Forgiveness Part 1

 

“Forgiveness is not about forgetting. It is about letting go of another person's throat. Forgiveness does not create a relationship. Unless people speak the truth about what they have done and change their mind and behavior, a relationship of trust is not possible. When you forgive someone, you certainly release them from judgment, but without true change, no real relationship can be established.  Forgiveness in no way requires that you trust the one you forgive. But should they finally confess and repent, you will discover a miracle in your own heart that allows you to reach out and begin to build between you a bridge of reconciliation. Forgiveness does not excuse anything.  You may have to declare your forgiveness a hundred times the first day and the second day, but the third day will be less and each day after, until one day you will realize that you have forgiven completely. And then one day you will pray for his wholeness......”  ― William P. Young, The Shack

 

On Sunday, July 27, we read Jesus’ call to forgive seventy times seven.  This doesn’t mean that when we forgive someone 490 times, we can finally stop because we reached the finish line!  Jesus isn’t asking us to keep a spreadsheet on each person with tally marks.  Jesus isn’t asking us to come up with some elaborate accounting scheme.  To forgive someone that many times means that you are connected, caught (twisted and tangled) in a web of mutuality.  I am not sure how many times my wife and kids have forgiven me, because we don’t keep track.  I am not sure how many times the church has forgiven me because I’ve said something at a meeting.  Part of what Jesus is inviting us into is to make forgiveness a prayer practice, so that it becomes part of our emotional, mental, spiritual, and relational operating system.  If I forgive someone almost five hundred times, chances are good I have woven a neuro pathway in my brain and created that space in my heart.  The popular phrase is that neurons that fire together in my mind wire together.  Forgiveness becomes a part of life.

 

But, I hear you saying right now, what about that person?  Oh, we all have that person who has a particular skill at pushing the nuclear codes of our emotional system to set off another Chernobyl.  We have that person whom we are so angry with for having the gall to breathe the same air we do!  We all have that person who has hurt and harmed us so much.  Notice the above quote doesn’t ask you to trust a person again.  There are relationship ruptures that are so broken, shattered into sharp shards like glass hitting a tile floor, that no amount of duct tape and super glue can repair that brokenness.  Some relationships will never heal ~ I mean this both individually and collectively. 

 

I invite you today to step back from the edge of the worst-case scenario to one.  Rather who is one person you want to forgive?  Just like you wouldn’t go out and run a marathon without building up the miles, you don’t have to forgive the Hitlers of the world just because you read the Bible verse.  We start softer with someone we truly love, where trust has been broken.  Today, hold that person in your heart.  With your left hand, hold the ache of the brokenness.  Acknowledge what she said and what you said in response ~ or what he did or left undone.  Name the pain.  Then, with your right hand, hold the ways this person’s love has made a difference in your life.  Name why you want reconciliation.  In the space between your left hand (the offense) and your right hand (the prayerful hope for healing) is where we invite God to enter and make amends.  You don’t have to call that person today or reach full forgiveness status (forgiveness is a process of one step forward, twenty-five steps back).  Today, we acknowledge that humans are holy and messy because that is true of each of us.  May God’s love meet us in the heartbreaks and soul aches that are part of every life right now.  Amen.

Friday Prayer

 

God of mystery, who loves each of us as we are, hold us in this moment.  Clear away the chaos and clutter so that we might turn our attention and intention to You.  Help us rest in Your love.  Slow us down, stop us from the endless motion, our running away from ourselves.  Let us be, breathe, and find ourselves in You.  I pray I would remember that I don’t wear a cape or have a golden lasso (although, God, that would be kinda cool).  I pray I would remember it is not up to me to save the world today, nor can I be all things to all people, so help me let go of that desire, need, endless striving.  Direct my focus to You who surrounds and sustains me on all sides.  Direct my openness and curiosity that if this is true for me, it is true for all, even (especially) those who annoy me.  Break through my certainty, re-order my opinions, and ground me in a grace that I don’t earn, deserve, demand, or ever lose.  Grace is who You are and will always be ~ let that be the song every day this month as my soul dances with You, O God. Amen.  

Loved Right Now

 

You are loved just as you are, not as you should be.  Because you are never going to be as you should be.  Brennan Manning.

