MikePaschall.com

Once upon a time I had a young friend named Philip. Philip was born with Downs Syndrome. He was a pleasant child—happy, it seemed—but increasingly aware of the difference between himself and other children. Philip went to Sunday school at the Methodist church. His teacher, also a friend of mine, taught the third-grade class with Philip and nine other eight-year-old boys and girls.

My Sunday school teacher friend is a very creative teacher. Most of you know 8-year-olds. And Philip, with his differences, was not readily accepted as a member of this third-grade Sunday School class. But my teacher friend was a good teacher, and he had helped facilitate a good group of 8-year-old children. They learned and they laughed and they played together. And they really cared about each other even though as you know, 8-year-olds don’t say that they care about each other out loud very often. But my teacher friend could see it. He knew it. He also knew that Philip was not really a part of that group of children. Philip, of course, did not choose nor did he want to be different. He just was. And that was just the way things were.

My Sunday school teacher friend had a marvelous design for his class on the Sunday after Easter last year. You know those things that pantyhose come in—the containers look like great big eggs. My friend had collected ten of these to use on that Sunday. The children loved it when he brought them into the room. Each child was to get a great big egg. It was a beautiful spring day, and the assigned task was for each child to go outside on the church grounds and find a symbol of new life, put it in the egg (the old pantyhose containers), and bring it back to the classroom. They would then mix them all up, and then all open and share their new symbols and surprises together one by one.

Well, they did this, and it was glorious. And it was confusing. And it was wild. They ran all around, gathered their symbols, and returned to the classroom. They put all the big eggs on the table, and then my teacher friend began to open them. All the children were standing around the table.

He opened one, and there was a flower, and they ooh-ed and aah-ed.

He opened another, and there was a little butterfly. “Beautiful,” the girls all said, since it was very hard for 8-year-old boys to say “beautiful.”

He opened another, and there was a rock. And as third graders will, some laughed, and some said, “That’s crazy! How’s a rock supposed to be like new life?” But the smart little boy whose egg they were speaking of spoke up. He said, “That’s mine. And I knew all of you would get flowers, and buds, and leaves, and butterflies, and stuff like that. So I got a rock because I wanted to be different. And for me, that’s new life.”…

He (the teacher) opened the next one, and there was nothing there. The other children, as 8-year-olds will, said, “That’s not fair—that’s stupid!—somebody didn’t do it right.”

About that time my teacher friend felt a tug on his shirt, and he looked down and Philip was standing beside him.

“It’s mine,” Philip said. “It’s mine.” and the children said, “You don’t ever do things right, Phillip. There’s nothing there!”

“I did so do it,” Philip said. “I did do it. It’s empty—the tomb is empty!“

The class was silent, a very full silence. And for you people who don’t believe in miracles, I want to tell you that one happened that day last spring. From that time on, it was different. Philip suddenly became a part of the group of 8-year-old children. They took him in. He entered. He was set free from the tomb of his differentness.

Phillip died last summer. His family had known since the time he was born that he wouldn’t live out a full lifespan. Many other things had been wrong with his tiny, little body. And so, late last July, with an infection that most normal children could have quickly shrugged off, Philip died. Mystery simply enveloped him completely.

He was buried from that church. And on that day at the funeral nine 8-year-olds, with their Sunday school teacher, marched right up to the altar and laid on it an empty egg. An empty, old discarded holder of pantyhose.

           —From “The Story of Philip” by Harry Pritchett, Jr. in St. Luke’s Journal of Theology (June 1976).

This story has been around a long time, and it’s been published in more than a few magazines. Maybe you’ve read it, but forgot it? Maybe you’ve never read it before. Whatever the case, I’m reminded that the first recorded line from the greatest sermon ever given was the perfect opening to a linear progression of theological upheaval and social indictment regarding how God actually sees and relates to us. Who could have—would have—ever guessed that, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (happy are the broken, blessed are those who can’t) would set the tone for the greatest reversal theme of all time? The religious norm never saw it coming.

