wide open spaces

the tension...

2010-03-28T16:46:00.001-07:00

Blessing for Friendship

2010-03-20T22:45:00.000-07:00

May you be blessed with good friends,
And learn to be a good friend to yourself,
Journeying to that place in your soul where
There is love, warmth and feeling.
May this change you.

May it transfigure what is negative, distant,
Or cold within your heart.

May you be brought into real passion, kindness,
And belonging.

May you treasure your friends.
May you be good to them, be there for them
And receive all the challenges, truth, and light you need.

May you never be isolated, but know the embrace
Of your anam cara.

[John O'Donahue]

What Happens?

2009-05-10T22:47:00.000-07:00

What happens when your soul
Begins to awaken
Your eyes
And your heart
And the cells of your body
To the great journey of love?

First there is wonderful laughter
And probably precious tears

And a hundred sweet promises
And those heroic vows
No one can ever keep

But still God is delighted and amused
You once tried to be a saint

What happens when your soul
Begins to awake in the world

To your deep need to love
And serve the friend?

O the Beloved
Will send you
One of His wonderful, wild companions...

The Stuff of Hope & Dreams

2009-04-14T23:32:00.000-07:00

There aren't quite words for this incredible woman. See her incredible performance from Britain's Got Talent.

There is something universal about people's reactions to Susan. I think her sweetness and success speak to our deepest hopes - or at least they resonate loud and clear with mine. In those seven minutes Susan is a conduit of the kingdom, an obvious manifestation of heaven on earth. She is transformed before our eyes into the beautiful, beloved woman she has always been.

God, help me to see people they way you've created them, beyond the outward appearance this world so values. Thank you for loving us and believing that these fleeting moments of glory are actually the reality that we hope for so desperately.

Beauty from the friend of a friend

2009-02-09T11:55:00.000-08:00

I know the way you can get
When you have not had a drink of Love:

Your face hardens,
Your sweet muscles cramp.
Children become concerned
About a strange look that appears in your eyes
Which even begins to worry your own mirror
And nose.

Squirrels and birds sense your sadness
And call an important conference in a tall tree.
They decide which secret code to chant
To help your mind and soul.

Even angels fear that brand of madness
That arrays itself against the world
And throws sharp stones and spears into
The innocent
And into one's self.

O I know the way you can get
If you have not been drinking Love:

You might rip apart
Every sentence your friends and teachers say,
Looking for hidden clauses.

You might weigh every word on a scale
Like a dead fish.

You might pull out a ruler to measure
From every angle in your darkness
The beautiful dimensions of a heart you once trusted.

I know the way you can get
If you have not had a drink from Love's hands.

That is why all the Great Ones speak of
The vital need
To keep remembering God,
So you will come to know and see Him
As being so Playful
And Wanting,
Just Wanting to help.

That is why Hafiz says:
Bring your cup near me.
For all I care about
Is quenching your thirst for freedom!

All a sane man can ever care about
Is giving Love.

Christmas List

2008-11-19T09:28:00.000-08:00

Care of the Soul and Call to Sacred Activism

2008-11-18T13:16:00.000-08:00

"It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
It may be incomplete; but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
An opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well."

-Bishop Ken Untener of Saginaw

Overwhelmed

2008-11-09T01:05:00.001-08:00

It has been too long. Since the last time I posted I've conducted a youth auction grossing $65,000, helped lead a team of 100 on a house building project in Tijuana, Mexico, and started my MDiv. at Mars Hill Graduate School in Belltown, Seattle.

I won't reflect beyond that, and to say that I need to work on articulating my life. Here, at least, is the best way for me to describe all the hope and excitement of my new education. More to follow on the rest of life.

mhgs what no. 2 from blaine hogan on Vimeo.

Names.

2008-01-31T23:46:00.000-08:00

I once had the privilege of walking with a dear friend through a time of transition into a new, paradigm-shifting and intensely challenging ministry. By walking I mean laying in a makeshift bed in the back of my 4Runner, under the glaring light of a parking lot, in the middle of Boston's North Shore, at about 2:00am, for about 3 nights straight. The time change was a little bit in her favor, and its a long story :)

And we both sort of got a word from God about what it means to love on kids and do life with them: learn their names, and the rest will follow.