 

What is your initial response to the above quote?  Did the defense attorney who lives in your brain holler, “Objection!”?  Did your soul stand on tiptoes, wishing, wanting this to be true?  What would it mean to live from this place rather than the messages of scarcity and sarcasm and cynical criticism that too often author our lives?  What if those who bully and belittle others have so missed the point and don’t get to live rent-free in our minds?  What if we stop letting CNN, MSNBC, and Fox blare in the background of our lives?  What if being informed has nothing to do with a random smattering of headlines you glance over in the morning?  

 

We are taught and have caught a way of life.  You were formed and fashioned first by God, then reformed by voices of parents, teachers, media, church, experiences, and encounters ~ some of which you sought out and others arrived unwelcome at your doorstep like a traveling salesman who wouldn’t leave until you bought the steak knives they were pedaling.  Every day, Madison Ave knocks on your consciousness, telling you that you must have this item, now… because supplies are running low.  Every day, politicians tell you that if this legislation passes, the four horsemen will arrive with the apocalypse. Every day, the church tells you to “be good” because God is a cosmic Santa Claus ~ watching, always watching.  Every day, the media personalities spin all that has happened, sprinkling with fear and telling you to “stay tuned” because they will be back after a few short messages from the sponsors.  No wonder you are exhausted.  No wonder you are on cognitive, emotional, spiritual, and physical overload.  No wonder you just want to stay in bed and watch dog videos on YouTube.

 

So what if today the voice you seek out is that of God?  You may want to go down to the river to pray, wade in the water, and remember your baptism.  I am not promising a dove will descend with a James Earl Jones voice saying, “This is my beloved”!!  I am only saying that you are loved, not for who you could be, should be, might be, but who you are in this moment.  May this truth interrupt and disrupt all the other voices claiming and clamoring for your attention today.  Amen.

Hastily in a Hurry

 

Haste is universal because everyone is in flight from him/her/their own self ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

 

This week, we are looking backwards, around us, within us, and before us.  We have already prayed the prayer of St. Patrick, how Christ permeates and persists in every direction and dimension of our lives.  Yesterday, we turned to Oscar Romero’s profound prayer that we are part of God’s unfolding symphony which is more than we can imagine or can instantly achieve (or even perceive) in our humanness. 

 

Today, the above quote recognizes a “homelessness” that we all wrestle with ~ a restlessness that keeps urgently pushing us to do something!  We are Jacob wrestling with God.  We are both the prodigal son who leaves home and the prodigal son who stays put, criticizing the others because we constantly compare and despair.  We are in a hurry, running from life, convinced by the Silicon Valley mantra to move fast and break things!  Who cares if we leave sharp shards of glass in our wake?   Someone else will clean that up.  And Nietzsche was right, we can end up running away from ourselves.  But, don’t worry, there is another self-help book published to help you live your best life every.

 

Stop.  Wait.  Breathe.

 

I say that not to you, but to myself!  Stop.  Pause.  Listen.  Stop.  Pause.  Be.  What are you running from?  Who are you running from?  What are you resisting by gritting and grinding your teeth, so it continues to persist, no matter how many webinars you attend?  What if you are not a problem to be solved?  What if you, the beautiful broken, beloved, beheld you is enough?  Not because you are practically perfect in every way, not because you have mastered your own universe, not because you are being authentic or keeping it real, but because you are who you are right now.  You are this grand experiment made up of experiences and encounters in your life.  No one has ever collected the exact combination of moments that make you up.  No one ever will.  And your uniqueness has universality, because it can be said of every person, plant, creeping creature, soaring bird, and swimming sea monster there is.  The universality of uniqueness means that not only am I not a problem to be solved, but neither is the person who pushes the nuclear codes of my emotions today.  The question is not, “who does s/he/they think they are?”  Rather, “what happened to, in, through him/her/them?” 

 

Stop.  Pause.  Be.  Pray the prayer of St. Patrick, slowly breathing as truth for you and everyone you will encounter today.  Pray the Prayer of Romero as the mystery of life.  And be open to the One who shows up with holy interruptions and disruptions we cannot plot or plan or improve our way through.  Amen.

