But then came Ash Wednesday, which we did not observe because that was “Catholic” and we weren’t Catholic. Of course, I enjoyed Fat Tuesday because I liked to indulge my appetites, but not Ash Wednesday—not Lent for that matter—because all those ashy crosses on people’s foreheads and Friday fasts from meat and religious versions of New Years resolutions were just meaningless traditions—empty rituals—that had no place in my iconoclastic faith.

But lately I’ve been rethinking some of these “meaningless traditions.” Though admittedly more of a spiritual discipline than a church tradition, I’ve recently begun to think through the purpose and practice of fasting, which played no role in my faith for the first 24 years of my life.

So why fast?

It certainly seems counterintuitive to deliberately separate ourselves from enjoying the good things God has so richly provided—certainly counter in our modern, American context of plenty. Why not just always give thanks to God, and then—as the writer of Ecclesiastes so eloquently puts it—eat, drink, and be merry?

In thinking through all of this, I read a passage of scripture I’m sure I’ve read a thousand times, the account of the Last Supper as told by Luke. Unassumingly, I read these words of Jesus to his disciples:

“I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I say to you, I shall never again eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”

Then he passes the cup to his disciples and adds:

“Take this and share it among yourselves; for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine from now on until the kingdom of God comes.”

If there is anyone in the cosmos who has every right to eat, drink, and be merry, it is Jesus, who overcame 33 years of life as a suffering servant, who died a torturous death on a cross, and who descended into Hell itself. Now He is seated at the right hand of the Heavenly Father in all His glory. It’s His turn to party.

Instead, He fasts. For us. For the coming of the Kingdom in all its fullness. Jesus is waiting to feast for the day when we’ll all be gathered around the table together at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.

He fasts longing to be joined with us. We should fast longing to be joined with Him.

What I’ve realized while “living into” this discipline of fasting is how much I not only enjoy earthly blessings, but also how much I depend on them. At the end of a day of fasting with fatigue crushing in, I realize how dependent I am, how weak I am, and how much I need God. I hope this realization will grow into a deeper yearning to be with God that only He can satisfy, because though He is in the throne room of Heaven in all its splendor, He longs to be with me.

So Lent is upon us, and for thousands of years, Christians of all stripes have fasted together for a season in anticipation of the very weekend that justifies our whole religion. This is no mere meaningless tradition. I’ve come to realize that what makes a tradition meaningless is not anything intrinsic to the tradition itself, but rather our lack of understanding of the meaning of the tradition. I’m grateful that I am beginning to realize just how meaningful this Lenten tradition is, and I think I’m now ready to observe the very holiday that logically follows Fat Tuesday.

May this be a season to fast and to hunger for God who alone satisfies our deepest longings and desires.

Driving home from Pittsburgh yesterday afternoon—after one more year of “going up to Jerusalem” for the annual Jubilee and its thesis that “everything matters” –I was listening to “The Best of Bob Dylan” as I made my way from Pennsylvania to Maryland to Virginia. He is a genius.

And so I heard again the words of my life, from “Blowin’ in the Wind” to “The Times They Are a Changin’” to “Mr. Tambourine Man”…. and on and on over the years. Lyrics and images that have echoed through my consciousness for all of my life were my companions as I drove into the night, finally onto the Beltway of Washington with snowflakes falling on the highway.

Finally he came to “Gotta Serve Somebody,” and I found myself thinking of my work with The Washington Institute, always pressing one more time into the integral relationship of faith to vocation to culture, always arguing one more time that vocation is integral, not incidental, to the missio Dei.

Dylan got that, poetically and profoundly—and of course I wish a simply conversation was possible, as I would love to hear him reflect again on this insight, one of the truest truths of the universe as it is.

You may be an ambassador to England or France
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls.

You may be a preacher with your spiritual pride
You may be a city councilman taking bribes on the side
You may be working in a barbershop, you may know how to cut hair
You may be somebody’s mistress, may be somebody’s heir.

You’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.

Because of years living in relation to Pittsburgh—some years as a resident and many years as a visitor –I have been drinking Turner Dairy’s milk for a long time. This family-owned company offers the city an array of products that are a foretaste of eschatological cuisine.

Yesterday I drove up Jefferson Road in the east hills of Pittsburgh, and wound my way into the headquarters of the dairy, eager to finally meet Walt Turner. For years I have heard of him through good friends whose judgment I trust, and finally we sat down to talk. A remarkably thoughtful man about all things that matter, he has a deeply-wrought vision for his vocation, connecting cows and a city.

