Justice equals compassion

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If “compassion means justice” as Eckhart insists (and the Jewish prophets of old insist), then to do justice in the midst of injustice is to bring the Divine back to history and culture.  It is to bring love back since “God is love” and compassion is another word for love.  And justice is another word for love.

                     Matthew Fox (Daily Meditations)

______________________________________

 

when I was young we used to sing

 

love, love, love, love

Christians this is your call

love your neighbor as yourself for

God loves us all

 

it is more than that

God is love

and if we participate in the Sacred

if we are permeated with the Sacred

we will love

 

and love is not passive

love welcomes

love accepts

love embraces

 

welcomes, accepts, and embraces all people

all

 

not just those like “us”

not just those who are our color

embrace our creed

our culture

but all

 

and welcome acceptance, and inclusion

are not possible

without justice

without equity

without compassion lived out

 

how is it then

that some, in the name of Jesus

have embraced injustice and inequity

have pursued domination and coercion

have opted for exclusion and even eradiation

rather than love?

 

I supposed we should not be surprised

read a prophet, almost any prophet

and you will see there the ancestors of those

who today would oppress and hoard

 

those who today would dominate and control

punish

exclude

destroy

 

those they have decided

are not children of God

 

Micah predicted woe on such people

“Woe to those who plan iniquity, to those who plot evil on their beds!

At morning’s light they carry it out because it is in their power to do it.”

 

We could come up with a lot of woes!

Woe to those who accumulate and leave others hungry

Woe to those who neglect the poor, the ill, the vulnerable

Woe to those who do not welcome the stranger

Woe to those who throw away transgender people

Woe to those who try to create a “Christian” nation through oppressive and cruel legislation

Woe to those who think guns are more important than children

Woe to those who think profits are more important than the planet

Woe to those who think they are superior to others simply because of pigmentation

Woe to those who minimize and marginalize women

Woe to those who push hate and fear for political power

 

The list could go on

 

None of us do it all right

all of us have ways in which we violate love

 

what do we do when we struggle to love those who do not love?

 

my thoughts about a certain political party and certain

political leaders are not very loving most days!

 

I admit it

 

but the fact is we must try love

and love requires justice

and justice must be equal

and for all

not just for some

 

love, love, love, love

that is our call

and we must live it out

 

and living it out is not just a matter of how we treat our neighbor

(although it is that)

but it is a matter of the systems we support (or don’t support)

the people who choose to listen to

and the people we vote for

 

to return to Micah

“What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

 

we must get out of our egos

we must fight for justice

we must be kind (to all)

it is as simple and difficult as that

True Freedom

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“We wanna go back to Egypt” the people cried

looking ahead into the unknown

into the undefined

 

“it may have been slavery back there,

but it was our slavery

it was our “known”

and we were happy (or so we remember)

with the scraps of vegetables and the fish that came our way

easing the hunger

 

“We wanna go back”

say all people, everywhere, in every time

looking ahead through the haze

into the unknown

 

true freedom is not all we thought it would be

it is uncertain and frightening

uncomfortable

 

and God knows we love our certainty

and our comfort

we want what we believe we can control

what is safe

 

we would rather be enslaved and pretend to be free

than be truly free

we would rather be controlled, and pretend to be in control

than be truly free

 

we wanna go back to Egypt

we wanna go back to 1952

we wanna go back to those times

when everything was black and white

and the pews were filled with the unthinking

 

and we could ignore the harsh realities of racism

and ignore the gender spectrum

and ignore the poor

and ignore injustice

 

and pretend all was well

and that America was great

 

it is easier to trust old rules

old systems

old hierarchies

old prejudices

 

than to trust the One who would set us free

 

we do not want to be released

cast from our comforts

into the desert of the unfamiliar

 

and yet only if we trust

in God

in Love

in community

 

will we find our way through

the wasteland of fear and hate

to a land flowing with milk and honey

a land of equity and justice

 

only if trust

and let go of the old

can we find our way

to the promise

 

 

 

Original Blessing

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"And now, with God’s help, I shall become myself..."

