Pastor John Van Sloten

My artist daughter works at a retail craft store. Yesterday, after closing, she gathered up a few scraps from the store floor, scanned them in, and created these. I think they’re brilliant.

The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.

sarah’s brilliance
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, June 13 2009 @ 08:33 PM PDT
sarah…so brilliant. what a beautiful mind! c.

sarah’s brilliance
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 15 2009 @ 07:19 AM PDT
Awesome! They turned out great!
K.

sarah’s brilliance
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, July 06 2009 @ 07:13 PM PDT
those are absolutely gorgeous!
love it!
b

sarah’s brilliance
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, July 15 2009 @ 12:36 PM PDT
beautiful! these would make great cards! b

Sunday after church a highly motivated and energetic young woman came up to me and asked, “So now what? I’ve read the book and I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do next.” Earlier this month I assigned some homework to our community; read The Art of Travel, by Alain de Botton, and try to figure out where God is revealing himself in the text (in the book itself and in the phenomenon of travel)…

The whole idea of God speaking through creation (and the cultural products of creation like travel and good books on travel) was relatively new to this woman. She’d recently started attending our church, and came from a different Christian faith background. She was having a bit of trouble understanding her homework. I briefly explained the process again. There are three questions you need to ask yourself;

1. What makes travel so good? Try to identify the good human passions and desires that travel evokes. Be specific.
2. Why do you think God made you with those passions and desires? Can you imagine how these same yearnings might operate in relation to him?
3. Given the fact that we’re made in the image of God (in a way made like him), what do these yearnings teach us about what God is like?

She nodded as I went on about the process, and then said, “But where do you start?”

It was a good question; because the book is brilliantly written and filled with all kinds of good, godly truth in this regard. So much so that it would be a bit confusing. The day before our conversation I’d read just one chapter of the text and got so excited. I figured there were four sermons in those few pages alone.

I told her to pick the point that was most numinous to her and work with it. “If it really matters to you,” I said, “Then you’ll have the heart to read it right. I think part of your confusion comes from the fact that this book is really quite brilliant. There’s so much God-truth there that it’s hard to sift it all out and choose just one part.”

Then it hit me. The truly brilliant products of human culture – the best books, theories, entrepreneurial ideas, pieces of art, or sporting events – are like those ‘thin places’ the ancient Celts used to talk about. Certain monastic islands, church ruins or Irish causeways were understood to be places where the veil between our world and the other world was thin. Earth and heaven were understood to be very close in these holy locales. The legends of old affirmed their mystical provenance. The Spirit lingered there.

And it’s true. When I read the most eloquent literature, you are there God; the pages seem thin. During the height of an NHL hockey playoff run your presence seems so passionately close; my sense of being alive illumines your life. When that most brilliant idea comes to my mind I sense your mindfulness, your creativity, your immanent imagination. The best of what humanity has to offer – those times when we most fully live up to what you made us to be – becomes holy cultural ground. Thin places are not just geographical.

“Find that thin place for you,” I told the woman.

“What do you think God is saying through the parable of Susan Boyle?” This was the question I asked a group of pastor-wannabes at a preaching workshop on Saturday morning. I’d just finished laying out the theological argument for a God who speaks through the events of history, and now figured we could apply the idea to a modern day circumstance…

Why is this 47 year old, more than average, Scottish singer’s story resonating so deeply within so many souls? (64 million downloads according to CBC radio this morning!) Obviously the little guy in all of us is vicariously thrilled when an ordinary person is recognized as extraordinary. It’s the typical underdog myth retold; Cinderella in a Scottish… village frock, a butterfly breaking out of her chrysalis.

And that song, I Dreamed a Dream from Les Miserables; surely it is the perfect soundtrack for this contemporary fairy tale. Originally it was sung by the despairing character Fantine as she realized that her life had fallen sadly short; and that her dreams would not be coming true. To a great extent, this is the lamenting lyric of all of our lives. Things are not the way they fully could or should be.

When I asked those pastors in training the question, one responded, “This is about God using the weak to shame the strong.” (referencing St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:27 – “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.”) We were all so wise as we pre-judged Susan Boyle, as we pre-judge all those other losers and outsiders that surround our lives, as we – ironically and insecurely – even pre-judge our very selves. Come on, we all felt it; first the judging, then the shame.

But then we felt something more. I hate to admit it, but I’ve watched this thing six times now, and each time I find myself brought to tears. I full-on wept the first time I experienced the video! Why?

