"Westerner's have a mania for experience. Descartes said 'I think, therefore I am.' For us, it is 'I experience, therefore I am.' But I'm pretty much convinced experiences don't change people, realization does. I think of all the powerful experiences that I've had. But only when I taste my experiences enough so they become realizations, do I change. That takes time and space. Put time and space together and you have a new definition of silence." (R. Rohr "Radical Grace" p. 238-230)
On the 4th we headed home after 8 days of vacation. It was one filled with experiences. Niagra Falls, zip lining, baseball games, the Rock'n Roll Hall of fame. All will hopefully be cherished memories. But I also found the days with no planned activities, to be just as nourishing.
Most of our lives are constantly go, go. We program our children to be busy. What we create I believe are over stimulated, sleep deprived junkies. And most of us are the same way. It is almost as if we are convinced that the only time we shouldn't be doing is when we are asleep.
Maybe that's why we feel so shallow. Why we often are not sure who we are or what we want to be or do. So we fill every waking moment with some stimuli, hoping something will connect.
Perhaps a better way might be some time for reflection after the experience, did we truly learn anything, did we grow in some way? But many see and use experiences like a drug to get through life. Each one, no better than a sugar rush, often with nothing more than a crash a few moments later.
Blessings,
Ed
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Reflections for 7/3/10
"Unfortunately we in the Church are trying to teach a morality apart from the experience of the risen Jesus freeing his people. Yet the most compelling moral responses come from the ambiguities of real life-not from textbook answers that are prefabricated and so-called pure."(R.Rohr "Radical Grace" p. 238)
I tend to live in ambiguity. I find it very hard to work with either or choices. Often the world seems to offer many one size fits all options, and attempts to make them work. Usually with disastrous results.
It has been my experience that life is not so neat to have these cure-alls actually work. That is not to say that there shouldn't be some framework within which to work out our moral questions and our responses to the ups and downs of life.
For me that is in my relationship with God through Christ. The experiences of the risen life. It is not in a recitation of out of context bible verses. Not in the thou shalt nots of the latest preachers and teachers, but in the shared living and working with my fellow human beings, working it out in the context of my faith.
Blessings,
Ed
I tend to live in ambiguity. I find it very hard to work with either or choices. Often the world seems to offer many one size fits all options, and attempts to make them work. Usually with disastrous results.
It has been my experience that life is not so neat to have these cure-alls actually work. That is not to say that there shouldn't be some framework within which to work out our moral questions and our responses to the ups and downs of life.
For me that is in my relationship with God through Christ. The experiences of the risen life. It is not in a recitation of out of context bible verses. Not in the thou shalt nots of the latest preachers and teachers, but in the shared living and working with my fellow human beings, working it out in the context of my faith.
Blessings,
Ed
Reflections for 7/2/10
"The best way to understand the word submission, because it has such a negative connotation for us Americans, is simply the word support. To submit in Latin is to be sent under, to stand under-to under-stand. To submit to another is to understand another."(R.Rohr "Radical Grace" p. 236)
Having spent some "quality time" in the quasi-macho world of the high school locker room, I understand where the negative connotation of submission comes from. It implies weakness. It implies crying "uncle in a game of mercy." It implies quitting, losing, etc. There can be no chest thumping in submission.
But support is something most of us can resonate with. We know how to support our friends and family. We're told to support our government and the troops. We know how to support the organizations that we choose to belong to.
I do know how to submit to my wife, because I try to support her as she lives out her life. I know how to submit to my kids, because I try to support them, in growing up to be individuals who can live in a world without me doing everything. I can submit to the government, because I can support through my voting, a direction. To submit will never mean to not question, but at least try to stay informed as to why a decision is made whether I agree with it or not.
Submitting should never be losing site of who I am in the bigger picture, it does mean reminding myself that I'm not the only one that matters.
Blessings,
Ed
Having spent some "quality time" in the quasi-macho world of the high school locker room, I understand where the negative connotation of submission comes from. It implies weakness. It implies crying "uncle in a game of mercy." It implies quitting, losing, etc. There can be no chest thumping in submission.
