noisy introspection

I am not asking you

to take this wilderness from me

to remove this place of starkness

where I come to know

the wildness within me

where I learn to call the names

of the ravenous beasts

that pace inside me

to finger the brambles

that snake through my veins,

to taste the thirst

that tugs at my tongue.

 

But send me

touch angels,

sweet wine,

strong bread,

just enough

                     Jan L Richardson, In Wisdom’s Path p. 54

___________________________________________

 

today we enter the season of lencten

the “lengthening of days”

 

as we begin the final journey from the darkness of winter

to the light of spring

the journey from Galilee to Jerusalem,

from the transfiguration to the cross

the journey from “sin” to redemption

 

it is a time of slow plodding

of noisy introspection

of sitting in awkward silence

 

it is a time in the wilderness of a soul

fractured and torn by life

a time of getting to know ourselves

as we are, without pretense

 

a time for honesty

for both lament, for the ways in which our divinity has been blurred

and joy, for the surprising presences of sacred energy

that still lingers

 

the tumult of our world

simply reflects the chaos in our souls

and so we sit, and sometimes fast

our 40 days in the wilderness*

 

struggling and reflecting

allowing emptiness to come

until the emptiness hurts, gnawing at our entrails

 

and waiting like Jesus

for angels to tend to us

 

we prepare for the light

and new birth

 

we empty so that we can be filled

baptized

with the energy of God

filled with that which we cannot contain

 

that which sometimes will spill forth

and sometimes merely trickle out

through our brokenness

 

Love

watering the dry ground

so that God’s newness springs forth

 

resurrection

Patching our Souls

His was a selfish love

patching

his soul

with all

of her pieces

                     Atticus The Truth About Magic  p. 164

____________________________

 

the pandemic has been

a time of people

and no people

 

a time when everything is intensified

a time when everything is blurred

and slowed down

 

it has been a time of observing

 

observation is a very scary pastime

watching we humans

play

and fight

 

watching as adversity and isolation

as poverty and illness

as the tension of this time

seep to the surface

 

these are, as Thomas Paine once famously wrote

“times that try [our] souls

 

sometimes, observing

leads to lament

 

how have we gotten to this place

where there is so much anger,

so much hate

so much selfishness?

so much disregard for others?

 

perhaps it truly is that we are

so empty

so fragile

 

that we have broken, become fragmented

 

so that love and compassion

hope and regard

generosity and forgiveness have

“left the building”

 

perhaps it is that we have attempted

to deal with our brokenness

by being predators

 

drawing into ourselves what we think we need

from outside ourselves

‘patching out souls”

with money, or power

 

using others, devouring others

in our own desperation for wholeness

 

Today is Fat Tuesday

and on this day of Mardi Gras

when we are called to gorge ourselves

with excess

or at least pancakes

 

we peer into Lent

and ponder the disparity between

 

grasping and releasing

excess and paucity

celebration and solemnity

 

on this day as we move from

beads and breasts

to ashes

 

it is time to think of the strange strategy of the Sacred

where we are called not to grasp, but to empty

to let whatever good there is within us

whatever love

whatever compassion

whatever hope

 

flow through those cracks and fissures

in our souls

out into the world

 

where we are asked to walk with empty hands

asked to scatter our “wealth” around

to those who have less

 

where we are asked to leave our anger and bitterness behind

and forgive

 

where we are compelled

to drop our own self loathing

 

and become nothing

that we might become everything

 

so that out of the ashes of this time

out of the ashes of failure

might rise

 

new creations

sacred children

 

for the in weird alchemy of God

as we empty

Sacred fills

 

a spring of living water

bubbling up

 

When was the last time your God died?

when was the last time your God died?

 

not God

not YHWH

not the reality that is somehow behind all that is

a part of all that is

a part of you

 

but that “god” you had in your head

built perhaps out of stories from the Bible

or the Koran, or the Torah

or built, perhaps out of sunrise and sunsets

out of mountain high and valleys low

 

that god you have created out of your own

heart and mind

your own experiences

 

that god others have created for you

 

when was the last time that god died?

