Just say Thanks

“In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it's wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.”

― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, pray, love: one woman's search for everything

___________________________________________________________

In the end

It seems

Or in the beginning

It is really a matter of gratitude

When we become narrow, tight

Hugging things to ourselves

It is not because we don’t have enough

As much as it is that we don’t see how much we have

We don’t see the gifts

We just

Don’t

See

Them

They are right there!

The sky, the mountains

The clouds

The frost on the grass

Sunrise, sunset

The doe who eats my bushes

The calves playing in the pasture

The deer in the woods

The eagle on the wing

Gifts

A child’s laughter

A friend’s hug

A thank you from a client

Gifts

So many gifts received

So many gifts to be given

If we were to surrender to generosity

Human and divine

We would be full to overflowing

With all good gifts,

We would be driven to thanksgiving

And driven also to our own kind of generosity

For gratitude is the fuel of generosity

And it is those with glad and grateful hearts

Who give

Gladly and joyfully

We seem to have two choices,

to focus on what we do not have,

to obsess about what we might lose,

And sit around in fear,

Fearful hoarders,

Or to focus on what we have received,

find gratitude

And become Cheerful givers

The choice is up to us

What is it going to be?

Words

Words can travel thousands of miles

May my words create mutual understanding and love

May they be as beautiful as gems

As lovely as flowers

                        Thich Nhat Hanh

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We are awash with words

Written and spoken

They come at us from all directions

messengers

revealing so much

revealing so little

often all that we have

in our quest to know the other

often profoundly limited

only 7% of the message

or so we are told

mere code

of inward thoughts and feelings

yet for all this words move and motivate

hurt and heal

expose and hide

unite and divide

words have power

yet we throw them around so carelessly

a bit of sarcasm here

a scathing remark there

a careless joke

a quick jab

innocently

intently

today may I be careful with my words

may they build not erode

may they create understanding

and caress and warm the heart they touch

may they travel through the space between

messengers of light

sun, moon, stars

filling that space

with beauty

instruments

of

love

Where are you headed?

The false self is not really bad or evil, but just inadequate to the big questions of love, death, suffering, God, or infinity. God allows and uses all our diversionary tactics to get us to move toward our full and final destination, which is divine union—and thus wholeness. That is how perfect and patient divine love is: Nothing is wasted; even our mistakes are the raw material to turn us back into love.

                                                                                    Richard Rohr

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Where are you headed?

Where am I headed?

What are the values we hold?

The goals we set to move us toward those values?

The steps we plan to achieve those goals?

The fact is, we are all just going home

We came from that we do not understand and cannot capture

From what can only be called mystery

Although we try to contain it in an inadequate concept called God

But would be well advised to simply call love

And we return to that same place

Divine

Union

Or perhaps better

Re-union

We make it hard

This journey

With our choices

Our errors

With our addiction to fear and hate

Greed and power-lust

But this reality

The one (if we choose to anthropomorphize)

Keeps drawing us on

Back into itself

Back into ourselves

And no matter what we do

No matter what choices we make

No matter what allegiances we choose

Still Sacred draws us back

Using it all

The good, the bad and the ugly

To move us

Forward, forward

To that compass point that is

Wholeness

Love

Everything in the sacred alchemy is changed

Transformed

And we are drawn toward love

Toward God (yes, I will go there)

And at the same time toward our true self

Puled inexorably back

Through the future

Into the arms of the Sacred

Into the “Father’s (or mother’s) House

Where our room awaits

And we can rest

Safe

At

Last

A matter of division

“The Destiny of Man is to unite, not to divide. If you keep on dividing you end up as a collection of monkeys throwing nuts at each other out of separate trees.”

 T.H. White, The Once and Future King

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Divide and rule

Try it!

It works

It has been the weapon of choice for narcissists

Since the beginning of time

From Philip of Macedonia (who is said to have coined the phrase)

on through Ceasar, Napolean

and Machiavelli,

it has been used by people who love power

and love to abuse power

to minimize and marginalize people

and control them

foster distrust

create hate

distract from what is really happening

keep people in small groups

aligned around fear or hate, or ideology, or prejudice, or bigotry

and you win

but this is no way to live

like a ‘bunch of monkeys throwing nuts at one another from separate trees”

even if I think “my tree” is best

even if I think my ideas, my knowledge, my way, my values are better

it is no way to live

the cost is simply too great

think of what we see around us

look at what we are becoming

voter suppression

racism

angry people with guns, shooting those they disdain

a loss of civility

greed

saying we are like monkeys throwing nuts at each other is kind

We are more like angry beasts, tearing at each others flesh

Too many of us, at too many levels

Are caught up in this game

I found myself stating the other night

That I wished Karma would catch up with Mitch McConnell, soon

Monkey in a tree

Why would I wish ill on another human being?

