Born Again

Everything is moving, everything is changing; everything must die, and be reborn.  This seems fitting as we face the prospects of a new year:

Strange as it may seem in this time of cultural anxiety, economic near collapse, terrorist fear, political violence, environmental crisis, and partisan anger, I believe that the United States (and not only the United States) is caught up in the throes of a spiritual awakening, a period of sustained religious and political transformation during which our ways of seeing the world, understanding ourselves, and expressing faith are being, to borrow a phrase, “born again.” Indeed, the shifts around religion contribute to the anxiety, even as anxiety gives rise to new sorts of understandings of God and the spiritual life. Fear and confusion signal change. This transformation is what some hope will be a “Great Turning” toward a global community based on shared human connection, dedicated to the care of our planet, committed to justice and equality, that seeks to raise hundreds of millions from poverty, violence, and oppression.

Exponential change creates exponential fear along with exponential hope. Massive transformation creates the double-edged cultural sword of decline and renewal. Exponential change ends those things that people once assumed and trusted to be true. At the same time, upheaval opens new pathways to the future. Change is about endings and beginnings and the necessary interrelationship between the two.

In his Letter to the Romans, Paul has a marvelous line: “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20). In so many places, there are signs of the Holy Spirit working at all levels of society. The church might well have done its work as leaven, because much of this reform, enlightenment, compassion, and healing is outside the bounds of organized religion. Only God is going to get the credit.

The toothpaste is out of the tube. There are enough people who know the big picture of Jesus’ thrilling and alluring vision of the reign of God that this Great Turning cannot be stopped. There are enough people going on solid inner journeys that it is not merely ideological or theoretical. This reformation is happening in a positive, nonviolent way. The changes are not just from the top down, but much more from the bottom up. Not from the outside in, but from the inside out. Not from clergy to laity, but from a unified field where class is of minor importance. The big questions are being answered at a peaceful and foundational level, with no need to oppose, deny, or reject. I sense the urgency of the Holy Spirit, with over seven billion humans now on the planet. There is so much to love and embrace.

I am convinced that the only future of the church, the one Body of Christ, is ecumenical and shared. Each of our traditions have preserved and fostered one or another jewel in the huge crown that is the Cosmic Christ; only together can we make up the unity of the Spirit, as we learn to defer to one another out of love.

-- Diana Butler Bass, Christianity After Religion

Permanent Process

Conversion is a permanent process, in which very often the obstacles we meet make us lose all we had gained and start anew.

-- Gustavo Gutierrez

Spoken For

Poem for the week -- "Spoken For":

I didn’t know I was blue,
until I heard her sing.

I was never aware so much
had been lost
even before I was born.
There was so much to lose
even before I knew
what it meant to choose.

Born blue,
living blue unconfessed, blue
in concealment, I’ve lived all my life
at the plinth
of greater things than me.

Morning is greater
with its firstborn light and birdsong.
Noon is taller, though a moment’s realm.
Evening is ancient and immense, and
night’s storied house more huge.

But I had no idea.
And would have died without a clue,
except she began to sing. And I understood

my soul is a bride enthralled by an unmet groom,
or else the groom wholly spoken for, blue
in ardor, happy in eternal waiting.

I heard her sing and knew
I would never hear the true

name of each thing
until I realized the abysmal
ground of all things. Her singing
touched that ground in me.

Now, dying of my life, everything is made new.
Now, my life is not my life. I have no life
apart from all of life.

And my death is not my death,
but a pillow beneath my head, a rock
propping the window open
to admit the jasmine.

I heard her sing,
and I’m no longer afraid.
Now that I know what she knows, I hope
never to forget
how giant the gone
and immaculate the going.
How much I’ve already lost.
How much I go on losing.
How much I’ve lived
all one blue. O, how much
I go on living.

-- Li-Young Lee

Truest

When we seek what is truest in our own tradition, we discover we are one with those who seek what is truest in their tradition.

-- James Finley

Coasting

I've noticed...that I don't want to coast the rest of the way.  I want to take advantage of the opportunity of these days to help me grow and be more prepared for the days ahead, whatever they may bring.

