepherd comes to her and asks for the unexpected: he tells her to go alone to a dark ledge and tear out all of the hope and faith that has been growing in her heart; he tells her that the final thing she must lay on the alter is the promise that has propelled her this far.

I empathize deeply with her confusion; Much-Afraid has been through so much! Each time she has wanted to give up, this promise of healing and love has helped her to remain steadfast. Before she can react to this command, a furious thunderstorm bursts above her head and she is forced to take shelter in a cave. While the storm rages outside, Much-Afraid takes her sack of alter stones and goes through them one by one, holding each in her palm and remembering the lesson it represents. Before the storm has departed she has decided that the journey itself has been a treasure, the greatest treasure of her life, and that although he is asking her for the dearest thing she possesses, she cannot resist the demands of her Shepherd.

So I have an alter stone close on my desk, smooth and round and black, dark as the season I've only recently left, and yet comforting because I remember how close God was to me at that time and how close He remains now. Any time we are reacquainted with the nature of God it enlarges our world. It pushes us past the claustrophobia of our narrow understanding, pushes out the walls to our prisons, oils hinges on stubborn doors, digs tunnels through the floor, blows off the roof. And we must not forget these times, we must hold tightly to our alter stones, whether they represent joy or sorrow, because they will remind us of God's faithfulness in the past so we can believe it will sustain us in the future. We must not loose the glimpses we've had of Him in the oblivion of the present. We must let our hope rest in the remembrance of the good things He has done and the new things He is doing as we trust Him.

Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the LORD has been good to you.
For you, O LORD, have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling,
that I may walk before the LORD in the land of the living.

Psalm 116:7-9

(1) Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (University of Chicago 1953)

(2) Hannah Hurnard, Hinds Feet on High Places (Tyndale Publishers 1975)

by: hannah clarkin (hannah is a resident writing who is a part of the sanctuary creative team - even when shes away)

:: For All Media - go to sanctuaryworship.com .

Talk from 3.25.06 - building a monument

- assembled by: the creative team
- presented by: jasmine molina, chris piecush, chris bannon, and heidi

2006-03-26T01:42:00.000-05:00

[an abstract love]

"I MUST make one confession" Ivan began. "I could never understand how one can love one's neighbors. It's just one's neighbors, to my mind, that one can't love, though one might love those at a distance. I once read somewhere of John the Merciful, a saint, that when a hungry, frozen beggar came to him, he took him into his bed, held him in his arms, and began breathing into his mouth, which was putrid and loathsome from some awful disease. I am convinced that he did that from 'self-laceration,' from the self-laceration of falsity, for the sake of the charity imposed by duty, as a penance laid on him. For anyone to love a man, he must be hidden, for as soon as he shows his face, love is gone."

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brother's Karamazov

Christ, we pray that you would inhabit our love and move it beyond our abstract intentions and into our actions. Cultivate within us the same love that you have for each of us. May we recognize your image in the face of our neighbor, friend or enemy. May our love be transformed as we are transformed into your likeness.

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins.

1 Peter 4:8

2006-03-19T02:30:00.000-05:00

[forfeited grace]

But the Lord said to Jonah, "Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?"
"I do," he said. "I am angry enough to die." Jonah 4:10

I've been thinking of Jonah and wondering why he was a prophet. So often I long for something less obscure and less ambiguous than the life of faith, I beg to hear the voice of God. Jonah had specific commands from God and he ran as far as he could from them. And when he finally obeyed and the Ninevites repented, he didn't thank God, he questioned Him. He hated God's compassion. He didn't want to see restoration. So he left the city and sat at its outskirts hoping for destruction. He was angry and questioning, feeling humiliated, since God had not carried out his threats against the city.

Maybe he was a little staggered by the size of God, afraid of his human inability to comprehend the meaning of his life against the lives of the Ninevites, confused because God's will didn't look the way he thought it would, wanting desperately to take the small piece of illumination that he possessed and hang onto it, apply it to everything. "Let the judgement come! At least judgement is certain." But mercy is unexpected and grace makes things new. Jonah didn't want anything new.

I can scorn Jonah, I can marvel at his blindness. "Jonah! Why wouldn't you accept God's gifts? Why did you complain so much?" Did he want God to be smaller, to have less mercy and less compassion and less knowledge and less power?

But his fear is not unlike my own, as he despaired beneath the scorching heat, clawing the dust and desiring death. I reduce God. I tie my verses about hope to my own ideas, small things, and when God chooses to do something else--something that always involves a deeper measure of mercy--I grow bitter. I speak of doubt and broken faith, forgetting that my hope is in my salvation and that the life of faith is transformation into the image of Christ. It is about change. It is about becoming new. I curse the God who is showing me grace because His grace doesn't look like I imagined. I am like Jonah so often.

But I have no time to be bitter and no time for doubt. Only time to cry out: help my unbelief and believe there will be an answer. When God is doing something new the past is irrelevant and the future of no concern--both are encompassed in the perfect timing of the present. Here it is: the marvelous unknown, alive with mystery and furious in struggle, waking every morning confronted by need, but calmed and comforted by the God who cries, "forget the former things! Do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?"

May I not forget the compassion of the Lord or grudge it\'s newness. May I not resist His love. "Those who cling to worthless idols," Jonah once confessed. "forfeit the grace that could be theirs." I must not make an idol of my own plans, I must yield and see what new thing He will do. His way may lead through the desert, but His work is watering the wasteland.

Jonah 2:8
Isaiah 43:18-19

by: hannah clarkin (hannah is a resident writing who is a part of the sanctuary creative team - even when shes away)

:: For All Media - go to sanctuaryworship.com .

Talk from 3.05.06 - Psalm 8 - By Chris Bannon [MP3]

2006-03-11T22:18:00.000-05:00

[swallowed] ...

And in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy. Psalm 63:7

I don't think I've ever been swallowed all the way, down to where there is no light, where there is no one. So I don't know much about abandonment or real solitude, but I can speak of shades and absences, of restlessness and loneliness and uncertainty. And these are the places the Psalmist knows well, deserts and night watches, dryness and weariness. David knows that this is the human condition, that the main business of life is not spent in the sanctuary—where the power and glory of the Lord is most tangible and strong. He realizes that the true test of faith is to find water in the desert and peace in a sleepless night, to sing amidst sorrows and to trust when the end is most uncertain. His comfort is in the nature of his God, who has always been his help and to whom he can cling. He knows that the state of life, whatever his physical condition, will be one of satisfaction, as with the richest of foods, if he meditates on the faithfulness of God.

These are the truest things I know about shadow: It's only doubt that makes me think it's darker than it is. The victory is in the paradox, the coexistence of opposites, joy so powerful that it rises from pain, peace so deep it drowns out fear. The more furiously I wrestle at night, the more sure I am in the morning that I've been wrestling with God.

Darkness

Makes me sing

Where the shadow falls

Your wings have

Spread

Swallow me whole

by: Hannah Clarkin ((hannah is a resident writing who is a part of the sanctuary creative team - even when shes away)

:: Media - go to sanctuaryworship.com for more info.

Talk from 2.26.06 - Psalm 63 - By Andrew Mook [MP3]

2006-02-25T21:32:00.000-05:00

[god's pursuit of love]...

"We will remember thy love more than wine."
-- Song of Solomon 1:4
Jesus will not let his people forget his love. If all the love they have enjoyed should be forgotten, he will visit them with fresh love."Do you forget my cross?" he says, "I will cause you to remember it at the table of communion and the tugging at your heart strings.

At my table I will reveal myself anew to you.
-Do you forget what I did for you on the cross? I will remind you of it.

Mothers do not let their children forget them. If a boy leaves his home, and does not write, his mother writes- "Has my boy forgotten his mother?" The boy will respond with loving words, which proves that the gentle reminder was not in vain.

