Love is the Center

“If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it.”

                                                                                                                   Stephen Colbert

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There are lots of commandments in the Bible

Lots of instructions

Do this

Don’t do that

Don’t eat shellfish -  Leviticus 11:9-12

Don’t get tattoos - Leviticus 19:28,

Kill all the heathen in the land – Deuteronomy 7 and 20

Smash the rebellious child’s head with a rock - (Deut. 21:18-21).

Keep the Sabbath -  Exodus 20

Die in order to live  - Matthew 16:24–25

There are deadly offenses.

Like being a psychic  -  “A man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you must be put to death. You are to stone them; their blood will be on their own heads.” (Leviticus 20:27)

Getting raped while engaged. “If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die.” (Deuteronomy 22:25) It’s cool though, because if you’re not engaged when you get raped, you just have to marry your rapist (Deuteronomy 22:28).

Getting raped and not screaming loud enough. “If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour’s wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you.” (Deuteronomy 22:23-24) Get it

Striking a father of mother is worthy of death

And lets not forget the seven deadly sins

    Envy = the desire to have an item or experience that someone else possesses

    Gluttony = excessive ongoing consumption of food or drink

   Greed or Avarice = an excessive pursuit of material possessions

    Lust = an uncontrollable passion or longing, especially for sexual desires

    Pride = excessive view of one's self without regard to others.

    Sloth = excessive laziness or the failure to act and utilize one’s talents

    Wrath = uncontrollable feelings of anger and hate towards another person

Yep, there are a lot things in the Bible

And down through the years people have wondered

What to hang on to, and what to let go

For Jesus told his followers they could bind or loosen

They can add things, and let things go

From that huge list of rules  (Don’t believe me?  Check out Matthew 16)

In other words , Jesus gave the disciple the right to make changes

And he did it himself!

“You have heard it said”, he sometimes said,  “But I say”  (Matthew 5)

But here is the thing.  He ended up being asked one time to distill it all down.

And he put it this way

Love God

Then love yourself  (God will help you with that)

Then you will be free to love others (and God will help you with that too)

Love God, love self, love others

Not complicated after all

A little later he got even more blunt

In that powerful parable about the sheep and the goats

There he tells us clearly what love looks like

It looks like

Feeding the hungry

Giving water to the thirsty

Being accepting and hospitable

Taking care of the sick

Having compassion toward those in trouble, even those who have created their own misery

If we do nothing else in the Bible says

We have to do these core things

Love God

Learn to love ourselves

And be people who, secure in God and secure in ourselves (no fear)

Reach out and take care of the vulnerable

If we don’t do these things

We are off the path

Period

Some are saying the hungry should work harder

They don’t care if the water is poison

They would exclude those not like them

And would judge, and shame

They would deny people health care

They are off the path

They are violating God’s basic, core command

Period

There is no excuse

You cannot minimize the vulnerable

You cannot blame them and shame them

You can only feed them, cloth them, provide them with clean water

Accept them,

Provide health care for them

Seek justice for them

You can only love them

Fear, our companion

“There are only a few people out there who can completely overcome their fears,

and they all live in Tibet.”

                                            Susan Cain

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most of us are afraid

not of everything

but of something

fear is our companion

every day

and perhaps every hour

it lurks in the corners of our soul

fear of failure

fear of loss

fear of poverty

fear of being hurt

fear of Muslims

fear of Christians

fear of parents

fear of bosses

the problem is that that we have fear

it is what we do with it

we focus on it

fuse with it

it becomes us

and we know the rest of the story

we get defensive

we get aggressive

we protect, and grasp

or perhaps we hide

retreating inward

narrowing our world

we either bully

or shrink

we can notice our fear

its OK

fear is part of the human experience

what cannot we give our energy to our fear

our energy must go into love

love of God

love of neighbor

even love of self

we must choose to love God

who then enables us to love ourselves

which then frees us to love others

and when loving is what we are about

what we choose to do

fear is cast out

think about it

Inner Chaos

“The highly sensitive [introverted] tend to be philosophical or spiritual in their orientation, rather than materialistic or hedonistic. They dislike small talk. They often describe themselves as creative or intuitive. They dream vividly, and can often recall their dreams the next day. They love music, nature, art, physical beauty. They feel exceptionally strong emotions--sometimes acute bouts of joy, but also sorrow, melancholy, and fear. Highly sensitive people also process information about their environments--both physical and emotional--unusually deeply. They tend to notice subtleties that others miss--another person's shift in mood, say, or a lightbulb burning a touch too brightly.”

― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

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Outwardly I go through my day

Calm

Cool

Collected

I go from task to task and get things done

Usually a lot of things done

But inside it is a different story

While my outer life is a documentary on the mating rituals of the fruit fly

My inner life is reality TV

Or perhaps a soap opera

Lots of drama here!

Because my mind is busy

My emotions too

And I notice…

Everything

Every nuance. 

I notice it, and parse it, and come up with something

(in my cases as an anxious person) something to worry about,

or a need to impress

or a reason to withdraw, hurt and alone

its an interesting world,

my inner life

a nice place to visit

but I wouldn’t want to live there…

but wait!

I do.

Praying for the night

“Like a lot of people with mental illness, I spend a lot of time fronting. It’s really important to me to not appear crazy, to fit in, to seem normal, to do the things “normal people” do, to blend in.

As a defense mechanism, fronting makes a lot of sense, and you hone that mechanism after years of being crazy. Fronting is what allows you to hold down a job and maintain relationships with people, it’s the thing that sometimes keeps you from falling apart. It’s the thing that allows you to have a burst of tears in the shower or behind the front seat of your car and then coolly collect yourself and stroll into a social engagement…

We are rewarded for hiding ourselves. We become the poster children for “productive” mentally ill people, because we are so organized and together. The fact that we can function, at great cost to ourselves, is used to beat up the people who cannot function.

Because unlike the people who cannot front, or who fronted too hard and fell off the cliff, we are able to “keep it together,” whatever it takes.”

                                                                                       S. E. Smith

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we are everywhere

the people with flaws

or so the world judges us

the sad people

the anxious ones

the dysregulated ones

we are everywhere

those “crazy” people,

hearing things that aren’t there

believing things that are true (or so we are told0

we cannot be who we are

it is not allowed

at any level

we cannot be needy

we cannot be impulsive

we cannot share those perceptions we know cannot be shared

so we live in our quiet torment,

we are the artful dodgers,

never letting others know of the chaos within

sadly it sneaks out once in a while

that insecurity, that fear, that impulsiveness

and we behave in ways that give us away

we are revealed

and judged

and shamed

there are (of course) those who cannot front

or who hold up the shields until one day they break

crumble

beam me up Scotty

they cannot hide

and are cast out

pushed to the fringe of society

disposable people

judged for the severity of their illness

offered little mercy

by a society that rejects them

as for the rest of us

we keep up the front

each day we use way more energy than most people

for we must live two lives

the one out there, that everyone sees

and the one inside

and so we put one weary foot in front of the other

sometimes dreading the dawn

sometimes praying for the night

Beautiful People

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”

                                                                         Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

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The sun rising over the Devils

Casting its gold among the trees

That is beauty

The bright blue of an Oregon sky

On a spring day!

That is beauty

The smile of a child

The smooth white, gold, brown, black, olive skin of youth

That is beauty

Eyes that sparkle with life and joy

That is beauty

So too

The face of one who is dealing with cancer

Where compassion and love still live

So too

The face of one who has dealt with loss

A death, a failure

Where hope and acceptance still appear

Some beauty doesn’t just happen

It is made

Forged out of life

It is found in wrinkles

and tears

in gnarled hands

in bodies deformed by cancer, and accident, and age

it is found in hard earned wisdom

and in compassion and patience

and we know it

when we see it

Sacred Silence

“I'm smiled out, talked out, quipped out, socialized so far from any being,

I need the weight of mortal silences to get realized back into myself.”

                                            John Ciardi, This Strangest Everything

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Today I feel slow, low, ugly, puffy, drooped, pooped.

Instead of being bright I am dull

Instead of being generous I am selfish

Instead of being thankful I am angry

I am bored an apathetic

Get the idea?

The call it lots of things

Tired

Compassion fatigue

I guess it comes from being an introvert who has two jobs that are all about people

Counseling, and pastoring

What was I thinking?

I am more at home in my study

With my books, the dog

And perhaps a spare cat or two

But it is what it is

So I need time times of mortal silence

Sunrise

Sunset

The quiet enormity of Sacred generosity

Going I find myself coming

and God

too