          Søren Kierkegaard

 

But I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell

I know right now you can't tell

But stay awhile and maybe then you'll see

A different side of me

I'm not crazy, I'm just a little impaired

I know right now you don't care

But soon enough you're gonna think of me

And how I used to be

          Rob Thomas (Matchbook 20)

_______________________________

 

we hear it all the time

I am

I am broken

I am a sinner

I am an alcoholic or an addict

I am

 

but the real question is,

“Who am I?”

Do you know

Do you care?

Do I even know who I really am?

 

I believe in original blessing

that we come into this world

stuffed with Sacred

 

look at a child

any child

even children who, from a human perspective

with syndromes and other challenges

 

look at a child

look deep into their eyes

and you will see

God

or if not God

a stairway to heaven

there

in those eyes

 

I have gone through I lot in life

I had wonderful parents, healthy siblings

Privilege, and safety

 

I was gifted with reasonable looks

Moderate size

Decent intelligence

 

I have been educated beyond all reason

 

I have also made horrible mistakes

and have allowed an overactive and anxious brain

to haunt me

 

I have stumbled through 70-plus years

doing good, doing bad

helping and hurting

being moral and being a mess

eating well, and eating poorly

compensating for my bully brain in ways

that damaged and eroded soul, mind, and body

 

and here I am

wondering, as I look in the mirror at this sagging body

wondering as my soul stumbles as much as my feet

and my brain replays all the lowlights of my life

who I am

 

when was I most who “I am”

when was I optimal?

the closest to the divine blessing

the original intent?

 

I don’t know

I can remember a time when I was healthy

Young

Flexible

Cute

Relatively undamaged

Confident

Happy

Hopeful

 

At least I think I can!

How old was I

Before I started to pick up the garbage

That I have hauled around for so long?

 

The thoughts and feelings,

The memories

That cling and burden

And twist and distort?

 

That leave me saying

“I am not enough”

“I am not loved”

“I have made too many mistakes, and am not respected”

“I have nothing to say”

“I am only liked for what I can do, not for who I am”

(Perhaps you know the litany?)

 

How old was I before those years when I drank to me

And now, these times when I eat too much

Hammered my body

Until now everything hurts, and what doesn’t hurt doesn’t work?

 

I can picture myself

Five?

Six?

Older?

 

And as I do I remember Jesus, talking to another

Wrinkled gnome of a soul, Nicodemus

Another soul deeply imprisoned by his head

Out of tune with his heart and saying

 

You must be born again

(which means you must be born from above)

 

You must open yourself again to Sacred Love

Be filled again, even if you leak

With God’s presence

 

You must once again see yourself as a child of God

A child

twisted, humped, wrinkled, white-bearded, but a child

one in whom the Sacred shines through

one with bright eyes, looking forward into the future

one still grown

still improving

on the way

 

one God can look at as see God’s self

the image

reflected back

 

one with eyes, full of love and hope

acceptance and welcome

In heaven (perhaps) there will be only five-year-old eyes (Michel Quoist)

 

I do not want to see myself

As old

Battered

Twisted, withered, dried, hard

 

I want to see myself as a Sacred child

Forever (in all the ways that count) young

 

“Alleluia!

Alleluia!

Open, all of you, little old creatures

It is I, your God, the eternal, risen from the dead, coming to bring back to life the child in you.

 

Hurry! Now is the time. I am ready to give you again the beautiful face of a child, the beautiful eyes of a child.

 

For I love youngsters and I want everyone to be like them!”   (Michel Quoist, Pr

Spring

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“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.”

          Pablo Neruda

 

always

it's

Spring)and everyone's

in love and flowers pick themselves”

          e.e. cummings

 

“The first day of spring was once the time for taking the young virgins into the fields, there in dalliance to set an example in fertility for nature to follow. Now we just set the clocks an hour ahead and change the oil in the crankcase.”