So it is with Jesus, he says to us, "Remember me," and our response is, "We will remember your love." We will remember your love and its matchless history. We remember, Jesus, Your eternal love when you became our security, and adopted us as children.

We remember the love which was sacrificed, the love which, until the fullness of time, mused over that sacrifice,
-We remember your love Jesus, as it was shown to us in your life, from the manger of Bethlehem to the garden of Gethsemane. We follow you from the cradle to the grave-

For every word and deed of yours was love-and we rejoice in your love, a love that death did not exhaust.

Thank you for your relentless pursuit.

:: Media

Talk from 2.19.06 - Psalm 23 - By Chris Bannon [MP3]

2006-02-17T11:56:00.000-05:00

[faith]...

//peter and his walk upon the water

: after we returned to shore
and their initial amazement wore thin
mention was made of my forgotten focus
and subsequent sinking

they had their laughs
at his lesson (and my expense)
but He soon came to my rescue
noting not only my wet robes

but their dry feet

~MEH

2006-02-04T23:46:00.000-05:00

[you are free]

“You are free. Remember that.
You've talked about wanting to flee comfort and routine, but where is the value in your words?
Opportunities arise and you reel away from them.
Start living like you are free.
You are free to pour out everything you have.
Free to give away what you've received. Free from the fear that your generosity will leave you impoverished. It never will. Free to live the dreams you have.
Start living like you're free.
Start giving.
"Spend it all, shoot it, play it, loose it, all, right away, every time.
Do not hoard what seems good for a later place… give it, give it all, give it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you.
You open your safe and find ashes." - Annie Dillard

I will live where I am, alive in the present, pouring more than hurry into my days and into my surroundings, seeing more than the second hand sweep across the clock face…I will feed on your faithfulness…so

Break me down,
break me in
with your sight to breathe the green of life again.
Take my water, and turn it into wine,
and let my arms hold the sands of time.
Break me down,
break me in,
with your light to lead us to the promise land.

A willingness to let our heart be broken is what will plant us by the stream; the source, the flow of Gods heart. And, in our season, as we have been filled by that stream, we will find the strength and place to move forward… to yield our fruit for a hungry and broken world.

-Recompiled from writing from our dear Hannah Clarkin; our revered Annie Dillard; and our outside poet Andy Luman.

Media from Last Week ::: 1/29/06

Talk :: Psalm 1 - Streams and Season :: By Chris Bannon [mp3]

2006-01-28T16:00:00.000-05:00

[ever]

[this is an the exerpt from a poem that was added to and dramatized at Sanctuary last week]

You ripped me wide open
Wounded and curled
Broke the skin to let my joy spill out
Scarred my worldLike a permanent smile
Wrecked my idea of heaven
Threw open the blinds to let the light shine in
Said, To hell with what you think you know
You have no idea what you're doing
I'm going to teach you to dance
You put a finger on my lips
One hand on my hips
Leaned in and whispered
The music is inside you
I said, The world is too big to love
You said, Love it one bite at a time
I said, I don't know if I can die like this
You said, Close your eyes and let me break your fall You'll be raised up if you'll just lie down
Sow your love into my fertile ground

You said that's the kind of love I'm talking about
We can get it back
I can pull for you
And pour myself into your sleepy heart Like black coffee
You'll wake up and there will be this aroma
Coming up the stairs
From the kitchen
You'll sit up and stretch your arms and think
I can do this
And the thing about this one is
I don't have an ending in mind

:: Copyright 2001, Linford Detweiler

Media from Last Week :: 1-22-06

Talk :: Andrew Mook :: Psalm 51

2006-01-21T22:25:00.000-05:00

[all i ask]

Lies of the past trace intricate circles beneath my feet
wellsprings of pain overflow to remind me
These paths have carried me
over under far and within
enough to have to start over and begin again
I will not ask for happiness when all you promise is your joy
so I'm standing and waiting in this mess
for a different sunrise and a brighter sky tonight
weave my soul with patterns of that simple peace
transcend my vision through this mystery this life you've given me
it is an expression of your love
I must escape this delusion pervading the truth I trust
I will not ask you for a snake
when you promise me your life

-by Sanctuary friend, songwriter, and poet: Andy Luman

Media from last week ::: 1-15-06

Talk ::: Addicted to the Psalms ::: by Lyle Mook (mp3)

2006-01-12T20:20:00.000-05:00

[far have i come]

We are creatures of comfort.
We like to be safe and secure
to be surrounded by what we know
to be in control
to order our lives in the way that suits us.

We want our journeys mapped out for us
itinerary decided, tickets booked
time of arrival guaranteed
refreshment breaks at regular intervals
and a credit card for unforeseen circumstances.

But Jesus said ‘follow me’ without saying where he was going
just promising transformation along the way.

The Israelites in the desert, rescued from slavery and oppression,
were tired and homeless, hungry and thirsty, insecure and unsettled.
And their minds went back to what they had known.
They yearned for the structure of predictable slavery rather than the broken
walls of unknown freedom.

Liminal space is the place of inbetweenness, of insecurity.
It is the Israelites in the wilderness,
it is Paul blind in Damascus waiting for Ananias.
Liminal space is emptiness and nowhere,
it is uncertainty and chaos,
it is a place of discomfort and unrest.
Liminality is a place of dying and rebirth, of metamorphosis, the place where
the caterpillar spins its cocoon and disappears from view.

Nothing good or creative emerges from business as usual. Much of the work of
God is to get people into liminal space and to keep them there long enough so
they can learn something essential.

This is the invitation of God, to move
- from comfort to insecurity
- from what we know to what we have yet to discover
- from what we are good at to what we might fail at
- from safety to a place of risk

God of broken people and broken places
We confess to you our love of comfort,
of the known and predictable,
of the safe and secure.
We recognize that you call us into liminal space
To leave what we know and venture with you into desert and wilderness, into
blindness and discomfort
We want to follow you, but it’s hard to leave what we know
Help us to trust you, and to set out.

On the journey of faith,
Far I have come, far I must go

God of broken people and broken places
We thank you for all that Grace has been to us and to many others
We thank you for the space to listen, to grow, to create, to be challenged
We recognize that you are calling us on
To leave what we know and venture with you into new things, into engagement
and participation, into creativity and risk, into new structures and
opportunities
We want to follow you, but it’s hard to leave what we know and we’re not sure
where we’re going
Help us to trust you, and to set out.

On the journey of faith,
Far we have come, far we must go.

God of rebuilt people and rebuilt places
You have plans for deserts and wilderness
‘Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.
The burning sand will become a pool,
The thirsty ground bubbling springs.
In the haunts where jackals once lay,
Grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.
And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness.’

God of transformation we look forward to what you will do
With our lives and with Grace

On the journey of faith,
Far we have come, far we must go.