But support is something most of us can resonate with. We know how to support our friends and family. We're told to support our government and the troops. We know how to support the organizations that we choose to belong to.
I do know how to submit to my wife, because I try to support her as she lives out her life. I know how to submit to my kids, because I try to support them, in growing up to be individuals who can live in a world without me doing everything. I can submit to the government, because I can support through my voting, a direction. To submit will never mean to not question, but at least try to stay informed as to why a decision is made whether I agree with it or not.
Submitting should never be losing site of who I am in the bigger picture, it does mean reminding myself that I'm not the only one that matters.
Blessings,
Ed
Reflections for 7/1/10
"Don't tell people to come to our church or to come to hear Father preach. Ask them to come over for supper. That's more real and natural. Talk to them over the back fence. We hope our life is good news. When our neighbors see our unity and our good news, maybe then they'll say, I'd like to come celebrate and worship with you." (R. Rohr "Radical Grace" p. 236)
This reminded me of my college days. I do not believe I ever once invited someone to come with me to church. I did have people ask if they could come with me.
It wasn't until later that I fully understood the difference. Whatever it was that people saw as positive in me, and I don't recall what it may have been, I believe they may have considered what I did that was different than what they did. And for some, going to church seemed to be it.
Today I still believe that the best evangelizing is how we lead our lives. When I see Christians taking action to make the world a better place. Who spend more time talking about what makes them happy as compared to what's wrong with the world, I feel a natural attraction to them. I'd like to know more.
When we see someone who looks like they've turned things around, for example, lost weight, we often would like to know what they did. How often does someone ask a person who is still healthy and active in their late 80's or 90's what the "secret" is, only to find it's more about attitude than some product.
Do I want people to invite folks to come to church, sure. But I'd really love to see people come to church because they see folks who live life fully because they've found something worth having in their lives.
Blessings,
Ed
This reminded me of my college days. I do not believe I ever once invited someone to come with me to church. I did have people ask if they could come with me.
It wasn't until later that I fully understood the difference. Whatever it was that people saw as positive in me, and I don't recall what it may have been, I believe they may have considered what I did that was different than what they did. And for some, going to church seemed to be it.
Today I still believe that the best evangelizing is how we lead our lives. When I see Christians taking action to make the world a better place. Who spend more time talking about what makes them happy as compared to what's wrong with the world, I feel a natural attraction to them. I'd like to know more.
When we see someone who looks like they've turned things around, for example, lost weight, we often would like to know what they did. How often does someone ask a person who is still healthy and active in their late 80's or 90's what the "secret" is, only to find it's more about attitude than some product.
Do I want people to invite folks to come to church, sure. But I'd really love to see people come to church because they see folks who live life fully because they've found something worth having in their lives.
Blessings,
Ed
Reflections for 6/30/10
"When we have lost our unity, we have just plain lost."(R. Rohr "Radical Grace" p.235)
One of the greatest confusions of this era I believe is the difference between unity and uniformity. I believe we are at a place where we'll claim to seek unity, but we really mean uniformity. We want complete agreement, especially we want our way of thinking to be what is agreed to. That is not unity that is uniformity.
Uniformity to me is boring, stunted and easily dismissed and changed. Unity is a different matter.
Unity for me is not found in the specifics but in the overarching vision of what is possible. A shared vision of where we want to go. When you get the unity, it is in the diversity that the way to achievement is found.
I'm at my best when engaged in healthy dialogue with those whose way of seeing things is different than mine. It is quite possible that they may be seeing something that I am not.
Within the church, the body of Christ if you will, I cannot say to the "right" hand, I need thee not.
If I can maintain my unity along whatever hat I'm wearing, then I can work through some of the disagreements. But even those that remain at an impasse need not necessarily lead to disunity.
Blessings,
Ed
One of the greatest confusions of this era I believe is the difference between unity and uniformity. I believe we are at a place where we'll claim to seek unity, but we really mean uniformity. We want complete agreement, especially we want our way of thinking to be what is agreed to. That is not unity that is uniformity.
