I’ve been trying to catch up. I’ve been looking into definitions – primarily at Wikipedia – for items like “emerging church” and “postmodernity” and “evangelical” and “fundamentalist Christian” so I’ll know better what people are talking about when they bandy about those terms and others.

(And, by the way, all of the cross-reference links and talk links and dispute notations in Wikipedia are very helpful, even though they can draw you into a whirlpool that only the strongest of the curious can resist.)

I have resisted doing my homework for this long, not because of any fondness for ignorance, but because I hate it when definitions become labels. We need definitions. We don’t need labels.

We certainly don’t need to view those labels as magic words that make something what we label it; or that make others agree with us; or that make them do what we want them to do.

Labels can be very effective; I don’t argue that. They can also be very destructive and divisive.

You can call someone a label and get elected. You can call someone a label and get him or her excluded, banished, excommunicated – or worse. You don’t have to prove it. All you have to do is allege it.

All that matters is the sound byte. And it has always been that way.

When the fellowship of believers began, the discriminating label was “Christian.” You could be tortured and executed for owning it. But as the majority began to wear that as an “in” label, the “out” labels proliferated and changed: “Hussites.” “Anabaptists.” “Protestants.” “Separatists.” “Reformers.”

You know the more recent ones.

Do we really need to add more?

My involvement minister has asked me to submit a topic and syllabus for an Adult Elective course at church designed for 1) seekers, 2) new converts, 3) discipleship training or 4) leadership training. In the past, these have met for an hour a week for as few as 4 or as many as 8 weeks, usually averaging six.

I don’t know how to answer him. I’m completely blank. I don’t know what I can add to the canon of spiritual ammunition that the Adult Elective series has already volleyed, plus all of the regular Sunday morning Adult ed studies and all of the past sermon series.

I’ve been trying to reduce my spiritual load for a while to better set my own house in order. I hate to admit it, but our preaching minister’s Sunday message on “Solitude” (in a series from Richard Foster’s “Celebration of Discipline”) has made me wonder if I’m going through what St. John of the Cross described as “the long dark night of the soul.”

That’s not to be confused with Douglas Adams’ hilarious and irreverent “The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul” and its Norse deity connnections, nor with the phrase “the long dark night of the soul” used in other eastern mystic religions — though it has some common ground.

The mystic/Gnostic St. John described it in the 15th or 16th century as the emptying process that prepares the soul for being filled with God’s illumination.

Frankly, I’m not into any of the mystic stuff of any religion, and the whole concept of “secret knowledge” meant for a few but not everyone sounds elitist and creeps me out.

But I do feel spiritually empty, and have for a good long time now. I know it’s partly an angst of sorts that all Christians feel deep down, knowing that God has created people for more and better and closer to Him than this world offers. Yet it’s more than that, a feeling that I haven’t yet heard or heeded a calling — not necessarily a unique one for me; just a calling that every once in a while I think I hear whispering in my heart.

Is it the unwritten book that’s been rattling around inside my head and heart for twenty-odd years (plus one or two even ones)?

Is it just the yearning for the days when contemplating the biblical canon still blew me away?

Is it really a craving for the divine creative spark?

I haven’t posted a blog for a few days. I was curious. I wanted to see how the election went. I wanted to see what the reaction would be among the bloggers I enjoy reading most.

You see, a blog is the perfect place to blow off steam. You can do so anonymously, or with your name hanging right out there attached to every word you trumpet. You can crow. You can sulk. You can exult. You can berate.

None of that seems to be going on among my favorite reads. I already knew that many of them are people of extraordinary character, but they all are obviously aware of a secret that I’m still learning: there is power in being content, whatever the outcome; whatever the circumstance.

I know that when Paul writes the truths below, he’s primarily speaking of want and wealth; of hunger and satisfaction. But they’re still true beyond those contexts:

“… I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therein to be content. I know how to be abased, and I know also how to abound: in everything and in all things have I learned the secret both to be filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in want. I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me.” — Paul to the Philippians, 4:11b-13

“But godliness with contentment is great gain: for we brought nothing into the world, for neither can we carry anything out; but having food and covering we shall be therewith content.” — Paul to Timothy, I Tim. 6:6-8

Forgive my choice of the version to quote if you must.

Sometimes the poetry of it just brings me great contentment.

I voted yesterday. At about 10:15p.m. I stood in line for 4-1/2 hours with about 700 of my fellow countrymen in the rotunda of the Pulaski County Courthouse in Little Rock, passing the time watching them and reading.

There were lots of people: black people, white people, old people, young people — even several incredibly well-behaved toddlers. There was a poll worker wearing fuzzy pink house slippers. A Navy vet with a brand-new cell phone, one of only a few that could punch through the stone and marble. (He scanned CNN headlines most of the time.) There was a big lady who jumped up a foot and issued a blood-curdling scream when she mistook one toddler’s little grey Matchbox car (scooting across the floor in front of her) for a mouse. There were some old UofA school chums, seeing each other for the first time in years, who had to call the Hogs while the rest of us laughed and shook our heads. There were three people in line from the Singles class I co-teach on Sunday mornings. Many folks had books.

Until the battery in my old PDA gave out, I read the gospel of John — made it all the way to the 17th chapter.

Reading continuously like that gives you interesting insights. Have you ever noticed how much of Jesus’ teaching and ministry in John has to do with food and eating? The “hard saying” about eating his flesh and drinking his blood actually lost Him many followers.

Last night in line, people who had never met before held places for each other for a trip to the vending machines and coffee shop in the basement of the courthouse, and brought food back to share. They held each others’ babies. They chatted. They joked. If they’d been in a church, you’d call it communing.