          E.B. White

________________________________

 

they say it is spring

it is quite astronomical

 

that moment when the sun appears over the equator

and darkness and light are balanced

 

sometimes it feels as if someone didn’t get the memo

still the flowers slumber

reluctant to rouse themselves from under

the blanket of snow

God’s winter comforter

 

but still, we know

spring will come

the crisp snow will turn to mud

and the crocuses and daffodils will poke their heads

through sullen earth

 

spring is inexorable

this time of new beginnings

when what was sleeping awakes

and what was dormant blossoms into newness

 

there are those moments

when we wonder if spring will ever come

when the grip of winter seems firm

and yet it comes

and brown turns to green

black and white is replaced by Kodachrome

that which is asleep wakens

and even the dead rise

 

spring is the resurrection of the earth

 

there are other resurrections

 

I cannot help but think of the tired earth

that is my aging body

and of my tired soul

frozen by too many lies and too much hate

smothered by the coldness of white supremacy

and those who would be king

 

sometimes it feels as if it is always winter

never spring (thanks C.S. Lewis)

as if the long darkness will never leave

as if the path one trods leads only to the tomb,

to dark stillness

as if the light has gone out

 

and “It's so much darker when a light goes out

than it would have been if it had never shone.” (John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent)

 

and yet spring comes

life comes

resurrection does come

 

for the light shines in the darkness

the warm of Sacred love quickens us all

stirring even cold hearts and tired souls

to new life

 

even as we slow and tire

and our bodies grow old

even as malignant forces

smother love and compassion

and the earth itself struggles

 

new birth comes

again and again and again

until

that time when all is new

heaven and earth

and you

and

me 

when equality dies

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Turn in whatever way you will—whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent.

          Abraham Lincoln via Heather Cox Richardson

 

Once you give up the principle of equality, you have given up the whole game. You have admitted the principle that people are unequal, and that some people are better than others. Once you have replaced the principle of equality with the idea that humans are unequal, you have stamped your approval on the idea of rulers and subjects. At that point, all you can do is hope that no one in power decides that you belong in the lesser group.

          Heather Cox Richardson              

 

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.

          Matthew 25 (A Parable of Jesus)

___________________________________________

 

I remember well

Sunday School classes in the basement of the Presbyterian Church

in Lakeview, Oregon

 

There we would gather, in a time much different from today

and sing with youthful voices

“Jesus loves the little children, ALL the children o the world…”

 

And we meant it!

Sure, the world was full of prejudice

But we meant it, we little ones, when we insisted that all were loved

Red and yellow, black and white (and brown I might add)

(and yes, I know defining people by those limited and simplistic color codes is awful –

there are so many shades of beautiful – God is so creative!)

 

All were God’s children

All were created in God’s image

Male and female and everywhere in between God created them

 

And many of us, myself included

As we grew older and if not wiser, at least less naïve

Hope, nay believed, that a time would come

When our attitudes and actions would catch up with our

Innocent singing

 

that time has not yet come

indeed over the past several decades

as right-wing, domination-oriented ideology has gained power

in America and across the world

 

the idea that all are created equal

(it is in the Declaration of Independence)

has waned

 

we are sliding back into hierarchies

and heavenly-ordained domination

 

huge swaths of American Christianity have decided

that Jesus does NOT in fact love all the children of the world

just some

just the favored

 

how do you know the favored?

they are the ones with power

the ones with money, and beauty

the ones who “fit in”

who conform

 

who are not LGBTQI+

not on the autism spectrum

do not have bi-polar illness or schizophrenia

are not addicted

and are not one of the many beautiful colors (other than white)

that God and nature have created

 

the bottom line is this

too many do not see all as children of God, as sacred

do not see Jesus in all others (Matthew25)

do not believe all human creatures are created equal

do not believe all are to be treated with equal respect

have equal right

equal freedom

equal protections

 

too many believe they are better

supreme

and thus have the right

to dominate and control

and an equal right to oppress, suppress, and minimize

 

and yes, even eradicate

 

there is no room

zero

nada

none

for inequity in the Kingdom of God

in the Kin-dom of God

 

we are all sacred children

we participate in an amazing and holy diversity

of color, gender, and size

we think differently

we act differently

we have different strengths and weakness

 

but we are all sacred

all loved by the Sacred

all equal in God’s sight

 

and so this is the one thing we must start to do

see each person in front of us as a carrier of the Sacred

as one who participated in the Sacred

is permeated with Love (whether we can see it or not)