Holy Ignorance: Like the Shepherds?

I have learned to prize holy ignorance more highly than religious certainty and to seek companions who have arrived at the same place. We are a motley crew, distinguished not only by our inability to explain ourselves to those who are more certain of their beliefs than we are but in many cases by our distance from the centers of our faith communities as well. Like campers who have bonded over cook fires far from home, we remain grateful for the provisions that we have brought with us from those cupboards, but we also find them more delicious when we share them with one another under the stars. 

-- Barbara Brown Taylor

My Joy: I've Got This

​Joy is the true gift of Christmas, not the expensive gifts that call for time and money....  Let us pray that this presence of the liberating joy of God shines forth in our lives.

-- Pope Benedict XVI


On a day like Christmas, it is as if God were smiling as he says, "I've got this!"

We may reply, "then why don't you stop all the bad stuff going on?"  And God leans forward and asks, "Can you repeat that?"...not condescendingly, but with utmost gentleness and strength.  "Why don't you all stop the bad stuff from happening?"

With a twinkle in his eye, and knowing now that he has our full attention, God might then say something like , "...because you have to learn to stop hurting each other and my world; you have to."

He goes on, "But, just so you know, I AM helping you.  I'm redeeming what you're doing, in spite of how you treat each other.  I'm healing anyone who wants to be healed.  I'm doing way more than you know.

On a day like Christmas, I'm coming to you personally to let you know that all will be well again...I've Got This."


I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

-- John 15:11

Noel: Christmas Eve 1913

A frosty Christmas Eve 
   when the stars were shining
Fared I forth alone 
   where westward falls the hill,
And from many a village 
   in the water’d valley
Distant music reach’d me 
   peals of bells aringing:
The constellated sounds 
   ran sprinkling on earth’s floor
As the dark vault above 
   with stars was spangled o’er.
Then sped my thoughts to keep 
   that first Christmas of all
When the shepherds watching 
   by their folds ere the dawn
Heard music in the fields 
   and marveling could not tell
Whether it were angels 
   or the bright stars singing.

Now blessed be the tow’rs 
   that crown England so fair
That stand up strong in prayer 
   unto God for our souls
Blessed be their founders 
   (said I) an’ our country folk
Who are ringing for Christ 
   in the belfries to-night
With arms lifted to clutch 
   the rattling ropes that race
Into the dark above 
   and the mad romping din.

But to me heard afar 
   it was starry music
Angels’ song, comforting 
   as the comfort of Christ
When he spake tenderly 
   to his sorrowful flock:
The old words came to me 
   by the riches of time
Mellow’d and transfigured 
   as I stood on the hill
Heark’ning in the aspect 
   of th’ eternal silence.

-- Robert Bridges

There is something so loud about silence, especially on a day (night) like this. Can you hear it?

After, Not Before

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Be patient when it gets weird.
The angels explained things to Joseph
after he'd talked to Mary, not before.

-- Bob Goff

Snow

Poem for the week:

...thanks, Lori, for sharing this snow.

Not Your Destiny

​Letting go means to come to the realization that some people are part of your history, but not your destiny.

-- Steve Maraboli

Instinct & Context

​I've noticed...that my wife seems to be more able to move out of what she feels, on a daily basis -- do this today (or not).
I move more out of what I think things look like over the long-term - how things should be and what that means for today. This means I can tend to disregard what I feel today because it doesn't (shouldn't) matter in light of the greater goal...yes, some real flaws here -- do this everyday (or not at all).

She seems to be more instinctual.
I seem to be more contextual.

I love the freedom of her instinct.
I'm guessing she appreciates my more contextual orientation (at least, at times).

We both are both, but perhaps we each work from more of one than the other.
The beauty of it is that we borrow from each others' more, as we continue to both merge and differentiate ourselves at the same time.

LT: Environment

​The responsibility of leadership is not to come up with all the ideas. The responsibility of leadership is to create an environment in which great ideas can thrive.

-- Simon Sinek

Extra Baggage

​In order to take flight...you need to assess your extra baggage.

