hang on and let go

Ya’all better hold on tight

2020 is fixin’ to turn 21

and start drinkin’

                     Unknown

 

Help me to journey beyond the familiar

and into the unknown.

Give me the faith to leave old ways

and break fresh ground with You. . .

                     from the Prayer of St. Brendan

______________________________________

 

every winter (or summer, depends on where you live)

as the calendar year come to an end

we like to pretend that we are joyously leaving

the old year behind

 

letting go of the past

moving on to the future

 

getting rid of the old

embracing the new

 

we make a big show of it!

and it’s a total joke

 

we are people prone to cling

we cling to old hurts

we cling to old victories

we cling to ways of thinking and behaviors

 

we have a death grip on what was and is

and our eyes seems to constantly look back

to “the golden age”

 

certainly the past is important

it both shapes and informs us

 

but our failure to “let go”, to de-fuse from the past

can be devastating

for both us as individuals

and us as a “corporation” a society

 

in the United Stated our inability to let go of old ideologies

the ideology of white supremacy

and of domination

 

has led to the fabric of our country being torn asunder

 

for we cannot move on without facing

and healing

and letting go of the past

 

only then can newness emerge

only then can we bloom and go

 

why is it so hard to move on to what is next?

 

Because letting go so often feels like death

we are letting go of what is certain and known

moving into what is uncertain and unknown

 

we are leaving behind the things we have relied on

those things from which we have gotten our identity

our sense of value

 

Jesus understood how dramatic this is

which is why he said we must die to live

 

the only way to resurrection, to newness of life

is through crucifixion

 

as I enter into this new year

the question I am asking myself is this

“In what ways do I need to die?”

 

What do I need to let go of?

What do I need to leave behind to press forward?

 

And this is not just a question for the new year

This is the question I must ask every day of my life

Perhaps every moment

 

What am I clinging to?

What have I become dependent on?

What have I allowed to become my identity?

 

Once I have figured that out

I have to let go…

 

death must precede resurrection

this is “the only trustworthy pattern of spiritual transformation” *

 

I have to die to the old

so that Sacred may pick up all the debris,

all the flotsam of my life,

and make something new

 

it is always a risk to do this

always scary

but every time I let go

every time I “trust the dying”*

I find my self anew

A better self, a larger self

 

and I move closer

to being what I was created to be

a Sacred child

 

*this language comes from Richard Rohr in his book The Universal Christ

Hope rises

That peace

will rise like bread

we can always hope

 

That justice

will flow like wine

we can always hope

 

That the table

will make strangers kin

we can always hope

 

That our hope

will rise like bread

we can always pray

                     Jan Richardson  In Wisdom’s Path

_____________________

 

we stumble dazedly out of a demented year

like crazed teenagers in a horror movie

having made every bad choice available

 

our heads filled with the lies of mad kings

our days filled with fear

our streets filled with armed bullies

and explosive laden RV’s

 

we stumble toward a new year

uncertain of whether we

are running away from danger or into danger

 

“ya’ll better hold on tight” one sage proclaimed

“2020 is fixin’ to turn 21 and start drinking”

 

but we want to hope

we are built, I think, for hope

 

we hope as people have always hoped

for peace, and justice and equity

we hope that people will learn to live together

 

in a world where all are valued

all are welcomed

all are accepted

where all gather, together, at the table of Love

 

but where do we find true reason for hope?

 

the Instagram poet Atticus once wrote

“some say

the sun is god –

and you don’t see

the sun

minding

who it warms”  (The Truth About Magic)

 

we find hope in the sun

we find hope in the sun rise

we find hope in the snowcapped mountain

that looms in the light of a full moon

 

we find hope in the light

 

not just the light of the sun

but in the light was incarnation

in the light that was Jesus

 

we find hope in the fact that the light came into the darkness

and was not overcome

we find hope in the reality that the light comes, and come, and come again

into the dark corners of our hearts

into our lives

and is not overcome

 

We find hope in the fact that when we believe in, and embrace Love,

believe in the incarnate presence that was (Jesus)

and believe (ongoing) in the incarnate presence that is (the Spirit)

we have the “power” to be Sacred Children, all of us

 

Believing is not a belief

It is not intellectual assent

 

It is the active ongoing embracing of love

of hope

 

it is trust, intimacy

commitment, passion

 

it is opening, letting go

it is being taken over

by the yeast of heaven

 

so that hope rises

like bread

 

 

Those who inhabit us

I believe that we carry within us the strength of generations and that we, too, are inhabited by those who have gone before, by their brokenness and the pain that their decisions have sometimes inflicted upon us, yes, but also by their wisdom, by the courage of their choices made for healing and freedom.  There are wise ones who inhabit our blood, their dreams and hope flowing through us, their voices echoing in the pounding of our hearts.

