Musings on Kierkegaard

This week I am participating in a Pastor/Theologian Retreat with 10 other minsters and a seminary professor.  We are spending part of our days hiking and conversing along the trails in Rocky Mountain National Park and another part in more formal conversations around several pre-assigned books.  One of the authors we are discussing is the 18th century Danish philosopher/theologian Soren Kierkegaard.  We have been reminded of how influential Kierkegaard is on our modern western understanding of the world even to the point of coining phrases and ideas that are now common place.  Here is a partial list:  "Leap of faith."  The "Masked man."   We are "people not numbers."  "Subjectivity is truth."   "What labels me negates me."   "Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced."   "Life must be understood backward, but lived forward."

Below are a couple of my favorite Kierkegaard parables for you to ponder:

"A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that's just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who believe it's a joke."

----------------------------

"There was a little town of Ducks. Every Sunday the ducks waddle out of their houses and waddle down Main Street to their church. They waddle into the sanctuary and squat in their proper pews. The duck choir waddles in and takes it place, then the duck minister comes forward and opens the duck Bible (Ducks, like all other creatures on earth, seem to have their own special version of the Scriptures.) He reads to them: “Ducks! God has given you wings! With wings you can fly! With wings you can mount up and soar like eagles. No walls can confine you! No fences can hold you! You have wings. God has given you wings and you can fly like birds!” All the ducks shouted “Amen!” And they all waddled home."

Important Reminder!   

One Eternal Presence will be using a new email delivery system beginning next week.  If you wish to remain on the emailing list you must take a minute to subscribe. Please follow the link and complete the simple process which will include a verification email to activate your subscription.    SUBSCRIBE HERE

FYI - there is no need to unsubscribe to the present service as that will take place automatically on August 1 if you do not subscribe to the new service.   Actually unsubscribing now will prevent you from receiving it through July.

If you have any questions please let me know.

Thanks to each of you and I look forward to many more weeks and years of sharing with you.   

Theodicy

Sometimes I am asked if I really do believe in One Eternal Presence of God that encompasses all of Creation, then how do I understand and experience the fear, hatred, and violence in our world?  I must confess that in recent days I've asked myself the same question.  Sometimes I do feel like the agnostic fleas below.

Very little seems to make sense when innocent people are shot out of the sky, communities and families bombarded and destroyed, children seek safety only to be met by  military troops, and a man is murdered on a city sidewalk by those who are supposed to protect.

The truth is there are no logical, reasonable answers to the age old questions of theodicy, or the problem of why a good God would allow evil.  Every religious tradition seems to have its particular perspective and teachings some of which include elaborate mythologies of cosmic, spiritual battles between good and evil forces, with the good always winning out in the end. But these mythologies and theologies seem to always fall just short of a truly satisfying resolution.

Another truth is that regardless of our ideological or theological explanations of evil; fearful, hateful, and violent acts still persist, and as a result we experience suffering.  Humanity has a knack for causing ourselves and the natural world pain.  It is true that when we harm another we equally, if not more so, harm ourselves.

When I get caught in this paradox of good and evil I am reminded of how the teachings of the world's religions continually call us back to a simplicity of living in love that Jesus says is "Loving God with our whole lives, and loving each other as we love ourselves."  To me this means recognizing that God "Is" eternally present throughout all of Creation, in every person I meet, every flower I see, every molecule of water I drink, and every breath of air I take.

Does this make pain and suffering go away?  Of course not, but it does allow an ember of hope to glow within the most seemly hopeless situations.  It reminds me that the worst things in life often contain the seed of the next good thing.  It also reminds me that when we fail to recognize the God in each and every fellow human being and the entire created order we open the door to fear, hate and violence.

So, perhaps in the end the ultimate question of theodicy is not really a God problem but a people problem.  And the answers lie within our own actions.   
Love God (God is everywhere).  
Love neighbor (Everyone is our neighbor).  
Do unto others as I would have them do unto me (We are all in this together).

An Invitation to Participate in a Ramadan Iftar

tomorrow evening, July 24, 2014.

Get complete details and signup here.

Important Reminder!  Just one week left.
July is migration month for One Eternal Presence
If you haven't already subscribed as outlined below please do so now. 

One Eternal Presence will be using a new email delivery system beginning in August. If you wish to remain on the emailing list you must take a minute to subscribe. Please follow the link and complete the simple process which will include a verification email to activate your subscription.    SUBSCRIBE HERE

FYI - there is no need to unsubscribe to the present service as that will take place automatically on August 1 if you do not subscribe to the new service.   Actually unsubscribing now will prevent you from receiving it through July.