-- Elle Kaplan

Space for More

Letting go is basically making space for more—and for all otherness—inside of my small self. Jesus made this point in his very opening line in his first sermon: “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (see Matthew 5:3). We do not live in a culture that appreciates letting go or “poverty of spirit.” We are consumers and capitalists by training and by habit. Yet, just as in the Trinity, all infilling must be preceded by a necessary self-emptying—or there is never room in the inn!

-- Richard Rohr

This reflects a bit of a break-through for me of late; a natural progression, perhaps, of letting go.  I cannot experience more by trying to put more in.  I can only experience more by emptying myself.  As Rohr puts it, our (my) desire to pack things a bit more tighter or more efficiently seems intuitively true, but as I have experienced it, it doesn't work.  The metaphor of a cup of coffee works for me here -- using my thumb to try to jam more liquid into it is useless -- things only spill over the rim.

I am one size, no bigger.  But that doesn't mean I don't have capacity to grow.  My capacity to grow, however, is not achieved by becoming bigger or more dense, it is about becoming more spacious and letting more flow out of me.  I can stop trying to retain what I have and start learning to empty myself, so that more can come in.  It, too, will need to flow out, which will allow the process to repeat.  This is the way I can grow - in and out, in and out...like breathing.  Holding more, carrying more, simply is not the way.

So, what does self-emptying look like?

Science says to stop buying your kids so much crap

You won’t spoil the holidays if you don’t spoil your kids.

Meghan Brunson, a Phoenix mother of four girls ages 2 to 10, worried her two oldest would be disappointed four years ago when she pared the pile of presents down from around 10 apiece to the “rule of 4” being adopted by many parents: One gift they want, one gift they need, one gift to wear and one gift to read.  Continue here....

-- Nicole Lyn Pesce

...reminds me that there can be a difference between gifts and presents.  Presents aren't necessarily bad, but true gifts can be better.

The Mystic’s Christmas

'Poem for the week -- "The Mystic’s Christmas":

“All hail!” the bells of Christmas rang,
“All hail!” the monks at Christmas sang,
The merry monks who kept with cheer
The gladdest day of all their year.

But still apart, unmoved thereat,
A pious elder brother sat
Silent, in his accustomed place,
With God’s sweet peace upon his face.

“Why sitt’st thou thus?” his brethren cried,
“It is the blessed Christmas-tide;
The Christmas lights are all aglow,
The sacred lilies bud and blow.

“Above our heads the joy-bells ring,
Without the happy children sing,
And all God’s creatures hail the morn
On which the holy Christ was born.

“Rejoice with us; no more rebuke
Our gladness with thy quiet look.”
The gray monk answered, “Keep, I pray,
Even as ye list, the Lord’s birthday.

“Let heathen Yule fires flicker red
Where thronged refectory feasts are spread;
With mystery-play and masque and mime
And wait-songs speed the holy time!

“The blindest faith may haply save;
The Lord accepts the things we have;
And reverence, howsoe’er it strays,
May find at last the shining ways.

“They needs must grope who cannot see,
The blade before the ear must be;
As ye are feeling I have felt,
And where ye dwell I too have dwelt.

“But now, beyond the things of sense,
Beyond occasions and events,
I know, through God’s exceeding grace,
Release from form and time and space.

“I listen, from no mortal tongue,
To hear the song the angels sung;
And wait within myself to know
The Christmas lilies bud and blow.

“The outward symbols disappear
From him whose inward sight is clear;
And small must be the choice of days
To him who fills them all with praise!

“Keep while you need it, brothers mine,
With honest seal your Christmas sign,
But judge not him who every morn
Feels in his heart the Lord Christ born!”

-- John Greenleaf Whittier

Conscious Relationship

A conscious relationship is one that calls forth who you really are.... [Instead of looking to a relationship for shelter] we could welcome its power to wake us up in areas of life where we are asleep and where we avoid naked, direct contact with life. This approach puts us on a path. It commits us to movement and change, providing forward direction by showing us where we most need to grow. Embracing relationship as a path also gives us practice: learning to use each difficulty along the way as an opportunity to go further, to connect more deeply, not just with a partner, but with our own aliveness as well.

