David W. Jones

When you are measuring life, you are not living it.
Mitch Albom

 
In 2011, following the Nashville flood and downturn in the economy, in a time of uncertainty in my life, I prayed to God, “What do you want me to do?”
God responded, “The question is not, ‘What do I want you to do?’ The question is, ‘Who do I want you to be?’” For me, a good sign that God is speaking to me and not just my own voice echoing in my head is when my questions are answered with another question. Apparently, The Socratic Method is not dead with God.
I thought for a minute. Carefully considering my response, then I asked, “Okay, who do you want me to be?”
Silence. No response. No answer. Three months. Six months. Longer, still waiting and left with the question, “Who am I to be?” For a year, I tried being good, competent, successful, effective. I tried being like Jesus, which in my mind, somehow meant being ‘nice’ to everyone even though few perceived Jesus as ‘nice’ in the gospels. I even tried being like Old Yellar, yes, the dog from the Disney movie, loyal, faithful, defending his family, sacrificing himself.
I tried being anything and everything I could for about a year. I failed repeatedly at many different things. “Who am I to be?” went unanswered.
After a time of too long silence, God spoke, with another question. “Do you know who I want you to be?”
“Not a clue,” I replied.
God said simply, “Here.”
“Here?” I asked. I did not understand. In all the things I’d thought to try and be over the previous year, all the roles I thought my congregation and my family needed from me, “Here” never occurred to me. “Here?” I asked again.
“Here,” God replied. “You are everywhere but here.”
God’s challenge to be “here” was not about an address, or a location. “Being here” was about being present in the moments of my life. God’s accusation was accurate. I was many places in my mind, seldom was ‘here’ one of them. I embodied the ancient proverb, “People live their lives like an arrow shot into the air, so busy thinking about where they came from worried about where they might land that they miss all the heavenly glory around them.” I was carrying past pain and trying to prevent all future problems. I brought so many expectations to each moment that I clouded my perceptions of people and experiences. I recognized my challenge to be present and the work it would take as Henry David Thoreau encouraged,
 

Matthew 18: At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 He called a child, whom he put among them, 3 and said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.

When I forget the distinct personality, the particular possibility and potential each person has, my children remind me, like when my son, Nathan, showed me the possibilities of a trashcan when seen through his eyes. If I were with you right now, I’d show you a plastic trashcan. Since I’m not with you, find a trashcan or imagine one. It has a function. It was built for that function in a factory. Some factory produces thousands of identical trashcans intelligently designed for one purpose. I usually saw the one in my office as a trashcan and only a trashcan, until Nathan taught me otherwise. For Nathan, the trashcan wasn’t a receptacle and only a receptacle, a container for the unwanted refuse, for with his imagination, there were a thousand possibilities.  It became a stool, a storage container, a hurdle, a hat, a drum, and of course, a paper wad basketball goal. The factory in it’s void of intelligence saw it for one productive purpose and no more. Because Nathan is alive, he can envision, name, and make more than trashcans, he can make possibilities. He is possibility and possibility in a unique and distinctive way that is his and his alone.
To be a product is to be uniform, to be alive is to be unique. Look at any child, they are not a factory model. No child was made like a watch, car, or airplane. Life produces life. And people who don’t think they are machines, celebrate the differences instead of trying to fix others.
Learning that we are distinct persons is the requirement for living in relationship. You can’t celebrate another person until you celebrate your own personhood. Personhood is required for relationship, as Rabbi Heshcel counseled,

Continue reading “What Do You See When You Look at a Trashcan?”

The story of the Garden of Eden in Genesis has always raised a lot of questions for me. The encounter at the tree begins like this in chapter 3: Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; 3 but God said…

The two questions I have at the outset of the story are: 1. Where is God? 2. Why don’t they go looking for God to find out the answer to their questions instead of just talking to the serpent? It’s often said that this is the beginning of Theology, talking about God but not to God. It doesn’t go well for Adam and Eve, instead of searching for God before the end of the chapter they’ll be doing their best to hide by camouflaging themselves into their surroundings. Hide and seek, sin style.

Continue reading “Does God Play Hide and Seek or Sardines?”

On a recent Saturday, I watched a movie for Mature Audiences. I’m interested in how this label, “Mature Audiences,” is used. We say to children, “You can’t watch this, it is for Mature Audiences.” I want to call the people who came up with this name because I don’t think they have a good understanding of “mature” or “adult.” When I say, “Adult Film,” what do you think of? Shame on you.