Pritchett’s story uses the innocence (the natural interaction) of children to teach us a grand lesson. Could it be that the “poor in spirit” (the broken, the challenged, the little ones, the ignored, the minimized, the immigrant, the sex worker, the drunk, the addict, the homeless…) have a better shot at real happiness and heaven’s blessedness? Not because of their brokenness, but because of what they actually have to give away to the world, in spite of that brokenness? I think that is the whole meaning of what Jesus was laying down in his sermon. Our unwillingness to see them… hear them… humanize them… is doing us no favors. I suspect that most of us are on the wrong side of power. I know I am.

Obviously, a challenged child became the real teacher… of everyone. And yes, it’s an old story, but it still preaches.

But you already knew that, didn’t you?

Mike

STAY IN LOVE / LIVE YOUR LOVE / EVERYDAY

Recently I was in a doctor’s office … when a young mother with long brown hair and a gentle face entered, pushing in a wheelchair a child three or four years old. The child obviously was disabled: hands unable to grasp anything, her arms and legs flailing helplessly, her eyes unable to hold focus. Her voice could not make syllables but only squeals or little wails. Mother positioned the child’s chair so that they were face-to-face. She began softly singing and doing the hand motions to “The Itsy-Bitsy-Spider” directly in front of the child’s face, to attract her attention. She repeated it over and over, sometimes catching the child’s hand and kissing it, stroking her hair; she looked into the child’s eyes and whispered, with enormous tenderness, “I love you.” For a moment, I felt like an unwitting intruder into a very sacred space.

Is this how we are, I wondered, before our God who wants to love us just as tenderly? Our limbs flailing aimlessly, unable to unify our energies to respond to the gift of life we have been given; our eyes unable to focus on the love God tries over and over in so many ways to reveal to us; Our voices unable to respond coherently to this God whom our minds cannot comprehend? And is this why we so often turn to the word mercy when we want to speak of our God?

When God’s love touches us in our neediness, the sorrow and suffering inherent in the human condition, we name it mercy. Mercy is perhaps the loveliest of all God’s qualities. This is the love that reaches into the dark spaces of our flailing and our failings, our losing and our dying. Mercy enters that space, picks us up and holds us tenderly until we are healed. Little by little, this love draws our groping hands and wasted energies to purposeful service; it looks directly into our uncomprehending eyes, hears our futile wails, and says, “No matter, I love you anyway. Come on…”  And so mercy brings us to ever new life.

—From “Living in the Mercy” by Elaine M. Prevallet

I shared this last night with the Wednesday Night group at the church where I serve. We eat together and take a few additional moments to check in on each other, and I usually offer a short devotional thought of some sort. What you just read (above) is what I offered last night.

Something about Prevallet’s recollection of the details of what she witnessed in that doctor’s office really pinged me. I think she described the encounter in such a way that it was really easy for me to segue into the point she was making.  And, I must add, it wasn’t about anyone else.  It was me.  I could see very plainly that “I” was that child.  I AM that child.  I think Elaine nailed it with “flailing and failings!”

I don’t think I often view myself as a recipient of mercy. I’ve thought of mercy as the thing that God reserves for the “big crap” I stepped into on purpose.  The really ugly stuff.  The horribly embarrassing stuff that nobody needs to know about… ever.  Grace and love covers a multitude of daily sins, but I viewed mercy as more God’s “final move” after I stepped on God’s benevolent last nerve. So, instead of a penal response, (what I truly deserve)… I got mercy.

The beauty of Prevallat’s offering is that it instantly hit me with a wave of humility. I’m not saying I’m humble. Oh, God no!  I’m not saying that at all.  I’m saying that the power of the story helped me to see how small, and shallow, and weak, and needy I am for God’s presence and ever-loving… mercy.  I know I’m gifted. I know I have capabilities. I know the Spirit’s voice and I try hard to follow the Way of Jesus. But when that wave of humility comes to do it’s job and humble us, it helps me to level the waters of humanity. Yes, I need mercy more than I realize I need mercy, but the humility is a reminder that I’m not alone or singled out as a piece of crap that’s living just on the edge of God’s vengeful anger. God’s response is always grace, often merciful, and always love. I certainly don’t always deserve that kind of response from our loving God. None of us do.

