Celebration Whispers (Lent Reflection: Day 5)

Today is the first Sunday of the Lenten season. In this season, every Sunday represents the resurrection of Christ in anticipation of Easter. In a way, these Lenten Sundays leading up to Easter become a whisper of hope in the darkness of the cross and passion that the other days of the week symbolize. If the other days of the week are to be times of deep inner reflection with God, then Sundays are to be celebrations. Eat a feast, watch a comedy, have a dinner party, for the whispers of hope are swirling around us. The voice of God is awakening a new era.

There is this voice that echoes in and through our imaginations, through our sub-consciousness, and it tells us that the world should be some other way.

It’s an echo of a voice many of us have heard before, sometimes its loud, sometimes soft, sometimes barely audible, and sometimes you can only feel the vibrations of the noise, but it is always there. Always flowing.

The voice cries out

I am here. 

It sings

Take refuge.

It hums 

See I am doing a new thing! I will take the wilderness and through it I will make a path! Where there is nothing but bareness, drought and wasteland I will make streams of living water.

The voice continues…

If you are thirsty I will quench your thirst.

If you run away I will pursue you.

Those you don’t love me I will call my beloved anyways.

Echoes the voice.

If you hunger I will sustain you.

If you are blind I shall bring you sight. If paralyzed you shall walk.

There is a voice calling to each of us, and it echoes through our lives how things should be.

It is the spirit voice, the kingdom voice, the voice of God the father and God the mother, of Jesus Christ. It is the echoes of a message that has been lived by countless others before us. 

From a bush the voice commissioned moses

In the stars the voice echoed a promise to Abram.

The voice manifested in the dreams of joseph and in the

In the womb of mary.

While flames licked the feet of the martyr the voice sang out to them.

The voice flowed out of  MLK jr in a vision and in a dream.

The voice echoes throughout the seats of churches across the world during worship services.

Where there is hope the voice echoes.

Where there is light the voice echoes.

Where there is peace the voice echoes.

Where there is love, and mercy, sacrifice, suffering, joy, beauty,or holiness the voice echoes.

The voice we hear is the lords and it is calling us to join in Her pursuit to make things right. To transform what should not be into what it should be. To take God's will and make it a reality on earth. That is what the Kingdom of God is it is the reality, the realm, the place where God’s perfect will is actually what happens.

The Journey As Destination (Lent Reflections: Day 4)

Romans 12:2 says, "...be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect."

So how do we discern what the “good and acceptable” will of God is in our lives amongst all this darkness. Well, what if this perfect will of God in our lives did not look like going to this school or that school, moving here or there, giving this amount of tithing over this other amount. What if, instead, the perfect will of God in our lives is the journey toward God. The goal is the journey. Clarity of appropriate action should not be the focus, but instead the journey toward God is most important. 


When we are centered on God, when we are journeying toward God, all other things will fall in place: the right school or job, the right amount of money to tithe, the right relationships to pursuer. If we focus first on the journey toward God and commit ourselves to that journey, the stress and anxiety of discerning the difference between "right" and "wrong" choices or actions ceases to be the starting point.


Centering on God is part of this journey. Centering allows us to come closer to God and become better adept as recognizing the places God has planted grace in our lives. This transformative journey though, looks less like hiking a mountain and more like wading in a pond. We cannot force the movements, we must surrender our hearts so that the movements have space to work themselves out within us. 

As Richard Rohr says in the book Everything Belongs:

“We do not find our own center; it finds us. Our own mind will not be able to figure it out. We collapse back into the Truth only when we are naked and free- which is probably not very often. We do not think ourselves into new ways of living. We live ourselves into new ways of thinking. In other words, our journeys around and through our realities, or ‘circumferences,’ lead us to the core reality, where we meet both our truest self and our truest God. We do not really know what it means to be human unless we know God. And, in turn, we do not really know God except through our own broken and rejoicing humanity.”

Eye of the Hurricane (Lent Reflection: Day 3)

When Jesus learns of his friend Lazarus’ death, the scripture says he weeped. His friend was dead, yet all hope was not lost. 

“…he [Jesus] cried with a loud voice,
Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth…
Then many of the Jews which came to Mary,
and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed in him.”
(John 1:43-46)

The Kingdom of God does not erase the pain, the sorrow, or the darkness. The Kingdom does not clear the slate and start over, but the Kingdom of God invites us to walk through the muck, to slop through the pig sty before we realize the ever waiting open arms of our Lord. We do not get the luxury of jumping over the pigs tie or walking round it. We must recognize our previous residence of death as a bridge to our new lives of light.

