Day 149 How Much is Enough?

Accepting and living by sufficiency rather than excess offers a return to what is, culturally speaking, the human home: the ancient order of family, community, good work and good life; to a reverence for excellence of craftsmanship; to a true materialism that does not just care about things but cares for them; to communities worth spending a lifetime in.

I like this. 

Simpler Living, Compassionate Life, by Alan Durning

Day 148 Six Degrees of Separation

(from The Devil Wears Prada)

"This stuff? Oh, okay. I see. You think this has nothing to do with you.

"You go to your closet and you select, I don't know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back.

"But what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue, and it's not turquoise. It's not lapis. It's actually cerulean. And you're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves Saint Laurent, wasn't it, who showed cerulean military jackets?

"....And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. And then it, uh, filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic Casual Corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin.

"However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you're wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room from a pile of stuff."

Day 147 Relaxing into Love

When you get to know Jesus, you become aware of your place in God's love. And, when you are secure in love, you are blessed with the gift of relaxing into it: you discover yourself inside of God's love and no longer have to "hold it together" to get that love.

You know that as kids, your behavior at home was worse than it was elsewhere. At home, you and Daniel are secure in being loved, so you are free to act up precisely because you feel safe, secure, loved. (I am SO privileged. ;) "Relaxing into love" is a sign of security. 

As our edges are softened and our center is secure in God's love, we relax our grip on the well-intended, compulsive, and often false ways we have been trying to "hold it together." Some of us (like me) probably should have relaxed into love a long time ago.  Here are the "Top Ten" ways to be secure in God's love for you.

10.   The deceptive and destructive strategies we use to gain favor for ourselves are no longer necessary when we realize that we are favored and have been forgiven from the beginning.

9.     The shame of being human is transformed into dancing when we realize with St. Irenaeus that "the glory of God is humanity fully alive."

8.     The way we construct our identity in rivalry with others mercifully crumbles when we realize that God is not in rivalry with anyone or anything, not even death.

7.     The myth that we are first and foremost beings of thought ("I think, therefore I am") is graciously undermined when we discover that we are formed through desire, and that our deepest desires for knowing God are good.

6.     The superstitious and transactional way of seeing God ("If I do X, then God will do Y for me") and reading Scripture through faulty lenses (as if the Bible provides us with rules for winning God's favor and stories of people who did or did not play by them) is undone. We learn to see all of life through the eyes of Jesus, who is our Rabbi/Teacher.

5.     The moralistic and violent way we teach our faith and the timid way we preach Good News disintegrates when we realize that God desires mercy, not sacrifice.

4.     Our way of being the Church, doing mission, and even worshiping God is rendered useless when we realize that God is already with all people everywhere, drawing forth life.

3.     Our fear and exclusion of the stranger becomes a warm embrace when discover that Jesus is revealed as the stranger among us.

2.   The internal violence we do to ourselves--the judgment, accusation, and dehumanizing denial of our own desires--mercifully "relaxes into love" in the face of the One who loves us not as we should be, but as we actually are.

1.    Our fear of death and all the ways we are ruled by it is dismantled. We realize that God has removed its sting and transformed death into yet one more gateway to life; in Christ, death opens more doors than it closes.

So dear daughter, relax. You are loved. 

Mom

Day 146 Get Your Shot!

Gratitude is a vaccine, an antitoxin, and an antiseptic. Gratitude can be a vaccine that can prevent the invasion of a disgruntled attitude. As antitoxins prevent the disastrous effects of certain poisons and diseases, thanksgiving destroys the poison of faultfinding and grumbling. When trouble has smitten us, a spirit of thanksgiving is a soothing antiseptic. John Henry Jowett 

Day 145 Yes, yes, we are....

We're not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be. CS Lewis

Day 144 Focus

If you’re not where you want to be, don’t get discouraged. Stay focused on your dreams. Let God lead you to your purpose so that you can walk into your destiny.

Day 142 Gear up!

