The Orchard in Hibernation Mode

Much has happened in our lives since the last post.

For all who come to read here, please know this website will stay active and we may continue to post from time to time, but The Orchard Community itself is no longer meeting. Our gatherings were always in fits and starts, small groups of 2-5 people for brief seasons that never lasted long.

And while "that's all it ever was" makes it sound like there was 'failure' involved, since it didn't grow and  become what we thought it should, what we hoped it could, what we dreamed it would -- nothing could be further from the truth.

God met us and sustained us, and still is. We are different people now, in more dependent relation to God than ever before, even if our paths are diverged from what we once saw.

And we trust that God will continue to uphold us as we walk into the future. But for now, The Orchard is in hibernation for however long this beautiful but uncertain winter wilderness lasts

For now, here is a parting thought to remind us all:

The Powerful Reason Why We All Have To Keep Getting Out of Bed -- That Changes a Broken World

Go read the full post -- you'll be glad you did. And here's an excerpt to whet your appetite...

Nothing is more necessary than finding God and falling in love and deeper into Him. 

Love decides. 

Love decides everything.  

What you are in love with decides what you live for.
What you are in love with decides what decides what you get out of bed for. 

Fall in love with the Hands that shaped your heart, that cup your face, that trace your scars, that caress you with grace. Fall in love with His face in a thousand faces, in the baby that meets you at the crib rail and the teenager that doesn’t want to budge and man that find that never fails to put feet to the floor and find his Levis and the back door to brave the world for Love. 

Fall in love with the One who fills your lungs with this breath and all these people and this sky and all this light, all this glorious light. 

You have to fall in love because this will get you up and keep you going every day. Because —- Love decides. 

Go fall in love with grace and mercy and the only One who has ever loved you to death and back to the realest life —- because the world is begging us all to get out of bed and sacrifice for someone hurting, for someone different, for someone forgotten or marginalized, to hold the hand of someone who doesn’t look like us, to lean in and listen to someone angry and grieving and doubting the likes of us, to give a bit of ourselves to those who feel like they aren’t given much real space at the table. 

Fall in love, stay in love, stay sacrificing, and you live the most satisfied. 

What you are in love with in your life — decides everything about your life. 

Love decides everything. 

The sun can rise, and we all could rise, falling around each other, falling all around, healing rising.

The God Who Fell From Heaven

I first posted this a few years ago, and it is so wonderfully
compelling and poignant, I had to share it again:

A PRAYER TO THE GOD WHO FELL FROM HEAVEN
~ By John Shea

If you had stayed
tightfisted in the sky
and watched us thrash
with all the patience of a pipe smoker,
I would pray like a golden bullet
aimed at your heart.

But the story says you cried
and so heavy was the tear
you fell with it to earth
where like a baritone in a bar
it is never time to go home.

So you move among us
twisting every straight line into Picasso,
stealing kisses from pinched lips,
holding our hand in the dark.

So now when I pray
I sit and turn my mind like a television knob
till you are there with your large, open hands
spreading my life before me
like a Sunday tablecloth
and pulling up a chair for yourself
for by now
the secret is out.

You are home.

The Peace of Wild Things

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry

Winter Waiting

It has been some time since we've posted anything here.

This came our way today, & seems fitting to share as we approach the solstice.

You keep us waiting.
You, the God of all time, want us to wait for the right time
in which to discover who we are, where we must go,
who will be with us, and what we must do.

So thank you … for the waiting time.

- From the Iona Community Worship Book

Expectantly,

~ Keith

Disillusion Meets Dissolution

This month The Orchard passed a new milestone. We are no longer an incorporated non-profit in the state of Oregon. In that legal business sense, The Orchard has been dissolved.

The reason we originally incorporated was so we could take donations and allow people to claim a tax deduction. Our goal was never to make money for ourselves; I never planned to have a salary or to "be the Pastor". Rather, we wanted to collectively pool resources and give those funds away to the people in our lives who we knew needed the money.

As I referenced in A Bend In The Road, we were originally a "church plant" within the Association of Vineyard Churches. As such, we had some funds in our account as a start-up which had been a gift from our "sending church". So, over time, we simply gave all that money away.

One great example is a single mother whose minivan broke down. It would cost $1500 to fix it, or she could try and buy a used one for $2500+. She had about $1000 she could scrape up if she really scrimped, but either way she didn't have enough money. So, The Orchard wrote her a check for $1500, no strings attached. We didn't write the check to a mechanic or a used car lot. We wrote it to her personally and she got to decide what to do with it -- whether she used it toward a car or not wasn't the point. Expressing God's love to someone in need was the point. She was in tears and didn't really know what to say.

