I serve as an escort at a Planned Parenthood clinic. The job is simple. It is to be a hospitable presence to the women and couples who come to the clinic for a variety of reasons. My wife tells me I need to tell people I am a greeter rather than an escort - ah, language and images! Both words work as a way to talk about how I see myself out on the parking lot as folks arrive. I do not know the purpose of a visit made by any of the people. I suppose this is much like the waiting room at my doctor's office - no one knows why I am showing up. Unless, of course, I look like death warmed over and seem like someone everyone should avoid less they too catch the plague. Even then, I am simply another patient in need of a doctor's or a nurse's attention. Just as important as not knowing what brings the people to the clinic is that I do not know them - their life situation - their history - their prospects for a life beyond that day at hand.
At our Planned Parenthood building there is a fence around the parking lot. On the outside of the fence there are often protestors armed with signs, pictures, and voices. Fences are not unusual. There are fences - everywhere. There are reasons for fences - many reasons. Fences divide up space. Fences set boundaries. Fences keep people and things inside the boundaries and fences keep other people and things outside. In many ways, it is the perfect image for a story about us and them. It is (this us and them story) as old as the history of the cultures of the world - as old as the history of religious folks within the life of those cultures. Think about it - there is usually no better maker of us and them than religious folk who work to create a world in which they can dictate - like a god - who is good and who is evil - who is in and who is to be out - who is acceptable and who is unacceptable - who knows God's mind and who doesn't. The assumption that one person or a people are able to make such a judgment makes that person or group of people (I would suggest) less than the humanity we are meant to be. We lose our creativity whenever we think we have the right to judge others - whenever our desire for life as we want it gives us permission to negate the lives of others. We refuse to see ourselves and others as the image of God - a we - not an us/them.
In our culture we are being hit with what has been called fake news. It is the antithesis of news. It is made up - it is like gossip - it is filled with stories that give us just what we want to hear - even when it is less than the truth or a half-truth - which is not truth at all. Fake news is not the property of one group of people - it is a self-serving word used by everyone in order to shape a world that looks just like we want it to look. After listening and watching and seeing the display of folks out at the fence - folks who cover themselves with the name of Jesus and select biblical passages and Christian symbols and words associated with the Scriptures - I am very willing to say that the Good News at the fence is fake Good News. It is not a word or a presence of grace and love that is as available and vulnerable as the Jesus of Scripture. It is a warrior word - a vicious word - a condemning word - a self-righteous word - a finger-pointing word. It is a word afraid of a world that is the ground of God's ongoing creativity that moves us beyond our own fixed desires.
I find the words of the folks at the fence to be fake Good News because it attempts to drive people into a state of shame. Shame has a way of becoming a deep wound - one that can be inflicted quite easily - one that has a way of destroying the life of God's beloved - one that does not heal through more shaming. The Good News of the Christ of God never shames. The business of fake Good News is carried out by the powers of death - the powers that want to be gods of the world - the powers of religious control that have lost the vision of the peaceable Reign of God. Fake Good News rejects everyone who does not go along with the life that it has deemed as necessary - even if all others must be crucified by the lies of religious shame. Unfortunately, in many ways, I hear fake Good News within the breath of many self-proclaimed 'good' Christians - and it always smells like death and hell to me. No Good News at all.
Remember the woman caught in adultery. The good religious folks wanted to stone her. I would say they want to shame her to death - along with her family - by stoning her - by getting rid of her - by treating her as a threat that needed to be removed from their self-declared good lives. But what does Jesus do in that scene. He does not get in and ride in the boat of the shame-throwers. He does not drive the woman into the ground with sticks and stones and words of death. You see, God does not shame us - God holds onto us through any and all things - even when the depths of religiously concocted shame seem to be winning the day. Forgiveness brings a new day - beyond the powers of death that feed off of the lies - the fake Good News - of religious folks who believe only in the power they can manufacture - the endless lies. Forgiveness heals all things - all people. Then - within the realm of forgiveness - life beyond our own expectations blossoms - like a garden in Eden or one just outside the empty tomb.
Shame is fake Good News - it thrives on demonizing people who are the beloved of God. It insults the God of creation who calls all of creation good. Fake Good News tries to paint God as a liar - a cheat - a fool. For when those seeds-of-shame can be sown, they leave no room for God's unbounded love that is to be the seed of life's creativity - joy - peace - forgiveness - compassion - and endless hopefulness. I find that religious people who thrive on fertilizing the seeds-of-shame are damned to live within their own crap. That is unfortunate for them and for others they are able to pull into their realm of self-induced - self-created - self-inspired crap. Fake Good News does not bring in the Reign of God - it is afraid of such a Reign of love and grace because it would lose its power that it has worked so hard to build up - in other words - a hell-on-earth.
Fake Good News at the fence cannot and should not be met with violence of any kind. It must not be shamed - for then, that game will then never end. It must be met with the self-sacrifice of the lamb - the protectiveness of the mother hen - the one who bends to serve any and all without partiality. Maybe, we can become a movement for new life whenever we are tempted to live by fake Good News - for it is so tempting.
TRRR
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
Tuesday, April 18, 2017
Dare to break wind in the face of the cultural norm.
