Alert and Oriented Times Four

John Eldredge, in his book Waking the Dead refers to the movie The Perfect Storm, where he describes how an injured seamen offshore is treated. The first thing they do, he tells us, is to evaluate their degree of consciousness.

"When Spillane (The Perfect Storm) treats injured seamen offshore, one of the first things he evaluates is their degree of consciousness. The highest level, known as 'alert and oriented times four,' describes almost everyone in an everyday situation. They know who they are, where they are, what time it is, and what's just happened. If someone suffers a blow to the head, the first thing they lose is recent events--'alert times three'--and the last thing they lose is their identity. A person who has lost all levels of consciousness, right down to their identity, is said to be 'alert and oriented times zero.' When John Spillane wakes up in the water, he is alert and oriented times zero. His understanding of the world is reduced to the fact that he exists, nothing more. Almost simultaneously, he understands that he is in excruciating pain. For a long time, that is all he knows.

John Spillane is a para-rescue jumper sent into the North Atlantic, into the worst storm of the twentieth century, the perfect storm, as the book and film called it, to rescue a fisherman lost at sea. When his helicopter goes down, he is forced to jump into pitch blackness from an unknown height, and when he hits the water, he's going so fast it's like hitting the pavement from eighty feet above."

He is dazed and confused--just as we are when it comes to the story of our lies.

It's the perfect analogy.

Especially during those challenging, difficult and stressful seasons of life. Isn't that what often happens to us? We have no idea who we really are, why we're here (there's a diminished sense of purpose and direction), what's supposed to happen to us (what's just happened - we lose perspective on our lives, our current context, the circumstances, situations and relationships around us), or why. Honestly, there are days when we are simply alert and oriented times zero.

How so often these statements resonate with the core of our being?

If you were to evaluate your degree of spiritual consciousness, what would you be? “

Alert and oriented times _______”?

Everything is Spiritual...

We recently finished the sermon series Seamless, where we explored the dimensions of living a life that is not categorized by components that are "spiritual" and "secular," but rather seamless. Author Walter Wink, noted to live such a life is perhaps the greatest challenge of our age, primarily for those in the Western Church.

The last several weeks as I've been reading through and reflecting on Bradley Holt's book Thirsty for God: A Brief History of Christian Spirituality. As history has unfolded, it's fascinating to see how in the past several hundred years within church history, one can see these distinction becoming more and more stark, to the very imposition of the Gospel itself. This has been true particularly in the Western world. The premise of living a seamless life calls us back to a life of discovery and recognition of the sacred in the ordinary. This is the very essence of the Gospel and what our world is desperate to experience.

Surrounded...

Something amazing happens when we allow ourselves to be surround by others...

...there's an added dimension.
...there's an increase of strength.
...an expansion of vision.
...an emergence of momentum.
...and the presence of a whole lot more fun.

As we've launched The Loft and began to see the response of kids and how their engaging God and one another its been pretty riveting.

But, perhaps the most significant thing that has happened to me, is the reality of a band of co-visionaries who are investing themselves whole-heartedly into the development of a force that will shape a generation of young people.

These friends have added strength, vision and momentum. They have been initiators with grand follow-through, demonstrating the power of encouragement, faith, belief and risk. They are my heroes and my friends.

So, as in those times with I simply sit back and reflect on what is transpiring among us, I see the truth that when each person contributes what only she or he can, the image before us begins to take on a shape and function greater than we could have ever imagined by ourselves - each life, heart and hand come together with the presence of God to bring something awesome into being.

Today... I am simply grateful for the people God has surrounded me with...

Taste in Love...

Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109), is said to have been the greatest theologians and thinkers of his time. "He was one of the most learned figures of his age," writes Holt in Thirsty for God: A Brief History of Christian Spirituality. "Yet, he had a keen sense of the limitations of learning." I came across this prayer of his this morning that I found imperative to us in our day of high-speed, broadband lives filled with information and data.

It's entitled, "Meditation on Human Redemption" and comes from The Prayers and Meditations of Saint Anselm.

"I pray you, Lord,
make me taste by love what I taste by knowledge;
let me know by love what I know by understanding.
I owe you more than my whole self, but I have no more,
and by myself I cannot render the whole of it to you.
Draw me to you, Lord, in the fullness of love.
I am wholly yours by creation;
make me all yours, too, in love."

The Greatest Challenge of our Age...

At Calvary, we are in the middle of the sermon series Seamless. Recently, during some reading, I came across a couple of quotes that resonated with the heart and challenge of living a seamless life. They are from the book Thirsty for God by Bradley Holt.

"From a Christian perspective, the word "spirituality" calls us to recognize the importance of its root term, spirit, an important biblical word. In both Hebrew and Greek, the same word (ruach and pneuma, respectively) is used to mean "breath," "wind," and "spirit." The Bible refers both to human spirit and to divine Spirit. How one understands spirit will determine how one understands spirituality. For example, if "spirit" is separated from physical reality, in a realm of its own, apart from the daily life of human experience, the resulting spirituality will become an escape into another world. But if God created the world as good and later became flesh, as the Gospel of John asserts, then "spirit" is a dimension of reality, compatible with physical existence. In this case, humans are not divided but rather are unities of body, mind, and spirit. The result is that spirituality has a much more wholistic and down-to-earth meaning. It encompasses the whole of human life and will develop in a variety of styles, depending on cultures, denominations, personalities, and gifts."

"The greatest religious challenge of our age is to hold together social action and spiritual disciplines. This is not just a theological necessity, dictated by the need to integrate all of life around the reality of the living God.
It is a matter of sheer survival."
~Walter Wink~

When words aren't enough...

We put so much clout on "words." Yet, the words we speak and the message we intend isn't synonymous with the words people hear and more importantly, often not synonymous with the message we intended for them to hear.

What happens then when we attempt communicate a message that is riveted with present-eternal significance?

What do we do when words aren't enough...?

How would we communicate the message of Christ and the Story of Scripture without words...?

The Loft...

For the past several months we have been praying, dreaming, envisioning how we could create a process and environments that foster spiritual formation for our children...

In just a few short weeks we will be launching those very dreams...