Feet of Clay

For several years I have been on a sustainability kick.  Many people have assumed that my kick is health inspired.  It is not.  The discovery that sustainability had a direct correlation to health was confirmative to me.  It was serendipity.  I arrived at sustainability after much contemplative thought.  I was inspired by theology.  I came to notice patterns in scripture that drew me to view things more holistically.  It occurred to me that God is a master designer who designs sustainable systems that are potentially progressive and which improve when properly managed.  It also occurred to me that systems that are not sustainable, and the designers of those systems, eschew the proper, sublime and elegant architecting of The Great Designer.   Unsustainability is evidence of things done wrong, a properly God-choreographed dance missed.  And though one can pursue sustainability as act of worship, it is not road to spiritual perfection.  It is evidence (not proof) of life properly understood; life properly lived.  Sustainability, as I have come to learn it, is always going to be a part of my world-view repertoire, however, there is a next logical step.  

Introducing... Connectedness

Connectedness is the word for this era.  Sustainability keeps us connected to life and how it really works.  Life is not really comprised of instant, to any other generation that has ever lived, magical results that come at the pressing of a button or the click of a mouse; it is not made of meat whose origin is the supermarket, and whose natural habitat is a Styrofoam platter with a plastic blanket.  It is not endless resource used disposably for our whims.  It is a brick and mortar existence that comes from real things that grow and breathe.  It is a spirituality that is tethered to ebbs and flows of seasons that have purpose inspired by The Great Designer who structured cycles with intentionality.  Learning about sustainability can teach us about connectedness.  But it is the disconnect from which we suffer; from which we ail.  It is through disconnection that we can ponder the possibility that there is no Creator.  It is through disconnection that we prioritize entertainment more than we appreciate art.  It is through disconnection where we are confused about things like freedom of religion versus freedom from religion.  The disconnect from how things actually work lead us to an arrogance of belief where we have a kind of lawyer-produced narrative-in-place-of-reality existence where the best told story becomes authoritative “truth.”  Common sense has become an obscurity, an unintelligible curiosity that has no meaning... disconnectedness.  

It all starts at Genesis with a couple who transgressed and became disconnected from: God

Themselves

The world around them (think words like serpent, thorns & thistles, cursed ground...)

The rest of the book is all about reconnection. Reconciliation.  

We are being called further and further from a real reality whose existence is only possible as a result of lack of connection.  This present darkness’ name is disconnection.

This era’s Christian mission is, by necessity, connectedness.  I forecast that a running theme will come out through sermons, devotions, discussions, and public forums in this season... connectedness.  As you hear, listen for connectedness.  As you track the choreography of God’s interplay with us, observe connectedness.  Invoke connectedness as the world tries to pull us away through distraction, smoke and mirrors, the temptation of disposability, complicity and finally our disintegration as humanity.  Connectedness is the antidote to the robot-like-morphogenetic-protein kind of transformation into which we are devolving.  Go therefore, and relate, connect.