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deansharp
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Name: Dean
Country: United States
State: California
Metro: Ventura
Interests: Everything ... and very likely, you.
Expertise: I'm no expert, but I'm trying to find the best me ... for the Mystic's joy, my pleasure, and your benefit.
Occupation: Artist
Industry: Hospitality
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
5/21/2005
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| Can you feel it?
Today is the first full day of Autumn here in Thousand Oaks. No,
not according to calendar, but according to wind. It's just like the
wind to ignore the schedule. Autumn is my favorite season. Somehow it
makes the most sense to me. None other gets inside me so. Perhaps it is
the wind. Hmm, wind, how I love wind. I sleep deeper, dream deeper,
breathe deeper, feel deeper in the wind.
Autumn is my Tina—the
sun is just setting but she's already in her pajamas. Funny, I almost
never catch her making this change. Quietly she slips into our room to
peel off the trappings of the work day. Then there she is, breezing
down the hall on fluffy cloud-like slippers, all wrapped up in
oversized cotton and flannel. Like her, Autumn is so
touchable—unpretentiously draped in folds of fabric. Tina is warm and
soft. Not yet ready to sleep, but silently announcing through her pj's
that the time for rest is here. Whatever we do tonight we do in
rest—that's Autumn. Soon the earth will sleep. Like Tina, even now
she's letting go.
In Autumn, the veil thins between the worlds,
mystical and marvelous. Trees dance in the wind, set into motion by
what cannot be seen yet cannot be denied. Their arms uplifted in
praise, they call me to worship, to experience Wind as they do. Ripples
upon water, rustling among leaves, billowing smoke from hearth-fire,
bluster, tumble, whistle, whisper, howl—everything is movement and
sound. This is the third act in the play. the closing scene, full of
busy resolutions yet coming to an end. The earth is done with her
labors for now. She is sweeping up after the feast. The trees have
given and given. Branded in colors of fire, their leaves reveal the
flame that has secretly burned all throughout the long green summer.
Now they are all used up, and it is a good thing. All used up, not the
tree, just its passing labors in the earth. They are drowsy. That
utterly blissful drowsiness that comes when you know you've done your
work well, and you don't need to stay awake. So now, for just a short
time, they will drop their leaves. They will let go.
In the
Autumn my favorite things are justified. Fire makes sense. Food tastes
better. I can find heaven in the corner of a grilled cheese sandwich
that has been dipped in a cup of hot tomato soup. The spirit of a hot
cup of coffee is swirling and visible against the cool air. Even
catching a cold makes sense in Autumn. Wrap a blanket around me and
curl up on the couch? Stick my feet in a tub of warm water and feed me
soup? In Autumn I do it even when I'm not sick.
In Autumn, the
night sky is crystal clear. The moon—bride of the sun—tells me with her
reflected light that even though all has gone dark, do not fear, she
can still see him, he is still there. Some believe that Autumn is a
haunted time because the wind blows and spirits move. I don't think so.
I think we feel the spirits moving, not because they're staying, but
because their going away. Autumn is a time when the spirits and
custodians of the earth recede deep beneath its crust to take counsel
in secret chambers that we shall never see. There they sip their tea
and brandy in front of quiet glowing fires, leaning in to whisper of
what has been, and what is to come. For those of us who only dwell on
the surface of things, maybe that's why Autumn feels just a little more
lonely. They've all gone off. Maybe I miss them and because of it I
yearn just a little more for my own fire and the company of good
friends.
Here's hoping that we can feel those mystic moments—together.
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| A letter to my tribe ...
When several developing threads in one's life begin to connect in
an extraordinarily powerful way, how do you express that experience to
those you care about most? Poorly, no doubt, but I'll endeavor to get
it out as best as I can and you can question me on it later.
Jerry
Maguire had a vision for doing business differently. Then he wrote a
radical mission statement and gave it to everyone in his company. They
all loved it . They applauded it. They all respected him for finally
saying what needed to be said. Then they fired him.
Be gentle with me.
I've
known that my life was to be dedicated to mission and ministry ever
since I was a young Christ-follower and, in keeping with what I was
told to expect, for the last twenty-plus years I've longed for the day
when the church was ready for me to come on board for full-time,
vocational, employment. Ahhh ... to have the opportunity, no, the
privilege, no, the blessing of being a professional pastor. Now that
day is drawing near. Then, just a few days ago, someone commented, "At
the rate things are growing, and with what we expect will be the
success of the new Café, it won't be long before The Spring will be
able to support you. Isn't that great?" Great! Great? It should be
great shouldn't it? It's what I've waited for all these years. But no,
it wasn't great. Instead, it felt terrible. It felt wrong. I can't
over-emphasize what a difficult admission this is to make. Part of me
also can't believe that I'm about to say what I'm about to say but, the
Wind must be allowed to blow.
In the midst of all the striving
toward ministry and mission, all the longing for complete freedom to do
nothing else but work for the church, something has happened, I fell in
love with her. In love, not so much with who she is now, but rather who
she is capable of becoming. I have come to believe in the church and in
her dangerous mission. So much so that I want nothing more than to
support her, push her, and risk her. In order to do that, I cannot
afford to be dependent upon her. "The Spring will be able to support
you. Isn't that great?" No. Because I do not wish to be caught in the
tempting conflict of needing to preserve her status quo in order to pay
my bills. For her to do what she must do we must not burden her. We
must release her. I must release her. The Wind must be allowed to blow.
