Fat faith

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

The church must stand against the way politics has become a religion and religion has become politics

                     Russel Moore

 

…this religion:  too thin to provide meaning and morals to culture, and thus to reliably support democratic society. A result is what I call a cultural trade deficit…   If, instead [of supporting civic virtues] the church is in cultural deficit – if it becomes a net importer of values from the secular world – then it becomes morally derivative rather than morally formative

           Jonathan Rauch, Cross Purposes

__________________________________________

 

I want a fat faith

A faith that makes a difference

A faith that shapes and transforms

 

I don’t want a faith that lets the world

Squeeze it into its mold (Paul)

But a robust faith that determines

How we live

 

It’s complicated

For in these days, confused souls are not sure

what is faithful and what is not

 

Issues such as abortion, gender,

And immigration

have caused faith to become politics

 

to the point that politics has become a matter of faith

where political ideology

and political leaders

 

have replaced the core values of scripture

and Jesus, yes, Jesus himself

 

and a faith thus made thin

is shredded and destroyed

collapsing under the weight

of the earthly

 

the heart of faith

that which needs to bear the weight

of shaping our world

our nation

has been lost

 

and so we have a collapse

politics and religion falling in upon each other

becoming rubble

a Gaza-like wasteland

 

pummeled continuously

by those who would use faith rather than live it

 

we have let the world squeeze us into its mold

into the shape of fear, hate,

racism

oppression

suppression

 

it is not just MAGA that is responsible

for flash bang grenades

and rubber bullets

and looming martial law

 

it is thin faith

a center that cannot hold

and so our world collapses and

“The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere  

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst  

Are full of passionate intensity.”  (Yeats)

 

Forget the economic trade deficit

The spiritual trade deficit is what is destroying us

The powerful surge of fear, judgment, and greed

The need for power

Pouring into the church

Unbalancing it and leaving it impoverished

thin

 

Instead of a powerful surge of

Compassion, kindness, welcome, generosity

And love

Pouring into the world, shaping it

 

I am tired of a thin impoverished faith

I want fat faith

A faith that causes me to welcome the stranger

Love my enemies

Bless and not curse

Give and not horde

 

I know that such faith is usually assailed by the world

It is hung up on a cross to die

It is crucified by a religion that has become politics

And politics that have become religion

 

I know that there may be pain, and what looks like failure

I know that collapse may be inevitable

And that this country, this world

May become a wasteland

 

The powers of the earth

“…have made it an empty wasteland; I hear its mournful cry.

    The whole land is desolate, and no one even cares.”  Jeremiah

 

But Love can create streams in the desert

Until the dry land is glad

And out of the rubble of human hate and deceit

Joy, hope, peace, and love

Will blossom (Isaiah)

 

I believe

Lord help my unbelief

Grace is not transactional

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

Our success-driven culture scorns failure, powerlessness, and any form of poverty. Yet Jesus begins his Sermon on the Mount by praising “the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3)! Just that should tell us how thoroughly we have missed the point of the gospel. Nonviolence, weakness, and simplicity are also part of the Western shadow self. We avoid the very things that Jesus praises, and we try to project a strong, secure, successful image to ourselves and the world. We reject vulnerability and seek dominance instead, and we elect leaders who falsely promise us the same. 

 

I can see why my spiritual father, St. Francis of Assisi, made a revolutionary and pre-emptive move into the shadow self from which everyone else ran. In effect, Francis said through his lifestyle, “I will delight in powerlessness, humility, poverty, simplicity, and failure.” He lived so close to the bottom of things that there was no place to fall. Even when insulted, he did not take offence. Now that is freedom, or what he called “perfect joy”!  

          Richard Rohr – Daily Meditations

______________________

 

How can I profit you?

Let me count the ways.

 

Any leader who has any savvy at all

Knows that the way to recruit followers

Is to make it all about them

 

Their wants, needs, fears, and yes

Hope

 

In 1860 Abraham Lincoln’s slogan was “Vote Yourself a Farm”

1920   Warren G. Harding promised a “Return to Normalcy.”

In 1928, Herbert Hoover promised “A Chicken in Every Pot and a Car in Every Garage.”

