Carlyle Marney Facebook page

I just created a fan page on Facebook for Carlyle Marney. http://snipurl.com/kxf90 I was fortunate to have known of him and then to spend a week with him the summer of 1977 - a year before he died and a month after my father died. I talked with Marney about Dad's passion, vision, ministry and sacrifice for the Gospel and my own (I had just been ordained a year earlier and was struggling through a difficult first church!). It was a time of pure grace and sabbath and yet vision and hope in Christ. It is a place to go to more often. http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Carlyle-Marney/97063128255?ref=nf

manifesto on Jesus

A Jesus Manifesto by Len Sweet and Frank Viola. This expresses to the core my own belief and concern. I see in the UCC how we have fallen prey to what they describe. How we have watered down Jesus. Its what E. Stanley Jones said after conversation with Gandhi about the lack of growth of Christianity in India in the mid 1940's. Basically, Gandhi said that Christians didn't act like they truly believed in Jesus Christ. They had turned Jesus into a reflection of themselves and what would fit for them rather than turning their lives over to Jesus Christ. The American church has about reached the end of its rope on adulterating Christ to serve itself. It has come back on us and the world yearns to know the truth about Jesus, not about us and our churches. A Jesus Manifesto Len Sweet Frank Viola United Church of Christ

family life

In April on Earth Day Martha & I celebrated 20 years of marriage also known as falling in love. On the 5th Molly turned 16. Today Kate 19. Molly is dancing today between innings for the Akron Racers professional softball game. She had a great recital where she danced in 11 dances from ballet to hip hop. She finished up a pretty good spring soccer season. Kate made 4.0+ & Dean's list both semesters at Heidelberg. She is officially a Jr after one yr. Both girls are nannying for the summer.

living in the world

Sunday for the Vision I used the passage from 1 John 2:12-17. It includes in it (from The Message) ^15-17Don't love the world's ways. Don't love the world's goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity.

Then I quoted from an article from Walter Brueggeman (who was my prof of OT in seminary), "Enough is Enough." It seems like everything I am reading in scripture and otherwise is pointing to this same core, especially at a time that the "world" is working overtime to try to get control of itself.

I think we are all -liberal and conservative - trying to change the world on the world's terms. Many churches are trying to convince the world of Jesus, on the world's terms. There are periods of "success", but eventually it leads to frustration because it can't be sustained. We are looking for eternal answers with short-term, worldly fixes. Jesus teaches via the Sermon on the Mount in a place away or a quiet place. This sermon is great teaching and it could only soak it beyond the tired brain cells of the disciples, on retreat. We live in a "world" that needs more retreat from it so we can serve in it.

I've been reading again the small book by JB Phillips, "Your God Is Too Small." This is from it in reflecting on the Beatitudes:
"Happy are the pushers: for they get on in the world.
Happy are the hard-boiled: for they never let life hurt them.
Happy are those who complain: for they get their own way in the end.
Happy are the blase': for they never worry over their sins.
Happy are the slave-drivers: for they get results.
Happy are the knowledgeable (humans) of the world: for they know their way around.
Happy are the trouble-makers: for people have to take notice of them.

"Jesus Christ said:

Happy are those who realize their spiritual poverty: they have already entered the kingdom of Reality.
Happy are they who bear their share of the world's pain: in the long run they will know more happiness than those who avoid it.
Happy are those who accept life and their own limitations: they will find more in life than anybody.
Happy are those who long to be truly 'good': they will fully realize their ambition.
Happy are those who are ready to make allowances and to forgive: they will know the love of God.
Happy are those who are real in their thoughts and feelings: in the end they will see the ultimate Reality, God.
Happy are those who help others to live together: they will be known to be doing God's work."

I like Eugene Peterson's version in The Message:
"Arriving at a quiet place, he sat down and taught his climbing companions. This is what he said:

³"You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.

⁴"You're blessed when you feel you've lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.

⁵"You're blessed when you're content with just who you are—no more, no less. That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought.

⁶"You're blessed when you've worked up a good appetite for God. He's food and drink in the best meal you'll ever eat.

⁷"You're blessed when you care. At the moment of being 'care-full,' you find yourselves cared for.

⁸"You're blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.