From a principled concern for safety and health, exceeding local and national regulations for a quality product, to the intriguing reality that Walt knows the names and histories of everyone who works for him—stopping along the way of the tour he gave me to talk to scientists and engineers and bottlers and loaders and drivers and office-staff –to the fascinating family-wide, generational commitment to serving the city of Pittsburgh, the longer I listened the more deeply I loved this man.

We sat down at a table with magazines and newspapers telling the tale of the dairy. From the Post-Gazette’s “Best Place to Work” to its Gold Medals and First Places in national competitions, they have achieved an excellence that is rare. But it is the unusual heart of a man and his family that have stewarded a vision of business as common grace for the common good that makes sense of who they are and what they do– and makes their 1% Chocolate Milk not only tasty, but healthy too.

So as we talked we gloried in the gift of that comes from cows, imaginatively mixed together with cocoa by the Turner Dairy, making it the best chocolate milk in America. A conversation about a calling, about cows, about a city, and about the common good—a gift to me, and to all of us.

A week ago I gave a lecture to a large gathering of town-and-gown on the Cornell University campus in Ithaca, NY. A weekend given to the “between two worlds” dynamic that John Stott articulated in his life and writing, it was a gift to be part of their life for several days.

I took up the famous words, and warning, of the novelist and essayist Walker Percy in his story, “The Second Coming,” viz. that lurking around the corner of everyone’s heart is the possibility of “getting all A’s and still flunking life.”

While the question of the responsibility of knowledge goes deep in my life—the relationship of knowing to doing –its reality ripples through everyone’s life. In fact I would argue that it is the heart of everyone’s heart, sons of Adam and daughters of Eve that we are. Since the beginning of time we are people who stumble over what we know, and what we do with what we know. Or in the words of the Great Temptation, “What will you do with what you know?”– an epistemological temptation with a moral thrust.

I chose to begin the lecture with the very new news of the final court resolution of a heart-breaking tragedy here in Washington. Only a week earlier the horrible murder of a young woman by another young woman, both employees working at the Lululemon Store in an upscale shopping district of the city, had finally come to a sad end with a murder conviction. Awful as that was in every way, that the employees of the Apple Store next door, sharing an adjoining wall, heard the repeated cries, “Help me! Help me! Help me!” and chose to do nothing, only added to the horror.

How is it possible that we call people like that “geniuses” and “experts”? Those being, of course, the designations that Apple gives its store employees. Having been at the local mall several times in the last few days, needing work done on my MacBook Pro, and seeing a Lululemon store across the hall from the Apple store– a commercial proximity that is repeated all over the country, if not the world –keeps this question before me. What does it mean to “know”? And to be responsible for what we know?

Before the lecture was all over we stepped into a longer reflection on Michael Polanyi and Walker Percy, and the ways that both critically recast the meaning of the Enlightenment in light of what Percy called “the murderous, mechanized 2oth-century.” Or as Polanyi asked, after watching two world wars run through Europe, ruining a civilization, “How is it possible that we can be brilliant and bad at the same time?”

Hard questions, always. Learning to learn in a way that connects knowledge with responsibility is the only way forward, the only way to be fully human. It was not a small thing that Vaclav Havel argued that “the secret of man is the secret of his responsibility”– responsible, able to respond.

Bringing the evening to a close, I offered the wisdom of the French philosopher Simone Weil, and especially her vision of sacramental learning. As if to put a point on that insight, the last night of her too-short life she wrote these words in her journal, the final words on the final page, “The most important task of teaching is to teach what means to know.”

It is always possible to get all A’s and still flunk life– for everyone of us.

Twice in the last few days I have been drawn into serious conversations with serious people about situations that are both complex and unjust. One was the reason for a dinner on Capitol Hill this week, and Meg and I walked into a house where long friends were gathering to think with a new friend from Sri Lanka about deeply-established patterns of social and economic oppression on the tea plantations of his country. A story repeated thousands of times over the centuries in every culture, those who have show very little interest in those who do not have, apart from the benefit gained from their hard work to grow and harvest the tea. How is it possible to eat a wonderful meal, glorying in the goodness, and at the same time respond to something that is painfully not right?

And then I was invited to take part in another long conversation at a think tank in the city, this time focused on the generational injustice of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Serving on the board of the group sponsoring the gathering already means that I am committed to working on this, but this time there were many people from many places who together came to hear stories of what is and of what might be. Most want to choose a side in this one—either the Israeli or the Palestinian –but that only further escalates the problem. It is a land of two peoples, and neither one is going away. We heard of hope, and of despair, both wrought from the reality that what is is not the way it’s supposed to be.

