Ways of Resistance

A little introduction…

This is my “trip journal” while walking the Pacific Crest Trail from Beldon, Calif. at HWY 70 to HWY 36 at St. Bernard’s Lodge (48 miles or so) with my friends Joshua and Allan. You can read my first entry here.

Day two
7/24/10
12:30pm-ish

We left a little after 6:30am or maybe a little after 7am. No one had a watch available, so I’m taking a guess. The walk this stretch was a moderately hazardous, tree-fallen, and difficult terrain–hard to see the trail in spots. We crossed several creeks, rivers, springs, etc. Feet wet…sweat-dripping climbs.

We’re probably around 6500 ft. above sea level. Stopped by a spring. I’m sitting in the shade now while Allan attempts to find our location on the topo map and Joshua seems sort of uninterested and mildly irritated–with Allan’s questions? with being on this hike? with the blood-sucking mosquitoes? He got bit all last night. So did I, but not as bad (and to be honest the bites haven’t irritated my skin as much as they usually do). Joshua has had a harder time than Allan and I crossing the water ways. (Could it have been the 16 pounds of water he was carrying for us in his pack?) In fact, he got frustrated with the biggest river crossing and threw his walking stick while getting across. He then made himself, on principle, jump in to fetch it. A little hard on himself, I thought, but seemed like the right kind of initiative for an adventure like this. Only thing is, he had his iphone in the side pocket of his cargo shorts. Oops! No more GPS trail guide! Shortly after that, I led us off the path…

I’ve been praying the psalm I came to today (Psalm 24) while walking. It didn’t work out to read 30 Psalms the first day and I bet I won’t do it the second day either. But it just seemed right that I pray this particular psalm on our ascent and even the date (24th of July) matches the number. Here it is:

Salmo 24 (salmo de David)

De Jehová es la tierra y
su plentidud; el mundo, y los
que en él habitan;
porque él la fundó sobre
los mares, y la afirmó sobre
los ríos.
¿Quién subirá al monte
de Jehová? y quién estará en
su lugar santo?
El limpio de manos y
puro de corazón; el que no ha
elevado su alma a cosas vanas,
ni jurado con engaño.
El recibirá bendicion de
Jehová, y justicia de Dios de
salvación.
Tal es la generación de
los que le buscan, de los que
buscan tu rostro, oh Dios de
Jacob. Selah
Alzad, oh puertas, vuestras
cabezas, y alzaos vosotras, puertas
eternas, y entraré el Rey de gloria.
¿Quién es este Rey de
gloria? Jehová el fuerte y va-
liente, Jehová el poderoso en
batalla.
Alzad, oh puertas, vues-
tras cabezas, y alzaos vosotras,
puertas eternas, y entraré el
Rey de gloria.
¿Quién es este Rey de
gloria? Jehová de los ejércitos,
el es el Rey de la gloria. Selah

5pm-ish

So, we finished around 12 miles today. The first 5 miles was horrendous. We climbed almost 3000 ft., I think. The beauty was better than expected, though. We had several views once up on top. And the coming down was nice. There were some flat spots too. We’re camping at a fresh water spring. The water is probably 45 degrees. It’s called “Cold Springs.” Appropriate name. It’s along a road called Humbug summit. I guess it’s about an hour from Chico, driving through Butte Meadows. A great spot to bring Julissa and the kids for a day hike.

We’re attempting around 17 miles tomorrow. We’ll see…

A little introduction…

This is my “trip journal” while walking the Pacific Crest Trail from Beldon, Calif. at HWY 70 to HWY 36 at St. Bernard’s Lodge (48 miles or so) with my friends Joshua and Allan.

Keep in mind when reading that it was not written for any “audience,” but as a journal to document some of my experiences. It contains a bit more immediacy and “interpretation” than I usually allow to enter into my writing. But I like the raw finish, even though it’s probably not very well thought-through testimony of the events and the people (including stuff pertaining to me). I wrote it in between walking long distances and then while I recovered from the pain and lack of sleep. The main point in sharing it is to describe my experience while on the trip, not to understand or explain it, but to put myself into the “pilgrimage.”