In 1956, Dwight Eisenhower offered “Peace and Prosperity.”

In 1980, Ronald Reagan asked, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”

 

And Trump?

Trump offered people power and wealth, too.

 

Dominance seems to be woven into the fabric of our being

The need to win (so much winning we get tired of it)

The need to dominate and control

To succeed and accumulate

 

There are anomalies

St Francis of Assisi, who said

“I will delight in powerlessness, humility, poverty, simplicity, and failure.”

 

Quite a mission statement

 

And people such as Gandhi, Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr.,

Mother Theresa and Pope Francis

 

Who, though imperfect and flawed

Had servant hearts

 

But we live in a top-down, power-over world

Where the goals are to be in a position of power

And to “have” as much of everything as one possibly can

 

So we value those people with power

And actively devalue those who do not

Indeed, our very goal is to put as many people

“Beneath us” as we possibly can

 

We assume those with wealth must inherently be

richer, wiser, harder working, better

than those who happen to be poor

 

We know this is true, whether we want to admit it

Or not

 

We tend to avoid and ignore looking at our dysfunctional relationship

With power and wealth

With winning and domination

 

So we don’t admit to ourselves.

Or confession to God, our addiction to domination

 

Which is why very pious (in the legitimate sense) people

Can embrace an ideology that is fundamentally

“Not Jesus’

 

Which is why we now have in power a movement whose core values are

Reclaiming White Privilege (aka Racism)

Using power ON others (not FOR others)

Retribution (rather than reconciliation)

Exclusivity rather than inclusion

Radical safety rather than vulnerability

The accumulation of resources by a few,

Rather than the use of resources for the common good

 

We have become fearful hoarders.

People who must win at any cost

People who make others less so we might be more

 

We have become people willing to

Demonize, neglect, deport, suppress, oppress others

For our own benefit

 

I don’t think Jesus would be very popular today

Not in America

Can you imagine a candidate who said

Love your enemies":

Turn the other cheek

Sell everything you have and give to the poor

 

The way of Jesus is hard.

 

O God of love

Forgive us when we become addicted to strength and success

Forgive us when we reject vulnerability and seek dominance instead,

Help us to be people who like Francis

delight in powerlessness, humility, poverty, simplicity, and failure

 

Who do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.

But in humility value others above ourselves,

And look not to our own interests but to the interests of others.

 

Give us the mindset of Jesus.

Make us servants

 

The path to the abyss

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

smoke whirls

as flash grenades echo

and assailants

better armed than combat troops

trod heavily

 

faces covered

 

bullies

the hands and feet

of a movement that prizes

power

and seeks intimidation

 

we do not know who they are

these furtive intimidators 

 

we do know that this is not

greatness

this is not democracy

 

this is terrorism

 

the yield of seeds planted

by clever souls

the seeds of fear and resentment

of racism

 

they march

these denizens of tyranny

seeking the tired, the poor

those who endured oppression and violence

and have come here

yearning to breathe free,

the refugee and the immigrant

 

no longer welcome

in the land of freedom

no longer welcome in a land that consumes

but does not give

 

too afraid, too resentful

too greedy

to welcome the stranger into its midst

 

to embrace those who

if welcomed

would flourish, and in flourishing,

enrich this land

 

who would work, and raise families

and be our neighbors

 

we have demonized these precious souls

deemed them dangerous and unworthy

accused them of eating pets

and made them the enemy

 

are there wicked people among

those who have come?

por supuesto

 

but fewer among them

than among those who are so proud

to be an American

 

but till we dehumanize them

and round them up like livestock

we line them up

hands zip tied behind their backs

we detain them without due process

and deport them

to places unknown

 

or send them back to certain death

 

what have we become?

this land

this United States

this self proclaimed “Christian Nation?”

 

this is tyranny looming,

a dark cloud of oppression looming

growing

obscuring the light until all

is darkness

 

true religion, Jesus said

is taking care of the vulnerable in your midst

it is feeding the hungry, clothing the naked,

giving water to the thirsty

taking care of the sick

 

it is fighting for justice

 

so what do we do

in these days, as armed men march

and justice is denied?