There are few days or weeks that issues like this don’t come knocking at the door of my heart. Sometimes I step in more fully, joining in as a board member, and other times I offer something less, even if heartfelt. But always the cries of longing come close, and I know that I cannot just act as if nothing can be done, that nothing is worth being done.

A few years ago my good friend Gideon Strauss asked me to write on the vocation of politics for Comment, the magazine he then edited. Over a summer I thought about it, and finally offered him “Making Peace with Proximate Justice.” The essay has gone far and wide, surprisingly, and still I hear from people from all over the world who have found its vision of something—not everything but not nothing either –a way forward as they try to respond to the world that is theirs.

I know of no other way to live.

http://www.cardus.ca/comment/article/932/finding-our-way-to-great-work-even-in-politics-making-peace-with-proximate-justice

Yesterday I was given a tour of the Cornell University campus, and we stopped at the Johnson Art Museum, designed by I.M. Pei. As we walked through, I saw a sculpture, the Walking Man of Alberto Giacometti, and thought of years ago when I wrote about it in my master’s thesis. Hoping to understand many things that mattered to me then, I titled it, “What Is It To Be Human? Understanding the Relationship of Philosophical Anthropology and Psychotherapy.” Those years of study still shape my life in the world.

In the thesis, Giacometti took his place alongside Bob Dylan, especially his song “Thin Man.” My argument was that in the 20th-century human beings were feeling increasingly alienated, not having a place in history and the cosmos that oriented them/us about who we are and why we are—and that these artists felt that in their work, sculpting and singing about the “thinness” of the human condition. Pretty interesting, huh?

And so here I am, most of my life later, lecturing within the Cornell community for a weekend, still thinking about the conditions of human flourishing, of what it means to be a human being. The direction has changed some; no longer am I looking at the implications for psychotherapy. Rather I am fixed on the question of vocation, of who we are and how we live—situated within commitments we make about what we believe and what we think it all means for history. That nexus is the heart of all I do, viz. faith, vocation and culture. That what we believe about the deepest things of life, shapes the way we live life, and that has consequence for life—for everyone everywhere.

Here is what the museum says about the Walking Man.

“After WWII, Giacometti turned from his earlier Cubist and Surrealist work and became especially interested in creating figures that would always appear to the viewer as if from a great distance, no matter how close one stood. He achieved this by paring the figure down to its essential components, and by making the figure as lean as possible. But Giacometti’s fragile men and women are also inseparable from the post-war attitudes that were crystallized in the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre. An ardent admirer of Giacometti, Sartre believed that it was naive to hope for any higher purpose in life since man, though free, was alone and responsible only to himself for his actions. Giacometti’s emaciated, post-Holocaust figures, with their eroded, crumbling surfaces, suggest the antithesis of heroism or nobility, associations traditionally linked to European sculpture.”

Walker Percy was right one more time. The Enlightenment, audaciously self-named, created the conditions where we are lost in the cosmos. Not much of a sense of vocation is possible, of being called to a life that matters, in that very alienated world. Lonely and alone we are, without a God and without a reason to live.

One seminary said “yes.” And so two years ago we committed to Covenant Theological Seminary to be the co-sponsor of a new degree. One of my longest friends, Don Guthrie– for many years their academic dean and a professor as well –is teaching this along with me. We began last May in St. Louis, and our second week was here in Washington this week.

Much to say about it, but for here I want to note two books that are the heart of our vision: Work Matters by Tom Nelson and Kingdom Callings by Amy Sherman. We have focused on both in our articles on the website the last few months; a review and interview with Tom, and the afterward of Amy’s book. Two weeks ago I was with Tom in LA at Fuller Seminary, hosted by Gideon Strauss of the Max DePree Center there; and this week Amy joined us for Wednesday, with her committed passions about “vocational stewardship and the common good.”

We are very excited about both people and their books. Good friends to us, we have watched their books be born. Tom asked me to write a recommendation now on the back cover, and Amy asked me to write the afterward to her book. In their own unique and different ways they have argued with wisdom and passion the conviction that is ours, viz. vocation is integral, not incidental, to the missio Dei.

