jonesy
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by jonesy on May 26, 2006 3:50:28 GMT
I wrote in the above post about bearing the weight of reality. I wanted to sneak in here quickly and sketch a thought out on paper as it were this screen. I hear much about faith, confessions, of believing, of the ability to see things built or exist tangibly as the proof of God's blessing. What I'm curious about is the progression of God's revelation of himself from a tabernacle in the desert to a temple in a city to a people in whom it's said He indwells.
Yet those indwelt consume sizeable amounts of energy, resources, and space creating and using things, buildings, empires, and inhabiting those places themselves. I'm curious that God has chosen the human heart to occupy and make acceptable by the precious spent blood of Jesus. His creation, us included seems suitable to Him to give to us as a place to live. He's given us the capacity to create, how and what we create are of interest to me at least. Do we create a life that affords us the space to give Him time in our lives? Many have given their hearts to Jesus, their cash, their belongings and had an expectation of return, of blessing of tangibility of God's providence. Their digs however for a personal tabernacle of relationship with God are spare, like a pup tent in the backyard for a ten year-old's sleep over. Or to indulge in the metaphor a bit more, a Cadillac in the driveway, and a red Radio Wagon spirituality in our heart. Our knowledge of scripture hasn't the substance to bear the weight of reality when we think we can define that which is unknowable into a few well rehearsed and worn-out concepts. I frankly see folks who attend to their finances with great care and attention, can quote chapter and verse of scripture and investment schemes as good stewards yet are vacuous in the depth of their intimacy with the Abba of our faith.
Last summer as the eye of a hurricane tracked an hour's drive east of where I'm typing nature was at work indiscriminately taking out churches, bars, brothels, homes, and businesses. Years of people's lives swept away in the span of hours, the sweeping destruction beyond our ability to conceive. In the aftermath sages announced they'd seen this coming and had tape to prove it, others gravely pointed to our sin, our debauchery and cultural misdeeds as proof of wrath from the almighty. I thought the Gospels record these tenements and neighborhoods that posed such a threat that God had to dispose of them were the very same sort of place Jesus had lived and worked in all of His life. Last time I checked the poor, and unclean, and even swindlers, cheats, prostitutes and drunkards hung out in the not so nice part of town, save our white collar criminals. Fishermen and those of the seafaring trade weren't Rhodes Scholars in Jesus' day. Indeed if the target was sin I'd think He'd go for those who indulge in materialism, grand scale larceny to pay for their manses, and those who feign interest in meeting need while choosing the carpeting for their Gulfstream.
I believe that God is very interested in how we treat the folks who suffer in our world, they are a barometer of our intimacy with the Father and understanding of His compassion. John
|
|
jonesy
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by jonesy on May 26, 2006 13:19:46 GMT
Some astronomers estimate that there may be as many galaxies as there are grains of sand on the earth. That's mind boggling, and in the average galaxy there again are an equivalent number of stars the grains of sand on the earth. Yet the night sky is dark, a few pinholes of light appear to the naked eye. Were you to hold out a dime at arms length you'd block out a billion stars?
Fredrich Buechner writes of darkness in his latest book and I was thinking about that. We're all in essence afraid of the dark given the right circumstances. The unknown, unseen, shadows that stretch across the nightscape and play in the wind create a dance macabre in our imaginations. Of course there are all kinds of darkness, spiritual, emotional, mental, relational, understanding, I'm sure a list could go for some time if given to specifics and somewhere the hairs would come up on our necks.
We bump and stumble our way through varying forms and shades of darkness daily. Somehow we've learned to cope with darkness, to accept it, to negotiate our way through to the objective. Of course there's the light, we're afraid of that too. Light illumines exposes, uncovers, and reveals all. There are no areas of gray in light except in a shadow, the beam itself is unrelenting whether from a candle or a searchlight. Though obviously the candle glows and warms the searchlight blasts light and bathes us in an eerie cast. I remember being hired once to shoot downtown Los Angeles one evening illuminated by a parking lot filled with searchlights for a film studio. The carbons hummed in the lamps as generators grumbled and the electricians kept the arcs struck to give the cityscape an odd blast of sweeping beams of light in a summer night's sky. I imagine those beams sweeping through our lives, our existence exposed, our secrets projected for all to see, our successes would seem odd in this light as well for they would be measured against our failures even if unconsciously.
Our church sanctuary has candles that glow; in the season of Advent the different candles for each week are lit and a short reading accompanies this each week leading to Christmas. It speaks of the light of the world who at His coming "on a Midnight Clear..." gave us illumination, shepherds surrounded by the glow of an angelic light were told not to fear this light. Jesus himself told us to ..."come unto him all you who are weary and burdened", come rest in the gentle glow of His being, His love.
I think the Father tippy-toes around the wings of the stage of His creation, looking through the curtains here and there as scenery and props are moved about and actors play out their roles to portray the Creator. Yet he hides, His glory revealed in small doses, glimpses of His presence give a sense of Him, Jesus said if you've seen me you've seen the Father. Yet the Father didn't package Himself in a very impressive way a matchstick really in a storm that flickered and then blew out. Why would God play hide and seek, why clothe himself in obscurity and let darkness exist at all? Some have said that the vastness of the universe exists at all because God chose to create by withdrawing Himself to make room for us to be. Possibly so, it seems as reasonable as anything I can come up with, so why withdraw, why create at all? Why in creating, create trouble for Himself, why allow sin to exist, why the play of darkness and light of shadow, of substance that is in hope, faith that is in the unseen?
Meanwhile back at the ranch... It is the glory of God to conceal a matter and the glory of kings to search it out. When I heard that scripture many years ago a sense of order came, some things began to fall into place. I imagined a scene like this:
God the Father and Jesus and the Holy Spirit were having coffee one morning and on the table was a blueprint, plans scattered all over and a whole catalogue of working drawings were at hand. Quite a stir, Lucifer strolls by and asks "What's up?” Well, creation the Father replies, humans and birds and squirrels and stars and planets...my dream. Lucifer harrumphs and stalks off "The notion of perfection being worshipped by imperfection, what a waste!" And so the die is cast heaven quivers with insurrection and a third of the angels rebel and fall away.