 

Jesus said we can be sheep or goats

we can side with the vulnerable

or ignore them

but that siding with the poo

and welcoming the stranger is not optional

 

America first (and only) is not the path to greatness

it is the path to the abyss

taken

one masked militant

one zip tied immigrant

one injustice at a time

 

even as the darkness encroaches

we cannot fight hate with hate, evil with evil

violence with violence

 

we must stand, yes

and speak, yes

and act, yes

 

but the way is clear

 

We must learn to do good;

seek justice,

correct oppression;

bring justice (Isaiah 1)

 

that is Yahweh’s way

Can we move On

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

Pádraig Ó Tuama has a wonderful poem about Peter

poor Peter, wallowing in his grief

and sense of inadequacy

 

there on the shore of the sea

aimlessly fishing

 

Peter, sitting by the fire

his love questioned

not because the questioner did not know,

but because the questioned needed to know

 

do I love him

more than fish, a campfire

the old normal

 

Peter, weeping

Lamenting

 

“I drank from miraculous new waters and then

I faltered while the devil sauntered downtown.

I am the pebble in your crown.

Jerusalem’s new clown.

 

I’ve let you down,

I’ve let you down,

I’ve let you down,

I’ve left me damnwell down

Jesus, you know everything I said,

And then I wept.

 

‘Are we beyond all this?

can we move on?’ he said…

‘can we move on?’ he said…

and let’s move on, ‘ he said to me”  (Ó Tuama)

 

Ah, beloved

how many times have I let you down

have I let me down

have I let those I love and serve down?

 

How many times have I denied

through my thoughts, words, and deeds

love

 

your love

that passes all understanding

that is poured out on all people

all creation?

 

How many times have I spoken in anger

slipped into hate, wandered into resentment

 

how many times have I failed to remember

that you love me

in spite of it all?

 

More than three,

that is for damn sure

 

Jesus, do not let me linger

in the place of guilt, shame, and lament

it is time to embrace

forgiveness

and move on

 

not the same, never the same

not to mindlessly wander down the same paths

and end up back in the same place

by the same campfire

eating the same fish

 

it is time to move on

bearing witness to your love

for me, for them, for all

in my little town

my poor country

 

to the ends of creation…

because you love me

and I love you

inching along

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

and he is inching towards glory

with only his own story on his back

he has patched up holes that opened

where his coverings have cracked

and some shoes were never meant for hiking, so

he left them far behind

there are things he needs

on journeys such as these

food and love and drink and warmth and comfort

and a bag that’s small enough

to carry all the failures and the idols

that he’s picked up on the way

 

there are some days

he only moves

an inch or two

 

this is the pace of glory here in exile

          Pádraig Ó Tuama

_____________________________________

 

I inch through life

eternally displaced and homesick

seeking

 

I am not sure I belong here

it does not feel like home

and I, clinging to the vestiges of hope

like tattered clothes

 

wandering

an immigrant, a soul in exile

 

I need to travel light

it is time to abandon all that burdens

that weighs me down

and drains my sparse resources

 

my bag is small

and cannot bear the weight

of too much hate

and fear

 

I need to shed these foul miseries

leaving them, abandoned along the way

as I trod, trod

through each day, through this life

this journey through the wasteland

 

there are many paths through this

great dryness

where I struggle and thirst

and inch

lost and worn

 

I will never make it through

to that place of promise

 

without the One who makes a way

filling valleys and leveling mountains

filling my battered cup

with just enough water to keep me traveling

inching toward glory

 

a refugee

trudging with so many other

exiles

all of us needing Sacred

needing each other

 

sharing our meager gifts

of love, hope, compassion, and joy

trying to find our way home

walking each other

home

 

Say Yes

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

In the Irish language there is not a word for ‘yes’.  There is not a word for “no” either.

 

You can only answer in the affirmative – you can say “I will’ or “I won’t.’  You can say ‘I can.’  You can say ‘I am’ or ‘I am not’…

 

Let your yes be yes and your no be no

Let your yes be seen in your doing.

Let your no be not-doing.

If you say yes, but do-not-do, it is a no.

So, forget all your talk.

Tell me by what you do.