Over the past week I’ve been catching bits of Susan Boyle’s back story. Single, never been kissed, bullied as a child, for many years she cared for her recently deceased mother, and really not much of a life story (from a worldly point of view) beyond that. It was the bullying comment that got me thinking though; thinking about the idea of belonging.

I think the Parable of Susan Boyle is a parable of belonging. Here we have the consummate outsider suddenly becoming the biggest insider imaginable, all in one miraculous fell-swoop. The grace of this transformation is astonishing. One of the most ‘insignificant’ people on the planet now one of the most significant! Susan Boyle is arguably the most popular person on earth today. The girl who was relationally locked into the grade school closet is now the home coming queen. The person who belonged least now belonging the most.

So what is God saying though this global home coming phenomenon. I think he’s saying, “You are meant to belong. Only in a much greater way than this little parable communicates. You are meant to belong to me… and the sense of belonging that Susan Boyle now feels is nothing in comparison to that!”

Perhaps, through this parable, God is reminding us of who we are; as both shameful judges and future recipients of glory.

The other day Edward mimicked a person with Cerebral Palsy. The man’s name was Barry and he was walking down 51st Street toward the Co-op we’d just come from. I saw him from about a block away, fearfully struggling to find the courage to step off of a curb into a busy pedestrian crossing…

When we got closer I said, “Hi.” (I’d passed Barry on that section of 51st Street many times before.) Then I said, “So what’s the problem man… get on with it!” Normally Barry has a pretty good sense of humour, but I wasn’t sure how he took my gibing. Then I looked over at my son and was horrified to see him doing a perfect impression of Barry’s condition… stiff arms, rigid legs, almost losing his balance with every stuttering step, and shaking uncontrollably! I hesitantly looked back at Barry and (thank goodness) he didn’t seem to notice.

Walking the rest of the way home I wondered though. How do people take Edward’s mimicking antics? For the past week he’s coughed immediately after every single cough I’ve coughed – as I’ve been working though a wicked chest cold. At other times we’ll be talking with friends and, if Edward’s there, he’ll mimic the hand actions of the person we’re talking to. A few months back Fran came around a corner in our local department store to find Eddy holding one leg up with his hand while bouncing on the other. It was only as she moved closer that she saw the one-legged woman Edward was bouncing for! The lady was smiling (thank God again!).

This morning it happened again. Edward and I had just arrived at the swimming pool parking lot, only I told him he had to wait for one second before exciting the car. A most magnificent classical music piece was playing on CBC2 and I had to hear it in it’s entirely. So I shut the engine off, turned the volume up, held Edward’s hand, closed my eyes and listened. Sixty seconds later I looked over to see him – you guessed it – doing the same thing. I just stared at his peaceful disposition as the classical piece came to a close. It felt as though his mimicking honoured what I was doing. I didn’t feel like I was being copied, made fun of or used at all. Knowing the tenderness of his heart, I knew that all he was doing was sharing in my moment. Maybe that’s why nobody really gets upset with his parroting actions. He’s validating them. Authentically… No judging or stereotyping… No ignoring the obvious… and no malice aforethought. Eddy’s just entering into that other person’s condition. And somehow, that’s a beautiful gift.

I just saw this image in an old TIME LIFE book. The caption read, “A six year old orphan from Austria ecstatically embraces a brand new pair of shoes just given to him by the Red Cross.” It’s a powerful image, and in my mind it’s a parable; The parable of the prodigal son…

When that self-orphaned prodigal came home again, his gracious, Red Cross-like father embraced him, and gave him a new pair of shoes. Surely he felt like the boy in the photo. Surely this is the same parable. Surely Christ has authored both stories.

(The boy’s tattered old shoes reminded me of this Van Gogh painting)

And the images became this Easter Sunday sermon;

My slow motion race to meet with my publisher on Friday is playing out as hoped. By flying into Toronto and then renting a car to drive the six hours to Michigan, I’d hoped to have some time to ponder and think. Just east of Grand Rapids I found myself deeply moved and saddened…

Why would anyone feel that way about God’s created order, I wondered? Why is it that so many Christians – because they’re so worried about moral and ethical purity – despise and end up discarding so much of what you have made God?

