Let Love Disturb Us

The Spirit stands between us
Helps us find our home
And the lesser ways we've loved
Are invited to take hold
Love is the answer
No more cliches
Running deeper then our thoughts
Showing us the way

Love has a voice
Love has a name
I can see it in your eyes
Catching glimpses in the flame

In fear I could deny you
Silence my heart
It's safer seeing land
Let what's known keep us apart
Can we let love disturb us
Push us out to sea
Stir bigger dreams then ever
Where faith has eyes to see

Love has a voice
Love has a name
I can hear it in your song
We will never be the same

Christopher Austin copy-write 2/2012

Chasing the Wild Goose

While I'm interested in what you know, I'd rather hear about where you've been. We've all heard it said, "Knowledge is power". But there is a knowledge that puffs a man up. Fooling him into thinking he has real power. Yet in this, he often loses the ability to affect and impact the world around him.

We're warned in scripture that some people will be forever learning but never coming to an understanding of truth. While knowledge offers some power structure, experience offers a framework for understanding. Knowledge is what we should be seeing in our rear-view mirror. It is not the target destination but rather the by-product of experience.

You show me someone whose heart is set on pilgrimage and I'll show you someone who has the power to affect and impact. The Christian mystics of Ireland referred to pilgrimage as "chasing the wild goose". The Spirit of Christ being the "Wild Goose". Tell me where you've been and maybe the two of us will begin to understand something worth knowing.

[clivis] - "Dweller on the Cliff"

I moved back to Woodland Park 15 years ago to take a position as Director of Student Ministries. This is the same town and the same little fellowship I cut my spiritual teeth on as a student back in the day. Our local paper runs a "Religious" page each week. On that page is a directory of local ministries. Gathering times, phone numbers, location and staff. Somehow my name...Chris...was misread and printed Clivis: "klie-vus". We all got a laugh out of it that first week. I called to make the correction, but six months later it was still being printed as Clivis. It was the birth of a new nickname.

Meanwhile, I'm busy establishing this community called Highland Youth Ministry. It's was a pretty high octane group of misfits and ragamuffins that gathered for more then ten years. The mission of Highland Youth Ministry was to "take people to the edge and push them over." The "edge" is the threshold of faith. That place in our lives where clarity ends and risk begins. That point of connection between what exists in the unseen world of God's Kingdom and what we know in the natural world of our lives. Many of us stare at the threshold with wonderment, but few of us choose to cross it. To cross it is to forgo the security of clarity.

Mother Theresa gained the audience of a successfully retired business man one day. He had traveled to her in hopes of sorting out how he would spend his time, energies and money in this new season of his life. She asked him what he wanted. "I want what you have...I want clarity". Her response stunned him. "You don't want clarity, you want control." From his perspective, the impact of her life and the focus of her ministry was the result of clarity. She went on to explain, "I don't have clarity. What I have is the voice of my Father and the grace to obey his leading." The people with great affect aren't always the ones with the clarity. They are the ones who step over the "edge" into dependence on the Father.

Fast forward 2 years. We are expecting a child and are searching the baby name books for inspiration. For the fun of it I look up the name Clivis. With a sense of God's smile, I discover the name to mean..."Dweller on the Cliff".