                     Pádraig Ó Tauma

_________________________________

 

What does it look like to live

Yes

Yes to God, to life, to love

 

I can say ‘yes’ all I want

And it can simply be noise

A clanging of falsehoods

 

What does ‘yes’ look  like

It looks like patience and humility

It looks like respect

And forgiveness

It looks like joy

 

It does not look like

Envy, boasting, or anger

It is not focused on the self

It does not look like lies

 

It looks like welcoming the stranger

Feeding the hungry

Clothing the naked

 

It looks like fighting for justice

 

I say ‘yes’ when I look on another with compassion

I say ‘yes' when I stand and speak out

Against hate and injustice

I say ‘yes’ when I hold my tongue (sometimes)

And ‘yes’ when I refuse to spew hate

 

May my yes be seen in my doing.

May my no be not-doing

Those things that are not love

 

Its complicated

So complicated

 

And frightening too

How easy it is to stumble over ‘no’ on the way to ‘yes’

 

But there is no other way

This

This is the way, the truth, the life

Your choice

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

You carry

All the ingredients

To turn your life into a nightmare

Don’t mix them…

 

You carry all the ingredients

To turn your existence into joy,

 

Mix them, mix

Them!

          Hafiz ala Daniel Landinsky

___________________________________

 

We are not helpless

Ever

 

We do not have to be tossed and blown

By every new headline

Every painful setback

Every new abuse of power 

Every new lie (Ephesians 4)

 

We can be victims

If we want

We can carry darkness

Embrace ignorance

We can harden our hearts

 

So there is no longer room

For The Gift

The Presence

 

We can stuff our souls with resentment,

Anger, hate, and greed

We can lust for power

 

We can spawn nightmares,

Which fill our souls with darkness and chaos

Pushing us to punish, harm, and reject

Which fill our lives

With every kind of violence

Imaginable

 

But all the ingredients are there

For joy

 

Love, compassion, forgiveness, generosity

Fueled by the Spirit

Can intoxicate us

Until we dance with abandon

 

Our feet moving to the sound of

Gratitude and expectation

Our hearts singing the song of love

Our eyes seeing all the good gifts

That surround us

 

Until we live joy

 

We carry within us

All the ingredients we need

Mix them!  Mix them!

Beyond rage

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

Prophets who continue to lead (or end) with their rage have only half of the message, it seems.  They have the anger but lack the compassion; mere moral positioning and ethical “answers” are not really the work of conversion… In our times, it is common to confuse articulate passion with prophetic when it is simply untransformed anger that will not change anything in the long term or lead us anywhere good.

 

Any opinion, liberal or conservative, might well be a good one, but what is its guiding energy and end point?

          Richard Rohr, The Tears of Things

___________________________________________

 

Sometimes I live in a cloud of rage

Each morning I stare out over the devastation

That is America.

 

I see power abused,

Wealth mistaken for worthiness

Injustice paraded as justice

 

I see the victims

their lives torn asunder by

racism and hate

their pain ignored

their very being canceled

 

and I am angry

 

And so I scream to the heavens

“God, do something!”

My fingers type out fury

Awash with righteous wrath

I proclaim my disgust with articulate passion

 

I am, I hope, a truth teller

But where, oh where, is compassion?

I am Jonah, furious that grace and love might fall upon

The objects of my anger

Sulking under a tree at the very thought

That they might be redeemed

 

I have left no room for compassion

Redemption

Reconciliation

 

I need to be right

I need to put those “sinners” in their place

I want to see them fall and be humiliated

 

Alas

 

God will not join us in that place

 

Yes!

We need to speak out!

Against injustice and inequity

 

Yes, we need to act to counter

The works of evil

 

We need to feed the hungry, clothe the naked

House the homeless,

Welcome the stranger

Fight for justice.

