Beatitude

Breathing in the New Year

While in a certain sense arbitrary, the dates changing and our year "new," creates openings for fresh starts, new creations and the relinquishing of past problems. Dates, times and the passage of time are all assigned by human design. A thousand years is the same as one day to God. We have created the start of the calendar, the years, the days, the hours and the seconds of what we call time. But there is still something special about the moments when we leave them behind as though exhaling and approach a new one, inhaling.

Since Christ was born into time, he sanctifies time, even though he is entirely, also, above time. So as I exhale, letting go of 2011, I find that I am renewed and all-the-more eager and ready for something new. One reason this is a good thing, is that we can let go harmful or burdensome things. Then we can await the spirit's inspiration, inhaling the new life of Christ.

Try this type of breathing as a spiritual exercise. Breath out the past and the burdens we should not hold onto. Then breath in the present, the new, fresh air of God's life for today. See what happens to your perspective.

The PCUSA Changes Its Ordination Standards

The Presbyterian Church USA has ratified an overture to become more inclusive toward people of gay and lesbian orientation. In essence, the vote to change ordination standards allows the possibility for people to be evaluated not so much on their sexual orientation but for their suitability to “submit joyfully to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in all aspects of life;” a courageous and admirable shift in my opinion. 

You can check more information about this decision at: http://oga.pcusa.org/

I’ve found that through any major change my own spiritual discipline must be alive and well. Even now I seek depth in my own spiritual practices, like The Examination of Consciousness I mentioned in the previous post. I even find a true spiritual connection with people in my regional body of Presbyterians who disagree with my more inclusive approach to the church. We can remain open to a God whose grace is bigger than all our decisions and schisms and even our successes. Perhaps, then, the best thing to remember is that our efforts to be the church are not about us. They are instead about a God of surprising grace.

The Examination of Consciousness

Today I’ll recommend a practice called the Examination of Consciousness. While it has connections to the more penitential version, often called the Examination of Conscience, the Examination of Consciousness is a light, readily repeatable practice based on raising one’s awareness of the spiritual life.

Here’s the basic pattern:

1) Take a ten minute break. During this break calm yourself and let go of the business of the day.

2) Ask yourself two basic questions:

1. “How have I been close to or responsive to God today?”
2. “How have I been distant from or unresponsive to God today?”

3) Or you can more simply ask: “Where is God in this?”

4) Notice your responses and jot them down in a journal. To stay within a ten minute time frame, don’t attempt to write paragraphs, just phrases or sentences. (You can make the practice longer, but that sometimes makes it less repeatable.) In this practice you are mainly attempting to develop awareness and the ability to contemplate the answers to the two basic questions.

When a person lives in greater awareness of God’s presence he or she will experience more vitality, energy, gratitude and compassion. If we cultivate our ability to recognize God’s life in ours we can be greatly aided in discernment and faithful living—and simply enjoy ourselves more!

The Examination of Consciousness is designed to be less about your sin and more about awareness of God’s presence or seeming absence in our daily lives. Most of the time the experience should feel hopeful and aid in a closer, more companioned walk with God.

See what happens when you try it for a week. My guess is that you will be glad to continue the practice.

Stones and Bread

I had a sobering conversation with my mechanic just last week. Our 180,000 mile car is nearing the end of its useful life. My mechanic and I got to talking about the business of repair and I reminisced about my days repairing Xerox copy machines. “I used to pray, ‘God, fix this machine.’” And then I laughed and said, “God never really came through on that prayer.” My mechanic said, “That’s because the real prayer was about your character.” He’s right. We're here to deal with what really is rather than depend on God to magically change things.

I’m thinking that is partly why Jesus disagreed with the devil when he asked him in Matthew 4 to change the stones into bread. Jesus was undertaking the spiritual discipline of fasting. What was behind the temptation was to forget the spiritual discipline and look to God for a magical relief. Jesus chose to live primarily by the Word of God and let stones be stones.

Could it be true that we often wish God to simply change the circumstances, when what God really wants is our faith and the character development that goes with it?

Small

In light of large, overwhelming upheaval, I long to think small—not to avoid the desperation of the world but to adopt a mode of being that makes me more available to it. Instead of allowing the waves of fear to drown me, I wish to take a small part, along with you, to improve the world’s condition.

When the whole world seems to ring like a bell, I long to be still—not to hid from the suffering of the world but to draw on a source that is not of this world. I wish to know the Spirit that doesn’t miss a beat and sings through history songs that fill our souls just when we thought there was no hope.

When the world is angry, seeking power to bring down one enemy or another, I want somehow to look down to the ground and meekly draw in the dirt and caution about throwing stones. Does the world need more stones aloft? And in the mean time, you and I can listen to our neighbor, and work for peace.

When we throw our hands up, and we have lost those we loved, I will mourn, hopefully in your company. Together we will feel human pain… just listen to and look at what we would otherwise not want to see. Maybe weep. Maybe in suffering we will know what is otherwise unknowable.

When plans are devised to oppress and deals are made to cover up, I long to be simple. I long to resist as best I can the complicated temptation to nod in numb agreement. Then I hope I can teach with you, one simple truth after another until the world becomes a learning community and everyone’s decisions are made calmly and wide-eyed.