We are a reforming people when we dare to break wind in the face of the cultural norm. Luther did it 500 years ago when he turned his backside to Rome and let it rip. But that was then and this is now. So how do reforming people take on - that which is valued in our culture - that which keeps things just as they are - that which is anxious and then afraid to the point of persecuting some for what is considered the welfare of all others? We break wind. We speak up. We question. We stand in the way. We let ourselves defy all that is considered sacred until the wizards of the culture have the veil pulled back so that more and more people can see how we have fallen for piles upon piles of - well - crap.
Am I talking about religious crap - yes. Am I talking about cultural crap - yes. Am I taking about political crap - yes. Reforming people are not anarchist or revolutionaries - they simply break wind and make people turn around and wonder - what just happened - why does all this life around us beginning to smell? We are all a part of the family system of our culture. There is no way to rise above it or be detached from it. We are a part of what smells. As reforming people we own it and begin to ask things like: What does it mean to be right in the middle of all that is demonic (all that stinketh) and yet stop to acknowledge how vile it all smells? Systems always smell and if we do not speak up or break wind in the face of the norms around us we will and we have ventured more deeply into the violence and brokenness that piles up more and more until it is revolting - quite literally revolting. Reforming people do not fall for the more putrid smell of the violence of revolt - we expose - we unveil - we fall for it no more.
Reforming people are always living within the line of the prophetic - the ones who see that which stinks - the ones who name that which smells - the ones who are willing to be shunned for breaking wind and exposing the condition of our culture/religion/politics. I am too often afraid to be such a reforming person. And then, I hear others disturb the air around me. When I hear and see such life, I begin to wonder if I can face the stench of that in which I have let myself live - and begin to expose it all. That action is often called confession. Reforming people are empowered to admit to the violence - the fraud - the economic and political gaming that we have let define us as though nothing smells.
For a coward, that is difficult. For a coward though - it is necessary. I often use the words of Spirit - Holy Spirit - to remind me that as we are inspired to face the truth about us - a new day is available to us. It may still be full of the stench of the culture in which we live - but reforming people keep making note of it all - we keep owning our part of all that smells - we make ourselves vulnerable like nailing items for discussion about the things that smell - on the door of a church in Wittenberg - but we do it today - we do it everyday. Prophetic words and actions come out of the bowels of reforming people whose acts of truth-telling may create a stink in the culture at hand - but it also brings in a breath of fresh air.
TRRR
Am I talking about religious crap - yes. Am I talking about cultural crap - yes. Am I taking about political crap - yes. Reforming people are not anarchist or revolutionaries - they simply break wind and make people turn around and wonder - what just happened - why does all this life around us beginning to smell? We are all a part of the family system of our culture. There is no way to rise above it or be detached from it. We are a part of what smells. As reforming people we own it and begin to ask things like: What does it mean to be right in the middle of all that is demonic (all that stinketh) and yet stop to acknowledge how vile it all smells? Systems always smell and if we do not speak up or break wind in the face of the norms around us we will and we have ventured more deeply into the violence and brokenness that piles up more and more until it is revolting - quite literally revolting. Reforming people do not fall for the more putrid smell of the violence of revolt - we expose - we unveil - we fall for it no more.
Reforming people are always living within the line of the prophetic - the ones who see that which stinks - the ones who name that which smells - the ones who are willing to be shunned for breaking wind and exposing the condition of our culture/religion/politics. I am too often afraid to be such a reforming person. And then, I hear others disturb the air around me. When I hear and see such life, I begin to wonder if I can face the stench of that in which I have let myself live - and begin to expose it all. That action is often called confession. Reforming people are empowered to admit to the violence - the fraud - the economic and political gaming that we have let define us as though nothing smells.
For a coward, that is difficult. For a coward though - it is necessary. I often use the words of Spirit - Holy Spirit - to remind me that as we are inspired to face the truth about us - a new day is available to us. It may still be full of the stench of the culture in which we live - but reforming people keep making note of it all - we keep owning our part of all that smells - we make ourselves vulnerable like nailing items for discussion about the things that smell - on the door of a church in Wittenberg - but we do it today - we do it everyday. Prophetic words and actions come out of the bowels of reforming people whose acts of truth-telling may create a stink in the culture at hand - but it also brings in a breath of fresh air.
TRRR
Have A Blessed Day - Really?
'Have a blessed day.' It sounds like a nice thing to say. In fact, one person came up to me after a class I was teaching and said that one of the things he started to say in the past years is, 'Have a blessed day.' He said he noticed how it seemed to alter the way the people looked at him. In addition he said that he found that it had caused a change in how he viewed his interactions with others. We had just ended a discussion about how the followers of Jesus are to be followers - we are to be a part of an imitation of life that creates new life right in the midst of the steps of our day. The life is to be nonviolent - creative - self-giving - no longer merely life filled with stories of that kind of life - but a life that becomes us. The way of the cross thus becomes the way we walk - the way we live with the story of Jesus showing us how he walked out ahead of us along the way we follow. It is with that image that I started wondering about the greeting or the sending words have a blessed day.
I am pulled to be very Lutheran here because I want to start saying to folks, 'Wait. What does that mean.' Is it like a polite 'God bless you' that fills a room when there is an audible sneeze offered up by a complete stranger? Another version of 'Have a blessed day' is 'Be blessed.' Again, what does that mean - what is intended. Is is a version of 'good luck' - 'hope all goes well' - 'break a leg'? All of those send us off with a polite verbal acknowledgment of our presence and our leaving. But, as we all know, luck has nothing to do with much of our lives - things do not go well, in fact things fall apart quite regularly - and people really do break their legs and are thrown into chaos.
