Author: Rev. Dr. Daniel C. Wilburn

I have a strange disposition toward all that is obscure – if it is small and unnoticed then I like it.  I fantasize about finding a nobody-artist and buying a nothing-painting that some day I donate to a big museum – worth millions.  I believe the small uncelebrated things in life are more important.  Wisdom and beauty are in the forgotten insignificant events of life.  I smile most heartfelt when I remember my daughter eating Cheerios when she was two years old… one at a time with a face of deep smug content satisfaction.  My holiest moments are found in my smallest memories. I like Holy Saturday, the day between Good Friday and Easter.  I like the Monday after Easter Sunday.  In the dark I lay in bed all this early morning contemplating Jesus lying in the cool jet-black tomb.  He is dead.  He is silent, cold and still.  He is decomposing.  If nothing changes he will go like the rest of us “ashes to ashes, dust to dust… from the dust of the earth we came and to the dust of the earth we shall return.” I picture the disciples hiding.  I think of how terrible they must feel – they lost.  The Big Idea failed.  No King, no Kingdom, no Justice over Roman oppressors, no Vindication – just the long crushing history of failure – 800 years...

Ecclesiastes 3 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: 2 a time to be born, and a time to die;
             a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; 3 a time to kill, and a time to heal;
             a time to break down, and a time to build up; 4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
             a time to mourn, and a time to dance; 5 a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;             a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; 6 a time to seek, and a time to lose;
             a time to keep, and a time to throw away; 7 a time to tear, and a time to sew;
             a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 8 a time to love, and a time to hate;
             a time for war, and a time for peace. 9 What gain have the workers from their toil? 10 I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. 11 He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 12 I...

The past year has been a bewildering time of battling cancers, Acedia (the noon-day demon), and attempting to find a way. Prof. Rev. Dr. Doug Hardy prescribed I read Kathleen Norris’ Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks, and A Writer’s Life.  The book (and audiobook) have been very helpful.  I don’t know if I am afflicted by Acedia, but I know some life malaise has tormented me for one and two third’s year.  Acedia is the brave brash noonday demon who afflicts the passionate.  It is the demon of ascetics, monks and hermits.  It causes one to languish and fall into a stupor.  I have described it as a lack of confidence, a doubt.  Not a faith-doubt.  I’ve never had that except in the most academic sense (‘could there be or not be a god’).  Instead it has been a paralyzing doubt.  Pile on our family struggling through multiple cancers, and it has been like a dream that comes just before dawn. Through all this I continue to find a way that slowly perculates through my thoughts.  Mostly I continue to think about the ontology of church (ontology means “essences or nature of something”).  And I am saddened at the lack of evangelicals to even consider the Bride of Christ, the Body of Christ as something all of us draw our identity from.  I continue to NOT read the...

There is the official pathway toward Christianity.  Then there is the dirt path to Christianity.  First here’s the official paved sidewalk right up to the front door of Christianity.  This is the way it is supposed to go (but then after this I’ll present the way it really happens – like it or not). Official Path:First, we SURRENDER our self to Jesus Christ.  We are supposed to die to self.  We are supposed to confess Jesus as Lord and Savior.  Years ago I was taught a certain formula derived from the Gospel of John, chapter one… 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.  The formula prescribes that one must first a) receive Jesus – surrender all:  morals, worldview, and one’s will to self-govern.  True.  Jesus often asked men and women to commit to him and follow him by leaving all behind, home, family, job, heritage, fortunes… Jesus often proposed an all-or-nothing commitment if you wanted to be a part of his kingdom.  b) Believe the right beliefs. c) Be born and belong.  This is nice and tidy.  In shorthand this is what some say this is how...

This past Wednesday at Lectio Divina the words “whirling dervish” stuck in my mind because one person described their soul as “a whirling dervish.”  Whirling Dervishes are ascetic Muslim monks who whirl around in ecstatic dance.  Another person recognized the crust, the crud that slowly unavoidably builds up over time:  anger, mostly anger builds over time. His answer: solitude.  Lectio Divina is a devotional technique consisting of four stages: read, reflect, respond, rest.  We take a short five-verse-or-so piece of scripture and move through the four stages.  Lectio Divina is a part of Ignatian spiritual practices from around five hundred years ago.  I call it spiritual study hall.  The uptake is just about fail-safe.  Everyone gets something from the text if they just show up and move along with others. Lectio Divina is not a Bible study, a reading of the text historically or theologically.  It is a personal reading.  Lectio Divina will tell you your soul is a whirling dervish. Where else do you get this type of critical insight?  Prayer.  And Lectio Divina is a slow methodical prayer.  I used to attend and facilitate about three Lectio Divina’s per week but it was too much insight for me.  I cannot digest that much listening-learning from g-d.  My friend and colleague, Rev. Dr. Craig Babb with Rhythm of Grace Ministries holds Lectio Divina every morning.  Kudos to Craig. ...