Move over

Hey peoples,

I have made a blogging commitment and have therefore moved this blog to a more robust location. (that sounded rude somehow).

Anywhooooo,
Go here and join the fun!!!!!:

http://timbailey.typepad.com

Yay. Woot.
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Tim Bailey

Gearing up

Ok people.
It's time to rev this blog up again. I am planning on revamping and reinventing "And Another Thing".

Remember when I used to post everyday? (some of you wish you didn't....)

Look forward to the "new start" next week.

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Tim Bailey

Ramblings on pendulums...

Seldom is the answer to a problem found in its opposite. Too often we operate on this assumption, and because of our "convictions" regarding the situation, we find ourselves in fruitless arguments, unwinnable debates, eternal stalemates and war.

I have spent my life watching the conservative protestant church. I have never really felt "part" of it, having been viewed as the "rebel" from almost every conceivable perspective. I have watched its response to the youth culture in two generations, its reaction to societal changes, and have seen how it has desperately tried to name certain things evil in order to call itself good.

The only time the opposite is the solution is in the presence of pure evil. It's easy then, right? Name something evil and swing the pendulum. (Think "axis of evil"). Hold to your convictions to prove your thesis. Use a verse or two from scripture and claim pure goodness.

But the "issues" the church has decided to call evil are the easy ones. It hasn't clearly named selfishness "evil", because its opposite would be too difficult. It hasn't called living in wealth while half the world starves "evil", because it would have to act. It amended the "love your enemies" rule with a "just war" theory, I can only assume because it is just too difficult to die instead of fight.

Instead, it seems it has decided only to call evil those things it can oppose without too much effort, or at least can oppose publicly and appear to not be involved in. Along with a few of the obvious ten commandment sins, it has added homosexuality, any kind of nudity, sex outside of a socially constructed ceremony, etc etc. You know the "list".

I think Jesus' point in the sermon on the mount was along these lines. Stop naming things evil so you can call yourselves good. Name your selfish heart evil and swing the pendulum to love.

As I think on the pendulum swings that I think the church needs to initiate, I want to be aware that the opposite isn't necessarily where I'll find the solutions...
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Tim Bailey

Pendulums

Life seems like an exercise in swinging pendulums sometimes. Especially in the church. From embracing the left to rallying the right, from worshipping with art to reasoning faith, from "social" gospel to "personal" gospel....

The pendulum swings.

And of course, any leader who decides to help the pendulum swing towards centre again usually gets crushed in the process.

Over the next few blog entries, (infrequent though they may be) I will be exploring some of these swings and sharing my opinions on which way/how far we need to swing...

Should make my brain come out of hibernation. I hope.
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Tim Bailey

Wrong

As I get somewhat older, significantly less smart, and considerably more wise, I am seeing criticism much differently.

When someone comes at me with their anger about my incompetence, heresy or foolishness, I have begun to see fear instead of rage. It's not so much anger that I am wrong- but fear that they are.
This creates a nicer scenario for debate and meaningful interaction. My goal becomes relieving their fears, instead of fighting their anger - replacing their nagging feeling that they might be wrong with the discontentment that everyone probably is.

Especially me.

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Tim Bailey

Mercy and Chaos

Ok, so my thoughts about chaos in the world range from anger to confusion to total helplessness.

The ridiculous pain that is experienced by humanity is often more than I can take, and a good dose of non-real western passivity is all I can do to keep sane.

But the question still haunts me. Why does God allow it?

It occurs to me that there might be a different answer than "it's the result of sin in the world"....

What if God's mercy is the reason? What if it could all be over if God would just put his foot down? Would we still want the chaos to end if it meant that God forced us to worship him- if we were forced to "bow the knee"? What if he is waiting? What if he is patient? What if true worship must be a choice?

God's mercy and patience has created a world where we are free to worship ourselves and our own creations.

Sometimes I wish he would put an end to it, but I think I'd be part of the "end".... His dominion will only be forced when he chooses- and love will rule. If we'd get it through our heads that his rule exists where love reigns, we'd be making it happen instead of whining about the chaos....

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Tim Bailey

Aaaaaargh.

Hey people. Too busy. Too many meetings. Too much.

I have a post about God's mercy and world chaos coming soon....
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Tim Bailey

Madness

On Thursday my friend Dan, who had ridden his bike to work to train for a bike race scheduled for today, called his children from work to ask them to meet him half way home. He wanted to ride with them. He wanted to help them be healthy. He loved being with them.

