Friday, March 26, 2010 Why doesn’t God beat up the bad guys? Here we have the story of the plagues and Moses commands and God from up on high sends down plagues on the bad guys. Don’t we wish it were that simple? That we could just pray to God “My God My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” and because we are good, God would rain down fire and plagues on the bad guys.

Well, I will give a couple of reasons why in real life it doesn’t happen that way. The first is that it is not always easy to tell the bad guys. When Iraq and Afghanistan were invaded it wasn’t just bad guys who were invaded and killed. Thousands upon thousands of innocents have been killed, bombed, displaced, starved and so on. It is not always easy to isolate the bad guys.

The second is that if we push hard enough about who is good and bad we find that we are not always so good. The children of Israel were liberated from Egypt’s bondage, went into the wilderness and worshipped idols, engaged in a drunken orgy, doubted God, got angry at their leaders, gossiped and complained, and were not a whole lot better than the Egyptians is at all. We find that when we start pointing fingers at the bad guys, eventually the finger has to point at us to. We sin. We fail. We hurt people. We are selfish. We have met the enemy and it is us.

Human nature being what it is likes to identify the bad guys. If we can find someone to blame then it shifts blame off of us. It is called scapegoating. It is one of the fundamental ways societies hold together. They assert their rightness, their reason to be, by pointing the finger at somebody else who is bad. Those people are the reason for our problems, or at least by pointing the finger we don’t have to think about our own problems.

Yet Jesus shows another way. Instead of raining down plagues on the bad guys, Jesus lets the bad guys rain down plagues on him, and exposes that whole violent system as fruitless and pointless. We don’t mete out violence and shame and guilt and pointing the finger. We absorb it and love anyway.

Paul writes: But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.

The true light that comes into the world is not about pointing fingers at the bad guys and putting a big hurt on them. The true light loves us unconditionally and invites us to do the same and anyone who puts their faith in this love is transformed into children of God. It is about love that transforms us bad guys, not anger that destroys us. And I am humbled when Jesus tells us to love one another as he has loved us.

Grace and peace to you

harry

HARRY’S DAILY DEVOTIONS

(Scroll down for journaling for each day.)

This is the pattern I will be following during my Intermission. It is a pattern or a set of guidelines, not cast in stone, but one that I hope gives the Holy Spirit room to move… I will be flexible with them.

I will begin the day with a few yoga stretches, to help me wake up.  Half or full sun-salutations.

I will be using Morning Prayer from the Presbyterian Church USA Book of Common Worship. I will use the daily lectionary and also a book of meditations entitled “Meditations from the Mat.” I will sing the psalms using the points. I will also sing some hymns. After finishing morning prayer I will spend more time in the scripture using Lectio Divina, picking which of the texts appeal to me and anything that has come up in Morning Prayer.

LECTIO DIVINA     (harry’s note in brackets) (I sort of start this in morning prayer doing some lectio and some meditatio and then go deeper after morning prayer, while having a cup of tea and relaxing on the couch with the dogs. Or I do it during morning prayer.)

Preparation: A few moments of deep, regular breathing and a short prayer inviting the Holy Spirit to guide the prayer time.   (I often use Jesus prayer: Jesus, son of God, Saviour, Have mercy on me a sinner)

Lectio: This first moment consists in reading the scriptural passage slowly, attentively several times. Many write down words in the scripture that stick out to them or grasp their attention during this moment.

Meditatio:  (some days I will go for a walk as I do meditato and oratio) The Christian, gravitating around the passage or one of its words, takes it and ruminates on it, thinking in God’s presence about the text. He or she benefits from the Holy Spirit’s ministry of illumination, i.e. the work of the Holy Spirit that imparts spiritual
understanding of the sacred text.

Oratio:  This is prayer: prayer understood both as dialogue with God, that is, as loving conversation with the One who has invited us into His embrace; and as consecration, prayer as the priestly offering to God of parts of ourselves that we have not previously believed God wants.

Contemplatio:  This moment is characterized by a simple, loving focus on God. In other words, it is a beautiful, wordless contemplation of God, a joyful rest in His presence. (I will do centering prayer at this time 15-20 minutes)

Operatio: Application. Sharing our Lectio Experience with Each Other
(I will be attempting to share by journaling thoughts of the scriptures but also of anything that is going on.)