Because that being is creating ill?  Yes!

But still

Adding enmity to enmity clearly does not work

The author of the book of Hebrews in the Bible

Suggests that we should provoke one another into love and good works

Provoke!

Wow!.  Not gently encourage, but provoke.

What does it mean to provoke love

Provoke unity?

I am not sure

But I think it is time we figure it out

How can, instead of escalating hate, can we escalate kindness and generosity?

How can we, instead of poking the hornets’ nest, and releasing fury

Can we draw out affection and compassion?

And how can we do it, while all around us

There are people assailing one another with words

And hate

And hostility

It is perhaps the question for our time

Will we go down the path we are going, and, as a world

Act out our anger, allowing extremism from the far right

To draw us into a savagery like that we saw in our great world wars

(the pattern now is much like that before WWI and WWII)

Or will we find a better way

And Provoke one another not into conflict, but into love??

Stop, listen, think

Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.  Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live.  AND   You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you,  and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.    The prophet Isaiah

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For some reason this passage resonated with me this morning

Oh yeah, I read the news

I opened Facebook

I saw tweets from the twitler

And it all felt like a starvation diet

But here, we have abundance

Here we have peace

Here we have joy

Ah!  But how do we get there?

It seems obvious that we are not there

If anything we are not only starving ourselves

We are hacking away our very souls

How do we get to joy?

I believe that to get to joy we must understand that we are standing on sacred ground. 

We must believe that God is present, and at work now! 

We must understand that the key to joy is not to be found in the eschatology of progress, not found in a bigger bank account, a nicer car, or a better job.  Not even to be found in a more attractive body, or healthier body

Joy is to be found in knowing that each moment of each day we are standing on sacred ground  - because we are immersed in sacred mystery, and all that is sacred is gifting us. 

Our problem is that we miss this because we are so busy looking ahead, so busy making it about us, and so busy   COUNTING THE WRONG THINGS. 

During WW II Britain was trying to figure out how to look at how things were going economically.  They wanted to know what resources they would have to fight the war.    They came up with a method where they combined the values of all goods and services bought and sold in that year, and used that figure to calculate the overall wealth of the nation.  This method, this measurement is what we now know as the Gross Domestic Product, or GDP. 

We often, in our way of looking at ourselves, at our lives, use a measurement that is much the same.  Kind of a personal  GDP.  Have I increased my wealth?  Have I spent my money wisely?  Have I improved my looks so as to be more successful?  Have I become more proper by cutting back on how much I drink, or dropping the habit of smoking?

But really people.  Are those really the things by which to measure life?  Are those the targets we should aim for in our “resolutions?”  Is focusing on such things the way to find happiness?  Become satisfied people?

Wayne Muller puts it this way.  “Consider” he says, “a woman in Somalia who rises early to walk two miles to the nearest well to get water for her family, returns to feed her children and ready them for school, spends the morning working the soil of the family garden, the afternoon tending to the sick and infirm of her village, then in the evening cooks and sings songs to her children and nurtures them to bed.  As measured by the theology of progress this woman has no value.  And yet  -  can we say there is no value in that life?”

So often we fail to understand what truly brings value.  And we look in the wrong places.  And we try to find satisfaction in the wrong way.  So I have a radical idea…

That we stop counting.  Think about it!  You can count lbs, drinks drunk, cigarettes smoked, money saved, net worth, toys accumulated.  But how do we count friendship or laughter?  How do we count the value of honesty or bread from the oven?  How can we count the sunrise?  The trusting grasp of a child’s hand, a song, a tear, a lover’s touch? 

We should stop counting, and make room in our lives for what can only be called Sabbath moments.

What is a Sabbath moment?  An old Jewish Rabbi once, when talking about the Sabbath talked about Moses at the burning bush.  “Why” he asked “was it important for Moses to remove his shoes?”  Not, he said, as a sign of subservience.”  No, the Rabbi insisted it was simply because it was Holy Ground, and Moses needed to feel the ground directly through the skin of his feet.  He needed direct contact with the divine.  He needed to be grounded. 

We need to take time to place our feet on the ground.  We need to recognize that in this moment, in every moment we are standing on holy ground.  And we need to stop our rushing and our working, our striving – stop, and listen, and look, and settle into the mystery (call that mystery God if you want) and experience that grounding

Time to Lament

We cannot let these days of ritual remembrance and mourning pass this year without a larger call for lament. Lament is grief given voice. It is, as Old Testament scholar and theologian Walter Brueggemann writes, “dangerous, restless speech.” It is restless because it calls domination systems into question. It is dangerous because it refuses to settle for the way things are and demands change.

