Earlier today, I read Shane Claiborne saying and unsaying stuff in Esquire.

Afterward, I blogged a bit about a Maltese friend I miss. That got me thinking about a Vanity Fair magazine I once read on a flight to Malta, and specifically this curious article about DNA, Genographics, and Bono, which left me pondering Jesus’ words, “obedience is thicker than blood” (Matt. 12:48).

So this evening, I reread the online version of Vanity Fair July ’07; Bono as guest editor. I purchased the Special Issue: Africa in late June ’07, while walking through a London airport, catching a flight to Malta. I read the magazine on the plane and left it with friends in Malta. The next day, June 30th, I blogged a Maltese epiphany (here).

In Clairvaux Manifesto, I share that snapshot of space-time this way,

It was my last morning in the City of London. I asked God where I should go. I took the underground to Piccadilly Circus. I prayed all around the bustling area. I prayed up and down various streets. In the courtyard of St. James Church, a beautiful Ethiopian woman handed me a little Star of David pendent with a cross in the center of it. Her husband told me the history of the symbol, and how it represented unified prayer and worship between Jews and Christians. I gave the woman the last of my English currency for her gift of silver. Waving goodbye, I realized we were directly across the street from the Maltese Embassy, three hours before my flight to Malta.

In hindsight, when I heard of the undetonated car bomb in the West End, and the next day walked the island of Malta, the most bombed piece of real estate throughout WWII, I realized a bit more of the scope of the redemptive journey on which we all find ourselves. The path doesn’t always have to make sense; being around bombs doesn’t make any sense at all. We just have to be willing to walk it out, a faith journey of prayer and work.

Tonight, after some time of personal study, and forever staring at my copy of W.R. MacAskill‘s famous 1933 picture of the Bluenose Starboard Lookout, I wrote this one line of fluid consciousness (having nothing to do with Shane or Bono, who are both doing good things):

To the letter of certain laws, morally lazy rogue prophets spew politicized platitudes and hasty (yet premeditated) generalizations, intentionally keeping good people perpetually confused and purposefully dysfunctional, while the preachers themselves remain completely unaccountable and conveniently irresponsible; as storm clouds rage oblivion.

Warnings are presented to those who wander too far off course. Many will tell you that no one is allowed to set the course. There is no course! There is no lighthouse on that shore! No one knows the way, do they? What makes one’s “suggestion” better than an other’s “direction”?

In The Imitation of Christ, Thomas à Kempis warned, “Anyone who is not completely free from the grip of his own vanity is easily tempted and is toppled by small, trifling things.”

In The Life of St. Anthony the Great, Athanasius taught, “And we must pray, not in order to know the future, nor is that the reward we must ask for our hard life; but that our Lord may be our fellow-worker in conquering the devil. But if ever we care to know the future, let us be pure in mind.”

According to The Rule of St. Benedict, “A wise old monk should guard the gates of the monastery. He shall know how to receive and answer a question, and be old enough so he will not be able to wander far.”

I appreciate the enigmatic lyrics of U2′s Stand Up Comedy,

Stand up, this is comedy
The DNA lottery may have left you smart
But can you stand up to beauty, dictator of the heart
I can stand up for hope, faith, love
But while I’m getting over certainty
Stop helping God across the road like a little old lady