Part of the day will include a walk. On days when I don’t have yoga teacher training I plan to go to yoga.

Then I will spend some time every day in the afternoons reading, theological books. No particular themes, but books that I have accumulated and haven’t had a chance to read. Part of morning devotions and journaling time may pick up something of my reading.

Monday and Wednesday nights I have four hours of Yoga Teacher training, so will spend less time reading those days. I have two yoga retreats that are all day Thursday, Friday Saturday. Will be taking a four day holiday at the end of February. Will be preaching 7 or 8 Sundays. They are all prepared and ready to go.

The plan is to have full days Monday through Thursday and then much shorter devotions on Friday and Saturday

Close of day I will be doing “Review of the Day” also called “Evening Examen” or “Examen of Consciousness” which is an Ignatian Prayer  Exercise.

Here is a simple version.

# Thank you God for…

# Ever present God, what did you see in my day today…

# How has my day gone?

# What has touched my heart with joy or sorrow, fear, or pain today?

# Loving God, this is what I need from you today…

# What could be different tomorrow, or what could I practice tomorrow?

# Consoling God, I know you are with me…thank you.

Grace and Peace to you Harry

Monday January 25, 2010

Started Intermission today. Started before eight with getting the pattern set up and spent three hours roughly getting things started then in morning prayer and meditation. Was wonderful.

The gospel was from John’s gospel chapter 5 where Jesus heals a boy. The father comes to Jesus and entreats Jesus to come and heal him. Jesus doesn’t come, but just tells the father to go and the son will be all right.

It is one of those miracles that one could never prove a miracle, or maybe it isn’t a miracle as we like to think of miracles.

Maybe it is a miracle that most of us get better from the sicknesses and ailments we have, because God created us with great healing properties.

But as I thought about the scripture the phrase that came to me was “Death Wish.” It is that destructive tendency that most humans, probably all humans have… That tendency to do things that are destructive to ourselves. One of mine is to eat things which I know not to be good for me.

There are others but you don’t have to know them.

So, I pray to God to get rid of this destructive tendency, to heal me of that which I do that I don’t want to do. And I look for supernatural intervention.

And today the scripture seems to say to Harry.

Don’t look for supernatural intervention, Harry, instead listen to Christ say, “go your way Harry and live.”

I keep forgetting that Christ has already given me the tools to live, that Christ is already in me. Smarten up Harry and do what you know you should do, and live the way you want to live and get in touch with Christ within me who said to Pilate: “You have no power over me.”

So my mantra with food these nine weeks is this: “You have no power over me.” Think about it. Food doesn’t talk, it will not twist my arm physically. It has no power. I am the one who gives it power.

So I will pray about food and see if these words of Jesus and living in Jesus, see if they make a difference in my diet.

An another note, I have been thinking about something in church life the last little while which relates I think to the whole matter of death wish.

“It is the policy of the Presbyterian Church that children, youth, vulnerable adults and adults will be safe.”

This is from our leading with care policy.

So we have been busy looking at criminal record checks and making sure the physical facilities are safe.

But one thing we have forgotten, I think, is emotional safety.

When I started my Yoga teacher’s training we covenanted together around a number of things. One of those things was to treat each other with dignity and respect and to be non-judgemental. Then we also agreed that this place would be a safe place for people to share whatever they wanted to share and to offer love, support and encouragement.

I think we would do well to make that a stated policy in our churches. Personally the church has frequently been a place where someone felt free to attack me. It has not been a safe place, although I have found lots of good and safe people in the church.

But I also know that one of the destructive tendencies, one of the death wishes of congregations is the ability to gossip, talk down about people, attach people’s thoughts, actions, theologies etc.

I believe it needs to stop. The church is dying and I have to admit the biggest enemy is not society but ourselves.

I think that we need to encourage a safe place, no matter one’s theology, one’s practice, one’s lifestyle, one’s thoughts and feelings. We are there to help people, heal people, care for people, not attack people.