In the meantime creation happens and man is given breath-he's the first creature to breath not only respire as all the other animals do but breathe in the life of God. They become friends, Adam is given a mate and has a choice to make ultimately creation or God, and he chooses creation as do we all. God chooses to reveal himself through His creation, and through His Holy Spirit and after a time His Son, Jesus. Through this advent of His kingdom we have recourse with the Father to receive forgiveness, and healing. We begin to see the redemptive powers of the Father worked out in our daily lives. He gives us the choice again once lost through Adam, to choose Him. To live in His creation but not worship it which is the sin in my mind of Lucifer, he valued his own creation over that of the uncreated God.
Through the dappled light of an afternoon of life we see through a mirror darkly, in the twilight of evening we catch a glimpse of His shadow passing like Moses did. His love is so immense that He won't risk damaging us by the weight of His glory revealed, he speaks to us in whispers like a breeze, sometimes a wind, I think most of the time in silence He is. He invites us to move beyond knowledge about Him, debates, and diatribes to come and know Him. Those who do know Him communicate their experience eloquently in a presence not their own.
I laugh at the word eloquence for truthfully I can barely mouth a prayer of thanks and not screw it up somehow. I type run-on sentences, make the inventors of spell-checker technology secure in their work and sit in bewilderment at what any of this means. There is a glow however, not from the computer screen that gives me hope and rest that He is near. Sometimes, as Brennan Manning writes of bright darkness that surrounds, I feel his absence. Yet that felt absence is in truth a calling to move nearer, to find Him still, in a new place, in a new way. John
|
|
jonesy
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by jonesy on May 30, 2006 17:14:01 GMT
Several summers ago I was casually reading a book referred to in another book written by Brennan Manning, the author is Henri J.M. Nouwen. The book I was reading while perched in one of my green plastic lawn chairs was "Wounded Healer". The casual reading took on a dimension that I could only term arresting. This short book opened me up like a summertime watermelon. I sat there gasping literally because he spoke of the need of every believer to be able to have a pastoral conversation with someone in need. I could debate, parse scripture, communicate in the currency of dominion, but meet need? Could I genuinely retrieve from my experience a meaningful response to pain, to fear, to anguish with something other than dogma? So I sat there as convicted and in stark terror as if in the sway of the sternest vocalization of an evangelist with organ music in the distance droning on. I envisioned myself joining the throng while we trampled the church carpet, dashing for the altar, kneeling bench, anything to hold while trembling in the sobs of penitence. I can tell you grace is a dangerous thing when you begin to realize you don’t have it all figured out.
Or how about my experience yesterday morning where I awoke and had the most tangible sense of God's presence as if I'd been in an all night service of some sort, yet I laid there blinking my eyes and shuffling into slippers to careen sleepily through the house in search of coffee. I sat there in the same sense of presence this time comforted that He would guide me through the steps needed to follow on in the journey. As I seek to resume my career in Hollyweird, not getting caught-up in the materialism of L.A. and short circuiting my heart's desire to live out Christianity in a loving fashion in that place. On the desk beside me are two more of Nouwen's books and a third is under contemplation for purchase because of a vein of thought I have.
The downward mobility of Jesus is the antithesis of the dominion mandate theology of our youth. The cultural overthrow proposed would somehow align our world with His and soon we'd meld Heaven and Earth into some sort of Christian ubiquity of righteousness. We'd negotiate the terms of the Lion and lamb reconciliation, the healing of the nations would be balmed under our hegemony, and those who are without would gnash their dentures and envy our state of union with the Almighty.
We blithe sing "...we are weak but He is strong...yes Jesus loves me for the bible tells me so." Unless of course my weakness includes homosexuality, insecurity, or doubt, apparently avarice gets a pass, as does adultery with a Papal Nuncio to administer the dispensation. The Gospels become a Roman-a-Clef the recounting of Jesus compassion on the masses useful in the discourse of eternal propriety and ruler ship.
To be frank, I sat there in my plastic pew wondering if my Christianity was worth the cost of my present furniture. If indeed the affections of an entire generation had been spirited off in some grand hi-jack scheme to get us off the track of His providence. to make a deal with the devil as it were of standing on the parapet of the temple and saying; "You know, that 'kingdoms of the world' bargain basement thingy sounds plausible, if we can just get past the 'bowing down and worshipping' part-could my people call your people?"
Of course expedience always gives us the worship of the temporal, of power, as Nouwen calls it the most insidious power-religious power. Yet Jesus in being powerless wielded the very strength needed to penetrate the walls of religiosity and free the captives, He assailed the centuries of thought that had eternity bound-up in ritual, rule, and rigor, and brought us out as captives of our own making. We languished in the dungeons of self condemnation, fear, and loathing, our selves concealed in the gloom of attachments to falsehoods, lies and deceit. We resembled French courtesans seeking to daub on another layer of white lead, to powder our wigs and replenish our sachets, hoping to move about enough so that only a glimpse, a cursory glance of this bride would be had before we tricked Him into signing the marriage license.
Fortunately Jesus' love isn't human, He isn't amorous, avaricious, or shallow for he isn't seeking a trophy wife, a consort, or He'll settle for nothing less than the love of His life. In seeing that shouldn't the bride have a facility of knowledge not of conceptions and ideologies, but of intimacy? What friendship, let alone romance could bear the sterile environment of facts, and recitations of dogma, of legalese and parliamentarian perfection? How will the world that "God so loved" get to know the "only begotten son" if those who supposedly know, don't? Does Jesus weep over us in this day as He did Jerusalem for in their entire prowess in theology they had given themselves to the romance of suitors less than noble? What earthly father would marry-off his daughter to someone who asked how well she performed, was she worth his trouble, was she in for the vulgarity of the bargain? Yet Israel was about just that; a Martial union of convenience searching for a king, a mighty tactician, some aggressor bounding through the heavens trodding creation under hoof, carrying campaign furniture of enough substance to facilitate a quick tryst to seal the bargain-an arranged marriage. John
More later...
|
|
jonesy
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by jonesy on May 31, 2006 13:39:03 GMT
A confession, I sit down at the computer and write stuff and hit the exit arrow and wonder what in the heck I'm doing here. I feel inadequate to speak about much of anything of substance at times and yet this jazz keeps whirling around in the inside and somehow the jumble is assembled on screen.
How manly is it to write about doubts, or insecurities or failures or fears? I'll jump up from here and go fix something, or mow the yard, or some other pedestrian thangy and then something strikes me and I need to come back in and sit down and whack away on the keyboard.(Which has dust on it from remodeling the room it's sitting in.)