If you have any questions please let me know.

Thanks to each of you and I look forward to many more weeks and years of sharing with you.       



 

Stone In My Shoe

Today very soon into my morning walk I noticed a stone in my shoe.  At first I thought, "it's not that big and will probably work its way somewhere into my shoe so I don't even notice it."  So I walked on listening to a podcast in my earbuds.  Unfortunately, the stone stayed right in the middle of my shoe and with every step I took it became larger and larger, but I kept walking.  That's when I noticed I had not heard the last five minutes of the podcast because I was thinking about the stone in my shoe.  In my imagination the stone had become a boulder, much like this one:

I finally interrupted my pace, paused the podcast, sat down and unlaced my walking shoe to find this:

How often do we do this very thing with events in our lives?  How often do we make a "mountain out of a mole hill" or a boulder out of a tiny pebble?  How often does a small irritation become a major problem because we didn't address the small irritation in the first place?  I think if we are honest with ourselves the answer to all of these is "Too often!"

It just so happened that when I went back in the podcast to hear what I had missed while contemplating my "boulder" I heard this quote from author Tony Robbins to which I add my own words in red, "Five years from now, if you remember at all, you’re gonna laugh or smile at whatever’s stressing you out now, so why wait?!?” 

So, what's stressing you now?  Is it a boulder or a tiny pebble?  What will it look like in five years?

My guess is that it's probably a tiny pebble worth at least a big smile, if not a chuckle!   So, why wait?

Important Reminder!  Just two weeks left.
July is migration month for One Eternal Presence
If you haven't already subscribed as outlined below please do so now. 

One Eternal Presence will be using a new email delivery system beginning in August. If you wish to remain on the emailing list you must take a minute to subscribe. Please follow the link and complete the simple process which will include a verification email to activate your subscription.    SUBSCRIBE HERE

FYI - there is no need to unsubscribe to the present service as that will take place automatically on August 1 if you do not subscribe to the new service.   Actually unsubscribing now will prevent you from receiving it through July.

If you have any questions please let me know.

Thanks to each of you and I look forward to many more weeks and years of sharing with you.       

  

"Faith?"

When he entered the house, the blind men came to him; and Jesus said to them, ‘Do you believe that I am able to do this?’ They said to him, ‘Yes, Lord.’ Then he touched their eyes and said, ‘According to your faith let it be done to you.’ And their eyes were opened.
~ The Gospel According to Matthew, chapter 9


I've been thinking about faith recently and exactly what does it mean to be a person of faith.

As best I can determine the word "faith" (pistis in New Testament Greek) appears in the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke 24 times.  In every instance Jesus observes and acknowledges faith as an active agent in others that leads to seemingly impossible results, usually healing and wholeness, or what we would refer to as a miracle.  Jesus commends people for their faith and also scolds some for lack of it.  

In every instance faith is something profound within the person that leads to action.  Jesus never refers to faith as adherence to doctrine, ritual, or custom, nor does he define it.  Jesus leaves the definition of faith to be determined by the results of its presence or absence. 

Once when Jesus disciples had some problems with an exorcism this little exchange took place:  

Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, ‘Why could we not cast it out?’ He said to them, ‘Because of your little faith. For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there”, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.’   
~ Matthew chapter 17.

All of this seems to prompt the questions, is there evidence of faith in our world and our lives, our "communities of faith", or "faith based communities" ?  

Are there stories of healing and wholeness?  Are mountains being moved into seas?  Are we or not "people of faith?"

If I were on trial for being a "person of faith" according to Jesus criteria would there be enough evidence to convict me?

Important Reminder!
July is migration month for One Eternal Presence
If you haven't already subscribed as outlined below please do so now. 

One Eternal Presence will be using a new email delivery system beginning in August. If you wish to remain on the emailing list you must take a minute to subscribe. Please follow the link and complete the simple process which will include a verification email to activate your subscription.    SUBSCRIBE HERE

FYI - there is no need to unsubscribe to the present service as that will take place automatically on August 1 if you do not subscribe to the new service.   Actually unsubscribing now will prevent you from receiving it through July.

If you have any questions please let me know.

Thanks to each of you and I look forward to many more weeks and years of sharing with you.       

Love and Compassion

"Love your neighbor as yourself."
~ Jesus (and countless others)

For the past six months or so in Saturday Morning Mindfulness that meets at our church we have been spending a portion of our time exploring love and compassion in our lives.