If 'have a blessed day' is like having a charmed day - as in, hope your day goes well and the world is fine - then I want folks to stop saying that. The day at hand is not blessed with all good things around me. It is blessed - period. I want to ask, what do you mean by blessed? Yes, when you tell me 'Have a blessed day' or say 'be blessed' is there a content to that sending? In some ways it goes back to what I might call: End-zone - Good catch - Nice Run - Great hit - Jesus is with me all the way spirituality that is devoid of an understanding of the life of Jesus - the cross - and I would even say the resurrection. A blessed day is the way one takes the day - how we see it - how we move within it. Are we the blessed of God who take on the imitative way of Jesus - and the consequences of that way? When that is our life - our blessed day - it may be a day full of roadblocks, tragedy, and pain. Blessed is not a good luck charm or a wish for success. It is an invitation to become like - the one who bends down to serve - the one who steps onto the side of the left out so that at least someone is with them - it is the one who receives the stranger with unbounded hospitality no matter what others say or think.
I was really impressed that the person I noted above said that his day was changed - his way to look at the world and the day changed - his actions may have even changed. To be blessed is to be drawn into a life changing reality in which our humanity - the fullness of its blessedness - becomes present as we go along the way today. So, when I say to you 'have a blessed day' it may come to mean a day in which you are totally rejected for displaying a love for others that cannot be contained - it may come to mean a day in which you let go of that which you thought you could to live without - and yet you experience a resurrection - it may come to mean a day in which you experience life through the lens of others and that new vision rattles you to the bone and your once dry bones take on a new shape you never anticipated.
Could it be that many of our religious sounding phrases we throw out into the day cheapen the vision and life we all hope will actually transform all things? Another person also offered this active notion of 'have a blessed day' - be a blessing today. That my friends sound utterly transforming to me. For most of my days can be filled with nothing but bitching and biting and baiting and bragging - with little room for being a part of the blessed Reign of God into which I am invited to live. Hmmm.
TRRR
I am pulled to be very Lutheran here because I want to start saying to folks, 'Wait. What does that mean.' Is it like a polite 'God bless you' that fills a room when there is an audible sneeze offered up by a complete stranger? Another version of 'Have a blessed day' is 'Be blessed.' Again, what does that mean - what is intended. Is is a version of 'good luck' - 'hope all goes well' - 'break a leg'? All of those send us off with a polite verbal acknowledgment of our presence and our leaving. But, as we all know, luck has nothing to do with much of our lives - things do not go well, in fact things fall apart quite regularly - and people really do break their legs and are thrown into chaos.
If 'have a blessed day' is like having a charmed day - as in, hope your day goes well and the world is fine - then I want folks to stop saying that. The day at hand is not blessed with all good things around me. It is blessed - period. I want to ask, what do you mean by blessed? Yes, when you tell me 'Have a blessed day' or say 'be blessed' is there a content to that sending? In some ways it goes back to what I might call: End-zone - Good catch - Nice Run - Great hit - Jesus is with me all the way spirituality that is devoid of an understanding of the life of Jesus - the cross - and I would even say the resurrection. A blessed day is the way one takes the day - how we see it - how we move within it. Are we the blessed of God who take on the imitative way of Jesus - and the consequences of that way? When that is our life - our blessed day - it may be a day full of roadblocks, tragedy, and pain. Blessed is not a good luck charm or a wish for success. It is an invitation to become like - the one who bends down to serve - the one who steps onto the side of the left out so that at least someone is with them - it is the one who receives the stranger with unbounded hospitality no matter what others say or think.
I was really impressed that the person I noted above said that his day was changed - his way to look at the world and the day changed - his actions may have even changed. To be blessed is to be drawn into a life changing reality in which our humanity - the fullness of its blessedness - becomes present as we go along the way today. So, when I say to you 'have a blessed day' it may come to mean a day in which you are totally rejected for displaying a love for others that cannot be contained - it may come to mean a day in which you let go of that which you thought you could to live without - and yet you experience a resurrection - it may come to mean a day in which you experience life through the lens of others and that new vision rattles you to the bone and your once dry bones take on a new shape you never anticipated.
Could it be that many of our religious sounding phrases we throw out into the day cheapen the vision and life we all hope will actually transform all things? Another person also offered this active notion of 'have a blessed day' - be a blessing today. That my friends sound utterly transforming to me. For most of my days can be filled with nothing but bitching and biting and baiting and bragging - with little room for being a part of the blessed Reign of God into which I am invited to live. Hmmm.
TRRR
Sunday, March 19, 2017
A Blessed Redundancy
When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord: you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him,”Yes, Lord you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him a third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him a third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will faster a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, “Follow me.” (John 21:15 - 19)
A child can never hear “I love you” too much. Quite frankly, neither can I. I suppose I would prefer to hear it with some firmness - some sense of truthfulness - some depth of conviction that calls forth a feeling of security. And yet, I have never been a good judge in regard to the sincerity of someone who has uttered those words to me.
