Pastor Miller

I remember Pastor Miller preaching at Barclay Heights Community Church. We met in the lodge of an old YMCA camp on Esopus Creek near Glenerie Falls. When the lodge became our permanent home, we changed the name of the church to Glenerie Chapel.

I remember Pastor Miller praying; his opening prayers were nearly the equal of his sermons. These were not pithy, punchy, sound-bited perfunctories; his prayers were ten minutes of engagement with God on matters of the day, from local to global.

I remember Pastor Miller’s velvet singing voice. It reminded me of a baritone Andy Williams with a bit of Mel Torme. From where I sat, singing seemed to be pure pleasure for him.

I remember Pastor Miller telling us about Christ’s Passion during a springtime Sunday night service thirty-some years ago. One of the other teens ran out of the lodge, weeping – overtaken by the description of what Jesus had endured for him. I ran after him and listened to his story.

I remember Pastor Miller’s Christianity including humanness. He didn’t try to portray himself as saintly; he wasn’t aloof from his congregation. He wasn’t afraid to laugh.

I don’t remember when Pastor Miller invited me to call him “Bob”. The truth is I never really got used to it. He was simply “Pastor” to me.

I remember Pastor Miller saying he thought I’d become a pastor someday. I didn’t like that, and I fought it for a long time. But over the years, his was among a small number of voices through which God conferred that calling to me. I don’t wear it as comfortably as he did but I try to be true to my legacy.

Today, I’m remembering to remember because it’s the day of Pastor’s memorial service. I wish I could be present. He and his family are very much on my mind. I’m praying they feel the support of their communities as they find their way forward. I’m praying they know they’re not carrying his memory alone. And I’m praying they find grace today to celebrate him with all their might.

new things

“See, the former things have taken place,
and new things I declare;
before they spring into being
I announce them to you.” Isaiah 42:9, NIV


The way of faith is not static. Belief moves. God’s call, God’s song unfolds dynamically over time. It’s not a puzzle we solve. It is unfrozen.

Humans were not made for stasis; even our brains function best when we’re in motion. Scientist and author, John Medina, explains this phenomenon in his new book, Brain Rules.

Exercise increases oxygen flow into the brain, which reduces brain-bound free radicals. One of the most interesting findings of the past few decades is that an increase in oxygen is always accompanied by an uptick in mental sharpness.

Exercise acts directly on the molecular machinery of the brain itself. It increases neurons’ creation, survival, and resistance to damage and stress. http://www.brainrules.net/

Clearly, the interplay between physical and mental vitality is profound. I suggest spiritual vigor is integral to the same equation. Our place in creation isn’t merely decorative! We’re made to be played, saxophone-like, resonating with the Creator’s breath.

God reaches toward us from our not-yet and invites us to lean into his all-things-work-together-for-good. This is what it means to follow Jesus. This is why we aren’t interested in religion as usual. This is how we find ourselves flourishing at the edge of brand new things.


“We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose.”
Romans 8:28 (Holman Christian Standard Bible)



Copyright Scott Burnett 2006

overcoming unfaith

In the 9th chapter of Mark’s Gospel, a helpless father desperately implores Jesus to rescue his son. He stands uneasily yet candidly at the crossroads of belief and unbelief. Jesus meets him there.

This kind of faith is not an unquestioning allegiance to ideology. It isn’t reflected in bumper-sticker quips like, “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.”

The simple, soulful confession of this kind of faith is, “Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief.” This kind of faith exhibits the virtue of skepticism.

In the field of philosophy there are (at least…) two types of skepticism: Academic and Pyrrhonian. Academic skepticism asserts the impossibility of truly knowing anything. Its fatal flaw is its own logic: i.e., How can we truly know that it is impossible to truly know anything?

But Pyrrhonian skepticism accommodates an open-minded pursuit of truth. It acknowledges the severe difficulty of apprehending ultimate knowledge while allowing the possibility of knowing truly.

“Christian faith in God is not a naïve basic truth. It is unfaith that has been overcome” Jurgen Moltmann


Copyright Scott Burnett 2006

my soulscape thrums

There are moments
when my soulscape
thrums with jazz and banter
…pulses with brushstrokes and light

And then cuts abruptly
to a vacant soundstage
mute as ash
held like a breath
…pending and panicked

At such times my beliefs
like unemployed actors
must again audition
for their roles
in the script I hold

They are fragile and insecure
It is a wearisome business

But you are singing under a streetlamp
tambourine in hand
refusing to learn your lines
confronting me with hilarity
…reanimating the mundane


Copyright Scott Burnett 2007

circus ride

The best circus rides are the ones that feel terrifyingly out of control, but are not -- the ones that have been engineered to be completely safe while simulating the sensation of impending disaster. We’ll pay good money for the thrill of careening toward annihilation, as long as the ride comes with a guarantee that all will turn out okay in the end.

Life doesn’t come with that sort of guarantee, of course. But according to Jesus, there is an Author who weaves our crazy fragments into a meaningful narrative. I need for this to be true. Daily, I re-surrender to the trueness of it.

Sometimes my world accelerates into the red zone, when my beliefs, my dreams, and my loves quake on the verge of disintegration. At those moments, I remind myself that all things fall into the hands of God -- nothing slips between those fingers, or spills over the edges. All things constellate meaningfully within the Creator’s cupped hands. And it will turn out okay in the end.

Enact

Isn’t it powerful when ideas become actions?
Pressing the unseen into the seen...
Translating belief into behavior...

A sacrament is defined as:
“A rite believed to be a means of or visible form of grace…”
(The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Baptism and Communion are central Christian sacraments: bread and wine to taste, cold water to feel... spiritual stuff enacted physically.

The church itself is a sort of sacrament, isn’t it? We are challenged to live out the Gospel -- to express God’s kingdom in our deeds.

“Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”
James 2:17 (NIV)

“Faith without action is as dead as a body without a soul.”
James 2:26 (Phillips)