Pastor John Van Sloten

Would you invite heavy metal band, Metallica to your church?  Local pastor…

Here are a few quick pics I took at a friend’s wood shop yesterday. 

What does it mean to know God with your hands?  When French philosopher Denis Diderot went about researching his encyclopedia on 18th century craftsmanship he encountered a big problem; much of the knowledge he sought to record had never been (or couldn’t be) articulated in words (Richard Sennett, The Craftsman).  The knowledge that the tradesman possessed was not explicit (and therefore recordable) but was instead tacit (internally known, difficult to put into words, assumed).  There were things that a master craftsman just knew to be true; a certain weight, feel, colour, or physical sensation… a particular look, sound, smell or sense of timing.  The truth in these regards was so complex and subjectively discerned that it evaded capture by words. 

 The truth of what they knew was embodied; incarnate. 

Which seems to be the way God likes to clothe his truth.  He made a physical world as part of his plan for self-revelation; there are some things that only a mountain, a Chagall or a baby’s face can communicate!  And He made each of us to give expression to his truth by living it out. In the ancient Hebrew world people knew you knew something when they could see it being lived out in real time (no words required!).  And Jesus came in the flesh.

He was the embodiment of perfect tacit knowledge… what he knew was in perfect sync with what he did.  And what he did was filled with implicit beauty and grace; the way his hands moved, the way he just knew what to say, “with such authority”.  And yet he showed us much more than he could ever tell us…

Which makes me wonder if God made all of material reality for one explicit reason; to say more than mere words could ever hold.  Look at a craftsperson’s hands…  its right there.

I was just reading a fascinating story about how the Salisbury Cathedral (in the UK) was built.

“The immense [cathedral] began, in 1220-1225, as a set of stone posts and beams that established the Lady Chapel at one end of the future cathedral. The builders had a general idea of the cathedral’s eventual size, but no more.  However the proportions of the beams in the Lady Chapel suggested a larger building’s engineering DNA and were articulated in the big nave and two transepts built from 1225 to about 1250.  From 1250 to 1280, this DNA then generated the cloister, treasury and chapter house; in the chapter house the original geometries, meant for a square structure, were now adapted to an octagon, [and] in the treasury to a six sided vault.  How did the builders achieve this astonishing construction?  There was no single architect; the masons had no blueprints. Rather the gestures with which the building began evolved in principles and were collectively managed over three generations.  Each event in building practice became absorbed in the fabric of instructing  and regulating the next generation.”  p70, The Craftsman, Richard Sennett

I wonder if God builds his human church the same way; revealing his plan, purpose and very self over generations, on a need-to-know basis?  Makes sense.  Since it would take forever for God to complete the fullness of his work.  And a project of this scale would certainly take much more than any individual or individual generation could ever bring to it.

Every weekday morning I sit in my living room across from my son Edward, waiting for his Handi-bus to arrive.  Often I find myself in a bit of conundrum.  Part of me wants to keep doing what I’m doing, but another part of me wants to join him on the couch for a hug. Recently I’ve been opting for the hug.

This morning, as he gently grasped my hand and pulled his warm cheek to mine, I realized something about the love that was welling up inside of me.  There’s something about Edward’s weakness that frees me to let it flow.  Its almost as though his need makes me love him more.  Because he can’t do life on his own I feel more compelled to give him the gift of my love… as though love were the ultimate answer to his brokeness.  

As I was feeling that feeling, I knew that God must feel the same thing toward us in all of our brokeness… only in an infinitely greater way.  I am so thankful for this boy.

-30 degrees the last couple of days here in Calgary… great time to have a nice warm fire…

I just realized that I forget to say something in my sermon on auto mechanics.  When speaking about our customer vulnerability in dealing with mechanics (we have no idea how cars work nowadays and therefore fear being taken advantage of) I failed to make a connection to the rest of our lives.  When it comes to our cars, most of us know what we don’t know. In life, we deny this fact.  Just as a mechanic requires that we totally give up our cars to them, so too God requires that we totally give up our lives to him.  Our lack of faith in the auto shop teaches us something about our lack of faith in life.  http://bit.ly/hkBlR9

Earlier today I heard a CBC radio program featuring Samuel Barber’s famous Adagio for Strings. I preached on that same piece of music a few years ago and was excited to hear it again. While introducing the song two classical commentators spoke of how this Adagio has become synonymous with pain and suffering (voted by BBC radio listeners as the saddest piece of music ever written). It got this reputation, in part, due to the fact that it was played at JFK’s funeral. In discussing whether or not Barber intended this interpretation, one of the commentators referred to a song’s “receptive meaning” or “historical meaning”. Regardless of the author’s original intent, the song has now taken a bit of history into its meaning and therefore has that new meaning.  In effect its meaning has been transformed.

I like this idea. It helps me go forward in reading God’s truth in songs that weren’t intended to convey God’s truth by their authors. Only with God, the added meaning is not always post production. Surely God is working the front end and middle as well.   (Here’s a video we produced using the song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOxaiYKwG_4 )

Click twice on the link and you should be there.

faith today review

Last night I had a beautifully unsettling dream about being in a parallel universe. 

Before that I was at a packed downtown Knox United church where I’d just witnessed a hundred (mostly) young people gathered near the stage.  Whole hearted choral singing was filling that hallowed hall.  The resonance was deeply moving.

We were all there for Canadian singer Dan Mangan’s concert  http://www.danmanganmusic.com/site/music/ (yeah, the church was only the venue!).  Mangan had just invited people  forward for the closing song and it was so beautiful; this crowd of voices singing in heartfelt communion.  All night long – as we went through the standard concert liturgy - I kept thinking, this is the way church is supposed to be. Smiling people lined up in the cold before the doors even opened.  Palpable energy was flowing though the gathering crowd. People drove through a serious Calgary snow storm to be here.  And the place was packed.  Eight hundred souls I would imagine. 

Why is it not like this on Sunday morning God?  Why will people home?  Why will the bad roads be a problem then? 

Sometimes I dream of what a city wide awake to you would be like God.  Nothing more important than gathering to meet you. The whole day filled with anticipation.  Church being the hottest ticket in town. 

I’ve been reading the book of Isaiah these past few weeks. Lots of omens of judgment so far, interspersed with  prophecies of grace, renewal and freedom. Aren’t we due for one of those grace times soon God? 

The parallels between the way that concert ended and the way things should (will one day) be were hopeful.  An authentic unplugged voice leading the people in heart felt song.  Everyone there because they wanted to be… because there was nowhere else to be…   and everyone was singing. (Quicktime .mov video)