Give in

“In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.”

                                                           Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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Some of us

Have always tried to “make it work”

Life that is

We have been strivers

Seeking success

Seeking love

Seeking friendship

Seeking, although usually in vain, for a sense of self

We work

We struggle

We produce

We put ourselves out there

We live on the limb

And it doesn’t work

a friend of mine reminded me that the “Quakers like to say ‘way will open’. But the ones not imbued with compulsory optimistic thinking say ‘way closes, and that is way too.’"

Many times as she noted, what we seek, whether it be love, or friendship, or joy

or peace, is “not a thing to be grasped. It's a thing to let happen, to be given in to.”

for me it is counter intuitive…

and yet

it rings true

so for all of us strivers

perhaps it is time

to let it be

time to

give

in

Backstory

“When I am battered and oppressed by the world that humanity has made - which is difference from the world that is was given - my primary defense, my consolation, is the absurdity of that world”

                                                                                                      Dean Koontz

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They are all around me

Those people we deem as different, strange, perhaps odd

That woman who dresses strangely, and walks head down

Unseeing along the highway

That woman, flushed and overweight

Smoking, cursing,

Fling both words and cigarette butts with abandon

That strange young man who stares intently

At those who pass by

We look at them

And quickly judge them,

Misfits

Crazy

Addicted

But today, as I watched some people who do not quite fit in

to the fabric of society

I wondered

What is his story?

What is her story?

What lies behind those behaviors we deem so odd

or even inappropriate

Perhaps she was assaulted

or abandoned

perhaps his mother told him

he would never be any good, and no one would ever love him

there is always a back story

and that person

yes that person over there we

we minimize and dismiss

may well be battered and oppress

destroyed by the absurdity of the world

that person is a precious

precious soul.

look at love with love

Rub your eyes and look again at love with love

                                           Rumi

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God is love

or so we are told

and yet when we look at love with fear

or greed

or anger

it is often no longer love

to calm the feed

curb the greed

or cool the anger

it is something else

and God becomes someone else

someone arbitrary

angry

cruel

and we reflect the God

in whom we believe

and become angry

and cruel

It is time to rub our eyes

And clear them of the clouds

that hide love

and in love

look at love

again

A living contradiction

Sometimes I come face to face with the fact

That I am a living contradiction

It is surprising how often it happens

that I find I say one thing

believe one thing

but end up living quite a different reality

I believe in generosity

but all too often hug things to myself

I believe in caring and listening

But all too often don’t listen well

at all, at all

Ok, I do care!

but I am not sure anyone would know it

as I hang out inside myself

and find it so very difficult to share what I am feeling

(I seem to have no problem sharing what I am thinking, sadly)

I believe in forgiveness

but when it comes to those I see trampling on the vulnerable

all bets are off

I believe in love

but I can be so angry

and there are people I am coming to hate

I believe the Sacred lives in me

but so often I have very little sense of sacred presence

a living contradiction, no doubt about it

but there are times

when I stop

step away from my brain

and see it all so clearly

a try to let go of those things that are unbeautiful about me

and try to engage, with all my heart, soul, mind and strength

and there are times

that I do

Love is the Center

“If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it.”

                                                                                                                   Stephen Colbert

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There are lots of commandments in the Bible

Lots of instructions

Do this

Don’t do that

Don’t eat shellfish -  Leviticus 11:9-12

Don’t get tattoos - Leviticus 19:28,

Kill all the heathen in the land – Deuteronomy 7 and 20

Smash the rebellious child’s head with a rock - (Deut. 21:18-21).

Keep the Sabbath -  Exodus 20

Die in order to live  - Matthew 16:24–25

There are deadly offenses.

Like being a psychic  -  “A man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you must be put to death. You are to stone them; their blood will be on their own heads.” (Leviticus 20:27)

Getting raped while engaged. “If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die.” (Deuteronomy 22:25) It’s cool though, because if you’re not engaged when you get raped, you just have to marry your rapist (Deuteronomy 22:28).

Getting raped and not screaming loud enough. “If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour’s wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you.” (Deuteronomy 22:23-24) Get it

Striking a father of mother is worthy of death

And lets not forget the seven deadly sins

    Envy = the desire to have an item or experience that someone else possesses

    Gluttony = excessive ongoing consumption of food or drink

   Greed or Avarice = an excessive pursuit of material possessions

    Lust = an uncontrollable passion or longing, especially for sexual desires

    Pride = excessive view of one's self without regard to others.

    Sloth = excessive laziness or the failure to act and utilize one’s talents

    Wrath = uncontrollable feelings of anger and hate towards another person

Yep, there are a lot things in the Bible

And down through the years people have wondered

What to hang on to, and what to let go

For Jesus told his followers they could bind or loosen

They can add things, and let things go

From that huge list of rules  (Don’t believe me?  Check out Matthew 16)

In other words , Jesus gave the disciple the right to make changes

And he did it himself!

“You have heard it said”, he sometimes said,  “But I say”  (Matthew 5)

But here is the thing.  He ended up being asked one time to distill it all down.

And he put it this way

Love God

Then love yourself  (God will help you with that)

Then you will be free to love others (and God will help you with that too)

Love God, love self, love others

Not complicated after all

A little later he got even more blunt

In that powerful parable about the sheep and the goats

There he tells us clearly what love looks like

It looks like

Feeding the hungry

Giving water to the thirsty

Being accepting and hospitable

Taking care of the sick

Having compassion toward those in trouble, even those who have created their own misery

If we do nothing else in the Bible says

We have to do these core things

Love God

Learn to love ourselves

And be people who, secure in God and secure in ourselves (no fear)

Reach out and take care of the vulnerable

If we don’t do these things

We are off the path

Period

Some are saying the hungry should work harder

They don’t care if the water is poison

They would exclude those not like them

And would judge, and shame

They would deny people health care

They are off the path

They are violating God’s basic, core command

Period

There is no excuse

You cannot minimize the vulnerable

You cannot blame them and shame them

You can only feed them, cloth them, provide them with clean water

Accept them,

Provide health care for them

Seek justice for them

You can only love them

Fear, our companion

“There are only a few people out there who can completely overcome their fears,

and they all live in Tibet.”

                                            Susan Cain

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most of us are afraid

not of everything

but of something

fear is our companion

every day

and perhaps every hour

it lurks in the corners of our soul

fear of failure

fear of loss

fear of poverty

fear of being hurt

fear of Muslims

fear of Christians

fear of parents

fear of bosses

the problem is that that we have fear

it is what we do with it

we focus on it

fuse with it

it becomes us

and we know the rest of the story

we get defensive

we get aggressive

we protect, and grasp

or perhaps we hide

retreating inward

narrowing our world

we either bully

or shrink

we can notice our fear

its OK

fear is part of the human experience

what cannot we give our energy to our fear

our energy must go into love

love of God

love of neighbor

even love of self

we must choose to love God

who then enables us to love ourselves

which then frees us to love others

and when loving is what we are about

what we choose to do

fear is cast out

think about it