Almost always I am aware of the reality that there is much good work to be done, working as we are at the thesis that faith shapes vocation shapes culture. Having the gifts of Tom’s and Amy’s new books continue this conversation, making it one with consequences that will ripple out into the church and the world.

http://thegospelcoalition.org/book-reviews/review/kingdom_calling

***

While babysitting on New Year’s Eve I had plenty of time to contemplate the old year and the new one. I brought my journal in anticipation of writing resolutions or something of the sort, but as I sat down to write, I realized I didn’t really have a list of resolutions, per se. Sure, I’d like to travel to some neat places, learn to become a better cook, find a job, move to the mountains…you know, all menial things like that. And, as I was thinking, I began to ponder the fact that writing new year’s resolutions, although by no means a sin, does carry a certain “how to be your own selfish pig” connotation.  That is, “here are the things that I WILL ACCOMPLISH! For the betterment of ME!”

In many ways our culture breeds us to believe that we can, in fact, control everything if we are determined enough. And while I don’t believe the way I live necessarily contradicts this belief, I like to think that when I set my mind to do certain things, most of the time, I can achieve them. However, where does this leave us in Christ’s kingdom? According to Jesus, not in a very stable place. So, with new winds blowing through my mind, I resolved to write a different kind of New Year’s resolution. As Christians, we believe there is no true and real freedom outside of Christ so we must first commit to following him and second, we must take up our weapons to fight the battles in which we are placed.

“Resolute”, the frame word for resolution means: marked by firm determination. Surely, if we believe that we are determined enough to lose 10 pounds, we will. If everything ought to be done in and through God, however, shouldn’t our new year’s resolutions look that way, too? In fact, I did some further etymological studies to learn that we get our word from the Latin word: resolvo which means, “to again unbind, set free.” I don’t know about you, but I think I would much rather step into 2012 being reminded that I am “again, unbound” rather than the reminder that my future is determined by me alone. I love the definition: to unbind, to set free. I think that is what Jesus wants us to remember not just at the start of the New Year, but at the start of every day! Galations 5:1 says “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.” Let’s cast off the yoke of slavery from our New Year’s resolutions–the ones that are for our glory, because isn’t it clear that that is not freedom?

Since no one really keeps resolutions anyways, I hoped to make a more sustainable “list”, which is attached and can be referenced and revisited throughout the year instead of just one night. Instead of stepping into the year trying to hold true to promises I make to myself, I hope to step into it being encouraged and excited by the many promises God has made to me and to his people. This takes the control and plans for my new year and places them firmly under God’s watchful hand. I don’t think it is wrong to desire to change things, to start new ventures, to pick up new hobbies…in fact, it is this unique set of abilities that distinguishes us as humans made in the image of God. But to understand that it is only God who can change our hearts and re-wire our brains makes a big difference.

I hope that you will all fill it out throughout the year, and how wonderful it would be to be able to share them all in a year and see how God is working FOR us, continually unbinding and setting us free. To these beliefs, I am resolute.

“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.”

And as one of my good friends says to me, often, “The work of our hands matters, Steve.” He is an entrepreneur, profoundly so– so much so that it is hard for most of us to live a day of our lives without interacting with something that he has touched with his vision and skill, his creativity and imagination—yes, the work of his hands.

Seeing the beautiful City Hall of Pasadena, CA, driving into the city at midnight, made me reflect on the work of someone’s hands– probably a cast of thousands in fact. Of city fathers and mothers who had visions of what they wanted, of architects who listened and created, of builders of all sorts—with hammers and trowels, with rulers and saws, with chisels and shovels –whose literal hands brought this building into being.

“Since its opening on December 27, 1927, 80-year old Pasadena City Hall has remained one of the most distinctive public buildings in the United States and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. An official building of imposing beauty, massive yet graceful, and suited to a land of flowers and sunshine” is what the Pasadena Board of Directors (called the City Council in modern times) had in mind when they undertook to build the present City Hall.”

Tom Nelson, author of the very good new book, Work Matters, and my walking companion this morning, put it this way, “That is not just a utilitarian construction!” Instead, someone wanted to make something beautiful for the generations. A gift to history– in its own wonderfully unique way, a common grace for the common good.

“When we do our jobs with excellence and integrity and diligence,” the narrator insists about our work, “it’s an act of worship.  We are displaying God’s craftsmanship to the non-believing world around us.”  As we plunge into the new year, let us keep this attitude in mind in all we do.

Enjoy this video, which, in all its artistry,  is as much an act of worship as it is a fresh reminder to us all.

(Originally posted at RightNow.org)