Media from last Sunday ::: 1/8/06

Spoken Word ::: Far Have I Come [mp3]
Talk ::: Chris Bannon ::: Pamphlet Theology [mp3]

2006-01-07T16:12:00.000-05:00

[fearfully and wonderfully]

I went to a party at a friend’s house this week. It was a very last minute thing for me, and I wasn’t quite sure how many people I would know. I was nervous about getting lost on my way to this house I’d never been to, and then once I found it I spent at least three minutes on the sidewalk trying to decide which door I should enter. It was a very uncomfortable entry, but once I was through the door I was greeted by a very loud and enthusiastic, “Sarah Sharp!” It seemed as though as soon as that was said, a flock of friends came over to welcome me with arms literally wide open. In that moment I felt so loved and welcome; I felt like I fit in as a real part of that group.
That feeling of fitting in has never been one that has come naturally to me. Throughout my childhood, all of high school and the first part of college, I was very introverted. I would see groups of people that I wanted to be a part of, but would always manage to talk myself out feeling worthy enough to do things with them. I was my biggest critic, and unknowingly one of my worst enemies. When I did manage to get up the courage to talk to people and try to have fun, I would spend the next several hours beating myself up over how foolish I must have sounded and looked. I would replay the scenario over and over in mind, and each time I felt worse about it.
My freshman year in college, I was part of a small group Bible study that was absolutely amazing. We all talked about real things, we got together at other times during the week, we became like a family. Then sophomore year came and we didn’t have the Small group to bind us together any longer. Our friendships were up to us to follow through with. I was really gung-ho about making these relationships last, so I would always visit these friends at their dorms. Unfortunately, since these visits were my idea, I would be very uncomfortable during them, then leave dissatisfied and feeling foolish. There was this one day during that year that I learned of a group activity some of them were doing that I was most definitely not invited to join. The knowledge that they were uncomfortable with me, left me absolutely heartbroken. I just wanted to curl up into a ball and cry to God about the injustice of it all. So I went to the commuter lounge of Memorial Union and did. I then got my Bible out to see if I could find anything there that would help me. Since randomly opening the book and dropping my finger didn’t work, I read the synopsis of each book and decided upon 1 John. I got through four chapters without feeling anything and then after the first verse of chapter five I just stopped and thought:
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is God’s child (I believe that Jesus is the Christ so I am a child of God), and whoever loves the father (I do) also loves the father’s children.
It was here that I realized that I too am one of the father’s children, so if I really loved the father I would also love myself. This seemed so selfish to me at first, and then it felt impossible. I didn’t love myself, I didn’t even like myself. So I kept reading until I got to verses 14 and 15: And this is the boldness we have in God’s presence: that if we ask God for anything according to his will, he hears us. If we know he hears us every time we ask him, we know we have what we ask from him. This was so exciting. I knew what God’s will was for me right then, to love myself, and so I asked for it. I didn’t get it right then, but I was filled with such peace and confidence that he would show me a love for myself.
And he has. It is still probably the biggest thing I struggle with, but I am now so much more focused on observing how others feel in group settings. It is such an amazing thing to see someone fall at ease because you are willing to spend some time with them and encourage them. I think that so often we forget how much it means to encourage. Tell your friends the great things about who they are; let them know that you enjoy your time with them. Seek out people who look uncomfortable and try to help them see the love God has. I am such a different person now then I was in high school, most of my friends would probably have a hard time relating to me back then. It’s so amazing to be able to see the ways that God has changed me. It is only because of God in me that I can see my worth, as well as the wonderful things he is doing in the people around me. I pray that you know how wonderfully made you are as well, and then that you share it.

::: by Sarah Sharp (Sarah is a leader and a resident writer at Sanctuary)

2005-12-24T13:28:00.000-05:00

[the christmas gift]

This year I had a hard time finishing my Christmas shopping. There were two people on my list that I just couldn’t seem to find the right gifts for. Last weekend I started to make an attempt to finish shopping for them, but when I pulled into the overcrowded parking lot on a Saturday afternoon, I realized that keeping my sanity was more important than fighting for their gifts at that moment. So, I drove right back out of that parking lot. This experience really made me start to question once again why it is that we stress ourselves out about giving the right presents to the people on our lists. What do we really want to say with our Christmas gifts anyway? What is their true purpose?
Around this time of year we hear so many different explanations about what Christmas means and what it is all about. Some examples include giving, peace, love, spirit, family, friends, togetherness and unity. These things are marvelous things, but I don’t think that they even start to get their arms around what the first Christmas involved. Even when people give the answers of Jesus and salvation, I get the feeling that it is often just a “Sunday School” answer, one we say because we know it’s right.
When I read the accounts of the first Christmas and look at the lives of the characters involved, I don’t immediately think of the words we use to explain it today. In fact, it probably involved a lot of the opposite, including shame, doubt, gossip, struggling and fear. Trying to imagine what it was like to be Mary or Joseph at that time isn’t easy. There had to have been rumors that surrounded them, gossip that followed them and reluctance from their family and friends. The story also includes many murders and homelessness. We know from the Bible that because of King Herod’s jealousy and insecurity many children were killed and Mary, Joseph and Jesus were forced to live in a land not their own. Even the messages from God themselves weren’t all that hunky-dory. Every time it is mentioned that an angel appears to a human, it goes on to say that that person was filled with fear. These appearances, Jesus’ birth, Christmas shook everyone from their regular routines, and it didn’t seem to immediately supply all of the marvelous things we say Christmas is about today.
Family, peace and togetherness are not the themes of the scriptures we are talking about. The real themes that I see in these passages that apply to the characters are ones of sacrifice, obedience, humility, change, and finding joy and honor in adversity. Though they knew there would be talk and shame surrounding them, both Mary and Joseph obeyed God through their fears and took joy and honor in being chosen. After seeing the host of angels the shepherds left their posts to go see and worship Jesus. Wise men left their foreign lands when they saw the star of the new king. These people were all willing to change their lives because they listened to what God had to say to them and they believed it. Christmas is about a promise fulfilled, the beginning of a humongous change that shook the world from its binding laws, and offered instead a vision of hope!
Today, Christmas is so much about traditions, which can be great when we remember why we started them. Gift giving is a terrific example. What a wonderful idea to show your love for someone by giving them something of yourself, much like God did through the birth of his son. Unfortunately, when it becomes a tradition it also has a tendency to become routine, expected, and then stressful. It would be so great if this year and every year we give not because we feel that we have to, but because we recognize the love God has for us, the sacrifice he made for us and the hope it all offers, and are then so filled that we want to share it. I want my gifts to about God, his love and hope, not expectations.

- By Sarah Sharp ::: Sarah is a resident writer and a leader of Sanctuary

Media From Last Week ::: 12/18/05

Talk ::: Christmas Series Part 3 ::: by Chris Bannon [mp3]

Song/Meditation ::: A Silent Night [mp3]

2005-12-17T20:22:00.000-05:00

[Water to Wine]

I never question why, but sometimes...or so it seems. My splintered thought will rise above me,and take away what sets us free.

I cannot rest on only what I see here, or trust in only what I feel.It comes back to intent perception, stabbing through what makes us real.

You never asked for my assistance in entertaining who you are.We circle around your whole existencethat circles around our disregard.

It's all the same and still defending. I'm easily prone to deceive. We take for granted the ending for a code that meets our needs. We didn't count on the suffering.We didn't count on the pain.We counted on our feelings.Now they've come and gone again. Break me down, and break me in with your sight to breathe the green of life again.Take my water, and turn it into wine,and let my arms hold the sands of time.Break me down, and break me in,with your light to lead us to the promise land.

::: by Andy Luman (songwriter and friend of sanctuary.)

Media From Last Week ::: 12/11/05

Talk ::: Christmas Series Part 2 ::: by Chris Bannon (mp3)

2005-12-11T00:38:00.000-05:00

[I know what I want]

Sometimes I feel as though my life is just a repeat of things I’ve already done. It’s full of the same conversations, the same issues, the same work day in and day out. I realize that I’ve fallen into a routine. One that has robbed me of emotion, that has left me feeling numb and just going through the motions. I find myself with less and less desire to get going in the morning, and then rushing to work while trying to come up with good excuses as to why I’m late. Once there, I set about the tasks given me, engage in small talk with co-workers, do what needs to be done in order to receive a paycheck at the end of the week. There are routines at home as well. I have chosen specific times to be around other people and when to be alone. I expect the conversations and actions to follow the same course as I seen them take many times before.

It is when I step back and take notice of this repetition that I start to question my purpose and the point of it all. Why do I work at this specific job? Why am I living here? Why am I studying this? Why do I have such predictable relationships? At one point there was a reason for creating all of these routines. When I first started my job, it was new and I felt like I was accomplishing something, providing for needs. I chose my living space through financial and relational reasoning. I chose what to study by the things I was dealing with at the time, by my interests. Unfortunately, over the course of time, these good choices somehow became monotonous and seemingly meaningless.

