The first definition or name that God gives of God’s self in
the Bible is “I am who am” (Exodus 3:14). There it is: I am existence itself. I
am pure being. I am the deepest selfhood of all that exists. I’m convinced that
when we can surrender to the Great I AM, the Great Universal Being, the great
shared consciousness that we all are, God gives us courage to accept our own I
am in all of its eccentricity and in all of its brokenness. Your participation
in the Universal Being or I am-ness of God gives you the courage to hand back
to God the only life you’ll ever have. That will be the most humbling and the
most courageous act of faith you’ll ever live, because what you hand back will
always seem so tawdry and insignificant. But it isn’t. It is precisely the handing
back that makes it momentous.
The important thing is the willingness to give back the gift
that is you, not the perfection of the gift itself. Can you feel the
difference? If you find this difficult, imagine that you love a little child.
You do not want their perfect drawing or gift. What gives you joy is that they
want to give it to you—and the expectant smile on their face as they hand you
their scribbles, largely outside the lines!
Richard
Rohr
___________________________________________________________________
I sit here today
The Reverend Dr. Father Sir Kliewer (that’s a joke)
But I do sit here
Looking at my computer and wondering
What am I going to say this Sunday?
What am I going to say this Christmas Eve
What wonderful gift am I going to construct for this God who
simply says
“I AM”
I remember as a child my parents would give each of us
children a small amount of money so we could buy presents for both them (our
parents) and each other (the siblings).
I have to say that was probably my favorite part of Christmas growing
up. We would prowl the entire 2 blocks
of downtown Lakeview, Oregon, going into to Howards Drugs, Harts Drugs, Rexall
Drugs, the Hardware Store,the store on the corner (where my sister now
worships) spending hours looking for just the right thing.
I put a LOT of effort into that search. And then my treasurers procured I would head
home, back into our mother's wrapping place, and wrap, as best a 5, 6, or 7 year
old boy could, the gift I had selected.
And on Christmas morning I would just about die until my gift to my
sisters (who I loved then and love still), and my silly gifts to my parents,
were unwrapped. I know it sounds odd,
but I remember them unwrapping my gifts for them more clearly than unwrapping
my own (with maybe the exception of my wood train which I still have).
But today I sit and look at this screen with blurry
eyes. Because I now know that what
counted to Mavis Jean and Susan, what counted to my amazing dad and my quiet but
practically loving mother, was that I was giving them the only gift that really
mattered, my love. And that love now
oozes out of my eyes, and makes it hard to hit the keys on this computer!
And I know something else this day
That all the Sacred One really wants is for me to realize
that THE GIFT I have to give is the gift of me.
I can give this amazing thing, this person, this soul, this carrier of
the sacred… I can hand it back… and say to
the Sacred – here, this is my gift. And I can know that God will get
tears too
At the tattered little being that is being given, a little
more than worn, the coloring way outside the lines,
and not even logical…. at the tattered little being that is
the gift, the only gift any of us can really give
This understanding will not stop me from trying to write
something powerful for Sunday Worship, or for Christmas Eve. But what I hope I can really offer the people
who wander into our lovely little country church
Is the gift of me, and the simple message
That all God really wants is the gift that each of them is
to the one who birthed them and gave them
That face, that voice, that smile, that heart
True, the picture they place in the Sacred Hands may be
wrinkled and the coloring may be outside the lines
but I don’t think God will even see that among
copious tears of joy
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