Recently,
some of you unexpectedly honored me at a surprise dinner. For those of
you who were there, none of this should come as too much of a shock
considering the scripture you quoted in my honor: "As apostles of
Christ we could have been a burden to you, but we were gentle among
you, like a mother caring for her little children. We loved you so much
that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but
our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us. Surely you
remember, brothers, our toil and hardship; we worked night and day in
order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God
to you." —1 Thessalonians 2:6-9
Funny thing, through the years
when people have asked about my lack of denominational affiliation or
seminary degree I've grown fond of saying jokingly, "Don't worry, I'm
not a real pastor, I'm just an amateur." I never expected to come to
such a deep appreciation for the word. I have come to love "amateur".
Probably because it comes from amor— the Latin root for love.
Now-a-days we most often use amateur as an insult, meaning that someone
is inept or not good enough to get paid. It's just like us to screw up
such a good word. No, in the classical sense, someone is an amateur if
they do whatever they do for love, not money. By this definition, Paul
was an amateur apostle, so I feel like I'm in pretty good company.
Therefore, at this critically defining moment in The Spring's history,
I am announcing my wish to forever remain an amateur pastor. I'm not
saying every pastor should, but that's me. That's who I need to
continue to be. I need to keep working in the world. Bumping my life up
against those who need Jesus most. Viscerally sharing in the struggles
of "real life". And perhaps most importantly for you, continuing to set
a living example of how a life can be consumed and defined by mission
without the added convenience of getting paid to do it. The edgiest
risk-takers I have known in the Kingdom tend to be those who do not
have a financial dependence on what the church has to end up looking
like. They are truly free. The church needs to be free like that. The
Wind must be allowed to blow.
Tina and I shared a wonderful
Labor Day morning in old Pasadena with our friend's Alex and Adriana.
Alex and I discovered that we had experienced similar mystic visions of
the future. We believe the awesome spiritual power that the
first-century church experienced as normative can and will be achieved
in our generation, but not before we enable her to move fluidly,
flexibly, mysteriously, and spontaneously. The church's load must be
lightened, de-administrated, and de-centralized. The Wind must be
allowed to blow.
Now, I'm not suggesting that The Spring
shouldn't exist as a California Non-Profit Corporation, a Federal
501c3, or that she doesn't need money, or that someone (like me)
couldn't use some reimbursements for time, money, etc. All I'm saying
is that we should keep her budget as extraordinarily light, tight, and
minimalist as possible. The money we all have needs to get where it is
most needed. The Wind must be allowed to blow.
To what extent am I committed to this idea? Well, I don't have a lot of detail, but try something like this on for size ...
What
if we (The Spring) pushed ... pushed hard ... pushed really hard ...
for those who consider themselves our "enlisted" core to give a
significant (let's say, at least 10%) of their personal income to the
mission? What if in order to become a core member at The Spring you had
to prove that you'd opened a separate checking account just for mission
money? Sound harsh, cultish, and legalistic enough? Wait. What if The
Spring's administrative budget was so light (because it doesn't have to
support me or any other of its pastors) that all it needed was 1%? So,
set aside 10% of your income for mission, write a check for 1% to cover
The Spring's administrative costs, and put the other 9% in an account,
your account, in order to fund your mission in the world as the Spirit
leads you. You give it away, directly. What would it be like if we
developed a reputation for being the only church in town that requires
its people to give ... not to the organization per se ... but to the
world? What if we all knew that we all had a fund on hand at all times
that enabled us to spontaneously, creatively, and personally care for
the world around us? What if the responsibility for seeing mission
accomplished was on your shoulders? How freely could I demand that the
core community give if I wasn't asking you to give it to me? How would
the world react to such news? Most importantly, what if you took me
seriously and everyone at The Spring began to plot, plan, and devise
creative personal ways to give themselves and their resources to the
needs of the world around us?
I hate pleas for money. partly
because I never feel like I've done a good enough job convincing
everyone that it's not for me, but mostly because I know how tight we
all are with it and how that so accurately represents how tight we are
with our whole lives (... for where your treasure is ...). But I've
never had a problem putting on the necessary pressure to see funds
given to some worthy cause that I'm not at the center of. Therefore,
the above mentioned plan (or something like it) truly frees me to
speak. How does that sound to you? Because of our size and facility
obligations (which we want to keep for now of course) we'd probably
need to start with something like a 3 – 7 or 4–6 split and work
intentionally toward 1–9. Could we do it? Should we try? If we did, I
believe the Wind would blow. "Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a
violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house ..." –Acts 2:2
All
of this thinking is of course a part of the larger thing that the Wind
of God is teaching us here at The Spring ... the utter necessity of
finding our joy in living to give.
In nature, a spring is a
giver, and is characterized by three significant realities—a deep
source, a constant self-cleansing movement, and outflow. Living water,
like wind, must flow.