The Bible says we’re in the middle of a battle. We’re engaged in warfare, and the weapons of our warfare are not human, but mighty. When you are involved in warfare, you exert a lot of strength. You use a lot of energy. Sometimes you run out of strength, and you need to renew it. Have you ever reached a point where you were running on your own strength?  Psalm 27: 13-14 says, “I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.  Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.” The Psalmist said, “I had fainted, unless I had believed ….” Aren’t you glad he said “unless”? Aren’t you glad he didn’t say, “I had fainted” and stopped right there? Today, the testimony of many Christians is, “I had fainted.” They need to put the word “unless” in there.

The Scripture tells us that in the last days perilous times shall come. Do you know that the pioneering Christian, full of the Word of God and faith, operates in excellence in the middle of troubled times? When the going gets rough, the Christian gets going. When the going gets hard, the Christian gets motivated, because our motivation is not the by-product of what we see with our natural eyes. Our motivation springs from an eternal source of strength who is secure in His Almightiness.

Security in the Word
Our security, steadfastness, and stability are based in the Word of the living God. “I had fainted, unless I had believed.” Have you ever heard the term “just believe?” People will say, “Oh, just believe God.” But what is it that we’re to believe? Notice the Psalmist didn’t say, “I had fainted, unless I had believed I was going to heaven.” You know you are going to heaven. However, just because you are going to heaven does not mean you are going to automatically live in victory down here! Many Christians are going to heaven, but they are being dragged there by the Godhead, angels, and other Christians!

Stepping Confidently Into Tomorrow
To live in victory down here means I’ve got to believe God’s promises that belong to me while I’m living here on earth. I need promises that apply to the here and now. God doesn’t just promise us things in the by-and-by. I heard someone sing a song that said, “Yesterday’s gone, dear Jesus, and tomorrow may never be mine.” I don’t know about you, but I’m counting on tomorrow! I have plans for tomorrow. I have plans for next year. Our ministry calendar includes next year. This means that unless Jesus comes, there is nothing the devil or demons can do to stop me from stepping into my tomorrow and into the day after that, because God said to us, “With long life will I satisfy him, and show him my Salvation” (Psalm 91:6).

Are you counting on tomorrow? A cutting-edge Christian not only knows by the Spirit about his tomorrows; he lays hold on them! The Psalmist said, “…unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living…” (Psalm 27:13). He was saying, “I would have lost strength; I would have given up; I would have faltered; I would have staggered at the promises of God; I would have fallen by the wayside, never to get up again; I would have backslid; I would have died — unless I had believed I am going to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!”

When Faith Wavers
My answers are going to come while I’m still live. There is a weapon we know as time that the enemy uses against all believers. Have you ever prayed and believed, and a day later you still believed, and a week later you still believed, and a month later you still believed, and a year later you still believed, but as time went by, you began to waver and lose strength?

The enemy told you, “It’s not going to happen. You’re not praying according to the perfect will of God.” He doesn’t want you to have that thing you’re praying for. He doesn’t want you to receive it. He doesn’t want you to see it. If you begin to meditate on the devil’s words, you will wonder whether or not it is God’s best for you. You will wonder whether or not it is God’s will for you.

Living in Eternity
The enemy uses the weapon of time with each believer under the sun. Time will weary you if you live under its influence. Aren’t you glad you live in eternity already? Hallelujah! Jesus said if you live and believe in Him, you shall never die. That means even if your heart stops ticking, you keep on living. That means you have already stepped out of time and into eternity. That means you have already stepped out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of God’s dear Son. That means you have been taken out of the dominion of circumstances and all opposition of the enemy!

Day 141 God Redeems Rejection

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 2 Corinthians 1:3-5

Everyone gets rejected, but there’s something that happens whenever you take that which has been rejected and broken in you and offer it up to others in the form of compassion and understanding. This is the type of love that can change and help other people and open their hearts to the ways of God.

God is in the business of redeeming rejection for His glory. He can make all things new! Our part is to cooperate with His plan. Our own rejection can empower us to be more compassionate to the sources of our rejection. We can see them through God’s eyes. The rejection loses its power over us. We can then be tools in God’s hands to heal the pain of others’ rejection. Then we are people God can use to heal others.