The exercise we do is pretty simple and straight forward.  While in a mindful awareness (simply sitting relaxed, still and silent) we remember a time when we felt unconditional love and acceptance in our lives.  This could be a long standing relationship with another person, the devotion from a pet, a fleeting encounter experienced in a smile or eye contact with a stranger, or even a moment in nature when we felt connected and accepted for who we are. In the exercise we call this remembered feeling our "benefactor."

After identifying our benefactor, whoever or whatever that may be, we imagine ourselves bathed in the light of our benefactor, and then that light resting and glowing deep within us.  We relax in that feeling of total, unconditional love and acceptance of who we are.

The next steps of the exercise invite us to share this light of unconditional love with others as we imagine and envision the light of love within us going out to someone else with no strings attached.  We imagine the same unconditional love and acceptance that rests and glows deep within us as also resting and glowing in others.

We do this first with someone close to us with whom we already have a loving relationship.  This is the easy part.  Then we identify a neutral relationship in our lives, perhaps a person we see regularly on the sidewalk, in a frequently used business, at the gym, or in our place of worship, and we extend our light of love to them.  Finally comes the difficult part which is to extend our light of love to someone with whom we have an adversarial relationship, someone who has harmed or hurt us, someone who we truly dislike.  In all cases we project the unconditional love and acceptance of our benefactor to others without the expectation of anything in return.

Finally we return to the light of love and acceptance within us and rest in it for a moment before ending the exercise.

I invite you to find a few minutes today or sometime soon and try this simple mindful practice of experiencing love and practicing compassion in your life.  The more you do it, the more you will begin to recognize and feel the love within you, as well as the countless opportunities to share that love with others, even people you don't know, and especially people with whom you are in conflict.

Important Reminder!

One Eternal Presence will be using a new email delivery system beginning in August. If you wish to remain on the emailing list you must take a minute to subscribe. Please follow the link and complete the simple process which will include a verification email to activate your subscription.    SUBSCRIBE HERE

FYI - there is no need to unsubscribe to the present service as that will take place automatically on August 1 if you do not subscribe to the new service.   Actually unsubscribing now will prevent you from receiving it through July.

If you have any questions please let me know.

Thanks to each of you and I look forward to many more weeks and years of sharing with you.       

Good Choices

“Everything can be taken from a [person] but one thing; the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
~ Victor Frankel, "Man's Search for Meaning"

"...whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."
~ The Apostle Paul, Philippians 4:8

Regardless of the circumstances in our lives, we can always choose how we respond to whatever our situation may be.  The statements above come from two men who experienced unimaginable pain and persecution in their lives yet chose to respond in positive ways.  

Victor Frankel survived the horrors of loosing his entire family and nearly his own life in the Nazi genocide of World War II.  He became a neurologist, psychiatrist, author, and founder of the psychiatric school of Logotherapy.  

The Apostle Paul endured persecution, imprisonment, and beatings while spreading the teaching of Jesus and organizing the early followers of Jesus into communities of faith that would eventually become Christianity.

These are both dramatic, nearly larger than life, examples of choosing to respond in positive ways.  However, our lives are filled with nearly constant choices within all the circumstances of our lives.  We never know when a small choice will, in retrospect, become a large one, so why not try as Paul says to choose to find the good in all situations.

This is not always easy to do, however the first step is realizing we have choice and the ability to respond.  We can't change the reality of a situation but we can always choose our response to it.  As Frankel says, the one thing that can't be taken away from us is our innermost response-ability.

As I use to say to our children when they were teenagers (and sometimes still do), but now mostly say to myself,  "Make good choices."

I don't always make true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, or excellence choice, but when I do, the world looks a whole lot better. 

Important Reminder!

One Eternal Presence will be using a new email delivery system beginning in August. If you wish to remain on the emailing list you must take a minute to subscribe. Please follow the link and complete the simple process which will include a verification email to activate your subscription.    SUBSCRIBE HERE

FYI - there is no need to unsubscribe to the present service as that will take place automatically on August 1 if you do not subscribe to the new service.   Actually unsubscribing now will prevent you from receiving it through July.

If you have any questions please let me know.

Thanks to each of you and I look forward to many more weeks and years of sharing with you.       

Migration

I've been on vacation for a couple of weeks and one of the things I allowed some rest was One Eternal Presence.  I considered re-posting previous blogs just to keep the space occupied but decided instead to give you a rest as well.  I hope you've missed it.    For me, this little break has prompted me to reflect on how it all began and where it is going.

Three years ago on June 15, 2011, I posted the first entry to a blog I had created in order to reflect on and share my experiences while on a three month sabbatical.  I called the blog "One Eternal Presence" which was the guiding theme of my sabbatical.   Shortly after returning from sabbatical I began sharing at this same website weekly thoughts, reflections, and messages with members and friends of our congregation.  Others began to subscribe and soon I was emailing these weekly messages to over 180 people.  135 post later here we are.

