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Posts Tagged ‘life’

The Heart as Gut

Posted in Lectionary, Ordinary Time, Praying the Psalms, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on August 2, 2015| Leave a Comment »

God does not participate in Valentine’s Day. God is not particularly interested in the hearts and flowers of young lovers wooing one another. God is not about Cupid and arrows and online dating. God is about our innermost being, the center of ourselves, our gut, our center, our soul and spirit. Our identity. That heart.

You desire truth in the inward being;
    therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.heart of the matter
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
    wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness;
    let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins,
    and blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
    and put a new and right spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from your presence,
    and do not take your holy spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
    and sustain in me a willing spirit. [Psalm 51:6-12, NRSV]

Anything else, and we are lying to ourselves and to God. We could be living a myth of faith if our “hearts” are not in it. If all we have is a semblance of faithfulness, a Sunday morning piety, a “Praise the Lord” verbiage, we are missing the depth and breadth and length of God within.

The heart of a matter is the crux of it, the most vital part that implies the rest is totally dependent upon it. Is your faith totally dependent on the presence of God in the core of you?

It is from this center that decisions are made and hunches are formed and hope is nurtured and sin is birthed. But it is also here that faith is planted, where God manifests as the Holy Spirit, where change begins.

Oh yes, “create in me a clean heart, oh God.”

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Breathe on Me

Posted in Grief, Lectionary, Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on May 27, 2015| Leave a Comment »

breathofGod2Life is in the breath of God. And that breath is for all living things, whether creature or human, the sustaining power of Spirit makes the difference between life and death. And who are we, then, to understand such a thing?

When you send your Spirit, they [the creatures] are created, and you renew the face of the ground. [Psalm 104:30, NIV]
Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. [Ezekiel 37:4-5, NIV]

Yesterday on NPR, I was listening to an interview with a brain surgeon and he spoke at length how mystifying it is that the soft tissue of the brain holds so much power over the body and mind. The smallest nick could be the difference between health and disability. And although doctors know much about the brain and can see it’s shape and identify its areas, what ultimately make it work, is a mystery.

This is the realm of God. For, human knowledge reaches far and will continue to explore both the farthest point in space and the smallest particle in existence, but there will remain the unknown bit which is God.

Several of our contemporary worship songs speak of “knowing God” but truly, that is not possible. If anything, we might be better in longing to simply recognize the hand of God, the Presence of God, the essence of God in ourselves and the world around us. And to breathe.

Like the life-giving plants around us that give off oxygen and help sustain the circle of life, so does God breathe out what we need. Breathing is one of the foundations to many different spiritual practices for good reason. Breath brings with it a calm and a centering and a silence in the midst of a harried life.

Bring me back to the life You intended. Take these dry bones, these broken pieces, and put them back together again. This is my prayer.

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I am the Resurrection

Posted in Lent, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 31, 2015| Leave a Comment »

I am 2It wasn’t the first time Jesus made “I am” statements. In fact, this is the 5th time he is recorded as saying “I am. . . .” The others (all somewhat cryptic and yet captivating as metaphors):

  1. I am the Bread of Life (John 6:35)
  2. I am the Light of the World (John 8:12)
  3. I am the Gate (John 10:9)
  4. I am the Good Shepherd (John 10:11)
  5. I am the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25-26)
  6. I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:16)
  7. I am the Vine (John 15:5)

But are they all metaphor? Instead, I can’t help but wonder if Jesus wasn’t using the simplest transformationof language to communicate the most complicated piece of information: his true identity. In all but one of these phrases, there is way-finding or sustenance. But in the 5th phrase, there is something else: transformation! In essence, he is telling us that without the Christ, the Son of God, the Messiah, the Holy Spirit, we are dead. Jesus is life. Jesus gives life where there is death.

walking deadI’m not just talking about heaven and the after-life. I’m talking about now. Most humans are just “walking dead” (amusing that a television show of this title is so popular). And as long as people are dead, it’s hard to imagine life, true life. It happens in the most extraordJesusinary and paradoxical way. Instead of hanging on, we are to let go. Instead of hoarding, we are to give away. Instead of certainty, we are to walk by faith. Instead of wealth, we are encouraged to embrace poverty.