⁹"You're blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That's when you discover who you really are, and your place in God's family.

¹⁰"You're blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God's kingdom.

^11-12"Not only that—count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!—for though they don't like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble."

David Loar, Fairlawn West United Church of Christ, Akron Ohio church consumed by the world of wanting and getting

where am I headed with my life?

Galatians 2:19-21 (The Message)

^19-21What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn't work. So I quit being a "law man" so that I could be God's man. Christ's life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.

Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God's grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.

Philippians 1:21-22 (The Message)

Every time one of them opens his mouth, Christ is proclaimed, so I just cheer them on!

And I'm going to keep that celebration going because I know how it's going to turn out. Through your faithful prayers and the generous response of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, everything he wants to do in and through me will be done. I can hardly wait to continue on my course. I don't expect to be embarrassed in the least. On the contrary, everything happening to me in this jail only serves to make Christ more accurately known, regardless of whether I live or die. They didn't shut me up; they gave me a pulpit! Alive, I'm Christ's messenger; dead, I'm his bounty. Life versus even more life! I can't lose.

As long as I'm alive in this body, there is good work for me to do.

David Loar, Fairlawn West United Church of Christ, Akron, Ohio not about me

the lighter load on the journey...

For the last week I have walked 5 miles a day. We had a dog behavioralist come over last Friday. 3 hours for $65! The dogs are the best I have ever had...in only a few days. He is like the "Dog Whisperer." He said 90% of training is walking (not peeing & pooping or exploring, but just straight walking.) It works!!!! And I have lost 4+ lbs! I walk Winston and Maggie 3 miles in the morning and 2 miles in the evening. Clearly the training was more of Martha and I so we could then be in charge of our dogs and not just their human buddies.

I find that I am more relaxed with the dogs and during my day. As I walk them all three of us relax together. I get stopped often complimenting me on our well behaved dogs. When I tell them we just started last Friday they can't believe it. BTW, Winston (our year old Lab/Boxer/Shar Pei we got from the pound in March just a little while before he was to be put to sleep also works out on our treadmill for up to 20 minutes at a time!). I took both dogs to the vet on Tues when in the past I had trouble just handling one dog in and of itself at the vet's. Winston has gone from 39 lbs when we got him to 56 lbs and it is clearly a lot of muscle!

I can understand St. Francis much more now. The time with the dogs is very centering for me. I now follow it with reading Eugene Peterson's "Living the Message: Daily Help for Living the God-Centered Life" daily devotional and Oswald Chambers "My Utmost for His Highest"daily devotional. The discipline is about God. Not about me. The dogs are clearly a gift to help me let go of my self and be with God.

I am troubled by much in the world and at our church. God's purpose is not for me to stay stuck in that troublesome place. It is to move on and listen to God and to be obedient to God's will in the here and now. I have been seeking a Christian community where that could happen. I have found it 5 miles a day with my dogs. I pray that I will find it with other brothers and sisters in Christ.

David Loar, Akron, Ohio, United Church of Christ, dogs, Christian spirituality

Will Campbell and the church

One of my heroes is Will Campbell. He is a preacher up there with Frederick Buechner and Madeleine L'Engle. Yet, he can't stand the church! He has been involved in some of the most courageous stuff around civil rights and the struggle for peace in the world, and yet he can't stand politics.

I find myself at the same point on both counts. I love the body of Christ, but my experience of church seems to be running away from trusting God and accepting our identity in Christ. Folks feel like I am badgering them to be the "church." Maybe its time I just found a church and then let that experience of church/bodiness speak for itself.

I fear we have "compromised"* the church to death! Fortunately, we don't save ourselves!

*fudged, lied, short-cut, been so codependent to others,

I find conservatives and liberals have done this. We have "cherry-picked" scripture to support our own pre-concieved ideologies. Campbell was ostracized by the civil rights community because he believed we needed to be consistent in sharing love as he went to meet members of the KKK in North Carolina to see what of the Gospel they needed in their personal lives.