Prayer for Justice

 

Archbishop Oscar Romero was a minister in San Salvador when in 1980, he was assassinated for his commitment to justice for all people and his ministry to the poor.  He was killed while celebrating Mass, in the middle of worship. He spoke out against the political injustices he saw and the church’s complacency.  Many of us have not heard his story of courage, love, justice, and faith.  I am taken by a prayer that is attributed to the way he lived his life.  Please pray these words aloud with me:

 

It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view.

The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts; it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.

Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.  No prayer fully expresses our faith.  No confession brings perfection.  No pastoral visit brings wholeness.  No program accomplishes the church’s mission.  No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.

We plant the seeds that one day will grow.  We water the seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.  We lay foundations that will need further development.  We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.  This enables us to do something and to do it well.  It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.  We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.

We are prophets of a future not our own.

 

May the words of this prayer be a reminder that what we do and who we are is part of the unfolding, ongoing, unending, holy symphony God is composing and conducting with all creation in these days.  Amen.

Reflecting on the First Half of the Year

 

Here we are, rounding the corner to the second half of 2025.  I invite you to slow down, breathe with me this week.  Take a moment to reflect on what has happened so far this year ~ the good, the bad, and the ugly ~ the heartbreaking and heartwarming ~ the soul soaring and soul aching ~ the “this-ness” of the art project called your life.  What colors are on the canvas of your life so far this year?  What experiences and encounters? 

 

I can be tempted to interrogate my life with such intensity, shine a bright spotlight on my shy soul, demanding answers to the above questions instantly and immediately.  I want the truth, I declare.  And to quote Jack Nichols from A Few Good Men, my heart says, “You can’t handle the truth!”  Rather than thinking that I can totally fix my life today with this morning meditation, duct tape, and chewing gum, I want to offer you a prayer practice using the prayer of St. Patrick.  This takes the familiar words of the prayer and interrupts them with breath ~ with a pause to ponder, letting what you are saying be embodied, find residence in you.  I encourage you to say the words aloud with me.

 

Christ with me – breathe in Christ with you

Christ before me – breathe out, noticing Christ in front of you

Christ behind me breathe in aware of Christ supporting you

Christ in me– breathe out touch Christ dwelling in you

Christ beneath me ~  breathe in Christ as your ground of being

Christ above me– breathe out Christ as the One who hovers in the air around you

Christ on my right ~ breathe in, holding your right hand as if you are receiving a gift

Christ on my left– breathe out, holding your left hand as if you are receiving a gift

Christ when I lie down ~ breathe in deeply and slowly, finding rest in Christ

Christ when I sit down– breathe out, noticing the chair that supports your backside

Christ when I arise ~ breathe in gently, raising your arms toward the sky

Christ in everyone I meet– breathe out, reaching your arms to the unfolding day before you.

 

May this prayer practice be a way to greet and live every day for the rest of this year.

The Psalm of My Heart

 

Yesterday, I invited you to write a Psalm, so it seems only fair that I share mine with you.

 

Sacred seamstress who weaves together the fabric of life;

          Sewing God, who tends the tears and ruptures of life;

Mend my life, which feels full of holes and rips and ruptures beyond repair.

I cry to You, O God, for the ways we cling to violence that only begets more violence.

Why, O God, do we not trust Your love as our national policy?

Why, O God, do we claim to follow Christ as our golden ticket to heaven, but not when it comes to our budgets personally or communally or especially nationally?

Why, O God, do we treat Your beloved as less than created in Your image and laugh at people’s cruel nicknames?

Have You, O God, read the paper?

Let Your treads of holy love interrupt, disrupt, and disorient us, O God, like a tilt-a-whirl.

As You did in the time of Exodus, lead us out of a land of oppression.

As You did in the time of Exile, help us see fully the brokenness of humanity.

As You did in Jesus, help us be honest that we still crucify each other verbally and physically.

Let Your resurrecting ways rupture our life like when the angel kicked the stone away from the tomb on Easter.

Let Your unending hymn edge out the melodies of fear and frustration that too often are the radio stations of our souls.

Let Your grace, love, justice, peace, joy, and healing hope author another story, be woven into the garment of life that I wear in the world.

Sew in my soul, Your colorful threads.

Sew in my soul, Your grace to be lived through me.

Sew in my soul, Your faithful fabric that is a new outfit for me this day.

Let my life be tied to You, O God, who is my transforming tailor every day.  Alleluia and Amen.