                                                                        The Rev. Laura Mayo in the Houston Chronicle

___________________________________________________

there are times when our souls tell us

it is time to lament

it is time to give voice to grief

in the bible there is a book of laments

the people grieving over a great nation

no longer great

“How deserted lies the city,

    once so full of people!

How like a widow is she,

    who once was great among the nations!”

perhaps it is time to lament

the psalms often Lament

the cry to God with the grief of hopes dashed

pain experienced

“how long O’ Lord, how long, will you turn your face from me”

Jesus lamented as he sat on that rock in Gethsemene

pouring our his anguish

not over his death

but over the human condition which occasioned it

perhaps it is time to lament

I lament the hate and fear that permeates our country

Showing not strength but weakness

and driving us to embrace all manner of evil

the caging of children

the neglect of the vulnerable

the exclusion of those seeking refuge

I lament a nation culture where lying and bullying is the norm

I lament division and enmity

the dehumanization of others

the creation of enemies

I lament the greed that will let children go hungry,

while filling the bank accounts of the very, very wealthy

I lament the injustices poured upon people of color

And the treatment of the LGBTQI community

I lament the money spent on the military, and the machinery of death

I lament that there are people who are homeless

and people who will face a bitter winter on the street

I lament what we have done to the earth

and lament the cold blindness of those who perpetuate the abuse

I lament the fact that we leave the systems in place that destroy us

That we leave leaders in place who do not lead us

But most of all I lament my own complicity 

The ways in which I daily, participate in that which is evil

I lament my own unwillingness to change

To stand up

To speak out

My own failure to, as the saying goes,

Be the change I want to see in the world

Yes

It is time to lament

Thanks giving

“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”

                                                             Marcel Proust

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I can be thankful for many things

Sometimes I forget this

I might wake up thinking of the corporate takeover of America

Of children caged,

And elderly neglected

And immigrants feared and rejected

I might think of people, homeless and hungry

Of families grieving

I might think of domestic terrorists and mass shooting

I might think of oligarchies,

And bullies in high places

Of rampant greed

Of hate and fear

Of lies and cruelties abounding

I might wake up remembering that right now, physically,

Everything hurts, and what doesn’t hurt doesn’t work

I can go negative in half a breath

But if I slowly take the rest of that breath

And look around

I see my home, which I love

I can look out the window and see Mt Joseph glowing in the morning sun

I can watch the sun rise over the Seven Devils

And see the clouds catch fire

I can hear the horses greet me as I go out of feed them

And I can get horse kisses for free

I can take a walk with happy dog

And trip over cats, insistent

And I can think of the people I love, and who love me

People near at hand, who this day will break bread

And gnaw turkey

And play cards at my table

And remember people far away, like my song and daughter and their families

Who are still a part of this moment

And people no longer here, my mother and father

So long gone

And yet, still lingering in my soul

I can think of all those people who been gardeners of my soul

And have made it, for all the weeds and barren places

Blossom

Thanksgiving

Go where your prayers take you

“Go where your best prayers take you.”

― Frederick Buechner

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today my prayers will take me into grief

as I think of communities destroyed by fire

and people missing and dead.

My prayers will take me into sorrow as I think of

that desperate caravan of desperate mothers and fathers

and fragile children

marching toward what they hope is safety

and as I think of little children separated from their parents

and caged

today my prayers will take me into pain

as I offer to the sacred

the agony of those afflicted by

cancer, arthritis, heart failure

all the afflictions of

the body

today my payers will take me into loneliness

as I listen to one

who is so

alone

today my prayers will take me into

anger and hate

as these dark emotions dominate

the social media

and dominate

the words of people

who have become fused

with darker things

and have become hate personified

today my prayers will take me

into fear

as I watch lives shattered

evil flourish

and the earth fail

It is not all darkness, I know

This life is filled too with beauty, with love

Even with kindness

at moments

I will be led too

into light and joy

for they too are part of life

and I will remember love and plentitude

And acts of nobility and kindness

I will be led into awe

As I look at the mountains

And watch the sun rise

today my prayers will take me down many paths

rough and smooth

down into life

Oh Sacred One

Help me to go where my prayers take me

Rejoice with me which I am in the high places

And when I find myself

In the dust and grime of uncertainty and darkness

Be with me

Be with me in  the grief and pain

the sorrow, anger and fear,

to comfort

to calm

to heal

to rejoice

until I once again

find my way to the light

Gratitude

“In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it's wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.”

― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, pray, love: one woman's search for everything

___________________________________________________________

In the end

It seems

Or in the beginning

It is really a matter of gratitude

When we become narrow, tight

Hugging things to ourselves

It is not because we don’t have enough

As much as it is that we don’t see how much we have

We don’t see the gifts

We just

Don’t

See

Them

They are right there!

The sky, the mountains

The clouds

The frost on the grass

Sunrise, sunset

The doe who eats my bushes

The calves playing in the pasture

The deer in the woods

The eagle on the wing

Gifts

A child’s laughter

A friend’s hug

A thank you from a client

Gifts

So many gifts received

So many gifts to be given

If we were to surrender to generosity

Human and divine

We would be full to overflowing

With all good gifts,

We would be driven to thanksgiving

And driven also to our own kind of generosity

For gratitude is the fuel of generosity

And it is those with glad and grateful hearts

Who give

Gladly and joyfully

We seem to have two choices,

to focus on what we do not have,

to obsess about what we might lose,

And sit around in fear,

Fearful hoarders,

Or to focus on what we have received,

find gratitude

And become Cheerful givers

The choice is up to us

What is it going to be?

opening our hearts

“Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion too

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will be as one”

― John Lennon, Imagine

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It’s hard to imagine

In this time of radical polarization

It is hard to imagine

In a world where fearful souls

Feel it is necessary to carry an AR-15 to by a BigMac

It is hard to imagine in a time when

A man placed in the leadership of a great nation

Sits a sulks alone

It is hard to imagine

As we celebrate the war to end all wars

(which was how many wars ago?)

By looking over white crosses representing thousands of young men

Killed

It is hard to image as the rhetoric flies

About immigrant caravans

And as the evangelical church endorses exclusion and hate

It is hard to imagine unity

It is hard to imagine peace

But I can imagine

And I know one thing

It will never happen when we sit on the poles of the ideological

(or even theological) spectrum shouting at one another

It will not happen if we always insist on getting our own way

It will not happen if we focus on winning and losing

It will not happen if in fear we reject and exclude

It will not happen if we lie, or bully,

It will not happen if we insist on power rather than servanthood

It will only happen if we come together

Recognizing that we share the same heart

The same spirit (and Spirit)

It will only happen if we are willing to be servants to one another

To see others as important (or more so) than ourselves

At the end of many services I share a verse from Paul’s letter to

The Romans (15)

It goes this way…

“May the God who inspires us to endure, and gives us a loving parent’s care, give us a mind united towards one another because of our common loyalty to Jesus Christ. And then, as one person we will sing from the heart the praises of God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So let us open our hearts to one another as Christ has opened his heart to us, and God will be glorified.”

                                                                                                            JB Phillips

God will be glorified, indeed

scars

“The best people all have some kind of scar.”

 Kiera Cass, The One

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I have a body littered with scars

Neck surgery, 5 knee surgeries

A ruptured Achilles tendon

And appendectomy

A repaired shoulder

The list goes on

those scars represent pain

and damage

they represent time

and they represent much more

commitments

actions

play

work

in some ways they are a road map of my priorities and values

I loved basketball, and skiing

I played hard

And so my body carries a few scars

I talked with an old cowboy the other other day

Who had broken about everything that could be broken

He had scars everywhere

But his eyes still lit up when he talked about horses

My soul (that part of me where the Sacred dwells, and that ultimately defines me)

Also has scars

There is a scar from the time I was bullied at school

A scar from the time that “really cute girl” in HS rejected me

A scar (or two) from all the mistakes I made that ended my first marriage

There are scars from awful moments in parenting

And scars from those big mistakes in my life, from the things I regret

In many way those scars define me

There are also scars created from watching a child die of hypothermia in norther Iraq

From children radically damaged by neglect in Romanian orphanages

The scars that come when seeing the poverty of children in southern Mexico

And looking at the plight of refugees in Azerbaijan

There are scars from sitting through too many deaths with people I care about

And scars from hearing so many horrible stories in my counseling office.

There are the fresh scars that occur every time a wildland firefighter dies, and I remember my friend Roarke

And scars that happen every time there is another mass shooting

This morning I was scarred by seeing the picture (again), or a young child in Yemen

Starving because people think money and power and more important than children

A young child now dead

Big scar

I don’t seek scars

But I wear them proudly

They are part of life

They come from life

But not just life

From caring, from loving

From letting the pain of the world penetrate our thick skins,

And touch our souls

If we are not scarred, we are sealed off

Shut down

Unfeeling

Uncaring

And frankly, uninvolved

If we are not scarred

We are bubble wrapped in anger, and arrogance

Greed and hate

Prejudice and apathy

Scars are not bad

They represent pain, damage, time life

They are symbols of engagement

Some of the best people I know

Have scars

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A note:  There are scars that are carried because of abuse, racist, domestic violence

These are ugly scars.  There are limits to this imagery.  Please know I understand the complexity of this image.