 

But we must let our God of love

Be Love

 

We cannot get lost in rage

 

Ours is a ministry of reconciliation

We cannot allow our frustration and anger

To kill our capacity

To feel the pain and emptiness

The lostness of the oppressors

 

God does not love any of us because we are good (or right)

God loves us, all of us, because God is good

 

The God of love is big enough to never give up

On anyone

To never quit seeking, reconciliation and renewal

 

I do not know how to balance my anger at injustice

And my disdain for the distributors of cruelty

With that unfathomable love

 

We must go beyond

Our inadequate views of mercy

And let God be God

 

Or else we will lose our capacity

To sing a redemption song

And that is all we really have

Fear

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

Fear is the cheapest room in the house.

I would like to see you living

In better conditions…

 

I should not make any promises right now,

But I know that if you

Pray

Somewhere in this world

Something good will happen.

 

God wants to see

More love and playfulness in your eyes

For that is your greatest witness to him…

                     Hafiz ala Daniel Landinsky

________________________

 

When we live in fear

We live in the poorest part of the soul

That impoverished place

Where hate and anger, resentment and cruelty dwell

 

We live in the squalor of our own garbage

Our insecurities,

Our failures

Our lack of hope, and love, and joy

 

There are those who would exile us there

In that foul place

Who would use power and wealth

To oppress our hearts

 

And leave us stumbling and broken.

Into dark and dirty streets

 

There is only one way out.

Only one

 

Love

 

Love not as feeling

Nor as some sort of chemical connection

 

But the love that comes from Love

From that one who is love

And who pours love into our souls

 

Bringing light and joy

Into the dark corners

 

So let us trust in love.

Have faith in its power.

 

And dance freely along

Streams of cool water that refresh our souls

 

Let us lift our voices in song and prayer.

 

For love and joy

Are our greatest witness

Looking for mischief

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

God, what love mischief can “we” do

For the world

Today

          Hafiz /Daniel Ladinsky

 

“What can you do to get into good trouble? There is a light inside of you that will turn on when you get into good trouble. You will feel emboldened and freed. You will realize that unjust laws cannot stop you. These laws cannot stop the truth that is in your heart and soul.”

John Lewis, Carry On: Reflections for a New Generation

_______________________________

 

They would like to win

They think they do win

As drenched with privilege

The rich and the powerful play their games

 

Coercion, control

Retribution and punishment

Are the name of the game

 

And for a moment

At this moment, they can strut

And smugly grin

 

But they do not know.

They do not understand

 

They are missing the parts that make us

Human

Imagio dei

Children of God

 

They have deported the Sacred from their souls

Leaving themselves impoverished

 

And so they cannot grasp the fact

That God

The wildly creative power that is beyond

All that we can imagine

 

Imagines a different world from theirs

 

They cannot understand that they can do their worst

And God knows they try

But in the end empire will fall

Evil will be overcome by good

Even death will be defeated

 

Meanwhile

We of little importance

Just ordinary souls

Permeated with God

Are planning a revolution

Birthing the Sacred

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

If you want, the Virgin will come walking down the street

Pregnant with the Holy and say

 

I need shelter for the night, please take me inside your heart

My time is so near

 

Then under the roof of your soul you will witness the sublime

Intimacy, the divine, the Christ

Taking birth

Forever

 

As she grasps your hand for help, for each of us

Is the midwife of God, each of us

                             St John of the Cross

 

______________________________________

 

Ah Sacred One

who lives and moves

in us

and around us

 

Ah Sacred One, whose ways

are mystery

 

Do not allow us in our limited minds

to reason away the mystery

 

to take what is wild and free

and life-giving

the fire of fierce love

and quench it

 

to take the powerful wind of the spirit

and reduce it

to nothing more than words and platitudes

rules and dogma

 

We can

It is possible

abort the birth of the divine

fail to allow love to be born

through us

 

Or

we can birth the Sacred

allowing that which permeates us

that with which God has impregnated us

to seep out of our souls

 

raw and screeching

unavoidable, inconvenient, and yet

the most precious gift

 

a treasure we welcome with wonder

and share

 

God

GodWithUs

GodInUs

 

Liberator and redeemer

the savior of the world

 

There is pain in the birthing

and danger too

 

But in the fullness of time

we, full of the mystery

can no longer resist the compulsion to give birth

 

Jesus will come

Irresistible

Transforming

 

Born forever

in us

in spite of us

 

a light that comes

into the darkness

and is not overcome

 