Day 140 Don't Give Up!

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. 1 Corinthians 9:24-25

This is a blog post that makes me laugh. Because even though I've been a jogger earlier in my life, I hate running! I ran because it was good for my health, because it toned my muscles, because it built my lung and heart capacity. I never ran a full marathon, but I never really wanted to either....and this--this is why:

"I'm a runner—not Olympic quality; in fact, maybe I shouldn't call myself a runner. I run. Most of the time I even enjoy running! It started back when I was sixteen when the minister at my church challenged us to write down some goals for life. I still don't know why I did this but I wrote down that I wanted to run a marathon. At the time I had never driven 26.2 miles—let alone run them.

"I did absolutely nothing about that goal for about twenty years. Then one day I woke up and told my wife Cathy I wanted to run in the Los Angeles Marathon. She laughed. Ouch. The first day I went out and bought expensive running shoes, running shorts, running socks, and a headband, but I didn't have time to run. The next day I ran a mile. Can I be honest and personal? I hated it. (Oh, yeah, this is what I'm talkin about!) The problem was that I had spent a good deal of money on "running stuff" and told half the world I was going to run in this marathon. Almost every day I ran, and some of those days I almost even enjoyed it.

"With two months until the marathon, I still had only run ten miles at a time, and on that day I thought I was going to pass out! Now was the time to really move into high gear. I kept on keeping on. Mile after mile. Day after day. Okay, so there were days Cathy pushed me out the door.

"All of a sudden the day of the marathon arrived. It was just me and fifteen thousand others. Wow! If they could do it, so could I. My goal was to finish... in one day. The first thirteen miles were a breeze. At mile fifteen I caught a glimpse of Cathy and my girls cheering me on. No sweat, this marathon goal was a breeze. At mile seventeen I ate an orange. Immediately, I wanted to vomit, go to the bathroom, sleep, and stop! In fact, I was seriously considering doing all of the above at the same time. I hurt. I took my pulse and found some positive news. I wasn't dead. So I slowed my pace and kept going. I don't remember miles seventeen through twenty-two. Then for some reason all my practice paid off. I got my second wind and coasted to the finish line with bands playing and my family cheering.

"The first words out of my mouth were, "I never want to do this again!" I was tired. I was sore. I was in pain. I was sweating! After a brief rest, my feelings changed from exhaustion to pure excitement. My months of practice paid off. It worked. Discipline works.

So this is the lesson the blogger learned.... If I'd kept jogging...maybe I could have run that marathon! "God wants us to keep on keeping on. He asks us to be consistent and faithful. A consistent, faithful person is the one who gets more accomplished over the long haul...and doing great and grand things for His kingdom may be part of that."

Day 139 God's Socio-Economic System

"A voice out of Bethlehem two thousand years ago said that all men are equal. It said right would triumph. Jesus of Nazareth wrote no books, he owned no property to endow him with influence. He had no friends in the courts of the powerful. But he changed the course of mankind with only the poor and the despised. Naive and unsophisticated though we may be, the poor and despised of the twentieth century will revolutionize this era. In our "arrogance, lawlessness and ingratitude," we will fight for human justice, brotherhood, secure peace and abundance for all. When we have won these--in a spirit of unshakable nonviolence--then, in luminous splendor, the Christian era will truly begin."
 
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Day 138 Two Parts of Resting

When I was a kid, Sunday was all about what we didn't do--no newspaper, no eating out, no sports, no friends--and what we did do was no fun: church (twice), Sunday school, reading, nap. Geez. It was a kid's nightmare! But, there was a pattern there, even if the purpose got lost in legalism.

In the Old Testament, Sabbath was all about the rules, too: no work, no travel. But the in God's giving the rules, there were "shadows," pictures of something more important that God wanted noted. What we do or don't do on the Sabbath is not as important as whether you fulfill what the Sabbath portrays.