However I screeched to a halt one morning in my bible study time when the realization sort of sauntered through my brain that Jesus spent most of His adult life working a trade. The author of the book had used that as an illustration of some sort and I'd moseyed on by it when I pondered that for a moment. To be honest I have no real insight into why God decided to have Jesus make wood shavings as an adult for a period three times longer than His earthly ministry spanned. Jesus was a fellow with calloused hands, maybe a cut or injury from a tool, as a good son He cared for His mother, yet they don't figure into the scheme of things in the gospels to any great extent.
For some the notion of the common is nonspiritual, the mower, the hammer, the errand or some such isn't on a plane of consciousness, we just do it. I won't drone on much further, but I know that the life of Jesus didn't exclude the tedium of work, or the or the mundane for a reason, I suppose it was a part of why He resonated with folk when He met them. John
|
|
jonesy
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by jonesy on Jun 6, 2006 9:27:51 GMT
In the past few days I've been spending time with old friends sharing the with them what God has been up to in my life over the last few years and vice-versa. We gathered up a few folks and went to hear Brennen Manning speak in Missouri. (Funny to go that far to hear my neighbor speak.) I was also able to share my heart with their congregation on Sunday, to articulate some of the things I post here and see that resonate with them was a blessing. John
|
|
jonesy
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by jonesy on Jun 6, 2006 18:11:39 GMT
Well, reality is here today, the car, the house, the grass... Mary visits Elizabeth we're told in Luke 1:39-45 and the ensuing phenom is something of interest today, for me at least. When they met they experienced a quickening in their womb. Elizabeth was filled with the Spirit and exclaimed in a loud voice "Blessed are you among women..." The remainder of this chapter is the resultant songs of worship for the births of Jesus' and John's birth along with the anecdote of John's birth. Two things are my focus today:
Waiting patiently for God is hard until we realize God waits for things as well. He's waited for example for eons for your birth; it gives me meaning for each day when I think about it. The birth of these two young fellows was unremarkable save Jesus' virgin birth and the wise men that came to see Him at birth. We see things born sometimes and pay them little heed and yet they become something of import over time as they mature. The hyperbole of our modern Christian experience may rob us the enjoyment of the simple things of life. Some things that become something of substance sometimes for someone else because we neglect them and they wind up in foster care of someone else because we've orphaned them.
Secondly, Mary and Elizabeth encouraged each other and that which was gestating in them responded in a positive fashion to their friendship and mutual encouragement. Ever get an idea and the legitimacy of it seems questionable? Now I'm not talking about goofy evangelize little green men on the moon questionable, but we're stretched. We need to realize that we have the capacity to encourage other and see things become a reality through our relationships. All things born happen through relationships, prenatal care for our dreams is a legitimate enterprise. I'm not a confessor, bathroom mirror scripture metaphysicist; I am one who trusts God to bring things to pass in my life. I believe God gives us dreams and ideas and hopes and they have a gestation period, a waiting, a trusting, a relationship not only with others but with the Father.
To encourage others who are weak and feeble with their dreams is like nurturing Mary a young woman carrying a child of promise of questionable heritage. Had Joseph stoned Mary as tradition and legalism required he would have also killed the infant she carried-Jesus. In our traditions, arrogance, doubt, or whatever else we might engage in as what I call spiritual genocide do we not see that we kill off things which are God breathed in the doing? John
|
|
jonesy
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by jonesy on Jun 7, 2006 18:39:08 GMT
One of the points I spoke of on Sunday morning last was perfectionism. In Luke 4 where I guess I posted recently about the hometown crowd I said Jesus' neighbors thought His reading of Isaiah was a pronouncement of approval of their Judaism and the practice thereof.
There was a belief held at the time of Jesus' appearance that a certain number of Sabbath's performed flawlessly-sinlessly would usher in the Messiah's coming. (Sound familiar?) He then began to compare them with those of history where others had been in need but were passed over for blessing and outsiders had been blessed instead. Naman the Syrian a leper cleansed and the widow in Zarephath were used in the illustration along with the prophet Elijah and his ministry. He said a prophet is without honor in his own hometown-that where the prophet speaks, to his people they had rejected them in the past and they would Him on that day. In the ensuing moments they spilled out into the streets and pushed Jesus to the brow of the hill to kill Him in a rage. I suppose He gave them the opportunity along the way to wake-up and realize what they were doing, that their own self condemnation would be their d**nation. That their concept of God and the perfection of that concept more acceptable and real to them than the actual Messiah standing there before them. The Messiah-Jesus didn't meet up with their expectations, but He was-is the Messiah they needed.
Our popular culture has the art of perfectionism down-go to a health club lately? They ride stationary bikes and jog on treadmills (metaphorically going nowhere fast) and look at themselves in the mirror for gratuitous self admiration. We have a win at all costs mindset-perfectionism in sporting scandals with steroids and other performance enhancing drugs. We work countless hours to have name-brand possessions because only the best will do. This cultural tsunami has of course washed over the church, we build mega structures with stadium seating, sound systems, audio-visual screens and projectors (another metaphor) and hire and pay handsomely professional musicians and staff to perform in our gatherings. We in effect project onto God our mania for minutia and create a religion, logotypes, slogans and all that market the Gospel of "We've got it together" more than you've got it together. Jesus called us to follow Him not to push Him, to sell Him, to incorporate him in our agenda. Jesus told Peter to "get thee behind me Satan", in response to his "Lord may it never be" He rebuked the Satan of self interest in Peter. That even though Peter had revelation about whom Jesus was he didn't have a heart change in regard to his agenda. When told Satan had asked permission to sift him and to strengthen his brothers after His death, Peter didn't comprehend the message-your days of perfectionism are nearing an end, you'll fall flat on your face.
We similarly are called to follow Jesus with our crosses made of common wood of the stuff that’s around us our failures, mistakes, weaknesses, and sins not in our self approved perfection but His. "Be perfect as my Heavenly Father is perfect" isn't an admonition to get busy but to rest, to rest in the perfect work of the cross, that we being crucified with Christ and resurrected with Him also. We're freed from the CYA mode of the world; we don't cover our tracks, make excuses, exaggerate our successes, or minimalize our failures, and posture ourselves in the most flattering light. We also are freed from categorizing those who meet up with our standards, (or in sales vernacular "qualifying" people) or merit our attention, or deserve our "New and Improved" Messiah. Perfectionism is the world, it is the flesh seeking justification, it is blind to the realities of the Messiah, Jesus. John
|
|
jonesy
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by jonesy on Jun 7, 2006 21:03:13 GMT
Sam is a stray Dachshund we appropriated as ours a few years back. He was covered in scars and wounds from fights or injuries a vet had taken him in and nursed him to health. We saw him wobble by one day in a unique gait that is all Sam. Soon a sign was posted in our neighborhood that advertised "Dog Found" and we ventured over to the Vets office to inquire about this quizzical critter. He was unclaimed so he became one of us.