Learn their names.

Listen to their stories.

Do life with them. Let every word and movement communicate that they are dearly loved by the Lord, and accepted as a son or daughter of the God who created them and continues to fight for their restoration - that they would become more and more the unique individual he created them to be.

This is the rest that follows.

Then I get prideful. And feel like I should be a part of something bigger. Something structured. Something with blueprints and a plan - some kind of righteousness factory where the perfect ratio of Christian teaching to relational contact work will *poof* produce a lifelong lover of Jesus.

In these moments I try to remember the better way, the one where the Law of Love rules:

"More and more, the desire grows in me simply to walk around, greet people, enter their homes, sit on their doorsteps, play ball, throw water, and be known as someone who wants to live with them. It is a privilege to have the time to practice this simple ministry of presence. Still, it is not as simple as it seems. My own desire to be useful, to do something significant, or to be part of some impressive project is so strong that soon my time is taken up by meetings, conferences, study groups, and workshops that prevent me from walking the streets. It is difficult not to have plans, not to organize people around an urgent cause, and not to feel that you are working directly for social progress. But I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn't be to know people by name, to eat and drink with them, to listen to their stories and tell your own, and to let them know with words, handshakes, and hugs that you do not simply like them, but truly love them." - Henri Nouwen

Creeds.

2008-01-19T10:04:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about how we talk about what we believe - those things that are perhaps intrinsic to who we are, those things we rarely attempt to articulate.

I have the honor of getting to learn and articulate Christian faith with a group of amazing high school freshmen, and we've explored the Apostle's Creed and talked about what it means to say "I believe..."

And something in me gets it, but isn't moved by it. I believe...a)...b)...c).

It's all too formulaic for me. God is too massive for adjectives.

Then I found the "narrative theology" of a church community I greatly resonate with, and it reflected the God I know - the God I can't fully understand or describe, but the One I've seen in this world, interacting with his creation.

And so maybe it helps me know HIM...not just more ABOUT him:

"We believe God inspired the authors of Scripture by his Spirit to speak to all generations of believers, including us today. God calls us to immerse ourselves in this authoritative narrative communally and individually to faithfully interpret and live out that story today as we are led by the Spirit of God.

"In the beginning God created all things good. He was and always will be in a communal relationship with himself - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God created us to be relational as well and marked us with an identity as his image bearers and a missional calling to serve, care for, and cultivate the earth. God created human beings in his image to live in fellowship with him, one another, our inner self, and creation. The enemy tempted the first humans, and darkness and evil entered the story through human sin and are now a part of the world. This devastating event resulted in our relationships with God, others, ourselves and creation being fractured and in desperate need of redeeming.

"We believe God did not abandon his creation to destruction and decay; rather he promised to restore this broken world. As part of this purpose, God chose a people, Abraham and his descendants, to represent him in the world. God promised to bless them as a nation so that through them all nations would be blessed. In time they became enslaved in Egypt and cried out to God because of their oppression. God heard their cry, liberated them from their oppressor, and brought them to Sinai where he gave them an identity and a mission as his treasured possession, a kingdom of priests, a holy people. Throughout the story of Israel, God refused to give up on his people despite their frequent acts of unfaithfulness to him.

"God brought his people into the Promised Land. Their state of blessing from God was intimately bound to their calling to embody the living God to other nations. They made movement toward this missional calling, yet they disobeyed and allowed foreign gods into the land, overlooked the poor, and mistreated the foreigner. The prophetic voices that emerge from the Scriptures held the calling of Israel to the mirror of how they treated the oppressed and marginalized. Through the prophets, God's heart for the poor was made known, and we believe that God cares deeply for the marginalized and oppressed among us today.

"In Israel's disobedience, they became indifferent and in turn irrelevant to the purposes to which God had called them. For a time, they were sent into exile; yet a hopeful remnant was always looking ahead with longing and hope to a renewed reign of God, where peace and justice would prevail.