THAT's the kind of thing we wanted to do more of -- and so if people wanted to donate and help us decide where that money could best be donated, then at least all those who gave to The Orchard could get a deduction on their taxes.

Here's the deal though: no one ever gave us any money. No one. Ever. (not even us -- we didn't donate to our own non-profit!).

As the money in our account dwindled and ran out, we realized that we (Cathy & I, as a couple) would still be giving away money (and time and love, etc) to people around us who were in need, with or without a tax deduction, since that is not the point. And therefore we had no need to maintain a non-profit corporation. In fact, doing so sort of went against the basic essence of the last directive we really received from God about this whole journey we've been on here at The Orchard when The Orchard Master said to us:

"Don't build anything. Just love people"

So as of this month, according to the State of Oregon, "The Orchard Community" does not exist as an official entity. We've been dissolved.

Dissolved. Un-solved. I like that, since there are no easy answers.

And we're also now more disillusioned than ever.

But don't get me wrong: disillusionment is a good thing!

Being more and more disillusioned means we have fewer and fewer illusions; less deceptions and false visions in our sight as we look at the people in our lives and in the world around us, as we look at ourselves, and as we look to The Orchard Master for where we are all headed together on this crazy mixed up journey.

In our early days here in Oregon and just before we moved, I described what we were seeing like driving on a foggy road out in the country. We were not sure what we would look like or how we would function and "be" the church. We had some ideas of course, but they were vague and nebulous -- like looking out into the fog and seeing a general outline of a house. We knew there was "something" up ahead, but we were not sure what it was. I thought as we moved closer we would see it more and more clearly. Instead, quite the opposite has happened. The longer we are here, the more we realize what we thought we were seeing was not what it was at all. There were a lot of illusions as our eyes and our hearts played tricks on us.

So this month as we celebrate the arrival of another Spring,
And we consider the timing and wisdom behind the dissolution of our non-profit corporation,
And we enjoy the journey of dis-illusion-ment, we might just be starting to see some things more clearly.

The imagery and symbolism of an orchard still makes a lot of sense. But if all we ever look at is the orchard itself, we miss so much around us. As we begin to look around us as the fog clears a bit,
maybe when it is all said and done and disllusion meets dissolution there really is no house up ahead in the fog; no "place" for us to inhabit and "do things".

Perhaps instead we're seeing a natural playground, a wide expanse to explore and enjoy with whoever we encounter along the way. That sounds relaxing and fun; daring and adventurous and exciting: full of possibilities and new life and growth as we experience, enjoy, reciprocate and express Creator's great and marvelous ever-expansive love.

(click for larger version)

Peace,

~ Keith

To Know The Dark

Winter in Oregon includes a lot of dark.

It has been somewhat dark at The Orchard for a number of seasons now:

We're not sure where we're going or what we are to be doing.

As they say: "Old orders are good orders"

and so we rest in what we heard from Creator a few years back:

"Don't try to build anything. Just love people"

Beyond that we don't know much at all.

Walking in the dark is something we are getting to know.

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.

To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,

and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,

and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

~ Wendell Berry 

No Matter The Season

As Summer comes into it's fullness here in Oregon,
we remember how long Winter lasted; how rainy Spring seemed.
We also begin to sense just the faintest chill in the evening air.
Daylight begins to shorten, and we know
the Autumnal changes are not far away.

In this time-between-the-times
liminality
we cherish the goodness of what and who
is here and now; with us.
And we bask in The Orchard Master's faithfullness
to us and to all
no matter the season...

O Blessed Spring

(the gift of love)

by Susan Palo Cherwien

O blessed spring, where Word and sign

Embrace us into Christ the Vine:
Here Christ enjoins each one to be
A branch of this life-giving Tree.

 

Through summer heat of youthful years,
Uncertain faith, rebellious tears,
Sustained by Christ's infusing rain,
The boughs will shout for joy again.

 

When autumn cools and youth is cold,
When limbs their heavy harvest hold,
Then through us, warm, the Christ will move
With gifts of beauty, wisdom, love.

 

As winter comes, as winters must,
We breathe our last, return to dust;
Still held in Christ, our souls take wing
And trust the promise of the spring.

 

Christ, holy Vine, Christ, living Tree,
Be praised for this blest mystery:
That Word and water thus revive
And join us to your Tree of Life. 

One Vine, One Branch

For lent I gave up facebook. It hasn't been as hard as I thought it might be -- not really much of a sacrifice. But I suppose the sacrifice is not what it is about. For me, it is about making space for something else; creating an emptiness and then stepping back and allowing God to fill it.

He filled it...with an awareness of my emptiness; how stark it is & how right & good it is.

