compassion

Standard

“The compassion that Jesus felt was obviously quite different from superficial or passing feelings of sorrow or sympathy.  Rather, it extended to the most vulnerable part of Jesus’ being.  It is related to the Hebrew word for compassion, rachamim, which refers to the womb of Yahweh.  Indeed, compassion is such a deep, central, and powerful emotion in Jesus that it can only be described as a movement of the womb of God.  There, all the divine tenderness lies hidden.

There, God is father and mother, brother and sister, son and daughter.  There, all feelings, emotions, and passions are one in divine love.  When Jesus was moved to compassion, the source of all life trembled, the ground of all love burst open, and the abyss of God’s immense, inexhaustible, and unfathomable tenderness revealed itself.”

~ Henri Nouwen in Compassion: A Reflection on the Christian Life

Monday Morning Reflections

Standard

“To have found God, to have experience the Holy One in the intimacy of our being, to have lived even for one hour in the fire of his Trinity and the bliss of his Unity clearly makes us say: ‘Now I understand.  You alone are enough for me.’” -From The God Who Comes by Carlo Garretto

“What if Jesus Meant All That Stuff?”

Standard

shane claibourne’s article in esquire magazine…

“I have a friend in the UK who talks about “dirty theology” — that we have a God who is always using dirt to bring life and healing and redemption, a God who shows up in the most unlikely and scandalous ways. After all, the whole story begins with God reaching down from heaven, picking up some dirt, and breathing life into it. At one point, Jesus takes some mud, spits in it, and wipes it on a blind man’s eyes to heal him. (The priests and producers of anointing oil were not happy that day.)

In fact, the entire story of Jesus is about a God who did not just want to stay “out there” but who moves into the neighborhood, a neighborhood where folks said, “Nothing good could come.” It is this Jesus who was accused of being a glutton and drunkard and rabble-rouser for hanging out with all of society’s rejects, and who died on the imperial cross of Rome reserved for bandits and failed messiahs. This is why the triumph over the cross was a triumph over everything ugly we do to ourselves and to others. It is the final promise that love wins.

It is this Jesus who was born in a stank manger in the middle of a genocide. That is the God that we are just as likely to find in the streets as in the sanctuary, who can redeem revolutionaries and tax collectors, the oppressed and the oppressors… a God who is saving some of us from the ghettos of poverty, and some of us from the ghettos of wealth.”

 

Reflections from T. Merton

Standard

DSC_0850

“one who is content with what he has, and who accepts the fact that he inevitably misses very much in life, is far better off than one who has much more but who worries about all he may be missing.  for we cannot make the best of what we are, if our hearts are always divded between what we are and what we are not…

we cannot be happy if we expect to live all the time at the highest peak of intensity.  happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony…

let us, therefore, learn to pass from one imperfect activity to another without worrying too much about what we are missing.”

~ thomas merton in seeds

Tuesday Morning Reflection

Standard

DSC_0629_2

to struggle used to be
to grab with both hands

and shake
and twist
and turn
and push
and shove and not give in

but wrest an answer from it all
as jacob did a blessing.

but there is another way
to struggle with an issue, a question –
simply to jump

off

into the abyss
and find ourselves

floating
falling
tumbling
being led

slowly and gently
but surely
to the answers god has for us –
to watch the answers unfold
before our eyes and still
to be a part of the unfolding

but, oh! the trust
necessary for this new way!
not to be always reaching out
for the old hand-holds.

~a new way of struggling by susan w. n. ruach

Monday Morning Reflections

Standard

DSC_0406

“The spiritual life is not a life before, after, or beyond our everyday existence.  No, the spiritual life can only be real when it is lived in the midst of the pains and joys of the here and now.  Therefore we need to begin with a careful look at the way we think, speak, feel, and act from hour to hour, day to day, week to week, and year to year, in order to become more fully aware of our hunger for the Spirit.

As long as we have only a vague inner feeling of discontent with our present way of living, and only an indefinite desire for ‘things spiritual,’ our lives will continue to stagnate in a generalized melancholy.  We often say, “I am not very happy.  I am not content with the way my life is going.  I am not really joyful or peaceful, but I just don’t know how things can be different, and I guess I have to be realistic and accept my life as it is.”  It is this mood of resignation that prevents us from actively searching for the life of the Spirit.

