David W. Jones

Nude Karaoke was the first sign I saw as I walked up Printers’ Alley in Nashville on my way to a bar where Etta and Bob were playing. I was a little stunned by the sign having never imagined such a thing, until then. “Don’t you want to come in?” said a slouched over man on a stool. He was wearing a once white t-shirt that also once fit. “This is a good place for a guy like you,” he said. I smiled wondering, ‘what did he mean, like me?’ He added his next sales pitch pointing to the door in case I was wondering how to go in, “We got nudes.” My uncontrollable imagination then gave me a brief image of a bar full of men identical to the man on the stool, naked and singing. “No, thanks,” I said walking onward. A few others spoke to me from different doorways inviting me to come in, but I did not stop and only walked faster remembering my destination. I am easily distracted. When we moved The Moment worship to a sanctuary in downtown Franklin, Tennessee, the noises from the nearby intersection brought a different set of distractions as we prepared our hearts and minds for worship. The most consistent noise was the automated crossing signals as they beep to let the visually impaired know it’s okay to cross. When it is not okay, there is a repetitive, “Wait.” “Wait.” “Wait.” Before our first service, I put up a sign by hammering poles and stakes into the ground. While hammering the first pole into the ground, I heard the voice saying, “Wait.” “Wait.” I thought it was God and so it took me a half an hour to get the first pole in the ground. Some distractions come into our lives challenging our inner peace but most distractions we choose. Some nude karaokees may be devilish temptations, or at least shocking distractions, but most are in essence, ‘good things’. As Jim Collins describes in Good to Great, often it’s good that can be the greatest barrier to great. Most life choices are not between good or bad but good and better. C.S. Lewis wrote The Screwtape Letters about a senior level demon writing to a lesser demon with advice on temptation. In one letter, he writes about how a simple distraction can tempt us away from significant moments.   I was once in charge of tempting a fellow who used to go into the British Museum to read. One day as he was sitting and reading, he had a train of thought that concerned me. The Spirit of God was at his elbow in a moment, before my eyes I could see twenty years of work on this fellow tottering on the brink. I had to think fast. I almost lost my head and tried to counter argue with the thoughts the Spirit was putting in his head. But I came up with a better plan. I struck out at the part of the man that was under my control. I invaded his mind with this suggestion, “Isn’t it about time to eat? Remember that little deli around the corner? Don’t they have a great roast beef? It will be much better to think about this with a fresh mind, after you get something to eat.” That was all it took.   List your distractions noting even the ‘good’ things which can draw you away from the ‘great’.

The Moment and other books by David W. Jones are available for free at Macland Presbyterian or for a small fee on Amazon. amazon.com/author/dwjones Previous Moment Practices can be found on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/welcometothemoment

I have difficulty accepting the world around me and letting anything be. I am easily distracted and noise can shatter my focus. My motto is “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with everyone and everything else.” My attempt at gaining peace is by trying to change the world and avoid my inner turmoil altogether. Even though it doesn’t work, I keep trying the same thing hoping for different results.  For example, early one morning our house contained sleeping parents and children until a horn woke us up. Apparently, a neighbor was being picked up by his carpool. Instead of going to the door, the driver just sat in the car and blew his horn, again, and again. I thought to myself, ‘I want to be Gandalf (the wizard from Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings).’ I waved my hands in small circles and hummed. “What are you doing?” Carrie asked me. “I am magically causing all the tires on their car to go flat,” I said. “Oh,” she said. The horn blew twice next door. I waved my hand again. “What now?” she asked. “I’m magically causing their horn to mute,” I said. The horn blew again. I swayed my whole body from side to side. “What are you doing now?” Carrie asked. “I’m causing the car to catch on fire so that the driver will run away, and all will be quiet,” I said. “How’s that working for you?” she asked. I then began waving my hands at her. “Shhhh,” I said. I often catch myself wanting power to control the world, to end all my frustrations by magically and even prayerfully changing current reality to calm my inner rage, yet, with little results. The Let it Be practice is aids our inner peace by letting the world around us be as is. (For another way of thinking about this, try the three buckets from Growing Leaders.)  https://growingleaders.com/content/uploads/2020/04/Habitude-Home-Chats-Three-Buckets.pdf

The Moment and other books by David W. Jones are available for free at Macland Presbyterian or for a small fee on Amazon. amazon.com/author/dwjones