As per my usual, I began to see and think in terms of some comparative imagery. This is what my life is like right now:

I'm realizing the story of the three little pigs is not just a faery tale! Houses made of straw and twigs -- the trappings I've always felt protected by are really not sufficient shelter from the rains & winds which are bound to come in all lives. I want a house made of brick -- set firmly on the foundation of Jesus' Kingdom. The house He is building (Psalm 127:1) is the one I want to live in. But first the houses I've built (and the ones given to me which I've stepped into and tried to live in) must be left behind. There are three ways for this to happen:

1. Build brick re-inforcements around the current house. Valid option, but not what I am called to (think traditional churches adding contemporary services, and morphing over time into a contemporary church).
2. The old house of straw can come crashing down in one fell swoop, and I can go running like the first little pig into the house of my brother which looks A LOT stronger...and he and I can laugh and feel safe there, until the big bad wolf comes again -- and then he and I can both run away to the house of our brother who built with bricks, and find refuge there. Thank God that's not what we've experienced!
Neither of these really felt right to us. Instead, we've felt called to something different:
3. We've stepped away from the hard work we'd put into the other houses, and have begun to build a brick house.
   
   This takes time and energy and during the building, it feels very vulnerable...the wolf may happen along at any time and what if my house is not yet finished?

Plus, the most difficult piece is simply stepping *out* of the old house. We thought we'd done that but at every next season, it seems we are being called again and again to step out and leave the old behind.

And it seems more and more that the "building" is not so much a house being constructed as artificial support structures being demolished. Michelangelo was once asked how he could possibly sculpt something as magnificent as David. He replied "All I do is chip away what does not belong". That is what God is doing in me as He removes the shell. It is not so much about building a brick house as it is getting rid of the shell so that I can be free.

With Easter right around the corner, I'm realizing what a baby chick must feel.

emerging from the shell of religion into a new world of freedom is at first exhilerating: new light streams in, and there's fresh air. New sounds, etc. But once the majority of the shell is gone, it can be a bit frightening, cold, with no more shelter.

And I'm realizing how flimsy the shell is now that I'm on the outside looking back at it.

"Really? That is all that was protecting & feeding me?"

I'm starting to (just starting mind you) to understand Psalm 127:1 and the other Psalms which refer to Him as my Refuge, my Strong Tower, my Place of Shelter, my Rock.

In this place of emptiness there is work to do; I am not spiritually idle. But the work I do feels different. I feel like a member of a crew team

See that little dude at the far left, that's the coxswain. That's Jesus. I'm a crew member. I'm facing away from the destination, and have to trust the coxswain. All my hard effort is absent of seeing the prize, but with my ears and eyes and heart fixed on the one who *can* see the destination. He directs my strength; my rhythms of work and rest.

But this is all so new, and strange. What He's telling me is so freeing and life-giving, but so different from what I've ever known. It is like being pruned.

Bearing fruit is the goal, and if that means cutting away pieces that appeared fruitful, but were not as fruitful as the final result will be -- then trusting the Master Vintner's experience for what to cut and how far back, etc is a good thing...but is still difficult -- since to my relatively inexperienced eye, I'm thinking "But that piece was bearing some fruit..." or "You're cutting away too much! There's nothing left but a single solitary branch cut back to the beginning!"

And He says

"Yes, Keith but do you see that bud?..."

I do see it.

It is so small. It is so fragile; so vulnerable.

And it is so beautiful. It represents the beginnings of new life.

And while it still seems so stark and empty; so barren...

"You are The Vine. I am a single branch.
One vine. One branch.
I need nothing else.
That is enough for me."

~ Keith

A Bend in the Road

The journey God has had us on since moving to Oregon a little over three years ago has been mostly exciting, and also very mysterious at times. In the past six months or so God's Spirit has been communicating to us and guiding us in wonderfully loving ways and we’re writing this post to share some of that with you. The big news is this: We believe God has been leading us to voluntarily withdraw our official affiliation with The Vineyard, and no longer be considered a Vineyard Church Plant.

We've been part of the Vineyard Movement for 20+ years. It has been our home, so this has not been an easy decision. Since before moving to Oregon, we have felt welcomed and loved by all Vineyard pastors in the Northwest with whom we've interacted. Therefore, we want to be very clear our decision to de-affiliate with the Vineyard is in no way a reflection of any bad feelings or conflicts. Instead it is a willful laying down of our lives to follow Jesus the best we know how in this season. While this is a bittersweet decision, it also brings with it a sense of relief and rightness. As we've discussed this with local and regional Vineyard leadership in early September, we received their understanding and affirmation of our decision.

