Reflections for 7/25/10

"A relationship between two people , a true giving and receiving becomes something that almost stands apart from the person's themselves. The can talk about their relationship. They can let other people in on their relationship and give their relationship to other people. That's precisely what a mother and father should do for their child. Children who receive that gift are the healthiest and most secure children."(R. Rohr "Radical Grace" p. 259)

A few times in my ministry I've been invited to renew people's wedding vows, usually at 50 years or more. While I'm approaching 20 years of marriage, 50 seems like a really long time. It's in some ways quite impressive given the statistics on divorce.

People will often asks these couples "what's made it work." I'm not sure I've ever actually hear the answer to that question. My sense is that they've known all along how to be a couple to each other. There aren't separate lives that occasionally meet for dinner. But truly decent quality time spent together. The children actually saw how people who love and respect each other behave. The wider community knows them and isn't gossipping about them.

I also think that these folks have perhaps embodied the prayers that are said at wedding ceremonies in my church. They are too each other "a strength in need, a counselor in perplexity, a comfort in sorrow, and a companion in joy." They have "grown in peace with [God] and one another." They know how "to recognize and acknowledge their fault, and [how] to seek each other's forgiveness." "They are testimony "that unity may overcome estrangement, forgiveness heal guilt and joy conquer despair." They have fulfillment of their mutual affection, that they reach out in love and concern for others."

Maybe you've been privy to witness or know couples like that. Maybe you're fortunate enough to be in one right now. My hope will be that if you aren't, that the next relationship you choose to enter in, will be one that others look up to.

Blessings,
Ed

Reflections for 7/24/10

"That's the position we're in today. I call it the naked position of the gospel: where you don't please the liberals or conservatives, you simply are faithful to the gospel. It is asking more of our minds and our hearts than any of us are prepared for."(R. Rohr "Radical Grace" p. 258)

In my continued quest to figure out who I really am, I've noticed that I have had the pattern of being able to relate to all sorts and conditions of people. That's not to say that I don't have an opinion or lean politically or theologically one way. I'm not rigidly in the middle, but I hope I'm closer to than some who I may agree with more often than not.

The challenge that I see being offered in the above quote, is can you actually stand for something, without worrying about who will praise or damn you? My hunch is that in our overly dualistic world, we're more interested in coming down in a place that pleases at least some people.

The evidence I see of this is that both conservative and liberal causes when spoken on by people of faith, always believe they are being true to the gospel. Which seems hard to believe when they say things that are totally opposite of each other.

The real problem is that true to the gospel is really only valid in the ears and opinions of those who hear it. If it already is part of my worldview, then it seems natural that it must be faithful to the gospel. Anything that challenges my world view must be contrary to the gospel, and then let me see how many folks I can get to say "that's right."

Probably the best test for gospel faithfulness, is when you're being criticized and chided by liberal and conservative ideologues at the same time. Then you know you've truly arrived.

Blessings,
Ed

Reflections for 7/23/10

"We don't think ourselves into a new way of living, we live ourselves into a new way of thinking. The journeys around the edges of sin lead us to long for a deeper life at the center of ourselves."(R. Rohr "Radical Grace" p.257)

It is amazing to me the market that has been created in the self-help sections of bookstores. There are authors who create a series, and just change the title enough to make you think they're on to something new.

I'm somewhat guilty of falling for these things. And yet I haven't found a book in that genre that has ever radically changed my life permanently. It may have gotten me to try something or to think about it, but ultimately no deep lasting change.

Perhaps I do too much thinking and not enough living. Yet I have found that in those places where I have allowed life to be lived, trial and error if you will, that I find who the real me is. What do I truly enjoy. What isn't just a momentary fad. What isn't just a masking.

I've learned through my mistakes, first the amazing mercy of God. That rather than just pound me into dust, I am turned around and asked to see something deep within. That true center of my being, that image of God.

The more I live into that image, the more my thinking changes. I don't need to be as defensive. I don't need to justify myself. I don't need to make someone else rich, by following the latest trend. I can instead listen and live out the consistent presence in my life, the one that cares deeply for me.

Blessings,
Ed

Reflections for 7/22/10

"It's a gift to joyfully recognize and accept our own smallness. That's my best definition of Christian maturity. It's very hard for an affluent culture to accept a limited world, and that's why Jesus said the rich person cannot easily enter into the Kingdom of God."(R. Rohr "Radical Grace" p. 256)

There is no limit to what we can achieve seems to be a mantra I hear often. It's the power of positive thinking. It is the vision of our nation really.