 

and treat them accordingly

for how we treat that transgender child

how we treat that young black person

how we treat that person who does not have a home

or is addicted

or who suffers from mental illness

 

is how we treat Jesus

and to not treat them with love and respect

is to violate God

 

Jesus had only one group he openly challenged and condemned

(yes, he did that)

those who abused power and hoarded wealth

 

he called them a brood of vipers

and suggested they bore “bad fruit”

today we see them still

those in power who use it to oppress, suppress and minimize

those who seek to marginalize and eradicate

 

we see them, we know them by name

we can create a roll-call of those who have rejected

equality and equity and replaced them

with privilege and inequity

 

this

this is the one thing we must resist

of all our sins

this is the one

that denies God

Wear your love like heaven

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Lord, kiss me once more

Fill me with song

Allah, kiss me once more

That I may, that I may

Wear my love like heaven (Wear my love like)

Wear my love like heaven (Wear my love)

                     Donovan Leitch

________________________________________________

 

sometimes as I wander the outback

driving the tattered two-lane highways of

Eastern Oregon

I listen to the radio

 

and sometimes as I listen to my classic rock stations

which play the songs of my youth it is

Kairos time

 

I am no longer in my black AWD

but am back in a rather battered 60’s Willy’s station wagon

and I am young again!

 

it is Kairos time

I am not remembering what it was like to be 16

I am 16

anamnesis

 

somewhere between Silvies Valley and Burns

the words came from my radio

wear my love like heaven

 

lord kiss me once more

fill me with song

that I may wear my love like heaven

 

and once I came back into chronos time

I wondered

what would it be like to wear our love like heaven?

 

it occurred to me that this is exactly what we are called to do

if we would wish the Kingdom to be

on earth as it is in heaven

 

wearing God’s love means

to live a life consistent with heaven

it means, perhaps to create heaven, or Kingdom (as you will)

to drag it into being

here and now

in chronos time

 

to me, this is not so much about individual “purity”

if there is such a thing

as it is about working to eradicate those things that could not

would not exist

in heaven

 

in heaven, there would be no abuse of the new earth

no hungry children

no homeless families

no people thirsting for water (because Nestle bought the water rights)

no guns

 

in heaven, there would be no CEO’s making $5000 an hour

while their employees struggle to make ends meet

no large corporations buying politicians

 

so to wear my love like heaven

means to be a person who seeks to get rid of anything here on earth

that could not exist in heaven

 

to change my own behavior, yes

to be a person of agape-type love

but also to fight to change those systems

that crush, oppress and destroy

 

to fight systematic greed (toxic capitalism)

systematic racism (it is everywhere)

systematic abuse of political power

 

ah!

if only the Lord would kiss me

and fill me with song

and turn me into on

who wears my love like heaven

 

so that I with joy

accept all, welcome all, help all,

encourage all

so that I with joy

give all

 

including my heart

I know not this God

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the wind blows hard and cold

on the high desert sagebrush bend in the wind

and roads disappear beneath the misty white

of drift snow

 

a battered Trump flag, torn

flaps wildly and even more tattered

“don’t tread on me flag”

 

squatting back from the road a small church

huddles bleakly in the gusts

 

a lone sign asks the question

“where will you spend eternity?”

 

the threat is there

turn or burn

appease a wrathful God, or pay the price

get in line

believe the right thing

say the right thing

be against “those people” destroying our country

or else

 

they grip my heart

those words

and I ponder as the miles stretch on

and the wind continues to blow.

 

why does my soul hurt?

 

I have experienced the Sacred

I have sensed a presence

seen miracles

I have been comforted with loved ones die

and been lifted up when I have fallen

 

I have seen Sacred open new doors

when old doors close

I have felt grace

 

I know God as love

as One who comes to heal and restore

to fill me to overflow with

hope, peace, joy, and love

 

I do not know this grim God

who looms and threatens

 

yes, Sacred impels me to live

as a sacred child

yes, the presence of love compels me to

love, give, forgive

to seek to do no harm

to work for reconciliation

 

no, Sacred does not leave me untouched

and unchanged

 

but this?

