A Better Message

We get the message. The subliminal messages of the media makes it pretty clear to us what our society expects and prefers.   You are familiar with its message -- we have to be fit, bubbly, and sexy. Movie after movie, television show after television show gives us the message that good looks, a winning smile, and a bubbly personality will serve us well. We’ll find good jobs, good mates, and happy families. We get the message. It’s loud and clear. If we have these things, life will be good, but what if we don’t meet these expectations? Then who am I? 

At a recent worship service, we were blessed with the lyrics from the Christian song, “Come as you are” by a Christian group that calls themselves, A Pocket Full of Rocks. The lyrics of this song gives us a different message, a message that may leave us feeling differently about ourselves than the messages we’ve gleaned from the media that surrounds us day after day. Here are the opening lyrics to this “Come as you are”.

 

He's not mad at you
He's not disappointed
His grace is greater still,
than all of your wrong choices
He is full of mercy and he is ever kind
Hear his invitation, His arms are open wide

This song reminds me of a Psalm that has helped me through more difficult times.  The times when we've felt unworthy, imperfect, or alone. This psalm speaks to us when we have been bullied or scorned or the times that we've been overlooked or ignored. The times when a best friend hurts us with words or actions or those times when we're so confused, and we don’t know where to turn to find a warm embrace, a word of love or the voice that says to us do not worry for you will not have to make this journey alone. The words from Psalm 139 hold me close to God when the rest of the world seems to be pushing me away. “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; I know that full well. Psalm 139:13-14. 

I am fearfully and wonderfully made…I know this full well. The message is clear. May we find strength and peace in knowing how much God has carefully, thoughtfully, and lovingly created our very being and may we hear this message above else. 

Prayer:

                God I am fearfully and wonderfully made! You created all of me and you love me for all that I am. Today, my spirit will sing to your glory for your arms are open wide and you welcome me into this new day. Amen.

Empty Spaces

How many times have we walked in our homes, noticed an empty space and think of something that would be just the right object to give the room a different look. The opposite is true when we’re doing some shopping and out of nowhere we spot an item that would fill an empty space in our home and we buy it or put it on our gift list for someone else to treat us with just the perfect gift.

The summer has been very hot and very dry. My flower beds, like many of yours are probably finishing up and we’ve begun some late summer, fall clean-up a little earlier this year. In the midst of the clean-up, I find myself looking at the empty spaces in the garden and planning for next spring and what I might do differently as late winter breaks forth spring’s potential. The empty spaces ignite my imagination and I see something different.

As I think about that perfect item that will set off a room in our home or the right kind of plant, shrub, or flower that will fill in that empty space next spring, I can see how empty spaces allow for new things to happen in our lives. In spiritual disciplines throughout the centuries, we know that there are mystics and monastics that live their lives, engaging in a spiritual discipline of emptying themselves so that they might be more receptive to the new ways in which God’s Spirit fills their souls and gives them new life.

It is easy to look at empty spaces and feel sadness and grief, but the empty places that we feel may be a way in which God is about to show us something new. New things can happen only when there is space for the new things to bubble up and grow. When we crowd our lives with the familiar, we lose the power to see the newness that can be. When we lose a spouse or a loved one or even a job or something else that is significant for us, we feel emptiness. Sometimes we call this emptiness, grief. Each one of us grieves our losses differently. There can be unhealthy grief that leads most often to depression, but also self-pity, or a growing sense of isolation, and perhaps even lead to death. This is unhealthy grieving. When we can grieve in healthy ways, we can celebrate our memories, but still allow the Holy Spirit to bring us new things, filling our empty space and enabling us to embrace the new life that God is giving us today. The empty tomb, like empty spaces, is not a place of death; it is the place where new life can break forth and show us a different reality that reminds us of God's ongoing and  abundant blessings.

Prayer  

           God of empty spaces, fill our darkness with the joy of the resurrection. Just as the seed is planted in the dark shadows of the earth, a seedling breaks through the earth filled with potential and possibility. Help me to be the seed that finds life in the darkness. Amen.

Recess with God

The first day of school is now recent history for our children. For our elementary children, recess is still an important part of the school day. I heard a report recently about a community that was beginning year round school and they had interviewed a child who really didn’t have a concern about year round school, but what was bothering him more than anything was that his recess time had been shortened. 