If you drive up into our back parking area and come through the back door you'll think you've come to a dog pound. A heard of five dogs and our now part-time resident cat howl, bark, and caterwaul in a chorus of canine greeting. The cat just checks you out to see if you've got food. Sam however is our most demonstrative and earnest pup-WYSIWYG. He just now visited me at my desk and hopped up on the edge of the seat tail whipping furiously, eye to eye demandingly stating "Love Me!” When you do love him by petting him and scratching him behind the ears his lips sort of curls in a rakish grin "I knew it, I knew you loved Me." expression. He jumps down and saunters off in his Sam waddle and all is right in his world.
I sometimes question why in the world there is so much pain and injury inflicted not by the world alone but by the church. There are lots of Sams in the world who are earnestly in search of simple love. There are others who are gifted and blessed with a simple ability to heal, forgive, and restore our wounds, most times wounded in some respect themselves. In fact I would say all have this capacity in some fashion to be a part of the revolutionary idea of creating life where pain exists. We must believe in the one, the Master, the King who wouldn't build His kingdom on our backs, but on His knees to enable us to assume His posture of serving in humility, creativity, and grace. John
|
|
jonesy
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by jonesy on Jun 8, 2006 15:36:29 GMT
An empty house is a thought that came to me this morning as a title of what ever these things I dribble and drabble on about. Jesus said it is good that I go; He lived this reality out all his life, postured on the edge of being gone.
How odd it seems to me some days to ponder someone so full of life, of power, of intimacy with the Father that He sought to communicate with His followers that it was good for Him to go. I imagine Jesus had a residence of some sort when He lived here. It's said in one of the Gospels that some of John's disciples went and stayed with Jesus and after living where He lived for a time they became His disciples. We similarly are invited to live where He lives for a time and become His disciples. We too are invited to realize that we are also called to understand that it would be better for our disciples that we go.
Our modern post-modern society is all about living well at the expense of the generations to come. We fear death, we push back time, I was told over the weekend by a friend that fifty is the new thirty as if we'll forestall our passage into eternity if we believe in youth enough. I joke about my friends who seek the youth-dew of Deleon’s fountain that some day they'll die-healthy.
Today in fact they're celebrating the death of a foe, that it is considered a victory in the war on terror. Jesus celebrated His own death with a simple ceremony, the cup and the loaf. He celebrated His return to His Father where He said He would go and prepare a place for us, a place of belonging, a mansion in which there are many rooms, empty rooms, waiting rooms, an enormous empty house. He considered His death a victory on the war on the fear of death. He calls us to come near and relish His victory not with weapons raised, martial parades with the spoils of war and the mechanisms of destruction on display, but with a sense of life for the future. That others may live in the life we lived and given as a gift for them in the love of Jesus. That what we leave behind is not merely an empty space, a vacancy, a hollow sound, dusty cobwebs and faded photos but a healing of the breach, a reconciled portion of creation.
John
|
|
jonesy
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by jonesy on Jun 9, 2006 5:01:09 GMT
I'm just finishing a book by Henri Nouwen entitled "Finding My Way Home". It's a book I'll need to chew on and digest but it has sparked a line of musing, of consideration, indeed of meditation.
I've had a thought for some time that we are called as Christians to consider dying well. Not in morbid terms but to see our life as a gift for future generations. A heritage both those who were closest to us and those who see us in the ages to come though they might not know us or even be aware of our name, that we gave in the understanding that His kingdom is not of this world. If our spirit is given to others in the love of God then we too can say that it is good for to go to the Father, indeed I think as a disciple of Jesus we're called to follow him in this manner as well.
Jesus journeyed throughout the Judean countryside his travels meandered like the riverbed I glimpsed out the plane window the other afternoon. There amid the patchwork of fields intersected by roads and other manmade stuff was the course of a river, the Mississippi. It doubled back on itself and writhed and wriggled its way south to the Gulf it made it to it’s destination-finally. Will we some day view the course of our life from a higher plane and see that in spite of it all we made it to our destination, but more importantly that in the process of doing so the surrounding countryside was replenished with the life that spread from the banks of our existence. John
|
|
jonesy
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by jonesy on Jun 11, 2006 11:12:24 GMT
I spoke last Sunday at my friends' church about the essential point made in Luke 4 where Jesus went to His hometown for an inaugural disposition of His ministry. That is they disliked His take on their spirituality and took matters into their own hands.
As a prodigal we come to a place of not being a bystander such as the servants or the brother but as one who has taken matters into our own hands, and failed. I've always found solace in figuring out where I stand on an issue and elucidating it to whomever would listen. My occupation for a time was doing that on a daily basis on my talk show. I found my spiritual pursuit of equal importance or even more, it's being Christian you know. For years I'd debated Maranathans and others on the merits or lack thereof of stuff which in retrospect don't matter as much now. It could be a matter of being right, Lord knows I have an addiction to that, but I also think it a matter deeper and more driven-security.
I've needed the security of being in control of my spiritual journey, of plotting out a course and detailing the strategy of belief and action to under gird that belief. I acted in the manner of the prodigal thinking up a scheme, a way to earn my keep back at the ranch where "Daddio" pays the hands well. Unsettling it is for me to be held in the embrace of a loving Father who's shushed my excuses and rationalizations. The appeal of the logic of my ingenuity is moot for Him, He cares only to love me and remove my shame and have me trust Him. In the same way Jesus had to entrust His spiritual journey to the Father, the Gethsemane experience of prayer and of comfort led Him to Calvary the next day, where stripped naked and at a loss of everything including His dignity He clung to the felt presence of His Father, where He forgave those who murdered Him in ignorance. Then came the time when He shrieked not in physical agony but in spiritual abandonment, "My God, My God why have you forsaken me?" Somewhere Jesus came to the place of trust where He allowed himself the place of trust to be commended into the Father's hands, "Into thy hands I commend my spirit." At the end of it He gave Himself not only for us, but for Himself over to His Father's embrace as a prodigal returning not in control but in trust. "It is finished", I don't know how, or where, or why, but I give myself back to you Father, and He died.
