In 1994, a weird and wonderful spiritual event began. The BBC labeled it the Toronto Blessing and the name stuck. For many, it was the stuff of a horror show. For others, it was a movement of the Spirit of God they had prayed for their whole lives. People got on their hands and knees and barked like dogs or fell over while convulsing violently. Others experienced miraculous physical healings. The conservative church watched it in horror. Mainline churches were bemused. And charismatics and Pentecostals flocked to it as if it were Mecca. they hoped to be a part of something they saw as a miraculous movement of God.
During that time, an intellectual, mainline Presbyterian minister named Bob Ekblad who spent much of his life working with the poorest of the poor in Honduras and then, upon returning to the USA, worked with men just-released from prison was invited to go to Toronto to experience the phenomena with a family member.
It wasn't his thing. He really didn't want to go. He was a social justice guy and the Toronto movement had little or nothing to do with justice. Toronto was about a supernatural experience of God. For some reason, Ekblad ended up going. Before he went, he spent some time praying and was impressed that though he might see 100 things he couldn't stand, he needed to look for "one good thing." He listened and went to Toronto keeping his eyes open for one good thing. And, while there, the Holy Spirit moved in him in ways he couldn't explain.
He was changed because he looked for the one good thing. He still works for justice, among those on the margins, but now when he lays hands on people to pray with them, there is a power that can't be explained any other way than that it comes from God.
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I was at Hillsdale College in the fall of 1986 when Dad surprised me with a phone call. Remember this was before cell phones. We stood in the dorm's stairwells to talk to our family and friends on the payphone. There was one on each end of each floor in the dorm. My dormmate said, "Hurry, it is some sort of emergency."
Dad explained that he and Mom rushed home to Portland from Idaho, canceling one of their evangelistic missions, because Mom was in incredible pain. Once home, the doctors performed emergency exploratory surgery and discovered tumors in Mom's abdomen that were pressing on her spinal cord and major organs. Dad told me that they were the size of my fists -- bigger than a softball. They closed her up because it would have been too dangerous to remove the tumors given their proximity to her spine and vital organs. In another week, Mom & Dad were scheduled to be in Vermont for more meetings. Dad wanted to cancel because Mom couldn't go. She didn't want him to. He needed to go. We arranged for me to fly out to meet Dad in her stead since the dates coincided with my fall break. My fraternity pitched in money so I could buy the emergency ticket.
There wasn't really much hope for Mom. The doctors told her they would do what they could and scheduled a catscan in order to pinpoint the radiation that they would shoot at her. They weren't talking about a cure. They were talking about doing the best that they could. The tumors they had seen during surgery were simply too big. The catscan was scheduled for the Thursday I arrived in Vermont to join Dad. The week before Mom called their pastor, Dwight Steele and asked, "Do you believe James 5?" Now, James 5 tells sick people to call for elders to pray for them in order that they may be healed. Conservative Baptists typically didn't believe in the miraculous, and typically didn't follow through on Jame's teaching.
Being crafty, Mom knew Dwight couldn't say no to her question because he couldn't say he didn't believe Scripture. In essence, she tricked him. And to his credit, scared as he acknowledged himself being, he studied, prayed and called the elders together to pray for Mom on the Wednesday night before her catscan (the day before I flew to join Dad). Mom had to wait a long time top be prayed for that night, because Dwight questioned each of the elders, looking for uncovered sin in their lives before finally calling Mom into his office to pray for her. I don't know what anyone expected out of that time together but the next day, over my Dad's objections that there would be no news, I called Mom to find out what was going on. She announced, they can't find the tumors, they are gone. "The report says that there is a slight swelling of the lymph nodes, and we can't rule out the possibility of lymphoma." Mom was healed, in part, because Dwight was faithful.
That same man, a longtime pastor at Montavilla Baptist Church completely screwed up when it came time to deal with me and my sexual sin and double life. His handling of the situation couldn't have done more harm to me, the church or the gospel if he'd wanted it to. He was in over his head, couldn't acknowledge it, and reacted rather than responded to the news of my sexual betrayals. He became so intent on trying to read Scripture literally that he missed its message and ended up twisting it so that it said what he wanted it to say. This gave him a license to publicly read a list of my sins during a "worship service." His friend at Portland Foursquare followed his lead, also reading a list of my sins out publicly. I think he'd still argue he was right to have done so. In case you were wondering, he wasn't. He chose the action because of his shame rather than my sin.
My family had been at Montavilla Baptist since 1969 and Mum and dad were universally loved. Mom and Dad were power brokers in the church and potential threats to any pastor coming in to shepherd the church. Pops knew that Dwight viewed our whole family as a threat. And he warned me to be careful. Dwight could be caring and fantastic as well as vindictive and cruel. Out of his respect for Dad, he went with Timothy, Dad, and me to pour out Mom's ashes at Ecola State Park, caring for us in amazing ways. Later, he allowed me to preach at my Dad's service and helped me make wise decisions surrounding that service so that I didn't alienate Timothy further and cause a wider schism between us. And then he'd do something crazy like take the elders of the church without seeking any discernment to Timothy's house to perform an exorcism because I stayed there. If there were evil spirits in the house when they prayed, it had more to do with my brother's choices than mine. He was seeing a dominatrix at the time. So Dwight practiced evil, and stupidity as well as kindness and love, all at the same time.
In my anger, I could only see his evil. In the wake of my blow out, he was one of the hardest of all the Church patriarch's for me to forgive. I seemed to be incapable of holding the good and the evil that resided in the man. And for me to heal, I needed to be able to do precisely that. I needed to see and remember the good as well as the evil that always seemed to blind me to the good. He was not as evil as I made up in my mind that he was. I had to consciously look for the good. I had to consciously choose to see it. SOmeone said, "there is a little good in the worst of us and a little bad in the best of us." My job is to see the good while acknowledging the evil. It is in that balance that I find freedom.
The biggest example of this is Mom. You know her story. She was an early pioneer in the women's movement in the church. She was the first person - male or female - to produce a weekly Christian radio show across Europe, She was a noted Christian women's speaker. She was a better preacher than most of the men of her day -- certainly better than Dad. Her Bible study notes are amazing. She was a poet and a performer. Hundreds, if not thousands of people found life, meaning, freedom and authenticity because she was a faithful warrior, fighting against the darkness, And, she sexually abused me in evil and horrific ways.
In spite of the horror of that, for me to be free, I need to see the "and" that allows for the good in her, Just like in the story, I told you about Dwight. I will begin with the good before citing the bad. I have to, in order to be sane. I chose to look for the good so that I can be free.
Without knowing it, most of my work in recovery has been the work of recognizing and holding the "&." I hold that my Mom was an amazing, wonderful woman who chose to act evilly. I hold that Dwight was a good man who chose evil. There are countless more stories I could tell. You have stories to tell as well.
I believe that God uses evil, pathology, and narcissistic people for good in other peoples' lives. God uses seemingly crazy things to impart His power. In discovering the good I find freedom. I look to find the image of God in the shit. When I find it, I find hope. Calling forth the image of God from the shit creates the Kingdom of God. that is why seeing the "shit and magnificence," in Paula was part of my wedding vows to her. We do well together for a lot of reasons but one of them is that we can hold the "crap and glory" (her phrase) and shit and magnificence (my phrase) that we see in ourselves and in the other.
So, for me, to be a Rebel for Love - A rebel for the Kingdom - means that I do this work. I look for the good in the midst of the shit. In some crazy ways, this starting point is the fuel of my freedom. But I think that needs to be held for another letter.
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