At the heart of Sabbath is rest. The Sabbath is intended to teach us to rest: it's God's stress management program! It helps us prevent burnout by letting us recover from too much pressure and catch up with ourselves. It is how to gather yourself together and become able to handle the work you have to do the rest of the week.

There are two reasons for the Sabbath. The first one is in Exodus 20:11 where God finishes creation in six days and then rests on the seventh. The he asked us, his people, to rest after six days of labor as well. Why did God rest? Because he accomplished his objective. He is telling us to recognize that there a limit to our work: there is a need to stop, to allow our body, mind, and spirit to recognize their limitations.

The second reason the Sabbath was given usually gets ignored. God said to Israel, Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day (Deuteronomy 5:15). They were to rest in order to reflect on God's ability to work through (and some weeks, despite ;) the labors they completed.

So there are two aspects of the Sabbath—creation and redemption. There is a rest of cessation; a ceasing from our own works. But then there is the rest of rejoicing in the mighty delivering power of God. Are you at rest because of the work God has done and is doing in you?

Father, in the midst of the hustle and bustle of my life, teach me that I need to enter into the rest of creation and redemption. Amen.

Day 137 Staying Connected

Our deepest desires and our course in life will ultimately lead us to our purpose. God didn't put a purpose in you to have that purpose unfulfilled. Stay connected to him and everything will line up.

Day 135 A Shining Star

Shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life… Philippians 2:16a

A life marked by thankfulness builds character.  The world is a dark place, so shine like a star--you hold the word of life!

Day 135 God's Glasses

Guess what. God sees you differently than people do. People look at the externals; God looks at the heart. God always sees our potential. Yep, the P word. He knows who we are and who we can be.

While other people look at the externals of our lives and accept or reject us accordingly, God sees the heart. He also sees us as His own children, wholly and dearly loved. That’s the perspective we need: that we are God’s children—We are his flesh and blood. There is nothing we can or he will do to change that.

Fully comprehending God’s love for us gives us power. His love is unconditional. He knows everything about us—and still loves us. His love has the power to stop our heads from moving side to side to see what others think of us. This love focuses our eyes on the One whose opinion really matters—God.

Ephesians 1:4 says, “Long ago, even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.” Wow. Without fault. That’s how God sees you. Nobody else sees you that way! Because God loves you, there’s no need to prove your self-worth. That is so relaxing…and freeing!

Getting our perspective straight and resting in the knowledge that He loves us—gives us the impetus we need to get busy living our lives for an audience of One.

Day 134 God is Deficient

Father Placidus, a Benedictine Monk, has an unusual way of seeing things. When a friend asked him what he had been reflecting on lately, Placidus said, "I'm contemplating the deficiencies of God. There are three. God is bad at math; He leaves 99 to save one. God has a bad memory; He is always forgetting our sins. God is wasteful; He makes 120 gallons of the best wine, and that's a lot of wine for one party."

Seeing God this way is a counter-intuitive, disorienting experience. Jesus reveals the majesty, power, and greatness of God in ways that are less than what we expect.... When we see God through the eyes of Jesus we begin to let go of our kid-glasses that fashion God into some kind of cosmic superhero who is bigger, better, stronger, and faster than all the other gods ("My dad can beat up your dad"). 

Jesus reveals that the "super hero" god that many of us worship is a false god--an exaggerated vision (born of fear) of our own making.  Often that view is supported and legitimized by institutional religion, which gives it an air of sacredness, truth, and superiority.

To contemplate God in and through the life of Jesus is to meet One who is OTHER--One who is radically and mercifully different than what we are conditioned to expect. Unless we are made ready by life (usually through unwanted suffering), we usually meet this vision with resistance. We resist it, not because it is so much more than we expect, but because it is so much less.