The Sacred Child

making us Sacred Children too

 

Back to the Garden

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

His hands can shape through ours

And our sounds can somehow echo what God has ever

said…

 

His mind can shape through ours

Our bodies – and the earth – are like clay. Is

that not so, my

dear

                               St. Teresa of Avila

________________________________________

 

Ah dear children

“We are stardust, we are golden”

We are salt, we are yeast, we are light

 

Make no mistake

For all our fear, for all our greed

Despite our flawed belief

That life is an endevour we must undertake

Alone

 

We are instruments the Sacred

Clay to be formed

Vessels built to contain

Love

 

We are the hands and feet of God

We are the voice crying in the wilderness

“you are loved”

 

It is a matter of clinging

to Jesus as a vine clings to a branch

let the life force flow

through us

 

Separated

we become dry and brittle creatures

dry branches trodden underfoot

by the powers of the world

 

 

Detached we are

Tossed and blown

Deceived

 

But we can cling to God

Knowing that God clings to us

It is there, deep down

At the center of who we are

 

The presence, the spark,

the power and love

that permeates us

 

transforming

restoring the image

until love is the natural expression

of who we are

 

and we join the sun, and the moon

and the stars

and all creation

in proclaiming the glory

and love

of God

 

and we transform rather than

conform

 

bringing a little bit of heaven

to earth

leading the way back

to the garden

 

So I sit.....

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

And with every step I took it became more impossible for me to turn back. And my mind was empty—or it was as though my mind had become one enormous, anaesthetized wound. I thought only, One day I'll weep for this. One of these days I'll start to cry.

 James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room

___________________________________________

 

I sit and stare blankly at the screen

my mind is empty, my hands are still

 

I do not know how long I have been sitting this way

My mind, heart, soul

An anaesthetized wound

 

I am preoccupied with the chaos

love is losing

Empire, replete with its trappings of fear, control, and cruelty

Is winning

 

My soul is assailed by evil and greed

By the callous disregard for people

That tears at the very fabric of who I am

 

I move from anger to disgust

From fear to (yes, I admit it) hate

From shock to sadness to profound grief

 

It is bad enough that people in power abuse it

That people with privilege exploit it

It is bad enough that people do ungodly things

In the name of God

 

But what shatters me is that so many do not care

 

I wonder if this is how the disciples felt that Saturday morning

After it was all over

after the political and religious systems

did their thing

 

and killed love

hung compassion on a cross

 

what must it have been like to sit there in that upper room

where only days before

the space had echoed with laughter

and bread was broken

and a cup passed round, again and again

 

what must it have been like to sit there

your heart ripped from your body

while outside

the Roman soldiers prowl and harass

and the people of Jerusalem

simply open their shops

buy their groceries

 

and go about their day

as if nothing has happened?

 

As the people walk the street, cowed and silenced by the soldiers

a conquered people who have capitulated to power

and live in fear

 

it feels so hopeless

I feel so helpless

As if there is nothing I can do

 

But I cannot just sit here

hoping it will all go away

hoping that people will wake up to the Sacred

hoping against hope

 

I know there are no easy answers

I know that Sacred seems distant and unconcerned

and lament is now a way of life

 

But still, I must stand

And I must go through each day

Left foot,

Right foot

Left foot breathe

 

Trusting in the Sacred,

Trusting God, GodWithUs, GodInUs

 

Trusting enough to leave those places of safety

to stand in the street, facing the fierce gusts of hate

and speak about justice, as justice is denied

and when those with power us it hatefully

live love

 

I must stand, because I know, on this Saturday

Something the disciples did not know, yet

 

I know about the resurrection

I know what God did

And I know

What God can do

 

And so I sit

But not for long

An outpouring of Love

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

The crucifixion of Jesus is the preeminent example of God’s love reaching out to us. It is at the same moment the worst and best thing in human history. The Franciscans, led by John Duns Scotus, even claimed that instead of a “necessary sacrifice,” the cross was a freely chosen revelation of total love on God’s part. 

