Welcome

Primitive religion is not believed, it is danced!

Arthur Darby Nock

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
And only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

Elizabeth Browning



Thursday, November 29, 2018

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?

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

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
_________________________________

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

Monday, November 26, 2018

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
_____________________________________________

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



Sunday, November 25, 2018

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
_____________________________________

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??

Saturday, November 24, 2018

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
______________________________________

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

Friday, November 23, 2018

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

Thursday, November 22, 2018

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
________________________________________________

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

Wednesday, November 21, 2018

Go where your prayers take you


“Go where your best prayers take you.”
― Frederick Buechner
________________________________________

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

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

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?

Monday, November 19, 2018

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
__________________________

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

Sunday, November 18, 2018

scars


“The best people all have some kind of scar.”
 Kiera Cass, The One
___________________________________

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

____________________________________

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.

Friday, November 16, 2018

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


Thursday, November 15, 2018

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

Tuesday, November 13, 2018

Connection


When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly,
God is the electricity that surges between them
                                                            Martin Buber
_____________________________________________

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