All of this to say, and I say it a lot these days, God loves what God creates. The condition of us, the flaws of us, the “flailing” of us may certainly damage us. Mercy says God isn’t put off because of our “humanness” and rotten choices. And it’s not just the big stuff.  Mercy moves in and out of our breathing… in syncopation with our existing.  If we get that, humility is the only access point to get our hearts involved with this holy mystery.

Mercy must be a pillar inside the goodness of God. God is good because of God’s own goodness. My declaration has nothing to do with God’s goodness. If I’m fortunate enough to see into this goodness, outside of my own doing, I realize how much mercy is in God’s goodness. The vastness of God’s goodness is pregnant with mercy.  I imagine more than we can ever comprehend.

Bless you.  Love you.

Mike

LIVE YOUR LOVE.  SOMEBODY NEEDS IT.

Really, there are no words to express the experience of the Holy Spirit. I have felt such religious joy several times, and I’ve had the joy of being immersed in light; there are no words to describe that joy. I have felt an absolute joy that cannot be tasted in such pleasures as fame or gain or the pleasures of the physical nature.

Christ said, “Receive the Holy Spirit”: and at once he added, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven.” That means the same as when he said, “Abide in my love.” That is, the Holy Spirit, as the truth, gives the content of consciousness. As the Sanctifier, he gives a guarantee of our perfection. But that again is not separate from his atoning love. The realization of this love is altogether by the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul who experienced this love received the power to overcome all things with the joy of love.

Really the Holy Spirit and love cannot be separated. Christ came into the world to show the human race the love of God. All the teachings of Christ have relation to this love. Salvation means that God is love. Providence also means that we are kept by the love of God. Judgment means that God will weed out those who do not believe in the love of God [or we live life in a vacuum devoid of feeling or being aware of God’s love]. God is love. Christ is the crystal of God’s love. The Holy Spirit is a Spirit of truth who reveals the atoning love of Christ.

This love is not the love that the world gives. It is the love that God gives. The love of the world is semiconscious. It only loves those whom it likes. But the love that is the fruit of the Holy Spirit is the full, conscious, atoning love that loves even those whom it dislikes.

When we thus think, all the teachings of Christ is love. Through the consciousness of the joy of this love, it flows out eternally like never-ceasing oil from a vessel. It is at this point the evangelist John says that the Holy Spirit and love are not to be separated. The mystical experience of the Holy Spirit is the intuitive recognition of the love of God. For this reason, those who have a deep experience of the Holy Spirit, however poor they may be, whatever sickness they may suffer, however much they may be persecuted, rejoice in the unceasing love of God. Truly, in this meaning, the Holy Spirit is the Comforter, and we may say he is our Helper. The religion of the love of Christ is not a religion of fear. It is the fountain of love and joy and life. We must live forever in his love.

—Toyohiko Kagawa, Living Our Christ’s Love

 

If I had some kind of power to steer you, I’d suggest that you read this every single day (maybe even 2 or 3 times a day) for an entire week. I’d also suggest that you continue to read it until you know the truth of it in your bones. A casual glance at this offering won’t suffice! We must know AND  experience these truths cellularly in our body. This is the stuff that affects how we live, how we think, how we let our light of love shine. This is the right source that should command our thoughts and actions. —MDP

LIVE YOUR LOVE…

THE WORLD NEEDS IT!

Goodness! How difficult it is to believe in the sort of Messiah that Jesus of Nazareth represents!

            To believe that we win by losing our very selves!

            To believe that love is everything.

            To believe that power is a great danger, wealth slavery, comfortable life a misfortune.

            It’s not easy.

            This is why you hear people in the street say, “If there was a God there would not be all this suffering.”

            Two thousand years have gone, and there are still Christians whose doctrinal notions belong to those ancient days when the power and existence of God was revealed by displays of strength and the victory of armies. And especially by wealth and having more possessions.

            The real secret had not then been received.

            Nor is it received very easily even today.

            Hence the blasphemy in general circulation denying the kingdom’s visibility, given the ordeal of suffering and death.

            The old teaching that we, the Church, must be strong still feeds our determination to possess the land and dominate the world.

