Shalom

 

Yesterday, we held and prayed the question, what are you waiting for?  I hope you wrote a few notes in response to that question.  Today, I invite you to put on soft music (maybe an instrumental version of Christmas Carols) and continue to hold the question of what you are waiting for.  I invite you to light one candle of peace.  The word for peace in Hebrew is shalom and it is more than an absence of violence.  Shalom is about feeling connected from the top of your head to your pinkie toe and connected to all of God’s creation.  As Dr. King once said, “All (that was, is, and will ever be) is caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be...”  Shalom is about interconnectedness and integrity and indivisibility.  Shalom can be fleeting and fragile.  Shalom is what is what we seek to soak in on the Sabbath (which is more than a day of the week ~ Sabbath is a state of the soul to rest in God not trying to hustle or bustle or strive or proof oneself worthy).  What am I waiting for?  Shalom/peace/resting in God’s presence is one response in my heart this week.  And this isn’t just found at the end of the journey in Bethlehem, but along the pathway as well.  When you sit in silence, may God’s sacred shalom surround you.  When you ponder God’s love, may God’s sacred shalom surround you.  When you venture out to the store, may God’s sacred shalom go before you.  When you visit a friend who is hurting or are honest about your own aches, may God’s sacred shalom befriend you.  When you lay down, may God’s sacred shalom be with you every second today.  Shalom, my friend, shalom.  Amen.

Peace Part 1

 

Last week we set out (once again) for Bethlehem, to trudge the familiar roads that lead to a draft, dirty, dingy stable where God makes a grand and glorious entrance that is so counter- cultural…so subversive to the gospels we consume of wealth and winning and being warriors for causes.  A scant nine days into the journey, sixteen days left until we arrive, it is that point when our inner-five-year-old from the back seat of our souls asks, “Are we there yet?”  We live in a culture that constantly craves bigger, faster ~ we want to microwave everything, and we disdain patience as being weak.  Hasn’t God built an interstate highway to Bethlehem yet?  Where is the highspeed rail that will get us there quicker so we can grab a selfie next to the baby Jesus, post to Instagram, and book an Air B&B where we can sip eggnog with the hashtag, “Blessed”?  The pace of Advent is annoyingly slow.  The word associated with Advent, “waiting” sends frustration down our spin and starts pulsing in that tiny vein in your neck.

 

What are you waiting for?

 

I love that question, because the emphasis can be on each of the five words.  What, can send us on a journey of inquiring about our deepest desires.  We have many Christmas lists in our souls, most of which have nothing to do with what you can purchase prepackaged on the shelves of stores.  What do you long for spiritually, relationally, emotionally, physically, communally, in our country, for our church, in the world?  You could make a list for each of the areas which might help you start to explore the first word of the above question points toward.  Are, is a word that reminds us of our agency.  Waiting is not passive.  Waiting is not standing on the sidelines impatiently tapping your toe while you scroll your phone and let out loud sighs.  Are is about your agency.  Or as Viktor Frankl says, “Between stimulus and response there is space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Are is the pregnant pause of the present moment ~ opening you to how you show up, speak up, part-take in this journey to Bethlehem this year.  You points to the fact that there is something growing in you.  You, like Mary, are pregnant with possibility.  You are making this journey to the stable.  To be sure, we are never alone.  There are parts of the journey this year that are universal and unique.  What is stirring in you?  Waiting and for play together and help wrap up and wind down the question that guides us to the One who comes in the form a vulnerable baby (see Morning Meditations from the week of November 25). 

 

What if one of the reasons why we don’t like to wait is that it exposes all our vulnerabilities and inadequacies and inabilities and uncontrollability of life?  Waiting exposes that we both have some control in certain circumstances and at the same time can’t instantly make everything better.

 

Hold this question, explore this question, turn in the light of God’s love to let it reflect to you a rainbow of expressions.  May God show up as you, like Mary, prayerfully ponder this today. Amen.

Advent Prayer

 

O come, O come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel.

 

