Monday, December 08, 2003
What would I have done....

I read this article (http://www.bruderhof.com/articles/ToBeVirgin.htm) via the blog of my husband and the following description stood out to me:

The angel summoned Mary, betrothed to Joseph, from the rather safe place of conventional wisdom to a realm where few of the old rules would make much sense. She entered that unknown called virgin territory. She was on her own there. No one else could judge for her the validity of her experience.

She can measure her reality against Scripture, the teachings of her tradition, her reason and intellect, and the counsel of wise friends. But finally it is up to her. The redemption of the creation is resting on the consent; the choice of this mortal woman to believe fearlessly that what she is experiencing is true. And to claim and live out that truth by conceiving the fruit of salvation.

Everything about Mary's experiencence tells my rational mind...God wouldn't do such a thing to anybody. I mean, if you really look at it, Mary's life was pretty much "destroyed" at that point. She didn't know that Joseph would come around - she didn't know that an angel would appear to her fiance, telling him to stay in the relationship and support her. All she knew at this moment was that this can end really badly.....pregnant, unmarried, conception rather unusual....

Or was there something that Mary experienced that was so much stronger than any of that. It must have been. God was there in a way that I have not experienced yet. God's presence was so real and all-consuming that there simply was no room for not consenting to His will. Those moments with God, when he shows up in power, change our lives and paths forever. From Mary's standpoint, here life got harder; yet I think she expereinced something that made it worthwhile.

God's presence demands a response - we cannot remain neutral, we have to make a choice, even though it may cost us our life.


Doris at 11:24 AM

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Christmas joys....

This Christmas season will be very interesting. My mother comes for a visit from Austria and will stay with us for three weeks. Part of me really looks forward, part of me is very much on guard. Last time I saw her was the day before our wedding (2 years ago)....she and my father left the day before the wedding, since they didn't approve of my choice and desperately wanted me to go back with them to Austria. So, how do you deal with that. I guess FORGIVENESS is the key; I think I did this thousand times, yet it still hurts a lot. She is not a believer and so much is at stake. I still hope and pray for a miracle, that somehow she will get saved and we alll live happily ever after...we shall see.

In one thing I have to trust: GOD IS IN CONTROL!
Doris at 9:01 AM

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Friday, December 05, 2003
Thanks to the encouragement of my husband and a wonderful 'blogger' friend Emily, I am blogging again.

Thank you for the encouragement!


Doris at 10:37 AM

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I was reading this post today on Greg Burnett's blog.

Some things really stood out to me as I was reflecting on this particular verse: Song of Songs 2:12 -- The flowers have appeared on the earth: the pruning-time has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.

1. The flowers - representing a new season and new beginnings
2. The pruning - representing letting go, cutting back, pain
3. The turtledove - representing the bridegroom's love

Having those three elements in one verse together though got my attention and for me it meant that for every new beginning in my life God takes me through a season of pruning , so that at the end of the pruning I will hear the voice of my heavenly bridegroom more clearly

God I pray that I will see the dawn of a new season in my life and accept the pruning for the greater sake of intimacy with Jesus
Doris at 10:04 AM

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I am still so moved and taken by the quote I read yesterday about being ambushed by the scandalous love of an unfair God who refuses to give me what I deserve...

I wonder why it is touching me so deeply...probably because I agree with one thing: that, according to my 'high' opinion of myself, I don't deserve his grace and mercy; in my brokenness and hatred of myself I would so much easier accept punishment (the old familiar ways)....His Love that comes, no matter what, seems unfair....I cannot push it away - it just comes stronger; I cannot run from it - he just runs faster; I cannot hide - he always finds me...so what am I supposed to do?; am I supposed to just let him ambush me and surrender ?
Doris at 8:15 AM

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Thursday, December 04, 2003
I am ambushed by the scandalous love of an unfair God who refuses to give me what I deserve.

I didn't write that....I read it....but just imagine the following:

being ambushed by Love....with no way out
Doris at 5:24 PM

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I stopped attending church services. It seems so cliché; then again, clichés are cliché for a reason. There’s something about staring at the back of someone else’s head while calling it “community” that inspires a certain cognitive dissonance. After a service on one occasion, I was asked how I was doing by a friend. Through gritted teeth and a determination to “commit-to-community-no-matter-what,” I replied that I wasn’t doing well. He smiled and nodded, apparently oblivious to what I had shared. Sure, it was an isolated incident, but it seemed to sum up faith for me at the time. And so I withdrew from people, from family and from God.

by brad birt

been there, happened to me...and sadly: done that


Doris at 5:21 PM

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Sunday, November 23, 2003
What does Community look like...?

Something I am very pre-occupied lately is the question regarding 'Community'. Hoe does true (Christian) Community look like and is it realistic to hope for one in our times of increased division and individual pursuits?

One of my favorite TV shows is "I Love Lucy". Somehow my thoughts drifted to the Ricardos and the Mertzes. Maybe one reason why I like this show so much is that in some way these two couples represent a form of community that I long for. Friends that are in your life through thick and thin, who know you inside and out and still believe in you and stay with you...people you share your life and heart with...


Doris at 9:06 AM

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Monday, November 03, 2003
'communities of diverse and effective leaders who empower their organizations to learn with head, heart, and hand'

As I am doing research on leadership and new leadership paradigms and theories I am coming across terms, such as 'Transcendental Leadership'...a leadership theory that explores the spiritual dimension of leadership....

