We will start again with a new source for the daily reflections.;
Monday, December 29, 2008
Monday 29 December 2008
I will be taking a break until Monday January 5. Have a blessed beginning to 2009.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Tuesday 23 December 2008
A personal reflection by Cornel West.
When I went on that operating table for cancer surgery, I was thinking of all the unbelievable blessings that I've received in my life. I didn't know whether this was going to be my death or not. I had to wait to see what was going to be. But I refused to let death come in like a thief in the night and steal the joy and love I had already given and received.
It is wonderful to see someone who approaches death filled with joy. That doesn't mean "happiness." It means a sense of fullness and wholeness. Death, we are told, cannot steal that from us. Death cannot steal the love and joy we have experienced in our lives and it cannot deny us the love and joy that is promised. That must be why we say death has lost its sting. We never know how we will entertain the possibility of our own death or the death of those close too us but we are encouraged to walk into this day without limiting our lives because death is drawing near in some shape or form. West writes of having to wait to see what was going to take place with his surgery. We are reminded that we wait in hope...we wait with hearts open...we wait knowing the end of the story...we wait in the presence of love that abounds even when we are alone. One of the great gifts we can give one another as death is near...is to be present and stand alongside and help love and life and hope endure even as death plays out its hand.
Connection: I've always thought death stings...it does. And yet, the love and joy that is remembered causes a smile to burst across my face within a moment of a fond memory or promise.
Lord of Eternal Life, as we are showered by your grace, remind us to soak up your presence and keep your love close at all times. When we are afraid - be our comfort and our strength. Amen.
When I went on that operating table for cancer surgery, I was thinking of all the unbelievable blessings that I've received in my life. I didn't know whether this was going to be my death or not. I had to wait to see what was going to be. But I refused to let death come in like a thief in the night and steal the joy and love I had already given and received.
It is wonderful to see someone who approaches death filled with joy. That doesn't mean "happiness." It means a sense of fullness and wholeness. Death, we are told, cannot steal that from us. Death cannot steal the love and joy we have experienced in our lives and it cannot deny us the love and joy that is promised. That must be why we say death has lost its sting. We never know how we will entertain the possibility of our own death or the death of those close too us but we are encouraged to walk into this day without limiting our lives because death is drawing near in some shape or form. West writes of having to wait to see what was going to take place with his surgery. We are reminded that we wait in hope...we wait with hearts open...we wait knowing the end of the story...we wait in the presence of love that abounds even when we are alone. One of the great gifts we can give one another as death is near...is to be present and stand alongside and help love and life and hope endure even as death plays out its hand.
Connection: I've always thought death stings...it does. And yet, the love and joy that is remembered causes a smile to burst across my face within a moment of a fond memory or promise.
Lord of Eternal Life, as we are showered by your grace, remind us to soak up your presence and keep your love close at all times. When we are afraid - be our comfort and our strength. Amen.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Monday 22 December 2008
Some days Cornel West is just good for me.
Gratitude always pushes out ego. When all these other folk are coming at you tooth and nail, you can look them in the face and say, "You're not going to make me bitter. You're not going to make me bigoted. I have work to do in the little time I'm here. I have a smile on my face because I've been so blessed." Thankfulness and praise don't provide the self with a whole lot of space for the ego to operate.
There are so many things that can pull us down and make us throw mud and never see the light of day. And yet...we are blessed - we are the beloved of God. With that on our side, all the powers of evil and hell cannot have the upper hand on us....unless of course...we give it to them. We are invited into a life of thanksgiving. When we take up that invitation, all the times of our lives become opportunities for change. Change that can happen to us and change that can happen to others and change that can happen to every relationship we enter. From gratitude and thanksgiving come avenues of peacemaking - justice - forgiveness - kindness...the ways of God's Reign.
Connection: Some times...it is much too easy to bitch and gripe than to give thanks and be surprised by what is handed to us.
Stir up our hearts, O God, and open us to your living presence. Amen.
Gratitude always pushes out ego. When all these other folk are coming at you tooth and nail, you can look them in the face and say, "You're not going to make me bitter. You're not going to make me bigoted. I have work to do in the little time I'm here. I have a smile on my face because I've been so blessed." Thankfulness and praise don't provide the self with a whole lot of space for the ego to operate.
There are so many things that can pull us down and make us throw mud and never see the light of day. And yet...we are blessed - we are the beloved of God. With that on our side, all the powers of evil and hell cannot have the upper hand on us....unless of course...we give it to them. We are invited into a life of thanksgiving. When we take up that invitation, all the times of our lives become opportunities for change. Change that can happen to us and change that can happen to others and change that can happen to every relationship we enter. From gratitude and thanksgiving come avenues of peacemaking - justice - forgiveness - kindness...the ways of God's Reign.