 

In so doing, they reversed the engines of almost all world religion up to that point, which assumed that we had to spill blood to get to a distant and demanding God. On the cross, the Franciscans believed, God was “spilling blood” to reach out to us! This is a sea change in consciousness. The cross, instead of being a transaction, was seen as a dramatic demonstration of God’s outpouring love, meant to utterly shock the heart and turn it back toward trust and love of the Creator.

          Richard Rohr

___________________________________________________

 

It is an age of horrors

With hate sitting in high places

People snatched off the streets

and “disappeared”

 

A time when racism is flaunted

compassion is a sin

and justice is denied

 

The air is thick with free-floating anger,

resentment, and feel

we are choking on our own bitterness

 

We want to claw our way

out of this dark, brooding place

we are desperate

for one clean breath of love

 

we are tired of stumbling in this sullen gloom

we want to once again walk in the light

 

Jesus of the cross

You know our pain

It is your pain

 

What assails us put you there

hanging on that tree

 

looking down at a world

that cried out for deliverance

 

You suffered to deliver

not to deliver us from suffering

but to teach us how to live with suffering

 

the poor will be with us always

so too the tyrants

the small, bitter souls that delight

in the pain of others

 

there were those who stood underneath your cross

delighted

there were more who simply turned away

overwhelmed by their own pain

unable to bear anymore

 

unable to see and feel the pain

oozing from the very earth

which cried out in its travail and shook when you died

 

but you bore it all

and in your near silence

you preached love

 

Yes, love

because only one thing has power completely

and that is love

 

Love seeks not power, or wealth

Love seeks not control or retribution

 

True love is freely given

and in that freedom is its power

it does not need

anything

 

 

 

love not seeking

can give

love not protecting can reach out

 

from the dawn of time

we human creatures have misunderstood

how You work

 

we have seen you as distant and demanding

and we have sought you out of fear

 

in fear

we have spilled blood on innumerable altars

and endless battlefields

seeking to please You

hoping to find favor and blessing

 

We have killed in your name

doves, and lambs, and fatted calves

and children

your beloved children

 

but in Jesus

in Jesus on the cross

you revealed your limitless love

from the cross You love poured out

 

like blood pouring from a pierced body

 

the cross is an insult

it shocks us, confuses us

and it changes us

 

we cannot describe a love such as this

but we can see it, experience it, accept it.

 

we can let love come to us

and freely, joyously, sacrificially

not only return it

but pass it on

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heart Trouble

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

And God is always there, if you feel wounded. He kneels

Over this earth like

A divine medic

 

And His love thaws

The holy in

Us

          St Teresa of Avila

__________________________

 

I know it still beats.

It must

For this morning, I watched the sun rise

Sneaking its way into the sky

Cloud dodging

 

Unable to hide its grandeur

pink, red, orange

traces

revealing its path

 

I think I felt my heart twinge

just for a moment

 

But I have heart trouble.

 

There is a pain, deep-seated, there in that space

where one is heart and soul

In that place where compassion

grows and flows

outward

 

where true joy is birthed

hope leaps unbound

love is born

 

We are bone and marrow

Sinew, blood, and flesh

Black, white, every color of the rainbow

 

We are unique, diverse beings

Emerging from the wildly creative power

From which all things come

 

Dualistic definitions cannot capture us

we cannot even find the words

that honor

the complex splendour

that is you and me

 

And so the devastation

of a frozen heart

hardened by the hate, fear, and greed

free floating

coarsened by daily terrors

 

as our world slides into the abyss

the darkness

of injustice, abuse, and cruelty

 

even the brilliance of the sun

the breathtaking beauty of the mountains

white capped

the azure sky

the ecstatic fawns dancing

across fields newly green

 

cannot soften this heart

frozen by the hate and injustice

 

but I want to feel

I want my heart to leap with joy

to become full to overflowing

at the sight of

all this beauty

 

I want love bursting forth

Unrestrained

Flowing

To the lonely, the fearful, the hurting

souls that surround me

 

I want the sacred woven into my being

To come alive again

 

And here is the great truth

Only the holy can thaw the holy

Revitalize, animate, quicken

This heart

 

Only the beloved can make

This heart burn within

 

and give me back

what hateful souls have stolen

a heart that beats fiercely

for justice, for peace,

for others

 

a heart that can feel, respond,

ache, thrill

and love

 

Good Friday

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

The crucifixion of Jesus is the preeminent example of God’s love reaching out to us. It is at the same moment the worst and best thing in human history. The Franciscans, led by John Duns Scotus, even claimed that instead of a “necessary sacrifice,” the cross was a freely chosen revelation of total love on God’s part. 