The really odd thing is that when I realize that I’m living this numb routine, I am not very quick to change it. I admit that I am not very happy within it, but I know it. I know how late I can arrive to work without being reprimanded. I know what is expected of me at work every day. I know how to keep the peace at home, how much time I need to spend with my housemates in order to keeps things running smoothly. I know what to say and what not to say to keep relationships comfortable. This routine, numbing as it is, is secure. It is familiar; it is what I have…

…but it is not what I want. What we do now affects what we will be, and even what will be for others. I want to be awake and listening for God’s direction. I want to work where He wants me to work, live where He wants me to live, study what he wants me to study, and to create relationships that are real rather than superficial and comfortable. I don’t want the security that I’ve built in this world to prevent me from following the path He’s set for me. There are so many examples in the Bible of people who left their worldly security, and in doing so created many opportunities for amazing things to happen. I don’t know what God is going to do through me in the future, but from what I know of God it is enough to know that it is He that is leading. If I don’t move how can I be a part of His plan?

- Sarah Sharp

Media for this Week ::: 12/04/05

Talk - Andrew Mook - Christmas Series Part 1 (MP3)

2005-11-26T21:53:00.000-05:00

[God of the unknown]

I am blind to the future, groping in attempt to understand it--claustrophobic in the present, reaching out my hands and running them along the contours of possibility, building hypothetical worlds, projecting dreaded conversations, spinning a hundred visions of what is to come. I am afraid of the future and desperate to know why I cannot see. I want penetrating vision.

Give me a preview of the course before me. You want me to run, don't You? I can't run in the dark.

I need to know where the road curves and how it dips, where the roots have grown beneath the pavement and I might trip. If You don't show me where I am going, I am sure to stumble.

Why do You lead me blinded, into dark places? Why are You silent, as I strain to hear Your explanation?

This blindness makes me reach for You with a new urgency. God of the Unknown, as I grasp your arm more tightly, I feel Your strength. This silence makes me lean my head closer to You, close enough to feel the warmth of Your breath, closer than I would be if You were speaking.

I will remember the true order of things. In my ignorance I will celebrate the way You have become my only source of knowledge. Your grace is abundant but precise, never allowing me to live out of myself, always forcing me back You. You give me what I need--nothing more, nothing less--only when I am pulled close to You am I at rest.

If the Lord delights in a man's way, he makes his steps firm; though he stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand.Psalm 37

::: By Hannah Clarkin

Media for this Week ::: [11-20-05]

Talk ::: Andrew Mook ::: Ordinary People-Jeremiah [mp3]

Spoken Word ::: Stephen Mook ::: Chasing Sunsets [mp3]

2005-11-13T00:31:00.000-05:00

[fear and pursuit]

Dear God,
I used to pray all the time that You would become my bones and my tendons and my heart---changing and breaking me until You composed all parts of me and were my source of life. It was a beautiful idea, I thought, to have You alone and be possessed by You wholly. But brokenness has been mysterious and difficult and change has been slow. You are more severe and strong, more searching and all-consuming than I realized.

There are a couple things You've given me, things I wanted for a while. Now that I have them, I've stopped praying, stopped seeking. After all, if I love these things, will you demand them back? Do you only fulfill promises so I can make greater sacrifices? I've gathered your gifts into my arms, and I am fleeing. I caught the first wind I found and am sailing over seas of oblivion. I try to sleep during the journey and think: I'll awake with my treasures and be satisfied. I won't regret this. But You're screaming in my dreams. You're stirring storms at sea. You will destroy anything I place between us. You will destroy satisfaction in my possessions. You will destroy my enjoyment of these pastimes. You will destroy these people I've gathered around me for comfort. I watch them, shaken and rocked by my stubbornness. You are dealing with me--and only I can release them. This is my storm. It is worth it to You to drown the ship's crew and dash us against the rocks if I will not listen.

But I'm not praying, I refuse. I am going to keep sleeping. The wind is strong, we'll arrive soon.

This cannot last. I must confess. I must give up. I must cast myself into the sea.

I thought that I would die, beneath the waves. I thought that surrender would make me desolate. I've been afraid.

Afraid of what?

Afraid of a searing gaze that knows me, from my peeling mask to my hidden scars. Afraid of one who desires to consume me, drawing out the dross and hammering me into another form.

Afraid of what?

Love that drowns my selfishness, grace that blots out my faults, peace that cannot be explained, joy even as I weep, that which cannot be accounted for, or grasped by my own hand, an outpouring of mercy, to which I have no right.

Now that I've thrown myself into the sea, the whole world settles. I am not afraid of Your will anymore. Here in the sea, stripped and possessing nothing, I see your magnitude arching over me and reaching beneath me, encompassing all my needs. You aren't destroying me, although I deserve it. You've rescued and preserved me, you shelter and feed me, and remind me: all things come from You. I offered you all I had and you took it. But I feel free, not empty. And I find my rest, here.

::: By Hannah Clarkin

Media for this Week ::: 11/06/05

Talk ::: Ordinary People Part 1-Daniel ::: By Chris Bannon (MP3)

2005-10-29T20:30:00.000-04:00

[unclenched fists]

I've been slipping coals into my pockets, thinking I can save the warmth for myself. I carry things deep, shoved into internal places of intention and planning--you'll never see the person I would be if I ever let loose all these undeveloped passions. The best dreams of mine are waiting, out of sight, folded between linings of my coat, where I finger them every now and then to remember that they're there.

But you can't carry coals like pebbles. These things will burn. They will burn through my clothing and sear my skin. They will blister my hand as it reaches to touch them for comfort. These coals are meant to burn in the air, yet I am fool enough to shove them into my pockets and wonder why the world grows dark around me.

What am I waiting for? Dissatisfied and disillusioned. Clutching my plunder, as it burns me and burns out.

I was afraid to share these coals and I built my fire in airless spaces where the flames went out.

I'd rather hold onto the ashes than have nothing at all.

I am the one who shrunk my world, summoned the walls of my life closer, found corners and safe places, and crouched there alone.

I'm clutching dust with burnt hands. I've turned my riches to nothing. And I wonder what happened.

I wonder what it would have looked like to live differently. To find these treasures and give them away. Not to carry them so jealously. To let these dreams out, maybe a little young, with a wobble in their step, but walking nonetheless. What would it have been to build my fire where it could grow? To breathe on these coals, and to stand aside, relaxing with nothing in my hands?

What would it feel like to empty myself?

Only the empty can be filled.

You could live wealthy on grace, sustained by miracles, beholding marvels, delighting in the impossible fulfilled. Instead you live on the back of your own caution, rationing passion against risks, considering tomorrow before today. You are restless and aching, burning with a fever raised by the dreams you are killing (in the name of saving them for later).

You are free. Remember that. You've talked about wanting to flee comfort and routine, but where is the value in your words? Opportunities arise and you reel away from them. Start living like you are free. You are free to pour out everything you have. Free to give away what you've received. Free from the fear that your generosity will leave you impoverished. It never will. Free to live the dreams you have. Start living like you're free. Start giving. "Spend it all, shoot it, play it, loose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place… give it, give it all, give it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes." - Annie Dillard.