The email delivery system I use tells me that approximately 40% of you regularly read (or at least open) the email.  I'm also told that this is a pretty good percentage for a blog. I truly appreciate each of you who regularly reads the blog, and especially those of you who offer occasional comments and insights.  I get regular feedback that my musings are meaningful to you.

So with all of this in mind, I'm making a few changes to One Eternal Presence, mostly in how and to whom it is sent.  Beginning in August I will use a different delivery system which will require each of you to actively subscribe to One Eternal Presence. Until then you will receive it as usual.  After August 1 only those who have subscribed through the new delivery system will receive it.  I'll be reminding you during June and throughout July, giving us plenty of time to migrate.  Then in August we start out with a fresh mailing list of those who have intentionally subscribed for the sole purpose of receiving One Eternal Presence.

The content of One Eternal Presence will pretty much continue to be my personal musings in conversation with ideas and wisdom from other sources, as well as your comments.

So, let's get started.  If you wish to remain on the One Eternal Presence emailing list please follow the link and complete the simple process which will include a verification email to activate your subscription.    SUBSCRIBE HERE

FYI - there is no need to unsubscribe to the present service as that will take place automatically on August 1 if you do not subscribe to the new service.   Actually unsubscribing now will prevent you from receiving it through July.

If you have any questions please let me know.

Again, thanks to each of you and I look forward to many more weeks and years of sharing with you.

The Past Is Not Dead!

A couple of days ago on Memorial Day I posted a photo on Facebook in memory of my father.  The photo was taken in the early days of World War II  at Camp Rucker, Alabama one of the places Daddy trained before going to the South Pacific.

Then, only a few minutes after posting the photo I went outside our house here in DC and look what I found:

And some people don't believe in resurrection, reincarnation, and incarnation!  It's just like William Faulkner said, "The past is not dead,  It's not even past."

Two Metaphors for God

Today I simply offer for our consideration a quote from Rabbi Lawrence Kushner as heard on the current "On Being with Krista Tippett."  

There are two ways to understand our relationship with God. I'm going to say right up front that they are both just metaphors, relax. Just metaphors. The first one, picture a big circle and the big circle represents God. And then picture below it a very tiny little circle. And that represents you in the world. And because the big circle is above the little circle, it's naturally hierarchical, and therefore it’s generically masculine and welcome to Western religion. All of Western religions have this thing, “God’s up there and we are down here, and we talk to God and God tells us what to do, blah, blah, blah.”There was a cartoon recently in the New Yorker, it shows two angels ended the guy talking without a beard. And one says to the other, “I just can't take him seriously without the beard anymore.”

…Now I'm going to give you another metaphor. Just another metaphor…Same big circle that represents God but the only difference is is that the little circle that represents you and me is inside the big circle. And that is a more Eastern — it strikes us as a more Eastern model, but.. it's widely available in Western religious tradition as well. And the goal in that model is not to pray to God or have God tell you what to do, but to realize that you have been all along, contrary to all of your illusions, a dimension of the divine, and in moments of heightened spiritual awareness, the boundary line, which is the little circle defining you inside the big circle, momentarily is erased. Momentarily is blurred and it's no longer clear where you end and God begins.

Internal Wifi

Now that warmer weather seems to have finally arrived in our area, we have "opened" the backyard for the season.  Since we'll be spending more time outside I've been trying to extend our wifi so we have a stronger signal in the backyard.  So I purchased a router extender and have gone through the connection and setup.

One of the challenges in fine tuning this extender is finding just the right spot where it receives a strong enough signal from the original router and is still positioned to boost the signal into the backyard.  This has proven to be less direct than is apparent because of corners, thick walls, and old brick chimneys.  However with enough persistence I did find a place where the little green light shines on the extender and my wireless device has a five bar signal.

All of this tuning and positioning has me thinking about the way we tune and position ourselves in relation to the circumstances of our lives.  Whether we are aware of it or not, our lives are receivers and transmitters of information, emotions, moods, attitudes, and general dispositions.

The difference between us and a wifi router is that we have the opportunity by our positioning and tuning to actually influence what we receive and transmit.   Just because someone around us is always negative and critical doesn't mean we have to emit the same.  We have the ability to adjust and filter our environment and then project it from our own perspective.  Sometimes we even have the option of physically positioning ourselves to stay away from negativity and harmful criticism.   We also have the ability to mindfully choose times, places, and relationships in our lives that create and nurture positive attitudes.

