…in which the little voices and I pontificate on pneumatology related stuff like healing and the theory of “how people get saved” which must have a ‘ology’ word but I’ve forgotten it. (Yes I went to seminary but I’ve never claimed I was very good at it.)

Warning: My theology is organic so it grows and dies back a lot and it is nearly always rooted in story. I think a lot of my theology is a part of a bigger thing called emerging theology, but this is a pretty big bush so you should really read this disclaimer here.

Jesus called the Twelve to him, and sent them out in pairs. He gave them authority and power to deal with evil opposition. He sent them off with these instructions: “Don’t think you need a lot of extra equipment for this. you are the equipment. No special appeals for funds. Keep it simple. And no luxury inns. Get a modest place and be content there until you leave. If you’re not welcomed, not listened to, quietly withdraw. Don’t make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and be on your way.” Then they were on the road. They preached with joyful urgency that life can be radically different; right and left they sent the demons packing; they brought wellness to the sick, anointing their bodies, healing their spirits.

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with this story from Mark. Mostly love. I love that they are in pairs, that no one is alone. The social activist in me loves it that they are told to live simply. (Don’t ask me how I ended up in a six bedroom house in the Wallingford district in Seattle. It remains a mystery to my minimalist soul. Maybe I should have seen it as the first sign of the impending schizophrenia.) The peacekeeper in me loves it that they are told not to pick a fight. The Jesus Freak in me loves the radically-different joyful-urgency bit.

I get frustrated though, that’s I’m not Eowyn slaying demons and casting out evil spirits. I’ve only been a part of that once or twice, and frankly it’s scary and exhausting and most the time I didn’t know what the samhill I was doing. I’m sad too, that I’m not a healer. Some of my favorite books are the Nicolas Darrow series by Susan Howatch in which an Anglican priest with psychic/healing powers battles good and evil in his inner city parish. Except for his major issues with women and the whole borderline mental illness thing, I want to be Nicolas Darrow. I dig healing. In fact just last week I had this whole ridiculous healing fantasy which popped into my head I while I was walking around Greenlake.

Greenlake is a popular city park with a circular three mile loop which is packed with hopeful “I think I saw the sun” Seattleites the instant it stops raining. While I walked it last week, it got me to thinking about Jesus, and the disciples, and all the times they walked three miles to this lake, or six miles to that lake. My story started to intersect with his story and for a moment I saw myself as some sort of agricultural machine – the kind that they use to sprayed DDT or something. I thought, “If only I could extend my arms like the arms of one of those machines and spray ….what? God?..over everybody. What if that person needed healing and I could just give it to her? Those bitter sounding women who have been walking behind me this whole time gossiping about everyone-and-their-mother–what if I could just impart love to them? I mean, Jesus had that much power pulsing in his garments, right? I’m supposed to be like him. So why doesn’t power flow off of me when someone collides with me as we jostle around this busy lake? Why can’t I like, take my nalgene bottle and bless the water and just start splashing it on people and watch the whole damn city wake up to Jesus.”

Then I thought. “You are so weird.”

But one lady smiled at me, so maybe she saw my aura or something.

See. Weird.

And at the same time (it was a busy mind day at Greenlake) I was thinking about this new-to-me theology that’s been knocking around in my head. I call it the one sin/one death theology. My friend Jim mentioned it to me once, and I think it might have something to do with Robert Capon Farrar, but since the book is still sitting on my bedside table I wouldn’t know. (I really really have to go back to school.) Anyway, in this new emerging theology I take Augustine to his logical conclusion and build a new understanding of sin and salvation, which is: if one sin in the garden screwed everyone up and condemned everyone, why doesn’t one death on the cross redeem everyone? What’s with all the extra you-have-to-believe-this-and-proclaim-that hoops? So I’m chewing on this new thought and I’m adding it to this other thing that I recently heard in a sermon. Here’s the sermon:

Fiona Morrison created this. She says that it is about reaching out into the universe for God, and finding out that he’s burning right within your chest. When she told me that, it was like a coin dropped into a slot and I finally held a package called “incarnation” in my hands. I mean Dwight’s been talking to me about incarnational living, and others around me in my crew have been doing incarnational stuff around me for a long time now. But here in this piece of art was a piece of the puzzle that really helped me ‘get it’. The God of the universe burns within your chest. And if one death on the cross really brings redemption for all those people that the one sin doomed, then all these people here with me at Greenlake are already walking around, unknowingly, with God incarnate in their soul.

Dang.

See. Schizophrenic. I need to spray everyone with the DDT of God. Everyone’s already got God. Sometimes I think new ground is forming. Sometimes I think I’m just nuts.