Dear God, I wish to be simple, mournful, meek, quiet and small today.

 

Aligning our Treasure

When Jesus spoke "“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom," in Luke 12:32, he was helping his followers, and by extension us, to learn to trust. It is a good time to learn that trust. We've seen a great deal of wealth moth-eaten recently. My suggestion is to take some of the wealth we've trusted, give it away and watch what happens. In the mean time we'll have more time to pray, shifting our trust from things to God. I admit it's a risky challenge. But I think we in America need to take a careful look at what we're doing with our possessions. We're probably not at risk for trusting God too much and our wealth too little. Are we?

Seeing Differently

 When we take a look at the whole chapter of John 20 it challenges us to see the world in a different light. It is easy enough to be confused, to be sorrowful, or afraid, or simply disbelieving in this world. That’s where we live. I live there too. Sometimes I find myself going down a path of fear and worry much like the disciples who, on Sunday evening, locked themselves inside for fear.

What changed the disciples’ minds on that first Easter and on the following week in Thomas’ case was the presence of the risen Lord. To a person they struggled to believe what seemed impossible. They had witnessed the horrific event of the death of their rabbi. To come to terms with the reality that he was no longer dead but talking to them required seeing life differently.

It requires the same of us. Now the world, the universe, life, death, all things are open to God’s new life. When the risen Christ appears amidst my fear and worry I must choose. Do I believe in the path of fear or the path of life? How will I function if my worst fears end not as I suppose, but instead in life and love and forgiveness? The greatest challenge for us is not so much dealing with betrayal, jealousy, death and darkness as it is in seeing life in terms of resurrection.

Fortunately Jesus has given us the Holy Spirit. Christ has breathed upon us and enabled us to receive life. And looking through the lens of resurrection, whoa… it’s a whole new world out there!

Love in the Company of the Resurrected

In John 12:1-8 at a dinner just after Lazarus was raised from the dead Mary, Lazarus’ sister, pours aromatic oil on Jesus’ feet and wipes the excess away with her hair. The gesture was as rich as the oil was expensive. The room was filled with the scent of her love and hope.

Another witness to the same events was Judas. Nothing of Mary’s love and appreciation existed in his mind. He was bent on accumulating as much money in the disciples’ mission fund as possible for the sole reason of stealing from it. Further he was just about to betray Jesus to the local authorities who would eventually crucify him.

Notice the contrast of minds: one loving and grateful, the other greedy and malcontent; one scented the room with love and resurrection, the other fouled the room with criminal intent. They had witnessed the same Jesus, yet could scarcely be more opposite.

Do the chain of thoughts you create result in love, hope and resurrection… or something closer to greed and death? We all have quite a bit of latitude concerning where our thoughts go and how they end up. Does Mary inspire you to see things a little differently?

See, Everything Has Become New

Paul declares in 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 that we are made new through Christ. We have been reconciled before God and sparked into a new creation. And so, his reasoning goes, with that new life intact we are the ones to bring God’s reconciliation to others, “God making his appeal through us…” Do you see that all things are new like this? It’s really a pretty elusive task. Sometimes I just don’t have the right frame of mind.

Our imaginations need to be stocked with such a vision. Poets know how to do this. One was Gerard Manley Hopkins who declares in the poem, God’s Grandeur, that “The world is charged with the grandeur of God,” and that even though we do a pretty good job of messing creation up, “… for all this, nature is never spent; / There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; / And though the last lights off the black West went / Oh morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs--/ Because the Holy Ghost over the bent / World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.”

Another is Langston Hughes who wrote in I Dream a World that he did, in fact, dream a world “Where love will bless the earth / And peace its paths adorn...” and “…joy, like a pearl, Attends the needs of all mankind.”

And Antonio Machado wrote in the poem Last Night, as I was Sleeping “…that I had a beehive / here inside my heart. / And the golden bees / were making white combs / and sweet honey / from my old failures.”

So with their help and with Paul’s vision of a new creation we are asked to re-think what is handed to us from day to day. We are asked to see grandeur in tear soaked faces, and the joy of first light. We are asked see the seeds of peace in our last social rift, and just how it is that God re-works—reconciles—our old failures. Do you see it? It’s…. it’s… just… there, it flames “out, like shining from shook foil…”

If You Were a Fig Tree

In Luke 13:1-9 Jesus proclaims an unequivocal “no” to the question “Are disasters inflicted on people as punishment for sin?” Earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, fluke accidents, and criminal acts do not come to humanity under God’s orders to punish us.

But Jesus does call us to recognize that life can come to an abrupt end especially if you’re not ready to meet your maker. Recognize that much of our religious practice is designed to help us to notice that life is short and sometimes dangerous, and the best way to reconcile ourselves to that fact is to live in cooperation with God’s ways.

Most of us will say that we are not ready to meet our maker. We haven’t quite put our affairs in order or taken the necessary steps to live faithfully. Passages such as this encourage us to live so that God can strengthen us, nourish us and thus help us to be just, generous, and caring. Here’s the question: If you were that fig tree and given one more year to bear fruit, what would you do? Because in effect, we are, each one, that fig tree.

Notice the gardener, who is the one in the story taking initiative to make fruitfulness possible!