Being the Beloved
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Can We Go Home Again?
Often it seems the events perfectly crafted for celebration and thanksgiving can equally and even strangely be events that illicit grief and a murky undercurrent of loss. It’s rather hard to explain. Perhaps we grieve the loss of the familiar, even the familiar pains. While we excitedly anticipate the newness of what’s ahead, perhaps we also carry an anxious expectation about the road yet to be traveled. This particular road does not come with a map or GPS device, and we will only travel it once. At best, this journey is preceded by friends who’ve traveled a similar road themselves, offering advice on what we may encounter or can expect. “I remember my first day on the job,” some say. Or, “I was so excited to finally be done with school and get my first, ‘real’ paycheck.” Rarely do they say that they were scared or sad to leave familiar surroundings, or that the happiness and excitement were accompanied by tears. Mystery and the unknown, it seems, can make us terribly uncomfortable.
Do you remember a time in your youth when you tried wearing a favorite shirt, pair of pants, or shoes, only to discover that your body had outgrown your clothes? Those shoes that you once proudly wore now hurt your feet. Or those pants that could always give you a boost of confidence now look ridiculous on you. Perhaps this is what Thomas Wolfe meant when he observed that we “can’t go home again.” We can’t relive the good times. Even if we could return to the familiar, would we want to stay? Would we be welcomed?
Thomas Wolfe, commemorative postage stamp, 2000, oil on paper, 5 x 8, U.S. Postal Service. by Michael J. Deas, copyright Michael J. Deas / www.michaeldeas.com/
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The Lord’s Prayer from The New Zealand Prayer Book
Eternal Spirit,
Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven:
The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom
sustain our hope and come on earth.
With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and testing, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power that is love,
now and for ever. Amen.Copyright New Zealand Prayer Book
(Image Holy City - Night Sky 28” x 37” Mixed media on board by Brian Whelan. Copyright Brian Whelan)
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Jesus Was Not Colorblind: Racial Slurs and the Syrophoenician Woman Was Jesus a racist?
This might be an uncomfortable question for Christians to ask, but, given [the story of Mark 7:24-37], I think it’s one we must ask. And we must ask it unvarnished.
The Syrophoenician Woman by Br. Robert Lentz
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My plastic pet frog, “Procrastination.”
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Bringing Our Secrets into the Light by Henri Nouwen
We all have our secrets: thoughts, memories, feelings that we keep to ourselves. Often we think, “If people knew what I feel or think, they would not love me.” These carefully kept secrets can do us much harm. They can make us feel guilty or ashamed and may lead us to self-rejection, depression, and even suicidal thoughts and actions.
One of the most important things we can do with our secrets is to share them in a safe place, with people we trust. When we have a good way to bring our secrets into the light and can look at them with others, we will quickly discover that we are not alone with our secrets and that our trusting friends will love us more deeply and more intimately than before. Bringing our secrets into the light creates community and inner healing. As a result of sharing secrets, not only will others love us better but we will love ourselves more fully.
[Text excerpts taken from Bread for the Journey, by Henri J.M. Nouwen, ©1997 HarperSanFrancisco. All Scripture from The Jerusalem Bible ©1966, 1967, and 1968 Darton, Longman & Todd and Doubleday & Co. Inc.]
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Theology's Practical Consequences Your image of God creates you—or defeats you.
There is an absolute connection between how you see God and how you see yourself and the whole universe. Theology is not just theoretical, but ends up being quite practical—practically up-building or practically defeating. —Richard Rohr
Reservoir Gods by Brian Whelan. copyright Brian Whelan http://www.brianwhelan.co.uk/
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Listening Like a Cow
“Those of you who grew up in the country know that cows are good listeners. And barns are great contemplative places–at least the old ones were. I recommend to you this kind of dairy barn listening. We don’t need fixing, most of us, as much as we need a warm space and a good cow. Cows cock their big brown eyes at you and twitch their ears when you talk. This is a great antidote to the critical listening that goes on in academia, where we listen for the mistake, the flaw in the argument. Cows, by contrast, manage at least the appearance of deep, openhearted attention.
“If you are listening, if you are turning your big brown eyes or blue eyes on somebody and twitching your ears at them, you are earning your silage. You are listening people into existence. You are saving lives. You are producing Grade A.” —Mary Rose O’Reilley
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A Reminder That God Became Forever One of Us If seminary is teaching me anything, it is that God, or the greater whole of which we are apart, is much larger and more mysterious than I could have ever imagined. In my search for answers, I have been led to pursue even more questions, and in doing so have become convinced that deep gladness and immeasurable joy are to be discovered.
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The Spirit by Greg Gardner
The Spirit seemingly resides and is discernable within and beyond all animate and inanimate things, incarnated and embodied, making for itself a permanent home in the flesh, and yet transcending all dichotomies and dualisms. It is not confined to the physical, but extends to the cosmos and beyond. It is simultaneously transcendent and fleshy. It is sensed, if not recognized, by what it’s not and by the vacuous impression it makes upon the contemplative and social world of experience, and yet the Spirit is encountered by way of meeting the other, in the engagement with another, and is reflected and recognizable in all persons and things. The Spirit is discovered to be a companion by way of a deeper sense of one’s self. Spirit is mystery and not able to be fully known epistemologically. Reason and logic, and intellect and thought are its shadows. It is both harmonious with all things and is in tension. The Spirit is mutuality, discerning and recognizing itself within the flesh, as the flesh recognizes itself in the Spirit.
In the most permeable and bone-deep sense of the Incarnation, the Spirit is in permanent physical union with humankind, has experienced, shared and is now sharing our joys, struggles and suffering—that is, the entire and seemingly unlimited spectrum of human emotions and disunion. It follows that the Spirit has experienced and is now experiencing mental illness and addiction, abuse and neglect, the challenges of physical disabilities, joy and ecstasy, disappointment, anger and loss, loneliness and despair, achy bones and acne, the mercurial, hormonal soup of puberty, menstrual cramps and the pain and joy of childbirth. It is the repository of all ecological and human brokenness, where all things are being healed, reconciled and made new and whole through its unbearable light, and a brutal and beautiful alchemic mystery. The Spirit is the still, small voice that allows us to opt consciously for our inherit chosenness and belovedness, reminding us that we are created for joy and freedom.
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Humility, Hummus, Earth, Soil, Dust, Ashes, Ground, Groundedness
“Because I like to compost, I draw a parallel between a mound of rotting compost and my past. This is humility for me. It is recognizing that the stinking pile of rotten things, from the coffee grounds to the cracked egg shells, are the wreckage of my past that will be the rich fertilizer which God will use to grow and make possible the limitless possibilities of my future.” —a friend