When the church no longer puts up with practices that hurt people, church will become more healing and more enjoyable

Grace and peace to you

Harry

Tuesday January 26, 2010

Today’s gospel is from John’s gospel and Jesus heals the man who has been lying by the pool for 38 years, hoping that he would be healed. The legend was that at certain times the Spirit of god would move the waters and that the first into the pool would be healed. It’s a great story, becoming one of my favourite gospel stories because one can really plumb its depths. This is a story that can be taken at face value. Jesus heals a sick man, or one that talks a lot about our inner selves.

Jesus says to the fellow a strange thing. “Do you want to be healed?” You would think that answer is obvious, but the truth is that many of us, and I include myself, often do not want to be healed.

We get a lot of mileage sometimes from having pain, being sick, being wounded, being offended, being the victim, being hurt, being overworked…or whatever we use to try and gather sympathy, manipulate the situation, excuse our anger or frustration…and so on.

I remember as a ten-year old being in a skating race and crashing into somebody and falling just before the finish line. They took me off crying and one of the adults kept asking me where it hurt. My mother was acute enough to realize it was my pride and ego that were really hurt and I was crying not from physical pain, but from losing. But I was trying to get sympathy.

Sometimes we do not want to be well.

And the answer the sick man gives is not “yes, I want to be well.” The answer that man gives is that he has nobody to help him into the pool.”

The reason he gives that he is not well, is that there is nobody to help him. How often in our unwellness (harry’s new word) do we blame it on others. We are sick because of what somebody did. We are sick because nobody helps us. We are angry, we are frustrated, because of somebody. We didn’t get our work done because somebody else.

Last night when I got home, one of the dogs had an accident and I was mad. I was mad because I immediately thought that either my wife or daughter had neglected the dogs and not put them out, or not watched them or not bothered to look and clean things up.

And yet whose fault was it that I got mad. My fault.

So many people are sad because of what other have done to them or what they think they have done to them. So many people are not happy because of what people have done or what they think people have done to them. Our sadness is not somebody’s fault and our happiness is not dependant on somebody. Sadness and happiness are the choices we make.  We can choose to be happy or we can choose to be sad.

One of the things that Jesus does is points out to us that our healing does not require somebody else and even if we have been hurt by somebody, that is no excuse for us not to be better.

And Jesus says: “Pick up your mat and walk.” We already have the resources to be well. If you were a real literalist you might just find out that there is no healing, that the man had the ability to walk all along. Jesus doesn’t do anything.

It is amazing that so many people spend their time in prayer asking God to do something. Asking God to heal this, fix this, change this, change them, save them or keep them safe. Ask for miracles.

And yet they already have the resources within them.

Part of this is an understanding of Jesus which is not helpful. It is the understanding that God and Jesus are out there somewhere apart from us. Therefore our job is to find Jesus, much like Dorothy is trying to find the Wizard of Oz and ask for help to get back to Kansas.

How different it is to pray when we realize that Jesus is not out there somewhere, but that Jesus is within us, that God lives within us? What prayer becomes about is getting past the ego and the illusions and resting in that divine presence and finding that at our very core we have love and grace and forgiveness and holy power to be the people God always intended us to be… To be whole and happy.

Today’s story is about God saying to me. Stand up and walk, Harry. You have me in you and you don’t have to let anything change you from being the person you were created to be. You can have healing and you can have joy, by just being yourself, by just allowing your true nature to shine. Like Dorothy who always had the power to go home to Kansas, I already have the power to be healed and whole.

A little while ago I had a funeral for a young man 23 year old who had died after five years of lung cancer. The beautiful thing about his life is that he never stopped living. From his cancer bed, he took up his mat and walked. He was happy and joyful and lived each day to the full. His friends said that he was one of the neatest guys ever. That is healing of a different kind. It is the power to be you and let your true nature shine, no matter what comes your way.

Grace and peace to you

harry

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

T. S. Elliot wrote in the introduction to a translation of Dante’s inferno that hell is the place where nothing connects.

In the gospel for today from John 5:19-29 we have all sorts of connections. Jesus is connected to his father.

“the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. 20The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing; and he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be astonished. 21Indeed, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever he wishes. 22The Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son, 23so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father”

The very ground of life it seems is connection. We are born by our parents connecting and we are connected in a very real and biological way to them.

