This is Tuesday in Holy Week. We met again in a place of quiet and candlelight. In the Night Prayer service, there is this line that catches me every time we sing it: Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping, that awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace.

Every time I hear it, I am caught by the truth that there is no place and no time when we are not within the providence of Christ. Whether we know it or not. Whether we receive it or not. Christ’s loving disposition towards us holds us.

Tonight our pastoral intern introduced each of the three lessons with a few words to help us connect this day and these lessons to what will come later in the week.

Here’s what captured me this evening.

We read a little further in John 12, past where we stopped in the reading last night. Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

And then there were words about the darkness. She reminded us that there is darkness and despair that permeate the events that lie before us. She proclaimed that even in the midst of darkness, there is the promise of light and life and resurrection.

In those moments,  as I heard the wise words from this young leader, that canticle that I have sung so often came flooding to my mind even before we had a chance to sing them; Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping, that awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace.

She ended with these words: wisdom and redemption can come from none other than the crucified and risen Christ; the light dwells among us, in the place, this very night, to lead us on a journey through the darkest time and darkest roads of life, even as we await in eager longing for the risen Lord.

The seed that is planted in the cold, dark ground will sprout. There will be life.

Dear Reader,

This may sound a bit odd, that I, as writer, would ask you, as reader to participate in this essay beyond just reading. But, I’m going to take a chance. Will you stop for a moment and call to mind a moment of transformation in your life? Think of a time when you where changed. It may be a sudden, catastrophic moment or it may be a long, gradual process that led to a moment of insight or recognition. It may be something positive or it may be an event that at the time seemed so negative that you weren’t sure you would make it through.

Got it? Think it through as if you were telling it to someone as a story. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Now, think of another one. Yep. One more. Same prompt. A time when you were changed. Sudden or long process. Positive or negative. One more time, think it through as if you were telling it to someone as a story. You might even want to take a moment with a pen and paper or your word processing program on your tablet. I’ll wait.

Could I talk you into doing it one more time? Sure. I’ll wait. I’ve got all the time in the world. And this could be important.

What I just asked you to do was one of the early exercises from a recent retreat for our church council and staff. I wish you could have been a fly on the wall watching what happened. Folks were astonishingly engaged in telling their stories and in listening to others. The positive energy that flowed from this exercise went way beyond my expectations.

Even beyond that, what I learned in the telling of these stories surprised me. I expected to hear accounts of being impacted by a parent or a favorite teacher. Maybe it would be a vocational decision made in the midst of all the growth of the college years.

Of the 30 or so stories that got told in that room in that 60 minutes, almost all told of some crisis: the death of a spouse; the death of a parent; the financial collapse of 2007 and the sudden realization of job vulnerability; the break-up of a marriage. Almost everyone spoke of moments of pain, of loss, and earth-shattering crisis.

Now, admittedly, this is not hard research. This is a very small sample and anecdotal at best. At least in this group, what they remembered as truly transformative, life-shaping experiences were at the time moments of crisis, of deep pain or struggle, the kinds of things that they would never have chosen to go through. Yet in the rearview mirror of passing time, these moments took on the character of moments of great growth that in retrospect could be seen as gifts, as times of great blessing. I’m not sure those who told of these moments even recognized them as such, except in the telling. The blessing, the growth, came in how they responded to the moments of crisis.

Something else that became crystal clear as the group stepped back and processed what they had just heard: these moments of crisis that became not only formative, but transformative were not things that anyone could plan for. Now maybe that’s obvious. Or maybe not. We put such a value on planning our lives, as if we had complete — or even mostly — control over what happens. But in the meantime, life happens. Things happen, both positive and negative, that we could never have imagined, nor would we have ever chosen. Yet these are the moments that we label transformative. I think there’s a lesson there.

I also happen to think that’s a pretty good pretty good parable for the church. Historically, we have spent so much time and effort on planning based on the premise that we kind of know what’s going to happen. We’ve done planning and visioning and strategizing, world without end, Amen. But the future usually doesn’t work like that. Not to mention that our plans for the future are often simply what we’ve done in the past gussied up a bit.