What do you have that you did not receive? 1 Corinthians 4:7

But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money. Matthew 25:18

Media for this Week: 10-23-05

Talk ::: The Urgency ::: by Andrew Mook (mp3)

2005-10-22T14:10:00.000-04:00

[Rigoletto]

There is a girl in a class of mine who stutters terribly. Her lips part like she is speaking, but no sounds come. She looks around the room with clear, blue, painful eyes, hoping to catch a sympathetic glance. She usually catches mine.
Her eyes roll slightly into the back of her head as she painfully withdraws each illusive word - an "um" follows an "um" and she, she, she - and I have to look away. My expression is full of pity, but I'm sure she doesn't want to see that. I wouldn't.We were talking about T.S. Eliot, and she butchered it. Words move, music moves, only in time. Not in this classroom. Words are stuck in her mouth. In my good moments I want to give her a hug. Let her know that someone feels sorry for her struggles. But more than that, I want her to stop. I don’t want to hear her pathetic stumbling over words, I want to hear Eliot.
The scene reminds me of a movie I once watched. It was about a shy little boy who couldn't string a sentence together and a man who lived in a beautiful castle. The man was feared by all who lived in the village. When the boy once ventured into the castle grounds he found the man there waiting for him. He spoke soothing words to the boy and taught him how to stop and speak. Gently. Patiently. Insistently.
The monster's name was Rigoletto.
Words, after speech, reach into the silence.
I used to dream of saving the drowning, befriending the outcast, smiling at the dirty urchin running unchecked around the grocery store. What nonsense that dream; being an adult makes you forget. They make medicine for that when you get married.
The dream is whittled away by the mundane everydayness. By quiet boredom, driving your car, mandatory grocery store visits, dirty newspaper hands, and phone bills. Buying toilet paper grows the crusty adult layer thick around a swollen heart and you yell at your kids.
Words strain, crack, and sometimes break, under the burden, under the tension, slip, slide, perish, decay with imprecision, will not stay in place, will not stay still.
I wish someone would touch her lips and heal them. I wish her words would come out. I wish she would smile at herself and be proud. I wish she would look at me with a firm, confident expression, instead of that apologizing one. I wish Rigoletto was a real person.We are all just children in stuffy old-people clothes, half-remembering long time ago wishes. My expression of pity falls flat in the end. Pity is my only offering. Shrieking voices scolding, mocking, or merely chattering, always assail them.
Loving those near you is the greatest challenge. The starving child in Ethiopia is well thought of, pricks the cold heart, moves the hand to the pocketbook. But the neighbor, who annoys us, reaches into our comfort zone and calls us to smile when we don’t want to – what of him?
Love is itself unmoving … timeless, and undesiring … caught in the form of limitation … sudden in a shaft of sunlight.My love stutters painfully.

By Ashley Smith ::: Ashley is our guest writer for this week. If you would like to read some more of her work, go to: http://alsmith2.blogspot.com

Media for this Week ::: 10/16/05

Talk: Blessed Inadequacy ::: by Chris Bannon (mp3)

2005-10-15T15:02:00.000-04:00

[staircases]

I have found myself slowly ascending a spiral staircase. Step by step, I steadily progress toward the top, my destination. Though it seems repetitious, each rotation brings me higher and closer to where I long to be. I do not know what is at the top, I have only an idea, but each step comes with a new angle and clearer vision which enhance that idea. This is a journey only I can make. If I really want to know the truth about what is on top, I must go there myself. I can’t just take my friend’s word for it. Though I may trust him fully, the only way for me to completely understand it is to experience it personally.

Our relationships with God are much the same way. In his letter to the Colossians, Paul states that his prayer is for the believers in Christ to have a complete understanding of God. This understanding allows for us to live a worthy life in which we are able to please God. Then through that, we get to know God even more. The spiral staircase is our relationship with God. Every step we take gives us a clearer image, a sharper knowledge of who He is, which then gives us the desire to take yet another step.

In order to really know God, we have to seek a relationship with Him, it must be personal. I can listen to all the stories and lessons from pastors and friends, and even know them to be true, without knowing God. I can go to church regularly and still not know God. Knowing God is more than knowing and applying the “rules” of Christianity. Knowing God comes through a progressive relationship with Him where we learn about Him and then apply that knowledge not only to our minds, but also to our hearts and with our actions. At times it feels like we are moving in circles, but if we look to our destination, we will see Him from a different angle and in better focus with each step we take.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. This is what we can do to know Him more. We can use our minds to learn more about Him, our strength to carryout His commands, and our hearts and souls to feel Him and become passionate about knowing Him more. It all comes back to our love relationship with Him.

- by Sarah Sharp (Sarah is a leader and a resident writer of Sanctuary)

Media for this week ::: 10/9/05
Talk ::: A Holy Discontent ::: by Lyle Mook (mp3)

2005-10-09T00:45:00.000-04:00

Out of the same mouth come both praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.I am screaming at you. You have never seen me like this: face twisted, voice raised, angry, insanely selfish but particularly articulate. The words peel off my tongue and I spit them at you one by one. I am listening to myself. Watching myself through a window like a detached critic. But I'm not sure how to explain this behavior--you usually see the surface and it looks alright. This is different altogether. Who is my true self?

There is no denying that this self that exists, sleeping, but alive. Its existence makes my songs into lies and empties my prayers. Most of the time I am able to ignore it, but whenever I am shaken and I react, I begin to consider who I really am. I was raised reading the Epistle of James, never believing I could be holy enough because I could not keep my mouth shut long enough. It seems to be my routine to mess up and then read James apologetically. Yet there are parts of me that have always held back, finding a way to justify my outbursts and momentary faults. What is it that takes place between my reverent moments and my irreverent ones? What do I do with this child, who lives within me, who never unlearned her selfishness or broke enough to love, who lays down her cross and takes up her pride, who wants her own way and nothing else? I guess that I'm at the point where I am tired of knowing my sin but not changing. I wonder if there is any release from this endless circling.

I don't think there really is. This struggle with sin is the pull of God against my resistant nature and it will last my whole life. I may crave rest, but it is better to be struggling and frustrated, than comfortable and unaware. There isn't release from this kind of wrestling, but there is release from sin. Most of my frustration comes from an incorrect view of my task. I cannot change myself, but I can allow myself to be changed. Sometimes, when I am reading James, I get so caught in the verses about hypocrisy and temptation, that I forget that the book begins with a promise of wisdom, given generously by God and it ends with reassurance of my faith. All He asks of me is humility and submission.
James 1:5-7, 23-25, 3:9-12, 4:7-10, 5:16

- Hannah Clarkin
(Hannah is a leader and a resident writer of Sanctuary)

Media for this Week:

A New Vision of Worship

2005-10-02T13:23:00.000-04:00

David prayed against his hidden sins. I think of all the parts that compose me: the conscious and the subconscious, thoughts and emotions, actions and intentions, and I realize that my view of my own self is limited. I am finite and I cannot recognize everything that is going on within me at once. As I seek to be changed by Christ, to be transformed by Him, I must wrestle with the complexities of sanctification. There is a spiritual blindness that God allows me to walk in at times--that I’ll go for periods of life wanting, so badly, to be in the right place but knowing I’m not. The wisdom eludes me. God allows me to seek Him for a while, not knowing what to change, until suddenly, He rips aside a veil somewhere absurdly obvious and I am astounded by my ignorance.

When this happens, I never feel as if God is playing with me or being cruel. Because the process of waiting on Him for an answer and the introspective search for truth is where He develops my willingness and my desperation to change. He allows me to feel my sin long enough that I loathe it. I must be patient and willing to listen, not demanding the instantaneous or the easy, cultivating a spirit that craves change, accepting the mysterious and gradual work of sanctification.

There is a beautiful picture in the book of Habakkuk of what this looks like. The prophet cries out “I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what He will say to me” And I just see myself needing to be in that place, straining for the voice of God, so eager that I will wait day and night, on the cold walls, the ramparts, until He speaks. When He speaks, He is certain and has known for a long time what I need. He has waited until I am fully prepared to embrace it--“then the Lord replied: ‘Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it. For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false.’” When His word comes, I will receive it in all its searing conviction, writing down and running with it, an all-out sprint to accomplish His purpose.

