The Rushed Contemplative

He is risen! He is risen indeed! Peter's Story Fear bred denial. Denial gave way to loss. Loss brought forth doubt, disillusionment, confusion. Then, a glimmer of hope…but only a glimmer. Mary came running, breathlessly exclaiming “I’ve seen the Lord!” Could it be? Fear mingles now with a breath of hope, and suddenly, there he is! No turn of the key, no opening of the door – he’s just… there! A greeting of peace; a cryptic breath about the Holy Spirit, and then…more waiting. A day passes. Another. Six days, and we’re beginning to think it was just the shock of the crucifixion; that we hadn’t really seen him at all. But then again, just as before, he’s there with us! Again, the greeting: “Peace be with you.” This time he focuses on Thomas, who didn’t believe we’d seen him – and whose doubt we were beginning to carry, to be honest with you. He invites Thomas to touch his scars; he holds his hands out to all of us, but we believe…at least, I think we do.

If there is anything that evangelical Christians are good at, it is throwing kerosene on a campfire. More often than not, those campfires - at first only warming the toes of a few folks partaking of random fireside conversations around questions that few take seriously - leap into wildfires that ultimately and indiscriminately consume thousands of acres of thoughtful (and some thoughtless) men and women. But as wildfires are wont to do, they ultimately burn themselves out, leaving significant but temporary destruction in their wake; destruction that in time is all but invisible. Such will be the fate, I think, of the campfire musings of Rob Bell's latest book, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived . It may be that there is more readily-available fuel - and a larger gathering of campers - around Bell's campfire than some of the others in my memory ("The Last Temptation of Christ," Proctor & Gamble's sup