I have grown accustomed to being in control, in certain areas I'm loosening my grip, in some cases a death grip, my spirituality included. I return once again to the scene in Luke 4 where we're told it was Jesus' custom to worship in that synagogue, where He proclaimed the scriptures' fulfillment in their hearing. Where Jesus relinquished His custom that day and didn't explain himself to the hometown crowd as they pushed Him to the brow of the hill. He didn't make a deal, or become a hireling, or create adherents by manipulation. It says, "He walked through the crowd and went on His way." John
|
|
jonesy
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by jonesy on Jun 13, 2006 10:17:49 GMT
I've written and erased a post here several times today and maybe this one will make it. There has always been a struggle in the church for increased freedom and an atmosphere of trust in the Father.
Conflict be thy name and how I dislike it so, yet it came home to roost in my present church I attend of late. The word "accountability" reared its head in a conversation and I had to stifle a shudder, I could smirk inwardly though because it was a control maneuver as apparently universal as the Apostle's Creed in Christianity. Trusting the Father with my control issues my wife and I talked about the day until the wee hours of my walking out grace in my foolishness. When we read the scriptural approbation of wisdom from God and its apparent folly to the wise we must realize that reality. A reality not defined in academic proportions, but essential to the understanding of following God in trust, in faith. To be foolish, to be vulnerable, to be honest, and to throw off the debate society tactics to win at all costs, to be addicted to being right, or in control. To realize the illusory nature of those things that are addictions and so much more; the approval of others, the use of gifts and talents from God to attain stature or esteem in the eyes of the world.
Jesus upon hearing the words of His Father "This is my Son in whom I am well pleased" then went out into the wilderness to hear other voices tempting Him with power, self promotion, and self satisfaction. We read of this and have sentimentalized it into a flannel graph sort of reality that sounds nice for the Jesus of "Jesus loves me this I know...” In our desert experience where we meet the truth of facing up to our illusions and not papering over our fears, foibles, failings and facades with religion.
Henri Nouwen in his book "The Prodigal" speaks of this as coming home to ourselves in the inner recesses of our hearts where God has decided to make His abode in us. The abiding in Him as He abides in us, not racing around the planet in a literal, or figurative sense peddling ourselves for the attentions of the world. Not declaring that we are beyond the silliness of needing God as Father or His love, that we have attained a measure of self sufficiency, of actualization, of industry and accomplishment. To stand still in His presence and allow ourselves to be held in His embrace and not pull away from it is one of the most difficult things I do. John
|
|
|
Post by speakword on Jun 13, 2006 11:18:56 GMT
I saw this quote again the other day:"Jesus is not Doctor Phil with holes in his wrist!"
Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. 1 Timothy 1:14-16
|
|
jonesy
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by jonesy on Jun 13, 2006 12:11:56 GMT
I have a poor excuse for a blog entitled John's Hutch www.johnshutch.blogspot.com/Speakword, I could fill the page with "amens"! Thanks so much my friend John
|
|
|
Post by mdillon on Jun 13, 2006 13:33:13 GMT
John, Have deeply appreciated your posts on f-net the past year. Just checked out The Hutch this morning. Your "crushed grain" has been fresh Bread for many. Keep it coming.
Mark
|
|
jonesy
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by jonesy on Jun 13, 2006 16:31:45 GMT
Mark, thank you I hope y'all are well, great to hear from you. John
|
|
|
Post by mdillon on Jun 13, 2006 21:54:11 GMT
John, we are well, thank you, in spite of me. Post-Maranatha journey has been a doozy. Have actually been found by Christ.
Mark
|
|
jonesy
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by jonesy on Jun 15, 2006 10:38:20 GMT
In a sign of the whimsy of the Father I see the church being evangelized by the backsliders, outcasts, and those who at some point in time fell. They didn't fall away they fell on their behinds and squashed their sanctimonious perfection flat in the process along with a contusion or two on the egous maximus. Of course when I say "they" I include me the chief of those whose Christianity ambles along with a limp from wrestling with my faith. To work out one's salvation with fear and trembling isn't always an exercise in the downside of the curve of Christian excellence but a real sense of the arc of the life we lead, that in the yaw and pitch of our faith we follow the master. That I don't break out the champagne when I open the door for a little old lady and neither summon the firing squad when I curse after smashing my thumb, I accept both as a part of life and in them give God the glory. John
|
|
jonesy
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by jonesy on Jun 15, 2006 23:52:16 GMT
Brennan Manning wrote about the tradition in some orders of priests where Easter Monday is a day to sit around and tell jokes. The brothers would laugh and carry on for hours in a celebration of the risen Christ, and a celebration of the peals of joy like bells filling the village on an Easter morning. Also of course on Easter morning scribbled in chalk all over the towns and villages of France was graffiti that translates; "The love of God is a folly!" They recognized and luxuriated themselves in the fact of God's foolish love which can't be comprehended by Human reasoning. I hate to tell you this but the wedding supper of the Lamb won't be a somber occasion. Because of all of the wrong side of the tracks folks present, the Messiah being one of them it's liable to get rowdy. John
|
|
jonesy
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by jonesy on Jun 18, 2006 9:43:35 GMT
Picking up where I left off in "The Prodigal" I wanted to look at the thing from the father's perspective.
The father isn't asking many questions of the Prodigal, he's not demanding that he explain himself. No posture of hands on hips, square shouldered dad, narrowed eyes, and then the arched eyebrow look with a question of "What are you doing back?" Instead the father knew he'd screw-up his inheritance, knew he'd fail, and knew he'd return, the father also knew that in asking for his inheritance the Prodigal said he wished the old man dead. The father knew that, sensed it, was confident in his love to see him through, but it was no picnic for dad.
If the Prodigal story is anything it is a story of longsuffering, of giving, of hurting while releasing us to do our thing, and yet not retaliating when we return. It's about being silent in the face of failure, the other day someone failed me in their behavior, I'd expected that behavior and when they acted in the way that I'd expected I blew-up and possibly derailed a Prodigal homecoming, being more the elder brother, than a dad. People sometimes live down to our expectations and we are disappointed in them for doing so. Sometimes that person is ourselves, sometimes someone else. I'd come to the conclusion that I have been trying to save the and the day and be the White Knight in all of this and I should have kept my mouth shut instead and allowed them and me the space for failure.