 

another town looms

another church

another sign

“Everyone will have to talk to God in the end”

and the chill returns

 

Perhaps everyone will GET to talk to God in the end

but what kind of God, what kind of presence or reality will they meet?

will we meet?

will I meet?

 

I believe God is love,

and so this fear-based faith oppresses me

and I wonder,

what does having a God who is angry, perhaps cruel,

for there is nothing so cruel as condemning a vast majority of human creatures

to eternal torment,

what does having a retributive God who is controlling and retributive

do to the human soul?

 

perhaps, perhaps

such a god creates angry, retributive, controlling, cruel people?

or perhaps fearful people, who for whatever reason, cannot trust

cannot accept love and grace

create an angry, retributive, controlling, cruel God?

 

I do not know

but I do know this

the God I know is love

is kind

is comforting

and works to heal and guide

 

and in love

simply asks for love returned

and love shared

 

where will I spend eternity?

I believe I will be home

where I belong

A different way

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“If our social justice is guided by retribution, we will simply perpetuate the use and abuse of power to inflict violence.”

          Jamie Arpin-Ricci

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we no longer know him in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.

          Book of 2 Corinthians

 

“A society built upon a foundation of vengeance is a society doomed to destroy itself.”

          Richelle E. Goodrich

“Father forgive them, for they know not what they do”

          Jesus

 

“Vengence is mine saith the Lord, but I enjoy being God’s tool”

          Unknown

“An eye for an eye, and the whole world would be blind.”

          Kahlil Gibran

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth. But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.

          Jesus

 

“When you repay evil with evil, you become evil.”

          Wayne Gerard Trotman

“Don’t overcome evil with evil, overcome evil with good”

          Book of Romans

_____________________________________

 

I sit and watch the sunrise

into a bitter cold sky

the mountain looms, white and stark

into brilliant blue

 

I lift up my eyes unto the hills

seeking help

wanting to trust that the One who is love

gets us

and has got this

 

I want to trust in Love, and trust that in the end

Love wins

 

I want to let go of my fear and anxiety

and I want my heart to stop hurting

every damn day

 

and yet I am afraid

afraid of the bitterness that drips from too many souls

like the sap from a wounded tree

 

I am afraid of those who are addicted to resentment, anger, and hate

and are driven to imbibe of the power to dictate

and even embrace a dictator

 

I hear the voice of one who would take us down a path

rejected by the One

“I am your warrior. I am your justice.

And for those who have been wronged and betrayed:

I am your retribution.” (DJT)

 

Those words freeze my soul

They violate me.

 

Ah, Lord, if that were your way

You would have listened to the tester

And accepted the crown of Empire

 

Ah, Lord, if that were your way

you would have aligned with those

who held earthly power and wealth

 

Ah, Lord, if that were your way you would not

have allowed the world to mutilate you

and hang you on a cross

and then look down with love

and say

“may forgiveness be theirs”                         

 

It is hard, this path of Love

This way of emptying and service

This way of generosity, compassion, kindness, and empowerment

 

Fear is much easier than love

 

And yet the only way for the Kingdom to come.

For it to be “on earth as it is in heaven”

Is for us to be people who seek to reconcile and restore rather than people who punish and destroy.

 

There is plenty of evil in the world

Plenty of hate, violence, resentment, and retribution

There is not enough love

Not enough reconciliation and restoration

 

Jesus came with a ministry of reconciliation

Not vengeance

And that work has been entrusted

To us

 

Let’s do it

Stuffed with God

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Preach the Gospel always, and when necessary use words

          Franciscan saying

 

We are trying to shout the Gospel with our lives

          Sister Margaret

 

Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

          Jesus (According to John)

____________________________________

 

we are not meant to be observers

we are not meant to stand on the sidelines and shout “Yay Jesus!”