            We must make ourselves felt. We must keep our enemies down. We must scowl. We must win, and to win we need money, money, money. And to have money we need banks, we need the means and we need clever bankers. How can we do good without means, without money? Let’s have a big meeting, and then any opposition will be shamed into silence. Well, we must defend our rights, the rights of the church. We must defeat our enemies.

            Enemies, always enemies on the Church’s horizon! Yet Jesus has told us in no uncertain terms that we no longer have any enemies, since they are the same people we are supposed to love, and love specially.

            Can it be that we have not understood?

            Don’t we read the Gospels in our churches?

            How long shall we wait before following the teaching of Jesus?

From Why, O Lord? by Carlos Carretto

What a gnawing piece of writing! I’m withholding commentary because I’m not sure Carretto’s insight needs commentary. But I will say that this hits deep, and if it stings… it probably needs too. The Church is a broad tent, and can be at times, blinded by bias and selective hearing. Certainly God likes grits… because I like grits. Right? Surely, we don’t believe that we are always above and beyond reproach?

There’s a lot of food for thought here.  So… think about it. -MDP-

LIVE YOUR LOVE!

IT MATTERS.

I have a good friend who lost her mate back in January. Rex had been sick for a long time with a lot of physical battles, but the guy remained thankful and pleasant throughout the whole ordeal. The guy was one of a kind. A brilliant man, well read, informed, industrious, gracious, generous, and always thinking about the next project. He cared about a lot of things that most of us take for granted. His passion to help, to feed the poor, was straight from the divine realm. He really invested and did what he could. I think he was simply unique in that ministry of heart, and I admired him greatly for it. I got pulled a couple of times into his passion to feed the poor. The guy was a tiger when he fixated on a goal. A “man on mission” is a gross understatement. I miss him already.

I dropped in to visit with him one day in January. Early, the very next morning, his wife texted me that Rex had passed in the wee hours of the new day. He was ready to go. It had gotten to the point when I’d ask him how he was doing, the standard response was, “shitty.” Then he’d grin and tell me how blessed he was, always noting how his wife of 61 years was taking care of him, serving him, keeping up the place, and himself. That visit was no different, except that he told me that he was ready to go home. Another project he was figuring, but there was always another project he was figuring.

A couple of weeks later, I dropped by to see Sally. It’s one of those relationships that I know I’m better for. She’s taught me a lot as she’s still transitioning into more truth and the mystery of unknowing. Senior adults who don’t have answers for everything are smooth as silk. I welcome any opportunity I get to be with them when they’re on that kind of contemplative path. Even amid so much pain and grief, she is teaching from the deeper realms of peace and contentment. It’s not that common. You notice it, and you feel it, when you’re around it.

I really wanted to know how she was doing, and she spilled her truth as I knew she would. “It’s the void. It’s the empty space that you can’t really ever prepare for.” Another perspective on grief. Another teaching of life’s reality. It chilled me when she said it because I know how often I manage my own need and desire for quiet. The optimal word there is “manage,” as though I have options. She’s learning how to be quiet within the cloud of quiet. And while it appears she’s adjusting to that level of quiet, it’s another realm of quiet she hasn’t known before, and it’s not going away. It’s not a temporary quiet. It’s a lasting quiet.  The air has changed. The space—the void—has overgrown everything in her life. She’s on a journey. She’ll adapt and she’ll be more than okay, just like millions of others have in their own journeys with grief. She’s tough like that.

After serving me snacks and drinks, she handed me an article entitled “Life is Short,” that she had photocopied from a magazine. “We don’t realize how much we abuse time and waste life,” she said. “Read it! It’s hilarious!”

I’ve been waiting for the right time to post it. The article is snarky, witty, and all too true. It definitely struck a few nerves. I’m passing it on because life IS short. I know it more every day.

Much love (way beyond knuckle love),

Mike

LIFE IS SHORT

by Cora Frazer

Life is short. Why not spend it mired in regret? Why not spend your evenings sitting side by side at the dining room table with your spouse, trying to determine whether your downstairs neighbors’ ceiling fan is making the floor tremble?

Our existence on this planet is statistically insignificant when compared with the history of the universe. So take advantage of it! Charge your spouse six dollars and fifty cents on Venmo for “supplemental groceries.”

