Pentecost: spirituality vs. Spirituality

June 2, 2013June 5, 2013 / Paul Burkhart / Leave a comment

I don’t know about you, but too often I divorce spirituality from the Holy Spirit.

Now don’t get me wrong, I fully understand that “spirituality” is a matter between my spirit and the Holy Spirit. But I too often define spirituality as fundamentally being about my spirit–stirring it up and syncing it up to God. Too often, when contemplating my own spirituality, my thoughts first turn to how I can ” feel the Spirit more”.

If I’m honest, I too often think that a healthy and vibrant spirituality is ultimately defined by intense spiritual experience (emotions, gifts, fruits, and such). And yes, these are definitely products of a vibrant Spirituality, but don’t we too often pursue the product, and ultimately miss the point? Most of the time, I think that if I simply achieve those “experiences”, I have been “successful.”

True “Spirit-uality” is not first and foremost about the state of my spirit. Instead, it is about developing a dynamic vitality with the Holy Spirit. It’s about being swept up in a force greater than myself–a person greater than myself.
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Diving into Death

May 28, 2013June 2, 2013 / Paul Burkhart / 2 Comments

It’s always difficult to talk about one’s own fear of one’s own death. It usually comes across as a little melodramatic and seems to carry with it the appearance that somehow your fear of your death is somehow felt more deeply, analyzed more fully, or experienced more truly.

In short, when people start whining about their fear of death. It can be annoying. I acknowledge this. And yet, here I am, telling you all that I am really, really scared of death.

When I mention this to people that know me as the guy who writes a lot about faith and seems to believe these things pretty deeply, people are (for some reason) shocked to hear me explain just how deep my fear of death goes. I know it’s not logical, but I somehow find the past works of God more easily believable than the future acts of God. I know you can’t have one without the other, but the human heart is a storm of contradiction and paradox.

And for some reason, Death has occupied my thoughts of late. Sure, I’ve wrestle with it’s reality, thought through it’s theological origin, seen it in the faces of the hurting, wrote about how to live in spite of it, and even engaged it in poetry and in song, but something has really captured me recently. I’ve been sitting in the presence of this fear.
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God’s good gift

May 23, 2013 / Paul Burkhart / Leave a comment

“Whisky, I find, helps clarity of thought. And reduces pain. It has the additional virtue of making you drunk or, if taken in sufficient quantity, very drunk.”

–from The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

Haha. Love this.

I really miss blogging…

May 21, 2013July 28, 2021 / Paul Burkhart / 3 Comments

It’s not that I haven’t had enough time….

(I’m caught up on all my TV shows, I’m a season-and-a-half into The West Wing, and I’ve finished several books in the past few weeks.)

It’s not that I haven’t had inspiration…

(I have several posts half-written and so many lined up and outlined out.)

It’s not that I’ve been uninterested in blogging…

(I’ve missed it so much!)

It’s not even that I haven’t had the energy….

(I’ve been writing many other things for church, work, school, etc.)

There are just times when things just need to relax and rest. Rest takes striving. And I feel very rested right now. I like it. I also feel the need to commune with that which is above, below, and around me.

If you’ve been here before, you know what I mean.

I want my writing to emanate from within more than from without. Does that make sense?

So, will tomorrow have a post? I don’t know.

We’ll see if I feel like it.

Well, it seems I’m going to back to seminary.

May 14, 2013May 14, 2013 / Paul Burkhart / 13 Comments

Yesterday, I received my acceptance letter into the Newbigin House of Studies, a distance Masters of Divinity program in partnership with Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan.

The seminary belongs to the RCA family of churches (including my own) and is in the Dutch Reformed tradition (here’s a good article on some of the differences between Dutch Reformed thought and other “flavors” of Reformed thinking).

In a couple of months, I will be having my five-year anniversary of living in Philadelphia. What brought me here from college in Richmond, Virginia was my decision to attend Westminster Theological Seminary. Eventually, for several reasons, I left the seminary (reasons that a lot of people didn’t like).
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Trickle-Up Resurrection (Guatemala Lessons)

May 7, 2013February 24, 2014 / Paul Burkhart / Leave a comment

My church is currently in a series called “Resurrection Stories” in which we’re going through each of the non-Jesus stories of resurrections (or “resuscitations”—whatever) found in the Bible. It is, after all, still Easter.

A few weeks ago, as we were talking about Elisha raising the Shunnamite’s son, our pastor pointed out that most of these resurrection stories seem to center more on the people around the dead person than the dead person themselves. And so, in a sense, these resurrections are more for the people affected by death than the one dead; the ones that “receive” the true resurrection power are mostly those around the resurrected one.

Further, as he pointed out, most all of these people that “receive” the truest benefits of these resurrections are women—the most alienated and disempowered group throughout world history.
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From Above: What’s better than Tom’s shoes? I’ll show you.

May 4, 2013May 8, 2013 / Paul Burkhart / 3 Comments

WordPress’s Photo Challenge theme for this week is “From Above“

I have been very proud, up to this point, of not having ever posted an Instagram picture of my feet. I don’t know where that trend came from, but I’ve bucked it for so long. Until yesterday.

That’s when I received the above shoes in the mail.

No, those are not Tom’s, the shoe company famous for its idea of giving away one pair of shoes to a child in a developing country for every pair that is purchased.

Instead, they are Otto’s.

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Biggest Guatemala Take-Away: No More Murse. [casual fri]

May 3, 2013May 3, 2013 / Paul Burkhart / 7 Comments

Murse (n.): 1. a purse carried by a man. 2. used to describe a male handbag, or man-purse.

