Pastor John Van Sloten

We live life thinking we know. We have faith in ourselves, in our senses, in our limited perception of things. We believe that we can see; that we understand. We think we have control.

Sitting down to write this week, I’ve had moments where I realize that I have nothing to say, that I don’t know a thing. It’s at these times that the Knower often speaks…

Recounting all of the stories that have played out over the past five years reminds me of His providence.

Sensing a leading hand in writing an early book chapter, “Include this, don’t include this, leave this until later…”

Looking at a distant Crowsnest foothill and knowing that there’s more going on than meets my eye – a pair of binoculars reveal reality; three tiny rock outcroppings are actually elk.

A deer just walked by.

Reading the prophet this morning, God spoke to our knowing arrogance when he said, “Does an axe take over from the one who swings it? Does a saw act more important than the sawyer? As if a shovel did its shoveling by use of a ditch digger! As if a hammer used the carpenter to pound nails!”
Isaiah 10:15, MSG

I find I have to work to free my imagination in order to find the story that is this book. The story is there, I just need to get to the place where I can know it, see it.

This morning I took a few pictures of some imaginary wild-life that surrounds this cabin. There’s a lynx hiding in an old tree stump just outside the window. If you look out from the kitchen you can see Mr. Beaver from the Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe, foraging in the snow. Near the front door the water freezes into eagle talons and even the icicles are magical at this writer’s den; they grow horizontally!

So what is it about Barack Obama? Why the huge attraction to this political phenom? Some say it’s his charismatic oratory. No doubt that’s true. The man can talk! But the bigger draw may lie in the content of his message; his hope for reconciliation.

In a world shattered by schism – war, racial divide, ideological conflict, religious fundamentalism, socio-economic disparity, and partisan bickering – Obama preaches reconciliation. He dares to dream of the possibility of something greater, something more. He’s young, idealistic and foolish enough to hang on to the power of hope…

Our jaded and cynical world needs this kind of naiveté.

We yearn for this kind of saving message. Deep inside, we want to believe that reconciliation is possible; that things can be made right.

Obama embodies this reconciliation.

Physiologically he does. In a nation plagued by a history of racial tension, Obama’s mixed heritage brilliantly unifies. A black Kenyan dad and a white Kansan mom; can you see the power in this image? African blood that, this time, crossed the Atlantic of its own free will, on a jet, to go to university, as opposed to unwillingly traveling in the belly of a slave ship; Hollywood couldn’t script this any better!

Obama’s ideology is also reconciliatory. His thoughtful, articulate, post partisan, post modern, post black and white lyric is wholly refreshing to, and representative of, the post baby boomer generation. Many have grown weary of the, “you’re either with us or against us” mantra. They won’t live inside of that kind of camp mentality any more. The simplistic extremes of fundamentalism, left and right (both of which Obama takes issue with!), are just not relevant or attractive today; the complexities of life are much more grey than that.

And Obama’s followers know that he knows that. When he’s willing to see the good in a Republican idea, willing to meet face to face with an international “enemy,” when he’s both honest and self effacing about his own foibles and fallibilities; that makes him both real and believable.

In his best selling book, The Audacity of Hope, Obama uses very uncharacteristic language for a politician; words like listening, empathy and humility. In his prologue he honestly expresses his personal concern with avoiding, “the pitfalls of fame, the hunger to please, [and] the fear of loss,” that come with serving in public office.

What kind of American politician talks this way? By being this kind of leader, Obama bridges another huge gap; the one between the politician and the populace. To many a citizen this guy seems refreshingly authentic and genuine. His honesty reveals character; a character we’d like to possess more of and follow. We’re yearning for leaders who can wisely stand above the fray in this way.

Obama also embodies socio-economic reconciliation. Raised by a single mom for most of his life, he knows what it is to want. He grew up playing with poor kids in Indonesia. His wife Michelle grew up on the poor, South Side of Chicago. Both of them understand where they came from and both of them are now living the American dream. Within their own lives they’ve bridged a big societal gap, economic disparity; their life experiences now allowing them to speak authoritatively to both sides.

Is it any wonder people are attracted to this political candidate?

It’s almost as though his reconciliatory message, his reconciliatory self, his reconciliatory hope, is perfectly suited for such a time as this. And the people know it!

