Pastor Craig's ConSpiritu Blog

Starting Over with Integrity Lent begins on Ash Wednesday this week. People from all walks of life around the world will make their way to church to receive the mark of the cross in ashes on their foreheads. That is, they will do that if their particular faith community observes that ancient Christian practice. It can be a powerful service to attend, because it reminds us in spite of all our greatest designs and most meticulous planning, things can quickly turn to ashes before our eyes.  Why Ashes? Ashes are an ancient symbol of how our human cleverness, schemes and dreams all too easily go awry, and end up as a pile of ashes. People in ancient times would smear ash on their faces as a sign of mourning or in response to something terrible they had done, for which they were asking forgiveness. In spite of all our good intentions and hopes, things still fall apart. How about you? What plans or dreams of yours have turned to ashes? What does it take to start over, but thi...

Over the years, I have had many conversations with people concerning God's Will. Usually, these conversations have been couched in terms of trying to discern what God's Will is for their lives, sometimes in broad general terms, but more often in terms of specific decisions or directions they should take. I have always been able to relate to these questions, because for many years in my youth I wondered the same about my own life. What did God want me to do with my life? Should I become a biologist or an actor? Did God want me to go into the ministry instead? (That decision won out, but I have never been certain that it was God's absolute and immutable will for my life.) For years, I told people that I was waiting for God to drop a golden scroll at my feet that would lay out in clearly defined terms just what I was supposed to do. Until then, I perceived that I was stumbling around in the dark, following my own best guesses.  Of course, the problem with that line...

During the ten years I  lived in Eastern Oregon while first serving a church in Heppner and then a church in Joseph, I traveled frequently alongside the Columbia river while traveling to and from Portland.  Usually I traveled by car, but occasionally I caught the bus.  When I rode the bus I had the grace-filled privilege to look out and ponder the landscape. Columns of basalt line the crests of hills like so many battalions of foot soldiers forever awaiting the sound of the trumpet. Deep gullies and canyons have carved their way into these witnesses to an earlier era of geological activity.  Each canyon and valley has its own creek or stream, swelling with the spring runoff and dwindling during the hot, dry summers. Deep gorges split the rock in two, while a forest of oaks and sumac spring up out of the cleavage.  Sagebrush and an occasional juniper gradually make way for Douglas Fir, Ponderosa Pine, Sumac, Ash and Poplar.  It is a sculptor and painter’s ...