I was thinking about the book and how different people are going to react differently to it; in particular towards its graceful disposition toward “unholy things”. And it just hit me that many will see the concept as incomprehensible (at best) and perhaps heretical (at worst). And for others, it seems, the idea could bring so much hope. The woman I talked to on the flight in was totally excited by the possibility of a God speaking through creation. When I told her that I had been contemplating preaching a sermon on a horse (as a topic not as a mount), she started crying. She’d loved one steed in particular, for decades, and had always seen the goodness in her thoroughbred as otherworldly. The thought of a God who would somehow have something to do with this equine gift completely unsaddled her.

And so there I was outside of Grand Rapids, five miles and twenty hours away from my big publishing meeting. What would it hold? Where will this go? How will you use it all God?

A song lyric from some classical rock radio station I was listening to then caught my ear; “Come and make me holy again.” the monent I heard it , I thought of of creation being made new once more, holiness coming back to and through all things.

I’d never heard the tune before, but like all 70’s rock is was amazing. I later found the song online; Man on the Silver Mountain, by a band called Rainbow. As I drove along listening to the lyrics I thought, had I had this creational revelation idea in my head banging head back then, I’d have preached this song.

“I’m a wheel, I’m a wheel
I can roll, I can feel
And you can’t stop me turning

Cause I’m the sun, I’m the sun
I can move, I can run
But you’ll never stop me burning

Come down with fire
Lift my spirit higher
Someone’s screaming my name
Come and make me holy again

I’m the man on the silver mountain
I’m the man on the silver mountain

I’m the day, I’m the day
I can show you the way
And look, I’m right beside you

I’m the night, I’m the night
I’m the dark and the light
With eyes that see inside you

Come down with fire
Lift my spirit higher
Someone’s screaming my name
Come and make me holy again

I’m the man on the silver mountain
I’m the man on the silver mountain

Come down with fire
And lift my spirit higher
Someone’s screaming my name
Come and make me holy again

Well, I can help you, you know I can

I’m the man on the silver mountain
I’m the man on the silver mountain

Just look at me and listen
I’m the man, the man, give you my hand
I’m the man on the silver mountain

Come down with fire
And lift your spirit higher
I’m the man on the mountain
The man on the silver mountain
I’m the night, the light”

Photographs © Galen Rowell/Mountain Light
For more information about Galen Rowell, please contact Mountain Light Photography, 106 S. Main St., Bishop, CA 93514
Telephone (760) 873-7700
www.mountainlight.com.

The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.

The Journey to Publishing
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, March 14 2009 @ 05:12 PM PDT
As always, great post. And what a great song.

I know what you mean. So often I have this sort of frowning, displeasing
attitude from some of the Christians I know when I describe things that
matter to me that aren’t “Christian” inherently. I end up feeling condemned
for finding God in something that others don’t see him in and I don’t think
that’s the way it should be. Why don’t we all jump at every occasion to see
and celebrate God’s love for the world? I wish we did more often. And then
I start to understand why non-Christians are often so against religion of any
kind – they feel that the things they love most won’t fit in with what is
considered “good”. What freedom they will find in knowing that it not only
CAN fit, but it DOES fit. And not because of any of us here on earth, but
because God wants to meet them there. Your book is going to teach people
that – and that is a very amazing and wonderful gift to give. It already is -
look at that woman on the plane who was reduced to tears!

So, again, Thanks.

K

Two weeks ago my back went out in a very debilitating and humbling way. While crawling to the washroom one day I agonizingly thought, this is a very real experience, I should write about it.

This is what I wrote…

I preached a sermon on the deadly sin of Pride the day before my fall.

“It’s the self filled with self,” I said, “and when your life is filled with yourself there’s often no room for others. Pride’s self-fullness destroys community and it lurks deep within each of our souls; veiled in a blind spot.

Most of us deny its power; the overly fierce independence it evokes, how it leads us to try and control everything, and how it inhibits our capacity to let others in. Often we see pride as someone else’s problem. But to those with proud hearts and minds, the great writer C.S. Lewis warns, ‘If you think you are not conceited then you are very conceited indeed.’(Mere Christianity)”

I had no idea.

Lying on my living room floor I cried out at the top of my lungs. My wife and children had just left the house. I’d asked them to leave so that they wouldn’t have to watch me suffer.

All I did was turn my body a few degrees in an attempt to get up off my mattress. The pain was so excruciating; a muscle ripping, shock-like jolt from my spine to my hip bone. Never have I felt that kind of agonizing jab before. “This,” I thought, “is why human beings have the capacity to scream.” I fell back onto the mattress – the one that I had slept on the previous night, on the main floor, because I couldn’t make it up the stairs to the bedroom – and trembled.