Again the church is to be a beacon, if a lighthouse is posted above rocks and shoals and some ship runs aground the church's modus operandi would be to dispatch a committee and tell those shipwrecked where they went wrong. What Jesus did, and still does is reach out and grab us by the arm and lift us out of the water and carry us to safety, implied though not said as He silently carries us is, “Nice try, good on you, let's all have another go tomorrow shall we?” John
|
|
jonesy
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by jonesy on Jun 18, 2006 11:09:01 GMT
|
|
jonesy
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by jonesy on Jun 20, 2006 12:02:35 GMT
In the courtyard for two thousand years or so is the Father of the Prodigal in confrontation with the Elder son. I say confrontation and for me the immediate image is finger in the chest rancor, not so with Jesus' parable.
The Father went outside the party of celebration to pursue the elder son who refused to enter, to acknowledge the Prodigal's restoration. We Christians like to luxuriate ourselves in the notion of this staunch refusal to participate, to acknowledge the redeeming grace of the Father in Jesus as the reserve of Jews, agnostics, atheists and sinners. We're supposedly seated with a napkin tucked under our chin and a healthy slab of veal and mashed potatoes brimming over on our plate of redemption. In fact we deserve to be here, we uh, um, er, ah, earned it, and we’re the faithful, the ones who prayed the sinner's prayer. We become "Prodigal Connoisseurs" we estimate the depth of debauchery, the ins and outs of the outs and nod gravely as they come through the door, and turn and with lip smakin' gusto resume our feast.
Christianity has and can become a place where the guests are shown the door or rush through the portals in outrage over the lack of decorum of the late comers. The grace of God becomes a shabby enterprise of self indulgence, meanwhile ole dad still out in the courtyard for two thousand or so years now where we left him and the elder brother. His posture implied as we view this scenario one of enduring redemption and pursuit of humanity in a quest of reconciliation.
One of the chapters of Michael Yaconelli's book Messy Spirituality is entitled "Unspiritual Growth" one of the issues he deals with in the course of many is one of stuckness and unstuckness. In a nutshell when the Tug-o-war between God's will and ours is at a standstill. "We're stuck going nowhere, unable to get beyond a particular point." he writes. "Getting stuck can be the best thing that can happen to us, because it forces us to stop. It halts the momentum of our lives. We have no choice but to notice what is around us, and we end up searching for Jesus." He further writes about it revealing our hunger for God and longings and yearnings that have been stifled. So much for instant obedience and delayed obedience is no obedience or some such notion to that effect.
He goes on to detail the adventure of a ropes course group event staged for the staff at his ministry. His fear of heights dogs him all day in the looming tower called the Centurion where you climb up a tree on narrow steps, stand on a narrow plank, and jump forward to grasp a trapeze bar. When you've accomplished this you let go and fall into the net below, my take is just stay on the ground and have a metaphysical go at it. Any way, he is urged to take the climb and at the end of the day with fifteen minutes to spare he does climb the tree. "I began my slow ascent. It seemed like hours before I reached the top...I was petrified. I sat on the plank, stuck. I could not move. But the longer I sat on the plank, the calmer I became, and my resolve started to build. After at least ten minutes of stuckness, I got to my feet, walked briskly to the end of the plank, hesitated a few seconds and jumped."
He goes on to explain where other areas of life that had intimidated him, decisions and so forth, seemed less formidable. In our hesitancy, or just plain plopping down where we are there is time to become aware, to realize who we are and who the Father is. When we move on however that plays out, it is in faith, not in our selves, but in the Father and in His grace. It is a realization that He has all the time and patience in the world, he's here for the long run, for however long it takes to embrace us in His eternal goodness.
The other day a conflict arose in my life with another and I jumped up and stormed out of the banquet hall of the table of grace indignant. I was shouting inwardly "This is unfair, all I want to do is serve (deleted expletive)" After a while I noticed the Father standing there to as it were confront me, again not in the way we're accustomed, but to talk with me. He didn't really acknowledge the equity of the situation, or how strong was my case, He asked me to wait. Wait? Ok what's that going to do, waiting? "It's going to allow you to trust Me, to free you from taking matters into your own hands when they don't go to suit you" the Father spoke quietly like he would have to the elder brother. "It's going to free you to see other's unfairness as an opportunity to love, not conquer, to reprove and not injure them" He said.
The redemption of prodigals is our business here in the kingdom, to allow others, ourselves included to draw near, to stop being a connoisseur of other's failings. Of when they fail saying "Yep that's what a (fill in the blank kind of sinner)’ll do in that situation I knew it all along." in an expert manner. And finally of remembering that in our stroll through the rogue's gallery of human depravity there are mirrors generously placed throughout for personal reflection on our grace supplied by the Father as well. John
|
|
jonesy
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by jonesy on Jun 25, 2006 12:29:21 GMT
I'm in trouble, there's a stack of books that's growing and thoughts flying these days and the demands of life urgent so I've been away for a short time. Robert Capon is someone I'd like to introduce to you as an author. His writings are stimulatingly pithy and down to earth. I also like his avocation of chef, cookbook writer, and food critic. Probably somewhere along the way in these threads or my blog I'll begin to address the pot, pan, and stove part of the kingdom life. As a side note I also couldn't resist Brian McLaren's new book which I highly recommend-The Secret Message of Jesus.
One of the most startling realizations that came to me a few years ago was that the spiritual life we lead has proportion to it, dimension, it has undulations, depth, in fact it's geometric, not flat, not linear. Capon writes of the arc of the rainbow, a parabola it arches upwards towards God, has a multihued shimmer and no definite end or beginning, it exists in the heavens as a constant sign. I suppose somewhere on the planet at any given moment there would appear to some a rainbow. Jesus came as a sign among other things as well his parabolic teachings similarly multihued, with mystery surrounding their meanings their terminus not always definite. If Jesus is the face of God than He has certainly given us a lesson in didactics about God, to wit I find illustrative in its nothingness. Huh?
Were a scientist seek to explain to you the atom he'd possibly use the solar system to describe the various orbits around the sun as electrons in orbit around the nucleus. We'd grasp the concept well enough and move on to other things in our quest to determine the laws of physics. Professor Jesus as a guest lecturer though might stand in the auditorium and give us a more perplexing image to contend with. There are vast tracts of emptiness within the solar system, as there are in matter; though the solar system is defined by the orbital arcs of the planets they occupy a minute portion of the vastness of empty space. Some unseen mechanism causes the planetary rotation, orbits, and the solar ecology not of one planet but them all, each has an individual ecology yet all are interrelated. Some planets have abundance of gasses, others metals and others yet seem more vaporous. Indeed the earth's core contains enough gold were it mined; the continental area of the earth would lie in a three foot deep mass of the stuff. Jesus left for us more of who God is not than who HE is, and that He certainly is more than an abundance of religious minutia and arcania. In this vein of thought He called us to follow Him as it were the equatorial plane of His existence, to live in His light.
