Wednesday Words - Shoveling Snow

After spending an hour clearing my driveway and sidewalks this morning, this seems like a fitting poem for today. Enjoy the day, and be careful out there on the roads.

Shoveling Snow

If day after day I was caught inside
this muffle and hush

I would notice how birches
move with a lovely hum of spirits,

how falling snow is a privacy
warm as the space for sleeping,

how radiant snow is a dream
like leaving behind the body

and rising into that luminous place
where sometimes you meet

the people you've lost. How
silver branches scrawl their names

in tangled script against the white.
How the curves and cheekbones

of all my loved ones appear
in the polished marble of drifts.

"Shoveling Snow" by Kirsten Dierking, from Northern Oracle.
© Spout Press, 2007.

Tuesday Tome - Mere Christianity / Faith

Tuesday, March 12 (7:00pm) will be the third and final session of the Mere Christianity Book Club I've been leading at Valley. You're invited to join us, even if you have not made it to the two previous sessions. There is so much to discuss that each meeting really stands on its own. This next time we'll be discussing the fourth section (Book IV) of the book.

The study questions I provided at our last gathering turned out to be really helpful in our discussion. If you would like to get a copy of these questions prior to our next meeting, please send me an email message. I would be glad to send you a pdf of the study questions for the entire book.

Here is a provocative passage from the section of the book we discussed at our last meeting.

From Book Three: Christian Behavior, Chapter 11, Faith

Now Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods. For moods will change, whatever view your reason takes. I know that by experience. Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable: but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable. This rebellion of your moods against your real self is going to come anyway. That is why Faith is such a necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods ‘where they get off’, you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion. Consequently one must train the habit of Faith.

The first step is to recognise the fact that your moods change. The next is to make sure that, if you have once accepted Christianity, then some of its main doctrines shall be deliberately held before your mind for some time every day. That is why daily prayers and religious readings and churchgoing are necessary parts of the Christian life. We have to be continually reminded of what we believe. Neither this belief nor any other will automatically remain alive in the mind. It must be fed. And as a matter of fact, if you examined a hundred people who had lost their faith in Christianity, I wonder how many of them would turn out to have been reasoned out of it by honest argument? Do not most people simply drift away?

Lewis, C. S. (2009-05-28). Mere Christianity (pp. 140-141). Harper Collins, Inc.

Monday Media - Paul Soupiset / Lenten Journal

Paul Soupiset is a graphic designer and illustrator who lives in San Antonio, Texas. He is also a songwriter, liturgist, youth media consultant, journalist, mentor, typophile, husband, father, and self-described armchair theologian.

For several years, now, I have enjoyed Paul's Lenten Sketch Journals. They amaze and inspire me with their simplicity and depth.

You can keep up with what he's doing with this year's journal and see his past journals at paulsoupiset.com.

Sunday Supplication - First Sunday of Lent

Almighty God, we ask you to help us when we face temptation.

We remember that Jesus was tempted by Satan during the forty days he fasted and prayed in the wilderness, and so we know that Jesus understands our weaknesses and temptations.

As you strengthened Jesus to overcome temptation, we pray that you will strengthen us by your Spirit, that we too might overcome temptation and escape the sins that entangle us.

Thank you for the forgiveness and renewal you have given to us through Christ. Help us to extend forgiveness to each other in his name. Help us become a redemptive and healing community. Help us to have a saving and healing influence on the world around us.

Dear Lord, help us to be in the world as Jesus was in it.
Help us to be truly engaged with our world, and yet to be truly different from it.

Help us to be instruments of your grace and power.
Where there is hatred, let us bring love. Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is discord, unity. Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is darkness light.

Lead us away from temptation and deliver us from evil.

Through Christ, we pray. Amen.

Saturday Smile - Kuwait Flash Mob

Thanks to Jordan Peacock for sharing this video with me.
It most definitely put a smile on my face.

Friday Friends - CSF Friends Tomorrow Morning

If you are one of the friends I've made through CSF over the last twenty years, I hope you'll try to attend one of these Mission Strategy Forums. The first event is tomorrow, February 25, 10:00am at the MacLaurinCSF Center on Cleveland Avenue near the UMN St. Paul Campus.

CLICK HERE for all the details and RSVP. In addition to event information, you'll find some fun stuff--old pictures and alumni updates. Got any questions? Let me know.