I had to try again because I needed to get to the washroom, and lying there was just too pathetic; too helpless. So I came up with another plan. Slide over to the edge of the mattress, position both arms on the coffee table, lift with all your might, let your torso turn beneath you and then flip yourself onto your knees.

It worked. And I was on all fours.

But then I had to crawl to the main floor bathroom. The task seemed daunting; it was over three metres away.

Every time I moved a hand or leg, my back would piercingly twinge. By then most of my muscles were in spasm, and my quadriceps were shaking uncontrollably. It took me close to five minutes to traverse my foyer. “How feeble is this?” I thought. And then, once I’d cleared the bathroom threshold the real challenge presented itself. I just knelt there, looking up at this small vanity, wondering if and how I was ever going to get myself up there, so that I could get over there.

At this point I started to lose what little composure I had left. The thought of inducing another spasm paralyzed me. But I had no choice; either stand up and get there or else! So I reached up with one hand and clasped the vanity door handle, and then quickly, while shifting my weight, grabbed the faux marble counter top with my other arm. Pulling with all my remaining energy I was soon standing, and then finally… sitting.

How could something so simple be so difficult? Every step seemed like a struggle.

And then, a few moments later, I made a fateful error.

I stood up without having pulled my underwear past my knees.

Looking down I realized I was stuck. There was no way I could start over and sit down and stand up again. So for the next five minutes I awkwardly tried to resolve my problem – half standing, leaning on the countertop, trying to reach down while shaking uncontrollably – but I couldn’t do it.

I tried with all my might and I could not do it.

So there I was; a supposedly self-sufficient adult male and I couldn’t even dress myself. I was at a total loss. I did not know what to do.

Just then I heard my wife come back into the house wanting to check on me. Through the bathroom door she asked, “Are you OK?”

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want her to walk in on me in that abysmal situation. But I had no choice. I was at the end of myself.

Finally through tears I reluctantly responded, “I need help… I can’t do it.” So she stepped in, and moving through my embarrassment, gently helped me. There I was, this half-naked quivering mess, and she graciously saved me.

And in that very child-like moment I felt a strange beauty. I wasn’t being judged or laughed at for my weakness. For just a few seconds I was completely vulnerable; totally in the hands and mind of another. And for those few seconds that helplessness was okay.

It was a very profound and moving experience as I now recall it.

With my pride fully exposed, at my weakest moment, I received the humble gift of dependence.

The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
back breaking pride
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, March 11 2009 @ 04:02 PM PDT
Beautiful.

Perhaps the reason we have pride is that in our weakest moments we HAVE been
laughed at instead of cared for. We need to re-learn to be vulnerable again. To
learn to trust in love instead of fear the pain of rejection. This was a good
modern day parable, thanks for sharing!

K

back breaking pride
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, March 14 2009 @ 08:49 PM PDT
Ahhhh Laddie…that’s why real men wear kilts! No worries about your drawers
around your knees! We did have a laugh at your expense reading your detailed
account….. although you were not!

Wishing you well on your publishing journey!

You are always in our thoughts….we are on our way back from Mexico!

The Crook’s

Okay, my kids told me I had to post this photograph, otherwise I’d have no integrity. Easy for them to say. The conundrum is that I lose integrity either way. This is the horrible swimsuit picture I mentioned on Sunday… the one that I (by the grace of God) couldn’t find for church, the one that initially made me react by saying, “That’s not me… that couldn’t be me… It is me… I should be wearing a two-piece!”
In all my glory (10 years or so ago!)

What a great day. First I stood at the foot of an amazing mountain; the one near the curb on 51st Street and 33rd Avenue. Next I saw two tropical cabanas on the footbridge over Sarcee Trail; so warm and inviting. A little further up the road I entered a large cave and was taken aback by this amazing ice column supporting a huge rock…

I should have known it was going to be that kind of day when I woke up and saw an electical transmission tower on my second floor window, and all that frost on our blue spruce tree.

Ok, here’s the homework for this Sunday’s sermon on photography. Take a photo that looks like this photo. Try to make it look as much the same as possible. That’s it. It only took me ten seconds to take this very ordinary shot, with no real planning or preparation. So it shouldn’t take you too long to replicate it. Then email your image to stories@openoureyes.ca and to me at johnvs@newhopechurch.ca Thanks!

And here’s our first attempt…

And our second (clever!)…