                     Jan Richardson  In Wisdoms Path  p. 29

______________________

 

I barely knew my grandparents

distance and death took their toll

and they were early gone, leaving behind vague memories

 

Grandpa Kliewer, that tall, distinguished one

Peter Albert was a fitting name for this Mennonite minister

who, ravaged by the Spanish flu, was often ill

and often lay in bed in a back room, a mystery

but sometimes emerged with a kind smile

and held me proudly, the first Kliewer grandson

 

Grandmother Kliewer

the power in the family, that one with stern visage

who never quite accepted my mother,

but had a weakness for Chinese checkers

because playing cards was a “sin” (as were many, many other things)

and would play for hours with her young grandson

 

that one who pushed my gentle grandfather into

a semblance of sternness and impelled him into the local

bars to “rescue the sinners”

when he would much rather play baseball with the team he formed

with his Cheyenne brothers

 

Peter was inclusive, not imposing his white culture on the Cheyenne

he served, but translating much into their language, and valuing their culture

 

You did not cross Grandmother Kliewer

You did not slouch, or put your elbows on the table

But you could still make her smile

 

Grandfather Fairbanks, the descendent of early settlers

his family coming to America in 1635, and building

the Fairbanks House (which still stands in Dedham, Mass)

people of prominence and wealth

 

But grandpa was simple soul

Short and thin, with a huge flock of white hair

he lived a hard scrabble life, eking a living from the hard ground

of southeast Nebraska, a dirt farmer

who never owned a tractor, only horses

and whose house never had running water

 

but his poverty was delightful in my innocence

baths taken on the back porch, with water heated on a wood stove

loose hay in the barn, an outhouse in the back yard

possum hunts

trips to check the catfish lines in the channels, and searches for crawdads

lightening bugs flickering in the evening

He worked hard, and smoked hard, and died of emphysema far too young

 

Grandma was short and round

And filled the house with the scent of fried catfish and other wonders

An immigrant, fresh from Switzerland, I have no idea

How she came to Nebraska, or met my small and quiet grandfather,

But they fit together, comfortably, and raised many children, including my mother

And after grandpa’s death stayed on the farm (now plumbed by my parents)

And with the help of some sons, stayed there for many years

Watching her soap operas with passion

 

The blood of these people flows in my veins

The devote kindness of Peter Albert Kliewer

The stubborn intensity of Katherine Ruth Braun Kliewer

The love of the soil of James Fairbanks

And the resilience of Emma Deutschman Fairbanks

 

They passed on so much to my parents

Paul Kliewer, and Mavis Fairbanks Kliewer

Those qualities of service, even servanthood

That awareness of common good

The stubbornness, and intensity

The persistence

That driven need to work and accomplish

The love

 

for good and for ill, the blood of these people

flowed in the veins of my parents, and now

flows in my veins

 

They were shaped by time and the history of the world

by depressions and wars

Impacted by the history of their bodies

with emphysema and heart damage (due to the Spanish flu)

and cancer and bulbar palsy

 

Shaped by all that

They shaped my parents

Who shaped me

 

And I suspect I have passed on

both the best and the world to my children

 

“There are wise ones who inhabit my blood,

their dreams and hope flowing through me,

their voices echoing in the pounding of my heart,”

 

we may walk through a chaotic and scary world

but we do not walk alone

choose wisely

What we choose

changes us

 

Who we love

transforms us

 

How we create

remakes us

 

Where we live

reshapes us

 

So in all our choosing,

O God make us wise,

 

In all our loving,

O Christ make us bold,

 

In all our creating

O Spirit, give us courage

 

In all our living

may we become whole

                     Jan Richardson, In Wisdom’s Path, p. 24

________________________________________________________

 

It has been shockingly bad year

but then aren’t all years, all decades, all centuries

 

each in their own way?