As I live and learn and am taught by others, I am realizing we can only experience our salvation or spirituality to the same extent that we have experienced pain or suffering. And in turn we can only give gifts of love to the extend we have recognized our own worthiness of that same love. 

Before you can get to the calm ironic peace in the center of the hurricane you must endure the rain, the winds, and the destruction. 

After you have endured the hurricane the center comes over you and there is redeeming peace. 

The good news of the Kingdom is,  although God does not necessarily take the suffering away, although we must journey through the pain, although at times we may think in shame, but “God where are you really?”-- the Good News is that God is making all things new. In every moment-- in the past, in the future, in the present--God is working to make all things right. In every moment, God is renewing all things into the light of the Kingdom.

Invitation to Light (Lent Reflection: Day 2)

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything....

Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. 

When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of all he created.” (James 1:2-18)

So is God some masochistic deity, playing a chess game with His/Her creations to bring them to the state God wants? No. The world may seem as if it was overtaken by darkness, yet God permeates that darkness with glimpses of light. God loved us to the extent God gave us free will to choose love or darkness; the power of that loving freedom is so great, God allows us this freedom of choice a majority of the time. Therefore, when we do not chose love we create darkness, for others and for ourselves. Yet God is there. Murmurs of God encircle us no matter where we are, urging us to chose love.


We too often push these murmurs away with our own stubbornness: it is much simpler to rest in the darkness--it is hard-work to pull our way out of it. “They hurt me,” “It’s not fair,” “I screwed up,” we say to ourselves with crossed arms and heavy hearts. We chose to sulk in the darkness; we close our eyes tight and imagine another world, when all it would take was standing up and remembering the light switch on the wall before us. This does not mean running from the darkness--we must give pain and hurt its space, yet we must not do so without simultaneously searching for seeds of Divine Grace in our lives.

And while God resides in the darkness with us, this darkness, becomes ironically a beautiful invitation to join in the light of God. We live in a culture of denial, therefore our dark rumblings rarely make the way to the surface to be healed by God. We live in a culture of “I can do it!” therefore we rarely open our hands and hearts in surrender.

I wonder what it would be like--instead of living in a culture of pride, of happy endings before the journey and of success through the denial of our pain--what it would be like if on that checklist created by society was a box that said suffer, strain, cry, grow. Because how can we wrap ourselves in the light, if we have never been scared by the darkness? How can we appreciate life, if we have never touched death? How can we know the power of sight, if we have never felt blinded? How can we find peace if we have not given up the war within our own hearts.

"Why Are We Here?" (Lent Reflection: Day 1)

Why are we here? Why do we go to church on Sundays or choose to come to an extra chapel; I think we are here because somewhere deep inside we are hopeless. Or for some it’s not even deep inside; their hopelessness clings to there clothes and hangs on their shoulders like a menacing burden. Yet somewhere within each of us is a place, a space, a void, where our hopelessness is recognized, there is a hopeless void of space where we can’t feel the presence of God. We fear it. We don’t like to talk about it but we all have that place where the void, the darkness, the lack of God (or at least lack of noticing God) takes over. And so we all find ourselves here. Sitting by ouselves, hoping to hear a word, feel a feeling, or taste the taste, of God in those places of void. 

Some try to step into faith, yet all they can think of is how at home their closest relationship is falling into darkness and so it becomes their darkness, their void, they wonder where God is in that, though they never would admit it. Maybe some find themselves in a new place where nothing seems the same as it was before and so they worry “but God, even though I hear you are, are you really here.” Many are longing for relationships to be restored, for loved ones to come back, or for friends who are gone to be sitting right next to them. So silently many wonder, “but God where are you?”

We don’t like to ask that question; God where are you? My lord why have you forsaken me (Mark 15:34)? Or after one of his friends tells him the Lord is always present Job says “ya but If only I knew where to find Him?!... I go to the east; he is not there. If I go to the west, I do not find him; when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of Him” (Job 23). We don’t like to sit in that place, we don’t even like to glance, skip, or run over it. We deny it. We ignore the state of lamentation, of pain, of sorrow, of tragedy, because something inside each of us screams “be careful! Remember the void inside you, remember the place that you don’t see God, don’t feel God, don’t sense God, remember that place and don’t you dare stay there? Remember and then quickly pass over it. Remember it, just long enough for you to push it away into even more darkness.” But there is something about the void, about the darkness, about the struggle. 