We are living in a moment of rapid, paradigm-busting change. And in times of rapid change the strategic planning model just doesn’t work very well. What we can do is get into the habit of looking around us, even in the crisis du jour, to see what God might be opening up for us. And these opportunities — our should we call them crises — just might turn out to be moments of transformation.

In the beginning, there was nothing. And God spoke worlds into existence. By words, God spoke worlds into existence. According to the biblical account, God spoke, and there was.

Maybe you think that’s too magical, or not the way real life works.

But I know better. I know that when parents speak constant words of criticism, children grow up thinking they will never measure up. And when parents speak words of encouragement and support, children grow up believing in their ability.

I know that when presidential candidates speak a word of hope and optimism, then people vote for them, believing that the world they describe is actually possible. And when politicians speak words about fearing those who are different, people actually live in and act from fear.

I know that when I speak words of encouragement and support to the people I work with, they take those words into their work and do excellent things.

I know that when churches constantly talk about how small and insignificant they are, they will act in ways that are small and insignificant. And when churches are told that they are changing the world for the sake of God’s purposes in the world, they find a miraculous boldness of action.

So, I don’t believe it’s a stretch of the imagination to believe that we call worlds into being by the words and speech that we use.

I decry the violence of the world. I decry that children are killed through senseless gun violence. I decry that our culture has become so fearful of the other that we think that guns have a place in providing safety.

So, I want to call into being a different world. I want to call into being a world that eschews violence.  I want to call into being a world that is based on cooperation and dialogue and love and peace. You may think that’s pie in the sky and has no connection with reality. But I don’t believe that.

And because I want a different world and because I want to call into being a different world, I have decided there is a whole set of words that I will no longer use. I will no longer say that I am “blown away” by something that is full of wonder. I don’t want my wonder to be associated with language of violence and death.

I will no longer “pull the trigger” when I am ready to move on something. When I move forward on a great opportunity, I don’t want it to be associated with killing something; I want it to be associated with bringing life.

I will no longer seek to reach a “target audience” but will talk about the group of people I’m trying to reach.

I will not longer talk about “dodging a bullet”, but of avoiding a close brush with danger.

I will not talk about people who “go ballistic” or “go postal.”  Or about things that get “shot to hell” or about “going off half-cocked” or about the realism of “no magic bullet.” I won’t talk about risky situations that are “filled with land mines” or about “shooting the messenger.”

If I think about this, there is an entire world of  language that I use that is the language of violence. With a little discipline and attentiveness, I am embarking on a crusade to remove that language from my usage.

This may seem like a small thing, but I don’t think so. I think there is power in the way we use words. The numbing of our collective psyche to violence is betrayed by the way violent language has become ubiquitous in our usage, and we don’t even notice it. In my circles, there’s been a movement to dismantle the traditional church Sunday School in favor of a very different approach. I suspect there’s some merit in the idea. But I was caught off guard when the movement was given the name, “Kill Sunday School.” There’s something drastically wrong when even in the church the best we can come up with is the language of violence to promote what otherwise might be a good idea.

So, I invite you to join me. Purge the language of violence and guns and bullets and targets from the way you speak and write. Who knows, we just might call another world into being with our words.

I’m guessing it was probably a Tuesday night. In January. That’s when we had basketball games — Tuesdays and Fridays. I don’t think it was a Friday because I was in a hurry to get home. It was a Tuesday. I still had homework. I was a junior in high school, on the varsity basketball team. Don’t be impressed. We only had 49 students in my graduating class and I wasn’t a starter. I usually got to play a little when one of the starters needed a breather or was in foul trouble. I honestly don’t remember a single thing about the game. I only remember that it was cold outside, really cold. The streets outside our high school were snow-packed, and I was anxious to get home. I didn’t have my own car; when I drove, I drove my dad’s car, a rear engine, rear drive Renault. Four door, 1100 cc engine, and a four speed stick shift.

I had parked on the street directly in front of the high school. Must have gotten there early. That was prime parking space. To get home, I proceeded along the street in front of the high school for about a block and then had to make a left turn down a side street towards Main, which would be my most direct route home.