Over the last 9 months, it has become clear what we are doing and who we are becoming is further outside the Vineyard’s current scope and model of church-planting than we or anyone in Vineyard originally expected when we began discussions and then were ultimately released as an official Vineyard church plant. In retrospect, if any label applies, we see ourselves more as missionaries and we are still in the process of getting to know the culture of this area. Therefore we need not be dismayed that “nothing has happened yet” and neither do we sense any urgency from God for us to “make something happen”.

We’ve been asking God what He is up to with us, and have been blessed by some silence and solitude where we’ve begun hearing Him speak some clarity to us. He has been tying things together; showing us a pattern we had not been able to see before. It has been sobering, yet at the same time has been exciting and hope-producing -- we are eager to discover more about the plans He has here in Salem!

Perhaps the best way to communicate the highlights of our journey over the past few months as we've prayed and pondered; dreamt and talked is to share a couple stories, and some word-pictures God has painted for us. This post will be somewhat lengthy since we value being able to share our story in some detail, to fully communicate from our hearts.

The First story has to do with our connection to the other pastors in the local Vineyard Pastor's group. Our work schedules and paucity of vacation time have made it difficult for us to regularly attend these meetings. Despite this, the leaders of the group and the other pastors have been very warm and inviting, and we’ve felt truly blessed. Since before our official release as a church plant, we’ve felt included and truly welcomed and encouraged by everyone. It has been wonderful and we’ve loved getting to know everyone better! But around the end of 2009, we noticed feeling somewhat disconnected from the group. This has not been a change in anyone else, but instead an awareness God has been bringing us that the topics of informal discussions often revolve around issues we do not deal with:

• One pastor is struggling because of losing the lease on his building -- but we don’t ever plan to have a building.
• Another is wrestling with needing to find a new full-time Worship Pastor -- but we don’t foresee ever having any paid staff.
• Someone has great plans for a Youth Conference -- but we don’t know that we will ever have a “Youth Ministry” per se.

We’ve been in church leadership long enough to empathize with these things, and yet they have become foreign to us at this point in our process. The first word picture God gave us was this:

It is as if we are in a room full of round pegs who fit very well into the round holes God has for them, but we are square pegs, fitting well into the square holes He has for us -- so we find ourselves no longer fitting in.

When most other pastors in the area ask us about the priorities and practices in which we are engaging, the disconnect is just as clearly apparent there. Questions asked and discussions which follow indicate they don’t really know what to do with us, or how to understand the model of ministry and kingdom life we’re trying to embody. We explain and share our vision, but still don’t feel heard or understood. As just a couple examples:

• We had a 20 minute conversation where the other pastor couldn’t seem to understand why, as a church plant, we would not be interested in receiving a full copy of their children’s ministry curriculum. We tried to explain that we don’t now have, nor would we probably ever have anything as formal as a “Children’s Ministry” and the disconnect was further evidenced when he asked “But couldn’t you use it in a VBS setting?”
• Someone else asked “So when you meet together, who does worship?” We replied by clarifying that we all “do worship”, but if he was asking who played an instrument and facilitated singing, we were not doing that at our meetings, at least not yet. When asked why, we explained that the folks we were meeting with are at such a pre-Christian place that doing worship songs would be so culturally outside their paradigm as to actually build walls, rather than draw us all closer. The response was sort of a head-tilt and an eyebrow lift and he said “But how can you have a meeting and not do worship!??!?”.

This led us to the second word-picture from God:

It is as if we are player-coaches on a small rugby team, and we are hanging out with player-coaches from a large football league. The ball we all use is similar enough, and there is a process of keeping score, but the football player-coaches don’t seem to understand why we don’t wear helmets, why we aren’t trying to score any touchdowns...and what the heck is a ‘scrum’ anyway?

As we spent time with God these last few months, pondering and praying about all these things, He brought us back time & again to two particular pieces of our original call:

1. Cathy’s earliest sense was that, while God was certainly calling us to “plant a church”, there was something deeper. He gave her a word picture: it was more like He was calling us to the Northwest to plant ourselves, and we’d see over time what He would grow. At the time I interpreted this simply as us being two saplings God was “transplanting” to Salem to start The Orchard.
2. When we began conversations with our pastor in California about God’s calling for us, back in early 2005, he asked us two insightful questions:
   
   • Is God calling you to start something new, and to do that you need to move away? -- or -- is God calling you to move away, and since you are doing that you might as well start something new?
   • Is God calling you to plant a Vineyard, and you’d sort of like to do it in this organic simple-church-network way? -- or -- Is God calling you to start an organic simple-church-network and you hope it can be a Vineyard, but if it can’t for some reason, you’re still going to go do this thing God is calling you to do?
   We had not thought of either question, but as soon as he asked we knew the answer to both: God was calling us to start something new, and to do that we needed to move away, and God was calling us to start an organic simple-church-network, and we knew we had to do it whether or not it fit within a Vineyard framework.