I’ve struggled with the work of transformation because often it is easy to forget the love of Christ that is meant to fill me and mark my every interaction. And I think the reason that praying against my hidden sins is so important is that there are often the key to my more blatant sin--the things I know that I struggle with, my stubborn sins that keep coming back visible and ugly. These things are motivated by hidden prides and lusts. To really be transformed is to begin to ask God to start showing me the root of the problem, the things that reach into place that God can see, even when I can’t, that only His spirit can change and His grace can reconcile. This is often much harder than changing a few actions. Working out my faith in this way takes time. But I am comforted because God knows me and is patiently pursuing me, tearing away the veils when I am ready to see what is on the other side, causing me to confront my hidden sins, getting me to the place where I want His peace so badly that I am willing to part with even the idols that I was holding onto so deeply. “Though it linger,” He says of His will, “wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.’”
Habukkuk 2:1-3

2005-09-24T22:10:00.000-04:00

[an audience of one]

I live an improvisational life. Not a day goes by where I am not on my stage letting my audience dictate to me my performance. So much of who I am is defined by the opinions and judgments of the people with which I surround myself. My emotions and attitudes oscillate back and forth, based upon the receptions I get from that audience. I am happy when I am well received. When others take note of my wit, my talents, my sacrifices, when others confirm that what I am doing is good, it is then that I feel like I have purpose. However, when it seems that my audience has grown bored and is no longer confirming my actions and presence, I become desolate and lonely. By doing this, I am not only looking to my audience to confirm my actions, but also to confirm my existence. I have somehow deceived myself into thinking that through their acceptance and by doing what they want of me, my life has more value.

The ability to give my life definition and value is something that I cannot do on my own. We are relational beings. I need an audience. Unfortunately, the audience I have chosen is made up of improvisational performers exactly like me. So, at the same time that I am performing on my stage, I am also a member of several other audiences where my opinions and judgments decide emotions and attitudes. This causes comparisons and competitions between all of us. We strive to be better than the others around us. We create value systems and hierarchies. We feel the need to find others who are at lower stations than us, and are never content where we are.

What I need is for God to be my audience… what we need is for God to be our audience. When Jesus walked the earth, he did not conform to social standards, he didn’t worry about getting a good review from the ‘higher ups’. He saw people, all searching for the same things, and he provided for them through his love. My value doesn’t come from whether or not I’m accepted by the people of this world. It comes from the fact that I was created, and that that creator loves me beyond all my reason and understanding. I want to be a person with whom people are comfortable, regardless of where they are on the social ladder. Let us not be performers and audience members, but instead let us daily be aware of where our true value comes from, and then share it with the world around us.

-- Sarah Sharp
(Sarah Sharp is a leader and a resident writer on the Sanctuary team)

Media for this week: 9/18/05

Talk ::: A New Vision of Jesus ::: by Andrew Mook

2005-09-18T01:41:00.000-04:00

[to live where I am]

I tend to think that I am fairly well-connected with the world outside of me. I smile at enough people on the sidewalk and try to encourage the people I see. I am decently aware of the good parts of the day, appreciating small things like green tea and strawberries and funny snatches of other people’s conversations that I overhear and laugh about. So when I catch someone I know striding along pretentiously, eyes straight forward, about their business and not even pausing to blink as we cross paths, I usually stand in their wake internally shaking my head and pitying them for their solipsism and hurry. But the other day I caught myself doing something that made me doubt my connection to the present. It was subtle and no one would ever have guessed I was doing it. Actually, I am not sure how many times I’ve done it before--it may be a very, very old habit.

I walked up to the cafeteria on my campus, got my lunch, found my friends, pulled out a chair and sat down. I leaned forward, closing my eyes, to quietly say grace for myself. Immediately, I held my breath and began counting: one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand, four-one-thousand. I had bowed my head and was keeping it down for about the standard length of a lunchtime prayer. I was timing myself to make sure I didn’t fall short: five-one-thousand, six-one-thousand, seven-one-thousand, eight-one-thousand. I realized that I was doing this by about ten and repented and said a real grace and had my meal.

For the rest of the week, the event kept bobbing up in the back of my mind. Why had I done that? Had I been doing that at other meals and not really realized it? Bowed my head, held my breath, and counted? Counted? How pointless! How bizarre! As I continued to think about it, I began to realize scores of other things about my day that were just as strange. I was living in rushed motions that had me calling on the name of God like a nervous habit, a tapping foot, an idle whisper beneath my breath--oh God, oh God, please fix this. I am not even sure what the problems I call on Him for are, or what I want Him to do about them, but God is the default name to whom I address my worries. The spirit within me when I come before Him is not trusting or awed or even intimate, it is persistent in an untrusting way. It is complaining and ungracious and self absorbed. And I looked at how I am spending my time, in conversation, in classes, while reading; most of the time, I am willing each minute to pass, each hour to end. I am moving forward, cutting my way into my own future, with the same purpose and stride as the friend who neglects to nod when she passes me on the sidewalk.

How did I get here? --so unaware of the present that I am counting through prayer and eager to flee each day? When did my prayer become so routine, so empty. Does it matter that I call out to God if there is no meaning in it, no intimacy, no honesty?

A friend of mine is going through a time in her life where she is suspended between the things she thinks God is leading her towards and the things she has left behind to reach them. Her life is in a kind if stasis of faith, with not much discernable motion and a lot of development of patience. When we were talking about it recently she showed me Psalm 37, where David mediates on delighting in God. The exhortation that strikes her now is a verse I’d never seen before--“Trust in the Lord and do good, dwell in the land and feed on His faithfulness.” She said that she is learning what it is to feed on the faithfulness of God, and that as she strives to do that, it becomes more and more apparent each day--represented in every detail.

I want to live where I am, alive in the present, pouring more than hurry into my days and into my surroundings, seeing more than the second hand sweep across the clock face. There is an abundance for the present that I am entirely missing and I want to seize that now and grasp each quiet lesson there is for me. I want my prayers to be born out of a spirit that is truly calling on God with a sense of awe and confidence and delight, not hurry or duty or empty ritual. The one who is living Psalm 37:3 has an inward disposition of trust and an outward disposition of grace that does good, blessing those around her as she draws from the abundance of God’s present faithfulness. That is where I need to be.

“The present is never our end. Past and present are our means, only the future is our end. And so we never actually live, though we hope to, and in constantly striving for happiness, it is inevitable that we will never achieve it.” Pascal - Pensees III.80

~ Hannah Clarkin

2005-09-10T23:05:00.000-04:00

[misleading dreams]

While I wasn’t paying attention, whole crops of immaterial dreams were creeping over me. Vague and irrelevant, they were growing in places that did not concern me, pushing deeper into the ground, pushing up through the soil, spreading tentative green leaves across the face of my consciousness and beginning to mean a great deal to me. I was cherishing them quietly, expectant and gratified, thinking they were something substantial and worthy of pride.

Apart from You I have no good thing.
It is the cycle of my life to esteem small things. They do not begin badly but they grow beyond their place and begin to choke my true life. Again and again, I come to realize how consuming they are, that God demands all of me, and these things have no place. When did they become so important to me, twined about every facet of my day? It is back to the work of surrender, again.
The sorrows of those will increase who run after other gods.
My emotions should not be so fluid, easily gratified by unworthy things, stirred by words of flattery and false security, by attention and praise, by comforting relationships. But they are. I’ve cherished small dreams like they’re more than they are. I have closed my eyes and loosed my emotions, I have gambled my heart.

The Lord is my portion.
Is Christ enough for me? All to me? Is He the center of my life and the satisfaction of my days? Have I been alone with Him, stripped of all else, and content? The life of faith is a continual journey to the alter, the layered surrender of anything that stands between me and my God. There is no room for selfish dreams and preoccupations. The Lord must be all to me.