The best way to describe God's otherness is not in terms of God's mega-greatness (as egos are prone to), but to describe it in terms of deficiency, weakness, and smallness--something only poets, prophets, and mystics dare to do. The all-powerful (omnipotent), all-knowing (omniscient), all-present (omnipresent) God comes off as a scrawny, limited, not-so-wise, antihero when we contemplate God through the eyes of Jesus. Re-read the Gospel accounts in light of Isaiah's prophesies:

He had no form or majesty that we should look at him,

                        nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

            He was despised and rejected by others;

                        a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity;

            and as one from whom others hide their faces

                        he was despised, and we held him of no account.

(Is. 53:2-3)

Maybe God's greatest deficiency (from our perspective) is God's weakness. This may prove to be the hardest of all the "blessings" to contemplate. With great resistance and only begrudgingly do we allow God to be weak for 33 years, but as soon as Jesus is resurrected we insist on clothing him with super-hero, mega-god powers. 

We need him to be the God who is bigger, better, stronger and faster than others. Our super-hero egos cannot tolerate a weak God, but this is precisely what we are given in Jesus. Does the resurrection change the character of Christ? No--It affirms God's character for all generations. God is not weak for 33 years so that God can be something else for eternity. In the resurrection God's weakness is that much more true--eternally true! Theologian Jurgen Moltmann puts it this way, "If Christ is weak and humble on earth, then God is weak and humble in heaven." Wow!

To be truly transformed by the blessing of Jesus we must contemplate this weakness.  We must let the blessing of God's weakness offend and scandalize us if necessary until it finally comforts and transforms us. Eventually we are drawn into the mystery and paradox of God's power so that like Paul, we can contemplate the "weakness of God" (1 Cor. 1:25) and truly declare, "power is made perfect in weakness" (1 Cor. 12:9).

 As you pray the Examen this week, contemplate the deficiencies of God as well as your own. Which deficiencies are easiest/hardest for you to give thanks? Ask God to relax you into his weakness (and your own) and ask for the faith to let it transform you.  It is the promise of the Gospel. 

Do you believe this? I don't know if I do.... It sounds sort of blasphemous!

  

Commit to eating a meal this week using your "weak" hand, and I will too. It will provide an opportunity to think about it! Love, Mom

 

Day 133 Till the Soil

Every moment and every event of every person's life on earth plants something in their soul. For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in our minds and wills. Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost because we are not prepared to receive them: the seeds that spring up land in the soil of freedom, spontaneity, and love.

Thomas Merton
New Seeds of Contemplation

Day 132 Out of the Zone

They asked him to stay longer, but he declined." Acts 18:20 
 

I love comfort, but following Christ means that God gets dibs on leading me out of my comfort zone.

Paul's life was far from comfortable.... When he wasn't in prison for preaching about Jesus, he had a packed travel schedule. He preached in Thessalonica, traveled to Berea, spoke in the synagogue in Athens, made his way to Corinth, set sail for Syria, and made a brief stop in Ephesus. 

And at Ephesus, the crowd was eager for him to stay. It would be easy to settle in with new friends to enjoy a respite from the unfriendly religious leaders, accusations, and fatigue. Instead, Paul said a simple goodbye with a promise to return one day.

Journeys by definition take us outside our comfort zone. But they're also a front row seat to watching God work. God is powerful in your own life as you journey into the lives of others this year.... Paul likely also experienced this kind of spiritual excitement on his journeys. You're making a difference in the lives of the people you work with and live around!

Maybe Paul didn't linger in comfortable places because he had discovered the joy of walking straight into the lives of people who needed a Savior. Faith is an adventure, and God sometimes calls us away from our safe places.

I love to get comfy. It feels good to be settled. It's nice to know what to expect. But if you sense God inviting you out of your comfort zone, are you willing to go? When God leads us out of our comfort zones, we experience uncharted territory. We might even come to the end of ourselves.

But we also have the privilege of being a small part of a big plan, offering our willing hearts and seeing the work only God can do.

Dear Lord, I'm willing to step outside my comfort zone to discover Your plan for me. In Jesus' Name, Amen.

Day 129 Rejection Sucks

Yup, rejection sucks. Who doesn't struggle with low self-worth and fear rejection at times? No one, I'd guess. 