Will Campbell, David Loar, Fairlawn West United Church of Christ, Akron, OH

closing churches

In this economy many churches are falling back into or deeper into a pit which will lead to their demise. That pit is to put more time and energy into their building and their past history to try stave off the anxiety they have about the future. The fastest growing style of property for sale in Ohio are church buildings of congregations who held on to them, using up their money and energy until there was no one left to keep them going, but by then the congregation was decimated and had lost their missional purpose.

We are trapped by our success in the past.

10 Deadly Sins of a Dying Church
Abandoning a Building Centered Model
summary of "Pagan Christianity" (book) on church buildings

A live church has parking problems
A dying church doesn’t

A live church has lots of noisy children around
A dying church enjoys peace and quiet

A live church often changes the way things are done to do them better
A dying church doesn’t need to

A live church dreams greater dreams for God’s Kingdom
A dying church has nightmares

A live church invites people to risk involvement and new ideas
A dying church plays it safe and never risks anything

A live church supports world mission
A dying church says “charity begins at home”

A live church uses tradition and buildings to serve God and people
A dying church uses people to serve the tradition and buildings

A live church worships
A dying church worries

A live church is filled with tithers
A dying church is filled with tippers

A live church forgives and seeks forgiveness
A dying church never makes mistakes

A live church looks for challenges and opportunities
A dying church looks out for problems and dangers

A live church evangelizes
A dying church fossilizes

Frederick Buechner "If the world is sane, then Jesus is mad as a hatter"

If the world is sane, then Jesus is mad as a hatter and the Last Supper is the Mad Tea Party. The world says, Mind your own business, and Jesus says, There is no such thing as your own business. The world says, Follow the wisest course and be a success, and Jesus says, Follow me and be crucified. The world says, Drive carefully—the life you save may be your own—and Jesus says, Whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

The world says, Law and order, and Jesus says, Love. The world says, Get, and Jesus says, Give. In terms of the world’s sanity, Jesus is crazy as a coot, and anybody who thinks we can follow him without being a little crazy too is laboring less under a cross than under a delusion.

David Loar, Fairlawn West United Church of Christ, Akron, Ohio

morning meditations

I taped ten 1 minute devotions for radio station WAKR. The first one started yesterday. Here is a link where you can read each of them.

I love this quote about reality of scripture:

Forget about Bible reading and "the quiet time"; Bible reading is the disquiet time. And don't read Scripture text to fuel devotional feelings, but to ignite imaginative faith in the God who dares us to think and act otherwise. Scripture text is not intended to confirm for us our spiritual and theological status quo, but to call us and our communities of faith into question, to unsettle our settled convictions because God is always urging us beyond what we already know and have learned to live with.

- Jim Gordon, Principal of Scottish Baptist College

driven to spiritual discipline

The more tired I feel, feel like I am being put upon, or unfairly judged or anything in that vein, the more I tend to isolate. Then I only see things that are all about my world and my self in that world.

However, my path and passion is to glorify God. The one who has created, forgives, and continues to redeem me in all time and circumstance.

At the very time it feels like pressure from both outside and inside myself is driving me down, that I need to spend more time "doing my job" and fulfilling the expectations of other folks, I am aware that I really need to spend more time in the spiritual disciplines both individually and with others.

Worship, Bible reading and reflection, and prayer are three that I desire to spend more time in with other people. I need to invite others to do that.

Meditating, prayer, reading the Psalms, waiting on God...at least in the morning and at night...I am starting to do more of on my own.

I am developing a journal for folks who visit with Fairlawn West to help them in their spiritual journey and possibly how they could do that through Fairlawn West. I am copying from a journal that Kate (my older daughter) received when she visited Goshen College two years ago. I started working on it at that time, but couldn't quite discern all the kinds of things that I would need to do to transfer it from the college context to the church context. Then a few months ago I received a little booklet from Renovare that spelled out 6 ingredients that could help us in our spiritual journey and with some very specific things we could do in that process. Those six were what I was looking for. I hope to have this personal journal done with in a few weeks to have available so that as folks are guests of our congregation, they could take this with them to help them become more clear about their spiritual journey and the process they are in to find a spiritual home.

I am looking for folks who are also "weary and heavy ladened". Together we could journey to Jesus who will give us rest. That we might take his cross upon us. I am having coffee this afternoon with an old friend who was a powerful spiritual influence in my life and I know he is feeling the burden in his life. It starts with us burned out sinners seeking Jesus...as brothers and sisters on the road.

the days of...