As incomplete as my thoughts are, I'm anxious to hear yours.
All my love,
Dean
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| Blogtasmo
This last Saturday morning I had the unexpected pleasure of getting
some coffee with my friend Alex who called me because he just happened
to be in town. Alex is a serious blogger. No, I mean serious. No, no
you don't understand ... serious. If he were a super-hero they'd call
him Blog Boy or Blogtasmo Man or maybe Captain Blog (which brings up a
whole other question that has always bothered me as to why pretty much
the only military rank you can have as a super-hero is that of Captain.
Why not Private Pacifier, Rear-Admiral Liberty or my personal favorite,
Corporal Punishment?) Anyway, even though Alex never makes people feel
bad for not being able to compete with his preternatural blogging
prowess, and even though he really liked my last blog, I still feel
guilty about not giving it my all. I mean, Alex blogs daily about
things like the mystical nature of cyber-spiritual cultures, which of
course stands in somewhat sharp contrast to my last blog way back in
June. Yes ... it was about cheese. Oh the shame.
So here I sit
at the powerbook of justice, judged and convicted, doing penance as the
fiery keys bite at my finger-tips like cave rats in a purgatorial cell.
Yet, I can at least take some comfort from knowing that even this
feeble entry will in fact bring me up to date. Ha! Take that Blogtasmo!
I will rise! He who blogs and runs away lives to blog another day!
Love you all,
Dean
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| blog-o-katharsis
In measured and rational response to the oft suffocatingly serious
ethos that permeates those hapless souls which have unsuspectingly
drifted into the crushing depths of blog-o-kathartic overanalysis of
the human condition, I offer this singularly defining self-realization
...
I like cheese. | | |
| One thing I ask ...
Blow upon me great Whirlwind. For I have come again to dance again with your minstrel, your oracle, the shepherd king.
"One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek:
That I may dwell in His house all the days of my life,
To behold His beauty
And to meditate in His temple."
—the psalms of David, 27:4
Last
night I enjoyed meeting with a book club that my beautiful wife
Christina is hosting at our local Borders. We've just begun reading
Freedom In Exile—The Autobiography of the Dalai Lama and in the course
of conversation on all things Lama, I found myself fixated on two
ironies. First, it seems to me that most Buddhists—whose doctrine
exults in detachment from passion—cannot escape a somewhat passionate
pursuit of detachment. And second, that most Christians—whose doctrine
exults in the very passion of Christ—cannot seem to escape the anchors
of their apathy. I, being less the former and more the latter, find
myself returning to the question of what makes a man move.
One
has to be careful here to avoid chasing one's tail with answers
that—while they may sound acceptable—never truly arrive. I'm referring
to answers like honor, duty, nobility, self-denial, sacrifice, and the
like. All of which are indeed worthy of attention, yet fall woefully
short in that none of them have the ability to begin by themselves. No,
there must be a first cause for such action. A primal spark that
ignites and re-ignites the fires of true passion.
Where is
such a spark to be found? In me? Hmmm, no. No, despite that I really do
believe I'm fearfully and wonderfully made (kudos to the Architect), I
guess it's just the nature of living in my own skin that keeps me from
being too inspired by me. I want to be the kindling, not the flame. No,
unlike the water-heater and furnace, I'm not self-igniting. The spark
has to be somewhere outside, something other.
Perhaps it comes
from the embrace of an idea, a philosophy, or doctrine. No, too
contained, too easily manipulated, too corruptible, too controllable.
No, I'm quite sure that the kind of spark which ignites an entire life
cannot possibly be safer than the matches I was hypnotically drawn to
as a child. Yes, the safety police warned me of their intrinsic danger,
but oh, how I wanted to watch something burn. I needed fire.
So
this is my conclusion, arrived at in part through honest reason, but
confirmed in the experience of flame. It's not some-thing outside of
myself, it's some-one. I need to fall in love. "Easier said than done,"
you say. "Not really," says I. Not if you've come to understand what
falling in love is. And what is it? I think it is this … beholding
beauty and becoming its captive. That is exactly how I fell in love
with Christina, and now the orbit of my life is forever altered. I am
caught in her gravity well. This is the captivity that I think we all
secretly yearn for. If we choose to look, Beauty will woo us, then
unexpectedly apprehend us. Beauty is the Master that buys us away from
the freedom of apathy and sells us into the glorious slavery of
passion. Yes, love is crazy. No, love is not blind. Quite the contrary,
love sees what others cannot, what others will not. Love sees better
better than anything.
All of this of course brings me back to
Him and the warrior-poet who, vanquished by Beauty, penned these words
from his own captivity ...
"One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek:
That I may dwell in His house all the days of my life,
To behold His Beauty,
And to meditate in His temple."
Well,
the day calls, so I leave you with these passions to consider. When
surrounded by Beauty, blindness is the only way out. So maybe it's time
to open our eyes, raise the white flag, and yield. Spinsters we are not
made to be. Lovers, and in love, this is the spark that ignites a life.
"Dear friends, now we are children of God,
and what we will be has not yet been made known.
But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him,
because we shall see Him as he is."
—a letter from John, his first, 3:2
Love,
Dean
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