Day one

7/23/10

5pm

“Children can sniff out hypocrisy like a fart in a car!” –Joshua (“the Abbot”)

“El deseo de los humildes oíste, oh Jehová, tú dispones su corazón, y haces atento tu oído, para juzgar al huérfano y al oprimido, a fin de que no vuelva más a hacer violencia el hombre de la tierra.” –Salmo 10:17-18

So far we’ve walked 8 miles or so. Not bad for the 1st day, but tomorrow is still going to be a lot (12 miles). We might actually start walking again after dark.

The conversations have been good. Joshua and Allan, mostly, have already touched on family, vocation, green primitivism, historical source-criticism of the Bible, and trends in new urbanism. I’ve been reading the Psalms in Spanish. I’m trying to read 30 Psalms a day (times that by 5 days and you equal all the Psalms). I love hearing David’s thoughts, prayers, inspirations…though I’m somewhat confused by his thirst for justice, violence, and damned ways coming to an end. I guess I get the wish for an end. Maybe one of the gems in my journey will be in the discovery that there is an end. I’m praying that God show me confidence in the life of poverty, the future that seems unknown, and a deliberate life of fellowship with creation and love.

Now it’s dinnertime.

Brian Walsh’s blog post (BP, The Gulf, and the Assault of God) asks a pointed question. Can we watch (listen, read) and not grieve? Can we linger around as though the tragedy does not include the creation of God’s care, a creation who suffers and maybe will die right in front of our smiling, painted faces? Our behavior is far too depressing, if you ask me.

But could it be that Jesus hasn’t ever left her? Even when BP will leave, when Christians leave, when nobody else cares (including me?), should Jesus follow us back upstream and enter the candyland-boardgame-life we simply desire to live? (And if He doesn’t show up in person, I’m sure we’ll be able to find a gorgeous “living” replica to re-present our bio-fuel “needs” to the Father.) Only, in the meantime, lets hope our sin does not make us so weak that we lose whatever usefulness (saltiness?) we previously received.

BP, The Gulf, and the Assault of God
By Brian Walsh

The doctors seemed totally incapable of stemming the flow. This wound was too deep. The blood would not stop. The woman had been assaulted so violently that all of their medical emergency and trauma training was totally ineffective. This woman was dying. And all we could do was watch. Perhaps weep. Undoubtedely keep thinking up new techniques to save her. But in the meantime, all we could do was watch.

So we set up a camera in the emergency room where she was lying. We focused the lens on the wound where the blood continued to seep. We set up a 24/7 vigil and we posted it as a lives feed on the internet. Millions of people around the world logged in. At first they also wept. Then they stopped watching the feed around the clock, but only tuned in once in a while to see how this woman was doing.

Yes there was a sense of voyeurism to it all. Yes there was a morbid curiousity. I mean, watching a woman bleed and bleed and bleed. Maybe if Jesus was there she could have reached out and touched the hem of his garment. Maybe he was there. Not watching on the internet, but sitting by her bed, tears streaming down his face. Maybe that is why she didn’t just die. After all, where does one woman get that much blood? She should have been gone after a few minutes with that kind of flow. Maybe that wasn’t her blood. Maybe that was Jesus’ blood. Maybe he was bleeding through her. Maybe the wound that she bore, he also bore. Maybe that blood was somehow flowing from his side, through her.

Well, the oil gushing in the Gulf of Mexico isn’t blood. But it sure does seem like a slow death. Naomi Klein puts it this way: “… the hole at the bottom of the ocean is more than an engineering accident or a broken machine. It’s a violent wound in a living organism; it is part of us. And thanks to BP’s live camera feed, we can all watch the Earth’s guts gush forth, in real time, 24 hours a day.”

