Praise

a simply beautiful prayer…

/ Paul Burkhart / Leave a comment

I saw this tacked onto the bulletin board of the psychiatrist at my previous employer. She is one of the best mentor I’ve ever had, and this is one of the most honest, simple,  and beautiful prayers I’ve ever read. I feel it captures my relationship with my Creator more perfectly and more simply than most anything I’ve read (except maybe for this). May this encourage all you weary travelers out there:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Amen.

from Thomas Merton’s “Thoughts in Solitude”

Weekly Must-Reads {08.11.11} | reasonable Christianity edition (in honor of John Stott)

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

This week, I wanted to focus on extremely “reasonable” expressions and discussion surrounding Christianity: it’s heroes, it’s application, and how to live it out. This is in honor of a great man we lost recently. A couple of weeks ago, John Stott, a great and fairly unassuming hero of the Church, died. He is very much responsible for the shaping of a Christianity that is both just and intelligent. Even though he did not preach nor speak regularly, and mostly wrote academic books, it is he that laid the theological foundation that has only now finally trickled down to the masses of young and “restless” Christians today–whether we know his name or not. It is the shoulder of this giant of the faith upon which we all now stand. Let us not forget that. I have provided some links to that end.

___________

John Stott Has Died | Christianity Today

This is Stott’s obituary in Christianity Today. Read up on his life and read some of the homages linked to in this article. He was an amazing man.

Evangelicals Without Blowhards | NYTimes.com Opinion

This is by Bill Kristof, a weekly contributor to the blogs at NYT. He is not a Christian, and yet he devotes this article in honor of John Stott–his work, his influence, and the presence of millions of Evangelicals that are continuing his work today by caring about justice in this world.

Continue reading →

I’ve got a new job in Philadelphia

/ Paul Burkhart / 9 Comments

In May 2009, I decided to drop out of seminary (for many reasons). Then employment drama ensued. I got a job, couldn’t start the job, then got a part-time position at the company, and then was finally able to move into the full-time spot I was originally hired for.

And it’s been wonderful. Over the past year and half, I was able to love my caseload of people and take them from broken and with nothing to on the path towards healing and recovery. I actually got to see change and growth up close–and it changed me.

But, it’s time to move on. As I’ve been praying for for a while, I recently got offered a job that is walking distance from my house. I finally get to realize my desire to not only live and spend my money in the city, but also to earn my money and serve the residents there as well.
Continue reading →

On Easter: “Adam Killed a Bird, But Jesus Brought Him Back” (a poem)

/ Paul Burkhart / 2 Comments

_____________________________________________________

Adam Killed a Bird, But Jesus Brought Him Back

Now looking through the glass not dim, Coltrane all around;
he sets a tone of dissonance, rightly now it seems.
For as the beauty clothes me in, a tragedy is found:
woodchips below – a resting place – long for love supreme.

For there he lies with outstretched span, stricken by a car;
afflicted by our fallenness, and smitten by our thorns.
He struggles with the weight of pain, not getting very far.
To stop, release his spirit’s breath – give way to Death’s dark door.

I prayed a prayer, and thought some thoughts, and something in me burned.
Oh I see my Savior, the pains he took! For me: protect,
for prone to wander, weak I am, to that which I once yearned.
Until you did in me and Him- my soul: You resurrect.

And thus to show He heard my prayer and strengthen my weak frame,
up pops the bird, into the air; and now my soul shall do the same.

[read my other Holy Week poetry here]

all writings licensed: Creative Commons License

On Holy Saturday: “Better Your Arms Around Me (Penelope’s Window)” (a poem)

/ Paul Burkhart / Leave a comment

_____________________________________________________

Better Your Arms Around Me (Penelope’s Window)

You know why I’m standing here.
You know what I’m going to say.
The look behind your eyes betrays you.
Your sleeping head goes away.

Dreams lie as you do;
Dreams lie all night;
like you do.

Pacing back and forth on Friday,
Before you lay these words in my head.
Hoping my closed mouth mined gold
to give you, to give you.
Continue reading →

On Good Friday: “Scotchful Thoughts on Treason & War” (a poem)

/ Paul Burkhart / Leave a comment

_____________________________________________________

Scotchful Thoughts on Treason & War

You’re stronger than Scotch, though that’s not what my throat urgently screams at the moment. Ah, the struggles of an artist, a mystic, one whose deep cries out for yours – to express the inexpressible.  To package in words that which can’t be contained.  You’ve caringly — lovingly, even — taken me, torn open my chest, pulled out my heart, and have affectionately run my broken body into your knee such that I am torn in two
_____– one spirit, one flesh:

All of reality stands at this heralding moment:
_____Wide-eyed, eager – youthful
_____anticipation abounds.
Hands on knees looking forward, rocking back
_____so on and so forth they watch:
_____smiles ear to ear.
Continue reading →

Why do we hate our bodies so much?

