the burning bush -a life of being and pursuing

by artist He Qi

so often in our lives when we face difficult situations or trials, we look and seek after signs of some sort -signs that tell us that someone knows us, signs that someone hears our cry and actually cares. we wait for that definitive voice from on high or a strike of lightening, etc…. kind of like an “in-your-face-can’t-deny-the-truth” moment. a burning bush moment.

in the old testament, in exodus 3, we are given a story of a man named moses and a mysterious burning bush through which god speaks and makes god’s self known to him. it is a bush that is raging with fire but never consumed, it is alluring to the one who comes upon it yet is too great to take full on, it offers words of hope but a hope that is marked with a call to action. a bush that, upon it’s presence, acknowledges that the battles we face are not ours alone but that god is and will continue to be with us.

though we say and we know that christ has come and has sent the spirit of god to each of us, to dwell within us, we find ourselves still looking around for that bush. waiting for a sign, looking and hoping in things external when god in god’s love has come to dwell within us through the holy spirit. the same spirit that ignited a bush is the same spirit that abides in us. in this way,  i like to think that our lives are like flaming bushes, which burn but are not consumed. the very god that is in us purges the death on our branches in order that we may bring forth new life. as we are continually made new, we manifest and speak forth a light and a hope to those who encounter us. and in such lives of givenness, we are not found depleted but renewed.

the burning bush is a call to faith, a call to hear and a call to action. believe that god actually hears your cry as he heard the cries of the israelites in captivity. silence the clammering noises of fear and uncertainty and rather choose to hear the voice of hope and love as god is continually speaking to us and through us. know that a life of faith is never a life of comfort or a stagnant reality but a call to put feet to that which we claim as just and right, feet to that which we believe love is. faith is active and always in pursuit of the other. it is in our pursuit of the other that god promises to be with us as he was with moses and the people of israel. god does not call us to something just to abandon us later but calls us in order that god’s faithfulness may be witnessed more fully.

friends, i pray that we do not remain satisfied in our own well-being but the flame of the holy spirit would forever ignite a passion and a fervant desire for those around us.

chasing after you

from the often hype and high-energy gospel artist tye tribbett, this particular song is refreshingly subdued and prayerful and still carries within it that passionate something i love about tye’s interpretations and musicality.

it is a song that declares an incredible hope and faith in an active pursuit of the one who has and continues to pursue us. i will go and i’ll be chasing after you are the two main lyrical lines that capture the essence of this song. both are active and suggest a doing on our end. as much as we tend to seek and long for the receiving aspect of our relationship with god, i wonder if we are reminded in this song about god’s desire for us to chase after toward the one who has already chased after us.

though we can never equitably love god in the way god loves us, and though we are often inadequate in our pursuit of god, i am grateful that this god continues to chase me down and refuses to let go! at points in this song, i hear the words as if it were my own prayer and at other points, i hear it as if it is being spoken over me.

as you hear this song may it be your prayer and know that you are loved by a god who never abandons or forsakes but rather, chases after us in hopes that our lives would be turned toward and in pursuit of the one whom we declare to be the lover of our souls.

life as a stranger

what does it mean to be bound to a people who are “other?” to see your identity in someone that is a stanger? or, in a different light, what does it mean to be the stranger? the other? these are some questions that i believe are central to the issues of our christian identity narrated through the lens of immigrant reality.

in this piece entitled, ruth and naomi, by the artist he qi, i am reminded of such a story in the old testament about a daughter-in-law, ruth, who had decided to leave the only land she knew in hopes of being bound to a new people, a new land, through her mother-in-law naomi.  it is a story of a woman who saw her identity so closely bound to her husband’s people that she chose to become the stranger as a moabite in bethlehem. in ruth 1:16 she tells naomi,

where you go i will go, and where you stay i will stay. your people will be my people and your god my god….

what does this mean? why is this so profound?