You get to choose the life you live. And, every minute, you have the opportunity to make a different choice. Every minute, you could say, “Today, I will eat defrosted turnip soup and think about the time I felt left out at my friend’s wedding.”

What you really want to do right now is call an office-supply store’s customer-service number. So why not do that? What’s holding you back? Who would you be if you stopped limiting yourself and really let yourself experience the hold music, interrupted every twenty-three seconds with “All representatives are currently assisting other callers”?

The next time you find yourself adding up items in your “worst-case scenario” budget, close your eyes and really feel your fingers on the laptop keyboard with its “N” partly worn off. Sense the gentle thrum of panic in your chest and hear the patter of the drill in the street beyond. Open your eyes and subtract another thousand. Why? Because you, my friend, deserve it.

True, you could dedicate your time on earth to your relationships and the work and hobbies that give you a sense of purpose. Or you could dedicate your time to washing used Ziplock bags and turning them inside out on drying racks to dry.

Someone’s got to read every single tweet written by peers who have achieved success in industries that you were never interested in, so why not you? Give yourself permission to take screenshots of other people’s life joy and text the images to acquaintances with the caption “LOL.”

There are only twenty-four hours in a day, so why not say “F-it” and fully embrace all the sublimity of your scarcity mind-set? Why not return seventy per cent of what you buy out of fear that you’ll never be able to retire? You do you! You walk into that retailer and request a refund outside of the return window like the transcendent being you truly are!

You are a gorgeous human with unlimited potential to eat week-old hard-boiled eggs, and the only person who’s holding you back from checking eighteen times to see if the stove is off is you.

Every moment that you’re not sitting double-parked in your Honda Civic, protecting your spot during street cleaning, is a moment wasted. Every moment that you’re bounding through autumn leaves with your rescue puppy is a moment that you could be writing a negative review of a printer you broke. Every moment that you’re meditating is a moment that you could be thinking of comebacks to the student who called your class “lower level.” This very afternoon, you could stroll down the street as you talk to your friend on the phone, listening to each of his words, or you could put yourself on mute and clean the toilet.

Your heart’s truest desire is to refuse to rejoin the family thread because you can’t handle your grandmother anymore. Of course, there’s the voice in your head telling you that you “should” forgive her for suggesting that you brush your hair more often. But forget “shoulds”! Focus on reading marketing e-mails instead, out of a sense of guilt! Because you have a unique and beautiful simmering rage inside you, and no one else can harbor it for you.

And, if you do enjoy your time working in public defense, or knitting, or cooking recipes from around the world, or reading out loud to your spouse, well . . . honestly, that seems like something you should examine.

And, whenever you decide that you want to live your life in all its exquisite smallness, we’ll be here for you with our arms firmly at our sides.

“Shouts & Murmurs,” New Yorker Magazine, January 23, 2023

A man shocked me one day when he said, “You Christians don’t love Christ. You hate Christ. You hate what Christ stands for.” He continued, “You cover up your own hatred and fear of Christ by talking about how much you love Jesus. But, if you love Jesus, why don’t you love your enemies? If you love Jesus, why don’t you really obey the gospel, most of which you ignore?”

I heard those words and I trembled inside, thinking, My God, is that true of me? Brothers and sisters, just open Mark’s Gospel. Most of us haven’t paid attention to 90 percent of it. Most of the passages are just conveniently ignored by the institutional church and by ourselves. In fact, we often do the exact opposite of what Jesus teaches about, as if a bigger lie is easier to cover up. Christians and their bishops have been condoning and participating in war, greed and false security for centuries, while calling themselves the Body of Christ, or even “The Magisterium” (read authorized institutional spiritual authority). Matthew 23 would seemingly make us unwilling to wear a long robe or tassels ever again! Strange, isn’t it?

When was the last time you heard of someone being thrown out of the church for not rejoicing and exalting Him when confronted with criticism? (Matthew 5:11-13). Why don’t we make that a matter for excommunication? The thought never entered our minds.

From Richard Rohr, “Letting Go: A Spirituality of Subtraction”

The original title of Rohr’s selection was “Do We Love Christ?” I decided it had been incorrectly titled. “Do We Love Christ?” is answerable without much thought. Most of us nod our heads, and move on without even reading the material. So, for today’s devotional, I took liberty of changing it. If you are still reading, I guess it somewhat worked.