Our first task is to dispel the vague, murky feeling of discontent and to look critically at how we are living our lives.  This requires honest, courage, and trust.  We must honestly unmask and courageously confront our many self-deceptive games.  We must trust that our honest and courage will lead us not to despair, but to a new heaven and a new earth.”

– From Making All Things New by Henri J. M. Nouwen

Saturday’s Reading Material

Standard

9780060834494

“Loving of God is not an optional extra or a passion for fanatics.  It is defining love out of which grows the peace, belonging, and sense of direction that we seek.  As I put it earlier, our ability to find and do the will of God is deeply dependent on our capacity for loving God.  A hunger for God’s will cannot be grafted onto a life lived on other terms.  It has to flow form a life lived in vital connection with God.  Much of the frustration we experience in finding and doing God’s will seems to originate here, and there are a number of reasons for it.  But one in particular is worth nothing: We blithely suppose that we can have the benefits of a relationship with God without the effort of nuturing the love in which it is grounded.

In a world marked by broken relationships of one kind or another, this expectation is not surprising.  We want intimacy without sacrifice, relationships on our own terms, emotional high without lows, getting without giving.  These are not the patterns that foster love, however, and that is why many of our relationships flounder in the way they do.

It should not surprise us that the same is true of our relationship with God.  When Jesus taught that in loving others we love God, I am convinced that he was not only urging his hearers to be loving but giving expression to a principle deeply at work in our lives.  If we cannot comprehend that our lives are deeply dependent on not only receiving love but giving love, then we are not likely to recognize the same deep rhythm at work in our relationship with God.

So if we live our lives in a way that is uninformed by that kind of love and then se suddenly seek God in a crisis or at an important crossroad, it is a small wonder that God seems remote and unmoved by our need.  It is, if you will, a bit like accosting someone one a sidewalk and demanding, ‘Meet my need.’  If intimacy is missing, it may be because we have failed to nurture it.

Finding and doing the will of God is not a matter of locating that one thing on a divine to-do list with your name alongside it.  Finding and doing the will of God is a creative, life-giving response to the world about you that flows from a love of God.”

Frederick W. Schmidt’s “What God Wants for Your Life”

Discerning Divinity in Process

Standard

On the Mystery: Discerning Divinity in Process

A little from Catherine Keller’s On the Mystery: Discerning Divinity in Process that I’m in the midst of for my Emotional Intelligence course…

“Those who know suffering come closer to a truth about the creation: the future is open, alarmingly or promisingly.  The way is not laid out in advance.  Creation itself is in process.  Our own way forward has not yet been charted.  There may be no trail before us at all.  Sometimes one can only move forward in faith: that is, in courage and confidence, not in a delusional certainty.

Process is ongoing.  Amidst trials and tribulations, life is going on.  Exoduses happen.  But, like Moses, you may not make it to the promised land.  That possibility didn’t paralyze him.  ‘Hope,’ says the theologian Karl Barth, laying to rest any facile faith in end-times or immortality, comes ‘ in the act of taking the next step.’” (Keller, 9)

Christianity for the Rest of Us

Standard

From Diana Butler Bass’ Christianity for the Rest of Us…fabulous book about life and vitality of congregations…

Diana Butler Bass' Christianity for the Rest of Us

“Being a Christian is not a one-moment miracle of salvation. It takes practice. It is a process of faith and a continuing conversion. And it can be a long walk. Practices invite weary nomads to join the journey, to find home, to create a different kind of village, to enter the memory of Jesus. And practices serve as signposts along the way, pointing toward the tracings of others who have marked the Christian path. Without them, we would be lost.”

Contemplative Youth Ministry

Standard

From Mark Yaconelli’s Growing Souls: Experiments in Contemplative Youth Ministry.

“Youth, seeking to enter adulthood, are looking for guides or mentors who can show them adult forms of life that radiate with the love of Christ…

In our interviews with youth it became abundantly clear that young people aren’t interested in the words their teachers are speaking as much as the life and soul from which these words arise.  As the adults in our project began to experience transformation, they expressed a deepened desire to be authentic and caring toward the youth in their ministries.  They sought to share their growing spiritual passion with the youth of their church and to provide settings, where the youth could also experience this newfound life.

Suddenly, youth ministry became a place of nourishment and creative exploration.  Ministry was now about exploring experiences of God and activities of faith alongside young people.  These leaders had been freed to become disciples among youth rather than experts transferring religious information.”