or stand in the midst of this incredible world unmoved and unattached

 

we are not meant to be people who simply believe

and affirm

 

it was not enough for Nicodemus to affirm

even with all of his heart

that Jesus was stuffed with God

(not a bad starting point, but still)

 

no

Nicodemus

you

I

we all must be born from above

 

which is not a casual thing

nor is it safe

 

being born from above is allowing one’s self

to be picked up by the wind

and blown where God wills

 

being born from above is like diving into a raging torrent

and carried by the current of the Spirit

where God wills

 

we cannot huddle and hide from the wind

we cannot merely dip our toes into the water

 

we have to open our arms and allow the wind to pick us up

we have to go all in

 

there is danger here

and powerlessness too

we are at the mercy

 

but Ah!

“The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil…” 

And

“    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.”

(Gerard Manley Hopkins)

 

the Holy Spirit fills us with grandeur

and freshness

newness and life

 

permeating us until we too

are charged with the grandeur of God

and no longer merely watch and wait

but live

fully

 

leaking the Gospel

shouting God’s love with our lives

The path descending

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…. Jesus had only one “operational mode.” Everything he did, he did by self-emptying. He emptied himself and descended into human form. And he emptied himself still further (“even unto death on the cross”) and fell through the bottom to return to the realms of dominion and glory. In whatever life circumstance, Jesus always responded with the same motion of self-emptying—or to put it another way, of the same motion of descent: going lower, taking the lower place, not the higher.…

 

He certainly called us to dying to self, but his idea of dying to self was not through inner renunciation or guarding the purity of his being but through radically squandering everything he had and was

                     Cynthia Bourgeault

___________________________________

 

Bread

Mountain

Temple

 

Wealth

Power

Fame

 

sitting there among the rocks

Jesus battled with himself

 

we sometimes think that in that barren wilderness

as he wrestled for 40 days

Adam and Eve redux

 

that Jesus was empty

that this was indeed paradise lost

no garden but wasteland

a place of want

 

but this was the Beloved Son

confirmed, affirmed, and blessed

the heavens had opened wide and Creator love

had spilled from heaven

 

he carried the Sacred

all that power and love

all that capacity for the miraculous

within that human frame

 

he had wealth and power and

that charisma that draws people

and binds them

 

perhaps the question was not whether he would seek those things

but how he would use them

 

for self or for others?

was this going to be a ministry of ascension or descent?

would he build an Empire through the use of his charisma

and by the accumulation of power and wealth?

or would he build a Kingdom by

“squandering everything he had and was” (CB)?

 

he chose the path descending

he emptied himself (Philippians 2)

walking dusty roads

breaking bread with the unsavory

challenging Empire

dying

 

but dying to rise

from dust to dust

from dust to resurrection

descending to rise again

 

what do we do with our wilderness yearnings?

our hunger, our need for respect

our desire for power?

 

what do we do as we seek the reasonable?

a full belly, a friend, a bit of autonomy?

 

where do our desires take us?

into that mad climb to the mountain top

to fame

to affluence

 

where we are controlled and seek to control?

 

or can we hold our gifts lightly

using them for others

having the mindset of Jesus

knowing the last shall be first

those who give shall receive

those who die shall live

those who are humble shall find glory?

 

what are we doing to do

with the whispers in our ears?

Ash Wednesday

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All those days

you felt like dust,

like dirt,

as if you all had to do

was turn your face

toward the wind

and be scattered

to the four corners

 

or swept away

by the smallest breath

as insubstantial

 

did you not know

what the Holy One

can do with dust?     

                     Jan Richardson

__________________________________

 

we live in a world of ashes and dust

a world consumed

and reduced

by hate and fear and violence

 

by an earth in the throes of death

abused by those who should care for it

 

we live in a world where wildfires roar and reduce

beauty to blackened ruin

where missiles and mortar crash into homes

smashing them into concrete dust and ash

where earthquakes level buildings

crush and entombing

 

leaving people coated with dust and ash and grief

 

we cannot enter

these places

these places of ruin

and death

 

without being touched

by ashes

which cling

and mark

leaving us dirty

 

a sign

of our uncleanliness

and our participation

in what has happened here

 

our part in the creation

of a wasteland

that we call earth

 

and yet

this day

these ashes

mark us

 

not as those who do not see

not as those who do not feel the pain

of this destruction

not as those who do not repent

not as those who do not hope

 

but as those

who, while marked

look forward

toward

what will arise

 