In the end, we can be either unaware of our internal wifi and simply pass on what we receive, or we can intentionally change, nurture, and as Jesus says, be "the light of the world."   Gandhi puts it this way, "Be the change we hope to see in the world."  It's all a matter of positioning and fine tuning.   That's when we experience those moments when the little green light of our lives tells us we are connected with the world around us.

All the Time in the World

"A thousand ages in Thy sight

Are like an evening gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun."

~ Isaac Watts, "Our God, Our Help in Ages Past", "Psalm 90"

"Were you to live three thousand years, or even thirty thousand, remember that the sole life which a man can lose is that which he is living at the moment; and furthermore, that he can have no other life except the one he loses... This means that the longest life and the shortest amount to the same thing. For the passing minute is every man’s equal possession, but what has once gone by is not ours.”

~ Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations"

From the first day over ten years ago that I've lived in Washington, DC, I discovered and have often been reminded of a personal axiom about living here, "It always takes longer than I think it will."

Whether it's a "quick" trip to the grocery store, a metro ride across town, or driving anywhere in metropolitan area (especially on a Friday afternoon!), I always try to give myself more time than I think it will take to go or do whatever it is I'm doing or wherever I'm going to.

Conversely, the two quotations above remind us that life as we know and experience it is shorter than we think it is. Much shorter!  In fact it is as short as the present moment.  The same moment is also longer than we think, encompassing eternity itself.

Time is one, if not perhaps the greatest, of life's illusions.  We think we have all the time in the world, when in fact we don't.  And then once coming to this realization we realize that "all the time in the world" is contained in and as fleeting as the present moment.

Marcus Aurelius also says, “Take it that you have died today, and your life’s story is ended; and henceforward regard what future time may be given you as an uncovenanted surplus, and live it out in harmony with nature.” 

Jesus puts it this way, "those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life will find it."  He also said, "Don't worry about tomorrow..."  Today is all we have. 

So, in taking all of this to heart, here's a little exercise I'm borrowing from Brian Johnson's Philosopher's Note on Marcus Aurelius.  Imagine that the next breath you take is your last.   You; along with all your troubles, cares, and heartaches; and yes, successes, joys, and happiness too; are gone.  No more.  Finished.

Now, celebrate and grieve your life.

Then, take another breath.  It's a whole new life waiting to be lived.  But, it only last as long as the next breath.

And the next one, and the next one, and............

Opinions

We all have opinions. There is no denying that each and everyone of us has our own perspective from which we see and experience the world.  Can you imagine a world if we all thought, believed, and felt the same way?  It would be a pretty uninteresting place. That, by the way is an opinion. You see it would be practically impossible to even communicate without opinions.

I've recently been intrigued by the logical fallacy of "false equivalence," one of a number of logical fallacies, or errors in reasoning.  A false equivalence is basically when a two opposing perspectives or arguments are presented as being equal when in fact the evidence supporting one is much more than for the other.   A weaker position is raised to equality with a stronger one simply by saying they're equal.

I wonder if this is what goes on when we use phrases like "I'm entitled to my opinion." or "That's just your opinion." and even elevate our opinion with false humility "In my humble opinion."  without taking a moment to examine those opinions.   Sometimes it seems to me that we get lost in a sea of our own and other's opinions because too many of us equate our perspective with the way things really are.

But wait a minute.  Haven't I said before that we create our own reality through beliefs, thoughts, words, actions, and opinions?  Yes, but the the key word here is "our."  I do not create another person's reality.   And to mistakenly think that my subjective reality is equal to your subjective reality is a form of false equivalency.

The only way to arrive at anything near objective reality is to continually negotiate and compromise our myriad subjective realities to find common perspectives.  But this is difficult to do when everyone insists that our "right" to an opinion is the same as that opinion being equal to all others.

Public discourse today is filled with false equivalencies when perhaps what we really need is more honest and truly humble discussion and deliberation of our common humanity, our interconnectedness and interdependence with all of creation - our "true" equivalencies.

Now you have my opinion on opinions.     What's yours?

Amazing Times

When I was one year old the first all transistor radio was demonstrated at a radio fair in Germany.  By the time I was in the sixth grade pocket sized, battery operated radios were nearly as common as wrist watches.  I remember huddling around one with my friends on the school playground in 1963 listening to a Dodgers vs Yankees World Series.  Of course the teacher confiscated it as we went back into the classroom at the end of recess.

As smaller and smaller transistors and batteries were developed, Radios, along with televisions, also became smaller and smaller.  Around the same time computers were filling entire rooms.  Then came the integrated circuit or "chip" and computers began downsizing.

