"One Three Nine" by Aubrey Logan

To have a listen, click ONE THREE NINE.

I was excited that Psalm 139 came up in the lectionary. During the early days of the pandemic, I fell in love with the jazz of Aubrey Logan. She does trombone and vocals with a rhythmic fusion of jazz, pop, and rock, and sometimes her music has religious overtones (in addition to generally wholesome themes). I suspect she has a United Methodist background, because she has a number of times quoted things found in our hymnal. This selection is a good example.

I presented Aubrey Logan's "One Three Nine" in worship in June of 2024. I share it here in hopes that it helps you get in touch with the inescapable love of God through the words of Psalm 139.

Notice that she quotes "Oh, How I Love Jesus" at the beginning and the end. She didn't just do that because it's a pretty tune, she did it because it's a theological statement. She wraps the love of our Creator, who searches and knows us intricately, together with Christ in the last verse, in fact.

To have a listen, click ONE THREE NINE.

Wesley wasn’t “converted” at Aldersgate

I have an Episcopalian friend who remarked that it bothered him that people call the Aldersgate experience Wesley’s “conversion”. He’s absolutely right. This is what I wrote in the comments and I want to share it here.

I always balk and correct people when they call the Aldersgate experience Wesley’s “conversion.” You are absolutely on target, that’s reading Wesley through revivalist eyes. That’s saying he wasn’t really a Christian before then, like he wasn’t really “saved.” 

He was in fact quite faithful, studied, and an Anglican missionary in Georgia.

He did not claim that he got “saved” at Aldersgate. His entire theology of the lifelong journey of experiencing prevenient, justifying, and sanctifying grace is in fact what Wesley called “the scripture way of salvation.”

It is far more accurate to say this was a very powerful experience of assurance. “An assurance was given me,” he said, a new peace that he did not have to work so hard. Christian life is about grace. I suppose for some revivalists, this assurance is their definition of “getting saved.” But it wasn’t Wesley’s.

It is important, though, and I would press you back (while completely agreeing about the ridiculous idea that this was his “conversion”) that this experience placed a fire in his belly that became the Methodist movement. It was indeed a turnaround from a perceived sense of failure. He was run off from Georgia, yes, by the family of Sophie Hopky and related legal troubles. But not because he was a general failure as a Christian.

But more fundamentally, it was a vivid personal experience of the “heart religion” he already admired and had seen in the Moravians, and which his brother Charles had experienced the year before.

To use his words, Aldersgate was not an experience of justifying grace (conversion). It was his most vivid experience of sanctifying grace. And that turned his inner light on, with the rest of his life committed to help other people grow in holiness.

Something Divine in Us

This is a powerful quote I shared in my sermon on Sunday.

This is a report given by a pagan official, Aristides, to Emperor Hadrian who was seeking justification to outlaw Christianity. It is from the early 2nd century.

“Christians love one another. They never fail to help widows; they save orphans from those who would hurt them. If someone has something, they give freely to the one who has nothing. If they see a stranger, Christians take them home and are happy, as though he were a real brother or sister. They don’t consider themselves siblings in the usual sense, but instead through the Spirit of God. And if they hear that one of them is in jail, or persecuted for professing the name of their redeemer, they give that person what they need. If it is possible, they bail them out. If one of them is poor and there isn’t enough food to go around, they fast several days to give them the food they need. This is really a new kind of person. There is something divine in them.”

"Where's the Fire?" Homily Shared at the Academy for Spiritual Formation

This is my homily that was shared at a recent Academy for Spiritual Formation at the Warren Willis camp, a United Methodist retreat center in central Florida. Reflecting on Macarius of Egypt as well as the story of my own grandfather, it's about discovering the fire within us, fueled by the fire of the Holy Spirit.

First Reading: 2 Corinthians 3:12-18 (“And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.”)

Gospel Reading: Mark 9:2-8 (the transfiguration)

—

Sometimes I identify with Peter, not so much when he is doing well but when he is doing poorly. He starts his little speech with “It is good for us to be here,” which is what I catch myself saying when I have no idea how to start. It does say in Mark, “he did not know what to say, for they were terrified.”