And they left their nets and followed him. Matthew 4:20 To suggest that we might end prayers with, “Here I am” as opposed to, “Amen,” is ludicrous. Some might say, “But that’s the way we’ve always done it!” Or ask, “What’s wrong with saying, ‘Amen?’” There is nothing wrong with, “Amen.” There is nothing terrible about tradition as long as our past patterns don’t keep us out of our present moments. Consider this deep theological question, “Have you ever wondered why the most popular time for Church worship is 11:00?” There is no commandment in scripture where God commands, “Thou shalt worship me at 11:00.” The time was set to meet the schedule of dairy farmers so they could milk the cows in the morning, go to church, and then return to the farm for the evening milking. The 11:00 worship schedule is set and followed religiously still in order to meet the scheduling needs of the dairy cow. According to Alan Watts, “The great symbols of our culture are the rocket and the bulldozer.” Each is a conqueror of space. Since we cannot go too much farther in outer space in our era, and there is little land left to explore below the stars and above the oceans, we turn back to time. We try to conquer time by transforming time into another space which we refer to as the calendar and the ‘to-do list and fill every minute with as much ‘stuff’ every day making our schedules as tightly packed as our closets and our attics. To encounter God, we are called out to a place beyond our understandings of both time and space. Here is my version of an ancient story I heard from Alan Watts,   Once there was a fisherman. He cast his net into the water. After fishing for a while, he held up his net and looked through the squares and into the horizon. Off in the distance, he saw the mountain. He had been there when he was younger but found the mountain too difficult to climb. Now that he was older, there was something comforting about looking through his net at the mountain in the distance. What he could not climb, he reduced to what he could count and measure The mountain was six spaces across and four high. He took his net with him. Through the spaces, he measured and compared his hut to other huts. That night he had a disagreement with his son, he held up the net to see how many squares tall his son was. Others adopted his way of measuring and made similar grids putting space on parchment and then paper. Even time was transformed to space as days were given formal boundaries on calendars. Moments gave way to minutes and lives transformed to lists. In the midst of this objectifying of time and space walked a rabbi. He approached the shore and some fishermen casting their nets into the sea. “Follow me,” he called. They did. He had one initial requirement. They had to leave their nets behind.   What are your nets? Spaces you use to gain control of your life unaware they can become barriers to the call of God.   The Moment and other books by David W. Jones are available for free at Macland Presbyterian or for a small fee on Amazon. amazon.com/author/dwjones Previous Moment Practices can be found on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/welcometothemomentCopyright © 2020 Macland Presbyterian Church, All rights reserved. News from Macland Presbyterian Church Our mailing address is: Macland Presbyterian Church3615 Macland RoadPowder Springs, GA 30127 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

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Three perspectives on Holy Ground. For Malcom X it was Mecca. For Martin Luther King it was D.C., for the Prophet Isaiah it was the Middle East. Notice that all three visions all outsiders are brought in.

MALCOLM X on Mecca
Never have I witnessed such sincere hospitality and overwhelming spirit of true brotherhood as is practiced by people of all colors and races here in this ancient Holy Land, the home of Abraham, Muhammad and all the other Prophets of the Holy Scriptures. For the past week, I have been utterly speechless and spellbound by the graciousness I see displayed all around me by people of all colors.
“There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of all colors, from blue-eyed blondes to black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and non-white.”
“I could see from this, that perhaps if (WE) CAN accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps, too, they could accept in reality the Oneness of Man – and cease to measure, and hinder, and harm others in terms of their ‘differences’ in color.”
“Never have I been so highly honored. Never have I been made to feel more humble and unworthy. Who would believe the blessings that have been heaped upon an American Negro? A few nights ago, a man who would be called in America a white man, a United Nations diplomat, an ambassador, a companion of kings, gave me his hotel suite, his bed. Never would I have even thought of dreaming that I would ever be a recipient of such honors – honors that in America would be bestowed upon a King – not a Negro.”
… Because of the spiritual enlightenment which I was blessed to receive as the result of my recent pilgrimage to the Holy City of Mecca, I no longer subscribe to sweeping indictments of any one race. I am now striving to live the life of a true Sunni Muslim. I must repeat that I am not a racist nor do I subscribe to the tenets of racism. I can state in all sincerity that I wish nothing but freedom, justice and equality, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all people.”
(The preceding material was excerpted from The Autobiography of Malcolm X quoted in an article written by the Institute for Islamic Education.
 
Martin Luther King on The U.S.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.
… one day right down in Alabama little Black boys and Black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. …

Isaiah 19 on Middle East
²³ On that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian will come into Egypt and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians will serve with the Assyrians.

²⁴ On that day Israel will be the third party with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, ²⁵ whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people and Assyria the work of my hands and Israel my heritage.”

