We live it every day . . . this thing we call life . . . but what is it really? Recently, I was reading a devotional book that posed a number of questions. The questions were simple enough but in some cases I really didn't know how to answer them. How could that be?! They were questions about me? How could I not articulate a description of my own life?
What is it that makes me tick? What makes me cry? What makes me laugh? What opens my heart? What happens when my heart is open? How am I essential? How am I valuable? What is my purpose?
The questions went further and more deeply to query: What is important in life? What is sacred and holy in life? Where does life come from? What makes me want to be alive? What is life?
As I stopped to really answer the questions, I realized that the things that make me tick are rooted in relationship with God and with others. My energy comes in being connected to other people in deep places--those places where people are willing to share their deepest pains and joys. It is the laughter of others that makes me laugh and the lack of connection with others that makes me cry. Again and again my answers came back to relationship. It is relationship for which I long, relationship that God has given us in each other and it seems to me that life wouldn't be life without the gift of relationship.
Some years ago while living in upstate New York, I met a man named Albert. I met him in a curious way. I had been living with a family there and happened to come to the house for a quick bite of lunch from work that day. No one else was home but when I walked in the door there was this large, older man with long white hair and beard waiting in the kitchen. I asked who he was and why he was there and he informed me that he was a hermit who came out of the woods once a year and visited this family and then returned to his life.
Even Albert needed a bit of relationship. Even Albert needed that great gift of life. I don't know how you define life for yourselves, but I hope whatever you find in its definition offers you all of the richness of relationship.
On this Thanksgiving week, know that I am thankful for the various relationships we share and for the ways that you breathe life into me!
Monday, November 23, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Hope Springs Eternal
The Arkansas area of the Mississippi Delta is one hot place especially in July! It is there, some years ago, that I witnessed the dejectedness of a community. Industry had left the area. There was little left for the people of that region but that was their home and they would not or could not bring themselves to follow prosperity. Given that parameter, other challenges arose for them. They could not find jobs nor could they imagine a future for themselves in that place. So they just got a long with a sadness that permeated their lives.
I look around me today and I see all sorts of people and all sorts of situations in which people cannot seem to move beyond the experience of what they HAVE known to embrace the hope of what they COULD know (for themselves or others.) The ability to dream and think outside the box seems utterly diminished.
Last night I found myself at a Rotary Foundation Dinner and there, gathered with new friends, one spoke of the economic crisis in some of the most impoverished places of our nation. It reminded me of my days in Arkansas. It reminded me that such lack of hope did not have to be. He spoke of how the key to moving them beyond their impoverishment always came back to incentive. Give them some sort of incentive to reach forward and they will move toward it.
One word came to my mind as he spoke: hope. Hope! The book of Hebrews says that "faith is being sure of what we HOPE for and certain of what we do not see. The Hebrew people themselves spoke of hope being that disposition in which we wait with anxious anticipation as if on the edges of our seats. To have that kind of hope there must be some vision for which we hope.
A friend and I were chatting yesterday about such hopeful visions. "Is it fair to hold to such visions? What if they are selfish? How do we know if they are God-given or if we've just made them up?!" we both queried. As our conversation ensued we realized that peace and contentment are the gifts of God. If we find peace and contentment around a vision, isn't it fair to assume that vision is a gift of God? And if that vision is a gift of God, would it not be sinful on our parts to resist believing that it could actually come true, that God is capable of providing that vision that he promised for our lives? Shouldn't that belief prompt us toward the posture to which the Hebrews referred? And once we find such hope don't we find incentive? Isn't that one and the same?
I don't know the detailed ways in which you may lack hope. I only know my own ways and I ultimately I know this. As a Christian, God calls me to trust what I sense him telling me. In that trust, I must have confidence that I hear God correctly. I must believe that the promise will come to fruition in God's time and in God's way and thus I posture myself with joy on the edge of my seat waiting to see the fulfillment of the promise.
This day, I hope for you and every community that may lack hope, the ability to see God's vision of peace for you and to place all hope toward it with anxious, excited anticipation. May hope spring eternal for us all! Amen.
I look around me today and I see all sorts of people and all sorts of situations in which people cannot seem to move beyond the experience of what they HAVE known to embrace the hope of what they COULD know (for themselves or others.) The ability to dream and think outside the box seems utterly diminished.
Last night I found myself at a Rotary Foundation Dinner and there, gathered with new friends, one spoke of the economic crisis in some of the most impoverished places of our nation. It reminded me of my days in Arkansas. It reminded me that such lack of hope did not have to be. He spoke of how the key to moving them beyond their impoverishment always came back to incentive. Give them some sort of incentive to reach forward and they will move toward it.
One word came to my mind as he spoke: hope. Hope! The book of Hebrews says that "faith is being sure of what we HOPE for and certain of what we do not see. The Hebrew people themselves spoke of hope being that disposition in which we wait with anxious anticipation as if on the edges of our seats. To have that kind of hope there must be some vision for which we hope.