 

for me, my sense of who and what God is

has died many times

 

I don’t think my “god” died

Ever

until I started to take God seriously

 

growing up God was a given

pretty vague if the truth were told

a reality accepted but never really take seriously

 

that changed when I left my home church

and the home of my birth

and wandered into the world

 

where the Vietnam War was raging

and friends died

where, in college, I face true failure for the first time!

and had to abandon my pre-med track

out of sheer ineptitude

 

that changed when I met people who actually seemed to think

that God should be a part of one’s daily life

that one actually was connected to God

 

God got more real

and more troublesome

 

because everywhere I turned I ran into something

about my vision of God, and how God works

that didn’t work

 

and so the god of my childhood died

to be replaced by the god of my college years

 

and then I hit seminary

and everyone seemed to have, at some level

a different god

and their god was different from my god

 

oh sure, we all pretended it was the same god

but in reality we all had our own version

which we arrogantly pieced together

as we waded through Hebrew and Greek,

and studied the Bible and read

Calvin and Luther, and the Niebuhr’s, and Schillebeeckx

and Tillich and Barth! 

 

my god became more defined and more troublesome

 

I became surer about what I believed

 

and then life hit

my first church, and my second, and third

incredible success, massive failure

 

where was God when I needed God?

that God I thought I knew

but how died, again and again

the god who protected the good and trounced the evil

the god who honored a life well lived

 

when my father died of cancer, my god died

the good who keeps good men alive

 

when my mother died (at 69 of bulbar palsy)

god died again

 

when I made so many mistakes in life

inspite of my knowledge, and my good intentions

when I got divorced

 

god died

 

the god who guides, who comforts

the god who is there in the valley of the shadow

 

but there is something about God

even though my understanding, my perception of God dies

God keeps showing up

 

after every death and resurrection!

I guess that is how God works

my inadequate understandings of God die

and God returns, newly alive

not yet fully understood

 

never fully understood

which is why my version of god must die, and die, and die again

 

but with each resurrection

God becomes a little more real

not better understood, but more real

 

experienced in new ways

deeper ways

 

God returns

and I connected to this reality

this power

this Love

that I do not understand

 

but which is present

and which empowers

and comforts

and yes guides (how well I listen is another matter)

 

I am connected to this reality

that does not change the world

but changes how I see the world

how I experience the world

and how I related to the world

 

recently my god died when racists invaded our capitol

and died again when evil was accepted and enabled

and my god will die again

 

something, somewhere, at some point in time

will violate what I thought I knew about God

and that god will die

 

but there is always resurrection

as God continues to show up

rising out of the tomb of my disappointment

in the early morning’s light

:Porous Egos

Make your ego porous.

                     Rainer Maria Rilke

 

The ego hurts you like this: you become obsessed with the one person who does not love you. blind to the rest who do

                     Warsan Shire

 

The ego stands firmly between the seeker and the light that hidden within

                     Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee Prayer of the Heart  p. 18

______________________________________

 

the word “ego”

as far as I know

does not appear in the Bible

 

it’s a word we use a lot

in a lot of ways

 

I am not sure we even know what it is

Freud may have gotten all of this started with his

Id, ego, and superego

 

The Id being the wild child of the soul

The superego being the soul’s moral (proper) self,

And the ego being that part of the self that mediates between those two

And keeps us protected and safe

 

Helping us satisfy our urges, but helping us do so in a way that is

“socially acceptable”

 

Go ego!

 

But most of us see ego a different way

For most of us the ego is our “self” asserting itself

 

It is us being self focused

Protective

It is that part of our selves that is “all about me”

 

For many of us the ego is who we think we are.

It’s our false identity, that faux front we have developed to hide ourselves from the world, which we have created to impress the world

 

It is our body image, education, theological knowledge, clothes, friends, social status, job, successes and accomplishments.