So instead, let me start by telling you a story about my mother. She was an amazing person of faith. She was the daughter, sister, niece, wife, mother, and mother-in-law of Methodist pastors (the last one is because I married one). But SHE was the spiritual leader of our family.

I was one of four boys, and one of my early memories is of how she took my brothers to school,  then she sat in a particular rocking chair in the kitchen with her morning coffee for about 45 minutes. She called it her “quiet time.” We were not to bother her during her quiet time! I vividly remember sitting on the couch, listening to her coffee cup click and click on the saucer, wondering when she was going to be finished.

I didn’t know it yet, but she was instilling a longing for God in me.

She was also the kind of person who planned for anything, and that’s where my story comes in. She had a funny habit; when staying at a hotel, the first thing she would do was make sure she knew where fire escape was. Know the type?

One time she and Dad went overseas, and they checked into a hotel. She couldn’t figure out where the fire escape was (there were unfamiliar markings in another language), so she started checking doors. She walked in on a fellow who was in a small restroom. “Oh, I’m sorry, I was just looking for the fire escape.” She quickly closed the door and kept looking.

A minute later, here came that fellow running down the hall, hurriedly pulling his pants up. He was yelling, “Where’s the fire? Where’s the fire?!”

Over the last few years, I’ve been asking myself that same question. Where’s the fire?

After a long Covid shutdown followed by an anti-science blowback, I was left asking, “where’s the fire?” After an uptick of racial tensions followed by extremist insurrection against our capital, and then after a rancor-filled season of division in my denomination, so many things have left me asking “Where’s the fire?”

I didn’t have to ask “where’s the dumpster fire?” We’ve seen plenty of those.

Where’s the fire that burns in the heart, the fire that changes the world?

I had no idea Dwight would teach us about Teilhard de Chardin saying, “Someday … we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, [humanity] will have discovered fire.”

THERE’S the fire. THAT’S the fire my soul longs for.

The word for the day is ENCOUNTERING. I want to introduce you to my friend here. These are icons of Macarius the Egyptian. These particular versions of the Macarius icon look less like Lew than the one I brought here a few years ago … these have more hair! But I chose these particular versions because of a common motif in Macarius icons … his HANDS are held up in the GLOW of God who is all light, all flame, and who illumines the soul.

Macarius was a 4th century monk, one of John Wesley’s favorite spiritual ancestors. We know this because Macarius’ book of fifty sermons were required reading for Wesley’s class leaders, and Wesley himself quoted him in his sermon “The Way of Salvation” when he describes “sanctifying grace.”

I read the sermons of Macarius. It changed my life.

This is partly because I discovered Macarius was the original source of Wesley’s theology of how grace comingles with our free will, and of what BOTH of them called Christian perfection (not flawlessness, but a journey of being perfected by the holiness of love). 

Reading his sermons also changed my life because while Wesley used very exacting language (like “prevenient, justifying, and sanctifying grace”), Macarius used the most wonderful metaphorical language I ever heard, like our SOUL is a ship, or a moving throne, or a chariot with Christ as the charioteer, or a castle (yes, Teresa of Avila picked this up from Macarius and ran with it 12 centuries later).

Do you know what Macarius said about spiritual formation? We are all gathered around a FIRE. I invite you to hold your HANDS UP like Macarius, and hear his words:

“As many lights and burning lamps are lighted from fire, but the lamps and lights are lighted and shine from one nature, so also  Christians are enkindled and shine from one nature, the divine fire, the Son of God, and they have their lamps burning in their hearts.”

Do you know what else he said about that lamp burning in each of our hearts, lit from the one fire? He said our SOUL is like a BRONZE vessel you put burning fuel under so the INSIDES are made warm. He adds, “So also grace, the heavenly fire, is also within you.”

The FIRE of the Holy Spirit burning under us becomes a heavenly fire that burns WITHIN us.

So … “where’s the fire?”