Given the recent things God has been showing us, we’ve re-asked ourselves those original questions, and were not surprised to find we still feel just as clear and passionate in our calling as ever before -- this much has not changed. But as we’ve revisited Cathy’s early word-picture about us being planted as opposed to us doing the planting, I’ve realized that my original interpretation of two saplings being transplanted was not quite accurate. He has been speaking to us recently that the deeper truth behind his word to Cathy was this:

We are two seeds which He has planted and the lack of obvious growth
is not an indication anything is ‘wrong’ it is just part of His plan for us
since He’s already told us what must happen
to planted seeds before real growth appears:
First the seeds must die (John 12:24-25).

I wrote about this paradigm shift here.

As we’ve prayed through the things God has been saying to us it seems clear He is not calling us to “pull the plug” or stop what we are doing in any way. Rather, it seems He is calling us to continue trusting Him to build the house He has planned (Ps 127:1), and we’re excited about building with Him. While we realize and value the need for intentionality, we feel no call from God to go and “gather people” to ourselves. Rather, He is calling us to watch & listen to see what The Father is doing, and then intentionally partner with Him as He draws people to Himself; sharing that journey with them.

All of the above then led us to a third word picture:

a small potted tree which is currently fruitless. It has become root-bound in its current pot. At best it is surviving, but at worst it is actually withering -- it is in need of being removed from the pot so that it can be planted in the earth and allowed to grow without the current restraints.

The topsy-turvy nature of the Kingdom sure can be unsettling at times. We lose our lives to save them, give up families to gain new ones -- and, of course, Jesus says we must die in order to really live. Our decision to withdraw our affiliation with Vineyard was a difficult one, but we know that as He holds us in the hollow of His hand and takes us through whatever deaths are yet to come, there will be tremendous life breaking forth and so we have great hope.

Two Autumnal Poems

I love seasonal changes. Especially the switch from Summer into Autumn, then into Winter. The emotional range is part of what makes these changes so endearing to me. These two poems help express that range.

Autumn Movement
by Carl Sandburg

I CRIED over beautiful things
knowing no beautiful thing lasts.

The field of cornflower yellow is
a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman,
the mother of the year, the taker of seeds.

The northwest wind comes and the yellow is
torn full of holes, new beautiful things come
in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind,
and the old things go, not one lasts.


Autumn Song
by Katherine Mansfield

Now's the time when children's noses
All become as red as roses
And the colour of their faces
Makes me think of orchard places
Where the juicy apples grow,
And tomatoes in a row.

And to-day the hardened sinner
Never could be late for dinner,
But will jump up to the table
Just as soon as he is able,
Ask for three times hot roast mutton--
Oh! the shocking little glutton.

Come then, find your ball and racket,
Pop into your winter jacket,
With the lovely bear-skin lining.
While the sun is brightly shining,
Let us run and play together
And just love the autumn weather.

Variable Seasons, Variable Weather

It's springtime in Oregon. March came in like a lamb and went out like a lion. April has been it's usual erratic-weather self, with sun, hail, rain and wind -- back-to-back all in one day.

I'm in St. Louis, MO this morning as I type this. My uncle died and went to be with Jesus on Saturday. The weather here has been warm and breezy; feels like almost-summer. The forecast for tonight and over the weekend is for thunderstorms. I'm excited for a good Missouri thunder & lightning show.

Being with family as we mourn our loss together, and seeing the difference in weather patterns helped me realize: Seasons in life don't necessarily follow seasons in weather. It is highly variable depending on "where you are at", and the net realization I've had this week is this:

We're OK

Why wouldn't we be OK? To answer that you need a little back-story.

We uprooted ourselves from California and planted ourselves in Oregon in August 2007, about a month before my father died. The Orchard Community was sprouted (on paper anyway) in December 2008 when we became an "official" Vineyard Church Plant. According to our two-year plan there are goals to meet by the end of this year -- goals that center around numbers of people. Our official agreed-upon goal was to gather 36 people, in approx 3 separate house-church groups, by December 2010. It's almost May 2010 and currently we have Cathy & me, and one other person who's personal life's schedule just created a conflict so we have not been able to meet together for around a month.

Many eyes have been on us as this idea of a Vineyard House-Church Plant is sort of an R&D experiment for the Vineyard. We've had a warm welcome, encouraging support, and have felt loved and cared-for in many ways. But we've also felt somewhat awkward; misfits in the literal sense of the word.