The movie I watched was an old one, High Noon from 1952 with Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. It had been advertised as an Adult Western. There was no nudity, no profanity, and very little shooting. There isn’t a gun fight until the last fifteen minutes of the movie. So, why was it an adult film?
Pretty much everyone in it is stereotypical. The bad guys wear black. The scowl. They don’t like each other. They don’t like their horses. They are just mean animals. A clear hierarchy. They have their bad guy music. Like all these films, if you woke up in one, you’d know who you were by the music. If the music has b’s and d’s, you are a villain. Ba-ba-ba da –  da – da – da. DUM. If there are t’s, you are a hero. Ta-te-te ta tat a ta.
The town’s people are also stereotypical. They talk a lot. A lot. They claim to support the Marshal, but they run in the end. It is amazing how much time in this film Cooper, Marshal Will Kane, stands by himself in the middle of the street. The only characters with any depth are Marshal Will Kane (Gary Cooper) and Amy Fowler (Grace Kelly).

Continue reading “For Mature Audiences”

In Nashville, there is a lot of star-gazing. “Let me tell you who I saw at the grocery store…” If you come to Nashville, the one person I suggest you look for is Tasha French-Lemley. I met her at a men’s study group. She came in and sat down in a chair, kicked off her shoes, crossed her legs beneath her, and told us her story. Here is what I remember.

Tasha moved to Nashville after graduating from college with her degree in graphic design. Since she had no experience in the field, no one would hire her. She took the only job she could find working at Kinkos, making copies, and crying daily that her life had fallen so far below her expectations.

Continue reading “Be a Contributor”

In The Art of Possibility, Boston Symphony Conductor Benjamin Zander tells about his family table growing up. He was the youngest of four with two older brothers and an older sister. At dinner time every evening, they would sit around the table, with the parents in the places of authority at the ends and the kids in the middle. Ben’s dad begin the conversation by addressing the oldest boy, “What did you do today?”

Ben’s brother would describe, at some length all that he had accomplished that day. Ben understood that “What did you do today?” meant “What did you achieve today? How did you bring glory and honor to the family? How were you successful?”
Then Ben’s father would ask the second in line, his other brother, “What did you do today?” and he would relate all his accomplishments. Then his sister. Then Ben. Ben felt that compared to his older siblings, he accomplished little. No matter what he had achieved, one of his siblings had done it before and done it better. Ben saw each day as a two-sided coin, success on one side and failure on the other, achievement on one side and disappointment on the other. There was no glory he could bring which the family hadn’t seen before.

Continue reading “Competition or Contribution? What Drives You?”

Jesus said, “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.” Matthew 7

Beware of categories.
    As soon as you label something as ‘beautiful,’
    you will begin to see ‘ugly.’
    Call some ‘better,’
    and you will define others as ‘worth-less.’
    Draw a circle around ‘us,’
    and you’ll see others as ‘them.’
    Build a wall to create ‘insiders,’
    and you will continue to cast more and more
    over your walls until none are left,
    except you alone.

Continue reading “Beyond Name Calling”

In Genesis chapter one, God creates both/ands…
God makes both light and dark and calls them “Day.” Each day has both bright and night.
God makes both land and sea as the earth.
God makes animals that are both wild and tame.
This world of both/ands, God calls, “Good.” God doesn’t say “perfect” though, in this balance there is a perfect unity of both/ands.
In this world of the tame and wild, there is a peace that can only be found outside of the walls we surround ourselves in for protection, beyond control and into the naturally ordered chaos, where the Wild Things Are.
Here are two poems that capture the essence of this wide wild world as good, among the wild things…

The Peace of Wild Things
by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

In Seminary, we learned to preach sermons with three points and a poem. We learned to read long volumes of theology. Somehow, what we didn’t learn, was to do as Jesus did, short two minute memorable parables that connected to everyday life. Here’s my attempt… Click the play button to watch and the > button to skip to the next one.

Looking at the Baptism of Christ presents some deep theological questions.

Consider this painting by Pheoris West, what images do you notice?

Can you see:
a rigid image of John the Baptist to the right?
the dove?
the face and arms of God?
why does Jesus face turn? What is he looking toward following his baptism?

For further study: read the contrasts of John and Jesus and the different versions of Jesus Baptism in Mark 1, John 1, Matthew 3, and Luke 3.

Bishop Calvin Ward and I are studying the gospel of Mark together, join us here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuCzx2tVsUZ_OuaG6zWi9za7mA2oXy3E4

Working on an overview of world religions in under a minute…

Here are the first two:

 

You can possess objects while you’re alive
   but once your objects start possessing you,
   you will stop enjoying them as well as your life.
   Once you forget what stuff is for,
   you will become greedy.
   Once you forget what people are for,
   you will become dominated by your own anxiety.

Don’t worry about what happens
   to your stuff after you die
   because after you die,
   it won’t be your stuff. Continue reading “The Way of Giving, Possessing without being Possessed”