Scars that come from the abuse of power are always ugly

I am thinking in this piece, mostly of the scars that come when we dare to engage the world with compassion and generosity.  Please accept my apologies for the limitation of the image.

Not so random Acts

“But Jesus accepts what we give, blesses it, breaks it open, and magnifies it. Often in ways that we don’t see or cannot see. Or will not be able to see in this lifetime. Who knows what a kind word does? Who knows what a single act of charity will do? Sometimes the smallest word or gesture can change a life.”

 James Martin, Jesus: A Pilgrimage

_______________________________________

What do I have to give?

Random acts of kindness?

Sporadic is probably a better word.

Momentary lapses into compassion and generosity/

Times when I leave essential selfishness behind, and put others first?

I wonder, if I am honest

If I have contributed all that much during my slow stumbling sojourn

On planet earth

I worry (I am a worrier) about whether I have been for force for good

Or just a person taking up space

I remember, shortly before my father, a family doctor, died of cancer

I had just received my doctorate in theology, and someone, talking to my

Then 5 year old son, was asked how it felt to have a father who was a doctor.

His only frame of reference was Gandpa

And so he answered with brutal honesty.

“It’s OK, but he isn’t the kind of doctor that does anybody any good

Oh, I have had my moments

When I have gotten outside my ego

My fear

My greed

Moments when I reached out with love and generosity

But also far too many other moments when my offerings were small

Contained

Limited

But ah!

Jesus

The one who gently slipped into creation

God’s great gift

The one who held three meager loaves in his hands

And a few random, stinky fish,

And made a banquet

The one who held a poor child in his lap

And made a child of God

O what Jesus does, with whatever we place in his hands

Eagerly, reluctantly,

Doubtfully, faithfully

It matters not

“Jesus accepts what we give, blesses it, breaks it open, and magnifies it”

Our meager gifts

Our reluctant offerings

Touched by holy love become,

Sacred

Our weakness becomes his strength

Our fear his compassion

Our selfishness his generosity

And the world is changed

one action of random kindness at a time

Broken Open, Poured Out

Christ on the cross

broken open

poured out

a good gift

identifying with the lost

the alienated from God

the sinner

the hopeless

broken open

poured out

it is always a gift

when people offer

that kind of love

agape

it is not a love that seeks fairness

for life isn't fair

and love

well

certainly love is not fair

we love,

only to have love not returned,

we give, and there is not even a "thanks"

fairness is not in the equation

for the Christian

those lazy welfare people

those people afflicted by addiction

those immigrants

those greedy and hateful souls

those people

them

they

it is not fair that people

who work hard

who are responsible

have to provide the vulnerable with what they need to survive

and yet

and yet

what are taxes

compared to the cross?

why in the name of Christ

are some so Christless?

It is not fair that those who are racist

Who lie and abuse prosper

And we, we are asked to forgive them

Even they know what they do…

But what is our forgiveness next to the forgiveness

That flowed down like the blood from the crown of thorns

To those gathered at the foot of the cross

Faithless disciples

Grieving mother

Brutal soldiers

all

deserved?

not deserved?

not even part of the equation for those of us

who at the foot of the cross

receive

the good gift

grace

Connection

When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly,

God is the electricity that surges between them

                                                            Martin Buber

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Who are you?

I am not sure I know, but I’d like to!

I’d like to know what makes you tick

How you think, what you feel

What you a passionate about,

What gets you up in the morning

Who am I?

I’d like you to know!

At least I think I do.

I’d like you to know what I love

What is going on in my monkey brain

What I fear

What hurts

I am not talking about playing it safe here

Being real is never safe

And when two people actually make a connect

That is authentic and vulnerable

It can be rather shocking!

Bzzzzzzt!

Sometimes it stings

Sometimes it hurts

But when the current flows

Something happens

Call it electricity

Call it love

Call it God

And we are transformed

Individually

Together

We are changed from encapsulated egos

Fearful and striving

Into beings bound together by something big

Bigger

That which is immanent and transcendent

Becomes intimate and finite

Incarnate

I and It

Becomes I and Thou

“I” and “me”

Becomes “us”

And Sacred becomes real

In our connection with one another

We don’t need theology

Or ideology

We don’t need earthly power

Or wealth

We don’t need border walls

We don’t need a booming stock market

We need each other

For it is in love of other another

That the kingdom comes