With all the details of prep for the services the of this week and the weekend, plus all the other church stuff that needed to get done, I am tired.

Have I spiritually prepared myself? I think not. I have tried to live the ordinary, regular pace and then expect that I will be able to "observe" these holy days. It is as if Lent lost its way in these last days. And I like the disciples with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane couldn't keep watch with him even for a little while.

I am worried that with my anxiousness about these days, I have acted in ways that has upset other people. I have felt impatient. I want to get back to the spiritual path and it seems as though the worldly path has made it into a six lane expressway with traffic buzzing all around. Which lane should I be in? Will I find the Christ on this road?

I have amends to make. But right now I don't know if I am feeling truly sorry or just plain tired.

pic of David from Lights Out Ohio news conference

Yesterday I spoke at the news conference sponsored locally by the Sierra Club, City of Akron, and Summit County to introduce "Lights Out Ohio" on Earth Day this year. It was at the new Metro bus center which is lighted by solar energy.

spending time

Catching up with some pictures. Here's Molly from Winter Formal at Firestone HS.

I've been spending a lot of time raking, composting, tilling, trimming, and getting ready to plant. I was so delighted with the rich compost I got both from my rotating barrel and my 3 bin system. I get up early each morning with the first light and go out with the dogs - Maggie and Winston. They run and wrestle with each other while I do my yard work for 45 minutes to an hour.

This has been very spiritually centering for me and I have lost some weight during this time too.

I remember my dad was talking about retiring to a small farm. Then he died of cancer at age 58. Dad was raised on a farm and basically framed until he was 21 and went to college. His gardens of flowers especially were fabulous.

I never spent any time with Dad gardening. Now that I have taken it on for myself, I appreciate the experience he had while doing it.

This year we will have our 10 x @ 20 ft kitchen garden plus a lot of beds of perennials. Plan to get do some more annuals this year. Thinking about adding another apple tree to the back yard and possibly another spruce tree for the birds. Last summer added mock orange and lilacs as some buffers to the patio.

Doing this, hiking and canoeing/camping bring great peace to my life. Just spending time with my family does that. I am very grateful for Martha, Kate and Molly. They are joys to be with. Wonderful conversations and ideas are shared.

Winston, whom we got at the dog pound about 4 weeks ago is very well behaved, smart and quite a character. Can't believe we got him not long before he would have been euthanized. He was picked up off the street. He is Lab, Shar Pei, & Boxer mix.

I will add pictures of the yard and garden as time goes on. Also have plans for an organic garden at the church and inviting neighborhood kids to help with it.


Loar, Akron,

complexity/confusion

First, here's the link for my podcast introducing this week's Vision on the 10 Commandments at Fairlawn West UCC.

Since the 1960's I have tried to enable myself and my family to live a simpler lifestyle. But I grew to believe over the years that living more simply would disconnect us from the predominant culture around us. I thought we could still be part of it and not be compromised by it.

And all around us the sophisticates of the economic and political theory were trying to convince all of us how complex and intricate was our national economy and international economy. We became more and more convinced that only the "experts" could manage the main pieces of our economy.

Then Alan Greenspan, the great priest of US economic thought, admitted that he had misjudged in the decisions and the observations he had been giving us for years as the head of the Federal Reserve Bank. We have seen major corporate ceo and manager after another make decisions that have drastically affected all of our lives. The hubris of our system and what has done to all, great and small, has been deceptive and demeaning.

I am returning to focus more on living more simply. Complexity does not mean wiser or more intelligent. In the matter of money, it appears now to mean simply complexity which bamboozles from the least to the greatest of them...novice to expert. (check out Jeremiah 6 Message version and NIV which has the language of "least ... greatest")

David Loar, UCC, United Church of Christ, Akron, money, economy, simple life

the long journey needs refreshment

The journey this Lent has been deeper than others in recent years. I have been stressing with our congregation that Lent is a tithe (1/10th) of the year to give ourselves fully to God. It is a time to grow more deeply in our practice of the spiritual disciplines. That the journey with Jesus is like crossing a desert. You can start out somewhat easily, but along the way you will need some water. Many of us burn out on this journey. The spiritual disciplines are like the water of the desert journey. Without them, we will not make it. And we will wind up probably being more "churchified" rather than disciples and apostles. Its the refrain of the retirees, "The young people need to take over." But the young people aren't around to take over. And now congregations struggle to let go often of their treasured personal history and their buildings while God is trying to call them out to a new time, a new era, a new creation. But the "canteen" is dry and we are afraid. And the road ahead seems to not even dead-end, but just gradually to peter out.

