MikePaschall.com

The power of the confessional for Catholics is not the holiness of that tiny cubicle’s secrets, but the confession itself.  It’s practical value encourages a person to bring their wrong, their sin, the hole in their soul, the wound, lay it all out there in all of its undignified ugliness, and still be received and reminded of the unconditional love of God.  The truer the confession, the richer the effects of grace.

I was reminded early this morning that the inclination we have to protect the false-self would have us spin in excuses and half-truths.  This weakness has an incredible bearing on the overall spiritual atmosphere of our personal inner health, our churches and our ministries.   The spin has us cycle in stagnation.  It goes nowhere.  It accomplishes nothing but prolongs what will inevitably be revealed:  we are broken and in need of being received (ugly warts and all).  Even the term “saving face” says much about our personal war with our false-self and ego.  Deflecting truth is not helpful to us either.  Until we can own our mistakes and take responsibility for the choices we’ve made, we sludge in the mire of our own making.  The journey through these kinds of swamps take an immeasurable toll on our peace and freedom.  Too many need a bath in the cleansing waters of truth.  Spraying perfume on a pig doesn’t really help the pig’s odor issues.  The only person deceived, is the applicator of the perfume.  Everyone else knows with their nose.  Spin in corporate America and politics is the game.  Spin with God stuff is poison to us.

Rohr talks about his work in the local jails of Albuquerque:  “In there, we try to talk without euphemism and niceties:  Don’t say the money got stolen; say, I stole the money.  Take responsibility.  Your mother hurt you, your father didn’t love you, we all know that (unfortunately, that is an all-to-familiar norm in our culture).  Now will you take personal responsibility for what you did?”  Identifying the wound is vitally important, but it doesn’t solve the entire equation.  The sooner we stop the spin and honestly say what is true about ourselves, the quicker we get to the healing we so desperately need.

The power of honest confession brings our liberation.  Spin screws us into a petrified current of isolated dormancy.

-MDP-

WATCH THIS FIRST (even if you’ve already seen it)… It helps set the mood:  CLICK  HERE!

I will not be 1 of the estimated 152 million people who will compete in the annual Black Friday insanity.  I slept all night, I’m sitting on my couch drinking coffee this morning, and I will eat leftovers in my own home today, see some football, maybe take a ride on the Indian if my team is getting severely whacked, and basically just try to keep it simple.  People have been sleeping in tents for days waiting for the stores to open at the magic hour.  I’ve heard the arguments; all about family camaraderie, special bonding, the great deals, blah blah blah, but this ole country boy thinks that we’ve lost our frikk’n minds about all this.

The proximate cause of all the frenzy is Christ-mas.  Yeah, yeah, I know all about the bargains, but somewhere way back there, the initiate of all this craziness is the thought of HIM giving a gift.  The startling idea that God did for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves.  No amount of our striving makes any difference.  HE did the work.  HE paid the cost.  HE balanced the accounts.  HE absolved the guilt and stain.  HE gave the gift.  Our part was to know that HE first loved us.  Simple stuff:  “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased”  Luke 2:14.

Nicholas Hindes shot that video a couple years back of a kid in Kenya getting his first pair of shoes.  The whole moment still wrecks me every time I see it.  I wished we could somehow get the download of this moment into the spirit of our Christ-mas rhythm.  I think we’re guilty of blowing up the small stuff and shrinking the bigger picture.

Will we make it any different this year?

-MDP-

Yes, it’s dangerous, but I’ve been thinking… you know, as Rooney used to do.  I’ll let you draw most of the conclusions here.  Yeah, I know.  I’m no Rooney.  : )

Is it possible to pour one’s self into Kingdom living, supported by intimate relationships and purposeful discipleship, consistently over time, and not build or create a tribe?

Even though little remains forever (seasons come and go like lightening or molasses), it is possible to journey with a people who have also heard the same whisper;  sojourners, who get you, because they’ve been with you, followed or lead, believed with you, and then you slowly realize they are you and you are them.  Tribe starts with smelling or recognizing the code, the genetics of a spiritual existence that pulls you in.

It is possible to wear the brand of tribe but not posses the code of the tribe.  Time distinguishes and validates core values that align and manifest the core code’s existence.  In other words, you can’t cry out “mercy” and then be merciless at the same time.  You can’t preach “honor” and then not honor.  You can’t promote “team” and operate solely individualistic.  It causes too much confusion.  Secure and vested tribesmen call “bullshit” every time.

Extenuating circumstance can also stimulate the infusion of the code rapidly.  The early church thrived under pressure.  The real church in China thrives under pressure.  It thins, expands and bonds all at the same time.