As a young child, recess was planned time during the day in which we could set aside our school curriculum for fifteen minutes and unwind for a time. Recess was a time to play tag, dodge ball, football, jump rope, jacks or sit under the Oak tree sharing stories and tales with your school friends. I remember enjoying rounds and rounds of marbles with my friends; we exchanged baseball cards, and brought our model cars and airplanes to show off to our friends. Recess re-energized and re-focused us and we returned to our classrooms a little more prepared to read, write and do arithmetic. It was a planned time-out. 

Just as our children need time away from the rigor and order of a school day, so do we need to have recess with God? When you think about your day, you know there are things that must get done and you will do them. There are work responsibilities, family activities, children’s schedules and a multitude of distractions that break us down and wear us out and these are the times that we need to step out onto the playground, sit under an Oak tree and remember who we are and to whom we belong. Just as our schools plan recess for our children, we need to plan time with God every day. 

Recess with God will help us to be more effective workers in the work-place, more attentive to our spouse and our children, and we’ll have a healthier, happier outlook on our own well being. Yes, I think that God could be a wonderful friend to have on the playground of life. 

Prayer:

              God my life is busy and I am so easily distracted. You are important to me. Help me, O God, to plan time everyday with you. Amen.

Turmoil of the Possible

Today there is Animal Planet or the Nature channel that demonstrates before our eyes the conflicts that exist in the natural world. In my day, we watched Animal Kingdom and I still remember how I would leave the room or cover my eyes when I suspected that there would be a kill – a scene that would depict the strength and skill of a stronger predator against the hunted, more vulnerable prey. In nature there is conflict. 

In classical literature from Homer’s The Iliad to the Brothers Karamazov to 1984 or America’s classics such as the To Kill a Mockingbird or The Red Badge of Courage are stories that are memorable and endure through the decades because of existing conflict that is a part of our lives everyday. Popular literature such as the Harry Potter series to the Hunger Wars are stories that are powerful and transforming because of conflict.  

 In the realm of science we learn how chemicals react with one another. We learn about the good things that happen and also the bad things that happen because of conflict between chemicals. Stars collide, meteors fall from space,impacting the earth through the aeons.  We know that  hurricanes happen, drought is a reality and we can see how moving water has carved the earth into what we know today. All of this happens because of conflict– conflict brings changes to the earth, strengthens the plot of a story or creates a dissonant chord in music that challenges the musician. Conflict exists all around us. 

God created the earth out of the conflict of light and darkness; family stories that make up much of the Hebrew text are held together and extrapolated in the midst of conflict. Prophets spoke of coming conflicts and God’s judgment upon a conflicted people. Our faith in Jesus Christ is shaped in the midst of conflict between the way the world looked at Jesus and his vision for a new world that Christians call the Kingdom or Realm of God.  Paul understands that within the Christian community there can be unity amidst conflict. The Christian faith has been shaped in the midst of cultural, social, political, and religious conflict.

So it is in our life too. Conflict is something that will not go away no matter how many times we push it under the rug, postpone it for another time, or read self-help books that minimizes conflict and creates the more perfect you. Our life, whether personal or communal, gives us ample opportunity to use conflict to strengthen our relationships and our communities. How we use that conflict is key to a better, more fulfilling life. If God can create order out of chaos, Jesus can talk about hope in the midst of conflict, and Paul can leverage conflict to shape stronger believers and communities of the faithful, then we to should be able to use the conflicts in our own life that shapes and transforms our own life together.  

Prayer

God help us today to see conflict and turmoil as opportunities to grow and become all that you want us to be. Instead of running away from the pain, help us embrace it as a way to grow in faith, grow life, and grow together as people of God. Amen. 

Dark Night Rises

It was late Friday night when I heard of the violence at a midnight viewing of the most recent Batman movie in Aurora, Colorado. Like so many of you I was horrified by yet another random act of violence that didn’t have to be except that evil has no conscious and once again the dark night rises and catches us off guard – totally unprepared for such violence. We shake our heads and wonder, why?