 

In so doing, they reversed the engines of almost all world religion up to that point, which assumed that we had to spill blood to get to a distant and demanding God. On the cross, the Franciscans believed, God was “spilling blood” to reach out to us! This is a sea change in consciousness. The cross, instead of being a transaction, was seen as a dramatic demonstration of God’s outpouring love, meant to utterly shock the heart and turn it back toward trust and love of the Creator.

          Richard Rohr

___________________________________________________

 

It is an age of horrors

With hate sitting in high places

People snatched off the streets

and “disappeared”

 

A time when racism is flaunted

compassion is a sin

and justice is denied

 

The air is thick with free-floating anger,

resentment, and feel

we are choking on our own bitterness

 

We want to claw our way

out of this dark, brooding place

we are desperate

for one clean breath of love

 

we are tired of stumbling in this sullen gloom

we want to once again walk in the light

 

Jesus of the cross

You know our pain

It is your pain

 

What assails us put you there

hanging on that tree

 

looking down at a world

that cried out for deliverance

 

You suffered to deliver

not to deliver us from suffering

but to teach us how to live with suffering

 

the poor will be with us always

so too the tyrants

the small, bitter souls that delight

in the pain of others

 

there were those who stood underneath your cross

delighted

there were more who simply turned away

overwhelmed by their own pain

unable to bear anymore

 

unable to see and feel the pain

oozing from the very earth

which cried out in its travail and shook when you died

 

but you bore it all

and in your near silence

you preached love

 

Yes, love

because only one thing has power completely

and that is love

 

Love seeks not power, or wealth

Love seeks not control or retribution

 

True love is freely given

and in that freedom is its power

it does not need

anything

 

 

 

love not seeking

can give

love not protecting can reach out

 

from the dawn of time

we human creatures have misunderstood

how You work

 

we have seen you as distant and demanding

and we have sought you out of fear

 

in fear

we have spilled blood on innumerable altars

and endless battlefields

seeking to please You

hoping to find favor and blessing

 

We have killed in your name

doves, and lambs, and fatted calves

and children

your beloved children

 

but in Jesus

in Jesus on the cross

you revealed your limitless love

from the cross You love poured out

 

like blood pouring from a pierced body

 

the cross is an insult

it shocks us, confuses us

and it changes us

 

we cannot describe a love such as this

but we can see it, experience it, accept it.

 

we can let love come to us

and freely, joyously, sacrificially

not only return it

but pass it on

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From meritocracy to grace

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

It takes all of us a long time to move from power to weakness, from glib certitude to vulnerability, from meritocracy to the ocean of grace.

                                                          Richard Rohr            

_____________________________________

 

God is not at all

like we might want our God to be

 

we love to point to the God of creation

and focus on omnipotence and omniscience

 

we look for God in mighty acts

acts of power

acts of dominance, even wrath

 

and since think of God this way

our faith is defined

accordingly

 

to follow God means power

to follow God means safety and ease

wealth and success

 

and we stand, Pharisee like

on our pillars of righteousness

believing (although we may not actually admit this)

that we have done something

to earn our place

in the circle of God’s love

 

and we stand secure, and comfortable

 

Palm Sunday

The Upper Room

Gethsemane

The Cross

 

should remind us

that God’s ultimate act of power

was profoundly expressed through vulnerability

and weakness

 

through yielding

and giving

all

 

that there might be an end to hate

and the birth of love

 

Forgive me, for all those moments

when I fail to see you in the little acts

of vulnerability and love

 

Forgive me Lord, for the times I forget

that is it when I am vulnerable

when I am a server (not the served)

that is when I am willing to

give pieces of myself

 

that I am most intensely on Your Way

 

Forgive me when I think that being yours

Is a matter of merit

 

Help me Lord, drift gently on the ocean of grace