Are we sure we love the Christ? The universal-cosmic presence of God in all of heaven and earth? It takes a certain amount of expansion in consciousness and spiritual awareness to grasp that. Having “eyes to see” isn’t a foregone conclusion. Just because I read and study my Bible, because I go to church, and because I pay my tithes, doesn’t necessarily mean I have “eyes to see or ears to hear” what the Spirit of all truth is laying down. There is so much uncomfortable value in Rohr’s words. I think he’s saying that loving Jesus, believing in Jesus, praising Jesus, is all good. But, those are not the all-encompassing main events. All of that can be done out of a spirit of religious pretense. It’s in FOLLOWING Jesus where the shift to the Christ consciousness begins to happen.

In fact, we often do the exact opposite of what Jesus teaches about, as if a bigger lie is easier to cover up. —Rohr

Quite a bit of the Church has settled for a precise and “certain” theological understanding that has all of the answers to its own selective questions. “Christ” isn’t Jesus’s last name. Though Christ does incorporate the works and words of Jesus, the pre and post resurrection reality of the Christ is all inclusive and encompasses all. The Christ is mind-boggling reality of infinitesimal Presence, and you and I are a part of that presence, whether we’re cooperating and in sync, or not. That is precisely the point Rohr is making. The way we participate (dare I say, “properly”), is to really follow (walk out, live out) the Way of Jesus. Can we honestly say we’re doing that? Or are we more concerned with “legalistic posturing” in order to justify our behavior and intent? Do we manipulate scripture and allow fear, unhealed wounds, things we hate, things we love, things we profit from, politics, and even church leadership to dictate our focus?

I’m not sure I know how it happened, but I ended up plowing a lot deeper here than I originally intended. So, to gear it down to something more manageable, I just wonder if we’d all be wider-awake in kingdom reality if we were more practically engaged. Can we hold ourselves and one another accountable to living Jesus’ values, character qualities, and ways of dealing with other humans who are not always living their best selves? That, in and of itself, should expand and immerse us in the genuine love of Christ.

MDP

LIVE YOUR LOVE AND BE GOOD AT LIFE.

Ash Wednesday. How is it already Ash Wednesday? Some of us are still picking the pine needles out of the carpet from Christmas!

The transition into the Lenten season is a wonderful thing. One of my favorite devotional writers (Bishop Rueben P. Job) offers these significant thoughts: “The Season of Lent is like a roller coaster ride with emotions that are up and down and up again and again . . . A season that begins with ashes pressed upon our heads ends with the fragrance, sight, and touch of flowers racing through our senses and inviting us to join the triumphant song “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today!” . . . Now we know as never before that our mortality will put on immortality . . . Death and resurrection are now claimed as our own . . . Fear has given way to inexpressible joy, and doubt has given way to triumphant hope. Christ is risen!”

Ash Wednesday is where we begin the Lenten season, with our face pressed hard against the reality of our gaps, shortcomings, and ultimately our looming deaths on this orb. Everything here has a shelf-life. BUT we do know how the story ends. Bishop Job adds again, “In the middle of austerity and fasting we remember our faithful Savior and the Easter declaration that life is always victorious over death, always!”

With all that said, part of the traditional discipline of Lent is fasting of some sort. I’m always fascinated to hear what people decide and declare to “give up” during Lent. Of course, this is a heart thing, and some are strictly committed to their 40-ish days of fasting. What I’m offering below is something that I’ve never really considered as a possibility for a Lenten fast, but wow… do I ever see the need as a delicious gift to ourselves and others.

One more thought and then I’ll let you get on with your day. Remember… your Lenten fast doesn’t just have to be about subtraction.  It could be about adding something to your regiment or routine that adds value to something or someone. That might actually be more helpful in the long run.