I want this love to be a word that takes me as I am - not what I could be - not because of something I’ve just done. I think we all want the love someone shares with us to be a word or act of acceptance for who we are - a willingness to take hold of us - a intentional presence with us. It is the power to rescue us from moments of abandonment. It is the salve that heals the wounds of exclusion. It is a touch that cuts through the loneliness of the day when we feel utterly alone or forgotten. It is act of solidarity that overthrows moments of despair and rejection. It is like having someone so for us and with us it creates moments of chaos among those who despise us.
Therefore we tell children we love them - over and over again. Saying it once will not be enough. Demonstrating that love through infrequent or erratic action doesn’t always have the weight to carry them through life. We are invited to take part in a redundant love that is meant to shape who we are and how we see others and how we enter into the relationships of our lives. As a follower of Jesus - as people who are created in the image of the Creator of all life - we participate and share in that creative power as we love one another. It means we must be willing to live within that strange space of being accused of being redundant - saying and acting and living within a realm of love again and then once again - even when it may seem unnecessary or without just cause.
Our character springs from actions that are able to be noted by others because we seem to be saying and doing the same thing again and again - even when some may say it is too damn predictable. Imagine having people know that we will love them because our life with them has been a ceaseless demonstration of our love. Imagine being a real fool - a grand buffoon - an ass - and yet there are these odd or maybe even strange people who continue to treat you as one beloved. Imagine meeting one of these loving folks and though you only throw blame, ridicule, and curses at them - they persist in their acts of love for you. That consistency - that character - that love - is the creative power meant to never end. It was in the beginning and it will be - eternally available. It is a blessed redundancy into which we are invited and empowered to enter as the image of God becomes us.
There are many ways to read the Scriptures. Fill a room with folks who have read the stories within the Bible and we will hear many varied tales from those are doing the reading. Some will grasp on to stories of a God who is a stern figure who is always on the watch to see if we are living in the right way. I always say this is the Santa Claus god who is going to find out who is naughty or nice - a god ready to crack the whip or deny us entrance into the party or refuse us goodies. Some see a God who is all loving as long as we live in a way that earns that love. Some will see a God who is love - endless love - a love that will not be limited by anything we do. In all of these examples, folks will say that ‘God is good.’ And yet, I would submit that too often we let ourselves live with a god only as good as who we are able to be. Fortunately, the God of the Scriptures is endlessly loving not merely good. That changes life.
I need and want to hear a story that engages me and transforms me simply by the love it extends both now and forevermore. It does not have anything to do with that which I have done or that which I have left undone. It is a story that unveils the same God - an endlessly loving God - even when I expect to see or hear another story or I am being told another story. I consider myself lucky to have had Pastor Herb Brokering as the Christian Education teacher while I was in seminary. He was filling in until that position could be filled permanently. First, I learned that the Good News - the abundant and ceaseless love of God - could be found anywhere - in anything - in any one. To understand that, we were shown that we have to listen to that which is not being said - that which is not obvious - that which could so easily be overlooked. I also learned how to say: ‘And then…’ it is a storytelling technique. It keeps the story moving beyond the point in which we might find ourselves. It pops up in order to help us lean beyond that which is and begin to experience more of the story being made available to us.
As I read Scripture there are always these kind of transitional stories - ones that make us pick up and think or act as though we are are entering an ‘and then’ moment. As Christians we often turn to the Cross or the Resurrection and the Ascension as a few of those ‘and then’ tales that are meant to carry us more deeply into the blessed redundancy of God’s love. Once we begin to see such a continuation of this one story line, we are able to see how often it cracks open the day and we learn how consistently the power of God’s love is made available as the power of our love - our lives. Now as I read the various stories throughout the Scriptures - the stories that appear to be harsh or ruled by a set morality or setting up a privileged or exclusive community - I find that all of these types of tales often hide the redundancy of God’s love. Whenever that happens it can be very easy to trust in something other than a love that is always ready to say, ‘And then’.
When a storyline bids us to continue on the way, it is an invitation to take up the action and become the next scene. That is how the love of God works. It is present without failure - it is present without hesitation - it is present as the beloved people we have been told we are without condition. The next steps we take become the same steps as the ones who loved us. We are endlessly being fed and we endlessly feed others. To be the beloved is not all about me - it is about you - it is about me being the love that will feed your life - it is about God’s redundant love being the love that comes alive through me and you so that others will be fed for new life. It is about a love that is so redundant, some folks will want to see the end of it.
TRRR
A child can never hear “I love you” too much. Quite frankly, neither can I. I suppose I would prefer to hear it with some firmness - some sense of truthfulness - some depth of conviction that calls forth a feeling of security. And yet, I have never been a good judge in regard to the sincerity of someone who has uttered those words to me.
I want this love to be a word that takes me as I am - not what I could be - not because of something I’ve just done. I think we all want the love someone shares with us to be a word or act of acceptance for who we are - a willingness to take hold of us - a intentional presence with us. It is the power to rescue us from moments of abandonment. It is the salve that heals the wounds of exclusion. It is a touch that cuts through the loneliness of the day when we feel utterly alone or forgotten. It is act of solidarity that overthrows moments of despair and rejection. It is like having someone so for us and with us it creates moments of chaos among those who despise us.