I listened to life stories of folks I didn’t know. I talked to folks I didn’t know about how my day had begun with a migraine at 3:30 a.m.; that I’d had to stay home from work; that my wife called from her job and said a gas main had exploded across the street from my kids’ school and she was bringing them home; that I spent a good part of the day with them, helping them play on the computer. I told them how glad I was to see them when they came home with Mom; how much it reminded me of how I felt when I saw them come home on 9/11/01.

I have to tell you that I was worried about how divided our nation has become in this pre-election free-for-all. Until last night.

Osama is wrong. Our security isn’t in the hands of President Bush, or Senator Kerry, or even in our own hands. It’s in the hands of God. But our choice for our nation’s leaders is in our own hands.

After last night, I’m convinced that both are in good hands.

Dear Pontius,

I know you and I haven’t always seen eye-to-eye on things, but I thought you should know that it’s been getting worse with the people at the temple. Ever since we executed their would-be king, there have been more and more of them. They share everything. Everyone likes them. They sell their things to support the poor. And they worship together every day. Not just on the Sabbath or the feast days. Always!

I don’t think this is the way it should be.

Your friend,

Herod

All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. ~Acts 2: 44-47

“A person’s life is not defined by how much stuff he has.” (Luke 12:15b)

“Don’t store up for yourselves all kinds of stuff on earth, where moths eat cloth and rust corrupts and robbers rob.” (Matthew 6:19)

“Sell your stuff and give to the poor.” (Luke 12:33a)

The rich young ruler turned away from Jesus sadly, because he had a lot of stuff. (Mark 10:22)

The rich farmer said to himself, “Self, you have a lot of good stuff. Relax. Eat, drink, and be merry.” God said, “And tonight you die. Then who will get your stuff?” (Luke 12:19-21)

Jesus told the twelve as he sent them out: “Don’t take any stuff with you.” (Luke 9:3)

“The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found a valuable one, he sold all his stuff and bought it.” (Matthew 13:45-46)

“Wherever you keep the stuff you treasure, you keep your heart.” (Matthew 6:21)

— Free translations of some enslaving situations

We don’t study like we used to.

Perhaps it’s bad that we don’t study as much as we used to.

Perhaps it’s good that we don’t study the way we used to: to prove what we already “know” to be true.

We still need, like Jacob, to wrestle with God. We need to have our spiritual hips knocked out of joint once in a while, so that we can’t escape facing what we fear.

Because what we fear most just might be the long-absent older brother we’ve cheated, running with his army to catch up to us and deliver — not vengeance — but a kiss of greeting and an embrace of love.

Love casting out fear: the last thing we expected.

Something I’ve wondered about for a long time, but have never had enough courage to wonder about out loud:

How can Christians be expected to buy in to the idea of a universal priesthood when it’s so much easier to hire someone to do that work for us and berate us from the pulpit about not doing it ourselves?

Don’t misunderstand: I’m not angry. I’m frustrated. I’m just your average church-going guy. I’m no Martin Luther, any more than Dan Quayle is Jack Kennedy. But I’ve got some theses to post on the church door, and this is as close as I’m likely to get.

1. I don’t care whether the church I attend is labeled traditional, transitional, modern, post-modern, convergent, emergent or divergent.
2. I don’t care if it’s a mega-church meeting in a huge sanctuary/auditorium/worship center or a micro-church meeting in my living room.
3. I’m not interested in reforming, restoring, re-positioning, re-visioning, or re-lexiconing.
4. I don’t care whether we sing old songs or new songs.
5. I don’t care whether the furnishings are chairs, pews, lecterns, crucifixes, stained glass, blackboards, flannelgraphs, video projection screens, altars or tables.
6. I can’t make myself upset about who leads in what role as long as everyone is leading by following, and following by leading.
7. I’m not as crazy about being “preached at,” or “lectured to,” or “instructed about,” or even “directed toward” as I am about “sharing with.”
8. I don’t ever want to have anything to do with an “authentic worship experience”. I just want praise to burst from my heart and the hearts of my fellow-worshipers.
9. I want to get to a point where neither I nor any of those fellow-worshipers feels like making lists like this one of what we want and like, and what we don’t want and don’t like.

Now for the point-five thesis.

• I would count all of this stuff as loss in exchange for knowing Christ Jesus my Lord and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed to his death just on the chance that I might share in his resurrection, too. –Not that I’ve already “gotten there” or I’ve suddenly become perfect. I just want to do my best; reach out and grasp for that which Jesus reached out and grasped me to give me. I haven’t clenched it yet, but I want more than anything else to forget the past and stretch toward eternity; to reach out toward the goal, the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Okay, I didn’t write that part.

I’m no apostle Paul either.

Two words of heartbreaking submission appear in Luke’s recounting of Jesus’ desperate prayer in the Garden (22:42): ‘if’ and ‘nevertheless’: “Father, if you are willing”; “nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.” The request is sandwiched in-between: “remove this cup from me.”

It was no small request. The cup was poison: capture and torture and death on a cross. Because of Jesus’ submission, I know I can pray boldly. But do I sometimes pray too boldly? “Father, I want patience … and I want it now!”

When I insist on telling God what I want, do I fail to trust in His omniscience – His power to know what I need? Or His omnipotence — His power to provide? Or His unfailing power to love me and see me as pure and blameless, washed clean by His Son?s blood?

Shouldn’t I frame my requests in the same submissive way Jesus did — with an ‘if’ before, and a ‘nevertheless’ after?