The word of the day is “encountering” and part of us LONGS for that kind of encounter with God - an encounter like Peter, James, and John on the mountain, or like Moses whose face was glowing from a personal encounter with GLOW of the great fire.

Let me tell you a personal story about finding that fire.

After a grueling few years of defending my annual conference from harm (some of you know my journey with the “Stay UMC” movement), one day I got out my Grandpa’s Bible.

I didn’t bring it today (it’s too fragile and priceless) but I keep in on my shelf. If I had time, I would tell you a story of Grandpa Hamby (he led a revival in the 1920’s, and brought pistols to the pulpit to defend the church against bootleggers who were trying to shut it down). It’s a colorful story … after all, I am from Alabama.

So I have his preaching Bible. (My uncle gave it to me when I was ordained). One day recently I got it out, and something dawned on me after all the pain of the last few years. I realized it was probably the SAME Bible that sat on that pulpit between those two pistols. But I had never gone through his sermon notes that were folded within its pages.

Well, a few weeks ago, I did. I found a particular one … it was entitled “Why I Love the Church.” Grandpa wrote:

“With all its admitted frailties and human weaknesses, we dare to join with David. Why did David so love the house of God? …

He shared a few thoughts, followed by this: “We love the Church because of what it cost.  The Church is a costly institution. Its history is a story of divine and human sacrifice. Divine. Human. (He underlined these two words)

“Last of all, we love the Church because of its future. We are not manning a sinking ship. We are not fighting a losing battle.”

I then had one of those mystical experiences when I wondered if that was the very sermon he was preaching that day with two pistols on his pulpit to protect his church from getting shut down by those bootleggers. Was it his sermon on “why I love the church?” 

What do you know. I would never take guns to church, but maybe it’s part of my spiritual DNA to “stick to my guns.”

What you also need to know is my Granny’s poem is in front of that Bible, written to my uncle on the eve of HIS ordination. I brought a picture so you can see. It’s entitled “Don’t Forget the Glow.”

This poem has always been dear to me, but now it’s taking on new life:

“I stood beside him proudly,

So much he’d learned to know.

And yet I dared to whisper,

‘Son, don’t forget the glow’.”

“The glow that feeds the hunger

In restless human breasts,

The glow that gives the answer

To life’s long, ceaseless quests.

“The glow that’s so rewarding,

When through the preach’d word

They breathe a prayer of ‘thanks, Sir’

For the wondrous things they’ve heard.

“Always put it in your message. 

Hungry hearts, of God’s lost sheep,

Reaching out for strength and courage,

Need soul-food to climb the steep.

“The glow by which your father

Led countless souls to see

The ‘glow-ry’ of the gospel

As it’s surely meant to be.

“A diamond studded highway

Whose end is sure reward.

So keep it bright and shining,

The glory of his Word.”

Are you asking yourself “where’s the fire?” Are you longing for an ENCOUNTER with God?

There’s already a FIRE that burns beneath your “bronze vessel.” It’s the fire of God’s love. Our part is to fuel it with spiritual practices.

We didn’t START the fire. But if we keep the fuel coming, the holy fire grows hot. After simmering a while, we may find that the heat starts coming from within, too. 

And when it does, well, don’t forget the glow.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Clearing

A poem by Martha Postlewaite

Do not try to save
the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create
a clearing
in the dense forest
of your life
and wait there
patiently,
until the song
that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself
to this world
so worth of rescue.

A Meditation on Sauty Falls

“A Meditation on Sauty Falls”

by Steve West

The water keeps coming.

It keeps coming, coming, coming.

Across the span of history in a way that’s timeless ... from my limited perspective, anyway ... it keeps coming.

Sometimes it’s bigger, louder, and faster. Sometimes it’s smaller, quieter, and slower.

But it keeps coming.

It’s not only the seasons that affect the flow. Year by year, there are changes. They are so subtle you can’t see it. But I trust it.

Sometimes a stone or tree falls in, and the water finds a new way to flow. Sometimes it carves out something entirely new as a result. Sometimes it takes a really long time.