I recall the shooting of Amish children attending school, Columbine and Virginia Tech. Violence continues to show its ugly head and another night of darkness rises from the insufferable dung heap of unresolved anger and lonely desperation and as Christians we struggle to find the words to console our anxious hearts especially when such acts of violence taunt the very values we hold dear.   When the dark night rises and taunts the values that shape our community, how do Christians respond to such acts of violence?

As painful as it may be for all of us, we must learn from the Amish community that shows us that forgiveness works. We must also believe that even when the dark night rises from its lurid, murky grave of hopelessness and despair, we must believe that evil is the aberration and not goodness. In God’s time, goodness, not evil will prevail. In the meantime, we must remain steadfast, teaching our children about the importance of love, acceptance, tolerance, and an abiding faith that is nurtured from the day our children were baptized. Through thick and thin, through tragedy and grief, our faith must be strong -- strong enough to stand in the shadow of the dark night, fearlessly proclaiming the power of God’s love and grace for this will be our salvation.

Prayer

We cry out and ask WHY God, why? We struggle to understand, to make sense out of such tragedy and we ask WHY? Because we become anxious in times like these, we plead for answers. Until we hear from you O God, remind us that we do not grieve alone for you grieve with us. In our weeping, in our mourning, and in our struggle to understand, may we feel your presence, your comforting Spirit that covers us like a warm blanket of peace. Amen.

Building Blocks

A photograph of several of the Evansville Tri-State Association youth attending the National Youth Event at Purdue University was posted on Facebook last week. It was a photograph of several youth playing in the fountain on campus.  For those who attended Purdue University, it seems that this long held tradition of running through the fountain is a part of the life and culture of the university. A tradition such as this one brings individuals together and community happens. 

   

We have a similar photograph in a collection of family photos. Carly and I attended Faith Works at Purdue University in the mid-nineties and it was a hot day in July when Andrew and Aaron enjoyed a few minutes cooling down  in the same fountain.   Whether or not my boys ever meet the youth who attended the National Youth Event this summer, they will share a memory that binds them together with others who have made a similar journey.   A memory such as this brings our individual journeys together in a common experience and community happens.  

And so it is with Christian community – traditions and memories that are shared through the generation shape our values, our beliefs, and our Christian commitment. Memory and tradition are the building blocks upon which the Christian faith is shaped and formed. It is from this foundation that we are free to imagine the possible. What are the building blocks of your faith? What memory do you share with generations that define your family? Your community? What traditions bring meaning to your faith?  

Prayer 

God, help us to cherish our memories and shape new traditions that proclaim your glory today. May the traditions of life ground us in this new day and our memories of this new day empower us to imagine the possible. Amen.

Holy is the Day

An early morning wind touches the window where I am  sleeping, a wet nose nudges my forehead, and as my eyes open and adjust to the early morning light, God's hand of grace brings forth the new day -- Holy is the day.

I look out my back door and a rabbit munches peacefully upon the greener grass around my flower-bed that sips from the edges of the garden as I try to keep the flowers fed and watered that they may sing songs of praise to their Creator with their color and their simple beauty. Even as the parched grass crunches under my feet, God's hand of grace brings beauty to my day -- Holy is the day.

A humming bird buzzes by my ear as he makes his way to the Petunias overflowing the basket's edge and quickly rushes back to a small nest in the Ash Tree that lifts its leafy arms to the glory of God. The birds, sipping water from the bird bath, a bee buzzing in and out of the flowering sage as it gathers what it needs to make food for its family. Even as the natural world breaks forth with its own busy day, God's hand of grace brings order to the this new day -- Holy is the day.

I don't know what else will greet me this day as I create my own order for the day. It may be a quiet day of study and reflection. It could be a day of unexpected surprises or disappointing results. The day is still unfolding and only destiny knows how it will end. This is what I do know -- God has blessed this new day for me -- for us -- for all of creation and that is sufficient -- Holy is the day!

Prayer:

God of morning light, tiny, wet noses, and a garden of blessings, you have blessed this day with a holy kiss and called us from our sleepy slumber to embrace the new day -- this holy day. May all my senses experience your holiness this day and may it come to its beautiful end with sleepy eyes and a jubilant heart. Holy is this day. Amen.