for those who have been to my home in seattle, you know that this artwork stands prominently as the focal point in our living room. it is not only a reminder of my immigrant parents who each, in their own way, struggled with the overpowering pull of assimilation, but more profoundly, it is a reminder of my own struggles of placedness and identity, both culturally and as a christian.

though i am an asian-american woman, more specifically, a korean-american woman, i have often found my home/refuge/comfort to be amongst a people whom most koreans have historically considered as “others”- the african-american community. in friendships, in communities of worship, in my affinities, and ultimately in my spouse, i have found a freedom, love, embrace with a people who i now cannot see myself without. however, like many things that are worth something, it has been costly.

as the painting so intimately depicts, our binding to another that blurs the very lines of where one begins and the other ends, is the binding that christ calls each of us to – to a people who may be strange to us, foreign, or alien to all that makes us comfortable. in this way, are we willing to be the stanger? to be the one who picks the fields after another, who waits for the other to determine our livelihood?

friends, this is the space where christ dwells. it is in christ’s body where all are bound together. may the same spirit that binds us to our creator, bind us in ways that begin to transform who i think you are to who christ says we are.

i need you

so, in a previous blog on desperation and worship, i narrated a posture of worship that emerges out of a sense of need or dependence on god – desperation. this sense of need, i believe, arises out of difficult moments and aspects of our stories and life experiences.

however, in a recent conversation with a friend, i was confronted with the reality that some folks may not have a seemingly desperate life situation from which to draw upon and so how would this notion of desperate worship relate to such people? here is what i think:

what a blessing it is for those to have had the opportunity to move through life thus far relatively smoothly -peace in the home, financial security, solid relationships, both familial and friend-wise. yes, we all endure forms of dysfunction but for some, life has progressed fairly uneventfully and with relative ease.

the important thing is that i don’t think desperation should be thought of as necessarily arising out of a kind of nothingness, absence, loss, darkness, etc. but rather an addition of sorts? while i strongly believe that no one should feel guilty for such a life, perhaps the way we all can truly tap into this notion of desperation that i so often speak of is to bind ourselves to the cross so to speak. if it is not our own cross, then it should be the cross of another. this is the nature of the christian life… of community. if it is not our own pain from which we can draw then we are called to bind ourselves to another’s pain, another’s story. this is the story we find in mark 2 of the paralytic man whose friends carried his limp body, through the roof of a house, to the healing presence of christ. his pain became their pain. his hope became their hope. his healing became their healing.

in the same way, i want to encourage you to allow another’s story to become woven into your story. we ought to become bound to one another so much that we cannot tell our story apart from another. this is the beautiful story of the church. be desperate for god! god is the reason why we live, move, and have our being. we ALL are in need of god and each other and i pray that we would not be afraid to live into this reality. may the beautiful cries of desperate worship arise as incense to the one who dwells among, redeems, heals, restores and offers new life. xx

jazz teaches us about community

in his recent article entitled tension gives it groove, ross kane offers a profound connection between jazz music and its capacity to articulate the christian life in community.

we all know that real relationships encounter ups and downs and conflicts abound when living life together. so how do we negotiate such a life in community? kane writes,

Despite the church’s expressed commitment to creating a peaceable community through reconciliation, in daily life we often sidestep tension and conflict… Often Christians see conflict and tension as problems to be forgotten or hastily avoided.

For the jazz musician, however, without the tension there is no groove. The sense of movement in a jazz solo depends upon the building up of harmonic tension followed by release. In jazz, the idea is not to reduce the tension or eliminate it, but rather to negotiate it and let the tension and resolution work together to create something beautiful.

what a great analogy! tension can be a beautiful thing. if we could only imagine our lives, our interactions and our offerings of vulnerability as something not to be feared but rather as a collaboration of sorts – each one hearing, adding, receiving, and filling out the interpretation of the other. this is the call of christian community.

since when was worship a competition?