Lent begins with ashes

With the burnt remnants of the divine image

 

Lent begins with regrets

And repentance

 

With the gross understanding that we are not what we should be

Not what we could be

 

we look in the mirror and feel like dirt, sometimes

we feel ragged and torn

and empty

 

and tired

oh so tired

 

of lies

of hate,

of anger,

and fear

 

so tired of raucous debates

and pretentious rallies

 

so worn down

by viruses

and natural disasters

 

and twisted and warped people

who abuse political power

and ban books

and worship guns

and horde wealth

 

worn down by our own lack of efficacy

our own limitations

and flaws

and grief

and helplessness

 

we feel insubstantial

as if the next piece of bad news

the next crisis

 

will cause us to finally

become so fragmented

that we are as insubstantial as ashes

 

or dry dust

 

and yet

for all that

we hope

 

we hope against [all] hope

for we are filled with God

connected in the Spirit to Sacred

to Jesus

 

and “in him all things hold together” (Col. 1)

 

even us

 

we may be dust

we may have been shredded

by the vagaries of life

 

but we know what the Sacred can do with dust

 

this Power, this Love

that dwells inside us

 

it does marvelous things in us

and through us

 

as through Jesus, it multiplied loaves and fishes

as it cast out demons

and healed the sick

and gave sight to the blind

and raised the dead to new life

 

so this Power/Love

takes the most fragmented

the most common elements

 

the most fragmented

the most common people

 

and makes them new

 

transforming

water into wine transforming

multiplication of loaves and fish transforming

calming the waters transforming

life out of death transforming

 

this Power/Love even took a cross

and made it a symbol of life

 

it can certainly take us

and make us Sacred Children

 

Ah, yes

There are days when we feel like dust

But we know what God can do

With dust

 

 

 

 

 

 

the impulse to love

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Loving God, who in Jesus Christ

welcomes us as warmly as sons and daughters,

may we so rest in the riches of your unconditional love,

that our instinct to rival others

is transformed by the impulse to love them

as you have loved us.

Amen

                     Trevor Williams in “What Were You Arguing About Along the Way?”

                     Ed. Pat Bennet, Canterbury Press, 2021

________________________________________

 

it was no accident

that Jesus, when he was here on earth

created a community

 

perhaps it was not

from our perspective, much of a community

it was not large

the members were a motley crew

of men and women (yes there were women)

 

it was nomadic

and probably dependent upon the generosity of others

 

it did not have a name

it did not have a building

it certainly did not have a steeple

or a large screen

 

it did not (I suspect) have a praise band

 

but it was a community

because Jesus was all about community

 

Ok, let’s be honest

Jesus was all about Kingdom!

systems, if you want to think about it that way

 

he was about systematic poverty

systematic piety

systematic prejudice

 

he came not just to change individual hearts

but to change the world

 

his mother had it right!

when she insisted that through her child God

…has shown strength with his arm;

…has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

…has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly;

…has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.”

 

yes, Jesus came to change our hearts, and our minds, individually

but we individuals, transformed by love, are meant to come together

to change the world

 

we exist to confront the ills of the world

greed, racism, the need to dominate and control

and to change those systems that promulgate them

 

systematic racism

systematic greed (toxic capitalism)

systematic domination (authoritarianism and nationalism)

are pervasive and deadly

 

and it is the job of the community

those gathered around Jesus

to confront and change them

 

those ills come out of individualism

out of a need to win

to be the richest, the most powerful

the one with the most toys, the best toys

 

they can only be overcome when we let go of that sense of

self against others

and begin to embrace the way of

self for others

 

and we can only move to that place

individually and then corporately

when we trust enough in God’s love

and God’s abundance

 

so in the end it is all about trust

trust in divine love

and trust in the power of love

 

that is how we participate in

the irresistible revolution (Shane Claiborne)

we trust

in Sacred Love

and live accordingly

What do we do with God?