Therefore we tell children we love them - over and over again. Saying it once will not be enough. Demonstrating that love through infrequent or erratic action doesn’t always have the weight to carry them through life. We are invited to take part in a redundant love that is meant to shape who we are and how we see others and how we enter into the relationships of our lives. As a follower of Jesus - as people who are created in the image of the Creator of all life - we participate and share in that creative power as we love one another. It means we must be willing to live within that strange space of being accused of being redundant - saying and acting and living within a realm of love again and then once again - even when it may seem unnecessary or without just cause.
Our character springs from actions that are able to be noted by others because we seem to be saying and doing the same thing again and again - even when some may say it is too damn predictable. Imagine having people know that we will love them because our life with them has been a ceaseless demonstration of our love. Imagine being a real fool - a grand buffoon - an ass - and yet there are these odd or maybe even strange people who continue to treat you as one beloved. Imagine meeting one of these loving folks and though you only throw blame, ridicule, and curses at them - they persist in their acts of love for you. That consistency - that character - that love - is the creative power meant to never end. It was in the beginning and it will be - eternally available. It is a blessed redundancy into which we are invited and empowered to enter as the image of God becomes us.
There are many ways to read the Scriptures. Fill a room with folks who have read the stories within the Bible and we will hear many varied tales from those are doing the reading. Some will grasp on to stories of a God who is a stern figure who is always on the watch to see if we are living in the right way. I always say this is the Santa Claus god who is going to find out who is naughty or nice - a god ready to crack the whip or deny us entrance into the party or refuse us goodies. Some see a God who is all loving as long as we live in a way that earns that love. Some will see a God who is love - endless love - a love that will not be limited by anything we do. In all of these examples, folks will say that ‘God is good.’ And yet, I would submit that too often we let ourselves live with a god only as good as who we are able to be. Fortunately, the God of the Scriptures is endlessly loving not merely good. That changes life.
I need and want to hear a story that engages me and transforms me simply by the love it extends both now and forevermore. It does not have anything to do with that which I have done or that which I have left undone. It is a story that unveils the same God - an endlessly loving God - even when I expect to see or hear another story or I am being told another story. I consider myself lucky to have had Pastor Herb Brokering as the Christian Education teacher while I was in seminary. He was filling in until that position could be filled permanently. First, I learned that the Good News - the abundant and ceaseless love of God - could be found anywhere - in anything - in any one. To understand that, we were shown that we have to listen to that which is not being said - that which is not obvious - that which could so easily be overlooked. I also learned how to say: ‘And then…’ it is a storytelling technique. It keeps the story moving beyond the point in which we might find ourselves. It pops up in order to help us lean beyond that which is and begin to experience more of the story being made available to us.
As I read Scripture there are always these kind of transitional stories - ones that make us pick up and think or act as though we are are entering an ‘and then’ moment. As Christians we often turn to the Cross or the Resurrection and the Ascension as a few of those ‘and then’ tales that are meant to carry us more deeply into the blessed redundancy of God’s love. Once we begin to see such a continuation of this one story line, we are able to see how often it cracks open the day and we learn how consistently the power of God’s love is made available as the power of our love - our lives. Now as I read the various stories throughout the Scriptures - the stories that appear to be harsh or ruled by a set morality or setting up a privileged or exclusive community - I find that all of these types of tales often hide the redundancy of God’s love. Whenever that happens it can be very easy to trust in something other than a love that is always ready to say, ‘And then’.
When a storyline bids us to continue on the way, it is an invitation to take up the action and become the next scene. That is how the love of God works. It is present without failure - it is present without hesitation - it is present as the beloved people we have been told we are without condition. The next steps we take become the same steps as the ones who loved us. We are endlessly being fed and we endlessly feed others. To be the beloved is not all about me - it is about you - it is about me being the love that will feed your life - it is about God’s redundant love being the love that comes alive through me and you so that others will be fed for new life. It is about a love that is so redundant, some folks will want to see the end of it.
TRRR
Tuesday, March 14, 2017
Not Expecting to Be Here - And Yet
It always comes back to forgiveness. I don't know what will come next in life. Oh sure, there are things for which I have made plans - but whatever comes next may not go along with those plans - even the many assurances that things will go just as I planned.
Today is the fifth anniversary of the morning in which I thought there would be no more mornings - no more coffee (ahhh) - no more touching - no more hugs - no more game playing - no more smiles - no more oatmeal - no more words of love and acts of love. The very kind and gentle nurse went through the ritual shaving. I never thought my groin would need to be shaved for surgery done on my chest - but there is always the 'in case we need to...'
Sitting here in a coffee shop sharing a table with a fellow-frequent-coffee-drinker is something I have come to accept as the way things have been and will be. Ha. And yet, here I am. In many ways I am more tuned into the way life slips by if we do not look up and take notice. I keep finding out that being alive takes some discipline - some intentional movement - some words spoken that may be too easy to leave unspoken - some touch that seems risky - some ordering of the day that disrupts the day as I thought it had to be - some vulnerability that really seems to go too far - some availability that moves me out of my world as I want it. The discipline of being alive.
And yet, I know that there are ways to be alive and yet know nothing of life outside of the world I create for myself. In fact, most of the world is not like the world I create for myself. It is much more strange - grand - odd - wonderful - dangerous - loving - simply beyond my control. At times I glance back in time and think of how things could have been different - but now is now - not then. So the discipline continues - breathe.