And in the spiritual world, which is intimately connected with the physical world and the emotional world, connection is where it is at.

Our faith is about being connected: about being connected to God, to Jesus, to the Spirit. But it is also about being connected to all living things… to have a sense of the life force that is in all creation. It is to be connected the divine force called love that is everywhere in the world.

Prayer and meditation is about connection. It is not about results. It is about grounding oneself in this love, in this life, in this awareness of all living things and all living beings who have worth and value and are part of creation. John’s gospel says that all things came into being through Christ. It is about connection.

Everything is connected.

A couple of years ago when I was on a one week silent retreat. (those who know me well laugh at the thought of me being silent for a week, extrovert and big mouth that I am) I went for a walk one day. I went every day for walks but this day I went on a 5 and half hour walk, some 28 kilometers or so, and I thought about God and meditated on that walk. That afternoon as I walked, at one point I was overcome with the presence of God, and the feeling was of oneness with all creation. I wasn’t just walking in creation, I was one with creation, with all people, with all animals, with all plants, even with the rocks. It was a feeling of love and joy and unity that is a little hard to describe. It was literally heaven. Not a place, but an experience. And I wanted to hug every person and every dog and every tree.

I was connected.

I also know the feeling of not being connected. It is hell. We humans know all the way to disconnect. War is one of the ultimate ways of being disconnected, of seeing others as bad, as the  enemy, of hurting and killing and separating.

We know the techniques to separate. The awful thing is that our culture often teaches us to separate, that it is a good thing. We have to be better than others. We have to rise above others. We have to lock our doors, build gated communities, keep the riff-raff out, keep ourselves pure and holy from the unclean and the dangerous and the criminal and the deviants etc.

A lot of our society is built on fear and prejudice, which separates. And a lot of our society is built on ego, and our egos love to separate ourselves.

We know the techniques to disconnect, to separate, to hurt, to build up our egos.

Swearing at someone, taking offense at someone, gossiping about someone. Saying,”Who the hell does he think he is?” Ignoring others, looking down our noses at someone, picking a fight with someone, avoiding someone. Ridiculing someone, embarrassing someone, hurting someone, not forgiving someone, holding grudges. And those are just a sample

Even in the church we are not immune from that kind of thing. I have heard or seen all of those things happen at church.

And I am not immune from that, and from doing or saying those things.

Most of us also know what it is like to be on the receiving end of those things.

Jesus says: Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.

Jesus is about life. And life is about connection. We come to life when we connect. The more we connect with others, with love, with life, with no judgement but acceptance, with every living thing from flukes and ants, to plants and people… From little to big, from bad to good…. Everyone and everything…. The more we will truly live and truly become Christlike.

There are times when I am dead and unconnected, but when I hear that voice of love and connection and listen I live. If we don’t listen we die inside.

I remember a children’s story in church when I was a child. I think it is a fable found in many cultures.

There was a man who had a vision of heaven and hell. When he saw hell he saw that all the people had arms that were locked straight so they were unable to bend their arms to feed themselves and consequently even thought there was food they were starving.

However, when the man saw heaven he saw that everyone was the same as in hell. Their arms were locked straight and they could not feed themselves, but he saw that everyone was happy and well-fed. That is because the people fed each other.

I pray that I would be someone who would feed others, that the church would be a place of connection, feeding others.

Grace and peace to you

harry

Saturday January 30, 2010

Let me tell you a little bit about Yoga, at least from my perspective. Yoga basically means union and in Yoga there is a union of body, mind and spirit. it is not only a physical practice although that is how I ame to it first, like many others. It is good for the body, It helps strength and flexibility. It helps blood flow, breath flow, digestion and it helps keep inner organs healthy. It brings balance and peace.
Yoga is a philosophy. It is not a religion and does not have a deity, but encourages one to a spiritual life to worship. Yoga can also mean union with God. So when I do my yoga practice, I often set an intention. It might be to be more open. It might be to receive grace. I use the physical time not only to help the body, but to concentrate my mind and to focus on God. It very much can be a time of worship for me.
The physical part of yoga, the postures (called asanas) are just one part of an eight limbed branch which include breathing, meditation, virtues that govern our relationships, observances that better the self, renunciation, concentration, and merging with the divine.
I have found great value in this ancient wisdom and am incorporating it into my life. I do not find it at odds with my Christian faith, but it enhances my relationship with God. And as with all philosophies and
practices, one uses that which is helpful and lets go of that which does not fit or work. I am not a slave to Yoga, and the philosophy of Yoga is such that it does not expect us to be. Yoga is a servant and helps one in one’s spiritual journey and it is the spiritual journey that comes first.