Authentic Christianity, and by that I mean true Jesus followership, is mind-blowing.

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Understanding Light

Posted in Advent, tagged , , , , , on December 3, 2014| 2 Comments »

Word, God, Life, and Light. From the beginning, and yet misunderstood.

Art by Jenn Bowers

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome [or understood] it. [John 1:1-5, NIV]

Of course, the key here is beginnings. None can seem to agree when it all began, whether you are a traditional biblicist, big bang theorist, or some conglomeration of the two. But if we can simply agree that there was a beginning, sometime, then it might be easier to agree that “something” was there at the beginning. At the least: light, a manifestation of energy (but I am no physicist, so please, excuse my simplicity). I just like these ideas swimming around in my head.

Light, the spark of life then.

Now, the difference between an old believer like me and someone else is that I have made that leap of faith to believe in an intelligence at the beginning as well, an order, a motivation, or an intent from which sprang Word (or identity). For it is Word that establishes boundaries or describes a thing and thereby, gives it a name.

Most translations of this verse imply that darkness (what is that? Is it like anti-matter or the absence of light?) cannot extinguish or overcome it, as though it’s a battle of some kind. But if darkness is not light, how can it begin to understand? But I wonder, is darkness dynamic at all? I don’t think so. I believe I may have given the idea of darkness too much power and ability.

And yet another implication or long-standing interpretation of this verse is that the Word is Jesus, the son of God, the physical reflection of God, the ideal human, the template for the rest of us, present in the beginning in a form unknowable or understandable from without because, quite honestly, of the darkness. But Light is strong and the Word is astute and Life came forth all the same and whether we understand it or not, every human has the Light, for we were created from it. What we have lacked over the centuries perhaps, is the Word, the identification of Light – Jesus.

This is the time of year when the sunlight grows shorter and shorter for those of us in the northern hemisphere, but soon, as the Earth continues is lopsided rotation, the days will grow longer again. This is the time of year that we see the change in light. It’s a symbolic representation for the coming of light.

Let’s celebrate the coming of Light, God, the Word, and Life.

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While the Child Lived

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on May 15, 2014| Leave a Comment »

stillbornI just finished reading An Exact Replica of a Figment of my Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken at the same time I read David and Bathsheba’s story of their own first child, who only lived seven days before dying as foretold by the prophet Nathan for David’s illicit with relationship with Bathsheba and ordering the death of her husband in battle. Both stories capture a view of grief we rarely see.

He [David] answered, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live.’  [II Samuel 12:22, NIV]

For McCracken, the newborn infant, nicknamed Pudding, was their first and neither she nor her husband broke any laws or treated Pudding with anything but ultra care: the right foods, the right rest, the right attitude. It was a pregnancy made in heaven. But then, near the end of her last trimester, Pudding stopped moving, at least it seemed so to her. Many thought she might be overreacting (they were living in France at the time), and she was sent home. However, by the next day, her own concern pressed the issue and she sidestepped her midwife and went to the doctor’s office where it was discovered that the child was, indeed, dead but McCracken would still have to bear this lifeless child into the world. The depth of her pain and anguish are laced throughout this slim volume.

Back in the day, when I was still performing my one woman show, Pente, one of the women in that quintet was Bathsheba because her story is minimized in scripture; her grief and loss are summarized in the single line, “Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and he went to her and made love to her . . . ” [vs 24a] but I believe McCracken’s tale captures a more realistic picture of a mother’s heart and the depth of her pain.

But getting back to my selected scripture, it is intriguing to me that David, who knew that he had sinned and who knew that Nathan was a formidable prophet whose words always came true, pressed into the 7-day period of prayer and fasting and, undoubtedly, deep confession. As long as the child lived, David did not give up even the slightest sliver of hope. David could not change what he had done but he could surrender his helplessness to God, who could still change the outcome. God’s outcome is never fixed in time. And yet . . .

The child died.

And David could do nothing more than surrender again.

We have choices beforehand, before the inevitable happens. But once tragedy strikes, whether deserved or undeserved, we only have our response to God. The pain is still there but can be muted if we wrap it into the embrace of God. Grace lives.