So it was five years ago that I settled into the possibility that tomorrow would not arrive as I always expect it to arrive. For the moments before the nurse let me know that I may start feel;nah ;icv a;va.n,
I found in those moments of floating away - a strange peace. I realized there may be no waking up within a fog of anesthesia - there may be nothing - a nothing beyond my control - therefore, a nothing I need not fear for I would not have to be in control of it. It would be an endless freedom - an unknown freedom - a rest-full freedom.
But then, there were tubes - painfulness - fogginess full of delusions - voices known and unknown. I had completely let go - but then - I returned. Though the moment prior to surgery is still one of the most memorable times of my life - an act of releasing that I prayerfully long to experience every day. For in that release, there was no worry - no need to get anything right - no judgment - no expectation at all. Forgiveness is like that place - it opens me up to whatever - even a return to what was. And yet, it is the power to let go and acknowledge that neither life nor death is able to separate me from the promise of life that is able to creatively open up the day. That unknown day - that day at hand - that day up ahead, is a gift always amplified and dignified and realized more fully through forgiveness. To take leave of what is and experience the free-fall into forgiveness takes us into a life we have yet entered. It is though, we are handed an opportunity that never ceases to present it self - even when all we expect is death.
Many thanks to all those who have forgiven me and given me new life. Many thanks to those who have been able to live with my inability to forgive - therefore giving me another chance at life with them. Many thanks to all who have experienced me in that fogginess of neither life nor death and yet were willing to stay by me and hold my hand and offer me another opportunity to enter the land of forgiveness.
TRRR
Today is the fifth anniversary of the morning in which I thought there would be no more mornings - no more coffee (ahhh) - no more touching - no more hugs - no more game playing - no more smiles - no more oatmeal - no more words of love and acts of love. The very kind and gentle nurse went through the ritual shaving. I never thought my groin would need to be shaved for surgery done on my chest - but there is always the 'in case we need to...'
Sitting here in a coffee shop sharing a table with a fellow-frequent-coffee-drinker is something I have come to accept as the way things have been and will be. Ha. And yet, here I am. In many ways I am more tuned into the way life slips by if we do not look up and take notice. I keep finding out that being alive takes some discipline - some intentional movement - some words spoken that may be too easy to leave unspoken - some touch that seems risky - some ordering of the day that disrupts the day as I thought it had to be - some vulnerability that really seems to go too far - some availability that moves me out of my world as I want it. The discipline of being alive.
And yet, I know that there are ways to be alive and yet know nothing of life outside of the world I create for myself. In fact, most of the world is not like the world I create for myself. It is much more strange - grand - odd - wonderful - dangerous - loving - simply beyond my control. At times I glance back in time and think of how things could have been different - but now is now - not then. So the discipline continues - breathe.
So it was five years ago that I settled into the possibility that tomorrow would not arrive as I always expect it to arrive. For the moments before the nurse let me know that I may start feel;nah ;icv a;va.n,
I found in those moments of floating away - a strange peace. I realized there may be no waking up within a fog of anesthesia - there may be nothing - a nothing beyond my control - therefore, a nothing I need not fear for I would not have to be in control of it. It would be an endless freedom - an unknown freedom - a rest-full freedom.
But then, there were tubes - painfulness - fogginess full of delusions - voices known and unknown. I had completely let go - but then - I returned. Though the moment prior to surgery is still one of the most memorable times of my life - an act of releasing that I prayerfully long to experience every day. For in that release, there was no worry - no need to get anything right - no judgment - no expectation at all. Forgiveness is like that place - it opens me up to whatever - even a return to what was. And yet, it is the power to let go and acknowledge that neither life nor death is able to separate me from the promise of life that is able to creatively open up the day. That unknown day - that day at hand - that day up ahead, is a gift always amplified and dignified and realized more fully through forgiveness. To take leave of what is and experience the free-fall into forgiveness takes us into a life we have yet entered. It is though, we are handed an opportunity that never ceases to present it self - even when all we expect is death.
Many thanks to all those who have forgiven me and given me new life. Many thanks to those who have been able to live with my inability to forgive - therefore giving me another chance at life with them. Many thanks to all who have experienced me in that fogginess of neither life nor death and yet were willing to stay by me and hold my hand and offer me another opportunity to enter the land of forgiveness.
TRRR
Friday, February 24, 2017
McAshes
Ashes have a context.
Ashes are not decorative.
Ashes hold memories and lead us into the future.
Ashes come with words that pierce our hearts and and our lives so we will see more clearly.
Ashes have the power to transform - shake us up.
Ashes come with a meal - a full meal - a meal in which all of us who fall down rise up to look each other in the face and then face the reality of who we are and who we are graced to become.
Do not let me walk by and be marked and then go on my way as though I know what this smudge means and you also need to know what it means for me.
Do not let me drive by and be marked - like the scene of a drive by shooting that leaves behind victims and no healing - just a mark of blood on the sidewalk and a bundle of wilted flowers.
Do not let me walk around with a black cross painted on my forehead so that the world will come to think that dress-up is what I do when I claim to follow Jesus.
Do not let me walk to the cross with Jesus thinking a soiled forehead is like a humble get-off-the-cross-free-card as I enter Lent.
Do not let me fool myself and my neighbors with a smudge that allows me to believe that I need not budge from my way.
