How to Start Toward a Cross

Each year I post this article from Barbara Brown Taylor.  I think it is a worthy read, if you dare say you would follow the way of the one who went to the cross.

http://runawaypastor.blogspot.com/2010/02/must-read-article-by-barbara-brown.html

Thoughts From Beside A Vacation Fire

The Need for Good Wood

We heat our home with wood.  I enjoy the primal way of staying warm.  Daily trips to carry in firewood, and the occasional hauling out of ash, help connect my mind and my body to my existence.  

Our stove is a newer model, and is highly efficient.  When well-seasoned fuel is used there is much heat, little ash, and the chimney breathes free of dangerous creosote.

I’ve learned however—from many seasons of heating with wood—the importance of gathering wood a full year-of-months before it is needed.  Firewood requires time to season, allowing quiet breezes and noisy winds to blow.  It needs a summer of heat to prepare it for its winter use.  Firewood needs time to be reduced to nothing but fuel.

I can hear readiness in the musical clank split wood makes when thrown into the sheltered pile for its final weeks before burning.  I feel the difference in the weight when I carry it into our family room. When the wood is ready to burn, it tells me.  

But oh those awful winters when fuel is gathered too late to season well.  There is no song as it collides in the pile.  It begrudges being carried to the fire.  It hisses and simmers on the coals as it seasons in the stove—releasing toxic moist creosote up the chimney in dark smoky rebellion.  The stove glass clouds, then stains a sickening brown with the polluted bi-product of wet unseasoned wood.  It resists service at all costs. 

Seasoning the Soul

My spirit also needs seasoning.  I’m simply not my best when the moistures of media, constant e-communications and over-busyness saturate my days.  There is a clear correlation between seasoning-quiet, and soul-efficiency.

For those who create for a living, taking the time for seasoning is a tough investment to make.  It is the act of burning, after all, which pays the bills!  Is not production what matters—what is noticed?  

Tough Questions for Those Who Create for a Living

How long has it been since you have stepped away and allowed your soul to season?  How long has it been since you’ve felt the kick of creativity?  Have you been forcing production, and not joyfully creating?  Have you found yourself doing “new” work, while feeling no joy in the process?  Are you hissing and simmering and producing smoky sludge, when you know you can light-up and inspire!  When you’ve known yourself to be a source of renewal and life to those for whom you burn?

Step away.  Put yourself on hold.  Stop giving yourself to a simmering half-yield.  Reserve your forced attempts at production, until your heart sings and transports lightly to the nascent coal-bed of creation.  

Give again!  Live again!

Beginnings, Resolutions and Getting Ahead of Ourselves

Beginnings

Beginnings are fraught with opportunity. At the beginning of any game, an underdog has an opportunity. When we start the engine of our car, we can aim them down any highway we desire…and that aiming has everything to do with where we will go. When we open our eyes in the morning, who's to limit what could be accomplished, change or develop during that day.

Resolutions

Today, I’ve been wondering about our resolutions. We want to lost weight, or gain income or travel or retire or build our career. And we imagine ways to help us accomplish these things. We map a course with every intent to keep to it.

But what if our plans are not the best ones? What if our prejudices are not wise? What if our desires will not accomplish what is best? What if the Mighty One wants to do something more mysterious, more altruistic, more big-picture? 

I’ve been thinking—in a somewhat lighthearted way—about Joseph and Mary of scripture. What if Joseph had a resolution to keep a good name for himself the year an angel told him to take a pregnant girl as his wife? What if Mary’s passionate resolution had been to stay thin for the year? What if the Wise Men had resolved to stay near home that year? What if Herod had vowed to exercise his mighty authority, even if it required vicious and hateful action? (Oh, evidently he had.) 

Getting Ahead of Ourselves

Are we getting ahead of ourselves? I guess what I’m getting at is the importance of leaving room for God to do God stuff with your plans. Maybe we shouldn’t be so certain that we know exactly what is best for us? Maybe God's priorities are different than our own?  Perhaps approaching a new year in humility quoting Mary's "Let it be for me as your Spirit wills it," would be the wisest of attitudes.  

Just wondering…

Enemies? Or Those With Whom We Disagree?

My childhood was marked by the fear of my nation's cold war adversary--the USSR. As sad as it is to admit it, as a very young child, I once questioned if it might be best if my country would get the war over with by launching a first nuclear strike. In my childish way of thinking, that would solve the problem. I was following the ways of fear.

Not My Enemies
Today I know people who would have been destroyed in such a horrid act of violence. These people are not my enemies. They have names. I've lived in their neighborhoods, eaten in their homes and worked, worshipped and played side-by-side with them. They are my family. I love them.

Jesus' teaching, that we should love our enemies, is possibly best obeyed by getting to know our enemies--until they are our enemies no longer.