From that point on things seemed to happened very quickly and everything started getting small - tape player/recorders, then CD players, desktop computers, and laptop computers.  Then nearly "out of the blue" came cell phones, and close on their heels this thing called "The Internet."   Soon it was all integrated into another battery powered, pocket sized device called a "smart" phone. 

Now I sit in my living room and "blog" to people, some of whom I don't know and probably never will, anywhere in the world.  While I write I also research, or "google", facts and figures and create "hotlinks" so you can learn more about them, on your personal devices.   

We do live in amazing times!  I wonder what's next?  I hope we can find a way to explore, create, and develop without continually hurting each other and our planet.

Just a few random thoughts on a beautiful Spring morning.  

  

  

Taxes

"The only certainties in life are death and taxes."
~ attributed to Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain, and numerous others

"Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's."
~ Jesus

Since I wrote earlier in the year about death perhaps the day after we in the U.S. A. paid our taxes is a good time to reflect on the other "certainty" of life.

In January I basically said that in order to truly live one must first come to terms with the fact that one will die.  Doing so brings a freedom to our lives that allows us to relax and enjoy our days, weeks, and years.  I wonder if thinking of taxes in a similar way would relieve the burden of taxes that so many people seem to feel.

Living in community, whether in a family, club, association, church, city, state, or country, requires communal resources, the source of which are the individuals who make up the community.  If we expect and enjoy the benefits of community, we must also expect to provide our share to the general welfare of the community.  In our civil governments we call these contributions taxes.

If taxes are inevitable, then why not at least choose to see the positive side of paying them?  First, if we are paying taxes this means we have resources that are taxed whether property, income, or purchased goods.  Be thankful we have these resources.   Second, look at all of the things our taxes provide in the way of security, conveniences, services, and peace of mind.   Our collective taxes provide military protection, law and fire protection, highways, clean water, sanitation services, education, arts and humanities, and the list goes on.

Or we could choose to see taxes as a burden and continually complain about having to pay them.

All I'm saying here is we have choices as to how we view the inevitable things of our lives, which include death and taxes.

As for me, today my taxes are done and in the mail and I'm taking a deep breath and relaxing in the benefits they provide.  After all there is also another certainty of life and this is Life itself.  So, why not contribute to it, participate in it, and enjoy it?

Transformative Beauty

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,-that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

~ John Keats

"...there's this vision of the beauty of God that transports us and that takes us to a new depth and a new height. It's one of those things about beauty. You can't capture it in a word or a formula. When you get to that humble place where the beauty of God has overwhelmed you, I think it changes everything. You can say the same creed that you said before, but now it's not a creed that grasps God in the fist of the words, but it's a creed that points up to a beauty that's beyond anybody's grasp."

~ Brian McLaren

It is difficult to to be outdoors this time of year, especially in Washington, DC, and not encounter beauty.  Cherry and Japanese Magnolia trees are bursting into bloom.  Forsythia is in full radiant yellow.  And flower beds are beginning to explode with color.

It has also been said that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" which may be another way of saying, "we see what we want to see."  I do believe this is true. However, sometimes beauty catches us by surprise.  I'm talking about wordless, breathless beauty that transcends description that is as Brian McLaren says above, "...beyond anybody's grasp."   This kind of beauty is the beauty and truth of Keats.

Sometimes it's up to us to make room for surprise.  So why not take time today to walk away from whatever seemingly important thing that just has to be done, and create some space for beauty.  

Whatever it is you left will be there when you get back.  But my guess is that it won't quite as importantly pressing as it was before.

  

FYI for those in the DC area, the "CHPC Evolving Christian Faith" discussion group meets tonight at Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church to discuss an "On Being with Krista Tippett" conversation with Brian McLaren.  There is also an phone in option for anyone, anywhere!   Please join us if you can.    Get all the details here.

  

Parables

"Let anyone with ears to hear listen!’ Pay attention to what you hear."
~ Jesus, Mark 4:23

I woke up this morning thinking of a story I have heard several times.  It's one of those urban legend type stories that gets told as if it happened to a friend, a relative, or friend of a cousin.  It probably did happen to somebody, somewhere, sometime.  Or, it may not have happened at all and is pure fiction.  Regardless it is a "true" story about several things: perception, non-communication, generosity, greed, scarcity, and abundance. It can be interpreted and appropriated on numerous levels, both personally and collectively. In other words, it is a parable. And like any good parable the conclusion is left to the reader.  Jesus would have probably told this particular parable with a poor widow and rich young man, or a master and servant, or a beggar and a priest. Here's the way I remember it:

An elderly woman, traveling by bus, had a layover during her journey. She purchased a package of cookies from a vending machine in the bus terminal and located a table. She placed her cookies on the table, sat down, and proceeded to read her newspaper

A young man joined her and, to her surprise, opened the package of cookies and began to eat them. The woman, said nothing, but gave him an icy stare and grabbed a cookie. The young man, with a funny look on his face, ate another cookie. The woman again glared and grabbed another cookie. The young man finished the third cookie and offered the last to the woman.