So, I made that left turn. I don’t remember that I was going too fast, though I could have been. The car began to go in a direction that I didn’t want it to, and I couldn’t change it. I was skidding towards a parked car; I put on the brakes and I kept sliding.  I was going slow enough that when I hit the rear passenger door on the driver’s side of the parked car, it wasn’t a huge deal. I broke the turn signal on my car and put a dent in the 4-door Chevy Nova that was parked in my path.

Much worse is that the car belonged to Eddie Stafford. And that there were people around who saw that I had skidded around the corner and put a dent in Eddie Stafford’s car.

I was a junior. Eddie Stafford was a senior. I was a bench warmer on the basketball team. Eddie Stafford was the starting center, the star of the team, almost every game the high scorer and the high rebounder on our team. If we won games, it was usually because Eddie Stafford had a good game. He was not tall and lanky. He was solid. Like the Statue of Liberty. Rock solid. He was the center on the football team. He was a state qualifier in the discus. And he had a reputation that you didn’t cross him. He would make you pay for it.

So, now what do I do? I wanted so bad to just back up and keep moving. Go home as if it never happened. The thing is, I knew that others had seen me ding his car. And I figured that he would see the dent, and it would be only a matter of time before he would come looking for me asking about the dent in his car. If there was a high school mafia, Eddie Stafford was The Godfather.

Maybe I could drive. Just drive and keep driving. Never come back. Call my parents from someplace in Montana and tell them I had joined the circus. Or something.

I parked my car and headed back into school to look for Eddie Stafford, hoping somehow that I would not find him and that at least the word would get out that I had been looking for him. I was scared. Barely able to control bodily functions. Walked through the entry hallway still populated by stragglers from the game. Headed toward the locker room, and there he was. Hanging out by the doorway to the gym, smiling, doing the chit-chat thing with fans congratulating him for a good game.

Because I didn’t know how to do this, I did it the only way I could think of.  Walked up to him and said, “Hey, Eddie, something I need to talk to you about.”

“Ok. Shoot,” he said, turning his focus from the small talk around him.

“You know your car?” I said. “Parked right across the street from school?  That’s yours, right? Greenish Nova?”

“Yeah, that’s mine. What about it?”

“Well. I kinda bumped into it. I was going around the corner and slid. I almost stopped. But I hit the back door on the driver’s side. Put a little dent in the door.  I’m sorry.”

I was happy there were people around. I mean, how hard could he hit me with all these people around?

“On the door? Don’t worry about it. There were probably three dents there already. See you tomorrow.” He turned back to his adoring fans. I walked down the hallway, out the door and drove home.

And to think that I almost drove to Montana for that.

Lahiri Jhumpa’s novel, The Lowland, is a brilliant work of masterful storytelling.

The story finds its impetus in the political turmoil of India in the 1960’s, but it’s not a political novel. The story is underpinned by the structures of Indian society and culture, but it’s not a novel about India. The story goes back and forth between India and the U.S., but it’s not a novel about the immigrant experience.

The novel opens with two brothers in their childhood. Not only are they brothers, they are best friends playing and going to school in a middle class neighborhood on the wrong side of Calcutta. Udayan is the younger brother, impetuous and daring, Subhash, the older, more cautious brother. After the first few years of college, their paths diverge; Udayan becomes involved in Maoist revolutionary underground activities: Subhash goes to the US to complete his graduate work.

The decisions and consequences that each of the brothers makes early in the story reverberate throughout the story, and as it turns out, throughout Subhash’s life and the life of the next generation.

At it’s heart, it’s a story about the consequences of our decisions and the impact they have on those around us. We make decisions, sometimes in the mistaken belief that they are our decisions and that they will have, at worst, minimal impact on those around us. But they often — no usually — reverberate in places and ways that we could never have imagined, in ways both good and bad. Like it or not, we leave legacies for the people around us, and we are the recipients of the legacies of others. We often have no control over the decisions made by those we love, but we end up having to bear the consequences of their decisions. Some of us become completely immobilized by the forces over which we have no control. Others of us manage to forge a life anyway, even in the midst of the pain and tragedy that constitute the chapters of our own lives.