Onward my brothers and sisters! Much love and peace. —MDP

Richard J. Foster (Freedom of Simplicity) writes: The Desert Fathers renounced speech in order to learn compassion. A charming story is told of Abbott Macarius, who said to the brethren at the Church of Scete, “Brethren, flee.” Perplexed, one of the brothers asked, “How can we fly further than this, seeing we are here in the desert?” Macarius placed his finger to his mouth and said, “Flee from this.” When Arsenius, the Roman educator who gave up his status and wealth for the solitude of the desert, prayed, “Lord, lead me into the way of salvation,” he heard a voice saying, “Be silent.”

Silence frees us from the need to control others. One reason we can hardly bear to remain silent is that it makes us feel so helpless. We are accustomed to relying upon words to manage and control others. A frantic stream of words flows from us in an attempt to straighten others out. We want so desperately for them to agree with us, to see things our way. We evaluate people, judge people, condemn people. We devour people with our words. Silence is one of the deepest Disciplines of the Spirit simply because it puts the stopper on that.

LIVE YOUR LOVE!

If we want to go to the mature, mystical, and non-dual levels of spirituality, we must first deal with the often faulty, inadequate, and even toxic images of God that most people are dealing with before they have authentic God experience. Both God as Trinity and Jesus as the image of the invisible God reveal a God quite different—and much better—than the Santa Claus god who is “making a list, checking it twice, who’s going to find out who’s naughty or nice” or an “I will torture you if you do not love me” god (worse than your worst enemy, I would think). We must be honest and admit that these are the versions of “god” that most people are still praying to. Such images are an unworkable basis for any real spirituality.

Trinity reveals that God is the Divine Flow under, around, and through all things—much more a verb than a noun, relationship itself rather than an old man sitting on a throne. Jesus tells us that God is like a loving parent who runs toward us while we are “still a longways off” (Luke 15:20), then clasps and kisses us. Until this is personally experienced, most of Christianity does not work. This theme moves us quickly into practice-based religion (orthopraxy) over mere word and ideas (orthodoxy).

—From YES, AND…, pp. 65-67

“If we want to go to the mature, mystical, and non-dual levels of spirituality, we must first deal with the often faulty, inadequate, and even toxic images of God that most people are dealing with before they have authentic God experience.”

Regardless, if we want to grow up in our spirituality or not, our image of God “makes us.” In other words, how we see God “affects” and “infects” how we live. The entire notion of a “Christian witness” is null and void if it is not a true representation of the nature, character, and loving responses of God [see the life of Jesus: Colossians 1:15]. We need the Spirit’s discernment to see this. We need the Spirit’s influence to bolster and shape our will to reflect God’s true image. Some of what we see in God’s people is anti-Christ. People who are looking for reasons to throw rocks at the Christian mission and message have no trouble finding targets because of our blatant hypocrisy.

I recently watched a short video where the commentators were discussing the fallout and steady decline of church attendance within our culture. The “good-old-days” are long gone, and modern culture (particularly millennials) are “checked-out” and mostly dismissive of traditional worship settings across the board (not always, but mostly). The simple reason for this isn’t about logistics or their “other” interest. The explanation had everything to do with the incongruence of Gospel evidence regarding how Jesus lived, loved, and preferred others—in comparison to the normal inconsistency of “identifying Christians” who look, act, think about, or relate toward others nothing like Jesus would. In other words—there is a massive disparity between the love of Jesus—and how “Church” people respond to the real-time events and people around them in their daily lives. That’s a brutally painful thing to hear, but we need to hear it and be motivated to re-evaluate and live better. This thing about “following” Jesus isn’t satisfied just by our attending church or religious functions. —MDP

LIVE YOUR LOVE.

IT REALLY MATTERS.

And just like that we are on our annual slide towards the cross and the empty tomb. Advent was full of so much expectation, and now we can look with eyes wide open at the great revealing of God on mission with what and who God loves. Honestly, this reading might be better served during Lent, but it seems right to jump start the meditations earlier than normal. I would ask you to “read,” and attempt to “see” what this reading really offers and invites us to know. Not everyone will… nor will everyone even try… but you might IF you’ll consider the revelation with more than a casual glance.

Every liturgical season is another opportunity to see (maybe) what we’ve never been able to see. To look longer and more intently into the depths of what (maybe) we’ve never been able to comprehend. That’s usually my approach anyways, and I pray that you heart is stirred all over again at the gloriously horrible, and the mysteriously beautiful, journey of the Passion of our Christ!