 

This aspect of ourselves, whatever we call it

is not so cool

 

our “inner control freak” has its uses (as Freud pointed out)

 

but it can also be a problem

 

it can make us self focused

protective

and closed

 

it can stand between us and the energy of God within

it can block us from the influence and guidance that come from

from that part of us where Sacred dwells

 

oddly, with ego, we close ourselves off from others

but we also close ourselves off from our own true self

 

which is why almost every faith system challenges us

to die to this false self, this self we have created

that keeps us from being the self God created us to be

 

that keeps us from being children of God

 

this is hard work, however.

it’s excruciating, to be honest, almost like dying.

 

Paul likens the process to being crucified

 

"I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20).

 

In Sufi literature the same wisdom exists

 

“He who loves does not think about his own life; to love truly one must forget about the self…  if your desires do not accord with your spirit, sacrifice them…(Attar – Conference of the Birds)

 

Buddhism as I understand it (not saying I do) holds that personal identity is delusional, that each of us is a self that turns out to not actually exist

and that clinging to or being obsessed with the delusional self

is the major cause of suffering

 

however we think about this

part of who we are that separates us from others

that insists on its own way

that puts itself over others…

 

its danger lies in the way it blocks us from being united with the Sacred

and being united with one another

and even, at a core level, being in touch with our true self

 

which is why Jesus talks us needing to have a new relationship with our self. .” (Luke 9)

 

If anyone would come after me,

that one must deny the self and take up his cross daily and follow me

for whoever wants to save his life will lose it, and

whoever loses his life for me will save it.”

 

The word life is not the word for physical life.

There’s a good Greek word for that: bios, from which we get our word biology.

The Greek word that’s translated “life” is psyche, meaning “self.”

 

what Jesus seems to be saying is that our old way of having an identity,

of gaining a sense of self,

has got to end.

 

In a sense we have to die to it.

Why?

 

So God can give us a whole new identity.

Or perhaps, better, restore our original identity

 

either way

we are called to find a whole new true self

 

a self connected to Sacred energy

a self permeated by love

a self that is porous

so that the light gets in

and the light gets out

 

and we find our selves able

to be more and more a part of a whole

people with others

people for others

 

___________________________________

 

Spirit of the Living God, Fall fresh on me

Spirit of the Living God, Fall fresh on me

Melt me mold me

Fill me use me

Spirit of the Living God, Fall fresh on me

The need for TRUTH

When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.”

                     Mahatma Gandhi

 

Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from telling lies.

                     Psalm 34:13

 

You will know the truth and the truth will set you free

                     Jesus (John 8)

________________________________________________________

 

the truth is not optional

 

you cannot have love without truth

you cannot have justice without truth

you cannot have peace (true peace) without truth

you cannot have joy without truth

 

Jesus talked a lot about truth

“I am the way, the truth, and the life”

 

mostly he talked about truth to those

who had their own version of the truth

and had a stubborn inability to see the real truth

 

mostly he talked about truth to those

who were the religious leaders of his time

to those who had the power and the wealth

 

for they could not see the truth

or at least could not accept and speak the Truth

when it stood in front of them in human form

 

Jesus: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Pharisees:  “Here you are, appearing as your own witness; your testimony is not valid.”

 

Truth is not optional

 

Without truth there is no life

Without truth there is no love

Without truth there is no unity

 

Without truth there is no nation

Without truth there is no church

 

When we exchanged the truth for a lie

When we start to make power and wealth

When we start to make an ideology

When we start to make a person

 

More important than Truth (God)

and more important than the truth

 

everything falls apart…. (use romans

and we do what not ought to be done

 

instead of being filled with Truth

with the energy of God

we abandon truth, destroy truth

and we become empty

 

and empty

grasping, and gasping

desperate souls

who never have “enough”

but must always seek more

more wealth, more power

no matter what the cost to ourselves

to those around us

to our nation

 

it is time for a “fearless moral inventory”

not an inventory of others

but an inventory of ourselves

 

“am I willing to accept the truth”

not the convenient

not the comfortable

not that “truth” that fits my ideology, my agenda

but the truth?