Connection: Some times...it is much too easy to bitch and gripe than to give thanks and be surprised by what is handed to us.
Stir up our hearts, O God, and open us to your living presence. Amen.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Friday 19 December 2008
The week ends with a powerful piece by Cornel West.
One reason whey the Garden of Gethsemane is so very important is because, even thought God comes into the world in human flesh to love, serve, and die, even God had to choose.
Jesus said, "Let this cup pass from me." He still had to choose to have his will conform to the will of God. The greatest living preacher - Gardner C. Taylor - has a grand sermon called "Gethsemane: The Place of Victory." Once you get humanized, fleshified, and concretized in space and time, you are in a choice-centered reality. To be human means choosing to have the courage to think, love, hope, and fight for justice and freedom.
I may use part of this quote for Christmas Eve. The act of becoming human brings the fullness of God into this context that is call our home. God comes home for Christmas and enters into all that makes us family, neighbor, nation, enemy, friend, companion... Along the way - even in the place that appear to look and feel like Gethsemane - we like our God-in-the-flesh - must choose where we are to go and how we will get there. Both parts are quite important. We work together to understand where it is that God is bidding us to come. And then, we must wrestle with how we get there. It is not going to be like the way the powers of the world move...it will be within the Reign of Peace. Together we choose to go that way. Alone it is quite difficult. With others, the Spirit whips around us that through us to clarify who we will become so that we do not fall into the ways that are so easy for us to stumble - violence, unrest, despair...
Connection: This God who comes to be "with us" make our humanity a special gift. What bit of that special-ness in you will you let loose upon the world today? Your choice.
When you stir up our hearts, O God, we are transformed and we are awakened into a new life that reflects you Peaceable Reign. Stir us up again this day. Amen.
One reason whey the Garden of Gethsemane is so very important is because, even thought God comes into the world in human flesh to love, serve, and die, even God had to choose.
Jesus said, "Let this cup pass from me." He still had to choose to have his will conform to the will of God. The greatest living preacher - Gardner C. Taylor - has a grand sermon called "Gethsemane: The Place of Victory." Once you get humanized, fleshified, and concretized in space and time, you are in a choice-centered reality. To be human means choosing to have the courage to think, love, hope, and fight for justice and freedom.
I may use part of this quote for Christmas Eve. The act of becoming human brings the fullness of God into this context that is call our home. God comes home for Christmas and enters into all that makes us family, neighbor, nation, enemy, friend, companion... Along the way - even in the place that appear to look and feel like Gethsemane - we like our God-in-the-flesh - must choose where we are to go and how we will get there. Both parts are quite important. We work together to understand where it is that God is bidding us to come. And then, we must wrestle with how we get there. It is not going to be like the way the powers of the world move...it will be within the Reign of Peace. Together we choose to go that way. Alone it is quite difficult. With others, the Spirit whips around us that through us to clarify who we will become so that we do not fall into the ways that are so easy for us to stumble - violence, unrest, despair...
Connection: This God who comes to be "with us" make our humanity a special gift. What bit of that special-ness in you will you let loose upon the world today? Your choice.
When you stir up our hearts, O God, we are transformed and we are awakened into a new life that reflects you Peaceable Reign. Stir us up again this day. Amen.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Thursday 18 December 2008
Here's one that may stir us up. West on The Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
As the right-wing political Ice Age begins to melt, the prophetic possibility inside the black prophetic church may begin to erupt. Reverend Jeremiah Wright is one example. He terrifies the white mainstream. When he says, "Not God bless American, God damn America. That's in the Bible, for killing innocent people." The white mainstream only hears, "God damn America."
They say, "He's so unpatriotic, he's so ungrateful...he's a hate-monger. Why does he hate America?"
Any God worthy of worship condemns injustice anywhere. To be anti-injustice in America is not to be anti-American! If to condemn injustice in America is to be anti-American, so be it. To be Christian requires being maladjusted to injustice, which is the bottom line.
When we are caught up in our flag waving - for any country - we may find ourselves walking farther and farther away from the way of Jesus. Too often, in the name of country, we lose respect for some people and forget the need to honor all. When that happens, we can easily enter into a life of injustice even when we are not directly responsible for the injustice. From a prophetic perspective, the God of liberation and justice does not tolerate injustice even when those who are involved in the way of injustice think that their ways are the saving ways for the world. West is right in reminded us that most people only hear "God damn America." When we only hear that, we are able to condemn his words from the perspective of the state...we can lift up words like "traitor" because our flag has been offended. And yet, what is really most alarming is that the words uncover how we have become a people who live in a way that is contrary to the ways of our God...and yet, in line with the ways of a flag-bearing people. Rather than yell at Wright's words...it would be good for us to pause, go back to the Scriptures, and try to get a feel for what he was saying and why their was such heat to his spoken word. It would be responsible for the Christian community to hear his words as words that make some parts of the church comfortable at the expense of others. His words, I hope, were meant to sting the people in his parish just as much as they would sting any one else.