Among other things that means there are seasons of life, Jesus said something about discerning the times, the seasons of his eternity. The eternity in which we exist now-our time/space continuum are a part of the ecology of His existence, though obviously not all of it.
Lastly for today and thanks for your indulgence, Jesus didn't speak of out there, of heaven in over yonder terms, He spoke of here. He told the fellow on the cross with Him "Today you shall be in paradise with me"; interesting to me that He used the word today when speaking of an eternal experience of life after death. He spoke of a new heaven and a new earth. In returning to the rainbow to close in cleansing the earth of sin and violence in the manner of the flood He promised not to do that again, when Jesus came he cleansed the earth of violence and sin flooding it with God's love. We read Paul's writings about being baptized with Him in death and in resurrection, in the second appearing of a Noah figure in Jesus we see him stretched out on a cross to finish his journey, not passed out drunk in a tent. Yet Jesus took the sin of the world that came across the chasm of the flood with Noah and bore it upon himself. He took the wrath the judgment, the annihilation of sinfulness in His body, His being; he spanned the neither-ness of human failure. He became the gravitational field of love that holds all things together for good. John
|
|
jonesy
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by jonesy on Jun 27, 2006 12:25:36 GMT
I awoke from a dream last night and had the image of a stop sign in my head-oh John's medication needs adjusting! I was dreaming about repentance and forgiveness, first of all, and then what's implied in all of that.
A stop sign at least here in the states is octagonal in shape so as a driver you pull up to the sign and obey, you stop. Nowhere does the sign say to do anything else, yet if you just sit there the horns will sound soon loud and long. So you move on. Ah repentance, implied is the idea that you move on. When we repent in response to God's forgiveness, we don't just slow down or conversely think what a nice idea stopping here for a while and hanging out at this nice red sign. One of the things Jesus did was help people move on to see repentance as an intersection not a dead end. Indeed I believe we can see it as a mode of living, of moving on in a manner that acknowledges Him. I ultimately see repentance as a sort of GPS gizmo that guides us via the Holy Spirit; it maps out our journey, intersections and all.
Forgiveness is something that God does at great cost to Him and yet he does it universally as far as the east is from the west He remembers our sins no more. In the basics of forgiveness and repentance I'd like to remind us that His forgiveness precedes our repentance. The kindness of God leads to repentance. If you’re stuck somewhere along the road today in self unforgivness allow Jesus to come and heal you. I don't say that in a trite manner, but a significant part of Jesus' ministry was in the area of helping people "rise up and walk". John
|
|
jonesy
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by jonesy on Jul 3, 2006 7:48:23 GMT
I could swear Robert Altman had drummed up a scene out of one of his movies this morning at church. The recessional at our service was the Star Spangled Banner belted out on a huge pipe organ while folks filed out. I suppose it could have been disrespectful that we didn't stop and face the flag but there we were heading out the back, shaking hands with the ministerial staff and slouching towards the doughnuts.
Will there be some day when we don't need an anthem to signify our nationalism, our differences, our might as a nation? The sermon today was counterintuitive to the hymns and patriotism. It was an illustration of the Good Samaritan parable. Jesus shocked his audience when a legalist responded to a question about the commandments and said they were about love. Jesus replied that we were to love our neighbor, the legalist seeking justification, scripture tells us, asked "Who is our neighbor?" Jesus answered with a parable that made them uncomfortable, at the very least.
The road used as the scene for the illustration did indeed exist; it was treacherous and wound through the hills from Jerusalem to Jericho in a precipitous drop of several thousand feet. It was known for the bands of thieves and robbers that plied their trade as well so the fellow on the side of the road left for dead was plausible, in fact probably seen by some who heard Jesus' story. The Priest and the Levite hurried by in fact crossing over to the other side in order to avoid any possible contact with someone suspected dead and rendering them unclean according to Jewish law. It would've rendered the Priest not only unclean for seven days but made him incapable of performing his duties on the Sabbath. Instead Jesus commended the heretic Samaritan, a half breed considered an outcast from the Jewish population by reason of sinful birth. The intermarrying of Jews with their oppressors from years past had created this population of undesirables that worshipped on the fringes of society if at all. Jesus told of the personal risk the do-gooder took in picking up the wounded fellow left for dead and caring for him. Jesus even goes into detail relating the dressing of wounds and making arrangements for this hapless fellow's care. He then turns to his audience and after being told by them that the Samaritan did the right thing He said,"Go and do likewise." Drop your nationalistic pride, your stuffy ideals, your sense of right and wrong and love your neighbor as yourself. He said it not only to individuals but to a nation. I think Jesus is still looking for that response in us of waking up to the fact that we comfort ourselves with our proprieties to the peril of those around us dying, or discarded.
Do the rocket's red glare fog our vision, dim our hearts, does the cacophony of booms, oohs, ahhs, and brass bands deafen us to the cries of those wounded, maimed, and trampled under foot. I see similarities which alarm me far more than they comfort me of the notion of singular blessing for a nation.
Predating by several centuries was another revelation by dawns early light, that of an empty tomb, of a cloth which had red stripes on it and had certainly seen battle. It was the grave clothes of Jesus, a banner that was foretold of to Abraham in a dream. It held not fifty stars but millions, the stars promised to Abraham were the stars of promise of us as God's children. That Jesus the Good Samaritan, the heretic outcast Messiah would scoop us up; we left for dead and bandage our wounds, and carry us in nail scarred hands home. In a victory where though not a shot was fired, the outcome was singularly significant, it overcame a fierce foe. For in Him that which was disdained as unclean, the dead corpse of humanity moldering in sin was made clean and death itself overcome by a priest who in touching us gave us life. His outrageous behavior in risking his priesthood in gathering us up in His arms shone in the light of the Father's love. Because Jesus was neither a Levite or a Priest He cast Himself as a Samaritan and all that that entails as one who is to be emulated in giving and loving our neighbors the world over. John
|
|
jonesy
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by jonesy on Jul 8, 2006 11:58:57 GMT
Matt 13:33 the parable of the leaven is something I touched on over yonder and I thought I'd meander through here this morning. The Kingdom is like yeast or leaven worked into a quantity of dough. The microscopic aspect of said ingredients, much less the microbiologic elements unheard of in Jesus' time speak to us today-maybe. We like macro, mandate, international, tipping point, leveraged deals. We want the maximum effect for the effort we exert in life; we're attuned to payoffs and rewards. In fact some Christian author’s teachers and ministries teach in this mode of maxi-Christianity. We want the most out of life, the best, the ultimate, the superlative of choice that expedites the coming of a tangible kingdom. In other words the antithesis of a lump of dough that rises imperceptibly has no form in particular and is spectacularly unsophisticated.