There is a bridge between his place of work and his home, about 5 miles from each. As he rode across the "bottoms", a flat and extremely windy plain by the ocean almost halfway home, his heart gave up. The doctors say he was dead before he hit the ground.

A friend happened to be going for a walk minutes later and tried to revive him. To no avail.

Meanwhile his kids are riding over the bridge. Stunned to find their father lying on the ground with emergency workers desperately administering CPR, they are whisked away.

All four children decided to ride in the race today. His oldest came fourth. The other two daughters rode well. His 12 year-old son got lost, then found his way, then got a flat tire and was found weeping on the side of the road, totally deflated that he hadn't made his dad proud and won the 20 mile race...

His mom - a widow of 2 days - has to go pick him up.

The thought of this sorrow is driving me mad today.

Suits

Sitting here waiting patiently in the Buffalo Airport, I am amazed at how many people still insist on wearing the "power suit".

Every second person walking by me seems to be dressed for a serious meeting with serious people about serious stuff. I saw one smile a while back, but most of them seem to be on a collision course with destiny.

I have always said you can tell a lot about someone by their shoes. I can tell if you have been forced to wear a suit for your job by what your shoes look like.

Most of the people walking by me today have chosen to wear a suit. Their shoes give it away.

Interesting. I have not worn a suit for approximately 13 years. That record comes to an end this summer- I have weddings to officiate.

I better buy some shoes too.
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Tim Bailey

Temporary

My oldest daughter turns 14 today. Seems like yesterday she was just 13.

I remember the fears of having a baby for the first time. I remember how good that sandwich tasted after not eating all day, waiting on a nervous stomach. I love that we have had 13 years together. I love that we love to hang out. I love that we still have life to live. I hate that one day we won't.

I have been reminded this week of how everyone reacts to the fact that life is temporary and death is forever. We can't deal with it. The very fact that we work against it all our "lives" is evidence that it was never supposed to be this way.

Life was supposed to be forever. But the only way for that to happen now is to make death temporary somehow...

Hmmm. I guess that's what the whole Jesus event accomplished.

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Tim Bailey

Domain and Dominion

When I think of a domain, I think of anything an owner owns and is responsible for. Dominion, on the other hand, is anything that serves its owners' purposes within his domain. If the purpose of a field is to grow corn, then although the owner has domain over every acre, his dominion only exists over the acres that cooperate. The rocky, thorny, compacted parts don't yield to the owners' purpose. Until such time as he clears and tills his domain, his dominion is frustrated.

Similarly, in a king's domain, he only has dominion over those who either willingly serve his purposes or are forced to do so. Depending on how he leads and what his purposes accomplish, his dominion will fill his domain, or he will be overthrown. He may create his dominion by force, or by shrewd leadership and manipulation. He may demand it without delay, or be patient and give options. He may demand honour without lifting a finger, or stoop to serve his people. Ultimately, the end result of his power is his dominion over all his domain, or the loss of his domain to another dominion.

In this way, all kingdoms are both now and not yet. They may be "now" in the sense of ownership, but they are "not yet" in the sense of total submission. There is always at best rebellion, at worst an attempted coup.

If Creator, God's ownership of the earth and all that is in it is without question. His dominion, as it relates to willing subjects or forced devotion is frustrated at best. According to the Scriptures, God has not forced complete submission (mercy), but has served his creation (grace), waiting patiently for it to willingly serve his purposes and experience life again. Wherever his purpose (love) is being fulfilled, life and his kingdom exist.

Because the kingdom of God is based not on fear and destruction, but on love and life, we live in the "now but not yet". Instead of forcing every knee to bow, love waits for submission. God's mercy creates quite a mess for a stubborn world. Having allowed another to have control for a time, his domain and dominion are not yet equal. Once they are, heaven and earth will be one...

In his kingdom, selflessness rules. The least are the greatest and the last are the first... This is the good news of the kingdom....

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Tim Bailey

Revealing

It seems to me that for people who believe in a Creator, we try pretty hard to return the favour.

Endless debates about what the Creator is like and who the Creator is usually end with some part of the Creator being "created".

If we have created even one idea of the Creator, we have denied our core belief. And if we think the Creator has been revealed precisely, it's probably more creation than revelation...

Eek.

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Tim Bailey

Patterns

Earn.
Pay.