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… if you tell me I have to be born again to enter the Kingdom of God, I can tell you that you have to see everything you have and give it to the poor, because Jesus said that to one guy too (pause) I guess that is why God invented highlighters, so we can highlight the parts we like and ignore the rest

          Rich Mullins, quoted by Shane Clairborne

______________________________

 

what do we do with this God

we say we worship?

 

What do we do with this God who comes to us

as a baby

walks in the dust of rural roads

eats and laughs with sinners

refuses to fight violence with violence

and eschews the path of domination and wealth?

 

What do we do with the God who

Responds to the hate and evil of the world with love?

Who looks down from a cross, the death machine of Empire,

and speaks forgiveness?

Who sees another in pain beside him and speaks hope?

 

We have so often gotten God wrong!

We worry about whether God “gets” us.

But do we get God?

 

Do we get that God really is love?

Do we understand  (as Richard Rohr puts it) that God is “the prodigal of prodigious prodigies” (Isaiah 29.14)

Always surprising us with grace

Even while we try to layer God with words, creeds, rules, and rituals,

even while we try to recreate Yahweh into a God of domination and affluence.

 

God has one goal

To permeate us with Sacred Love

To fill with Sacred Presence so we have a little of God’s

Generosity, compassion, kindness, forgiveness, and love

 

So that we respond to those around us the way God responds to us

With prodigal love

 

The kind of love that sees the poor, and chooses to live with less

so that one might give more

That sees the oppressed and chooses to live with less power

so that they might have more power

That sees hate and chooses not to respond with hate and violence

 

A love that is willing to sacrifice

Let go

In order to serve and heal

 

What do we do with this God we say we worship?

We let God astound us with Love!

With wonder upon wonder

 

We let God love us more!

Because that is what God wants to do!

Until our hearts burn!

 

And then we live accordingly

Until out of the gloom and darkness comes light

Until the humble rejoice

And the needy have plenty

And the ruthless vanish (Isaiah 29)

seed planted

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It is hard to say goodbye to those we love

I remember too well the early deaths of my parents over 30 years ago

And the weird emptiness that was there

When they were gone

 

My soul was filled with empty warm happy sad feelings

that came like waves in my soul

at strange times

 

when I caught the smell of freshly baked cookies

or walked through the woods on a warm fall day

and smelled the pungent pines

 

My parents were good people

Good parents

Good servants

 

Ah yes, they served

Neither put themself forward

“Hey look at me!”

 

But both spend their lives serving

Their family, their church, their community

 

I’ve been thinking of death lately

As I have presided over too many funerals of people close to me

Aged saints who lived well and died well

 

I love the fact that Jesus (as Brian McLaren points out)

Talked about life and death using the metaphor of the harvest

 

We can see life as the continual toil of the farmer

Who each year plants good seeds and works the fields

So that there will be a harvest

 

Always there is a harvest

An end

Always an end

Where what has been planted, nurtured, cherished, and anticipated

Ends

 

Is cut down

 

Part of the story is about the nature of the harvest

Is it plentiful or not?

Is it sweet or bitter?

 

But an even more important part of the story

(or so it seems to me)

Is this

 

when the harvest happens

and the grain and fruit are gathered

there are seeds that are gathered

that drop to the ground

 

and become a new beginning

 

each ending is also simultaneously a beginning

there is always continuity

seeds become new plants

lives that cave in become (potentially) lives restored

hope crushed becomes a new hope born

 

newness is the key!

In the continuity, there is discontinuity too!

 

As Paul put it what is perishable, dishonorable, and weak

Becomes amazing, powerful, and eternal

 

In our lives

And in our death

We are unmade so that we might be remade

 

This is the hope!

That the old Stephen may die and a new improved Stephen be born

Each day, each hour, each moment

Even as I walk this earth

 

This is the hope

That Joan, Rhee, Dale, and all the saints

In a flash, in the twinkling of an eye

Became new

Taking on the imperishable

Sown in weakness

Raised in glory