So, we are seeking to do more listening than talking around Fairlawn West...which is one of our stated bedrock beliefs of our congregation about prayer. Pray to listen more than to chat.

A great voice of God comes from Madeleine L'Engle:

“Have courage and joy. Sometimes our moments of greatest joy come at [the] times of greatest courage,” she says simply. “Our children need to hear over and over again that there is no such thing as redemptive violence,” she adds. “Violence never redeems. And what we do does make a difference!”

Madeleine pauses before reinforcing, softly emphasizing each word, “Be brave! Have courage! Don’t fear!” And echoing the message proclaimed and lived by all prophets, she adds, “Do what you think you ought to do, even if it’s nontraditional. Be open. Be ready to change."

Sacred time and space in an urgent world

Sacred space and sabbath are core places/experiences as a child of God. Right now our country is trying to hurry to fix our economic wows. The urgency is important, but we will create more havoc and chaos if we continue to rush into this without time and space which is focused solely on God. Listening to God. Being with God.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Christian martyr of WW II - killed by the Nazis just a few days before the Allies liberated his prison, celebrated the Lord's Supper weekly in his cell using the toilet seat cover as the communion table, with other prisoners and guards receiving it as he officiated. Nothing was more urgent than this, to be at table with our Lord and other brothers and sisters.

David Loar
Fairlawn West United Church of Christ
Akron, Ohio

give up money for Lent

What if we gave up money for Lent? Ok. Then how about giving up using the atm and credit card for Lent.

The point is, if we are really serious about "giving up" something that God could use to help us grow spiritually deeper as a disciple of Jesus Christ, it seems to me money would be a good one. It clearly is at the center of most of our lives, and is the greatest competitor with God for our attention, let alone our devotion.

Valentines Day

I once heard that Valentines was started by a guy named Valentine who as his personal mission would leave a card at the door of prison cells so the prisoners would know that at least one person was thinking of them. Romantic, huh?

But then, Mother's Day was started by Juliet Ward Howe (who wrote the "Battle Hymn of the Republic") as a way for mothers to protest their sons being taken off to war and used as fodder by people in power. Sentimental, huh?

But then, Easter was started...eggs and bunnies right? Cute, huh?
David Loar Fairlawn West United Church of Christ Akron, Ohio Valentines Mother's Day Easter

hibernation

The last month has clearly felt like a hibernation mode for me. As time has gone on, snow been on the ground for over a month, and cold temps were predominant, I found myself going through the motions rather than "forging ahead." No wonder the Native American Indians didn't stay here in the winter, but migrated south. Just like they didn't stay along the Gulf Coast in hurricane season, but moved more inland. Mobility has its assets.

Our ancestors in the Judeo-Christian faith were mobile. In fact, they went for a large number of generations before they were given their own land. Up until the end of the exodus, they were always aliens, foreigners, depending on the hospitality of other peoples. Even then, the land described as "flowing with milk and honey" would seem pretty barren to us.

I lived most of my life on the move. Never lived anywhere more than 6 years until the last 13 1/2 here in Akron. I was haunted by the feeling of using a "geographical fix" to deal with the issues of my life. But there is part of me that also wonders about the "settlement" that has led to so much lack of adaptability, flexibility, and mobility. One of the things about emerging churches is that people move as families to new settings as "missionaries" to start new churches. They don't just plant a church, but they grow community among themselves and invite others into those spiritually centered, missionally reaching out communities. My geographical fixes were alone or just my family. Even when Abram started out from Haran, he had quite a "flock" with him. (tee hee hee, "flock", get it).

Settled in, hunkered down...I think we have lost our ability to follow God where God leads and desires us to to go to live. And by live, I mean LIVE! To be alive!