The older I get the more I crave simplicity which isn't simplistic. I watch as we create what I call mumbo-jumbo religio-nomics where we trade in a currency of wealth of some kind as a legal tender of blessing. Though wealth per se isn't proscribed in scripture it certainly got in the way of the rich young ruler whose choice made both he and Jesus sad. In the rich man and the camel going through the eye of a needle allegory I don't think it's as much prescriptive as I think it's descriptive; your wealth may cause you trouble in following Jesus along the way. Certainly there were some women spoken of in scripture who had means and came from well to do households as the ones mentioned in the gospels, they set an example for us of generosity.
Indeed for many of us we've cashed in our ministry chips and followed a course of what might be termed secular pursuits. I chuckle at that idea not in ridicule, for I’ve been to the cashier's window my self a time or two, but because we're possibly more near the kingdom than ever before. Coming to an end of ourselves is freeing, oftentimes we find ourselves with nothing to loose or possibly nothing to gain. We've expended our cache of well intentioned spirituality on a less than satisfying enterprise and now all we want is a little sanity and an answer along the way if it's possible. Within us however is that which is fermenting, still growing, aging and coming to a place of usefulness, the bread of life. The heat of trials and disappointments fire the oven and the aroma of sustenance fills what seemed to be only a space of stifling nothingness. The kingdom had worked its way into us in ways we can't imagine but ultimately give Him glory. John
|
|
jonesy
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by jonesy on Jul 10, 2006 17:54:22 GMT
The first set of tablets didn't make it into the camp of the Israelites; Moses dashed them to pieces before He made it there. They were smashed in anger the law unable at that time to do its work. In point of fact the Law as Paul writes couldn't do for us what the forgiveness of God in Jesus did, it changed us.
Those tablets were crafted by God with writing in the Language of God written on both sides. Paul writes that now those laws are written deftly on our hearts, again in the Language of God. As I read over Exodus now I see the difficulty they had in unbecoming slaves, just as we struggle with unbecoming slaves of sin and instead slaves of righteousness. Interesting that in both cases we are considered indentured to a master, that we were both bought and sold as it were as property. I hope we understand that the people we seek to rule over aren't ours to begin with but God's. That as good stewards we understand our ultimate accountability to God for how we treat the Body of Christ, that He has an expectation of care and nurturing of us.
Yesterday in Sunday School we talked about John’s Gospel and found it refreshing to consider Jesus' healing on the Sabbath as a point of controversy. It seems that as He pointed out they worked on the Sabbath in performing the Bris, the circumcision ritual that it was ok to wound on the Sabbath but not heal. I think they were perplexed by the fact that Jesus could do things they were unable to do in their ritualism. John
|
|
jonesy
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by jonesy on Jul 12, 2006 7:58:29 GMT
If you've got some extra pocket money I'd recommend you buy Brian McLaren's book The Secret Message of Jesus. In the chapter entitled "The Scandal of the Message" he delves into the issue which I think is presently at hand namely the fact that demonic forces can and indeed do inhabit not only individuals but groups, institutions, governments, religions.
He further illustrates the point by showing the ministry of Jesus to be provocative and in so doing drawing the evil out into the light. The enraged Sanhedrin seemingly bent on preserving the nation of Israel are exposed when in a rage they cry we have no King but Caesar, while the King of Kings and Lord of Lords stands there mute, powerless supposedly. His power revealed in weakness, His kingdom not one of hegemonic coercion but of service, even of acquiescence. Yet Jesus names the evil, scripture tells us Satan entered into Judas at the communion table, Peter when confronted about his ambition is called Satan moments after the revelation of Jesus as the Christ.
I think many of us would certainly consider some of the abusive behavior seen in our collective past as demonic, a perversion of the kingdom in man centeredness, and ambition. As it has played out and been given full reign it-Satan as usual overplays his hand. I propose that as we consider walking together as a means and mode of wholeness-salvation that we also consider that this ideal has been corrupted, perverted and hijacked by those demonic powers. And that as it has been revealed ultimately by Jesus that we recognize that He is in our midst and desires that we walk together with Him-He's the one exalted. John
P.S. I posted this on factnet today and I thought it important to post here as well. The book I recommend I think answers some questions many may have about the goings on of some ministries today and our response to it and ultimately how to walk together with jesus.
|
|
jonesy
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by jonesy on Jul 16, 2006 11:09:45 GMT
I've posted some new stuff here which might be of interest. I'm also gonna post some new stuff here today if I can get to it. Thanks as always, John johnshutch.blogspot.com/
|
|
jonesy
Junior Member
Posts: 69
|
Post by jonesy on Jul 17, 2006 9:02:20 GMT
Several weeks ago someone handed me a bible study kit with a video in it and said "Here you teach the next two weeks" so there I was Andy of Mayberry tape in hand.
The second bible study in this universe of Americana dealt with appearances versus truth. Someone had stolen tools from a garage and the likely suspect was someone Sheriff Andy Taylor had given a break to. The story unfolded that someone else had given the slip to them all and did the dastardly deed and was discovered by the suspected culprit. It all nicely wrapped up in twenty two minutes so that we could have time to be made aware of some gadget, or gizmo we needed. In this case the bible study inserted the moralizing of some self styled entertainer slash pontificator. Mercifully we unanimously skipped that and went to the discussion.
The talk ranged from you can't trust people to you've got to trust everybody sometimes and several in between. Someone said what I thought was the magic word and I probed there a little bit. The gist of their comment was we need to be discerning. Hm, how do we do that? It further came out that we need to listen to what people say not wait for a moment to inject out next important thought. It occurred to me that we also need to listen to how we listen is there an inner voice that responds to what's being said, do we listen to that?
Well in a nutshell it seems to me that if we listen with our hearts and our heads we arrive at something called discernment using judgment and reason and spirituality. The degree that each of these influences us varies from circumstance to circumstance. As I'm finding these days awareness is an unending school of life that has me listening to things around me and me more intently. John
|
|