 

but we have been humbled

by our capacity to choose poorly

our fearful reluctance to love

our timid reticence which restrains us

keeping us from chasing our dreams

 

we have seen, in this year of plague and poverty

in this foul season of abused power and hoarded wealth

how we are shaped by our the communities which surround us

 

how values and beliefs

attitudes, and social norms

trickled down

and seep into our hearts and souls

 

melding, sometimes

clashing, sometimes

with the Sacred, which is woven into

the fabric of our being

 

altering and at times impairing

the way we see the world, and others

and yes!

God

 

we have chosen personal freedom,

and released a pandemic

 

we have chosen hate and fear

and have release enmity and retribution

 

we have chosen exclusionary tribalism

and have closed our hearts to those around us

close our eyes to the ills of the world

closed our hands

until they have become fists

 

O Lord

In this season of solstice  when we celebrate

The return of light to creation

 

When we celebration the arrival of love

And honor the incarnation of love

 

As we look forward into an uncertain future

peering fretfully down and dim and twisted path

where the virus still lurks,

and abusers bully

and hate grips fear full hearts

 

help us to choose wisely

help us to choose love

help us to express our best selves

help us to create homes, and workplaces

and places of worship

 

where the original blessing can be rediscovered

where we can find ourselves again

as Sacred Children

 

it is time to participate

in epiphany

take peace

No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in today. Take heaven!

 

No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant. Take peace!

 

The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach is joy.

There is radiance and glory in the darkness could we but see - and to see we have only to look.

I beseech you to look!

 

….Welcome it, grasp it, touch the angel's hand that brings it to you.

Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, or a duty, believe me, that angel's hand is there,

the gift is there, and the wonder of an overshadowing presence.

Our joys, too, be not content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts.

 

Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty - beneath its covering - that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven.

 

Courage, then, to claim it, that is all. But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are all pilgrims together, wending through unknown country, home.

 

And so, at this time, I greet you.

Not quite as the world sends greetings,

but with profound esteem and with the prayer

that for you now and forever, the day breaks, and the shadows flee away.

 

Excerpts from a letter was written by Fra Giovanni Giocondo

to his friend, Countess Allagia Aldobrandeschi on Christmas Eve, 1513

 

_______________________________________

 

on this eve of eve’s

when we feel love

and loneliness

 

when we feel

our failures

and our joys

at their most intense

 

on this eve of eve’s

we recognize something profound

that we live

in that place

always

always

 

where sacred

and human interface

 

on that boundary

between the ugly and the sublime

 

where all that is good and beautiful

collides with all

that is hateful and destructive

 

on this eve of eve’s

we feel the world tilt

on its axis

 

and know

in our deepest place

that love

wins

 

Sorry haters

Sorry those who would aid the rich and hurt the poor

your moments

your delusions

may carry the moment

but in the depth of eternity

 

love wins

 

Rejoice lovers

Even as we wait, even as the dawn struggles to break

let us take heaven

take peace

take love

 

for the light has come into the darkness

and the darkness cannot overcome it

awkward harvesting

For everything under the sun there is a time.

This is the season of your awkward harvesting,

When the pain takes you where you would rather not go…

 

May you be blessed with a wise and compassionate guide

Who can accompany you through the fear and grief

Until your heart has wept its way to your true self.

 

As your tears fall over that wounded place,

May they wash away your hurt and free your heart.

May your forgiveness still the hunger of the wound

 

So that for the first time you can walk away from that place,

Reunited with your banished heart, now healed and freed,

And feel the clear, free air bless your new face.

          John O’Donohue, For Someone Awakening to the Trauma of His or Her Past

          To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

 

As you have often heard me say, if you do not transform your pain, you will most assuredly transmit it. Healthy religion on the practical level tells us what to do with our pain—because we will have pain. We can’t avoid it; it’s part of life. If we’re not trained in letting go of it, transforming it, turning crucifixion into resurrection, so to speak, we’ll hand it off to our family, to our children, to our neighborhood, to our nation.

          Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation 12/18/2020, Letting Go is Liberation

_________________________________________

 

The day has not yet fully begun

The sun has not yet risen

 

It is the dawning time

When one’s heart and soul and mind slowly rouse

And prepare to face to day

 

It is that time when one stares into the darkness

Watching as the light slowly dawns

And the world is slowly revealed

And wonders

 

What will this day bring?

 

As the darkness dissolves what will be revealed?

 

What I have come to learn is that my day will be profoundly shaped

by what I carry into it

by what clings to me

 

if I carry into this day resentment and anger

this day will be full of affronts and outrage

my soul will be dis-eased

and I will be one who spreads the virus

hurt and fear

 

if I walk into the day

having taken the time to connect with Sacred Presence

Having drunk deeply from the spring of living Water

that is God’s love

 

If I have let Love wash through me,

And empower me

So that I have let go

Of hurt and fear and resentment

 

If I have faced my pain, touched it

And let God transform it, heal it

If I have let the power of Life turn death into life

Pain into forgiveness

Crucifixion into resurrection,

 

Then I will be healed and freed

And I will find, in this day

Every day

Hope, Peace, Joy, and yes, Love

 

This day is just being born

The light is just beginning to dawn

The world is taking shape

 

What kind of a day is it going to be?

 

_______________________________________________

 

It’s Heaven all the way to Heaven and it’s Hell all the way to Hell. We are in Heaven now by falling, by letting go, and by trusting and surrendering to this deeper, broader, and better reality that is already available to us. We’re in Hell now by wrapping ourselves around our hurts, by over-identifying with and attaching ourselves to our fears, so much so that they become our very identity.

                     Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation 12/18/2020

Inward outward

The outward work will never be feeble if the inward work is great.  And the outward work can never be great or good if the inward work is feeble or of little worth.

                               Meister Eckhart

_______________________________________

 

I did it again this morning

I woke up with a head full of garbage

 

With a head full of fears

And anger

A head full “if onlys” and “what ifs”

A head full of white nationalism

And constitutional crises

 

And then there is Trump, who recently has lived in my head,

controlling my thinking with his machinations just as he dominates

the media with his malevolence

 

and what I want to do

is push the garbage in the corner, into those dark and slimy places

and just carry on

 

I want to get up and get busy

After all, there are sermons to write, services to prepare

There are clients to see (whose issues make mine look mild)

Classes to teach

Horses and chickens to feed

 

and baby its cold out there!!!! (10 degrees)

and the snow is deep (1foot)

 

it would be so easy to leave the garbage where it lies

there in the corners

 

but I can’t

 

none of us can ignore our inner world

which if ignored

rots and festers

 

because it is what’s inside that counts

it is what is inside that determines how we function in this world

 

Eckhart reminds us that “God is not found in the soul by adding anything,

but by a process of subtraction”.

 

So just as was the case when I was a little child

one of my primary chores is to empty the garbage

 

other writers put it other ways

Paul says (Romans 12) “be transformed by the renewing of your minds”

 

Ezekiel says that if we turn to God, our God will remove our heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh

 

We are told to seek forgiveness, to offer forgiveness, to repent

to turn our hearts and minds over to God, to meditate on God night and day

to pray without ceasing

 

In so many ways we are told to clean out the garbage

To order our inner lives

Or rather, to let God order our inner lives

 

It is difficult, this letting go of all that stuff that rattles around in our brains

It is harder than it might seem to make room for the Sacred

 

And yet, it is what is inside that counts

Whatever we are filled with is what we offer the world

If we are filled with greed we will live greed, and do greedy things

If we are filled with hate, we will live hate, and act with enmity

If we are filled with ego, we will never be able to see others, and feel for others

If we are filled with fear, we will ooze fear, and we will be defensive and offensive

 

If we are filled with love?