I said to the Lord, “You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.”
He makes me dissatisfied with the simple things I build for myself. He must be the outlet of all my passion, the preoccupation beneath all my thoughts, the salve for all my emotion. I can pour all myself out to Him. I can climb into His words and rest, cradled and secure, in His promises and His will. I can treasure up His words in my heart, knowing that they will always be true.

The pain He makes me feel is only the pain of growth and refinement. The love He calls me to is only a risk when I try to love from within myself. The life of faith is only perilous when my eyes are turned away from Christ.
What is my barrenness but the turning of the soil for fresh planting? I must let Christ be the only gardener, His words my only seed, His spirit my only water, His presence my only sun.
You fill me with joy in Your presence.

~Psalm 16~

--Hannah Clarkin
[Hannah is a leader and the resident writer on the Sanctuary team]

Media for the Week: (9/04/05)

Talk: Psalm 46 - Val Gordon (guest speaker)

2005-09-03T19:51:00.000-04:00

[unsearchable things]

The phone is ringing, persistent and unanswered, reaching the dim edges of my consciousness. Doors are swinging, swinging open to the sounds within the rooms, and shut to muffled quiet. All the motion of the day continues around me, in footfall and voices, in music and noises, and I am empty here, alone and questioning. I am in my bedroom, frantic with things I ought to be doing, but instead, curled as small as I can become in the furthest corner. Trying to be still.

Once again it has become vividly clear that I cannot make even simple plans, that I don’t have even easy answers. This life of faith is more difficult than I accounted for. I’ve broken again, trying to understand on my own, trying to frame out my life.

There are corridors that I clear, broad avenues of purpose and action that pass between the walled up rooms of these concerns and cares. I do this for expediency, in order to confront that which is most immediate, to thwart my worries and soothe my doubts. For a while I can walk through these halls, leaving the doors shut and living unhindered by those things. I never want to see them again; I want this cleared path with sane similar walls and the same carpet all through to be all that there is.

Behind these walls is the clamor of subjects to consider, to set right, to work my way through. And beneath all the mental clutter is the cool liquid of doubt, running down inside of me. Unanswered questions trickle and seep into my hallway. They stain the carpet and make the paint peel. The trickle of doubt runs persistently beneath everything I do and I cannot escape it. Whatever I lock away will move within its hidden room and will show, eventually. Unanswered questions will return again and again, and I must not deny or ignore them.

I cannot live in the sterilized places I create for myself. Couching and still I hear the shudder of this structure that I’ve constructed. I want to run. To move. To fill my days. But I know that motion cannot save me. Motion will distract me only temporarily, but in the end it cannot keep me from considering these questions.

When I find myself in this place, broken and overwhelmed, it is always because I have forgotten the size of my God. Is my God so small that my doubts and worries will destroy Him? An embrace of God is not an escape from but an embrace of all reality. It is not the easy way out--it is not the simple answer. But it is the acknowledgement that His supremacy can supercede my doubts. It is the patient faith that will struggle for and answer and await it patiently.

My God is not too small, but my knowledge of Him is. He calls to Jeremiah, in response to worried prayers, “I am the Lord, the God of all mankind, is anything too hard for me?” When I run to God, I enter a relationship of open dialogue and consideration. God invites me to bring my unanswered questions to Him directly. “Call to me,” he says. “And I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.” He desires the life I live to be whole and free from concealed worries and guilty questions. He brings all the hidden places in my life into reconciliation before Him.

It is beautiful to be
Ignorant and desperately
Desiring You and Your truth alone
And the things I don’t know
Make me dependant on Your love
And in that vulnerability
I find peace

--Hannah Clarkin
[Hannah is a leader and the resident writer on the Sanctuary team]

Media for this Week: 8/28/05

Talk: Doubt -- Scott Axtmann (mp3)

2005-08-28T01:06:00.000-04:00

[Temporal - Eternal]

Augustine says that all human actions flow from love. We are passionate creatures, created to pour ourselves out, created for intense affections, created to love. No matter what course our lives take, we will love. But, according to Augustine, we will not always esteem what is best, we will love either temporal things or eternal things, ourselves or our God. This is a concept that I have considered often as I examine my own life. It seems that, for all my talk of salvation and sanctification, for all my ideas and convictions, the hierarchy of my interests is determined by a devastating egoism. Hypocrisy is easy; finding the right words and facial expressions, the fitting composure and persona, seems natural. I cast myself in the best light possible. In some senses, it is easy to look as if I am loving others, but so many times I am only loving for my own gain.

When I turn to questions of generosity, of giving and serving, essential impulses that ought to flow from a life dedicated to Christ and deeply filled with His love, I am terrified to see how little I am bearing this fruit. Perhaps it is that I am too secure in the idea of my salvation, I’ve forgotten the gift that it is so that it contains no excitement and no gratefulness. My faith has become an intellectual position that I can present and reason around and believe, but has ceased to change me. I am all good intentions and no action. It seems like any growth that I think I’ve made is quickly blotted out in the rashness of a moment--I am shaken and the self love is revealed. A single turn of events can reveal a more honest and more ugly self who is not living for Christ but is living for herself.

Paul’s prayer for the Philippians is that their love would “abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight,” so that they would “be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ --to the glory and praise of God.” It is the love of God that must fill me and become a love for neighbors, the poor, the widow, my fellow flawed brother. Love of God teaches me, giving me knowledge and insigh and translates into serving and giving. It is from a love of God that my love for others will flow.

The motion from love of self to love of God is not one that I make through a sheer exertion of will. It is a process of growing in love, as Paul prayed, of abounding more and more. I must understand that I can never find love for others within myself, that I cannot cultivate my own fruit. My love and my servanthood can only flow from the fruits sewn by the Spirit within me. The process of growing in love begins with recognition of my barrenness, continues in conviction, and matures in change, becoming a lifetime of recognizing selfishness and yielding to God. He will stir my heart and burden me to give of myself; He will provide the very things I am to give--for, apart from Him, I have no good thing.

Here, tenuously balanced, I must learn to grasp the eternal rather than the temporal, to relinquish my self love, understanding that my deeds on earth, my possessions, my talents and gifts are only valuable as they are placed again in the hand of the God that gave them. Without seeing the whole path at once, I will tread in the tension of faith, at peace in my continual dependence on God.

~~Philippians 1:9-11

--Hannah Clarkin
[Hannah is a leader and the resident writer on the Sanctuary team]

Media for this Week: (8/21/05)

Reading: My Cup Overflows (pdf)

Talk: Ownership and Overflow -- Andrew Mook --(mp3)

2005-08-19T17:33:00.000-04:00

[Yesterdays Manna]

Your condition surprises you? Overwhelmed by weakness and fatigue, sorrow and desperation, you have questioned your restlessness? You have questioned your disinterest? This bread, stale and eaten by curling worms, does not appeal to you; the crumbs you gather from it do not fill you. But you try to feed on it and are surprised that it makes you sick. You are afraid, weeping tears of discontentment, crying out in frustration, in longing, ill and empty, hungry and too weary to gather food.

Have you been trying to live on yesterday’s manna? Have you let the memory of its freshness make you think it is enough for today? Are you hoarding yesterday’s wisdom, forgetting that there is more, in abundance, for the present? Are you clinging to the knowledge that sustained you in the past and forgetting the call to increase your wisdom, running without food and wondering why the exertion makes you dizzy?

You ask yourself: where is my love? where is my grace? where is my joy? But are you eating yesterday’s manna? You who have tasted, taste again. Go to the fields; they are abundant with promise and full of sustenance. The word you were given yesterday was enough for that day. But there is a new word for this day. A new command. A new promise. A new blessing. A fresh remembrance that will set your soul at peace again. Each look upon God reveals a new side of His character, a new reason to cry “Holy.” Go again to the fields and gather fresh manna.