/ Paul Burkhart / 4 Comments

Originally, I was going to entitle this post, Worship, Bodies, and the Economics of Self-Loathing. But, in the interest of readability and trying to seem less intense (and douche-baggy), I’ve changed this to the above title. But still, as that original title implies, there’s a lot here on this topic that I have to say–and may, at some point. But for now, I just wanted to give some musings and thoughts I’ve been having.

I went to a conference a couple of weeks ago put on by a group of artists called Bifrost Arts, and it was on “Liturgy, Music, and Space”. While there, I attended a workshop on the use of our bodies in worship. I was struck at the immense beauty that the Bible offers as it pertains to our embodiment. Our bodies are essential instruments in the worship and life of God. Heck, it’s essential to our very redemption as God Himself took on a body to save us.

And yet, very few of us engage our bodies in those most meaningful of spheres of life, especially when it comes to our spiritual existence. That blasted dualism of our world that elevates the “spiritual” above the “physical” pervades even those most passionate and dedicated of believers in Jesus. We often see our worship merely as a process of dropping immaterial ideas into our immaterial selves to help stir up immaterial emotional responses. And then we wonder why our embodied actions and obedience don’t follow. Could it be that we need to preach the Gospel to our bodies as well?

As I was thinking about this, I was forced to ask: Why do we hate our bodies so much?
Continue reading →

Pain, Sickness, & the Goodness of God (by Jen Justice) [Guest Post]

/ Paul Burkhart / 10 Comments

Okay, for those that haven’t been keeping up with this. I wrote a post about meeting God in an illness I was facing. Steve Wolf left a comment taking issue with joyfully finding this sickness within God’s Providence. I wrote a response to him. He wrote a response to me. I then sent my final reply to Him. He sent his final reply. Now, an old friend of mine, Jen Justice, who is both one of the most faithful women of God I know and someone who has faced many medical issues in her life wishes to give a few words to Steve. I knew her in Richmond and she now lives in Atlanta with her husband Josh. She is a woman full of both wisdom and grace and this response from her to Steve exemplifies this well. Also be sure to read her article on humility she wrote for my old web magazine Reform & Revive. Here’s Jen:

Steve-

First, I just want to let you know that no one is mad at you for healing people. I also believe in the gift of healing and praise God whenever He heals someone. I continue to ask Him to heal me, and I’m grateful whenever a brother or sister prays for my healing, as well.

Continue reading →

sin, joy, desire, & maturity (encouragement from a friend)

/ Paul Burkhart / 5 Comments

I think the sense of our wants, when withal we have a restlessness and a sort of spiritual impatience under them, and can make a din, because we want Him whom our soul loveth, is that which maketh an open door to Christ: and when we think we are going backward, because we feel deadness, we are going forward; for the more sense the more life, and no sense argueth no life.

–Samuel Rutherford, The Loveliness of Christ

I was sent this quote by a dear friend who’s probably starting to get to know me better than I would like.  It really spoke to me.
Continue reading →

The Hope of Gethsemane (of Lent, Mortality, & Ashes)

/ Paul Burkhart / 17 Comments


I always have high and lofty hopes for Lent. Each year I have visions in my head of those amazing “spiritual” things I will do over these 40 days that will result in life-long and generational sins merely falling away from my life; my heart finally unburdened of the weights and yokes it has borne for so long.

And alas, God consistently and assuredly meets me in this season, but the time is rather marked by a sharp sense and sting of failure in these things I have dreamt of doing.

And so, I find myself here, five days into Lent, having already felt this weight of my own shortcomings and self-deception: dearest brothers confronting me in the facades I present to the world out of my own fears and insecurities, telling me how hard it is to love me; finding my heart wander to those old idolatries that I thought only marked my youth and immaturity; my social anxieties paralyzing me in my greatest opportunities of worship; falling short of the fast I have offered to God in this season; etc., etc., etc., etc….

And it’s right then in these moments that my greatest love–my Bridegroom, my Lover, my Hope, and my Healer: the Lord–meets me. Continue reading →

The Gospel: The Limitation of God

/ Paul Burkhart / 2 Comments

The question came from a friend of a friend; a fellow pilgrim, sojourner, doubter, skeptic, thinker, brother:

If God is omnipotent [all-powerful] can he use this attribute to limit his omniscience [all-knowing] or omnipresence [all- er…present]?

