On Becoming a Radiator

This posting will provide further evidence that I am not fully recovered from my sibling-free “only child”-hood. Hey, I like me.  I like singing “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.” After all, those are my favorite personal pronouns! I live in my own little world, population: me.

At some level, I do realize that it’s not my own private light that shines, to my own personal credit. It is actually the light Jesus planted in me that shines through me, or in spite of me. My job is to be a pumpkin lantern, hallowed only because I’ve been hollowed. When the Holy Spirit re-sculpted the Walter-pumpkin from the inside out, she also cut some serious cracks in my outer pumpkin shell, enough so folks can sometimes clearly see the Jesus candle burning inside.

Still, I’m not too fond of the pumpkin metaphor, so I asked God to clothe my life in a better metaphor. Gotta be something better than a pumpkin. Expectantly, I promised to do some of that dangerous listening I rarely do. I even gave my informed consent:

Yes, Jesus, I Walter am fully aware that actually listening to you will knock me off my stride and turn my life inside out … again. Proceed at my own risk.

So, what happened? Well, it seems that I am supposed to be … ta da … a radiator. That’s right — one of those old-fashioned, bang-banging, leaky, cranky, iron-finned forced-steam heaters like you would expect to see in an old hotel that’s ready for demolition. Radiators I know well. I survived a half-dozen Boston winters with drafty windows and hot iron hissing in every room.

Yeah, a radiator, for Christ’s sake!  Not very glamorous is it?

Maybe not, but it is a good fit for Scripture, which tells us that that there is power in the breath of God:

• “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.” [Acts 1:8]
• “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being …” [Eph 3:16]
• “For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power …” [2 Tim 1:7]

So, when the Spirit wind blows, it is not necessarily a cool breeze that whispers through us with hardly a leaf stirring. Don’t get me wrong. Sometimes I need the presence of God to descend ever so gently on me, feather light, covering me like a down comforter. On the other hand, I need to “open the valve” for those times when the Spirit wants to fill me with expansive steam, bursting into the fins of my personal radiator, ready, willing and able to distribute holy energy into a cold world.

Although radiators seem passive — no fancy moving parts, belts, gears or wheels — they manage to make a big difference just by doing one thing well: releasing the energy that flows into them. So who am I? Who are you? Among other things, we are radiators and, more importantly, we are releasers! If we do this one thing well, we shall be radiant.

Finally I understand odd-sounding prayers that contain release phrases like, “I release the peace of God in this place.”

What will you release in your world today?

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The Plan: I will …

I am, even on a good day, just a work in progress.
Clearly, God isn’t finished with me, but still delights in me just as I am.

People want to know, “What do you believe?” This can be an indirect way of asking, “How far do your beliefs overlap with mine?” Fair question. But it’s the wrong question.  Instead, you should be asking me to answer a more revealing question: To what am I fully committed?

Before I break that down for you, I need to make one important clarification. When I say “I will,” I don’t mean self-reliantly. The “I” that’s doing the willing is the new part of me that has been touched by God.

CONNECTEDNESS. God has claimed me as his own and I will claim him as my own. I will be connected equally to God, to my faith communities, to God through my communities, and to my communities through God.

WORSHIP. I will vigorously pursue both individual vertical worship and communal liturgical worship. I will, at times, express myself with utter abandonment and spontaneity to “an audience of One”; at other times, I will express myself within the historic forms, structures and rituals that exist within my faith communities.

PASSION. I will express my insatiable longing for God by cultivating a passionate and radical intimacy with him in every dimension of my spiritual life, including worship, prayer, Word, sacrament and service.

RECEPTIVITY. I will remember that my good relationship with God exists only because of what he does and is in no way the result of effort on my part. My primary “contribution” is the abandonment of my own agenda and my distractions, insofar as I can, and the surrender of self control to the Holy Spirit. This gives the Spirit free reign to break into my life, through whatever small opening I offer, to do whatever he chooses — or possibly to do nothing, even though that drives me nuts. “Faith holds out the hand and the sack and just lets the good be done to it …. You need only to open your mouth, or rather, your heart, and keep still and let yourself be filled” [Martin Luther as quoted in Doctrine is Life: Essays on Justification and the Lutheran Confessions, p. 115].

SOCIAL AND ECO-JUSTICE. I will not hide from injustice, hunger, poverty, disease, catastrophe, discrimination, exploitation and oppression. I will recognize my responsibility to the future generations who will inherit this polluted planet. I may not respond with sufficient generosity, but I will allow my heart to be troubled, broken and shaken to the core.

HEALER. I will place no limits on what the Holy Spirit can do, including what can be done as Helper and Healer. At the same time, I will not expect the Holy Spirit to function as my own tag-along valet, tending to my personal comfort and prosperity.

PRESENCE. I will seek, enjoy and celebrate the tangible reality and manifest presence of God, not just in prayer and worship, but in all of life and all of creation, from cosmos to quarks. I wish, hope and pray that all people would discover a similar holy spark at the core of reality.

EMPOWERMENT. I will remember that the quintessential experience of the presence of God is not an end in itself. It comes with the kick and the power to change me and to change the world.

DOCTRINE. I will remain open and teachable. At the same time, I will be skeptical of my ability to understand substantial amounts of theology, doctrine and dogma …and … I will be skeptical of those who believe such understanding is fundamental to discipleship.

SCRIPTURE. I will look for Jesus, not only in the gospels, not only in the red-letter passages, but in all of scripture, BC and AD. I will begin any study of scripture by admitting my inability to make much sense of scripture without direct help from the Holy Spirit, who sometimes “breaks the code” that had kept subtle meanings trapped on the page.

PRAYER. Because I am desperate to touch the face of God, I will pray in every way that it is possible for humans to pray, using every means available.

JESUS. I will put Jesus at the front and center, as the pivotal force in my life and, indeed, in all of human history. I will place equal emphasis on the cross element (Good Friday) and the glory element (Easter).

FREEDOM. I will live forever free of the oppressive weight of sin because of the finished work of Jesus on the cross, and I will experience this freedom in every way possible.

LOVE. I will love God as he loves me — wildly, without boundaries or conditions — and I will try to love others with similar exuberance.

SINGULARITY. “One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple” [Psalm 27:4].

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