While I don't wish to be a wet blanket, I know that for myself, I'm beginning to acknowledge my own limitations, or at least to understand what keeps me from fulfilling the Army motto of being all I can be.

Perhaps it comes down to seeking what I really want to be. To understand fully where my breaking points are, where the actual boundaries exist. To see that "smallness" not as a curse or a hurdle to overcome, but a reality that I have been given only what I can actually handle to be in charge of. That I will have what I need to live in this world, and that I really don't have to fulfill every want.

To proclaim the "smallness" is not to be used as a put down of others or myself. But rather an acknowledgement of my real equality with everyone else.

Blessings,
Ed

Reflections for 7/21/10

"Few things are needed or desired by the one who lives simply because life is centered on another level of value. And maybe it isn't always specifically religious; maybe it's music , art, nature, or even work for a great ideal. St. Theresa of Avila put it, 'When they serve me partridge, I'll eat partridge; when they serve me porridge, I'll eat porridge.' So when the nice dress comes along, you're not going to sneer at it in the name of simplicity. No, it's a nice dress, it's pretty, and you'd probably feel great wearing it. But you don't need it. That's the difference, and the simple person knows the difference."(R. Rohr "Radical Grace" p. 255)

While I certainly resonate with the idea of living simply, having only what I really need, I can't claim I'm all that successful. Whatever I have it is not by some altruistic choice, but more financial necessity. I know this is regrettably true because I still find my self wanting things, that I don't need.

I also know that there are three other people living on my "little island" their wants and needs also trying to stake a claim.

I try very hard to enjoy what I have and to be thankful for it. I also try to receive graciously things offered to me that I might myself not buy.

I wonder of the things that I have, what could I truly live without? TV possibly. Car, not living where I do. This computer? Possibly. The rest of my life seems void of luxury items and "toys." I may be getting frugal in my old age, now if I can couple that with gratefulness, then it would truly be golden.

Blessings,
Ed

Reflections for 7/20/10

"We really need the wisdom of God to know how to break in to some of the subcultures of affluent countries. In great part, I think many of these brothers and sisters are gong to have to do it themselves because that's the only way they're ever going to experience their own empowerment and God's presence and life within them. The best we can do, perhaps, is to stand there with them and not hold them down, not give them any more negative voices that they've already been given by society. Our evangelization is perhaps to believe in them, support them from the side and at least not give them bad news. That's our poverty; that we can't do more."(R. Rohr "Radical Grace" p.254)

My church has two primary hands on outreach efforts. Once a month we partner with a church in Camden, NJ, one of the poorest and often winner of the most violent cities in the country. We help that church provide bagged food for residents in the surrounding neighborhood.

While the food is certainly important, what I really believe is the grace filled aspect is when we engage these folks in conversation and treat them with dignity and respect. There is no judgement, no blaming them. No telling them about pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.

There are much larger systems in place that make it very hard for people to break out of cycles of poverty and violence. We get excited when a few break out, and trumpet them as clear examples of how it can be done. And while I certainly want to celebrate and give thanks for those folks, they are generally the exception not the rule.

The heart of being a person of faith, is not to look down my middle class nose at those who are poor. It is not to breath a sigh of relief that I'm not in that position. It is to see those folks as people also made in the image of God, deserving of my love and respect.

If I'm truly going to be an evangelist, the good news I profess, needs to be lived out in action.

Blessings,
Ed

Reflections for 7/19/10

"I think all of us have to confront ourselves as poor people in that way. And that's why many of our greatest moments of grace follow upon, sometimes, or greatest sins. We are hard-hearted and closed-minded for years. Then comes the moment of vulnerability and mercy. We break down and break through."(R.Rohr "Radical Grace" p.252)

One of the hardest things in life is to look honestly at one's self. To be able to see beyond the public facade that we put out there. There are folks walking and living among us, who seem to have everything, the world at their feet, and yet are totally dead inside. Their sole purpose is to continue to perpetuate the myth that is them. To continue to behave as if they are the only people on the planet. That there's is the only opinion that truly matters.

The problem of course is that beyond the blow hards that we can all point to there is a part of many of us that is similar, we just aren't as adept at self promotion. But when the breakdown occurs, when we no longer have the energy to keep up with the Jones, that is when grace breaks through.

When that aha moment arrives and you begin to realize, I don't have to be that person. That a larger vision of how the world works might actually open me up to the grace and mercy I secretly need. But in my need to not seem needy I suppress.

One hopes that we don't have to have to many aha moments, that the first one really opens us up completely. Regrettably those moments don't always have the complete effect needed, and we wind up repeating the same mistakes, and shutting down and shutting out. And then grace has to break through again.

Blessings,
Ed