Then sometimes it’s own creative tendency to make crevices of natural flow is reason enough to find new paths. Sometimes, part of the water ventures away from the central flow. That’s okay too. It’s just another part of the beauty.

When people like me come along to have a look, or take a picture, it’s stunningly breathtaking. But the flow is always secretly, subtly changing.

The water keeps coming. It never stops. That’s how it blesses the world.

Why? Because it’s living water.

It’s Living Water.

That’s what it means to me to be part of God’s Church.

This is a picture I took during meditation time after hiking to the falls in Buck’s Pocket State Park.

Does prayer change things? Or does it change me?

A parishioner showed me a beautiful devotional by Oswald Chambers that has a thoughtful statement in it about prayer. I believe it, and it reflects some of my lifetime journey of spiritual formation. Prayer is a gift of God, not something we "do" for God, or to try to get God to "do" something. Prayer is a gift of communion with divine love that can transform the human heart, perfecting us in love and maturity of faith. The traditional theological word for that is "sanctification."

I've always been bothered by the phrase "prayer changes things," not because I don't believe in prayer, or because I don't believe God can do anything God desires to do. On the contrary, to me the implication of the phrase limits the importance of prayer to a way we can get God to do the things we want. Of course, God can do the miraculous, and I think intercessory prayer (praying for others) is both important and lifegiving. Moses is a wonderful example of the power of intercession. It's not an incantation, it's conversation with God that can sometimes leave a glow on your face.

Chambers says it well here.

It is not so true that "prayer changes things" as that prayer changes me and then I change things; consequently we must not ask God to do what He has created us to do. For instance, Jesus Christ is not a social reformer; He came to alter us first, and if there is any social reform to be done on earth, we must do it. God has so constituted things that prayer on the basis of Redemption alters the way a man looks at things. Prayer is not a question of altering things externally, but of working wonders in a man's disposition. When yo prayer, things remain the same, but you begin to be different.

Praying the Psalms

I am so delighted to be part of a church that really believes in prayer.

I love the spirituality of diligently keeping up with a prayer list as a community and lifting those names not only in the newsletter, but as part of heartfelt Sunday morning prayers led by staff. I love the warmth and close proximity of the prayer room which focuses my prayerfulness before and after services, when I’m recording midweek devotions, and whenever I just need to go there to be still and know.

I also love the way this church is accustomed to making the psalms part of morning worship, as well as psalms being embedded in the lyrics of worship songs at Thrive. The psalms call our community to prayer. The psalms are the prayer book of the Church as well as of our ancestors in faith. Jesus had these prayers on his lips and in his heart. Christians keep praying the psalms, and will do so for the expanse of time, in ways that take prayer beyond words.

Whether our personal feelings at any given moment are articulated in a particular phrase, the psalms express the prayers and honest feelings of the whole Church across the world and across time. They give our prayers language and context. They connect us with the ongoing praise and prayer of all creation.

I ran across this good word in my morning devotions, from the martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer whose deep and biblical spirituality led him to stand firmly against the realities of political evil. I share this with you today from his book Life Together.

“The Psalter is the vicarious prayer of Christ for his congregation. Now that Christ is with the Father, the new humanity of Christ - the body of Christ - on earth continues to pray his prayer to the end of time. This prayer belongs not only to the individual member, but to the whole body of Christ. All the things of which the Psalter speaks, which individuals can never fully comprehend and call their own, live only in the whole Christ. That is why the prayer of the Psalms belongs in the community in a special way. Even if a verse or a psalm is not my own prayer, it is nevertheless the prayer of another member of the community; and it is quite certainly the prayer of the truly human Jesus Christ and his body on earth.”

If you are new to praying the Psalms, spend time every morning for a few days praying Psalm 63. That’s a good place to start. Let the words sink in to the very depths of your soul and articulate your thirst for God.

What is Truly Essential about Wesleyan Spirituality?

These are difficult times in North American Methodism. I don’t know what all the answers are related to moving forward, though I know unequivocally that I am not leaving my spiritual home.