 

Then we are a different person

And if we can be those “different” people

Then we have a different home, a different community

A different nation

A different world

 

We cannot neglect our inner worlds

We cannot let FOX or MSNBC

We cannot let Trump or Biden or anyone else, we cannot let the world

“… squeeze [us] you into its own mold, but let God re-mold [our] your minds from within, so that [we] you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you [us] is good…”  (Romans 12, JB Phillips)

 

We must do the inner work of cleansing

Calming

Opening

We must create a free and friendly space for the Spirit to dwell

 

If we don’t, no matter how much we worry no matter how frantically we work

our work will be feeble

 

But if we do, then our outer work will honor God

(for it will be God at work through us)

 

and things will work together for good

 

God equals change

Jesus quite clearly believed in change.  In fact, the first public word out of his mouth was the Greek imperative metanoeite which literally translates as “change your mind’ or ‘go beyond your mind”…  The word metanoeite, however, is talking about a primal change of mind, worldview, or your way of processing – and only be corollary about a specific change in behavior.  The common misunderstanding puts the cart before the horse; we think we can change a few externals while our underlying worldview often remains narcissistic and self-referential.

                               Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ, p.86

_______________________________________________________________

 

some people like change

God for instance

“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland”  (Isaiah 43:19)

 

Some people don’t like change

That would be most of us

 

Change is difficult!

Which is why the images related to change in sacred tomes are often quite radical

Wind

Fire

Cataclysmic events

 

Which is why apocalyptic  literature is rarely comfortable to read

 

if any group of people on this earth should be open to change

open to growth and newness

it should be those who claim to follow the one who called people to be

 

born again

which really means to be born from above

which really means to be open to the powerful transformative presence of the Spirit

which really means being blown by the Spirit into to places

and reoriented by the fire of God’s transforming love

 

it is true of course that not all things change

Sacred doesn’t change

God is who God is

 

Sometimes our concept of God needs to change

being tainted by ideology, and social norms,

by bias and hate

and fear

but God is who God is

 

The primacy of love doesn’t change

Love God

Love yourself

Love your neighbor as yourself

 

That never changes!

 

God’s lust for equity,

and justice

 

God’s preference for the poor…

never changes

 

but we need to change

 

our minds need to change

our hearts need to change

our way of seeing things needs to change

our behaviors need to change, badly

 

we need to go “beyond our minds”

to the mind of Christ

 

we need to go beyond of prejudices

our biases

our “deeply held beliefs” in certain societal norms

 

right now too many voices are screaming at us

to hang on to the old

to the delusion that the way to “win” is to seek domination and power

to our almost universal addiction to wealth

to the false notion that one race is superior to others

to old views regarding the LGBTQI+ community

and more

 

God is saying change

Too many times we respond by saying “no”

 

No! I won’t see all as valuable and valued

No! I won’t include all

No!  I won’t love all

No! I won’t let go of my lust for power. 

No! I won’t let go of my view that might makes right, and wealth is a sign of blessing

 

But here is the thing

God’s new thing is irresistible

It will happen!

 

And we can be part of the God movement

Or not

 

Our choice

 

But if we choose not to go with God

We will need to do some pretty grim things to combat change

 

We will have to lie, to ourselves, and others

We will have to intimidate and coerce

We will have to shut our eyes to the pain and hurt others are experiencing

We will have literally work against equity and justice

 

As for me?

I know change is difficult

It stretches me, spiritually, mentally, emotionally

It is, at times, painful

It requires me to admit I have been wrong

It asks for sacrifices, and the abandonment of privilege

It forces me to go against people I care about

 

But I have to go with God

Wherever I find God taking me

I have to let the fire transform

And the wind blow me where it will

 

Because God is doing a new thing

And I want to see it!  And be it!

 

domination is diminutive

Domination cannot exist in any social situation where a love ethic prevails. . . . When love is present the desire to dominate and exercise power cannot rule the day. All the great social movements for freedom and justice in our society have promoted a love ethic. Concern for the collective good of our nation, city, or neighbor rooted in the values of love makes us all seek to nurture and protect that good. If all public policy was created in the spirit of love, we would not have to worry about unemployment, homelessness, schools failing to teach children, or addiction. . . .

 

To live our lives based on the principles of a love ethic (showing care, respect, knowledge, integrity, and the will to cooperate), we have to be courageous. Learning how to face our fears is one way we embrace love. Our fear may not go away, but it will not stand in the way.

 

bell hooks, All about Love: New Visions (William Morrow: 2000), 87–88, 94, 98, 101

 

I pray that out of glorious riches God may strengthen you with power through the Spirit... I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,  may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. 