"We believe these longings found their fulfillment in Jesus the Messiah, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin, mysteriously God having become flesh. Jesus came to preach good news to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted and set captives free, proclaiming a new arrival of the Kingdom of God, bringing about a New Exodus, and restoring our fractured world. He and his message were rejected by many as he confronted the oppressive nature of the religious elite and the empire of Rome. Yet his path of suffering, crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection has brought hope to all creation. Jesus is our only hope for bringing peace and reconciliation between God and humans. Through Jesus we have been forgiven and brought into right relationship with God. God is now reconciling us to each other, ourselves and creation. The Spirit of God affirms as children of God all those who trust Jesus. The Spirit empowers us with gifts, convicts, guides, comforts, counsels, and leads us into truth through a communal life of worship and a missional expression of our faith. The church is rooted and grounded in Christ, practicing spiritual disciplines and celebrating baptism and the Lord's Supper. The church is a global and local expression of living out the way of Jesus through love, peace, sacrifice and healing as we embody the resurrected Christ, who lives in and through us, to a broken and hurting world.

"We believe the day is coming when Jesus will return to judge the world, bringing an end to injustice and restoring all things to God's original intent. God will reclaim this world and rule forever. The earth's groaning will cease and God will dwell with us here in a restored creation. On that day we will beat swords into tools for cultivating the earth, the wolf will lie down with the lamb, there will be no more death and God will wipe away all our tears. Our relationships with God, others, ourselves and creation will be whole. All will flourish as God intends.

"This is what we long for. This is what we hope for. And we are giving our lives to living out that future reality now."

2008-01-18T17:50:00.000-08:00

Love.

2007-12-22T22:15:00.000-08:00

Agape love is: profound concern for the well being of another, without any desire to control that other, be thanked by that other, or enjoy the process. (Madeleine L'Engle)

I've had the audacity to think myself capable of such love. The truth is God's the only one who can pull it off, and we can try and get so close, but still in our hearts there will be some voice which screams to be recognized and acknowledged and requited.

And there will be beauty in the way we love. And also pain, I think.

The only hope for me is that I believe God himself is fully love...agape and every other kind...and that because he is the essence of all that love is meant to be he can not act in a way that is unloving towards anyone at all.

This is a mystery. Like an eternal moment. Like unrequited love which keeps on loving. Maybe its because we've seen God love and love and love when no love has been returned. Maybe thats the only way we can bear it. Because there is something so right about continuing to love whatever the cost, about living by the gentle and free law of love...

You're my badlands
My grand canyon
My empty stream
You're my reservation
My second place consolation
My devastation
A thorn
A pang
A deep dark heartache
My greatest fear
A lonely tear
Hopelessness
An empty caress
An earthquake
A broken plate
Lost innocence
A cheap defense
My delusion
My confusion
A cancer
A wrong answer
A lost game
Fickle as fame
A bad critique
A glass that leaks
A fallen leaf
Talk too shallow
Ground that's fallow
Fatal attraction
You're my silence
My violence
You're a sad song
You're a long, you're a long, you're a long way from home...

...Cause you won't let go of everything
Until you're quiet one dark night
And you've given up the fight you've fought so long...

And you let it rain
You let it flood
You let it drive out all the pain of love.

Unrequited.

2007-12-21T21:18:00.001-08:00

On my good days it makes sense that I should love something I can't have.

It rings of a certain nobility; speaks to an inner strength I dream of actually possessing. The most annoying part of my head even dares to whisper that these unfulfilled longings make me better...stronger, somehow - or more and more who God has made me to be.

Then there are bad days, or moments, where I wonder what the heck is going on.

I become Charlie Brown: "Nothing can take the taste out of peanut butter like unrequited love." I rationalize brilliantly about why and how I should have these desires fulfilled. I can even convince my ego-saturated self that I am praying for selfless things:

*God...I long for a vision for these students. Help me know how to love them well and open their eyes to the reality of your kingdom.
*Please meet with these students, Lord...they need you.
*Show me where you want me to serve and use the gifts you've given me, God...

Then other times I sound like I'm about 12:

*God I NEED a dog.
*Or better yet, a horse...haven't I asked you for a horse for years?
*Why do I look like this? Why can't I look like that?
*God, don't you know I love him?