having had the privilege of worshipping with so many different folks over the years -traditional/contemporary, liturgical/charismatic and so forth- the one thing i hear most often (usually as an intellectual critique) is the idea that the hymns written and sung in more contemporary contexts are too “me” focused and not communal, too much jesus language lacking trinitarian inclusiveness and the lyrics are trite and too repetitive. OUCH!!

now let me start by saying, yes, i know that there are some sorry excuses for songs out there in EVERY genre. as many poorly written p&w (praise &worship) songs that there are, we cannot deny that over half of those hymns in the hymnals are unknown and unsung for a reason….

i believe our worship must engage the whole of our being not merely the space between the brain and the lips. is the “me” not important in my worship of the one who created my being? i think even the most famous hymn writers of the past saw the need for our own vulnerability and confession toward god -”then sings my soul, my saviour god to thee,” “be thou my vision, o lord of my heart,” “great is thy faithfulness, lord unto me.” i believe that the me centered-ness has less to do with who i think i am but it is who i know god to be. it is a recognition that i am in need of this god that i worship. like guests we welcome into our home for the first time, the conversation usually remains surface-y and factual. however, as relationships grow and flourish it is only through intimacy that we learn to love….conversations move beyond the weather and what i think to how i feel about this or that -my fears, joys, hopes, and needs. this is what i LOVE about the psalms and david’s intimate relationship with god told through hymns and songs -these are prayers evident of relationship!

great leaders, artists, musicians, spouses, parents and friends know that repetition is not only the key to memory, increased communication and productivity but carries incredible weight in any relationship. i know for me, as one who grew up in a family where the words “i love you” were never spoken, i love, need, and thrive every time those words are uttered to me. repetition is good. i know when i was leading a large team of musicians and artists, it was imperative that i repeated the vision, expectations and encouragements over and over again for cohesiveness and morale. repetition is good. in this way, my words and songs of worship and adoration, repetitive as it may be, carries such weight. this repetition is not from an insufficient vocabulary or lack of intellectual fervor but it is that i find the words to hold prophetic and profound meaning, even in the simplest of phrases. no, it may not ring with the proclamation of what i believe doctrinally such as when we sing the creeds but my song is the story of redemption, thanksgiving and transformation.

too jesus centered…. perhaps? however, when we speak of one, are we not implying the relationship within the triune godhead? according to john, for to know christ, is to also know the father who sent him. the son, as the giver of the spirit to the hearts of god’s people, enables our participation within the triune life of god. in other words, the spirit allows within us the ability to know god and see the good that has been freely given to us from god. so, as we profess god in the person of christ, the spirit then shines a light or mediates knowledge of our own humanity. it is this recognition that brings forth raw and desperate worship, calling on the name of jesus, while the spirit participates in our uttering.

let us not rush too quickly in silencing the diverse voices of worship. god dwells in the praises of god’s people, whether arising from the great hymns of the early church or the fresh songs of the now. it is not only about what we do but about the relationship between what we do and the transformation that flows out of it. may our worship, our lives, be as incense -pleasing and acceptable to god.

what does india.arie have to do with worship?

i was really struck by this sade song recently that india.arie remixed on her new album. it’s a song of solidarity remembering women who are suffering throughout various parts of africa. the tag line goes “and it hurts like brand new shoes”…..i don’t know about you but this analogy stuck with me for awhile…. maybe because i wear a lot of heels?? and being flat-footed, my feet have sacrificed plenty for the sake of the call!

shoe analogies have historically carried significance whether marking time or breadth, i.e. “if s/he walked a mile in my shoes…” ” to stand in so and so’s shoes” etc. so, given this analogy, i wonder if it’s an excellent way of describing the tension that exists between pain and hope, new and old, reality and promise. the pain felt when wearing brand new shoes holds within it both the reality of the now (pain) and the hope of the shoe eventually becoming that favorite “go to” pair when worn long enough. all in all, it’s kind of a bittersweet reality, much like what we encounter in our everyday lives.