The Vineyard pastors in our state with whom we relate all face very different challenges than we do. They speak of hiring new staff or needing to lay people off; of adding Sunday morning services or paring back. They send their youth groups to conferences and sponsor short-term trips to other countries to do humanitarian work and share God's love with people in other cultures. They relate the challenges of running ministry teams and managing the financial responsibilities of owning or renting (or losing a lease on) a building. Coming from the church culture we left behind in California, we know these challenges and joys very well. We understand them and can laugh and cry along with these other pastors. But there's one thing we no longer seem to be able to do: relate to them. Yes we still have relationship and are very thankful for that. But the challenges and joys they face are difficult for us to relate to since they are very different from our own and, for the most part, it will always be that way since we have no plans to ever have a building or a staff or ministry teams or Sunday morning meetings, etc.

It's like they are round pegs, neatly fitting their round holes. They have their niche, and we're glad for them. But we feel like we're pegs of an undetermined shape, trying to figure out what-shaped hole we fit. We catch glimpses of it now and again, and while we think we know the shape to be sort-of squarish, all we are very sure of is that the shape is simply "not round". There's a tension just from that -- from the still-not-knowing. But there's an added tension which comes from an extended time of hanging out with round pegs, hearing about the round-holed joys and challenges, and knowing more and more "That's not us."

So here we are 7 months away from our 36-people, 3-group, December 2010 deadline...with no real deep understanding of what our ultimate plan will look like or how we'll fit in with the greater group of round peg/round hole folks -- or even if we'll fit.

That's why we sometimes don't feel OK.

But to repeat what I wrote above, being with my Seckel family as we mourn our loss together, and seeing the differences in the weather patterns of mid-Spring Missouri compared to mid-Spring Oregon helped me realize that the seasons in our life don't necessarily follow seasons in the year and the expected weather patterns. It is all highly variable depending on "where you are at", and so the net realization I've had this week is this:

We're OK

I don't know what December will hold for us, but I'm comforted in the assurance that the love and welcome and encouragement will continue from the pastors here in Oregon. I'm also comforted to know that the growth we experience, both internal and external, is not our responsibility. Yes, there are efforts we are called to make, but the ultimate responsibility does not rest on our shoulders. We do not have to somehow make ourselves figure out who we're supposed to be, and we're certainly not responsible for making ourselves into something we're not!

Rather, like plants growing in season, we can rest in the love The Orchard Master has for us; in the dreams He has had for us all along: the dreams He has had not just for us, but for the world around us, through us -- and the plans He has in us through the world around us.

We're very much like the farmer Jesus spoke of, as recorded by His follower named Mark:

"The kingdom of God is like someone who spreads seed on the ground. He goes to sleep and gets up, night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. By itself the soil produces a crop, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. And when the grain is ripe, he sends in the sickle because the harvest has come.”

We plant seeds in the soil around us. We allow seeds to be planted within us in the soil of our hearts. Watering happens as a collaborative effort. But the growth? That's His work, His labor of love, His dreams for the world coming true in and through us.

We're walking through The Orchard together with The Orchard Master; our hand in His. And although the weather up ahead looks like we might be in for a storm or two, we're OK.

New Sprouts

On Sat 15th August The Orchard Community had the wonderful honor of celebrating the dedication of Catherine Marie "Cate" O'Connor

Cate!
Cate & Grandma
Cate & Great Grandpa
Cate & Grandma
Dedicating Cate
Hanging out with family!

Time To Stop

Today is the Summer Solstice -- literally "Sun Stands Still". The following is unashamedly cut/pasted from Inward/Outward

By Barbara Brown Taylor

For years I had kept hoping that intimacy with God would blossom as soon as I got everything done, got everyone settled, got my environment just right and my calendar cleared. I counted on it to come as a reward for how hard I had worked, or at least as the built-in consequence of a life of service, but even when I managed to meet all of my conditions for a day or two, I was so exhausted from the effort that I could not keep my eyes open. Slumber spirituality took over, and when I woke up I was right back where I started with miles to go toward the home I never quite reached.

Soon after I moved to the country, a friend from the city set out to see me and got seriously lost. These were the days before cell phones, so she was on her own with nothing but my directions and a badly out-of-date map. Already an hour later than she wanted to be, she was speeding through a little town when she saw the blue lights in her rearview mirror.I forgot to warn her that it was a speed trap. Busted, she pulled over on the shoulder of the road and had her license ready when the officer arrived at her window.

“I am so sorry,” she said, handing it to him along with her registration. “I know I was speeding, but I’ve been lost for the last forty minutes and I cannot find Tower Terrace anywhere on this map.”

“Well, I’m sorry about that too, ma’am,” he said, writing up her citation, “but what made you think that hurrying would help you find your way?”

what made you think that
hurrying
would help you
find your way?