-- John Welwood

Iteratively

​I've noticed...that one of my personal fears is choosing self.  I think this is the case because it feels like I am choosing self over others; it sounds selfish. But, I suspect that this is a limitation of viewing things through an either / or type of lens.

Perhaps, only a few things can be fully held at the same time. Perhaps, the way things really work is more spirally - iteratively - rather than simultaneously. It is the ability to keep moving, rotating through and back through things we have discovered before, even as we discover something different or new, that is important. A few things are left behind (perhaps they should be), but mostly things are acquired, enriched, expanded. We might call this growth.

So, there are times when I need to choose something for self, as there are times when I need to choose the needs of others first.  While one is not blind to the other, choosing one doesn't mean the other is not true or needed.  Perhaps, it is just not the prevailing thing in this moment.

Fear distort things; in fact, these things.  At least it seems to for me.

LT: This 10-Year Study Had 1.5 Million People Rate 122,000 Leaders - Said A Lot About Culture

Diversity in business is easy to measure. Inclusivity is much more difficult--and most leaders don't know how inclusive they are (or aren't).

Creating an inclusive culture should be one of the main objectives for all leaders. Inclusive cultures make team members of all races, sexes, and ages feel more valued, welcomed, and heard within the organization. The more inclusive the workplace, the healthier it will be, the more productive your team will be, and the better you'll be as a leader.  Continue here....

--  Jordan Scheltgen 

Impediments

I need this reminder today:

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Sometimes what seem like the 
impediments
are actually the path.

-- Bob Goff

Source of Holiness

​Embrace the present moment as an ever-flowing source of holiness.

-- Jean Pierre de Caussade

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

Nature's Christmas lights in the snowy woods were calling me today!

Fletcher liked it, too!

Threw this one in, from our yard:

Christmas On The Edge

Poem for the week -- "Christmas On The Edge":

Christmas sets the centre on the edge;
The edge of town, the outhouse of the inn,
The fringe of empire, far from privilege
And power, on the edge and outer spin
Of  turning worlds, a margin of small stars
That edge a galaxy itself light years
From some unguessed at cosmic origin.
Christmas sets the centre at the edge.

And from this day our  world is re-aligned
A tiny seed unfolding in the womb
Becomes the source from which we all unfold
And flower into being. We are healed,
The end begins, the tomb becomes a womb,
For now in him all things are re-aligned.

-- Malcolm Guite

What You Look At

​It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.

-- Henry David Thoreau

What I Do

I've noticed...that a lot of what I do, I do because I know I can do it.  And, I primarily know what I can do it, because I have done it.

Makes me wonder what I could be trying to do right now, so that down the road I am able to do something I don't do today.

LT: One Behavior Separates The Successful From The Average

A certain farmer had become old and ready to pass his farm down to one of his two sons. When he brought his sons together to speak about it, he told them: The farm will go to the younger son.

The older son was furious! “What are you talking about?!” he fumed.

The father sat patiently, thinking...continue here.

-- Benjamin P. Hardy

Lens

Unless we come to recognize the lens through which we filter all of our experiences, we will not see things as they are but as we are.

-- Richard Rohr

Glory Of The Lord

To Close A Monastery

"Peace is in the heart already..."

"There's a monk in everybody, because there's a desire for completion, for fulfillment."

"There's an emptiness that calls out to be filled."

May Perpetual Light Shine

Now in a season of lights, perhaps this, and subsequent poem selections, can be...illuminating.

Poem for the week -- "May Perpetual Light Shine":

We have encountered storms
Perfect in their drench and wreck

Each of us bears an ornament of grief
A ring, a notebook, a ticket torn, scar
It is how humans know their kind—

What is known as love, what can become 
the heart’s food stored away for some future
Famine

Love remains a jewel in the hand, guarded
Shared fragments of earth & air   drift & despair.

We ponder what patterns matter other than moons and tides:
musical beats—rumba or waltz or cha cha cha
cosmic waves like batons furiously twirling
colors proclaiming sparkle of darkness
as those we love begin to delight
in the stars embracing

-- Patricia Spears Jones