Completely appalled, she grabbed the cookie and the young man left. Outraged, the woman threw down her paper only to find her unopened cookies on the table in front of her.

There are parables all around us!

 

I C U and U C Me

Yesterday, March 25, 2014, was the twentieth anniversary of the death of my sister, Reba.  She was a person who genuinely embraced life.  I still miss her.   

Her death was caused by lung cancer and the end came slowly at first, then quickly.  Her last weeks were spent in and out of the hospital usually in intensive care.   Remembering Reba’s final days sent me back to my sermon files to see what I was preaching during that time, also the season of Lent.  Here are some excerpts from a sermon I gave the Sunday before she died.

“…life lived genuinely is life where death is ever present.  Until we embrace our mortality we can never fully experience our humanity.

I’ve spent a good part of this past month in the ICU waiting room at the Georgia Baptist Medical Center.  ICU waiting rooms are places where life is genuinely lived. Time is suspended in a vigil that cares only about fifteen minutes every two hours. 

While waiting for that fifteen minutes, strangers talk with one another.  They share their stories. They cry openly.  They answer the phone for one another (obviously before the mass use of cell phones).  They comfort one another.

People hug and hold hands.  Families come together.  They pray and cry.  They remember. They make promises.  They comfort each other in the setbacks.  They celebrate the smallest victories.

Individuals reflect on their lives, ask important questions, and wrestle with destiny.

Life in the ICU waiting room is full, real, and intense.  

Why?  Because death is so present!

The honesty of an ICU waiting room is what the world needs.  The honesty of an ICU waiting room is the genuine living to which we are called in the Gospel.  Jesus tells us that until we can live in our mortality, we are not living, but merely existing.

The season of Lent is the Church’s ICU waiting room.  It is when we come together to explore and experience genuine living by embracing our mortality..."

And so I share these words again.  This time with you, and with a present reflection.   I C U in today's  texting code means, “I see you.”   And this is what happens when we accept our mortality and live genuinely with ourselves and one another -  I C U and U C Me. 

So long! or Wait!

For those of us in the earth's northern hemisphere, today is the last day of winter!   And in honor of the day I pay tribute through bits and pieces of musical theater.

Click here now.

And to quote another musical,  "The sun'll come up tomorrow."

Yes, I'm sure most of us are ready for tomorrow's vernal equinox at 12:57 p.m. EDT.  I even have it cued into my phone calendar as "Spring!!!" with an alarm set to let me know exactly when it happens.

I can't wait for sunny days and warm evenings at the ballpark, walks and bike rides without three layers of clothing, hikes in the mountains, and strolls on the beach.

But wait I must.  As ready as you and I are for winter to be over, there is still "one day more" of winter. And today, not yesterday or tomorrow, is really all we have.  

As the Music Man, Harold Hill says to Marian the Librarian, "You pile up enough tomorrows, and you'll find you are left with nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays. I don't know about you, but I'd like to make today worth remembering." 

And the final quote is mine:  "You miss a lot of good music when you fast forward from the Overture and the Finale."

So, I hope you have a great last day of winter!  We may even be remembering it fondly come late August.

Earth in Disguise

terra incognita: unknown territory :  an unexplored country or field of knowledge
~ Miriam Webster Dictionary


Terra incognita, according to Wikipedia "is a term used in cartography for regions that have not been mapped or documented."   A literal English translation would be "unknown earth."

With all of this in mind I suggest that during this Lenten season of contemplating human mortality and immortality we borrow the phrase as a description of human life.

Each of our bodies is composed of minerals and liquid, ie dirt and water. One look at our planet from the distances of space quickly confirms that Earth is also comprised of masses of land and oceans, a complex system of dirt and water. 

In turn the complex systems which are our bodies not only come from the earth but are nourished by the plants from its soil and water from its rivers, lakes, and seas.  And as I recently heard a physician say in an interview, "...the most complex structure on the human planet, [is] the threepounds of human brain."

We truly are Earth in Disguise - Dust to Dust - Terra Incognita!  

Each of our lives is a vista of unknown territory waiting to be explored.





   

Ashes and Dust (encore)

Abraham answered, "Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. 
- Genesis 18:27

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.   
- from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer burial service  

We are stardust. We are golden. And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden.