Action Step
Is there a nation or a people whom you fear enough to hate? Is there a religion or system you despise? Could you take the initiative to meet with one of these "enemies" long enough to know them? Have dinner with them? At your house or theirs? I did not say to meet them in order to agree with them; but for the purpose of knowing them--(even serving them). And if you know them, mightn't you love them? For the Christian, the answer of course is: "Yes."

If fear rules, which it does midst unknowing (or ignorance), then my enemies will remain enemies. I will live with a desire for their demise and for my own safety.  The only path to safety seems to be through destruction of the other.

Why Not?
Fear brandishes hateful weapons with the intent of relieving fear.

Love delivers goodwill with the intent of bringing peace.

More on this, and what brought it to mind, coming soon.

Thanksgiving Meditation

Pilgrim Gratefulness

Is it possible for us to be truly thankful again? We have so much. So little is left for which to pray. 

We agonize over new styles for each season, not over our children starving in harsh ones. We put back for retirement, rather than winter meals. Our prayers are for more, while theirs were for enough. We text and sext and post and tweet for attention. They petitioned the Almighty for blessing. Is it possible for us to know pilgrim gratefulness?

Momentary Happiness

Is it possible for us to know more than momentary happiness? Our joys come from what we acquire, possess and own. Theirs came from believing they had received sustenance from Divine hands. We drive by fields of corn destined for fattening calves or filling fuel tanks. They saw kernels of corn, measured out in weathered hands, so many grains per family member, per day. Their children, at risk of not surviving winters, ours at risk of childhood obesity. Is there anything that can make us happy—once and for all?

Extreme Living

Is it possible for us to be satisfied? Our candies must be sour, our sports extreme, our closets walk-in, our lawns without dandelions, our temperatures perfect, our cupboards full, our churches mega; all of our dreams must be fulfilled. We are drunken with plenty and sated with what was once a king’s envy. And we cry out for more, we kick and we scream like spoiled children because we haven't yet found enough. 

And we will not, until we humble ourselves and seek something Higher than our own wishes.

And Jesus Says

God blesses you who are poor, 

    for the Kingdom of God is yours.

God blesses you who are hungry now,

    for you will be satisfied.

What sorrow awaits you who are rich,

    for you have your only happiness now.

What sorrow awaits you who are fat and prosperous now,

    for a time of awful hunger awaits you.  (Luke 6:20b-21a & 24-25a NLT)

—and he also said—

“I’ll say it again—It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!”  (Matthew 19:24 NLT)

And in Mary’s famous “Magnificat,”

    “He has scattered the proud and haughty ones.

He has brought down princes from their thrones

    and exalted the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things

    and sent the rich away with empty hands.  (Luke 1:52-53 NLT)

Is it possible for our hands to be so full of stuff, they leave our hearts empty of gratefulness and satisfaction?

The Subtle Slide of Individualism

No Compromise

An uncomfortable realization shook me from a discussion with my wife and dearest friend yesterday.  (One would think that after all our years of marriage, our accumulated wisdom would kick-into-gear each time we have a decision to make.  Right?  Nope.)

We were working through a question, and suddenly, each of us slid into our individual preference.  It was so natural to slide into an answer that matched our individual desires.  I wanted what I wanted.  And she wanted what she wanted.  (And for those of you who are engaged or newly married; after thirty-four years of marriage, our desires still differ.  Thank goodness, we still have varying ways of doing life and perceiving issues.)  In this case, there was no hint of understanding the other’s position on the matter.

No Compromise

Now, I know what you are probably thinking.  This is the time for compromise.  Both of us must be at least somewhat comfortable with outcomes.  Right?  This type of thinking was precisely the problem.  We had gotten onto the subtle slide of individualism.  

As people who seek the ways of Jesus in our lives, “comfort” should not be our goal.  “Preferences” should not reign supreme.  Our personal positions are not what we signed-up to defend, or took vows to follow.

Higher Ways

And so yesterday morning, we were suddenly confronted with our self-seeking preferences.  We needed to remember that the most comfortable, desirable, logical or acceptable ways--are not necessarily our way.  We need direction from the One to whom we give our allegiance.

Not, WWJD.  No.  But, as we pray and seek and live toward wisdom, what does he ask of us?  And so we agreed to abandon the subtle slide, drop our preferences, and pray for wisdom that is higher than ours.

After this time of seeking, we may still disagree.  His direction may require some “middle road.”  But not for our own sakes.  There is a higher way, and we can’t afford to slip-slide away from it.

A Day in the Life

Ten hours of solid, sweet sleep birthed me into this day.  Sweet prayer, a cleansing shower and a fruit smoothie took me to my office where nothing would go as planned.

Need took me to meet with the Sherriff, then to purchase two very large McDonald’s breakfasts for a homeless couple whom I encouraged and sent on to better help.  

Another couple wept with me as they tried to find a ways to forgive one another, and as I tried to help them see how very worthy of love each of them are.

A beautiful young woman who has invested most of her life in a relationship wept as she wondered at the future left in it.

A day of surprises and unexpected blessings and challenges.  Another day in life.  Most things I planned to do were left undone. 

And its OK.