 

“am I willing to speak the truth”

even if it is hard

and may cause people to reject me?

 

“am I willing to live the truth”

in who I support

how I love

who I welcome?

 

it is possible to come together in love

love does win

 

but love is always accompanied by truth

Accountability

Thoughts on Ephesians 4

 

“forgive one another” we cry

“as Christ has forgiven you!” (v. 32)

 

Alleluia, Amen!

 

They are noble thoughts,

the ideas of love and unity

forgiveness and reconciliation

 

so too the idea of being grace full

and lifting each other up! (v. 29)

 

I am in!!

 

I want to live that life

of humility and kindness

 

I want to be a person of love

recognizing the Sacred in each person I meet

seeing them as precious souls

Sacred children

 

I want to live in a community

a nation

a world

united

 

I want to drive through the wasteland (although probably not in a Jeep)

and find the center

the place we all can meet

the peaceable kingdom

 

but the journey to unity is tricky and complex

and costly

 

it requires transformation

it requires openness

it requires honesty (vv. 20-25)

it requires doing whatever is necessary

to “put off our old self” (v22)

so that we might “put on the new self” (v23)

 

and be recreated

 

there are no shortcuts

this is not something we can do “partially”

 

we have to be “all in”

totally honest about that old self

totally open to the new self

which is not really new

but really a restoration of our original, divine blessing

 

we know what happens if the “devil” is left a foothold (v. 27)

if those little pieces of anger remain (v. 26)

if those little deceits linger (v. 25)

if those old patterns of greed, and domination persist  (v. 28)

 

we want to simply make those three happy hops to grace

without the honesty

without the accountability

without true change

 

it doesn’t work

those things in ourselves that are most deeply rooted

those fears, those patterns

those desires   (vv. 17-19)

 

that are not touched by the holy

that are left hidden and unresolved

will ultimately resurface, and take us over

 

I have seen this in my own life!

How about you?

 

And we have seen this in our divided nation

where old sins and old deceits

hidden, denied and ignored have emerged again to divide and harm

 

we have seen where racism

and white supremacy

arrogance, exceptionalism

greed

 

never acknowledged

never dealt with

have seeped out of the deep dark places

to create hate and chaos, and death

 

we want cheap grace

faux unity

we want a body of Christ (and a nation too)

held together with bailing twine and duct tape

 

we want to gloss over our personal (and national) sin

we want to “leave it all behind”

and move forward

 

absolutely

 

but leaving the past behind and moving forward

means leaving the past behind, and not

through neglect or dishonesty

carrying it with us into the future

 

this is hard work

it is hard work for us as individuals

for “letting go” is not easy

accepting those things in us that need to be changed

is difficult indeed

 

and it is even harder as a nation

 

but this hard work must be done

if we would not “grieve” Love (v. 30)

 

this day, as I examine myself

this day, as our national looks at itself

 

may we be brutally honest, and open (think step 4 of the 12 steps)

and may we let the energy of God

move in us, cleaning, restoring,

doing the hard work of transforming us into new creations

 

so that we may indeed

live lives worthy of the calling we have received (v. 1)

 

 

Choose joy

When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...”

                     Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

_____________________________________________

 

each morning comes with a choice

 

how am I going to embrace this day!

 

as we emerge out of our sleep

out of that space

where dreams, perhaps come true

or perhaps terrorize

 

out of that time where real and imagined

past and future

good and bad

mix and match and explode inside our heads

 

before our feet ever hit the floor

 

we have a choice

 

how will we embrace this day?

how will we frame it!?

what will we carry into it?

 

will we enter the day angry, or joyful?

full of love, or full of hate?

anxious, or peace filled?

