Human hopes, human fears...advent begins.

The seasonal valley we are entering promises to darken around us. The absence of light will send many into depression. We, along with those around us, are concerned about so many things. Steely fear stings us deep within, sending a lump to our throats and causing our eyes to squint in suspicion of our neighbor. Who can we trust?

Yet, hope teeters on the horizon. Perhaps the sun will not set behind the dark peak, but find an opening where rocky cliffs fall to the sea? Perhaps we will have light to guide us the rest of our way?

It is human to hope. It is human to fear.

One of my favorite Christmas songs is O Little Town of Bethlehem. We sing The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee, tonight. In these lines we read again the juxtaposition of hope and fear. The meeting place for these two? What is the location of their coming together? Christ.

And what will be the outcome of the clash? Which will prevail: hope or fear?

You tell me. Conquering foes ruled his homeland. Political division was rampant. The religious elite abused the poor, and held them at arm's length from faith. No one even noticed--and no wonder--when the helpless infant was born to illegitimate parents staying in some animal shelter. The only ones who caught on were some stargazers from another nation and religion, and a few ruffians at the bottom of the pay-scale camping out and watching sheep. Hope? (I've often thought that God could have used a marketing agency.)

And so we enter the holidays shadowed by long shopping lists and in fear of the worsening economy. We grieve loves we've lost, and long for something more. Religion is offering little direction and politicians are only heightening our fears that no one cares about anything but power. Somewhere an unobtrusive God is hiding in an unsuspected location. And our chore is to find the Christ.

Don't bother asking the kings, or the spiritual elite.

Perhaps he's living amongst the poor? (Matthew 25:40 & 45)

Human Touch, and Divine

There are joy-filled touches in human relationships. Hurts and joys felt so deeply, they threaten to undo us.

In a theater with family the other evening. My arm is around my wife, and my hand rests on the skin of her upper arm. The tenderness in that moment plowed through my soul with such force, I lost track of the movie, and time. I only wanted to feel and hold onto her and that fleeting instant.

Cradling my grand-daughter in my arms, then laying her in my lap and looking in her eyes. She begins to coo and speak with me. I speak and am quiet. She "speaks," then waits. Eventually, she wiggles her entire body trying to "say" what is in her. She smiles and I melt.

Sometimes when my children hurt or are sick, I'll hold them and tell them I'm leaking love into them. Or I'll say I'm soaking healing into them through my embrace. And I believe it.

What does love look like? I'm not always sure. But I know what it feels like. It stops time, it suspends my needs, it invokes deep passion for the better of the other.

I think of Jesus calling his Father, "Abba." The word is like our "Daddy," or "Papa." We are told the relationships within the Trinity are perfectly loving. I want to understand that. I want to believe that when I make my noises and wiggle with my fears and strive in my praying that somewhere, somehow God hears me and gets it. And then, I want to believe God begins to embrace and leak love into me...

Take peace in such hope.

The Importance of Human Touch: The Way of Honesty

It is a difficult thing to pay attention to our conversations, relationships and simply being in the presence of others. We rely so heavily on cliche, routines and posturing. From the opening moments of human interface these relational habits kick-in with the force of the most powerful addictions. What do I mean?

"Hi, how are you doing?"

"Fine!" A pause and tilt of the head sideways. "And how are YOU doing anyway?"

"Couldn't be better," he lies.

Fake smiles--yeah I've been caught in a few. I had a guy in one church that would give me back my Guy Smiley smile every time I posed it.

Why can't we live in the real world? Why can't we truly mean what we say, interface with sincerity and truly touch one another with authenticity? You need to be seen today. Has anyone looked at you? Has anyone studied your eyes and your face and really asked about you? You need to be heard today. Is anyone listening?

Would you touch someone this day by making a real conversation--by being honest when you are with them and looking them in their beautiful eyes and expressing some form of human contact? Would you listen to someone who needs to be heard.Oh God, please help us love each other!

Sometimes when people tell me I'm special, I'm tempted to think they just like being loved. They just think it's cool being seen, or heard, or spoken to in the present tense and moment... Funny idea, isn't it?

For more on this topic click here.