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2393716543979051

https://www.facebook.com/maclandpc/videos/339868282047868

World Communion Sunday is coming. On this special day, we envision a table and the world that is beyond our divisions and walls that separate us as expressed by poet Jan Richardson.

AND THE TABLE WILL BE WIDE
And the table
will be wide.
And the welcome
will be wide.
And the arms
will open wide
to gather us in.
And our hearts
will open wide
to receive.
And we will come
as children who trust
there is enough.
And we will come
unhindered and free.
And our aching
will be met
with bread.
And our sorrow
will be met
with wine.
And we will open our hands
to the feast
without shame.
And we will turn
toward each other
without fear.
And we will give up
our appetite
for despair.
And we will taste
and know
of delight.
And we will become bread
for a hungering world.
And we will become drink
for those who thirst.
And the blessed
will become the blessing.
And everywhere
will be the feast.

When I chose the artwork for the cover of the 2014 edition of The Psychology of Jesus, I picked this painting by Bartolome’ Esteban Murillo.

        To me the subject of the painting and the story it tells is obvious. To my surprise, even the most Biblically literate have not immediately recognized this story brought to art by Murillo. I even asked my son, “Who is in this painting?” Not knowing what to answer, he gave the answer most twelve-year-old pastor’s sons would offer, “God.” The painting’s subject matter is given away in the title, “The Return of The Prodigal.”  Painted later in his life, Murillo was part of the Brotherhood of Charity. The group felt that charity was the only activity that people could do which touched the heart of God and eternity. All accumulating, whether power, wealthy, or even knowledge was temporary and lost in death. They highlighted seven acts of charity and mercy. Besides, retelling the story of the prodigal, Murillo’s painting highlighted the act of clothing the naked visually clear in the large pile of clothes the servant holds for the son. 

Continue reading “The Way God is…”

   A man encountered Sophia at the market selling used books. As he searched through a pile, Sophia reached below the table, pulled out an old book with a ratty cover, and when certain no one was watching, whispered, “Try this one. It is a treasure.”
   The man bought it for a few pennies, took it home, read it, and to his surprise, on the inside back cover he found scribbled in tiny letters a few sentences, a brief description, about a magic stone that could turn anything it touched into pure gold. According to the book, the stone was lying somewhere on the shore of the Black Sea among a million other pebbles that looked just like it. The one difference was that the magic stone was warm to the touch whereas all others were cold.
   The man set up a tent on the shore and went to work. Each stone he picked up, if it was cold to the touch, he threw it far into the sea so that he wouldn’t keep picking up the same stones.
   Stone after stone, he picked each up, felt it, and hurled it deep into the water. Stone after stone…
   He worked a week, a month, ten months, a whole year, patiently feeling each stone and tossing it into the sea.
   Then, one evening, he picked up a pebble, and it was warm to the touch! Through sheer force of habit, he threw it far out into the water.

In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.  Leo Tolstoy

Travel with those who love a journey,
accompany those who enjoy adventure,
be a companion to those who laugh often.

 If you heart is like a house with no door,
how can you ever feel at home with anyone?
If your heart is open, you can be at home
with anyone, everywhere.

 The people of The Way are never lost
because they are always at home,
no matter where they are.

Be like eagles,
why care where your nest is,
when your home is the sky?

   In the summer of 1996, just before midnight, the youth and adults on our Mission Trip to Lexington, Kentucky were bunking down for sleep while I was out driving the church van around the same three blocks in what seemed to me a never-ending track of exhaustion. Cayla, a little over a year old, on her first mission trip, was in her car seat behind me slowly losing the battle between wake and sleep. She wouldn’t go to sleep in the church where we were staying, so I put her in the van and went hoping the driving wheels and the hum of the road would lull her to sleep. That was her first of many ‘mission trips’ to come. By age 12, she’d been on 13. As she graduated from high school, she planned a trip to Russia. In college, she coordinated projects for our Haiti partnership that will end up providing ongoing health care to thousands of children in Haiti. Now, she through her cap in the air and her gown aside after finishing Berry College and is off in Morocco with The Peace Corps.
   As parents, Carrie and I have worked very hard to make a home for our family. That’s what we do, as parents, we work to make a house a home not knowing that our children are conspiring against us all along. While we tell them, “Settle down!” making that our life’s goal, having found each other and settled down, our children are, year after year, with every birthday, cranking it up. No matter what age, as soon as you think you’ve mastered being a parent, they grow to a new stage in their development and your incompetence. I had always heard, “Give your children, roots and wings.” Well, guess what. The wings are far more powerful than the roots.
   I should have seen it coming with Cayla. She put on her backpack for school, but school wouldn’t be enough. She chose horseback riding as a hobby but going around in circles only satisfied her for so long. 
   Yes, I should have seen it coming. Every Sunday she heard me charge a congregation to go out in the world, that’s what we do as pastors. But congregations are expected to come back a week later (or at least next Christmas or Easter). Even so, every once in a while, you get someone who does more on a mission trip than get a small dose, they catch fire. Every once in a while , you get someone in church who actually listens to the gospels and the words of Jesus who says ‘build’ 11 times but ‘go’ 111 times. Look at church facilities and budgets, I think we reversed the ratio. Not Cayla. Even though we seldom preach about the Great Commission where Jesus tells his followers to descend the mountain and “Go into all the world,” apparently on those Sundays, she’s been listening.
   Looking back as full-time parent and part-time pastor in my daughter’s life, I guess I should warn you. Be careful if you come to worship on Sunday, the warm coals of your heart might catch fire – then, as Dr. Seuss says, “Oh, The Places You’ll Go.”