Thursday Thinking - Personal & Political Integrity

As a pastor, I find it incredibly difficult to address political issues without hurting my ministry. Politics are so divisive these days that a political difference, misunderstanding, or disagreement can too easily become convoluted into something that undermines my pastoral priorities. On the other hand, one of those pastoral priorities is to help people become such committed and transformed followers of Jesus that it impacts every aspect of their lives, politics included.

I will not allow myself to be overtly political because doing so would subvert my calling. I would much prefer to pursue my calling to help people become spiritually mature. And in doing so, I believe that the gospel and spirit of Jesus will inevitably subvert the political views and actions of those who follow him.

2012 is going to be a very political year. We should expect the cheap shots, distorted spins, hyperbolic rhetoric, propaganda, and fear-mongering to be as polarizing and uncivil as ever.

Just after the last presidential election, Mark DeMoss of the DemossNews.com launched an initiative he called "The Civility Project." His goal was to have a bipartisan movement toward civility. He asked 585 political leaders (535 congressional leaders, 50 governors) to sign the following pledge:

“I will be civil in my public discourse and behavior. I will be respectful of others whether or not I agree with them. I will stand against incivility when I see it.”

Two years and $30,000 later, after getting only THREE politicians to sign his pledge, he scrapped the whole endeavor. Why on earth would such a pledge be so difficult for politicians to sign? On the other hand, I wonder how many pastors (or Christians) would be willing to sign that pledge.

For the record, let me say that I am ready to sign on today. In fact, I will make that pledge right here and now.

I hereby promise to be civil in my public discourse and behavior. I will treat others with respect, whether or not I agree with them. When I hear or see incivility, I will take a stand against it and do what I can to promote patience, understanding, and cooperation.

Having said that, let me stress that this is not a pledge to be apolitical. It is not a pledge to have no political views. It is not a pledge to leave politics alone. How could I be committed to having God's will be done and his Kingdom come if at the same time I ignored politics? You can count on me to be civil, but you can also count on me to provoke your thinking about political issues, values, and people. I hope you will join me, both in the pledge to be civil and in the pledge to be engaged.

So let's get this party started.
Let's think about truth telling.

It's one thing for a politician to change his/her views on any given policy or issue. In fact, an honest and thoughtful person will find that the complexity of navigating and understanding our world and our lives will at times necessitate a change of heart and mind. The problem is not when politicians change their views, but rather when they change their stories to pretend that they have not changed their views.

Yesterday, Slate Magazine published a story about Mitt Romney and his political handling of the abortion issue. Below is a video featured in that story. Try not to get distracted by the fact that the story is in Slate, and try not to get distracted by the important topic of abortion. Instead, try to focus on Romney's own accounts of his changing actions and views. What do you make of his stories? Is this a problem of opinion or a problem of integrity?

I'm not looking for a lot of talk on this; I'm just trying to provoke your thinking. If you do make a comment, please be thoughtful and civil. Those are the only kind of comments I will allow to be published.

Wednesday Words - Ash Wednesday

As today marks the beginning of Lent, I thought I would share a beautiful poem by Walter Brueggeman. My favorite thing about this poem is the way Brueggeman turns Easter into a verb, which is, of course, something every growing Christian comes to discover.

I'll be leading an Ash Wednesday Service at 7:00pm tonight at Valley Christian Church. If you live in the area, I hope you'll join us.

Marked by Ashes
Ruler of the Night, Guarantor of the day . . .
This day — a gift from you.
This day — like none other you have ever given, or we have ever received.
This Wednesday dazzles us with gift and newness and possibility.
This Wednesday burdens us with the tasks of the day, for we are already halfway home
halfway back to committees and memos,
halfway back to calls and appointments,
halfway on to next Sunday,
halfway back, half frazzled, half expectant,
half turned toward you, half rather not.

This Wednesday is a long way from Ash Wednesday,
but all our Wednesdays are marked by ashes —
we begin this day with that taste of ash in our mouth:
of failed hope and broken promises,
of forgotten children and frightened women,
we ourselves are ashes to ashes, dust to dust;
we can taste our mortality as we roll the ash around on our tongues.

We are able to ponder our ashness with
some confidence, only because our every Wednesday of ashes
anticipates your Easter victory over that dry, flaky taste of death.

On this Wednesday, we submit our ashen way to you —
you Easter parade of newness.
Before the sun sets, take our Wednesday and Easter us,
Easter us to joy and energy and courage and freedom;
Easter us that we may be fearless for your truth.
Come here and Easter our Wednesday with
mercy and justice and peace and generosity.

We pray as we wait for the Risen One who comes soon.