Love for a Sunday Visitor...

It may sound a little weird, but I want to say that I love you. I sense you aren't ready to hear that yet, and I'm sure you'll never read these words--let alone believe them if you did. No matter how little you think of yourself (and I can tell by the way you act that this is very little), the One who made you thinks you are amazing.

You've slipped into church a couple of times now. You come late and you leave early so no one will bother trying to speak to you. You can't smile, but I see you try. You can't believe things will be better (whatever it is that is wrong), but you come hoping. You can't help the shadow that darkens your dreams.

I hope that somewhere in our words or music or smiles you sense how loved you are. I fear you might not.

Whoever you are, whatever your name is, please know that you are loved.

Grace and peace to you...

Breakers: Fifth Chapter! Link below.

Yesterday I was able to spend quite a bit of time writing, and today a friend and I proofed the next chapter of Breakers. So here it is.

As always, let me know of errors. This is fresh, so you will find them.

Hope you enjoy the fifth chapter, and if you haven't read Breakers yet, then all five chapters are here.

I like the way two world views are juxtaposed in the lead characters of the story. I'd love your comments.

Peace.

Human Touch, and Hard to Reach Places

Have living and longing ever been aching neighbors in your soul? Life in a full-contact world with its disloyalties and treasons, its touching-caressing--intimate chasms--ahh, the people I meet often express in words--or without them--a deep and desperate longing to be known. To be touched in some invisible place where touch is life. And surely there is no physical way to reach so far as to touch a soul, unless it be with spirit?

Do you think the woman caught in adultery and brought to Jesus early in the morning--evidently after a night in adulterous passion--do you think she had any aching longings? Do you think the tryst had been planned for a week or so, that she had wept at the kitchen sink thinking of the damage her longing might cause? Was she aching when she rendezvoused for the illegitimate night, or when she was caught and dragged into public--her aches being shouted as accusations into the public gathering? (And what about the guy that evidently was escaping the mob? Where is he?)

I'm thinking of Eleanor Rigby again, but look at each face in the mob, look at the woman facing certain death by stoning. Look at the people watching, and those being handed stones and then look at the face of Jesus. In the midst of all the aching longing in that public courtyard, Jesus alone was ready to touch everyone present in a deep place where no one can reach with a hand, or scalpel. Maybe he was humming Eleanor Rigby?

He disbands the crowd with words that affirm their aching and their futile attempt at release. And then he looks to the woman...fresh from her treason. And instead of seeing the despicable disloyalty, he thinks of her aching longings. That her hopelessness last night had taken her at high risks to a secret place. She had ignored fears of being caught, or of sinning--in hopes of being known. She had thrown caution to the wind and run to the shelter of another soul, hoping to be touched deeply and lovingly. And perhaps she had felt that touch in the night, in his arms. But how quickly hope faded into disaster...until she was touched by Jesus.

Could her aching have been a desire to feel OK? A need to feel that all of her human failures were forgiven? Could she have wanted to know that someone somewhere looked at her and saw beauty, something worth the risk of possessing. Ah, look at all the lonely people.

When the crowd had left, Jesus asked, "Woman, where are your accusers? Has no one condemned you?"

She answered, "No one, Lord."

Then Jesus spoke the words that reached deep inside of her, to her soul. And they weren't just words, they were healing vibrations--human/spiritual/psychological touch. (OK, divine as well, but I'm really into kenosis for all of you theologians--Phil 2:5-11, or C. Wesley--"He emptied himself of all but love..." But I digress.) He said, I don't condemn you either. Go and stop sinning." (This story is in the Christian New Testament, book of John chapter 8 and verses 2-11--you can find the verses by those tiny numbers before each sentence or so.)

I guess that is why my faith rests in Jesus. Not in a Jesus who says, "Go and stop sinning and then I won't condemn you and I'll think you're OK." But the one who says, "I don't condemn you, I love you. I see your beauty and dignity. Stop seeking life where it isn't."

I'm aching so deeply for a few people right now. And I'm praying for the way to speak peace to their aching longing and living.

Grace and peace to you. You are loved, just as you are, more than you can imagine.