In his chapter on the American Constitution, Obama speaks of Abraham Lincoln’s profound wisdom in engaging the deliberative function of a democracy in a very divisive time,

“I like to think that for Lincoln, it was never a matter of abandoning conviction for the sake of expediency. Rather is was a matter of maintaining within himself the balance between two contradictory ideas – that we must talk and reach for common understandings, precisely because all of us are imperfect and can never act with certainty that God is on our side; and yet at times we must act nonetheless, as if we are certain, protected from error only by providence.”

This is the kind of leader the free world needs.

We were sitting in the Fats Bar and Grill on Tenth Street when he did something unforgettably beautiful. Half an hour earlier I was preaching a sermon on how the city is a refuge for the last, least and the lost, and he was dumpster diving just outside of our church doors…

His name was Gord, and our beers had just arrived at the table, without coasters.

At first I didn’t know what he was doing as he searched through several of the pockets of several of the layers of clothing he was wearing. But then he found a neatly folded handful of white paper towel pieces. Taking one he folded it into quarters and placed it under his beer glass. Then he did the same for me. I don’t know why but it felt like a holy moment. He was taking from what was his, and via the sacrament of a shared meal, giving unto me. His fingers were a grimy black, so filthy next to the paper towel pieces. They moved very slowly and deliberately; perhaps still frozen from the hours he’d been out in that morning’s blizzard. Separating just one piece of paper towel from the rest for me; knowing that his new found friend should never drink a beer without a coaster.

That had to be my first experience of homeless hospitality. How deeply humbling.

You see, as I came out of the church – when I first saw him there – all I really wanted to do was give him some change. But I had none. So I got in my car and left. I had to go shopping for a gourmet meal we were having with friends later that night. But I couldn’t get a 100 metres down the road without thinking, “You’ve got to help this guy John, it’s freezing outside.” So I turned around, parked, and asked him if he’d wait there for a second while I go to the ATM; but for some reason the stupid machine didn’t work either. Finally I gave in, went back to him and said, “Wanna go for lunch?”

He rode his bottle and can laden bicycle there (in a snow storm) and I drove. As I waited for him to arrive I couldn’t help recall what I’d just preached, especially the point about how urban diversity has the potential to enlarge us. Living in a city – the epicentre and epitome of difference – you can do one of two things with the vast diversity you face; you can separate and stereotype others and keep them at arms length – leaving yourself small and in control, or you can engage the difference head on – get past your uncomfortableness, move beyond your camp mentality, and humbly have a conversation over lunch.

Whatever the difference is – sociological, racial, economic, educational, political – there’s nothing that genuine face to face interaction can’t draw closer; if you let it. And it’s true; you do become a bigger person. More like God. More in the image of the one who made you; inclusive, gracious, full of loving kindness and mercy, deeply passionate for all kinds of people (people he made!).

In that morning’s sermon I mentioned how God’s concept of the city taught me more about who God is. I’ve always thought I had a fairly decent understanding the Trinity; fully one and yet distinctly three different persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But the city shed more light on what the Trinity really means; especially on the ‘distinct’ side of things. Recognizing the diversity of the city (and the world for that matter) got me thinking that the three persons of the Trinity may be infinitely distinct from one another, even as they are wholly one. I’ve always considered them somewhat distinct; still fairly similar, not all that different. But who says that’s true? Perhaps the power of the Trinitarian definition of the nature of God lies in the fact of infinite diversity in complete unity?

That makes the city one of the most compelling teachers of who God is. And it helps me understand why He would describe heaven with urban terms; with the glory of all the nations, all peoples represented there. All at the same time, in the same place; preachers and bottle pickers included.

I’m just reading this 1969 classic by recently deceased Kurt Vonnegut Jr., and found myself totally taken aback by the profound and deeply hopeful anti-war message of one scene. Billy Pilgrim, the main character in the story, has the ability to play with time. In this part of the book he’s watching a war movie backwards; this is how the events are recorded…

“It was a movie about American bombers in the Second World War and the gallant men who flew them. Seen backwards by Billy, the story went like this;
American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation.
The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomber bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans, though, and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France, though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.
When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were working day and night, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody again.
The American fliers turned in their uniforms, became high school kids. And Hitler turned into a baby, Billy Pilgrim supposed. That wasn’t in the movie. Billy was extrapolating. Everybody turned into a baby, and all humanity, without exception, conspired biologically to produce two perfect people named Adam and Eve, he supposed.”

Having just finished watching an hour of television news, the juxtaposition was startling. How I long for the day when Christ finishes making all things new.