What made any of us think that the place we are trying to reach is far, far ahead of us somewhere and that the only way to get there is to run until we drop? For Christians, at least part of the answer is that many of us have been taught to think of God’s kingdom as something outside ourselves, for which we must search as a merchant searches for the pearl of great price.

But even that points to a larger and more enduring human problem, which is the problem of mortality. With a limited number of years to do whatever it is that we are supposed to be doing here, who has time to stop?

Barbara Brown Taylor is a writer and teacher at Piedmont College in Georgia. She was ordained an Episcopal priest and writes about the life of the church—and the church of life. This excerpt is from her book called Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith.

I think the real question is not "How can I afford to take time to stop?" but instead "If The Master has ordained the sun two times every year to stand still, how can I afford not to follow the example set in the heavens for all to see?"

New Growth

Today is the first day of Spring, and we're enjoying the warmth of brighter days and clearer skies.

We've begun meeting with another couple for weekly dinner and discussion. We've been sharing our stories thus far and looking forward to how we want to explore faith and community together. We come from a variety of faith backgrounds and levels of understanding, and are really enjoying the warmth of friendship and clearer futures.

The buds are just starting to form, but the growth deep inside (eagerly waiting to burst out and bloom!) is there and raising our hopes; fulfilling our dreams.

Solstice Simplicity

Tomorrow is the winter solstice and in our neighborhood all is quiet and white. Beneath the surface though, new life is germinating. A few days ago we received an eMail from the Association of Vineyard Churches officially welcoming us as a Vineyard church plant.

Rather than getting caught up in busyness and trying to somehow make things happen, now is an excellent time for us to pause. Resting quietly, we can consider our roots. Our good friend and coach Dave recently sent us a quote by Thomas Merton which served as a wonderful reminder to us of what we're here to accomplish or, better put; who we're trying to become.

Merton had aspirations to move near the Ecuadorian capital of Quito to start a new community. In a letter dated July 1958, he said

I would like to embark on a new form of monastic life, a very simple kind of life...fully integrated in the life of the region, and in the soil, yet also fully in contact with the intellectual life of the Capital.

I would not carry on any special “work” or “apostolate”* (this is where the mistake is generally made by so many). I would not have any arguments to sell to anybody: I would not try to “catch” people and make them go to confession, etc. Preferably I would not even dress as a priest or as a monk, but as an ordinary person. I would live a life of prayer, of thought, of study, with manual labor, and writing, a life not only in contact with God in contemplation but also fully in contact with all the intellectual, artistic, political movements of the time and place. But I would not intrude into the life of the place as one with a “mission” or a “message”; I would not try to sell anybody anything. My function would be (as it must be in any case) to be a man of God, a man belonging to Christ, in simplicity, to be the friend of all those who are interested in spiritual things, whether of art, or prayer, or anything valid, simply to be their friend, to be someone who could speak to them and to whom they could speak, to encourage one another, etc.

Thomas Merton: A life in Letters (p. 28)

We're settled in and watching the snow fall; resting quietly and reflecting. What a wonderful time.

~ Keith

* "apostolate" is the Catholic term for a "church plant"

Autumn Beginnings

Autumn is here with its crisp cool mornings and early twilight.

I think of Autumn as a season of nesting and readying for hibernation; of pruning back and storing up. In order to store, one must harvest. Autumn is about bringing in the fruits of the year's labors, to sustain one's family through the winter. Autumn is for gently removing bulbs from the ground and placing them in warm safe pots so they can be replanted and bloom again next spring. Outwardly, autumn seems a dormant time. Inwardly, preparation work teems at the cellular level.

Recently we received our official release paperwork, affiliating us with the Association of Vineyard Churches. We'll be applying for our non-profit status in Oregon, and Federal 501(c)(3) status, speaking with potential board members, figuring out by-laws, State & Federal regulations, trademark agreements and liability insurance.

All of this is necessary work, but it is also secondary -- the deep, cellular work of formation is continuing right on schedule. We're not driven onward by goals and agendas and two-year plans. We're drawn forward gently by the Voice of The Master Who speaks to us of purpose and potential; of hearth and home.

Autumn is here with its golden-leaved changes, layered-warmth walkings, and hope-filled ponderings.

We're Not Doing Anything

Recently I read this quote by Thomas Merton on Inward/Outward:

Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny…. This means to say that we should not passively exist, but actively participate in God’s creative freedom, in our own lives, and in the lives of others, by choosing the truth. To put it better, we are even called to share with God the work of creating the truth of our identity. We can evade this responsibility by playing with masks, and this pleases us because it can appear at times to be a free and creative way of living. It is quite easy, it seems, to please everyone. But in the long run the cost and the sorrow come very high. To work out our own identity in God, which the Bible calls ‘working out our salvation,’ is a labor that requires sacrifice and anguish, risk and many tears. It demands close attention to reality at every moment, and great fidelity to God as God is revealed, obscurely, in the mystery of each new situation.