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Polluted by the World

Posted in Eastertide, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 4, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Photo by Andrea Galluzzo

Photo by Andrea Galluzzo

Pollution is a hot topic. The word itself brings up images of oil-slick waters, trash-strewn woods, and smog-filled air. Pollution contaminates, infects, and even poisons. It moves a place, person, or situation from one state to another, and not for good. So, how is the “world” polluting me? What is this world?

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. [James 1:27]

I’m sure there are reams of paper written by clerics and Bible students all over, and I don’t have the time or the inclination to study this topic. I just want to capture a gut reaction.

The world, in Christian circles, always has a negative context: it’s everything from R rated movies to street violence to foul language. It is sexy clothes and sex-filled images “everywhere.” It’s drugs and gambling and porno stores, it’s sexual orientation and alternate lifestyles. Basically, it’s anything that doesn’t line up with the scriptures, according to the folks (and culture and sensibilities) who are reading them. The range of interpretation runs the gambit from the Amish’s “simple life” to left-winger “social justice.”

And there are plenty of scriptures that decry the world in some form or another: John 15:19; John 17:14-16; I John 2:15; Romans 12:2; I Peter 2:11-12; Galatians 3:22.

But perhaps, there’s another way to look at it that might clarify some things. Maybe it’s less important to figure out what the world is doing to us . . . to me . . . and more important to figure out what, in me, is being polluted. Certainly, there are things that I do to my physical body that are not good for me: diet, alcohol, lassitude and inactivity, sleeplessness, disease, etc. But is this my biggest concern or should it be the pollution of my soul? When I invited the Christ spirit to indwell me, then I was (and am) calling forth all that is good to reside within. I am uniting myself with God through Christ. That’s a light, a jewel, a radiance.

What pollutes my spirit? Evil and unproductive thoughts, judgments of others, NOT love, fear, and disdain. It is only the strength of my inner life that can repel the outer influences. Pollution is most dangerous when it seeps into the bone and marrow of a thing, when it permeates the insides. This is where my vigilance needs to be above all. Of course, there will always be controversy on the path that leads to my soul. I know that.

All the same. I’m tired of trying to discern who’s ‘world’ is worst. When I put on all the trappings of being a good Christian, when I followed all the rules, and when I kept myself away from the “appearance of evil,” I don’t believe I was any better off than I am today.

Instead, I want my spirit, my life with the Holy Spirit, to be so robust, that none of those things matter. It is in this way, that I can be neither “in the world” nor “of the world.” And so, I will return to the straightforward words of Jesus himself, “First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.” [Matthew 23:26b]

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When the Body Dies

Posted in Lent, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 8, 2013| Leave a Comment »

life deathJesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” [Luke 13:2-3]

I had to go back and read this verse in context. What was Jesus really saying here? And then I understood. He is reminding the people, again (and again) that the death of the body is one death, but the death of the spirit is far more serious. If the personal spirit is in relationship with the Holy Spirit, if the life force within is right with God, when the body dies, there is more.

Apparently, based on this scripture, death is not a reflection of one’s goodness or evil: death comes when it comes for other reasons. And “like a thief in the night,” [I Thess 5:2] we cannot know the time of death anymore than we can know the  time of Christ’s return. Most of us can’t even fathom an early death. Not really. Who expects a child to die in three days time? Who expects a sister to die in the lobby of a hotel in Europe? Who expects a husband to die in a car accident?

When I was in school, I remember how much I hated pop quizzes. You know why? Because I was a last minute studier. I’d pull all-nighters the day before a big test or when an assignment was due. But a pop quiz? That would show the truth of it. I wasn’t on top of my work. I wasn’t doing a little every day. I was a procrastinator.

But this technique doesn’t work so well in the things of God, in the things of the Spirit, in the things of becoming more Human (that is the real intent for human). That journey is outlined for us all in the scriptures and writings of the ones who have gone before us. What are we waiting for? Granted, if I follow the paradoxes (love your enemy, give and it will be given to you, etc.), and the surrendered lifestyle, I am promised that my life here and now will be better for it. But more importantly, it is the life within that really counts.

How many ways does Jesus (or really, any of the saints and Spirit-led) have to tell us that there is more to “life” than what we see, hear, feel, and touch?

Do you want more? Are you thirsting for more of that promise? I am.

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