 

this morning I awoke, less than eager for the day

they sky was still dark

the room was cold (it is only 17 outside)

and though my calendar is full

 

my soul felt empty

 

I am feeling my age these day

And struggling to stay attached to purpose

struggling to feel relevant

 

and I did not want to embrace the day

I did not want to enter the day

 

I could not sense the imperative to rise

why bother?

 

as I often say

“everything hurts, and what doesn’t hurt doesn’t work!”

 

And so I lay there, staring into the darkness

 

Thinking of an anthropomorphic “god” did not help

 

but then I started to breath God!

Richard Rohr (2/6 Meditation) reminds us that

perhaps the name of that reality we call God

the Sacred Tetragrammaton YWHH,

should not be spoken, but breathed

 

YH on the captured in-breath, and WH on the offered out-breath

 

so I started to breathe God

I started to breathe the mystery

in and out

receiving and sharing

 

finding God my “ breath itself—the thing [I] have done since the moment [I was] born and will one day cease to do in this body”  (Rohr)

 

Ah!

Yes!

 

“God is as available and accessible as our breath itself.

Jesus breathes the Spirit into us as the very air of life”  (Rohr)

 

I breathe in

I breathe out

the empty spaces are filled

accepting, letting go

receiving, giving

 

healing in, healing out

life in, life out

love in, love out

 

Ah, yes!

That is why I am here!

 

to breathe in the sunrise

and breathe out joy

 

to breathe in horse snuggles

and breathe out compassion

 

to touch every life

I encounter this day

 

with the sweet breath of God’s love

 

The soul awakens

Once the soul awakens, the search begins and you can never go back.

                               John O'Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

 

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few”

                               Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind:

                               Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice

_____________________________

 

Life's a bitch!

In our fragility we often get broken.

and, like bottles tossed carelessly to the side of the road.

we lie shattered, in pieces,

jagged fragments glistening in the sun

raw edges, sharp and tortured.

 

There are pieces of us scattered

along the roads we have traveled

 

In our brokeness we are empty.

Joy comes

but cannot be contained.

It seeps through the cracks to disappear.

Love comes

only to go,

and hope  --  there is no hope

for one so broken.

 

And yet,

and yet hope comes

 

for from our stumbling

and our mistakes

out of the awkward parts of our pasts

 

come gifts

 

humility (for sure)

flexibility

knowledge

 

some of the most difficult times in our lives

contain within them a subversive joy

 

for when we move on

and we must always move on

 

we leave some things behind

and we carry a few precious things with us

 

knowing that down the road

perhaps only a few steps

perhaps further

 

we will once again

and again and again

 

stumble, perhaps fall

 

but will also

be born again and again

 

each rough place, each struggle

being an occasion for newness

 

the Sacred gathering us

Piece by piece

And re-creating

Until out of the jagged jumble

the first faint glimmerings of wholeness grow.

a thing of beauty....

 

until for all the seams and cracks,

the wonder of what one was, and is, and still might be,

shines through.

and deep in the murky depths love comes

and stays

knowing, and unknowing

“I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.”

                      

It’s a good quote!

As to where it came from?

 

It is variously attributed to Plato (in the Republic)

and to Socrates

 

I’ll vote for Socrates, but it has been close to 50 years

since I read Plato and Socrates in college

 

what I do know is that I do not know

not for sure

where the quote came from

 

and I am sure as well

that this is one of many things I do not know

 

indeed I spend most of my times these days

in my dotage, wandering around in the valley of unknowing

 

I love knowing

I want to have the facts and have the knowledge

for I have always believed that knowledge is power

 

although in this post factual world that belief has lost some of its luster!

I may know “for a fact” that something is true

but if others are passionately convinced that the truth is not true,

the power of the truth is functionally diminished

 

perhaps this is why I have always been a student

working my way through two full majors in my undergraduate years

(English literature and Philosophy)

then through an M.Div, and then a Doctor of Ministry (D.Min)

and then, finally, through a Masters in Mental Health Counseling

 

I want to know how things work

I want to know how to do things

I want certainty

I want to be able to wrap my head around things

and be able to control and accomplish!

