No, I did not get ashes.

Ash Wednesday is one of the most unusual days of my year. “Did you get your ashes?” rings through the air like the “bells on Christmas day.”  No, I did not get ashes. No, they are not necessary for salvation.

I did celebrate the beginning of this season that has a rather uniquely male twist (more on that later) with a fresh start  with a posture that will insistently mediate my turn toward God.  The cleaning lady transformed my home into a livable space once again; I began acupuncture treatment; I ate a totally decadent chocolate chip cheesecake bar.

It was high time for a deep clean. It reminded me of the cleaning of the home before Passover.  The symbolism in this act is easy for me to see. In order to lighten my load for the journey, I had to make space in the clutter and disorganization that has accrued.  turning toward God is nearly impossible when in your pivot you are literally and figuratively knocking over old containers from take out Chinese food.

The acupuncture opens the channels in my being to receive the gifts of the Spirit.  Clutter outside; clogging inside. The gunk of life just slows everything down.   Meditation exercises very often begin with “breathing.”    It is tough to breathe when there is no circulation to meet it.

And that chip cheese bar, I needed a reminder of how far I have come in my life’s journey.  The days of trying to support life on anti-nourishing food is past.  From here I draw my hope for the future.

My hope for this lent and the future is to live beyond the clutter of a world that demands we hide behind the empty spaces of take away events, breathe the life of the Spirit into every aspect of my being and continue to build upon the goodness I have known as I journey with the One of Love.

A blessed lent to all as we each journey to our true hope : the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.

You surely don’t think much of God’s wonderful goodness or of his patience and willingness to put up with you. Don’t you know that the reason God is good to you is because he wants you to turn to him?

Romans 2:4

Inauguration Day 2017

Today is a day to unplug from social media, news reports, and the anxiety they breed in the name of free expression of  “the truth.”  It is time to revisit the upper room of the earliest followers of Jesus.  They had watched their friend; their love; their hope be crushed. The voices of doom surrounded them. They were afraid. 

Their Love returned to them and brought them his essence, the Comforter, the peace the world cannot give.  It took only a word, “peace.”

No pundits. No corrections. No doomsday prophesies. 

Just the Love that brings peace.

In the end three things endure faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is Love.

1 Corinthians 13:13

This Christmastide finds us in confusing and trying times.  The news reports a new nuclear arms race; unimaginable.  It just keeps getting more and more unsettling. 

In the midst of this chaos, comes the Divine Light, human like us.  Years of teaching about “disruptive technology” leads me to think of this world changing event as the ultimate disruptive event of all time.  Into the chaos of the Jewish community enduring the Roman Empire, the Word became Flesh.  The Light made a dwelling among us, to be with us; to bring “Light and Life” to our everyday.

Each year we sing this heartily in the hymn “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.”  Again this year, I muse at Wesley’s skill as a lyricist.  Here he captures the fullness of salvation history.  The necessity of this birth is clear with only one driving force – to bring salvation and healing to a broken world.

The allegory of the nativity story draws us into a deep understanding of the focus of this mission.  The outcasts (shepherds), local leaders (Herod) and global leaders (Magi) all are invited into this grace.  Some accept.  Others reject.  This is no soothingly romantic scene.  The gospel writers capture the essential drama of the Garden of Eden: do we say yes to the Light and embrace salvation or do we continue to live in darkness?

We share so much with the young family growing up under Roman occupation and the corruption of that leadership.  Jesus knows our fears and uncertainty as he knows our joys and dreams. The current world drama is the same today as ever it has been.  Will the world embrace the Light, the healing Love that is salvation?  More importantly, are we peaceful enough to affirm our baptismal call and live the fullness of the Love of which we are members? 

For me, Christmas is much more challenging than Easter.  It is difficult to see past the romantic, soft and very comfortable story told again and again.  Easter is filled with triumph. Christmas we get a schmatta.   It is just plain hard to see Love in such a messy scene and yet, here it is.

My prayer for each of you and the world is that the greatest disruption of all time — the unfailing, limitless Light of Divine Love — enfolds you and infiltrate you with peace; to know the “healing in His wings.”  This is our time to say, “Yes” and offer “Amen” to the grace that opens us to the light brings the truth that “God and sinner reconciled”

Merry Christmas!

"Rise Up and Live in the Light of Oneness"

May your steadfast love endure to those

Who know You

Your saving grace to those

Who love truth and justice!

Protect us from the seeds of arrogance

The weeds of greed drive away

Open the hearts of those who live in

darkness O Beloved

that they might rise up and live

in the Light of Oneness

                                                                                                                                 

Psalm 36

Nan Merrill

It has been quite sometime since I found myself in a place where the imperative to write has been this strong.  Life has marched on with its daily challenges to be engaged in and present to the baptismal call to be “a holy nation, a people set apart.”

Today, I am preparing for leading a Morning Prayer service at the national gathering of Call to Action in Albuquerque, NM.  I selected Nan Merrill’s paraphrase of

Psalm 36 as part of the service months ago.  In this time of national transition, these words touch me in a new way. 

I hurt me at a visceral level to see the people I know and cherish turning toward judgmental, shaming words focused on their neighbors and friends.  Many years ago, I lead hundreds of high school students through an exercise that challenged them to pause before having sexual encounters at a party by closing their eyes and seeing my face.  They all shrieked and laughed! (as well they should.) It was a moment that brought front and center the idea of “think before you act.” 

Here we are at the open door of new leadership in the United States of America.  We know a great deal about the groundwork being laid. We know Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, Jeff Sessions and Chris Christy.   We may not all agree with them but we know them. To know them gives each of us important information on at least the basic framework that is emerging.  This knowledge must begin to shape how we will each move forward in the dialectic that we cherish in this nation of ours.

The great challenge for the Catholic in the Diaspora as it is for all the baptized is to close our eyes and before we make a statement that demeans or shames, no don’t see my face (although that will make you laugh and break the tension), look into God’s eyes. See the Love that makes this moment possible and respond in charity.

Do not fall prey to

Ignorance lives deep in the hearts

Of those who know not Love;

There is not reverence for Truth

Before their eyes

Public figure, public policy, laws and governments can only modify the structures in which we live.  Fortunately, the rights of assembly and speech continue to be bedrock of the USA.  This freedom is extraordinary.

The change of the heart comes from another place.  It is changed hearts that bring respect and grace to any social framework.

Being agents of the heart in the framework of our political process is the call of the baptized.  Keep looking into the eyes of the Loving One and believe those who have been called, whether they are Jews or Greeks, slave or free we believe in a Christ who is both the power of God and the wisdom of God.”   Be the living expression of the freedom that is ours in baptism.  It is the freedom of those who

Rise up and live

in the Light of Oneness.

Alleluia!