Dying, Christ destroyed our death.

Rising, Christ restored our life.

Christ will come again in glory. AMEN.

As always… much love,

Mike

The supreme irony of the whole crucifixion scene is this: he who was everything had everything taken away from him. He who was seemingly perfect (Hebrews 1:3; 5:9) was totally misjudged as sin itself (Romans 8:3-4). How can we be that mistaken? The crucified Jesus forever reveals to us how wrong both religious and political authorities can be, and how utterly wrong we can all be—about who is in the right and who is sinful (John 16:8). The crowd, who represents us all, chooses Barabbas, a common thief, over Jesus. That is how much we can misperceive, misjudge, and be mistaken.

Jesus hung in total solidarity with the pain of the world and the far too many lives on this planet that have been “nasty, lonely, brutish, and short.” After the cross, we know that God is not watching human pain, nor apparently always stopping human pain, as much as God is found hanging with us alongside all human pain. Jesus’s ministry of healing and death, of solidarity with the crucified of history, forever tells us that God is found wherever the pain is. This leaves God on both sides of every war, in sympathy with both the pain of the perpetrator and the pain of the victim, with the excluded, the tortured, the abandoned, and the oppressed since the beginning of time. I wonder if we even like that? There are no games of moral superiority left for us now. Yet this is exactly the kind of Lover and the universal Love that humanity needs.

This is exactly how Jesus “redeemed the world by the blood of the cross.” It was not some kind of heavenly transaction, or paying the price to an offended God, as much as a cosmic communion with all that humanity has ever loved and ever suffered. If Jesus was paying any price, it was to the hard and resistant defenses around our hearts and bodies. God has loved us from all eternity.

—From Richard Rohr, “YES, AND…” pp. 79-80

The Christmas contemplative knows that hope is a gift, an undeserved gift of peace, but that is also a call to decision—the decision to trust…

Hope thrives on the difficulty and challenges the conclusion that our only contribution to the world will be, in the words of T.S. Eliot, “an asphalt driveway in front of our home and a thousand lost golf balls.” Hope convinces us that in clinging to our miserable sense of security and status quo, the possibility of growth and greatness is utterly defeated. Hope says that I no longer need to be dismayed over my personal dishonesty and self-centeredness and feeble life of faith. That I no longer need to feel defeated, insensitive, and superficial.

Because the question no longer is: Can I do it? Am I able? Can I overcome my moodiness, my laziness, my sensuality, my grudges and resentments? The only question is: Is Jesus the Christ able? Can my Savior, the Lord of my life, revive my drooping spirit and transform me at Christmas as he transformed the world through his birth at Bethlehem?

—From Reflections for Ragamuffins by Brennan Manning

“The only question is: Is Jesus the Christ able?”

In another Advent reading this morning, I was reminded that we Americans suffer with a lot of self-hate. The author went on to explain that we’ve set ourselves up for all kinds of self-disappointment because we’ve got the wrong agenda… the wrong influencers… and we’re so damn competitive. Another suggestion was that we’re too cozy with the whims of image makers who found a little success in their niche, and somehow… magically… by our swallowing all they promote and spin… the same is guaranteed for us. We are that gullible, and it appears we are starving for validation, recognition, and significance. Here’s the quote that kinda tipped me over:

“Competition is simply our name for domination. Whenever you create a society that has to define itself by power and success, there will have to be those who are powerless and the non-successful. And that’s the vast majority of the people in our society. People in our society are set up to lose.”—Rohr

I’ve never really thought a lot about the HOPE inside Advent, but man oh man… do we ever need HOPE!  Manning’s words set us on the right rails.  It all leads to the question: IS JESUS ABLE? That’s where the living waters reside.  That is what quenches and extinguishes the raging fires of self-hate and dissatisfaction with ourselves. We no longer have to be dismayed OR found groping for another affirmation of our value. So, Yes! Our God is able. Yes! That’s our real HOPE. Yes, say it again: Jesus is able. Amen.

Have a blessed Christmas! Much joy, love, peace, and hope! —MDP

BE GOOD AT LIFE.  LIVE YOUR LOVE.