 

anyone with me?

 

and then, as I pursue knowledge of Sacred

as I try to get to know God

I am led into the valley of unknowing

 

into a hazy darkness

where I cannot see

but must cautiously feel my way

 

creeping, uncertain

 

its wonderful!

 

because in that valley

I am forced to let go of control

let go of my preconceptions

my knowledge, my arrogance,

me

 

and experience

something I cannot explain

cannot wrap my head around

but can receive

 

and feel

and experience

 

and paradoxically

know

 

ah, how often does Sacred / God

call us out of our places of comfort

out of those well-defined places

we create for ourselves

 

ah, how often are we called to leave

the confines of what we can understand

into the desert

like Abram

like Moses

like Ruth

 

into that bigger space

that scarier place

into the unknown

 

which is the only place

where we can truly

know

 

 

 

beyond understanding

If you understand it, it is not God. —St. Augustine, Sermon 117 on John 1:1

 

…there’s a difference between doubting God and doubting my understanding of God, just as there’s a difference between trusting God and trusting my understanding of God…

                     Brian D. McLaren, Faith After Doubt: Why Your Beliefs Stopped Working                        and What to Do About It (St. Martin’s Essentials: 2021), 92.

______________________________

 

I admit it

I don’t understand

 

I don’t understand why bad things happen to good people

I don’t understand why horrible people flourish

 

I don’t understand politicians who lie

And those who are willing to put profit above people

 

I don’t understand why children get sick and die

I don’t understand the obsession with guns

 

I don’t get all that stuff in the Bible that doesn’t line up

 

How on one page we read that God is love,

and on another page we find a God of retribution and torment

 

on one page there is grace and redemption

and on another weeping and the gnashing of teeth

 

really?

 

I don’t get why those who talk mostly loudly about God

seem to reflect God the least

I don’t understand how a faith build around a person of compassion

One who was willing to sacrifice all to be hope and peace to the earth

 

has become a faith system build around domination, greed,

retribution and coercion

 

I hear all the shallow platitudes

God will never give you more than you can handle!

Everything is for a reason!

God has a plan for your life!

The Bible says it; I believe it; that settles it!

 

Tell those things to the Psalmists

Or perhaps to Job

Or Kohelet

 

Or even Jesus,

who sweated blood in Gethsemane

and cried out from the cross,  “Why!”

 

let’s face it

there is a lot we don’t understand

there is a lot we will never understand

there are things that don’t seem fair

there are things that aren’t fair

 

and that reality we call God?

that divine energy that lurks in our souls?

 

That too is beyond our understanding

 

and that is OK

 

we cannot wrap out limited minds

around the infinite

 

we will grab bits and pieces

and find (and use) images that partly explain

 

and there are the self revelations…

the creation

Jesus

own selves, little incarnations

 

but we won’t get it

and doubt is part of faith

 

but a lack of understanding does not mean we have

to abandon faith

 

our time in the valley of unknowing

often leaves us with experiences of Sacred

we cannot express but only know

 

I doubt that I will ever understand the Sacred

and how the divine energy works in this world

and in my life

 

but still it remains

that power, that love that is beyond understanding

and that I will cling to

like a vine to the branch

 

 

 

 

 

 

look for the magic

The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

                     Eden Phillpotts, A Shadow Passes, p. 19, Cecil Palmer & Hayward, London.

 

__________________________________________

 

I have often said

we hear what we want to hear

see what we want to see

and believe what we want to believe

 

make no mistake about it

confirmation bias is a real thing

so is perception bias

 

if I want to see evil

I will

If I want to see good

I will

 

it is not, of course

that this world is bad or good

dark or light

hate or love

 

this is a messy world

where everything is mixed together

 

the wheat and the chaff

 

a person is both beautiful and terrible

there is such a thing as joyful solemnity

 

with rare exceptions (and there are, I believe, exceptions)

people are not saints or sinners

people are saints and sinners

 

so the great challenge of faith

the great challenge of love

is to try and see it all

 

to see the best in the worst of us

and to see the worst in the best of us

 

can I see the spark of divinity in that person

whose ideology offends and behaviors harm?

can I see the flaws in that person with whom I align so passionately?