Dimly, I see that there is an IHOP tribe… a Bethel tribe… a Morningstar tribe… denominational tribes… institutional tribes… cause tribes… thousands-and-thousands of tribes.  Most feel “called” to their tribe.  I like the word “called”.  Sometimes, “who” we are called to (usually strong leaders with strong code), helps determine what costs we are willing to pay, until we find what we are called to.  Considering the fact that intimate relationship and aggressive discipleship go hand in hand, the “who” can’t be overlooked.  We have to know and trust (not easy to come by at arm’s length theory or by sitting in a pew) the one downloading the code.  It’s not suppose to be a forceful indoctrination.  It can be that way, but was not Jesus’ style.  It requires a suck at the breast of love.  The code is in the milk.

The healthiest tribes have the elements of covenant without controlling paranoia.  Covenant has privilege and limitations.  I have privilege with my wife that no one else has but me.  The limitations help me protect my responsibility to honor the privilege.  It doesn’t work if she owes me because of our agreement.  It works because she freely chooses to love me back.  Covenant in marriage is for life and exclusively unique.  Trying to make all these elements fit among spiritual tribesmen might be stretching it too far.  Ultimately, the Body of Christ has to remain free enough to easily choose direction changes without fearing the loss of relationship and or alienation.  Honestly, spiritual tribes suck at this!  Tribes who close themselves and demand the return of unquestioned allegiance become inbred.  That’s not a healthy environment for the code or the tribe.

So, back to the point of the original question:  I think not.

I’ll be back… I’m not done processing.

-MDP-

I’m kinda over the whole, drop down on one knee in the end-zone after a touchdown, pointing to heaven after your homer thing.  It feels… religiously shallow to me… like you have to acknowledge that you were just infused with Jesus-like kryptonite and you have to keep paying homage to the sports gods who help you.  Maybe it would go down easier if a QB pointed to heaven after the interception he just threw or when a reliever blows a chance to end the World Series with one more strike out, but to my knowledge, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that display.  So is He the God of the good, the winner, the achiever only?  Too often I hear or read of how good He is because someone got what they wanted or what they needed..  We get some kind of “special” treatment and it had to be God at the source of it.  Is He any less God when I suck at something, or wreck something, or fail miserably?  Although, Jesus had issues with public displays of religiousness without the proper heart condition, a person’s heart condition is not my point.  I’m urging for overall consistency, that we rant of His goodness, especially when we are going through hell on earth; when we’re lost or while we are hurting, as we pick ourselves up from devastating loss and the ash heap of life’s fire.  I know this won’t sit well with most good Christian church folk because this is contrary to what we’ve been taught… God like winners.  Right?  But nonetheless, my personal experience has taught me that He is more real in my loss than in my gain and I have some serious experience with that topic.

Job 13:15 “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him.”

Job said, “I will…”, a choice, to point up when it all appears to be down.

-MDP-

Jon’s newest album marks a 10 year commitment to the Desperation Band journey!  Patti and I are extremely proud of what Jon and Dband  have accomplished.  It’s been quite the fight of faith!

SEE JON EGAN’S COMMENTARY

Purchase DBand latest album  –  UPDATE: LIVE

-MDP-

This is a note I sent today to my children:

“Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat!”    I think we blew it.  We turned the lights off at our house and uninvited the community to our home.  A community that we were called to be available to.  Not one kid or set of parents out in the streets on that evening are worshiping satan… not one!  I wished… honestly… that we would have turned on the porch light and bought the best candy, the good stuff, the best stuff to give away.  But, I cared too much about what it looked like… Frik!  I wished that we would have smiled at little eyes (and big eyes) and offered a blessing at the door.  I wish that I would have allowed my God to be bigger than evil on that night.  But, I think we missed it… I missed it.

You do what you want… but, I now have regrets.  Just saying…
loves
me

-MDP-

First let me extend my condolences to Steve’s family, close friends, the Apple family and those of you who feel the weight of this reality because you’ve never really ever had any computer other than an Apple product.

Richard Rohr’s last truth of the Five Points of Spiritual Initiation is a simple point:  YOU ARE GOING TO DIE.  Understanding the ending while still at the beginning of your life brings a sobriety like none other.  It sounds utterly ridiculous to even mention it, but funerals are wake up calls to the living.  I’ve stood in hundreds of pulpits, behind flower draped caskets to talk about the person who once lived and loved on this planet.  The cause of some of those funerals were tragic and horribly induced.  Some were merciful.   I scanned some pictures on the Apple site to see what this cancer had done to Steve.  I’m thinking that Steve was probably ready to go.