Connection: It is important to be able to hear stinging words and begin to wonder why they sting and what must be out of line in the lives of the faithful community.
Come, Liberating Lord. Come and remind us of the invitation to be a light that brings justice and peace to this day. Remind us of how your light exposes that which is not a part of the vision of your Reign. Amen.
As the right-wing political Ice Age begins to melt, the prophetic possibility inside the black prophetic church may begin to erupt. Reverend Jeremiah Wright is one example. He terrifies the white mainstream. When he says, "Not God bless American, God damn America. That's in the Bible, for killing innocent people." The white mainstream only hears, "God damn America."
They say, "He's so unpatriotic, he's so ungrateful...he's a hate-monger. Why does he hate America?"
Any God worthy of worship condemns injustice anywhere. To be anti-injustice in America is not to be anti-American! If to condemn injustice in America is to be anti-American, so be it. To be Christian requires being maladjusted to injustice, which is the bottom line.
When we are caught up in our flag waving - for any country - we may find ourselves walking farther and farther away from the way of Jesus. Too often, in the name of country, we lose respect for some people and forget the need to honor all. When that happens, we can easily enter into a life of injustice even when we are not directly responsible for the injustice. From a prophetic perspective, the God of liberation and justice does not tolerate injustice even when those who are involved in the way of injustice think that their ways are the saving ways for the world. West is right in reminded us that most people only hear "God damn America." When we only hear that, we are able to condemn his words from the perspective of the state...we can lift up words like "traitor" because our flag has been offended. And yet, what is really most alarming is that the words uncover how we have become a people who live in a way that is contrary to the ways of our God...and yet, in line with the ways of a flag-bearing people. Rather than yell at Wright's words...it would be good for us to pause, go back to the Scriptures, and try to get a feel for what he was saying and why their was such heat to his spoken word. It would be responsible for the Christian community to hear his words as words that make some parts of the church comfortable at the expense of others. His words, I hope, were meant to sting the people in his parish just as much as they would sting any one else.
Connection: It is important to be able to hear stinging words and begin to wonder why they sting and what must be out of line in the lives of the faithful community.
Come, Liberating Lord. Come and remind us of the invitation to be a light that brings justice and peace to this day. Remind us of how your light exposes that which is not a part of the vision of your Reign. Amen.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Wednesday 17 December 2008
A different way to look at church and state...and the cross - Cornel West.
Since America is well-adjusted to injustice, the flag is no longer subordinate to the cross, the cross has become subordinate to the flag. In the end, the blood at the cross that ought to serve as a critique and judgment for all human beings becomes Kool-Aid. It serves as a refreshment for those in search of the American dream, of living large in some vanilla suburb, and enjoying a certain kind of status and power.
Any time you make the cross subordinate to the flag, you have idolatry. Americanized Christianity is shot through with forms of idolatry, making it difficult for people to keep track of the blood at the cross, the need to love, sacrifice, and bear witness to something bigger than nation, race, or tribe.
I often return to the phrase "strangers and aliens" to describe the life of Christians in any country. We can never be completely at ease and at home because just as that becomes the case, the flags of our countries will seduce us into leaving the way of Jesus for a way that will give up all things for the welfare of the flag. West points to the blood at the cross as the Kool-Aid for those in search of the American dream. He links it to life within a "vanilla suburb" and living with a "certain kind of status and power." I would add to that picture the 'hip-hop culture' that also subordinates the cross to the style of an idolatrous trip through life. It is another side of an American dream that is just as distant from the blood at the cross as is the "American vanilla Dream." As strangers and aliens, Christians are invited to be willing to live within a tension between the vision of God's Reign and the ways of a world so caught up with itself - it serves no one - loves selectively - sacrifices only when there is something to gain - and must keep up walls that restrict community.
Connection: The blood at the cross it not some magic juice that will juice up our lives and make things turn out on the winning side. It is a complete identification with all that confronts our humanity every day.
Stir up our lives, O God, so we do not fall for a cross that leads us in a victory lap in life. Rather, keep us on the way of the cross that is seeking the welfare of all no matter what the consequences may be to our lives. Amen.