 

I suspect Jesus is our model in more ways than one

wholly human, wholly sacred

blended together until the distinction became meaningless!

 

we too are blended

with sacred and secular striving to dominate

 

but both are there

if can but just see it

 

Someone once said that until we see people the way God sees them

We cannot see God in each person

 

so let us look for the magical things

those sparks of light

those hints of divinity

 

the gross and unsavory will show up easily enough

they do not need our help

to become visible

 

but the magical

love, kindness, compassion

ah

 

we need to seek those treasures

lest we miss them

 

so let our wits

and souls grow sharper

 

that we might see God’s magic

in each person we meet

 

 

 

the value of lament

It seems so easy to deep dive into lament

As the world driven by a “frenzy of greed”

“indulges in an orgy of envy” (EF Schumacher)

 

and there is a place for lament

and repentance too

 

 

while it is tempting to

sit outside the city gates

in our noble distress

 

and utter our prophetic anathemas

 

this place of sackcloth and ashes

can never be our resting place

 

there is a time for lament

and there is a time

for standing up, brushing ourselves off

 

and marching back into the fray

not as those

who dominate and coerce

 

not as the (self) righteous who “stamp out sin”

but as those

who wield love

 

it is tempting to see our selves

as those entrusted with “the truth”

 

but in fact we are entrusted with love

which is our message

and is our means

and is our end

 

if we linger in lament (and judgement)

we may well create

“less light, love and wholeness in the world” (Roger Wolsey)

 

instead of lifting up

we may oppress

 

if Jesus had anything to say

(and he did)

it is that we cannot stay in the tomb

but must rise

 

death leads to life

lament leads to hope

repentance leads to love

 

on this morning’s morning

as the storm clouds roiled across the sky

and the rains fell

and the wind blew

 

I wanted to beat my breast

and rend my garments (metaphorically)

I wanted to illuminate the ills of the world

and set those “sinners” straight

 

but instead I was reminded

gently

that people do better when lifted up than when beaten down

that praise and encouragement

often create more change that criticism

 

and that love

works better than anger

at created more love

 

so this day of days

let us remember who we are

Sacred Childen

loved and empowered

 

we can sort the truth from fiction

we can lay aside anger

we can be generous

we can lead with love

 

the world needs more light

more love

more wholeness

 

we can do this!

 

Covered with Grace

Today is the Feast of Saint Brigid and in Celtic culture the festival or Imbolc, or the beginning of spring.  Saint Brigid is said to have visited Uist, or the Islands of the Outer Hebrides.  There while being pursued by villains, and collapsing, exhausted down and expecting death, she was saved when “oystercathchers” covered her with seaweed, hiding her from those with evil intent.

 

Christine Valters Painter writes a poem about this event in her book The Wisdom of Wild Grace.  She ends the poem this way

 

Sometimes we have to yield

Our bodies fully to earth’s embrace

to taste the end so near

to feel hope slip away like a boat

across sea’s foam surface,

before we can feel the truth again

of how things hidden can become a revelation

and heaven is there in the cries

of birds, among waves and sand

 

how often in this life

we have those moments when

we sink to the earth

 

exhausted perhaps

or hopeless

 

for all our striving

and for all our pleas to

whatever is greater than ourselves

 

our path has lead us to that place

that dark night of the soul

when we can go no further

 

but can only sink into the darkness

and lie there still and exposed

as one dead

 

but then grace comes

on healing wings

and covers us softly

 

and we can rest to rise

from our little deaths come little resurrections

 

our moments of desolation

of letting go

throwing our hands up to heaven

 

transforming into something

deeper and greater

something new

 

descent leading to ascent

unknowing to knowing

death to life

 

spring

 

finding the miraculous

we look to the Beloved One for miracles

we hope for grand gestures

for signs and wonders unmistakable

 

we stumble into our days unsteady

and look bewildered around

 

and see only the ordinary

common people plod around us

in this ordinary time

 

but sacred comes from common

and miracles of love are birth

from the ordinary

 