- Joni Mitchell 

Sometimes you just can't say it any better than you already said it.  That's the way it is with me today as I reflect on Ash Wednesday and offer you the following from a past Ash Wednesday.

"From dust you came to dust you shall return."  These words will be said and heard many times today as Christians around the world enter the season of Lent.   

Traditionally, the ashes that begin lent are a symbol of human mortality and frailty reminding us all that someday we will die.  To contemplate and reflect on our death is also an invitation to do the same about our life.

All of this has me wondering today if perhaps the ashes of Ash Wednesday could not only symbolize our mortality, but ultimately our immortality.   Not immortality in the traditional religious sense of "life after death," but, rather immortality as participants in the awesome and mysterious interconnected and interdependent cycles and evolving wonder of all creation.  

"Dust to dust" leads us into the primal spiritual questions:  Where did we come from?  How are we living now? And, were are we going?

In this way Ash Wednesday is not about dying as much as it is about living in full awareness that we are connected to and interdependent with all of creation, now and always.

If you are in the DC area and would like to observe Ash Wednesday in such a way as I've described above, I invite you to join me and others tonight at Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church for "Stardust to Dust - A Deep Time Liturgy for Ash Wednesday."  The experience is self-paced so you can begin anytime between 7:30 and 8:30 pm.  

We will also have a traditional Ash Wednesday Liturgy at noon.

I hope you can join us for either or both of these observances of Ash Wednesday. 

Wherever you may be, I encourage you to, in some way whether attending a formal service, sitting in silence somewhere or going for a walk, take a few moments today and reflect on your immortality. 

Master of Disguise

God Incognito -

We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with God. God walks everywhere incognito. And the incognito is not always hard to penetrate. The real labor is to remember, to attend. In fact, to come awake. Still more, to remain awake.

~C.S. Lewis

The above quote from C.S. Lewis is from a daily email I receive of inspirational and contemplative thoughts called "Inward / Outward."  Sharing this with you makes me think of several daily or weekly sources I can pass along to you, and to which you can subscribe if interested.  So, in addition to "Inward / Outward" here are a few other links:

Daily Gratitude

Seth Godin

HeartQuotes

On Being

Thought for Today   - send an email request to Tom McGehee:   thoughtfortoday@cox.net

If you have links you would like to share with me, please do so.

Now back to "God Incognito."   Lewis, says "...we can nowhere evade, the presence of God" and "God walks everywhere..."  It all sounds similar to Alan Watts' "God playing hide and seek," doesn't it?

When considering God, what is it about "nowhere" and "everywhere" that we fail to understand or perhaps even fear?  First, nowhere and everywhere are infinite terms and our minds simply cannot comprehend infinity.  The paradox is that even if we could, our comprehension would be a finite understanding of infinity.

Second, nowhere and everywhere assume that we actually know what "where" is.  The truth is, ever since Einstein and friends discovered that time and space are not nearly as concrete as Newton and company had previously thought, we live with the boundless possibility that past, present, future, here, there, and where are all "here and now."

In light of this, perhaps the answer to our question is we fear the nowhere and everywhere of God because we do not and cannot understand.  So where does this leave us?    With "experience!" As Lewis puts it "to remember, to attend, to come [and] remain awake."  

The Bible calls it "Immanuel,"  God with us, through whom we live, move, and have our being!  Knowing God is experiencing God, and to experience God is to simply open our eyes (and other senses as well) and look around.

God is the ultimate Master of Disguise!

Tag, You're It!

I’ve just finished reading a fascinating book, “The Book On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are” by Alan Watts.  

One metaphor Watts presents is that ultimate reality is a game of hide and seek in which God hides from God’s Self.  He says this is necessary because there is nothing outside of God from which to hide.  So God pretends to be the created universe, including Humanity.   The way God finds God’s Self is when we realize that we are God pretending to be someone else.

On first read this sounds rather blasphemous, but when placed beside some biblical imagery it does become quite intriguing.  Jesus tells his disciples, “I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” (John 14:20) “The glory that you have given me I have given them, so thatthey may be one, as we are one,  I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one…” (John 17:23).  The Apostle Paul says to a group of people in Athens, “…God is not far from each of us.  For in God we live, and move, and have our being…” (Acts 17:27-28), which in itself is a quote of a Greek philosopher, perhaps Epimenides.

I’m not trying to prove anything here, just playfully entertaining that we are in a game of hide and seek with God in which we are all “It.”

Another thing that comes to mind is the popular song from a few years ago, “What If God Was One Of Us?”

Tag, you’re It!