Uniformity to me is boring, stunted and easily dismissed and changed. Unity is a different matter.
Unity for me is not found in the specifics but in the overarching vision of what is possible. A shared vision of where we want to go. When you get the unity, it is in the diversity that the way to achievement is found.
I'm at my best when engaged in healthy dialogue with those whose way of seeing things is different than mine. It is quite possible that they may be seeing something that I am not.
Within the church, the body of Christ if you will, I cannot say to the "right" hand, I need thee not.
If I can maintain my unity along whatever hat I'm wearing, then I can work through some of the disagreements. But even those that remain at an impasse need not necessarily lead to disunity.
Blessings,
Ed
Reflections for 6/29/10
"Romance is that sense of adventure and daring and surrender that comes into our life when we have a vision worth living and dying for."(R. Rohr "Radical Grace" p. 233)
Many people when compiling their summer reading lists will joke about looking for something beyond the usual "romance novel." That genre is a pretty easy read and generally escapism, but doesn't call forth in us something greater.
When we look at the great romances of our lives there is a real sense of adventure and daring. Taking that risk of entering into a relationship with another person. When the romance is truly deep then you know that the vision of yourself with that other person is one where you would really be the most alive with them and willing to die for them.
What is the vision of your life that is worth living for? What is that "pearl of great value" that you'd sell everything to have?
If our lives are void of romance, that adventurous, daring and visionary kind. The type that calls us out of our cocoons, we may as well be dead.
I hope you have some romance in your life, even the gushy kind. But especially the kind of relationships that make life worth living.
Blessings,
Ed
Many people when compiling their summer reading lists will joke about looking for something beyond the usual "romance novel." That genre is a pretty easy read and generally escapism, but doesn't call forth in us something greater.
When we look at the great romances of our lives there is a real sense of adventure and daring. Taking that risk of entering into a relationship with another person. When the romance is truly deep then you know that the vision of yourself with that other person is one where you would really be the most alive with them and willing to die for them.
What is the vision of your life that is worth living for? What is that "pearl of great value" that you'd sell everything to have?
If our lives are void of romance, that adventurous, daring and visionary kind. The type that calls us out of our cocoons, we may as well be dead.
I hope you have some romance in your life, even the gushy kind. But especially the kind of relationships that make life worth living.
Blessings,
Ed
Reflections for 6/28/10
"Unless you've made some commitments, unless you understand loyalty, that's the point where you're going to move out."(R. Rohr "Radical Grace" p. 232)
I often wonder if it is possible to be loyal to a fault. I believe I'm a fairly loyal person. Second point of the Boy Scout Law as I recall. I have maintained a loyalty to the vows that I've taken, baptismal, marriage and ordination.
I try as hard as possible to live out those vows. There are times when I forget that my loyalty is about me and does not necessarily need to be given back. Thankfully it for the most part has.
Loyalty does not mean finding no fault. For me it means sticking with something and trying to work through the problems and failings that occur in any and all relationships.
Sometimes I have been loyal to my own detriment. Sticking with a some product out of "loyalty" when a much better deal or product could be found.
Beyond the material things though, I have found that loyalty to God, family and friends, has been priceless.
Blessings,
Ed
I often wonder if it is possible to be loyal to a fault. I believe I'm a fairly loyal person. Second point of the Boy Scout Law as I recall. I have maintained a loyalty to the vows that I've taken, baptismal, marriage and ordination.
I try as hard as possible to live out those vows. There are times when I forget that my loyalty is about me and does not necessarily need to be given back. Thankfully it for the most part has.
Loyalty does not mean finding no fault. For me it means sticking with something and trying to work through the problems and failings that occur in any and all relationships.
Sometimes I have been loyal to my own detriment. Sticking with a some product out of "loyalty" when a much better deal or product could be found.
Beyond the material things though, I have found that loyalty to God, family and friends, has been priceless.
Blessings,
Ed
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