Jesus made wine out of water

and healed the eyes of the blind man

with spit and dust

 

Jesus look around him and saw the kingdom of God

in a pasture

and in a touch of yeast, mixed into dough

and in the seed of a weed

 

Jesus took what was not enough

some bits of old bread

and a few somewhat smelly fish

and created a banquet for many

 

common men and common women gathered about

this carpenter from Nazareth

tax collectors

lepers

the poor and hungry

fishermen and farmers

 

and out of this common clay

Jesus made Sacred children

 

and so too in this time

the energy of God

turns the mundane into the miraculous

 

turns the graspers into givers

the fearful into the hopeful

the empty into those exploding with hope

the haters into lovers

 

turns sinners into saints

 

the miracles of grace are all around us

hidden in the usual

hidden in us

 

may our hearts burn

and may our eyes see

Sacred

everywhere, everywhere

 

connection

my darling

let’s you and I

ramble on this life awhile –

our hands in hands

our hearts in hearts

our shadows forever one

                     Atticus, The Truth About Magic, p. 104

 

______________________________

 

have you ever been in love?

obsessively, crazy in love?

 

where every thought, every action

is touched by the beloved?

 

where you are so captivated that

you cannot imagine any place you would rather be

than by her (his) side?

 

where your entire self is permeated

mind, body, heart and soul

by the presence of the other?

 

in such moments all of life

is determined by that love

how we feel,

how we see others

how we see ourselves

 

how we see the events unfolding around us

how we see the sunrise and the sunset

 

and that is how I want it to be

with Sacred and I

I want to be in love with the Sacred One

with that power that formed all

and forms me

and lurks within

 

and I want the grasp

that profound understanding that

my Beloved loves me

 

and I want the reality that that connection

that love

to define everything

 

how I think

how I feel

how I see

how I behave

 

I ramble on this life awhile – with Sacred

our hands in hands

our hearts in hearts

our shadows forever one

power

where does true power come from?

 

or perhaps we should ask,

 

where does the power for good come from?

 

for there is power, and then there is power

 

it is pretty easy to wield malignant power

to charge through life like a hit and run driver

leaving brokenness in one’s path

 

it only takes apathy

“I just don’t care!  Do you?”

 

this is the principle of “least love”

the less you love, the greater your ability

to use power on other people

 

to manipulate, to coerce, to use and abuse

 

if I care less about you than you do about me

I have power over you

if my only concern is my wants and needs

I have power over you

 

we must respect the power we have to do harm

 

but there is another kind of power

the power of love

 

that power that heals and restores

gives and forgives

while at the same time

 

leaving the one wielding that power

healthy

 

Jesus gave us the secret to this power where he said

Love all that is Sacred with all your heart

and while you are at it

love the people around you, all of them

and while you are at it

love your self

 

the secret of course (as Paul so aptly puts it)

is the Energy of God in us

(all the persons of the Trinity whirling in our souls)

 

it is that connection with have with Love

that permeates us with love

so that we can love

 

so that we can love ourselves

but love beyond ourselves

love beyond our group or tribe

 

the power to harm is truly present

we all at times use this power

as we detach ourselves, separate ourselves

as we wander into a toxic individualism

that doesn’t care about the other

 

it is a power that has a great impact

but ultimately is a false power

for it destroys not only those around us

but it destroys us

 

the power to heal is also present

and most of us, at times, use this power

working as best we can to “overcome evil with good”

 

the difference between the two is simple

one is the power of least love

the other is the power of love

 

this day, I will do my best

to choose love