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Soren Kierkegaard wrote of the blues calling it, “Despair,” and “the sickness unto death.” Despair can kill, but to never feel it, to not have experienced heart-wrenching pain is to not be alive. According to Kierkegaard, in our development from infancy to childhood and beyond, we begin to become aware of our existence, to notice that we are here. This awareness stirs in us a sense of awe, wonder, and amazement. During infancy, we become aware that we can intentionally move our fingers, toes, and cry and someone will come. We are alive and become aware of it. We are here and become aware that we are here.
Subtly, over time, we become aware of the limits of our being here, a toy breaks, a pet dies, perhaps we get sick, a friend or grandparent dies. Kierkegaard points out that this is the second part of our awareness, a second stage, where we become not only aware that we are here, we also start to realize that we will not always be here, aware that all which lives, dies.
Initially, there is denial. The temptation is to be special, to be spectacular, other than human. The devil tempted Jesus to try and be special, turn a stone to bread, throw yourself from the top of The Temple in the center of town for all to see, or take control of the world and fix it, be special, be significant, be something other than human, a superior human, better than others, other than mortal. Our existence, when fully attended, takes us to a place where we recognize the limits of life and the undeniable nature of death and can look beyond ourselves to the immortal. According to Kierkegaard, “(Despair) is the road we all have to take – over the Bridge of Sighs into eternity.”
If we want God to remove our challenges, to help us deny our weakness, our mortality, we will find God greatly disappointing as Robert Farrar Capon wrote that Jesus is like a lifeguard who sees a drowning girl. He swims out to her, drowns with her, then three days later comes out of the sea promising that everything, even the girl who drowned, is wonderful.
We want a lifeguard who always saves us, who prolongs our life, not one who helps us die to find new life. God is not a life preserver but a life giver. Our greatest problem with God is God’s contentment with our mortality, a reality that drives us to despair. According to Kierkegaard, experiencing despair is not a sin, living there is. Kierkegaard wrote,

Whether you are man or woman, rich or poor, dependent or free, happy or unhappy; whether you bore in your elevation the splendour of the crown or in humble obscurity only the toil and heat of the day; whether your name will be remembered for as long as the world lasts, and so will have been remembered as long as it lasted, or you are without a name and run namelessly with the numberless multitude; whether the glory that surrounded you surpassed all human description, or the severest and most ignominious human judgment was passed on you — eternity asks you and every one of these millions of millions, just one thing: whether you have lived in despair or not, whether so in despair that you did not know that you were in despair, or in such a way that you bore this sickness concealed deep inside you as your gnawing secret, under your heart like the fruit of a sinful love, or in such a way that, a terror to others, you raged in despair. If then, if you have lived in despair, then whatever else you won or lost, for you everything is lost, eternity does not acknowledge you, it never knew you, or, still more dreadful, it knows you as you are known, it manacles you to yourself in despair!

To live fully requires facing death, moving through our frailty with God’s strength. We fear death; God mocks it. We live trying to be everlasting in life without death, God offers us life beyond comprehension and understanding. We try to achieve immortality while God gives it freely through our mortality. We want to be free from dying while God wants to liberate us from the fear of dying. We have no power to give ourselves life beyond death any more than we gave ourselves life at birth. Birth was not an achievement but a process, so, too is death into life. Like birth, life in death comes as a gift from God. We do the dying; God does the resurrecting, not just in our final deaths, but our momentary ones, as we let go and look to God for the gift of the next moment, and the next, and the…