And if by some chance a moment of introspection lingers, as I'm trying to force it to do now...I understand and acknowledge that those things that I desire are reflections of deep, raw, soulful yearnings.

*the desire to know God and how he is at work restoring the world, and to bring other people into contact with the ultimate reality of Jesus and the kingdom.
*the need to be fully integrated into a community that likes Jesus. or a community period.
*the desire for companionship, and I'm just an animal person.
*the desire to see beauty, and maybe to see beauty in myself.
*the need to love and be loved in return.

I desire all these things. It is painful to have them as-yet unfulfilled.

To be continued...

Unrequited Love.

2007-12-02T22:19:00.000-08:00

Thornton Wilder's one-act play "The Angel that Troubled the Waters," based on John 5:1-4, dramatizes the power of the pool of Bethseda to heal whenever an angel stirred its waters. A physician comes periodically to the pool hoping to be the first in line and longing to be healed of his melancholy. The angel finally appears but blocks the physician just as he is ready to step into the water. The angel tells the physician to draw back, for this moment is not for him. The physician pleads for help in a broken voice, but the angel insists that the healing is not intended for him.

"Without your wounds where would your power be? It is your melancholy that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of men and women. The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on the earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living. In Love's service, only wounded soldiers can serve. Physician, draw back."

To be continued...

Driving East to Look West

2007-11-06T22:20:00.000-08:00

February 8, 2006

The sunset was epic tonight.

So I got in my car and drove East as fast as I could. Halfway to Gloucester I remembered that I was in fact heading the wrong direction to soak in the actual setting of the sun, with the exception of the subdued glow I could catch through the rearview mirror and my tinted windows. It just felt right, and then I knew something inside me wanted to see the sunset without the interference of wires and signage and other optical pollution. My spot of choice was Magnolia and the strip of pothole-riddled road that runs between the mansions and the Atlantic.

The view of the West from East was worth the moment of directional paradox.

And I don't know what sort of deeper meaning that holds for my life, exactly, except that sunset and dusk are my very favorite times of day, when my soul comes most alive and I can breathe in the glory of God's creation better than any other moment...it was just beautiful, and I wonder if I don't need to become more comfortable with loving the simplicity of enjoying God's blessings without theologizing it or having some moment of uncharacteristically deep throught to analyze because of it.

So I think I found a little something of peace to quiet the desperation of my heart by driving East to look West...

And so the faithful one who is my God shows himself just enough to remind me of what moments of abundant life look like, when you pause for a fraction of a second and think that there's nothing else in the whole world that you'd rather be doing than helping this beautiful child of God, this high school girl, find Ephesians.

because you can't know where you're going unless you know where you've been...

2007-11-05T17:45:00.000-08:00

January 29, 2006:

I was going to write a book called "wonderfully devoid" - sounded like a good title somwhere in Israel so I wrote it down, but can't remember what I planned on putting in it, exactly.

It is potentially a concept I am trying to understand. Devoid is not usually one of those words one wants to be associated with, and is rarely paired iwth such an exalted emotion as wonderful. There's something about paradox that is intoxicating, though, something about the fact that two things just don't fit together - but really do, somehow - that puts me somewhere near the pulse of reality.

I wonder if my title came in the wilderness...maybe from the wadis and canyons where the desert fathers were said to have nothing - but lack nothing - because of the faithful provision of their God. I wonder how many moments their souls were heavy, weary or lonely and then quickened in a seemingly unlikely gasp of God's presence. I wonder whether they knew, all the time, about the "lacking nothing"...and how often they focused on the "having nothing." I think I live mostly under the latter, when my heart forgets the truth of the former.

"Some blessings from God were meant only to sustain us for a season..." I'm learning this lesson well, and wonder how long I can live in the paranoia of potential loss or loneliness. I am convicted to try to love well and fully and recklessly, even though it might hurt when the seasons change. And I think wonderfully devoid is that beautiful place where its just God and you and He's teaching you to be unknown.

So this is the stuff of life. Not some breath-defying shock of adrenaline at every hairpin turn, but a slow inhalation of subtle awe that settles somewhere at the bottom of your soul where you know its just right because its God's.