I’ve been a big fan of messenger bags, ever since college (my chiropractor can confirm this). From early on, these bags became known as my man-purses, or “murses”. After starting my new job, I decided to get a more “economical” bag off Ebay that ended up being a little more purse than man (see “before” picture above).

And then I went to Guatemala.
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So, how was Guatemala? I finally have an answer for you.

May 1, 2013March 7, 2016 / Paul Burkhart / 2 Comments

“How was your trip?”

This has been the question I’ve been receiving more than any other this past week and a half, since returning from my trip to Guamtemala with Lemonade International to see their work in the community of La Limonada.

And yet, I have had no answer.

Nearly every person who’s asked the question has been someone I love, who loves me, and gets me. They know that I can’t even articulate a simple answer to a casual “How ya doin’?” thrown my way. And so I’ve felt grace and understanding as I haven’t been able to answer.

At a wedding this weekend, in an attempt at capturing in one word the seemingly contradictory dimensions of my experience in Guatemala, I blurted out the word “paradoxitous”. Yes, I was trying to be funny.

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Tomorrow, I start posting again.

April 30, 2013May 1, 2013 / Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

Any regular follower of the blog has seen that in the past week and a half that I haven’t really been posting. This is a big change from the near-daily posts I was putting up all the way through my trip to Guatemala.

Though a big part of the silence has been time constraints after being out of the country, the main reason has been the (literally) speechless state in which Guatemala left me. I’ve needed this time to process, talk to people, pray, and find the words in which the community and people of La Limonada would dress themselves in my mind.

I think I now have these words (or at least the provisional ones; we’ll see what time does), and so expect the blogging to pick back up tomorrow. I’m looking forward to getting back to this; I’ve honestly missed it a lot.

See you then.

photo by Scott Bennnett

Change: God is Real [Guatemala, Day 4] [photo sermon]

April 19, 2013March 7, 2016 / Paul Burkhart / 3 Comments

For those new to the blog: each week, I try and write a “photo sermon” based on the themes of WordPress’ Weekly Photo Challenge. This week’s theme is “Change“. I thought I’d take this chance to begin processing my time in Guatemala with Lemonade International.

* * * * *

I don’t struggle with the plurality of beliefs about God. If there is a God, I am quite confident (as arrogant as it may sound) that Christianity is the proper understanding of Him.

Rather, my struggle is with the sense that God is there at all. Many of the posts on this blog have dealt with my open acknowledgment of my “inner atheist” (as I’ve called him several times), and how I’ve tried to deal with him.

I don’t know that I need to expound on this too much, as I’m confident many of the readers here get this already, but just in case: this doubt is not intellectual; it is existential. I often miss that abstract sense and “feeling” of God’s existence. Continue reading →

“Strong like Lemonade….and sweet.” [Guatemala, Day 3]

April 18, 2013April 30, 2013 / Paul Burkhart / 2 Comments

Tonight is my last night in Guatemala. By the time this is posted and most of you read this, I will be on a plane (or, more likely, waiting in an airport), on my way back home.

The past couple of posts this week have been a little intense. The way I received and processed those first few days was definitely through the filter of brokenness and pain. And this was definitely appropriate. There were so many stories of poverty, violence, abuse, economic exploitation, injustice, paedophilia, and rape that I simply could not tell.

We have to see the need for hope before we can feel its presence.
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As We Lay Dying [Guatemala, Day 2]

April 17, 2013April 18, 2013 / Paul Burkhart / 7 Comments

Since God’s children share in flesh and blood, Jesus himself likewise partook of the same things

Today began with a meeting of the microenterprise crew–the staff and several of the women who have benefited from small loans to help start small businesses in the area.

Lemonade International is insistent that this is merely a solution to help some of those that are gifted in this way. Lemonade International partakes of the flesh and blood of these people, weak as they are, and sees how they can serve them as individuals with individuals needs.

I leave encouraged. Continue reading →

Chasing Grace [Guatemala, Day 1]

April 16, 2013April 18, 2013 / Paul Burkhart / 4 Comments

Last night. She sat in the corner of the bed-couch in the corner of the room. One leg tucked under the other, face still red from the laughter she has both given and received over dinner. In one turn, though, the tone becomes serious as a question rises above the crowd, asking for her story. The story that has brought us here.

A nurse to burn victims, Tita began making home visits to a severely injured gang member, not knowing that her feet were walking upon the holy ground of poverty, violence, and death.

She eventually realized that she was in the neighborhood of La Limonada, nestled in the valley of the shadow of Guatemala City, considered a trash heap by those outside; both the people and the items are considered its waste.

And yet she continued going. And serving. And loving. Continue reading →

Why I’m in Guatemala: Meet Lemonade International

April 15, 2013March 7, 2016 / Paul Burkhart / 6 Comments

Yesterday, I touched down to begin my week in Guatemala on a blogger’s trip with Lemonade International, a non-profit development organization doing work in a particular called La Limonada.

This community of La Limonada is the largest slum community in Central America. After the 36-year-long Guatemalan Civil War began (due to an American coup to overthrow their leader), many, many children and women lost their fathers and husbands to fighting, leaving this huge community of hurting people. Many, many of the refugees ended up in La Limonada.

This community is a 1-mile long stretch that is a half-mile wide and straddles a ravine. 60,000 to 100,000 people live there. It is considered a “red zone” by Guatemala, meaning that deliveries, police, and most outsiders in general don’t go in there. In the boundaries of the “zones” of Guatemala City, La Limonada is between two different zones–it doesn’t even have a place in the official boundaries of the city.

It’s literally been abandoned and marginalized by the very nation in which it resides.
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