                                 Paul  (Ephesians 3)

_________________________________________

 

let me go on the record

this faith I hold

this desire to live life by walking the way of Jesus

filled by

comforted by

guided by

empowered by

the Spirit, the active presence of the Sacred in me

 

is not about winning

it is not about power

it is not about wealth

it is above all else, no about domination

 

for some domination is the answer to everything

gain control, grab hold of the power

and you make good things happen for yourself

 

from that position of domination

you can create wealth

you can be safe and secure

you can manipulate and control others

 

its good to be king/queen/despot/president

 

but domination

is not the way of Jesus

 

it is the way of repression

minimization, marginalization

and abuse

 

for those for whom domination is the key,

it consumes

making them cruel, dishonest, hurtful

 

once they have a little they want more

and once  they have it, they cannot let it

and will destroy all, even themselves, to stay

dominant

 

power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely

as the saying goes

 

for Jesus it is all about love

love of neighbor

love for the poor, the wounded, the ill

the widow and the orphan

 

love for the collective

for the common good

 

a love that seeks to nurture and protect

those things that lead to the common good

for all

 

for Jesus there is power

but it is the power of love, the power of service

the power of compassion

the power of generosity

 

domination has power

but that power is always short lived and destructive

leading eventually to yet another fall

in a long line of many falls in human history

 

we are living in the middle of such a fall in America!

 

but love, that is where the real power lies

the power to lift up

to transform

the power to draw the reality of the Kingdom of God into being

 

love is not safe

for love is never safe

 

but to live our lives based on love

to show care

to offer respect

to live with integrity

and to work together for the common good

 

that is how we change the world

that is how we make America, and every other nation

great

_________________________________________

Gloria Jean Watkins (born September 25, 1952), better known by her pen name bell hooks, is an American author, professor, feminist, and social activist. The name "bell hooks" is borrowed from her maternal great-grandmother, Bell Blair Hooks.

living hearts

I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.  No longer shall they teach one another or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me….

                               Jeremiah 31:31-34

 

Discernment is an act of the heart, a way of listening with more than the mind… when we discern, we are making space for new revelation to arrive without needing to force it.  This is the soul’s slow ripening.

                               Christine Valters Paintner The Soul’s Slow Ripening, pp 95,96

_________________________________________-

 

How do we end up with so much hate?

How do we profoundly neglect the poor?

How do we marginalize people and treat them cruelly

How do we abuse power?

How do exclude the immigrant and refugee from our abundance?

How do we accept violence as a solution?

 

How do we do all of this

and do it while claiming to be aligned with the Sacred,

with God,

with Love?

 

Why does this faith we claim with such passion,

not make us

 

wise

compassionate

kind

generous?

 

Why does faith become, all too often, a weapon we use on others

rather than for others?

 

perhaps it is because we have hearts of stone

and have tried to impose holiness

impose faith

 

through power and domination

through coercions

through rules, and even civil law

 

we have made faith rigid and cold

a matter of earning God’s love

and then, from a position not of grace, but of merit

not of peace but fear

 

we have shut our hearts to those who are

less (in our eyes), who are

needy

demanding

untidy

messy

 

demanding they conform

demanding they “be like us”

 

but true faith comes not from hearts of stone

but from hearts beating

and hearts broken

 

hearts broken by our own failure and pain

and broken by the pain of the world

 

true faith comes from the slow awakening of the heart

and the slow ripening of the soul

 

as the warmth of Sacred love

softens us

opens us

 

until our now malleable hearts have space

 

not only for Sacred presence

but for, all

 

all the pain

all the misery

all the joy

all the love

all the people

 

when God is in us

no longer do we have to demand

“Know the Lord!”

No longer do we have to question

“Do you know Jesus?”