Walter Brueggemann (b. 1933) has combined the best of critical scholarship with love for the local church in service to the kingdom of God. Now a professor emeritus of Old Testament studies at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, Brueggemann has authored over seventy books. This poem is taken from his Prayers for a Privileged People (Nashville: Abingdon, 2008).

Tuesday Tome - Mere Christianity / Behavior

Tonight at 7:00pm I will be leading the second session of a Mere Christianity Book Club. You're welcome to join us. We'll be discussing Section 2, Chapter 5 and all of Section 3.

Last month we had a large group. I tried to cover too much ground and would have planned for more structure had I know such a large group would be attending. We're only going to cover one section of the book tonight, and I have prepared a discussion guide that should be helpful.

In case you haven't caught it in previous posts, the entire book is available for free online. The entire text is there, downloadable as a pdf, and available as audio. CLICK HERE.

Here is an excerpt from the first chapter of the section we'll be discussing tonight.

From Book Three: Christian Behavior, Chapter 1
The Three Parts of Morality

Some people prefer to talk about moral ‘ideals’ rather than moral rules and about moral ‘idealism’ rather than moral obedience. Now it is, of course, quite true that moral perfection is an ‘ideal’ in the sense that we cannot achieve it. In that sense every kind of perfection is, for us humans, an ideal; we cannot succeed in being perfect car drivers or perfect tennis players or in drawing perfectly straight lines.

But there is another sense in which it is very misleading to call moral perfection an ideal. When a man says that a certain woman, or house, or ship, or garden is ‘his ideal’ he does not mean (unless he is rather a fool) that everyone else ought to have the same ideal. In such matters we are entitled to have different tastes and, therefore, different ideals. But it is dangerous to describe a man who tries very hard to keep the moral law as a ‘man of high ideals’, because this might lead you to think that moral perfection was a private taste of his own and that the rest of us were not called on to share it. This would be a disastrous mistake.

Lewis, C. S. (2009-05-28). Mere Christianity (pp. 69-70). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Monday Music - Cactus Blossoms at the Dakota

This ought to be a fun night of music downtown at the Dakota.
With only an $8 cover to boot!

March 8, 2012 7:00 pm
Cactus Blossoms with
Foghorn Stringband

7:00pm $8 Cover
Classic Country & Old-Time Music
Call 612.332.1010 for Reservations
DAKOTA • 1010 Nicollet Avenue • Minneapolis

“It’s easy enough to phone in a cornball imitation of old country … It’s another thing entirely to live and breathe the craft of writing and singing a good country and western song as The Cactus Blossoms have done” -City Pages, Best Minnesota Albums of 2011

Brothers Jack Torrey and Page Burkum write songs like Hank Williams, weave sweet harmonies like the Everly Brothers, and their earnest performances revive the sound of country and western’s early days.

In the summer of 2010 Jack and Page won first place in a duet contest at the MN State Fair, which led to a guest performance on A Prairie Home Companion. In the boys’ introduction, Garrison Keillor proclaimed “This is just the beginning of big things for you.” Just a month later they found themselves opening a sold out show for Marty Stuart. Maybe Keillor was right!

The Blossoms’ debut record came out in October 2011, and features fiddler Mike “Razz” Russell (Mark Olson, Creekdippers, Joe Henry), steel guitarist Randy Broughten (Gear Daddies, Trailer Trash) and bassist Liz Draper (formerly of DitchLilies).

“Portland’s Foghorn String Band stands at the top of today’s vibrant old-time music revival and a fine example of what an unending revival it is. Each album finds them deeper into the tradition, more familiar with the rich resources of roots music, and more focused, but still propelled by that undercurrent of punk energy.” —Art Menius, WMMT

Wowing audiences across the country and across the pond playing over 200 days a year, Foghorn String Band is one of the most sought after acts for festival stages and music camps, and are band mates for world renowned master old-time musician Dirk Powell and Cajun legends Joel Savoy and Jesse Lege.

Their material is drawn from the tunes and songs of the American South, from the hollers of Appalachia to the early days of country music. Together, they blend voices, repertoire and instruments to create a diverse performance true to the roots of American music, throwing some Cajun songs and Caleb Klauder’s vintage sounding originals in the mix. Performing live, these multi-instrumentalists gather around a single microphone in the middle of the stage.

Sunday Supplication - Glory to Glory

O God, you have revealed your grace and truth through Jesus your only-begotten Son. We have seen your glory revealed in his birth, his life, his words, his transfiguration, his death, his resurrection, and his ascension.