It was a timely thought for me to read, you see, because I've been reflecting on having been here in Oregon over a year now. Moving here from the Bay Area of California has been a big culture change, and we have enjoyed this much slower and much more restful lifestyle!

But I was wondering "what do we have to show for ourselves, in the spiritual realm? What have we really done since moving here? In California it felt like we were always doing something. Should we be doing more here?" The answer I sensed in my spirit to that question was a strong "No" but I couldn't figure out why. The best I could come up with is "Maybe we just need to detox more from the busyness of the Bay Area?"

And then I read this, also by Merton, in Seeds, on pg 14 and it all made sense:

There are times, then, when in order to keep ourselves in existence at all we simply have to sit back for awhile and do nothing. And for [people] who [have let themselves] be drawn completely out of [themselves] by activity, nothing is more difficult than to sit still and rest, doing nothing at all. The very act of resting is the hardest and most courageous act [they] can perform: and quite often it is beyond [their] power.

Don't get me wrong: I understand that there is an insoluble link between faith and action (I even blogged about it here). So mark me: if God said "Do this." or "Do that." we would -- but He's not saying that. Instead God is saying:

"Don't do anything -- just rest and let Me restore and refresh you and continue to craft you into who I've made you to be as individuals and as a couple. That way, in this new unique situation, you'll be able to naturally, properly reflect my image within your context, without striving."

So we're being intentional about not doing anything right now -- and that is the best thing for us.

Summertime

Today is the Summer Solstice. More than just a day of the year, it's an actual moment in time -- this year it is at 2359 UTC. I think that's cool: a moment in time when the "sun stands still". On the negative side: with time zone differences, that means for me the sun will stand still just 1 minute before 5:00 pm on a Friday!

Most people think of today as the first day of Summer. For others, it marks the mid-point. Like life for the poor characters in Shakespeare's famous play, midsummer is sometimes tumultuous. Think about summer rainstorms.When they're building up, and the sky begins to darken, everything seems ominous. The wind sometimes begins to blow -- other times it stops completely and everything gets eery.

Summer storms
come and go, but
in the midst of them
it seems
they'll last forever.

I suppose "sun stands still" is an apt description with regard to how long the daylight lasts, but this whole "stopping" idea fits very little else. Sometimes life gets untethered and I feel adrift, longing for some constancy.

Right now our front and back yard are both torn up; in the middle of a reconstruction project. The finished result will be peaceful and green and inviting. Right now it is just a bunch of dirt that keeps getting moved from one place to the next. The front walkway and the back patio are now almost complete. Or I should say were almost complete. The front walkway has to be completely redone. The workers somehow misunderstood our directions. They got the right kind of pavers, and installed them in the right pattern -- but the pattern itself is oriented at the wrong angle. So the whole thing has to be picked up, the already-cut stones discarded, the uncut stones re-placed (after re-preparing the pathway's foundation of sand and gravel) and then the borders re-formed from newly cut stones. There's about a 0% chance of being able to re-use any of the already cut stones.

Two steps forward
One step back

As another example: where we live in Salem, Oregon, the weather has been pretty goofy this year. The other day I was driving around and it was sunny. Then it became overcast, then it started to rain. Then, while still raining, the sun came out again. Then the rain stopped and it was just sunny again. OK, OK, I know what you're thinking: "Duh -- it is Oregon!" but what made it weird was -- it kept cycling like that...every 10 minutes or so for about an hour:

1. Sunny.
2. Overcast.
3. Rainy.
4. Rain with Sun.
5. Repeat over and over.

At first I wished God would make up His mind and just pick one. Then I thought it was kind of cool how it kept repeating.

As I've thought back on that experience and shared the story with a few people, I finally realized God was speaking to me through that hour of weird weather:

Keith, I never change, but life all around you is always in a constant (often cyclical) state of change and growth.

He is Creator and Life-Giver -- and He never changes. So He is always creating and always giving life.

I don't know if He designed it for the sun to stay out really late so we could get more done since there is so much going on -- or if we overly-busy humans just naturally try to do more since it is light later. I've never been one to feel guilty for sitting on the couch reading a good book on a bright sunny day, but at this time in my life I'm trying to listen as He teaches me about real rest for my soul. Apparently it has little or nothing to do with inactivity.

It is Summer here in The Orchard. Many things are in the midst of change, but I'm learning that is an OK thing.