Everybody gets rejected: it makes us angry, afraid, and annoyed. One of the sad results of living with rejection can be developing a skewed understanding of God.... We start to think that He’s sitting on our shoulder ready and eager to bust our chops for any infraction of "da rules."

We forget that He loves us--and that His love is abundant and complete.

God isn’t about rejection. It doesn't matter how you perform--or don't. He doesn’t care if you have a big nose or can’t play baseball or failed geometry or want to talk more than most people want to listen. His arms are always open wide. Not only that, he made you just the way you are, and he happens to enjoy just being with you--a lot!

You know that Jesus gets what it feels like to be rejected. So when we get rejected, we're in good company. He knows exactly what we’re going through.

Rejection in this life is inevitable. The pain of rejection is real. BUT so is the unlimited love and comfort of Jesus. Feeling rejected? Run to Jesus. He’s waiting for YOU with open arms.

Day 128 Remember to Revel!

We probably ought to be careful about deciding we're feeling offended: it can get old after a while.
And we become offended in all the ways God isn't.
The seat of offendedness (like the seat of judgment) can be a really tricky spot to occupy.
Before we know it, offense can become a twenty-four-hour-a-day job.

It becomes all we're known for, and when we're all caught up in all the things we're against, we forget the beauty of the things we're supposed to be for.
We forget what the kingdom of God looks like and all the wonderfully odd characters taking up residence there.
We forget to revel in dappled things.
We forget we're dappled.

David Dark, Everyday Apocalypse

Day 127 What's Full Life?

The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy: I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:10

 Kelly McFadden played competitive  and professional volleyball for thirteen years. Most of the time she was an energetic, passionate player, but when she was 18, she was plagued with fear.

Most people wouldn't have noticed, but if you were on Kelly's team, you'd see that she froze up. She couldn't get the ball where it needed to go. She felt humiliated.... Anxiety, fear, pressure, and desire to perform well all built up, and she just couldn't do it. In her head, she imagined the voice of her coach saying she was weak, horrible, and letting the team down.

It was a lie.

The truth is, God had gifted her--and you--with ability. For every truth, though, there is a lie. Satan comes to steal our joy and keep us from believing the truth. These lies made us believe we will never be good enough, never be as good as, or never amount to anything. They were coupled with unrealistic expectations and a voice that simply said over and over, “You’re awful. There is something wrong with you.”

This happens in other areas of life as well. Instead of resting in the fact that God loves us and made us just the way He wanted to, we get caught up in the lies. The lies say we are bad people. The lies say we cannot be forgiven, that we are unlovable, that we deserve pain, and if I don’t read my Bible enough, God will not be near…

Here is the truth: God made each of us purposefully. He uniquely crafted us with exactly the right skills, talents, and abilities. Rejoice and be glad in how the Lord made you. He is your Father and you are His child. He wants to give you good gifts, and He delights in you. He loves you unconditionally.

Don’t let the lies of Satan gain a foothold in your life. Stand firm on the truth—God’s truth.

Day 126 From Another

An epiphany is not an experience from within, but one that we can only be open to and receive from another. Epiphanies leave us totally out of control, and they always demand that we change.

-- Richard Rohr, St. Anthony Messenger

Day 125 Be Kind

I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world), that you will, when you need to, be wise, and that you will always be kind. If you're reading this, then I want you to know that I aspire to be as kind in my speech and attitudes as you are, my daughter.

You're my one of my (two) heroes. Love you. Mom

Day 124 The Original Revolution

It's not a surprise to me, but still delightfully scary that the root meaning of the term evangelion [gospel] gets translated today to the word "revolution."

Originally "gospel" wasn't a religious or a personal term at all, but a secular one that meant "good news."

But evangelion isn't just news about any welcome piece of information, it's news that affects the fate of the community. "Good news" is the report brought by a runner to a Greek city about a distant battle that has been won and preserves the community's freedom; or it's news that a son has been born to the king, assuring a generation of political stability.