I. While some critics have called the novel over-reaching and that it fails to deliver on the promise of the epic story laid out in the early chapters. I don’t agree. There’s a reason why it was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. Lahiri writes in a sparse style, yet somehow manages to be elegant within her economy of words. The tale is masterfully constructed and beautifully told; I found it to be honest, yet hopeful. It’s one of the best novels I’ve read in the past year.

If there’s anyone out there who has one more space in their brain for a post-Christmas Christmas reflection (after all it is still Christmas according to the Christian calendar — the 9th day of Christmas, if I’m counting correctly), I offer the following.  Can we put the War on Christmas to bed?  And never, ever bring back it back?

For one thing, as far as I know, no one declared a War on Christmas. What’s funny and irritating to me is that the language about a perceived War on Christmas comes from those who supposedly are speaking on behalf of Christianity. They apparently perceive an intentional movement to purge any religious connections from the larger cultural observance of Christmas. I view it as an evolving cultural shift that has less to do with trying to smack down Christianity and more to do with an increasingly diverse and globally influenced culture.  I haven’t seen any evidence of a large concerted and diabolical effort to sanitize the celebration. It has seemed more like an awareness that not everyone accepts the religious aspects of Christmas and for it not to be forced on those who hold different beliefs.

Here’s a tiny aside (rant): brothers and sisters who claim to speak for Christianity, can we just let go of the militaristic imagery? Why does every conflict or tension or disagreement have to take on the language of war. For almost my entire life, the U.S. has been in a state of perpetual war. We seem to have gotten comfortable with it. We now use militaristic language for anything we struggle against: the war on drugs, the war on cancer, the war on poverty (which in my mind has turned into a war on the poor). Frankly, I just think it’s the wrong language and the wrong imagery. Words matter. They form our thoughts and actions.

But that’s not the point I want to make. If you’re worried that the removal of manger scenes from public places and the greeting “Happy Holidays” replacing the supposedly more religious greeting, “Merry Christmas,” are going to ruin Christmas, then I think you’re barking up the wrong tree. Those things aren’t central to the celebration on Christmas in the church. Even though I am a committed Christian, I don’t consider it appropriate that government buildings and spaces display religious scenes, especially as our society becomes religiously more diverse. I don’t see the removal of religious imagery from public places as a threat. If there is a separation of church and state, it seems to me that it applies here.

If we (the church) want to spread the meaning of the season — the profound truth that God has come to make dwelling with us in the Baby of Bethlehem — then we’re not helping ourselves by wagging our fingers at the larger society and insisting that they believe like us or make room for religious references they don’t believe in. Nothing about that approach is consistent with the core of what we believe.

Besides, there’s a far greater threat to the meaning of Christmas that comes just as much from inside the church as from the larger culture. The far more insidious disintegrator of Christmas is the rampant consumerism that has grown up around the festival. The voices that are angry at the loss of “Merry Christmas” as a seasonal greeting seem to have no problem with how the holy season preceding the holy day has become a spending bacchanalia.

Don’t get me wrong. Consumerism isn’t a seasonal malady. It’s not just at Christmas that we spend money we don’t have for things we don’t need. We do that all year long. But the cultural expectation has become so great at this time of the year, that few people stop to give it a thought. What are we doing buying all this stuff?

I am complicit. I have my own issues. A few years ago, I preached a sermon revealing that I had something like 35 dress shirts in my closet. No one needs 35 dress shirts. I love the outdoors. When I’m not thinking about it, buying outdoor things seems to scratch some itch about being an outdoors person. Sierra Trading Post is my crack.

There is a restless yearning. There is a grasping for that one thing (or many things) that well satiate our thirst. That seems to be the fate of broken humanity. Being a person of faith doesn’t insulate from the yearning. But the biblical faith points us to God as the object of that yearning. And the Christian faith tells us that contentment is to be found in knowing God in Christ. Instead, we mostly join with the larger culture in seeking our satisfaction in buying things, even if we can justify it by saying that we’re buying things for others.

Rather, I think we should take a different approach. Feed the poor. Shelter the homeless. Work for peace. Show a little respect and empathy for those who have honest convictions different than ours and try to understand their point of view. When asked, tell what Christmas means in our own lives. And demonstrate by our buying habits that we have a greater love for God and for God’s world than for the things that can be bought at the mall.