Is Jesus watching? Does that flow of oil have anything to do with the blood and water that gushed from his side? We have often said that Jesus is crucified daily in the lives of the poorest of the poor. I believe that is devastatingly true. Might it be that he is crucified 24/7 in a gaping wound at the bottom of the ocean? I think so. I mean, on the cross all things, in heaven and earth and under the sea are reconciled to God. That’s what Paul says in Colossians 1.20. And a few verses later he says that the gospel has been proclaimed to all creation. That means the shrimp, lobster, sting rays, sharks, turtles, sea birds, plankton and plant life of the sea and its shores. All of these creatures know the gospel. They all are recipients of grace. It’s just that it’s a little too hard to enjoy that grace or to hear that gospel when you are covered with oil.

So this assault on creation isn’t even just a violent wound in a living organism. It is also an assault on God. It is a grieving of the Holy Spirit. It is a mockery of the cross. Christ have mercy.

Berry, again, has worthwhile and strangely contemporary words for our desperate ecological, social, and political conditions (from his essay Word and Flesh, written over 20 years ago):

[Our leaders] believe that the difference between war and peace is still the overriding political difference—when, in fact, the difference has diminished to the point of insignificance. How would you describe the difference between modern war and modern industry—between, say, bombing and strip-mining, or between chemical warfare and chemical manufactoring? The difference seems to be only that in war the victimization of humans is directly intentional and in industry it is “accepted” as a “tradeoff.”

Were the catastrophes of Love Canal, Bhopal, Chernobyl, and the Exxon Valdez episodes of war or peace? They were, in fact, peacetime acts of aggression, intentional to the extent that the risks were known and ignored.

We are involved unremittingly in a war not against “foreign enemies,” but against the world, against our freedom, and indeed against our existence. Our so-called industrial accidents should be looked upon as revenges of Nature. We forget that Nature is necessarily party to all our enterprises and that she imposes conditions of her own.

Now she is plainly saying to us: “If you put the fates of whole communities or cities or regions or ecosystems at risk in single ships or factories or power plants, then I will furnish the drunk or the fool or the embecile who will make the necessary small mistake.

dsWithout exactly making excuses, I’m sort of pleased that I procrastinated so much today. It’s not that I didn’t have work to do. I have a crapload, to use the french translation. The issue for me is similar to many babies and children, “I don’t want to.” But, on the other hand, I also have a lot on my mind. I’m feeling fairly vulnerable lately with all the changes in community life (both positive and negative). And I’ve started to take stock, research my thoughts, feelings, and desires related to community. It’s a hard process. Heart surgery, so to speak. I’m opened up to a deep incision and am still finding that there is always further to go and more to reveal. It’s hard to live in a canyon. But anyway…

Paul Munn describes himself and fellow followers of Jesus as “strangers and exiles.” Of course, he wasn’t the first one to use that kind of language or communicate that kind of thing. Jesus said similar types of things and, quite obviously, experienced profound loneliness and a whole array of societal rejections and misunderstandings. (Or am I reading myself too much into that story?) Nevertheless, I took it upon myself to add some good ol’ Christian disillusionment to the post (as if there weren’t enough already out there!). Here’s what I said:

I used to think that the marriage metaphor Paul uses to describe Jesus’ bride might, in a way, also imply a marriage-like commitment/vow to a specific group or community (i.e., the benedictines). But I’m not so sure now. I still desire a deep experience of God’s family and to “grow old together” with its members, just as some communities aspire to do. I guess it’s kind of strange for me, though, to understand how this could be possible, either within or with-out a familiar communal life, when we have as our primary identity the destiny of “strangers and exiles.” If it’s a matter of perpetual not-knowing or fleeting moments of actual deep community, I’m ok with that…but I confess, I don’t understand why.

Paul’s reply:

Yeah, I can understand that desire. But I think the reality is that communities change a lot over the years (if they last). People come and go, even when there are “life-long” commitment expectations, and the nature and purpose of the community usually shifts quite a bit. The changes are sometimes the reason certain people end up leaving. So the ideal you talk about is not the reality (at least not the reality I’ve seen or heard about).

Marriages can change quite a bit, too, I suppose. And people sometimes leave.