I have been doing some thinking about how our whole system of existence is based on earning and paying- deserving.

We earn because we need. We pay because we need.
We earn more because we want. We pay more because we want more. We do this because we feel we deserve it.

Our self esteem is effected by it right from the beginning. Our concept of human rights is built around it. Our understanding of waste and destruction is influenced by it. Our committment to our jobs is driven by it.

We use phrases like "what goes around comes around", "you get what you give" or "I worked hard for it"...

And it's all "fine" until we realize that the most important thing in life- our relationships- are destroyed by this system. Wives wait until husbands earn the right to be respected. Husbands wait until wives earn the right to be loved. (As if love could be earned).

Love can't be earned or paid for. If it is, it isn't love. Love gets sweeter the less you do for it. We wonder why we "can't all just get along", while we try and make love fit the earn/pay pattern. (That's called "tolerance"...but that's a blog for another time)

The thing is, true life is found in love- yet we try and earn and pay for the kind of "life" we think we deserve.

Bring our relationships into that mixture, and we have some serious therapy to pay for...
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Tim Bailey

Power and the Monster

Humiliation is bad. Choosing humility is good.
Oppression is bad. Choosing to serve is good.
Discrimination is bad. Choosing to be last is good.
Exploitation is bad. Choosing poverty is good.

Power isn't something to take from people. It is something to neutralize. It's impossible to oppress selflessness. If I choose servanthood, you can't make me your slave. If I humble myself, you can't humiliate me. If wealth isn't my goal, you can't frustrate it.

When it comes to ending poverty, the starting point can't be "we can all be wealthy". (Sorry Mr.Sachs. You are a genius and your book is brilliance, but I can't agree with you on this point).

This monster we fight can only be conquered by draining its' power and neutralizing its' poison. Sachs says we are not in a zero-sum economy. Does it matter? Won't we always act as if we are?

The pattern of "give and take so we can get" still gives the monster power.
Oppression will still have its' whip and exploitation will still have its' lure.
We'll all just be a few more rungs up the wrong ladder.

Ending poverty is a noble cause. Let's do it.
But I have a feeling the only way we can end it is by choosing it.

Blessed are the...
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Tim Bailey

Futhermore....

So if we really believed the bad news was our greed and our inability to escape it, our requests to God would be quite significant:

1. Don't give us more than we need
2. Overlook it when we're selfish
3. Keep things that tempt us away from us.

Hmmmm...
Where have I heard a prayer like that....?

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Tim Bailey

Bad News

I guess the "good news" really depends on what you think the bad news is. If you think the bad news is that we're all going to hell, then the good news is a no brainer, allbeit a selfish reaction.

If I can convince you that hell is a real place in which you are going to burn for eternity, it doesn't take too much more convincing to make you "accept" whatever you need to accept and say whatever you need to say to get out of that action.

But what if the bad news is that you are your own master and you are dying in fear?(Sounds about right)
What if the bad news is that you CAN'T be selfless- but that is where love and life are found?

Then the good news would have to be something more substantial than a mansion on Gold St. E.
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Tim Bailey

What If

So the command in the garden of Eden was "don't touch or you will die". As I think on that for a while, it becomes clear that it is simply a choice between being selfish or Godish. The command ushered in choice and freedom. Boil the issue down, and you get "don't be selfish or you will die".

Then, they go ahead and become self-centred and self-aware and the curse falls. The command then changes; "Obey my commands and you will live". But the irony of the command insures its failure. Only Noah found favour. The very idea of obeying for life is in itself selfish and self-centred. Even a list of rules to guide humanity into love lost its power to selfishness. All our actions, if they are seen to benefit us in any way, or earn us anything, are doomed to be self-centred. So we will die in our trap.

Then God says "what if I created a scenario in which your obedience to love earned you nothing?". Then selflessness would be possible,(as long as you truly believed that your actions didn't benefit you) and you could live. Enter Jesus....

What if we really believed that the Christ event created this scenario? What would change if we truly believed our obedience gives us life ONLY when we believe it doesn't? What if we believed the only way to make our deeds count is to believe they don't?

This is what it means to do something in Jesus' name.

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Tim Bailey

Being Like Jesus

I got to thinking this morning that the more you admit that you aren't like Jesus, the more like Jesus you are....
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Tim Bailey

Money in the Hands of God

I suppose the root issue of all our discussions about poverty and oppression is unjust suffering. We can come to some semblance of reasoning when it comes to good vs evil, but unjust suffering is a different story. And it isn't the question "why do some people suffer and others don't?" that really bothers us, but "why do some people suffer more than others?"