A friend and I were chatting yesterday about such hopeful visions. "Is it fair to hold to such visions? What if they are selfish? How do we know if they are God-given or if we've just made them up?!" we both queried. As our conversation ensued we realized that peace and contentment are the gifts of God. If we find peace and contentment around a vision, isn't it fair to assume that vision is a gift of God? And if that vision is a gift of God, would it not be sinful on our parts to resist believing that it could actually come true, that God is capable of providing that vision that he promised for our lives? Shouldn't that belief prompt us toward the posture to which the Hebrews referred? And once we find such hope don't we find incentive? Isn't that one and the same?
I don't know the detailed ways in which you may lack hope. I only know my own ways and I ultimately I know this. As a Christian, God calls me to trust what I sense him telling me. In that trust, I must have confidence that I hear God correctly. I must believe that the promise will come to fruition in God's time and in God's way and thus I posture myself with joy on the edge of my seat waiting to see the fulfillment of the promise.
This day, I hope for you and every community that may lack hope, the ability to see God's vision of peace for you and to place all hope toward it with anxious, excited anticipation. May hope spring eternal for us all! Amen.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Open Our Eyes
Sitting on my parent's deck, I find myself surrounded by the beauty of nature and the blinding brilliance of the sun breaking through the trees. Reflectively, I am taken back to a Biblical scripture in the book of II Kings, chapter six, I believe. It is the story of the prophet Elisha who has been at work faithfully letting the King of Israel know how to move his troops and how to avoid the attacks that the King of Aram sought to launch against Israel. Elisha had been quite successful in listening to God and working with the King of Israel to protect the troops.
The King of Aram, however, was tremendously frustrated. He was convinced that he had a leak amongst his own troops and when he questioned them, they informed him that it was Elisha in Israel who was the true leak. So, the King of Aram, did what any king would. He hunted Elisha down, essentially surrounded Elisha's abode and Elisha's servant was freaking out. What are we going to do? How will we survive this? The servant could see no way for survival!
Aren't we like this most of the time? Something "bad" happens to us and we immediately fail to see the possibilities. We see a place of no hope. We fail to get the job we want, the relationship that we desire falls apart, we lose the big donor for a major project, etc. Our immediate response is, "Woe is me! How can God do this to me? Haven't I been a faithful servant? Don't I deserve the best?"
Elisha was cool, calm and collected in the face of his impending death and his servant couldn't understand it. But Elisha knew that his failure to understand came only from what he could not see. Elisha prayed that his servant's eyes would be open and immediately they were. When they were opened, the servant saw that for all of the Aramean troops that surrounded them, there were even more troops sent by God that outnumbered the Arameans. Then he prayed that the Arameans would be made blind and God made it so. This enabled Elisha to lead them off to Samaria where the Israelites were able to capture them and return them to their land.
Isn't that the kind of thing that God does for us? Provides for us far more than we can imagine in our feeble human ways of being. God always provides the best for us and usually never in the ways we imagine but always in more wondrous ways. Our blindness to what could be is usually the block that keeps us from trusting God's amazing way!
Maybe all we have to do to claim faith is simply to pray that God will open our eyes to the marvels that we have yet to see!
The King of Aram, however, was tremendously frustrated. He was convinced that he had a leak amongst his own troops and when he questioned them, they informed him that it was Elisha in Israel who was the true leak. So, the King of Aram, did what any king would. He hunted Elisha down, essentially surrounded Elisha's abode and Elisha's servant was freaking out. What are we going to do? How will we survive this? The servant could see no way for survival!
Aren't we like this most of the time? Something "bad" happens to us and we immediately fail to see the possibilities. We see a place of no hope. We fail to get the job we want, the relationship that we desire falls apart, we lose the big donor for a major project, etc. Our immediate response is, "Woe is me! How can God do this to me? Haven't I been a faithful servant? Don't I deserve the best?"
Elisha was cool, calm and collected in the face of his impending death and his servant couldn't understand it. But Elisha knew that his failure to understand came only from what he could not see. Elisha prayed that his servant's eyes would be open and immediately they were. When they were opened, the servant saw that for all of the Aramean troops that surrounded them, there were even more troops sent by God that outnumbered the Arameans. Then he prayed that the Arameans would be made blind and God made it so. This enabled Elisha to lead them off to Samaria where the Israelites were able to capture them and return them to their land.
Isn't that the kind of thing that God does for us? Provides for us far more than we can imagine in our feeble human ways of being. God always provides the best for us and usually never in the ways we imagine but always in more wondrous ways. Our blindness to what could be is usually the block that keeps us from trusting God's amazing way!
Maybe all we have to do to claim faith is simply to pray that God will open our eyes to the marvels that we have yet to see!
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