Give us the faith to truly see Christ, and by his light, help us to see our own lives and our purpose. Strengthen us to take up our own crosses, to walk in his ways, and to be changed into his likeness from glory to glory.

We are thankful for your forgiveness and we ask that, as you have forgiven us our sins, you would help us to be quick to forgive those who have sinned against us.

O God, we thank you for the grace and comfort you extend to us. We praise you for being a God of comfort and consolation. Help us to always look to you for the strength and hope needed to face our troubles. Give us eyes to see the hurts of those around us. Give us hearts of compassion, and make us instruments of your peace.

Through Christ, we pray. Amen.

Saturday Smile - Object Lessons

A minister decided that a visual demonstration would add emphasis to his Sunday sermon. During the introduction of his sermon, he took four worms and placed into four separate jars.

He put the first worm into a jar of alcohol. The second worm he put into a jar of cigarette smoke. The third was put into a jar of chocolate syrup. But the fourth worm was put into a jar of good clean soil.

With the jars all placed on a table beside him, he preached his heart out on the virtues of clean living and the dangers of bad habits. At the conclusion of the sermon, the minister revisited the worms and the jars he had put on display before his sermon. He reported the following results:

The first worm in alcohol - Dead.
The second worm in cigarette smoke - Dead.
Third worm in chocolate syrup - Dead.
Fourth worm in good clean soil - Alive and well.

"So," the Minister asked the congregation, "What can we learn from this demonstration?"

Everyone just sat there quietly. No one wanted to be the first one to speak up, but the preacher was determined to wait for someone to answer his question. He asked again, "What have we learned?"

Finally, a little old woman in the back raised her hand and said, "As long as you drink, smoke and eat chocolate, you won't have worms!"

Friday Family - Kitchen Concert

A couple of Christmases ago, my brothers and sisters and I all went in together to buy my dad a baritone ukulele and my mom a little melodica because we thought they'd get a kick out playing old tunes together.

My niece, Maggie, caught this priceless little video of my parents goofing around. Pretty darn sweet! It's one of those special moments I'm glad she was lucky enough to capture. It reminds me of the kind of fun I grew up around. Music has always been (and continues to be) a form of family entertainment for the Burkums.

Thursday Thinking - Human Trafficking

A few days ago, a friend of mine tagged me in something he had posted about human trafficking. In his post, he mentioned some things he had read recently about the problem in Canada. He also shared how in recent conversations with relatives in Bemidji, MN he had learned the problem was impacting Native Americans in that area.

It's no secret that the Twin Cities metro is an area where women, especially within the immigrant population, are suffering from trafficking. A number of news headlines have exposed some startling cases. [A, B, C, D...]

My friend closed his post with these statements:

This is real, and it's serious, and far too few people are aware that it occurs here; they think of southeast Asia or someplace "over there." But fighting human trafficking and violence against women needs to begin where you are.

This is not a new idea for me, but his post got me thinking about it. I agree that I should join and support anti-trafficking efforts in my area. But how do I "begin where I am?" What can I do to fight human trafficking? How could my church family make a difference and work against this injustice?

With a little digging around on the internet, I was very pleased to discover an upcoming program on the very subject. It is scheduled for Monday, February 27, 6:30pm, at a church in Burnsville. Unbelievably, it's exactly what I was hoping to find. Sponsored by the Joint Religious Legislative Coalition (JRLC), the program is entitled, Protecting Dignity, Ending Slavery: A Discussion on Human Trafficking in Minnesota.

Now that I've found a good starting point, there is another problem for me. I am not able to attend this program because I have regular Monday evening church responsibilities. I do, however, hope that I will be able to find someone (maybe several someones) within my church community who will be able to attend.

If you are someone who is interested in attending, please let me know. I would be very glad to know about your plans and may even be help you connect with others would like to join you. Check your calendar and let me know asap.

Here is the information you'll need:

Protecting Dignity, Ending Slavery
A Discussion on Human Trafficking in Minnesota

Join us for a panel conversation about the issue of human trafficking in Minnesota. Hear from experts on the issue, and learn about local efforts to combat this modern form of slavery in our community.

Panelist Speakers: Dr. Lauren Martin, University of Minnesota; Suzanne Koepplinger, Minnesota Indian Women's Resource Center; Michele McKenzie, The Advocates for Human Rights; Joy Friedman, Breaking Free.

When: Monday, February 27, 2012, 6:30pm

Where: Presbyterian Church of the Apostles, 701 E. 130th St. Burnsville, MN

Contact: Rachel@jrlc.org