I believe traditional, centrist, and progressive United Methodist are called to love and serve together and move forward in history, allowing diversity of thought and practices rather than drawing lines in the sand mirroring the culture wars of America, over issues that are not even mentioned in the gospels or the ancient creeds. It’s in our Wesleyan DNA to be connectional, and  it’s Christ’s vision for the Church evident in his prayer for us in John 17. We are indeed better together.

What is essential to Wesleyan spirituality that will guide us through these times and help us move forward together? I found an excellent article on this subject here and wanted to share it with you.

If you’d like to hear more about our efforts to stay in the UMC, see this website.

#stayumc

God Brings Life to the Dead Branches

Today, I spent some time with the most unlikely of roses.

We have lived in our new home for over four months. As always, moving is a chore (for pastors, it's an occupational hazard). There has been an enormous amount of things to do.

I have loved meeting the people of our new church. That's the best part. But I often say "I love going to new churches, I just don't love moving to get there!" Between unpacking and getting settled, decorating the house, reclaiming the yard, meeting my neighbors, and starting a new ministry, it's always a challenge to get it all done. With COVID, it's been strange challenge indeed.

One of the tasks that went undone was tending to a particular dead rosebush in our backyard. I've noticed it countless times. It's right behind the house, in front of the garage and under an old clothesline post we've reclaimed with teal spray-paint and bird feeders. The branches are brittle and it has looked dead as a doornail for four straight months. I've been meaning to cut it away.

I'm glad I didn't. Last Sunday, suddenly, I noticed a breach of the deadness with a burst of life. A new rose blossom had appeared. Out of the deadness, there is life. Out of the dryness, there is joy. Wow. God did it again.

I have contemplated all week this gift of God. There is so much deadness around us right now. The coronavirus has been an unimaginable curb of normal life, not to mention the death it has brought to hundreds of thousands. The country has been through divisive times politically, as if there are two alternative worlds we live in, not one. Signs of structural racism abound, and I wonder if the energy to bring about prophetic change will fall away as it too often does. The denomination I love is going through a long, drawn-out, slow division as a group makes plans to secede and go start a new denomination.

It feels like there is a dead rosebush that I can't seem to get around to. It just lingers. Where are the signs of life? Then when I least expected it, it appeared. There is hope.

This week, I spent some more time with that little rose. It's moved from being a rosebud to a fully formed thing of beauty. I just can't bring myself now to break away the dead branches, for now they stand behind the rose as a reminder of the deadness God has brought life to.

God did it again. And God will keep doing it again.

Here's a picture of what I experienced in my quiet time today. May the joy of the Lord burst forth in your life, too.

Praying through Music

This is my recent podcast on "Praying Through Music." I created for the "Pray Together" podcast series put together by members of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church.

In it, I suggest one who sings "prays twice." See if you agree:

https://prayingtogether.podbean.com/e/praying-through-music/

Accepting our Sinfulness in a Time of Hypocrisy

By my desk I keep the devotional book "A Year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer," which my daughter thoughtfully gave me for Christmas in 2007. I've never been regimented about doing one devotional each day, but from time to time I plunge in for a number of weeks.

Today, I arrived at this one. It resonates with me as I think about the new year, and ponder the resolution rekindled in me to live in the "wonders of his love" as a person of great compassion for others.

It is so imperative during the massive struggles of Christ and culture in North America today that we do this. I'd like to share this quote with you as we all seek a faith that is more real, relevant, and relational in the midst of "cushy Christianity" and hypocrisy that seems so exposed right now by the winds of change.


"The Pious Community"

"Confess your sins to one another" (James 5:16). Those who remain alone with their evil are left utterly alone. It is possible that Christians may remain lonely in spite of daily worship together, prayer together, and all their community through service - that the final breakthrough to community does not occur precisely because they enjoy community with one another as pious believers, but not with one another as those lacking piety, as sinners. For the pious community permits no one to be a sinner. Hence all have to conceal their sins from themselves and from the community. We are not allowed to be sinners. Many Christians would be unimaginably horrified if a real sinner were suddenly to turn up among the pious. So we remain alone in our sin, trapped in lies and hypocrisy, for we are in fact sinners."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, p. 108.