Now for 'us Christians' this might not be a novel idea, since we 'knew' for a long time that leadership has more to do with our spirituality than anything else...at least that's how I saw it, kowing that without a deept connection with Christ I couldn't do what I am doing...

What I am so excited about is that the secular world ( and even secular academia) is coming more and more to the realization that there is a deeply spiritual element to leadership. CEO's of large corporations realize that they cannot lead effectively without embracing their spirituality - otherwise they only lead out of 'half of what they are'...if you want one could even go so far as to call this new form of leadership 'the holistic approach to leadership'...
Doris at 9:19 AM

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Wednesday, October 22, 2003
On leadership....

As I am wrestling with issues of leadership I came across the following post: Poised at the millennium, we confront two critical challenges: how to address deep problems for which hierarchical leadership alone is insufficient and how to harness the intelligence and spirit of people at all levels of an organization to continually build and share knowledge. Our responses may lead us, ironically, to a future based on more ancient -- and more natural -- ways of organizing: communities of diverse and effective leaders who empower their organizations to learn with head, heart, and hand. Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline

Can we indeed find the key for future leadership in the past - is it a 'back to the future scenario'? Does it all end with the beginning - which is Jesus Christ - the alpha and omega?
Doris at 3:56 PM

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Sunday, October 19, 2003
Help, my old routines aren't working ...!

Over the last few months I came to the painful realization that my old routines of connecting with God aren't working anymore.

No matter how hard I try to have a 'quiet time', to do 'my thing', to go through the motion of getting my coffee, opening my bible and journal, reading, trying to 'commune with God'...my routines aren't working...

This troubled my a great deal and I was wondering what was going on; until today as I came across someone else's blog. In this he quotes Thomas Merton:

I picked up a book and read these words by Thomas Merton in Contemplative Prayer:

"Those who imagine that they can discover special gimmicks and put them to work for themselves usually ignore God's will and his grace. They are self-confident and even self-complacent. They make up their minds that they are going to attain to this or that, and try to write their own ticket in the life of contemplation. They may even appear to succeed to some extent . . . "

So, no more gimmicks, but abiding and being attentive to God's will and grace.
Doris at 12:01 PM

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"God is dancing outside the walls..."

This statement from an article my husband sent me this morning really struck me. For the sake of comprehension I paste the article into this blog:


http://www.nextreformation.com/new.htm

Saturday, October 18th, 2003
Somewhere someone asked this question: "Can we be of the church but not in it?"

* * * * *

On Friday morning six guys gathered at the Bean Scene in downtown Kelowna. Of the six of us, two were well known beyond the local area. We varied in age from about 27 years to 49 years. We represented four denominations, with two of us currently not anchored in any identifiable group.

Discussion was passionate, stimulating, sometimes poignant, always relevant. I was reminded at the end of an article by Andrew Pritchard some time back. In his discussion of James Fowler's stages of faith development, Andrew looks at the phenomenon of people leaving their churches. One of his conclusions is that for some people, leaving their church can be a step of spiritual growth. This was true for me personally, and in our gathering Friday morning I saw a similar reality in two others. We talked a bit about why this was true.

I think it is true first of all because within the system many of us confused the purpose of man with the purposes of God. In some cases this extended to our confusing human agency with God's power or activity. We began to idolize the system or its leaders.

Where this was true we wrapped our own identity in the flag (the church) more than in Christ. At that point we were set for a very nasty fall. It's true that the old system of hierarchy elevates leaders (clergy) above the ordinary human being and so encourages such idolatry.

But another more ordinary dynamic is also at work, and it is simply developmental. In the process of human growth we must first know who we are before we can give ourselves away. We must form boundaries before we can safely move beyond them. This is called individuation. It is also part of spiritual growth.

At some point in our lives we have to stand alone. We have to discover who we are without the support of others. We have a desert experience. It is a dark and lonely time, filled with temptation, danger, and personal demons.

Some of us left the system because we could no longer survive safely within it. Others of us left it because we were on a personal journey of discovery. But either way when we left it, we discovered it had its mirror inside us. The same striving and love of position or hunger for power that we saw around us was within us. We realized that either our personal growth had been twisted, or that there was something about the system itself that encouraged this kind of striving.

And there is something even more interesting to me personally. It is that only those who are free of the punishment or rewards of a system can hope to change the system. If you want to move the world, you need a lever outside it.

As we talked yesterday morning I realized that there is also a paradox in all this. The paradox is that we can't simply lead people out of the old system; to do so is to encourage the same dependence on leaders that we knew within the old system. But dependence stops people from growing, it keeps them immature. Unfortunately, the only way to have a deep personal encounter with ourselves and our own darkness is through crisis and pain. Offering others an easy solution.. that they simply join with us in some new movement.. would not be a path to inner transformation for them. We would eventually rebuild the old system on top of the new one.

Instead, we have to become mentors for those who are hurting within the system, or who have already left it. We have to come alongside them and help them understand and survive the process. We have to affirm that they are not bad people because they have left the church or because they see the fallenness of the system. We have to support the work of the Lord in their lives, both inner and outer, and help them sift the true from the false. God could be at work in their leaving, God is dancing outside the walls, God is active and alive in the culture around us. We can find ways to partner with Him wherever we are.

And perhaps slowly, by His grace, we can reconstruct.



If God is dancing outside the walls, then I want to be outside the walls as well. I have not given up my life to follow a system (even if this system is the church), but I have given up my life to follow Him.

I want to dance with God!
Doris at 10:34 AM

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