It’s an interesting question, similar to the whole can God create a rock that’s too heavy for him to lift? or (my favorite) can he make a burrito too spicy for him to eat? I think part of the issue here is how we view the idea of attributes.  In our Western, scientific, and post-Enlightenment mindset, we often think of people as fully assembled “systems” of interconnected attributes.  And so, like the chemical compounds that create our physical bodies, we assume that these attributes are separate things that have come together to make us who we are.

Continue reading →

i am not my own

/ Paul Burkhart / 3 Comments



…fast falls the eventide; the darkness deepens; Lord with me abide…

Both viruses and people get themselves into us, infect us, surprise us, and change us–both for good and ill. And when they depart we are left with that most complex simplicities of emotions, asking simply: what was that? The story, the episode, that previously seemed to exist with such continuity now seems so disjointed from all others that “the purpose” seems our only thought.

…When other helpers fail, and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, abide with me…

We wonder, we wander, seeking our Home, our Rest, our Selves. We recast our history in the eyes of this present trial, this present pain, this present darkness, and feel the twitch and fear that comes whenever we seriously consider all we’ve done before and all it represents within us–all the trials caused, the pains committed, and the darknesses within us.

Continue reading →

My February: Resolutions, Justice, Health, & Lent

/ Paul Burkhart / 3 Comments

This year has been an interesting year for my personal convictions.  Over winter break I read the amazingly helpful book Everyday Justice: The Global Impact of Our Daily Choices by Julie Clawson.  It goes through seven major and “mundane” parts of our lives and shows how there are major global inequities, amoralities, and injustices being perpetrated behind the scenes of all these spheres of living.  She explains, with both nuance and care, these issues and then offers super-practical, nitty-gritty suggestions for living life more justly in light of these things.

My New Year’s Resolution was to take one of her seven issues each month and try to incorporate a more just way of living into that.  The issues (in chapter order): Coffee, Chocolate, Cars/Oil consumption, Food, Clothing, Waste/Pollution, Global Debt.

January for me was officially Just Coffee Month.  Other than an Irish coffee I picked up at an Irish pub (which I couldn’t confirm its trade method),  I have not spent one cent on coffee that has not been ethically traded and certified as such.  Special thanks to my friends at Elixr Coffee (on Yelp), the new best coffee-shop in Philly, for offering amazing Direct Trade coffee choices (which is far more ethical than “Fair” Trade Coffee). Continue reading →

Pain, Suffering, & the Story of God

/ Paul Burkhart / 18 Comments

[Update: this post inspired a comment (below), that I ended up responding to. The commenter responded to that, then I gave my final response, and then he gave his. Lastly, a friend posted her thoughts on the discussion as well. Follow the links to get in on the discussion.]

You know that proverbial flu bug that is perpetually in existence all over the country all at once on snowy days?  Yeah, well I’ve got it.  Starting yesterday, the back of my head and the top of my neck were struck by a throbbing pain, pulsating with every heartbeat; my body temperature playing the role of ping-pong ball between the paddles of heat and cold; my body aching with every move.

I went to sleep last night, tossing and turning for a long while hoping for the pain to subside by the time I woke.  I woke and felt great.  That is, while I was laying in my bed.  The moment I stood up and the blood rushed throughout my body, the pain, dizziness, and energy-sapping delirium of flu raged against me.  And then I went to work. Continue reading →

My Grandfather’s Passing (Hope in Death?)

/ Paul Burkhart / 19 Comments

This past Sunday, the day after Christmas, I more or less watched my grandfather die (he managed to go at the one moment when no one was actually looking, just like he had hoped). This is the first death I’ve ever experienced of someone very close to me. Sure, I’ve known regular customers at jobs of mine who had passed, several old high school friends who were in car accidents, and a few people I briefly became close to in college who later died. But this was the first person that had walked with me (and I with them) for my entire life; on whose knee I had sat, been tickled by, heard legends about, and around whom I walked in a general sense of awe and disbelief.

His name was (is?) Lester Travis Williamson, or as I knew him for most my life: Peep (the result of a mispronunciation of the original attempted nickname by the first grandchild of the family). He represented for me a tenacity and determinedness of love that great stories of tragedy and triumph are built upon. As their old pastor said today during the funeral, he was a man that if you asked for a crumb would give you the entire loaf. Further, he would chase you out the door to give you another loaf on your way out. But this is not to be confused with the contemporary pictures of the gratuitously giving man we have today–cheerful, talkative, jocular, and always-optimistic. To be sure, he was the quintessential man of his generation–a “real man”–quiet, determined, and strong. He spoke with passion and intentionality in every syllable, meaning what he said and saying what he meant; he wasted no words for trivial things (except for maybe sports).
Continue reading →