Ashes come with a bit of silence.
Ashes come with glances around the room to see others also making ready for a journey to the cross.
Ashes come with the poetic images of who we so often become and offer images of who we are meant to be.
Ashes come with the faces of old men and women - marked for a movement through death and life.
Ashes come with the faces of young children in the arms of adults - ashen faces.
Ashes come with the remembrance of the night in which he was betrayed and a holy line of saints open to be fed with the gift of life.
Ashes come with a touch that is more than the passing of a finger over our foreheads - it is the touch the comes when wounded and broken and burnt people can look around and smile and weep and wonder at how we will walk in the way of the Christ - together.
Ashes are placed on the foreheads of the followers of Jesus to open up our hearts - not to alert others that we have been to church - or we claim to be Christians - or look how we follow disciplines that make us appear holy.
Ashes are placed on our foreheads so as to sink into our heads and move us into new life that opens our hearts and minds to the creative genius of our God who is for us before and after all that can come upon us.
Ashes mark us for us - not for anyone else.
Ashes shape our witness - they are not our witness.
Ashes help us see the full story - they do not tell the story to others.
Over all the years of marking and being marked with ashes, I have followed a practice that has made sense to me. After our community gathering and sharing and living and dying together, I look in the mirror at my ashen forehead - and I wash the ashes off. They are not there for others - for strangers - to make a witness. Those ashes become like commandments written on hearts - the life that emerges will be the display of the way of Jesus among us - fearless in the face of the ashes of our lives.
So, when I hear about drive-by ashes available at your local discount congregation, I wonder what other discounts are available. That, I guess, is the shape of Christianity that appears to have some appeal these days. Cute - easy - convenient.
Drive by is like - having it my way.
Drive by - keep going at our own pace - keeping within our own space.
Drive by - taking what you want - disengaged from community and font.
Drive by - like taking the freeway that has cut through and has forgotten the stations of the cross of the lives - over which it passes.
Drive by - on the way to a holy act over there - because ashes close to home cannot be shared.
From dust we came - To dust we shall return.
TRRR
Ashes are not decorative.
Ashes hold memories and lead us into the future.
Ashes come with words that pierce our hearts and and our lives so we will see more clearly.
Ashes have the power to transform - shake us up.
Ashes come with a meal - a full meal - a meal in which all of us who fall down rise up to look each other in the face and then face the reality of who we are and who we are graced to become.
Do not let me walk by and be marked and then go on my way as though I know what this smudge means and you also need to know what it means for me.
Do not let me drive by and be marked - like the scene of a drive by shooting that leaves behind victims and no healing - just a mark of blood on the sidewalk and a bundle of wilted flowers.
Do not let me walk around with a black cross painted on my forehead so that the world will come to think that dress-up is what I do when I claim to follow Jesus.
Do not let me walk to the cross with Jesus thinking a soiled forehead is like a humble get-off-the-cross-free-card as I enter Lent.
Do not let me fool myself and my neighbors with a smudge that allows me to believe that I need not budge from my way.
Ashes come with a bit of silence.
Ashes come with glances around the room to see others also making ready for a journey to the cross.
Ashes come with the poetic images of who we so often become and offer images of who we are meant to be.
Ashes come with the faces of old men and women - marked for a movement through death and life.
Ashes come with the faces of young children in the arms of adults - ashen faces.
Ashes come with the remembrance of the night in which he was betrayed and a holy line of saints open to be fed with the gift of life.
Ashes come with a touch that is more than the passing of a finger over our foreheads - it is the touch the comes when wounded and broken and burnt people can look around and smile and weep and wonder at how we will walk in the way of the Christ - together.
Ashes are placed on the foreheads of the followers of Jesus to open up our hearts - not to alert others that we have been to church - or we claim to be Christians - or look how we follow disciplines that make us appear holy.
Ashes are placed on our foreheads so as to sink into our heads and move us into new life that opens our hearts and minds to the creative genius of our God who is for us before and after all that can come upon us.
Ashes mark us for us - not for anyone else.
Ashes shape our witness - they are not our witness.
Ashes help us see the full story - they do not tell the story to others.
Over all the years of marking and being marked with ashes, I have followed a practice that has made sense to me. After our community gathering and sharing and living and dying together, I look in the mirror at my ashen forehead - and I wash the ashes off. They are not there for others - for strangers - to make a witness. Those ashes become like commandments written on hearts - the life that emerges will be the display of the way of Jesus among us - fearless in the face of the ashes of our lives.
So, when I hear about drive-by ashes available at your local discount congregation, I wonder what other discounts are available. That, I guess, is the shape of Christianity that appears to have some appeal these days. Cute - easy - convenient.
Drive by is like - having it my way.
Drive by - keep going at our own pace - keeping within our own space.
Drive by - taking what you want - disengaged from community and font.
Drive by - like taking the freeway that has cut through and has forgotten the stations of the cross of the lives - over which it passes.
Drive by - on the way to a holy act over there - because ashes close to home cannot be shared.
From dust we came - To dust we shall return.