 

for our hearts will know

and welcome the Sacred One

and our hearts will know and welcome

 

all

 

 

Encircled by God

This is a time of deep uncertainty

A time with despots refuse to cede power

And collaborators refuse to stand up for justice

 

A time when people permeated with hate

Threaten violence

And carry guns

 

It is a time when justice is threatened

and the frail protections of a dying democracy

are fading

 

And many are frightened

 

We are fragile shells, we humans

It takes so little to threaten and harm

 

Illness comes and destroys health

The economy stumbles and our security vanishes

People hurt us

Relationships fail

 

And we feel as if we cannot withstand it all

As if the pressures will break us

And we will crumble

 

Dour words echo in our souls

Dust to dust

Ashes to ashes

Vanity, vanity, all is vanity

 

And yet we are “homo divinus”

Sacred children

We are permeated with the Sacred

We are filled with a love that sustains

 

Although we pray and offer prayers of supplication

We must remember that Sacred presence is with us already

And that if we do not give up

 

Those dreadful cracks in our façade

Allow us to receive the Spirit in new ways

 

And so on this day

As we feel cracked and crumbling

We can embrace the Celtic tradition of encircling prayer

(lorica or “shield” prayer)

 

God does not need to be reminded to be with us

But we need to be reminded that God is

 

“May the yoke of the Law of God rest upon this shoulder,

May the coming of the Holy Spirit be on this head,

May this sign of Christ be on this forehead,

May the hearing of the Holy Spirit be in these.”

                                        St Fursa (8th Century)

the Dangerous Gift

Why are we the one terrible part of creation privileged to refuse our own flowering?

                               David Whythe, Quoted by  CV Paintner in Soul’s Slow Ripening p.57

 

_____________________________________________________

 

There is something about time of waiting

Something about those liminal moments

When we are stuck in between

 

for as things slow, and sometimes even stop

we have time to stop

and in the quiet stillness

 

listen

listen our hearts beat

our lungs fill

listen to our bodies, and feel the places where we carry our pain

all the emotional, mental, spiritual pain

that finds its home

in our physical shell

 

in the stillness we have time

for what Ignatius call “the daily examen”

 

we can look in the mirror and take a look at

ourselves

 

this is critical task

for healthy people

(or so my training as both as pastor and therapist tell me)

are souls who have

self-awareness

self-reflectivity

and self-control

 

Do we examine ourselves honestly?

(Some don’t examine, and some do, and are too harsh)

Do we think deeply about what we find?

Do we respond to what we find in meaningful ways?

 

It is scary and painful to go to that quiet place

Inside the soul, and meet the Sacred One

Such moments are our Gethsemane

our moment when we lie on the hard rock of reality

 

it is not that it is all bad

we are all people who are both wonderful and terrible

good and bad

generous and greedy

kind and cruel

 

Our inner world is not black and white

There are many shades of gray

But there are also amazing, brilliant colors

Swirling and mixed together

 

A kaleidoscope of grace

 

It can be a bit overwhelming

 

Sometimes, as we linger

We are driven to tears

We see it all!  Who we can be.  Who we want to be.  Who we are.

 

We see the grand victories and the abysmal failures

 

I love the old Irish poem

“When I contemplate my sins, grant me tears always,

For great are the claims of tears on checks

Grant me tears when rising, grant me tears when resting…..

 

Grant me tears, the poem concludes, “to help cure the soul”

 

In this time, in this still moment

As we sit with COVID

As we await the outcome of a hate filled election

As we struggle with who we are as people of faith

And members of a community

And citizens of a nation

 

I have tears…

 

Because what I see is that we have exchanged

The radicality of God, for the normalcy of the world

 

We have taken the way of God, and we have bent it to our will

We have soften it, watered it down

until now only hints of the radicality remain

 

we still talk about loving our neighbor

but we have accepted the world’s definition of “neighbor” not God’s

We still insist we need to be generous,

But we have accepted the world’s insistence that the person

Who dies with the most toys wins

 

But most of all

This is the deepest failure of all (as I reflect upon it)

We have become radical individualists, rather than people

Who think, live and breathe community

 

In the early church, the work of God was communal

The life and death and resurrection of Jesus was a universal action

 

It is not that there is not an individualistic impact on each of us

for we are part of the whole (indeed)

 

but when Christ rose the early church saw it as

the trampling of hell

the leading of all souls out of hell,

and the lifting up of all humanity with Christ

 

this was not a partial victory

and it was not about individuals

it was about the world

 

it was about all nations

all people

and all of life

 

and we are called to be swept along

“We are all caught up in the cosmic sweep of Divine grace and mercy”

(Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ, p.166)

 

but in my heart I have made all of this about me

my comfort

my wealth

my power

my agenda

my values

 

I have no let God overwhelm me

I have not allowed that complete, non-hostile takeover

and so I am still way too much about “me”