I guess I’m saying that our deepest desires for community are often good (and God-given), but humanly-defined societies never can satisfy that. I think it’s really a desire to be part of the community that is God, the body of Christ, and anything short of that will ultimately leave us disillusioned.

My reply back:

“I think it’s really a desire to be part of the community that is God, the body of Christ, and anything short of that will ultimately leave us disillusioned.” That’s a good point. Especially the disillusioned part. Maybe I’m just in a dark mood today, but I keep thinking that the reality for human beings (the ones I know, at least) trying to follow Jesus isn’t much better. I believe God wants us to know Him directly, especially in those we know and receive who are part of His body. But I’m still struggling to remember what makes this message (”strangers and exiles”) good for us, His children?

Never one to let a smart response fall by the wayside, he replies:

I’m not sure what you mean by “good for us”… I think it’s the truth, so it’s good for us to know. Jesus warned his followers that they would encounter widespread rejection and persecution, not because he wanted it to happen, but it helped them to know it was coming and so not get too thrown when it did happen.

And I do think there is a big difference in how much we are disappointed when we trust people (especially in powerful groups) and how much we are disappointed when we trust God.

Now, before I read his response, I had decided to ride the bus home from work. Julissa took the car, because the car she drives had a flat. (I really enjoy public transit, fyi. It’s like a free nap; you know, the kind you don’t have to feel guilty about when others around you are awake.) So, while I studied the rain, people, and slow city views, I began rereading a chapter from Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This beautiful passage (below) stood out to me–a corrective, if you will. Here’s a few lines from it and then my last comment to Paul:

The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams…

Bonhoeffer plants this idea to the community in his book Life Together: “Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves.”

I like that. I think he hits the nail on the head. I also like the distinction you made about disappointment which develops from trusting people or groups and the disappointment unleashed when we trust God. The latter seems to be a certain mercy which responds to our innermost need–more than anything. Like you said in an earlier post, it is “a better prayer” for us to pray and receive.

Even though this may seem like a good place to end a rather piecemeal post like this, I’ve actually got one more link to throw in the mix. Jason Coker posted the beginnings of a chapter by chapter review of Dallas Willard’s new book, Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge. I liked the topic. It’s related, it seems, to this feeling I’ve been struggling to identify for myself. So, I wrote a comment:

I’m new here (to the blog), but this caught my attention because I’ve been thinking through the implications of knowledge in relation to the Body of Christ. I haven’t looked at Willard’s book yet, so I’m not sure if he will touch on it. But it’s a rich topic, eh? For example, if we cannot completely identify with any human society (including Christian community) as Christ’s body, in what way can we avoid the temptations to idealize/idolatrize the social power of groups, movements, institutions, or even community? In other words, I am wondering if knowledge of Christ’s actual body is in any way possible or if we must accept the somewhat shoddy and disappointing versions personafied to us by our experiences of them. You might tell by my tone or question that this is one of those areas where I’ve had “experience with the belittling of faith as true knowledge.” Nevertheless, I view knowledge (religious or otherwise) as the substance of human faith. It’s the way we know the world. However, Jesus seems to know things about the world that I will never understand, put faith in, or believe. Peter Rollins, I guess, would want to call me an atheist. But I’m a Christian, a leader, and part of a faith community. This is not the comment I was thinking it would be. Alright, enough typing…

And Jason C. responds, offering this gentle reassurance/reminder:

Jason - Welcome. Your contribution is appreciated! I’m with you, but I suspect that we’ll have to find the real thing in the midst of the “somewhat shoddy and disappointing” version we have. : )

What can I say? It’s been a fruitful day, even in the midst of some “shoddy and disappointing” productivity percentages at my work desk. But thankfulness is key, right? I’ll finish my post here with Bonhoeffer’s final sentence from the overall passage I quoted above:

The more clearly we learn to recognize that the ground and strength and promise of all our fellowship is in Jesus Christ alone, the more serenely shall we think of our fellowship and pray and hope for it.

May it be so.