Since America is well-adjusted to injustice, the flag is no longer subordinate to the cross, the cross has become subordinate to the flag. In the end, the blood at the cross that ought to serve as a critique and judgment for all human beings becomes Kool-Aid. It serves as a refreshment for those in search of the American dream, of living large in some vanilla suburb, and enjoying a certain kind of status and power.
Any time you make the cross subordinate to the flag, you have idolatry. Americanized Christianity is shot through with forms of idolatry, making it difficult for people to keep track of the blood at the cross, the need to love, sacrifice, and bear witness to something bigger than nation, race, or tribe.
I often return to the phrase "strangers and aliens" to describe the life of Christians in any country. We can never be completely at ease and at home because just as that becomes the case, the flags of our countries will seduce us into leaving the way of Jesus for a way that will give up all things for the welfare of the flag. West points to the blood at the cross as the Kool-Aid for those in search of the American dream. He links it to life within a "vanilla suburb" and living with a "certain kind of status and power." I would add to that picture the 'hip-hop culture' that also subordinates the cross to the style of an idolatrous trip through life. It is another side of an American dream that is just as distant from the blood at the cross as is the "American vanilla Dream." As strangers and aliens, Christians are invited to be willing to live within a tension between the vision of God's Reign and the ways of a world so caught up with itself - it serves no one - loves selectively - sacrifices only when there is something to gain - and must keep up walls that restrict community.
Connection: The blood at the cross it not some magic juice that will juice up our lives and make things turn out on the winning side. It is a complete identification with all that confronts our humanity every day.
Stir up our lives, O God, so we do not fall for a cross that leads us in a victory lap in life. Rather, keep us on the way of the cross that is seeking the welfare of all no matter what the consequences may be to our lives. Amen.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Tuesday 16 December 2008
More from Cornel West.
People tend to think that religious talk is different from political talk. You can talk about the kingdom and say it's just a metaphor. But actually, it's very real. You have to have deep, deep religious faith to stay in the struggle for a long time. Ask anybody who's been in the struggle for the long haul. You have to have deep faith. Faith is our primary source of empowerment. If you haven't dealt with the bondage of death and despair, then you're going to be disillusioned after the first laps. This is not a sprint. This is a marathon.
Whenever we talk about real life situations...things get political. The great prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures talked about vision and the glorious rule of God. But don't think for a moment that they were not talking about real life. The prophets were all about the life within the Reign of God - that religious talk. Then again, they did not see any difference between the life of the Reign of God and the life into which we are called to live. If the Reign of God was just a far-off place that could be isolated from the real day-to-day world I would expect that the prophets would have never lifted their voices. But they did...and the way they called the people into a new life -here and now- was as though their every act reflected the reign they followed. Injustice in the land was injustice within the Reign of God and it could not be tolerated. This reality of the Reign of God being as real as the day-at-hand demanded a grounding that help God's beloved people to prevail as the image of God's Reign in, with, and under the very life of the world. To remain grounded is to remain faithful. To remain faithful is to have a place from which we can act as a beloved community and a place in which we rest until we act again.
Connection: Another Advent word would do well here - patience - the time to act will come and you will be ready.
Reigning God, as you invite us to live within the homeland of your Reign, guide us so that we will become aware of how it is to blossom around and through us. Amen.
People tend to think that religious talk is different from political talk. You can talk about the kingdom and say it's just a metaphor. But actually, it's very real. You have to have deep, deep religious faith to stay in the struggle for a long time. Ask anybody who's been in the struggle for the long haul. You have to have deep faith. Faith is our primary source of empowerment. If you haven't dealt with the bondage of death and despair, then you're going to be disillusioned after the first laps. This is not a sprint. This is a marathon.
Whenever we talk about real life situations...things get political. The great prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures talked about vision and the glorious rule of God. But don't think for a moment that they were not talking about real life. The prophets were all about the life within the Reign of God - that religious talk. Then again, they did not see any difference between the life of the Reign of God and the life into which we are called to live. If the Reign of God was just a far-off place that could be isolated from the real day-to-day world I would expect that the prophets would have never lifted their voices. But they did...and the way they called the people into a new life -here and now- was as though their every act reflected the reign they followed. Injustice in the land was injustice within the Reign of God and it could not be tolerated. This reality of the Reign of God being as real as the day-at-hand demanded a grounding that help God's beloved people to prevail as the image of God's Reign in, with, and under the very life of the world. To remain grounded is to remain faithful. To remain faithful is to have a place from which we can act as a beloved community and a place in which we rest until we act again.
Connection: Another Advent word would do well here - patience - the time to act will come and you will be ready.
Reigning God, as you invite us to live within the homeland of your Reign, guide us so that we will become aware of how it is to blossom around and through us. Amen.
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