God, You enter our lives in the most baffling and bewildering (counter cultural) ways.  You come into our lives through the back door of a dusty, dirty barn!?  You come into our souls, even when we have not bothered to clean up the clutter, clear away the cobwebs in the corner.  You set Yourself down in our homes where the dirty dishes are stacked in the sink, the cupboards are bare, expect for some expired Cheez-Whiz~ so what can we serve You?  You sit amid the unfolded laundry, which is to say (metaphorically) our messy, human-size, lives.  So we race around thinking we will just tidy up a bit, shoving all the stuff of life (which is to say the unpredictability and uncontrollability) into the closets and praying the door closes!  We race around thinking that if we get Christmas “right” maybe this will be the year Your realm won’t feel so far away.  We race around because we all have our own salvation projects for our lives.  Sure, we know, only God can save us, but that is really for “other” people, not us.  Not me, who has my theology tidy, my beliefs alphabetized, my enlightenment power point ready to show anyone who asks ~ even though no one does!  Help me God.  Hope can feel fragile in this world.  Which, honestly, has always been true, especially on the first silent, holy night when You snuck into the world.  Hope can feel foolish right now, which was true with Caesar pounding his fist and laughing at the minions of the world.  Hope can feel distant, which was true for people running around for a census!  Help us amid all the “gospels” that promise fame and fortune, but never deliver, just keep on demanding more.  Help us amid the leaders who all promise their help but forget once in power.  Help us amid a world that is broken, bruised, busy and addicted to hurt, that You have not forgotten us, O God.  Come, O come, Emmanuel, enter every trembling heart today and every day this month.  Amen. 

Hope Part 4 - take two

 

What happens when you don't feel hopeful?  When all the sugar cookies and Christmas Carols and twinkling lights can awaken from your slump ~ where you feel like a lump on a log.  Do you fake it?  Do you plaster on a smile while cringing on the inside?  The people Isaiah ministered to in Exile knew hopelessness and helplessness.  They knew that things were always trending up and to the right.  That there was pain...and somehow God was there.  So, here is a blessing for those discouraging days when your soul sags ~ even at Christmas.

A blessing for hope  ~ Kate Bowler

God, these are darkening days, with little hope in sight.

Help us in our fear and exhaustion. Anchor us in hope.

Blessed are we with eyes open to see the accumulated 

suffering of danger, sickness, and loneliness,

the injustice of racial oppression, the unimpeded greed and misuse

of power, violence, intimidation, and use of dominance for its own sake,

the mockery of truth, and disdain for weakness or vulnerability

—and worse, the seeming powerlessness of anyone trying to stop it.

Blessed are we who ask:  Where are you, God?

And where are Your people —the smart and sensible ones 

who fight for good and have the power to make it stick?

Blessed are we who cry out: Oh God, why does the bad always seem to win?

When will good prevail?

We know you are good, but we see so little goodness.

God, show me your heart. 

How you seek out the broken, lift us on your shoulders, and carry us home—

no matter how weak we’ve become.

God, seek us out, and find us, we your tired people, and lead us out to where hope lies

where your kingdom will come and your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Fill me with your courage.

Calm me with your love.

Fortify me with your hope.

P.S. Open your hands as you release your prayers. Then take hold of hope. As protest.

Hope Part 4

 

But (hope) is the necessary antidote to the poison of our culture’s myth of perfectibility. We become too afraid to say the obvious: that things are not always getting better. And this fact should make us kinder to each other. As temporary creatures made of the same perishable material, we should see in each other fellow pilgrims headed in the same direction, worthy of our concern, people with whom we should be more patient, slower to anger, quicker to help. How different are we really when we consider our lives and struggles and weaknesses? ~ Kate Bowler

 

Things are not always getting better…and this should make us kinder to each other.

 

I long for a world that accepts and affirms this truth not just in our minds but in our lives.  I long for a world where our struggles are not hidden in the shadows or under masks of perfectionism but shared with others ~ not as problems to be solved but as a pathway to our connectedness.  I long for a world where we stop drinking the poison of violence, hatred, grief unprocessed/pushed down, winners and losers, greed as the “gospels” and stories that define and confine our souls. 

 

And, hope, is the antidote from the well/fountain/water of God’s presence. 

 

Yesterday, I invited you to exercise the muscle of hope.  As with any exercise, it is never one and done.  I can’t just walk one mile one day and say, “Yup, healthy now for the rest of my life.  Glad that is finished.”  I continue to exercise.  I can’t just read one book and say, “Yup, got life all figured out.”  I continue to keep learning and growing.  I can’t just say, “I hoped yesterday so I am all good now.”  Hope is continual invitation.  To be sure, there are days, I just don’t wanna!  I want to pull the covers over my head to forget about the world.  And there are days when I may need to borrow hope, like a cup of sugar, from someone.  And there are days I need to lend hope to others and hold their hand in the journey to Bethlehem. 

 

Do you have the energy for hope today?

Do you feel hope stirring and swirling ~ where and when?

Do you long for hope to be a light to guide you today ~ how and with who?

What is your relationship right now with hope?  Maybe you are on a break or in a rocky time trying to live hope.  Hold that, explore that, and talk with hope.

Hope Part 2

 

Hope is more like a muscle than an emotion.  It’s a cognitive skill, one that helps people reject the status quo and visualize a better way.