 

I am still an individualist

And thus cannot grab hold of the communal

Cannot fully grasp how we humans are bound together

And how we humans around bound with the earth

 

and cannot really see (and feel)

that when the earth suffers we all suffer

and when another nation suffers, all nations suffer

and when another race is minimized and abused, we are all minimized and abused

and when some struggle with poverty, we are all poor

and when some are oppressed, we are all oppressed

and when some are brutalized we are all brutalized

 

this is what I find in my soul mirror

in this time of waiting

 

and my heart is full of tears

because I believe with Rohr, and Crossan

and a cloud of witnesses

 

that until we are caught up in the Cosmic Sweep of Divine Love

and until we believe that God is all in all” (I Corinthians 15:28)

and until we let that sink into our hearts

and into our minds

and transform our ideologies and actions

 

than “much of what passes for Christianity

will amount to little more than well-disguised narcissism

and self-referential politics”   (Rohr, The Universal Christ, p.167)

 

But there is hope, dear ones

For we are all precious souls

And God is

And Love is

And the inner presence of God means

 

That we can indeed participate in the work of love

We can move beyond ourselves

We can fight for the common good

We can reject this implicit narcissism that affects us all

 

There is hope, for when we love God

Then Sacred Love, present as Holy Spirit

Can move within us

Can seize us, permeate us,

 

And we can flower

Love can bloom forth

We can look beyond ourselves, act beyond ourselves

Love beyond ourselves

 

And all things can work together for the good of all

 

if we do not give up

 

Go to where the pain is

This has been a week of disunity

So tonight I would like to talk about unity

 

There are more than a few biblical passages that suggest that when it comes to being God’s people, unity is it.

 

1 Corinthians 1:10 ESV / 838 helpful votes

I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.

 

1 Peter 3:8

Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.

 

Philippians 2:2

Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

 

Colossians 3: And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

 

2 Corinthians 13:

Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.

 

Ephesians 4:3 Eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

 

_______________________________

 

We live in a time of great hostility, and the temptation from which we must defend ourselves is to pull back from others, deny our shadow, and retreat into our own defended camps or isolated positions. This temptation is not detachment, but the giving over of ourselves to the illusion of separation. True spiritual action (as opposed to reaction) demands our own ongoing transformation, often changing sides to be where the pain is…

                               Richard Rohr, CAC note, 11/2/2020

_______________________________

 

this is a time of great hostility

it is also a time of great fear

a time of great anger

 

it is a time when every is entrenching

doubling down

 

a time when both sides claim righteousness

and both sides claim

that if the other wins the world will come to an end

 

it will be the “end of the world as we know it!”

 

and so we have two parties

two ideologies

two agendas

 

and hostility dominates

hate saturates the air

and saturates our souls

 

and we are naturally defensive

steeled against defeat

but also alienated

separated from one another

 

those people I have worshiped with

painted with

work with

studied with

are they really people I might abandon because they support Trump?

am I really someone they would  reject, because I am for Biden?

 

can I remember

can they remember

the time we spent together

at the side of graves

 

in the candle light of a Christmas Eve service

 

My task, in this time, is to go where the pain is

Not my pain, but their pain

and feel that pain, and feel the fear

that the country they love will become something

they no longer recognize?

 

Can I open my heart enough

can I tear down the walls?

can I build a bridge of love

across the ideological abyss?

 

This election, no one wins

If we end up in armed camps

If we end up separated from one another.

 

I admit

I am frightened by the specter

of white supremacy

of armed men patrolling the streets

 

I am in pain

Because of children separated from their children

LGBTQI friends being diminished and threatened

Colored people marginalized

Poor people abandoned

 

But I know that everyone is in pain

And I know

That if I can enter into the pain of other

Into their fear of loss, their struggle with ways that are different and frightening

Then “win” or “lose”

 

Something will emerge

That will be more than I can ask or imagine

 

Healing

Reconciliation

Restoration

Equity

 

It may seem illogical

But it is the way God works

When we open up, let go

When we die to our own dominance

 

Good things happen

Healing happens

Love happens

 

And God knows we need

Need love

This day

 

So let us not be armed camps

Let us not be closed

Let us have open hearts

And go to where the pain is

And in our common pain, find unity