as the song continues, it breaks into a repetitive chorus of “hallelujah’s.”… really? this is a lament song…. at least it makes the listener think it is up until this point. hallelujah in lament? praise in the midst of pain? that’s just beautiful. that’s…..WORSHIP! that’s like jesus’ prayer in gethsemane before his crucifixion – “not my will but yours”…knowing that our present circumstances don’t have the last word…BUT GOD!

friends, be encouraged as you hear this song of praise….lament praise. may you walk in the shoes of the one who has already “broken in” the inflexibilities of this life and has gone before, who has already turned your sorrow to joy! walk in those shoes.

the heritage mass choir – authentic or assimilated?

ok….over the past month or so, i have been forwarded TONS of youtube videos of this particular all korean choir- the heritage mass choir- singing what we know as african-american contemporary gospel music (mostly, folks were geeked about what they discovered as well as curious what i thought of the group). while there has been incredible interest in the heritage mass choir, i have found the interest itself to be rather fascinating….here’s why:

the heritage mass choir is undoubtedly talented and passionate, but while some may find there adaptation of african-american style gospel unusual, in many ways, this seems to be a natural point of connection between the worship life of korean and african-american christians despite each groups relative ignorance of the other. growing up in pentecostal korean churches and later worshipping in african-american churches, i have always been struck by the deep and almost desperate moments of worship, yearning, and exaltation in both places.

the heritage mass choir expresses something that is not “foreign” to them but has found a timbre that perhaps expresses their own particular worship life, but in a slightly different key.

in many ways, i wonder if the fascination with these worshippers reveals our own limitations — perhaps, the ways we have been more determined by our cultures than our faith to see the deep congruities of hope and yearning among the various brothers and sisters in christ. this is not to say we all should fundamentally worship the same way… don’t get me wrong. but the fact that there has, for so long, been a deep distrust, if not animosity between koreans (and korean-americans) and african-americans while there has also been such an easy assimilation or trust of asians in general (and koreans included) as “quasi” white folk, suggests that perhaps we are ordering our lives together according to desires, hopes, and ideas that are not bound to a certain cultural similarity, but a cultural myth.

what is ironic is that it could be those who deem themselves so culturally different, that are in fact bound by an expression of worship, a history of pain and alienation that is shared and found in such an unusual moment in the heritage mass choir.

if we do not take the moment to think about why we think this group is so wonderful, we risk passing them by too quickly and consequently losing an opportunity god may be presenting us to become truly new people.

pentecostal music: through the trope of suffering, immediacy and hope

much of the pentecostal/charismatic experience can be theologically read through their music. as the music has slowly evolved into and under a more generic umbrella of “contemporary worship” i want to suggest a retrieval of its initially intended form. in other words, stripping away the marketing and business aspect of the now contemporary genre, pentecostal worship in its purest form holds a unique insight into the Spirit’s presence in and among its worshippers.

as with many african-american slave songs and spirituals, we witness the very tension between suffering and hope. their longing for escape by means of the “chariot” expresses an immanent hope of their own freedom and possibility sung through a swinging rhythmic pulse of promise. when we think about pentecostal services in a larger context, the music could be read as a confrontation of the worshipper with the immediacy of god’s presence. some may say that the music is incessant, repetitive, loud and simple. granted, it may be. however, perhaps we can interpret the incessant beating of the drums, the repetitive choruses, the loud musical swells, the climactic phrases and the simple refrains and chord structures as the very confrontation of the holy spirit’s expressive and all consuming presence. it does not allow room for critical thought, for an excuse that “it’s too hard” or “i don’t understand.” the beats of the drum lure the worshipper to a rhythm that draws out the beat of one’s soul to clap, to tap, to rock back and forth, to dance, to jump, etc. in other words, the way in which the music is played could be equated to the image of the spirit’s immanent presence as engulfing ones being to the point of “otherness.” in fact, isn’t this exactly what happened to the disciples when the spirit came upon them? there was no rationalizing about what was going to take place, who was going to speak how, or when. rather, the spirit came and all in the room were caught up.