TRRR
Wednesday, February 22, 2017
Our Sacred Things - Usually Divide Us
Let me begin with a short comment: It would be a wonder-filled world if religious people did not try to secure their identity in that which they eat - or wear - or the patterns of their lives - or how they pray - or with whom they are able to share their lives. Odd, I just now thought of the whimsical stories of Dr. Seuss - what a wise social critic. Could it be that over the centuries, we have let ourselves lose the grand vision of our humanity - our one humanity - in order to settle for a way of life we can call sacred, blessed, bestowed with special powers, and one that is then elevated above the life others have also deemed sacred...
Even in an age when all religions attempt to speak and act with some degree of acceptance and inclusivity of folks from other religious backgrounds or none at all, too many of us hang onto that which is meant to keep us separated. This separation that we have hung onto for as long as history allows us to remember has become special. This separation is one we say is called forth by our God - oh my - really! There's nothing more powerful than saying, 'Our God told us to do this and make sure we do it forever and ever.' Ancient tribes had a way of securing their way of life by making sure their stories were full of commands and instructions by their God. For the most part, those stories did indeed help a tribe endure through the ups and downs associated with the changes in culture. This-is-us and we-are-not-them is a powerful tool of control that simultaneously can be a blessing and a curse.
When I was a young Roman Catholic, my maternal grandmother wore a head coverings when she went to mass - as did most women. The coverings were simple. Sometimes it was only a kerchief hastily put in place. By the time I was in college, only the oldest women kept up that practice. Did it - does it - matter? Was a woman more beloved - was she special in the eyes of God - did she live out a more devout life because of this - was she showing honor and respect to God - were those head coverings necessary after all. I want to answer with a resounding No. No head covering makes a person one who honors God. No clothing of any type makes a person blessed by God. Rather, I want to say that our lives - how we go about the day at hand - is the cover that is to be put on and worn. This is for both men and women. What good is it if a person wears a prescribed bit of clothing or eats a very specific diet or goes on a pilgrimage or keeps a distance from people not just like them or observes religious holidays?
For me, it has all become lost - not necessary - not helpful. It is as though certain doors in time were opened to new expressions of life and then, rather than being opening that were liberating, they became closed up or sealed up or bound up or called sacred so they could not be changed - altered - dismissed. If those doors somehow would be opened and the forms of identity that were once deemed sacred were left behind - as people move through other doors leading to new views of life - then, we are so often told, there will be chaos - we will lose touch with God. Really? Oh, wait, excuse me, that may be right. We will lose touch with the god we have made for ourselves so as to keep the world as we have been told it must be - a world constructed by those before us who needed a story to keep their lives ordered and under control. Therefore, stretching back in time a string of women wearing head coverings - or men wearing special clothing - or those following a prescribed way to pray - or the keeping of days and diets and hours became a necessity - a sacred act of obedience and devotion and an identity. This image of head coverings in the Roman Catholic world of my grandmother's day is a very insignificant part of the controlling patterns of life deemed to provide us with life in the image of God. But it is one in which I have found myself.
I think I need others to point out to me how easy some of my ways and practices of life can be turned into sacred patterns that may need to be let go so that the ways I deem as sacred do not become the roadblocks to building bridges so that no person is considered an outsider - unclean - other - beyond our kind. In other words, that which is so frequently labeled sacred - might just be the complete opposite of that which is sacred for rather than be a part of the creative genius of our God - it divides rather than unites.
Before you think I merely am speaking about the rituals and rites and practices of the various world religions, please don't limit me to that world. Probably the first shrine used to keep the world as we want it is displayed in our families - our homes - our tribes. We want life to follow our pattern and adhere to our way of taking-on-the-day. Within that closed culture - wearing a certain style of hat may become the way to be a member. We dress like this. We eat like this. We celebrate holidays like this. If someone in our family does not follow along, then there are ways to handle such acts of dissent. The leverage of family pressure can be immense and make any movement away from the family tradition or norm or name - an act of rebellion that carries a cost. I'm not saying that a family of Cleveland Browns fans may choose to stone any of their members who become Steeler fans - but don't laugh. Instead, simply try to see how such a foolish family action may actually be on par with the many ways religious practices have kept their people in place - in control. To a number of people I know, religious groups are well-schooled in these acts of control and submission. In both of these scenarios - the Browns family and religious groups - we divide the world in such a way that our one humanity suffers and our ancient tribalism does today - what it was intended to do over past millennia - make the world into our world not a world for all.
TRRR
Before you think I merely am speaking about the rituals and rites and practices of the various world religions, please don't limit me to that world. Probably the first shrine used to keep the world as we want it is displayed in our families - our homes - our tribes. We want life to follow our pattern and adhere to our way of taking-on-the-day. Within that closed culture - wearing a certain style of hat may become the way to be a member. We dress like this. We eat like this. We celebrate holidays like this. If someone in our family does not follow along, then there are ways to handle such acts of dissent. The leverage of family pressure can be immense and make any movement away from the family tradition or norm or name - an act of rebellion that carries a cost. I'm not saying that a family of Cleveland Browns fans may choose to stone any of their members who become Steeler fans - but don't laugh. Instead, simply try to see how such a foolish family action may actually be on par with the many ways religious practices have kept their people in place - in control. To a number of people I know, religious groups are well-schooled in these acts of control and submission. In both of these scenarios - the Browns family and religious groups - we divide the world in such a way that our one humanity suffers and our ancient tribalism does today - what it was intended to do over past millennia - make the world into our world not a world for all.
TRRR
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