 

The above quote reminds us that hope is not something we can purchase pre-packaged on the shelf in the store.  Hope is not out there in the world, but also within each of us.  To curate and cultivate hope takes prayer, practice, and persistence.  Too often we look to the external for evidence for hope.  We want the headlines and leaders to “give” us hope.  We want to prove that we are not foolish for hoping.  But, if hope is a muscle, the invitation is for us to live our life as witness to God’s hope.  We are preparing our hearts/souls/stories of our life to receive and make room for God incarnate.  God with us, in Jesus, is an invitation to wake up to a world that has gone off the rails, but that God so loves and longs to redeem.  Yes, I would rather just let God clean up the mess humanity has made of this world, but God always seems to call us a part-takers and collaborators and co-conspirators with the Creator.  So, how do we practice and participate in hope?  There are so many ways, and your way may not be the same as my way. 

 

I am reminded of what Paul says to the followers of Jesus in Rome, “And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,  and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

 

Wait, what?  We boast in afflictions rather than blame or shame ourselves/others?  We boast in afflictions as a pathway to hope?  That is so counter intuitive that I don’t know where to start!  I am not sure the followers of Jesus in Rome knew either.  Remember, Roman officials were suspicious of early Christians, especially because we claim Jesus is Lord/Savior/Prince of Peace ~ all titles the Roman Emperor claimed for himself and himself only.  Early followers of the Way of Jesus faced oppression, defeat, and death.  They knew affliction.  They knew life was difficult and demanding, and the call of God to let our light shine especially when the days grow drear reflects the One in whose image we are created.

 

How might you exercise the muscle of hope today?

How might you reject the status quo of living according to might makes right and your value is based on your bank account, to live the gospel/good news of God’s presence?

 

I invite you to answer these specifically in ways you will show up to volunteer, meetings, talking to family/friends, what you listen to and what you speak out against.  Hope is not for someone else’s responsibility to provide; it is our foundational and formational truth of faith we are infused with by being incarnate of God.  May you find ways to live God’s realm today for the sake of the world God loves.  Amen.

Hope

 

Hope is in every little thing, as far as I can see.  Hope is optimism with a broken heart.  Nick Cave

 

Yesterday, we lit the candle of Hope that is the spark that stirs our souls to go once again to Bethlehem.  We go to witness/behold and to be held by the mystery and marvel of God’s grand entrance in a dusty/drafty barn.  Hope found in the most unlikely place and space.  The absurdity and audacity of hope in the bleak midwinter ~ even in Florida where the sun shines bright and the temperature is more moderate ~ because our souls can feel frozen, frail, and fragile regardless of the weather outside our window.  Hope is not dogged stick-with-it-ness or grit or griding it out in the face of too many obstacles.  Hope, which is to say God’s presence, is woven into every little thing, as Cave says above.  Hope is there and in you because all that is and will be is crafted/created/loved into being by God.  Hope is the spider who spins the web that the wind will whip through and wipe away.  Hope is the flower pushing through the dirt when there is still snow on the ground.  Hope is a single candle that starts a journey to the most unlikely place for God to show up.  Hope enlarges and engages our sacred imaginations to be detectives of the divine because God does not conform or contort to our “gospels” of fame and fortune and definitions of success.  Hope, as Cave says, is optimism (or possibility or God’s presence) with a broken heart.  Hope holds the “both/and” reality of life.  Yes, things are not great or grand as we might want them to be.  This is true when Jesus was born to two lower socio-economic working-class parents who felt the boot of the Roman Empire on their necks.  True today when we struggle to find ways to be human with each other, rather than hurt and hate one another.  Hope says God’s good news shows us another way, that most of the time will not win the popular vote but has the promise to turn our heart ~ home ~ world upside down/right side up. 

 

Cave knows such positive psychology may sound good on paper but is so difficult to embrace and embody.  He says there is, a sort of cynicism and distrust of our very selves … a rejection of the innate wonder of our presence.  There’s an attempt to find meaning in places where it is ultimately unsustainable – in politics, identity, and so on …[religion] deals with the necessity of forgiveness and mercy, whereas I don’t think secularism has found the language to address these matters.

 

Hope is wonder as we wander.

Hope is openness to be surprised by the sacred.

Hope is shared through care.

Hope is bravely, brashly, boldly living as if today is not the end of the story.

Hope is a comma in a world of periods.

Hope is a direction to point our soul and toes toward justice.

Hope is a fuel that feeds our life and spills out of the buckets we carry.

Hope is a choice, deliberate decisions that aren’t Pollyanna but know the brokenness and bruises of the world. 

Hope carries the woundedness and seeks to offer healing.

Hope hears, leans in, listens and decides to love.

Hope is God with us, in us, moving through us.

Hope is what sets us on the way to discovering the One who has eternity dancing in his eyes.

Hope is an invitation.

Hope is…

 

Fill in that blank above with YOUR life this week.  Amen.