I think it is an interesting question, given that we are all dying. We are all suffering, relatively speaking. The only life we've ever known was being formed in the womb. Ever since then it has been an exercise in suffering a slow death (for some). My neice had a quick go of it - 5 years. I can't count the number of friends who are being hurried through the decaying process by cancer.

Oh, we try to avoid our suffering by filling our lives with things that make us "happy", but they are simply short term fixes. In the end, even our relationships will suffer a miserable end.

Suffering, much to the surprise of humanity, is not just the presence of evil or the absence of happiness or "nothing going my way", but the absence of life and the fruit of the Spirit - the absence of God.

The fact that money has some power in easing suffering and delaying death has made it our god, and it has begun to destroy us. We hoard it as "insulation" or "insurance", believing it might actually accomplish the impossible. But money in the hands of God moves. When the fruit of the Spirit is present, money doesn't ease my suffering, it gives me the opportunity to "suffer" to ease someone else's.

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Tim Bailey

Serious Social Restructuring

So it doesn't take long to drive ourselves crazy thinking about the ills of our world. The poverty, oppression, greed and destruction weigh heavily on those of us who have seen it first hand - and many of us just can't seem to "let it go", (no matter how many times we're called social gospel preachers)

But the frustration from the complexity of it all is only matched by the simplicity of the solution and the impossibility of its' execution .

The solution, as we have known for centuries is a radical social structure: "all giving all for all". Anything less will be bandaids.

Before you call me a communist, or at very least a socialist, think about it. I didn't say "all forced to give all to all".

All giving all for all is a statement of love, mercy, humility and justice, and is only possible in the context of true freedom. It erases the word "deserve" from the vocabulary and replaces it with its' root: serve.

But every social structure humans initiate will be tainted by selfishness. I am still reeling from a comment made to me the other day: "if people could make money feeding the poor, it would be done- guaranteed". If that doesn't sum up our pitiful existence, I don't know what does.

Here is my rant; we evangelicals are constantly harping about works and their uselessness in approaching God, but we refuse to translate that principle into our everyday life now. We still operate under the "if you work hard you deserve" structure. If we really believe Jesus is king and took all good and bad "deserving" upon himself, then why do we still operate as if he isn't/didn't?


You don't think so? Think about giving your next paycheque to a lazy person.


Our immediate reaction is to say "that's ridiculous- everyone would just sit back and wait, and society would dissolve itself". Just another example of how we just don't get the gospel.
(oh ya, and read Philippians 2...)

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Tim Bailey

Discovered vs. Created

I am continually amazed at how many things in our lives should be discovered "because of", instead of "created for". Let me explain.

Community, the church buzz word of the last decade is something we should discover when a group of people begin to get out of their own way and allow the Spirit to move in through confession to God and each other. But instead, it has become something churches try to "do" (create) to desperately try and prove that the Spirit is moving. SO stupid. Just like love isn't love if you earned it, community isn't community if you "created" it. It must take you by surprise.



Think about all this "mission" and "vision" jargon. Both are discovery words- NOT creation words. We should be discovering vision as we live out values. Once the vision has been discovered, mission is abundantly revealed. Why, in church leadership, do we insist on going backwards? We create wonderful mission statements, then desperately try and create a vision that fits (it almost always talks about vision for the church, not the world- how backwards is that?) and then create some values to "make it work".



This whole "missional" thing is useless the minute we try to create it. It's like saying you're humble. Missionality is DISCOVERED when a church lives out values and God plants a vision. And a vision from God will always be a picture of the world and its' redemption, not a picture of a wonderfully "effective" church.





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Tim Bailey

Ok.

Alright.
Fine.
As you can see below, I have been thinking about blogging for the last couple of months.

So I am starting again, mostly because blogging has become somewhat passe, and I've always liked the word "passe" and wished people would say "Tim is so passe". (Man I wish this crackberry had an accent option)
If passe was the worst adjective people used on me, it would be quite a step up from the last few years...

I will blog what's on my mind, and that may be exceedingly disappointing to you at times. Oh, and by the way- if you're looking for long wordy blog posts, you're in the wrong place. Most of them will be published thoughts on-the-go from this crazy little device, and hopefully they'll make you think too...

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Tim Bailey