"Gospel" is good news having seriously to do with people's welfare.... Whatever it is that God is about to do, it will be good news for the poor, bad news for the proud and the rich; it will be change, including changed economic and social relations.

John Howard Yoder, The Original Revolution

Day 122 Lost and Found

There are many ways to get lost. Sometimes it helps to just acknowledge that you may have gotten lost lately through no choice of your own.

It can happen anywhere, in all kinds of ways.... You can get lost on your way home. You can get lost looking for love. You can get lost between jobs. You can get lost looking for God. However and whenever it may happen, you can take heart.

Others before you have found a way in the wilderness, where there are as many angels as there are wild beasts, and plenty of other lost people too. All it takes is one of them to find you. All it takes is you to find one of them.

However it happens, you could do worse than to kneel down and ask a blessing, remembering how many knees have kissed this altar before you....We may get lost while we wander, but we are not alone!

Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World

Day 121 Whole lotta Kissing goin' on!

At the Christmas Eve service, the pastor said, "The incarnation is God's kiss on the mouth of humanity." Adults looked up from their bulletins. Kids giggled. The image struck a chord...or maybe a nerve. A ten year old boy sitting near us leaned over to his dad and said (not so quietly), "Kissed on the mouth? That's gross!"

The difference between "saints" and the rest of us is that saints know they have been kissed by God. Of course, the rest of us have also been kissed by God, we just don't know it.... Not yet.    

Knowing God's kiss (Or what monks call "mystical union".... Creepy, eh?) changes everything. This knowing can't be taught. It must be experienced. This new knowing relaxes us into a deeper certainty -- one that softens our edges and opens our center to all of life -- its joys and sorrows, its beauty and affliction. Our souls expand, and we find room for things we never thought possible. God's kiss returns us to ourselves and we become real: we become human. This is what it means to be kissed by God. This is our blessing in Christ.

  

God's kiss takes many forms in the Bible. God kisses the dirt and we become human. God kisses Cain after murdering his brother protecting Cain (and others) from further violence. God kisses Hagar when she's alone in the dessert fleeing for her life. God kisses Abraham on a mountain when he's preparing to sacrifice his son Isaac. God kisses Jacob in a wrestling match that leaves him wounded but transformed. God kisses Moses in a burning bush and later on a mountain with his "hind parts."(Now that's an image!) God kisses Elijah in silence at the mouth of a cave. God kisses Isaiah on the lips with burning coals. The Spirit descends at the baptism and God kisses the Son.

  

The form of the kiss varies, but in each case the kiss transforms. Always. That is how we (and others) know that we have been kissed by God. There is no kiss without transformation and no transformation without a kiss. 

  

In the definitive act of "mystical union," God kisses Mary and she conceives. (It's the inverse of the Genesis story.) Eastern traditions call Mary, Theotokos, which means God-bearer. 

Sadly, in our efforts to protect the Incarnation as the unique event that it is, we have sealed it in "doctrinal purity" and thrown away the key.  That means we cut ourselves off from its ongoing liberating power, and it becomes an event with no encore. As hard as it might be for a westernized, literalistic, patriarchal, overly-sexualized, male-dominated church culture to hear, we are all heirs to this kiss. 

Like Mary, we all bear God in some way.  

We are all empowered by the Spirit to give birth to the holy.  This is God's great pleasure -- to be born in and through humanity. When we are not giving birth to the holy in our own lives, we are midwives helping others give birth to the holy in theirs. What a mystery! 

  

Incarnation is not only the celebration of God becoming flesh in Jesus.  It is also the reminder that God wants to be born again and again and again. It all begins with a kiss - the kiss of God in Christ. This is our blessing.

Day 120 Who New

The beginning of the spiritual life is often difficult not only because the powers which cause us to worry are so strong but also because the presence of God’s Spirit seems barely noticeable.

If, however, we are faithful to our disciplines, a new hunger will make itself known. This new hunger is the first sign of God’s presence. When we remain attentive to this divine presence, we will be led always deeper into the kingdom. There, to our joyful surprise, we will discover that all things are being made new. 


Henri Nouwen