Death will come to us all.  It does not depress me.  In fact, it does quite the opposite.  It motivates me to love deeper, hug harder, tell the truth more consistently about what my family and friends mean to me.  I try to look longer and deeper and not withhold what is in within my power to give.  I suspect that the generation that I currently work with will take the loss of Steve Jobs the hardest.  Superheroes in funny Spandex exist only in the movies.  In real life, we probably need to surface more often from out of our narcissistic smokey haze, for the refreshing air of selfless living.  If life isn’t about me, then we should not allow our life to be about me.  Allowing rejection to label us, control us or keep us in compulsive tailspins is ridiculous.  Even with all of the crappy baggage we sometimes carry around with us, God is still good.  It all ends eventually.   So today and tomorrow, and the next day, and the next,  we should make some choices to live the reality that God is still good.  There are no guarantees on how long we get to live and however long it is, it goes by extremely fast.  We need to “get” this, not just in our head, but soberly convinced in our heart.  That is what will propel us to manifest the good in our life at every opportunity.

-MDP-

Check out THE GATHERING!  It has a new website!

No… really… I caught a hummingbird with my bare hands.  Ms P and I were in the Gvegas Wallyworld perusing for merchandise and groceries.  While sacking up a bunch of moderately unripe bananas, I caught the flash of a green dart in my peripheral.  Like a grown, responsible person, I left my personal goods (cel phone and keys) in a basket, in the middle of the aisle, and went to check out the green dart.  As I rounded the corner, it passed me again and settled on a huge stack of brightly wrapped flour tortillas.   I’m not sure how it got in there, but it was a hummingbird!  The poor thing was continuing to flap it’s wings, but it was evident that it was exhausted, panicked, out of gas and out of it’s element.  My thought:  “Hey, you’ve read about this in Bird N Bloom.  Just catch it, take it outside and let it go free.”  So that is exactly what I did.  The thing never moved.  I, like the stealthy jungle cat hunter I am, crept up from behind, cupped my hands over it, much like trapping a butterfly, and scooped it up.  I was so excited that I left my cart again and began walking all over Walmart looking like I might be cradling a dried cat turd or something.  I needed  Ms P to verify my capture.  To no avail, she was AWOL, so I headed out doors.  There in the parking lot of Sam Walton’s dream-child, I set the captive free.  When I raised the lid of my right hand, the stunned little thing just sat there.  I actually had to toss it airborne to get him going again and off it flew into the wild blue yonder.   Now, I’m fist-pumping and doing the happy dance about a hummingbird’s deliverance.   Then I realized there was a large Hispanic family gawking at my celebration.  A beautiful almond-eyed little girl was giggling at me.  Crazy gringo.  So, I went back inside and resumed my duties.

It was too odd for me to not keep thinking about it.  One of God’s creatures in a spacious environment that is full of food and nourishment, but it can’t really eat because none of the food is packaged or palatable for what it really needs naturally.  I wonder how much of this is true for the Body of Christ?  There actually is stuff in Wallyworld that the little critters can eat, but it has to be prepared.  I feed hummingbirds at my house.  No food coloring, 1/4 part sugar, 3/4 water, put on the stove, brought to a boil, cooled, and served in a hummingbird feeder.  Simple.  This agitated love affair that I have with the institutional church presents about the same dilemma:  (lots of food, lots of potential good, that gathers a lot of hungry people because they’re attracted to the packaging, or the music, or the comfort of the pew, or how the preacher teaches, or… well… just fill in the blanks).  Most churches are full of tired people who are flapping the hell out of their wings trying to get something from God.  Exhausted, hungry, panicked, disoriented people who are starving to death for the real food they need.  Another good sermon?  GIVE ME A FRIKK’N BREAK!  Excuse me while I hurl.  How about the connection with someone, anyone, who really sees them, knows them, feels them and moves toward them in sincere love?  Not because of what they can do or what they give or what they can even add… but, just plain ole valued because someone sees inside their heart.  That’s the food we need.  I’m pretty sure that there are people who show up on Sundays just hoping that someone talks to them.  That’s the food that feeds our soul!  The touch is what heals.

I’m not a church hater.  In fact, I’m quite the opposite.  I love the church… institution and the Body, but we need to figure out why we feed where we feed.  It’s not because He said to.  He didn’t say anything about our going to church.  Tradition, ritual, guilt or denominational affinity isn’t a good reason either.  Bright and shiny packaging doesn’t mean jack-squat!  I know why we do The Gathering in a tightly-packed little basement.  He told Michael and I that it is to be “church”.  An assemblage where love, relationship, fathering, mothering, sonship and daughterhood is all supposed to blend and develop into authentic discipleship.  Just belonging and showing up is not enough by those standards.  It’s got to go deeper than what we’re normally comfortable with.  It requires us to figure out some stuff about ourselves.  It’s messy,  sometimes glorious, often in your face and hopefully affecting your heart and equipping the saints for the work of service.  I’m pretty sure that Michael, Kathy, Patti and I,  have figured out and settled that we’re all in.  The Gathering is our church… our feeder… our home… our place.  We love the fact that a few friends, sons and daughters have decided the same!

-MDP-