As the season of Lent begins, let us ponder this question: why are we here? Why do we seek our faith and strive to step deeper into the heart of God? 

We have all been created by the Divine Creator: God formed us from the dust and each other, and to the dust we shall return. We all spend our fair share of  time in the darkness. This would be a dismal fact if it were not for the second half of the spiritual reality. Adam and Eve were born and overtaken by spiritual death, yet they are given life again by Jesus’ birth-life-death -resurrection just as we are. From the dust to the dust. From death to resurrection. From dark to light. I’ll be pondering these themes today, the beginning of Lent.

Solstice

The sun shone crisp as I placed each foot in front of me down the coastal trail. Clouds cowered from the sun, so I could distinguish between the salty water and the hovering sky, between the ancient mountains and rest of the city at their feet. It is a rare thing this time of year, to see with such clarity. It is a luck game really: a chance encounter with the perfect moment at the perfect time, when the sun reflects off the water and the water reflects onto the jutting towers of earth.

I encountered that moment. Luck—chance—grace. The winter solstice was the next day, so hope seemed to flutter all around, for the dark days of winter would soon give way to longer days of light. And today was like a procession of days to come, the earth soaked in the warmth and life arose if only for a small moment.

As I walked, drops of snow melted from the tree limbs and fell to the ground, faintly murmuring like a classroom of whispering children. The birds came out that day. A flock of sparrows was chased from a tree by a grumpy raven and the sparrows flew like a scarf in the wind, looping around in escape, yet returning to their tree of safety, their foundation, their home. I felt like the sparrows that day—pushed away for a moment—but the steps in front of me and the trail before me eased my spirit and centered my heart.

As I walked, I crossed a bridge over a creek. As if flash frozen, the ripples of the once strong water stuck in place as icy shells. Yet in this day of hope, like the birds, like the whispers of dropping snow and like me, the water came out for the procession. In the center of the creek bed a small stream formed again. The water fought its way through the blue hued ice. Pushing—flowing—fighting to make it to its destination of ocean. Pushing—flowing—fighting to return home. I felt like the water that day, as the inner wrestling of my spirit began to work through my own icy shell.

Antiqued Birch--Reaching Spruce--Noble Pines

            I let Riley off of the dog leash. She hopped through the snow like a white hare. I followed several feet behind, dodging the flung snow from her path and watching her play. I admired her freedom, her liveliness, and her excitement about every new scent and every unexpected murmur in the woods.

            I could see my breath in front of me. I had been in cold before, but not like the cold in Alaska.  As the air chilled, the wet breath frosted onto my beard like the pray “snow” my grandma

used to spray around the edges of her windows during Christmas time. Moving to Anchorage created a whirlwind of my once familiar life; I love Anchorage, but packing boxes, unpacking boxes, looking for jobs, looking for a place to live, all of this can take its toll

            The dog and I played: running in circles, pawing each other, taking a break and then starting back again. And then, amongst our commotion, it started. The snow— it began to fall again. I first paused at the wet tickles on my skin. Riley followed the intermission of play at my queue, looking up at me. And there I was, in the forest, amongst the antiqued birch, the reaching spruce, and the noble pines; there I was, amongst them and their kingdom. They spoke no words, but the falling snow spoke, in fact it sang sweet arias of pleading passion: “Pause—rest—breath” Said the silent trees and the falling snow.

            So I stood. Riley, not sure what was going on sat beside me, nuzzling her chin against my leg, so I bent down beside her and I wrapped my arms around her.

            “Listen,” I said. “Silence.” I couldn’t remember the last time I encountered silence. It is a rare thing these days. The snow fell and the world around me reached out to receive the billowy white. By now, the setting sun tinted the snow like mangoes and grapes, and I couldn’t believe I was amongst this: this silence—this peace—this beauty—these colors.

            I continued through the woods, which acted as my own prayer labyrinth. And I found peace in breathing. The world will pass us by if we do not pause for it and breathe in its sweet aromas. The trees will sing to us and we will miss their melodies if we do not listen for them. The colors of the earth will present themselves to us, yet we will miss them if we live in chaos.

            Riley began to paw me; this is her sign she wants attention. “Come on girl,” I urged, running forward so she would follow.