May you have more than a "happy" new year. May it be a time to be real with yourself, with God, and with your Christian community. With Thomas Merton, I have no idea where I'm going or how I'm going to get there, but I trust that my desire to please God does in fact please God. Yet I do know this. We are here by the grace of God, not by our own perfectionism. The only perfection I strive for is perfection in love.

Thanksgiving Blessing from “The Fonz”

“I live by two words, gratitude and tenacity. Tenacity gets me where I want to go, and gratitude does not allow me to be angry along the way.” - Henry Winkler

Happy Thanksgiving!

A Thought from Kahlil Gibran

This thought resonates with me today from Kahlil Gibran.

“Speak to my soul, oh Lord. May it continue to unfold itself unhindered. May the treasure you have placed in me be revealed to my eyes. My ears indeed thirst for my heart’s knowledge.”

This is what draws me to the table in my studies, because it gets at the heart of me, and the heart if the matter, in ways beyond words.

Bound by Love

“As a Christian, when confronted by a tension between a religious certainty which leads me to violate the law of love and a deep unknowing that still moves in the direction of ‘loving my neighbor as myself,’ I am bound to choose the latter course.”

Cynthia Bourgeault 

Tortured by Their Own Hunger

“For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?” - Kahlil Gibran

This is an extremely wise saying. The farther I get in life, the more I see it. There’s a reason Jesus said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

It helps us see that those who oppose us in life are coming from a place of brokenness we can’t understand. It’s freeing to be clear with ourselves about who we are, and give the rest to God.

Podcast on Jeremiah

Well, I made my very first attempt at Podcasting. I really enjoyed it!

If you have about 20 minutes, join me in walking through some of the chapters of Jeremiah, exploring some of the images and sacred metaphors of my favorite right-brained prophet.

Just click this link:

Podcast on Jeremiah 16-36 - Steve West

What is our Most Essential Belief?

A friend asked “what is the most essential belief in Christianity.” This is what I said:

I’d say the one essential belief (since you asked it that way) is we are created and called for loving God with our whole heart and loving our neighbor as ourselves (Jesus said this was the most essential thing, and added “do this and you will live” which is profound). But on the next tier, to make that possible in grace, I’d say there are FIVE “sacred mysteries” that are core and essential (the Trinity, humanity and divinity of Christ, incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection).

Joy and Sorrow

I have had this book for decades but have felt led to go through it again during my morning prayer time. This devotion met me this morning and strikes a chord, during difficult times in our country and larger church. I find joy in the midst. I feel at peace, knowing my place in the universe.

Steve

On Joy and Sorrow
 Kahlil Gibran

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. 

Some of you say, "Joy is greater thar sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."

But I say unto you, they are inseparable.

Together they come, and when one sits, alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed. 

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.

When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

The Sea Itself Flowing in My Veins

This morning, during morning prayer time, I was reading from "40 Days in the Wilderness" by my friend Dale Clem. I came upon his idea on day 15 that "when we learn and practice being astonished, we also develop a spirit of gratitude." He continues with this. "Tracing the path of a raindrop reminded me of our soul's journeys in, thru, and downward until, finally, we are transformed and rise like a mist." Wow.

He also quotes Anglican mystic Thomas Traherne who says, "You never enjoy the world aright till the sea itself flows in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars."

I pray to you, oh Lord.

In the beauty of creation, and in the beauty of the Body of Christ, there is turmoil, there is conflict and resolution, there is danger and there is balance in the system.

I pray that an ocean of grace flows through my veins, no matter what wounds make me bleed. I pray I am clothed in the love of Christ always, no matter what paintballs may be shot toward me out of deep anxiety. I pray I am crowned with the stars, when I am tempted to stick my head in the sand or be down in the dumps.

Today is my dad's 86th birthday. Let dinner with him tonight be a way of connecting with the very "glory of my creation," being who you made me to be as a shining light in the world. Amen.