Labor to maintain a sense of thine entire dependence upon the Lord’s good will and pleasure for the continuance of thy richest enjoyments. Never try to live on the old manna, nor seek to find help in Egypt. All must come from Jesus, or thou art undone forever. -Charles Spurgeon

--Hannah Clarkin

[Hannah is a leader and the resident writer on the Sanctuary team]

Media for this Week: (8/14/05)

Reading: If God Does Not... (PDF)

Talk: A Friendly Reminder - Andrew Mook (MP3)

2005-08-13T16:38:00.000-04:00

[Complicated Prayers]

I have been praying complicated prayers. They are not flat and easy requests that I can explain in one breath; these doubts have layers and angles, color and texture; I wrestle to explain, to express, them and my mind reels with the details. I don’t know how to pray.

Each subject has its own cast of characters with faces and voices, streams of words, flesh and clothes and actions. They are not abstractions and they seem to be more than ordinary problems that make my assumptions about God, my quick answers, seem empty and meaningless. As I pray, I avoid simple and familiar answers, searching for a complicated answer that will meet every question directly.

These are the conversations between men and God: men come to Him cynical and demanding, quick to list the places God has not provided, quick to point out the areas of impossibility, quick to remind God of His forgetfulness and of unsurmounted difficulties. But God works oppositely from us. When we are concerned with details He gives us overarching themes. The answer is always simpler than I expected and far more satisfying. God comforts me with His character. He reminds me of His nature, His position, His foresight, His faithfulness, His love; He turns me upon His grace. God delights in turning our cleverness on its head. In sending us forward with nothing but faith and a promise. God’s nature is more layered and angled than our doubts. It encompasses them, meeting each need, and confounding each complaint with an outpouring of grace. The nature of God is enough; it is abundantly all our satisfaction and delight.

His voice is that which pulses beneath everything (I am God, and there is no other. I am God, and there is none like me). His understanding stretches beyond our doubts (I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come). His plans confound all our human schemes (I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do what I please). He considers every detail (from the east I summon a bird prey; from a far-off land, a man to fulfill my purpose). In His perfect will, He will not be thwarted (what I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do).

God knows every complication and every side of each wrong. He moves with a gorgeous irony even in these details, if we will only recognize Him there. He numbers the hairs on our heads and chooses our length days; He is distant, reigning and controlling all that exists; He is close, moving in us to convict and comfort and answer in our need. He simplifies our complicated prayers with a resounding I AM.

Isaiah 46

--Hannah Clarkin
[Hannah is a leader and the resident writer on the Sanctuary team]

Media for this Week (8/7/05)

Talk: Breath - Chris Bannon (mp3)

2005-08-06T11:10:00.000-04:00

[Passing of the Hero]
“Our soul's history with God is frequently the history of the ‘passing of the hero.’ Over and over again God has to remove our friends in order to bring Himself in their place, and that is where we faint and fail and get discouraged.”

This quotation comes to mind often because I, by nature, desire to raise up heroes in my life. I crave something to glorify, pour my life into, celebrate, identify myself with. But every time I elevate a person or a thing, they collapse beneath the weight of my expectation and I am left with the hollowness of a misguided heart. A friend gave me this quotation during a semester when I felt very alone. It seemed as though everyone around me had someone to run to, an intimate friend who understood them completely and I was feeling the insufficiency of the friendships that I had believed were close. I was watching them crumble one by one.

This quotation reminded me of the nature of human relationships compared to my relation to God. They will fail; He will remain. In retrospect, the lesson of solitude, the passing of so many heroes, became a time of communion with God. It taught me to run to Him and pour out my soul, to believe in His grace and to rest in His will. There are places deep within us that no human can also know, and there is a desperation to be understood and forgiven that only God can answer. When we try to burden our human relationships with the weight that only God can carry, our heroes will not stand.

“It must be God first, God second, and God third, until the life is faced steadily with God and no one else is of any account whatever.”

Let the morning bring me word of your
unfailing love,
for I have put my trust in you.
.::Psalm 143::.

It is better to take refuge in the Lord
than to trust in man
.::Psalm 118::.

-- Hannah Clarkin

[Hannah is a leader and the resident writer on the Sanctuary team]

Media for this week:

This week we watched "Trees" by NOOMA video. Click HERE for the discussion book on this video. (PDF)

Are you living between the trees?

Click HERE to visit the NOOMA site.

Click HERE to listen to more talks by Pastor Rob Bell.

2005-07-28T20:58:00.000-04:00

[An Insufficient Vineyard]
I have made my life my own, growing grapes and pressing them for wine. In vineyards watered by the force of my desires, I have planted in the soil of my own will and tended these vines diligently. I have thanked you, I have always thanked you, for the abundant fruit and the rewarding harvest. But what is this thirst, burning? What is this restlessness I feel, stirring? You show me a pool of water and call me to it. It lies beyond the narrow perimeters of my vineyard in a new place entirely.

You call to me: come and drink.

You show me how small my vineyard is; I have not pressed enough wine to last through the next season. I am thirsty, but I am afraid to come to you, afraid of your water. Is it enough that I admit my need? Is it enough to acknowledge my thirst. Must I go to the water?

You call to me: come and drink.

If I go to your pool, I will see my own face as I bend down to drink: scarred, dirty, and unlovely. Confronted by my own reflection, I will be unable to ignore my need; the vineyard will not be enough for me anymore; I will be utterly dependent on you. Can it be enough for me to simply acknowledge my thirst?

I confess that I know my thirst for your Word, but I am unwilling to drink with any diligence. Make me willing.

I confess that I am afraid to see my reflection and know just how much I need to change. Remove my fear.

I confess that while I recognize my need to lay down my own plans, I do not really believe that your will is better than mine. Help my unbelief.

I know that if I do not come to your spring, my repentance means nothing. All my prayer and confession, my convicted awareness of the ways I limit you, are meaningless if I do not truly come to you. If I do not drink I will go on thirsting and weary, confused and restless, living in an insufficient vineyard.

You call to me: come and drink. Help me to come.

-- Hannah Clarkin

[Hannah is a leader and the resident writer on the Sanctuary team]

Readings from this week (7-24-05)

Reading: Chambers Kierkegaard Mosaic (pdf)

Talk: Different Plans - Guest Speaker/Bob Coronato (mp3)

2005-07-21T19:45:00.000-04:00

[Dissatisfaction]
After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in the whole country, and he began to be in need. Luke 15:15

In this parable, Love speaks in unfamiliar tones. The voices of unconstrained affection and unconditional forgiveness are familiar. The image of the Father running to embrace the prodigal and the abundant feast have been described over and over. But Love is not in these things alone; God does not move only in blessing but also in barrenness. His call of love is in both the feast and in the famine; it is in both in the embrace and in the loneliness of the son. The voice of Love is that which points out faults, calling from within the clamor of destruction, aching in our starvation as we awake to our condition. Love gives us reason to doubt ourselves. It gives us our inheritance to squander, sets us loose in foreign cities, lets us become drunk on our own pleasure, dizzy from our successes, but follows us furiously. Dissatisfaction is a gift. Dissatisfaction is the call of Love.

The dissatisfaction of the son provokes me to consider the places I have gathered my inheritance into my arms and run on my own dreams. It causes me to examine and question the places that I am seeking to harvest fulfillment and find none. My merciful God has gone before me; He has torn up my fields and scorched the land. He provokes me to recognize my greed and lack of trust. Love haunts me until I see the greatness of God and question myself.

Is my gloom, after all,
Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?
Francis Thompson

- Hannah

Media From This Week (7/17/05)

Readings: Prayers of confession: Older Son ::: Younger Son (pdf)
Talk: Prodigal Son - Andrew Mook (mp3)