Grace and peace to you

harry

Monday February 1, 2010

Today we have the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorra and a gospel reading about Jesus being the bread of life. The first story is an ancient and difficult story often used in  the so-called homosexuality debates of the church as to the role and place of homosexuals and lesbians within the church.
The story has other difficulties too. God is seen as killing a whole lot of people and presumably if God rains down fire on a city, even if every adult is bad as all get out (and it is hard to imagine that everyone is that bad), but wouldn’t babies and children be in a city too.  It is a tough text to take literally, and of course I don’t.
One of the problems with biblical interpretation is that it is easy to focus on someone else: to say or think that this is about rapists and/or homosexuals. When one reads a text for the purpose of prayer and spiritual growth, one puts oneself in the text, and not just in the good guy’s role, but also in the role of the bad guys.

When I look at the text and see the men trying to break down the door of Lot’s house… When I think about those who want to rape and take what isn’t theirs… When I meditate on those who want to force their
way in… I have to think about all the ways I have taken what isn’t mine, physically, emotionally, materially and even spiritually…the ways I have forced myself upon others, taken well more than my fair share of the world’s goods…the ways I have thought that everybody owes me, or the world owes me, that I deserve it. I can be too forceful with my presence and my voice and my opinions and my way. I have imposed on others, expected that others give to me, been greedy, fought for things, stepped on others, crossed boundaries. I will not go into specifics, for it would be embarrassing, but I suggest that we all do this in subtle or not so sublte ways.
I certainly do not always mean it. Sometimes I am like a bull in a China shop, but I am not being malicious. Sometimes we do this inadvertently. Other times we know full well what we are doing. We are takers who live in a taking society and learn to justify our taking as the way it is. Our society rapes third world countries. The rich rape the poor and since we are mostly on the side of the rich, we say and do little about it. “This is the way the world is, what can we do?” is how we think.
Our minds are often consumed by the next acquisition or conquest. When can I get the new car, the new house, the new IPad, the new something….? Another cd, another book, another meal, another raise,
another RRSP or GIC?
I remember as a teenager being on a date and parking the car in a  dark place and reaching out to a girl to kiss and touch her and thinking, “what can I get? What can I touch? How far can I go?” Very,
very self-absorbed. It is a very natural but immature attitude. In a healthy relationship we not only think of ourselves but of what we can give, and of the needs, wants, desires, thoughts, feelings of the other. In a healthy relationship we listen, we share, we give and we receive. We don’t take, we receive.

There are two yoga principles that apply here:

Asteya is non-stealing: To never take the possessions of another, or to encroach upon another in any way, unless invited. To make sure that you never steal your own innate health peace and compassion, and sacrifice them to the service of pursuits of that are temporary.
Bramacharya is sexual purity: To allow sexual expression to be an ongoing education in intimacy, and never a show of power, dependency or selfishness.
And yet a boy on a date is a kind of metaphor for the way many still view the world. What can I get? what can I touch? How far can I go?  And I have been a part of that.

In the gospel, Jesus says that we should not work for the bread that goes bad, but for the true bread, the bread that is eternal. Then he goes on to say that he is the bread of life and that those who come to
him will not be hungry or thirsty. It is true that most of the stuff we work for isn’t eternal. It is material. We work for money and we work for things. We work for pleasure, which is not all bad. Money is not all bad. Material things are not all bad. But it is about focus.
What if we worked for true bread? What is that? Well Jesus says that he is the bread of life? But what Jesus means is not that we work to know all the doctrines and ideas about him, nor are we working for a place in heaven and avoiding a seat in hell. By consuming Jesus, by taking him into our lives, we are becoming like him… his love, his acceptance, his forgiveness, his peace, his joy… As we take Jesus in, we are changed  from people who are think about, what I can get, what I can touch, how far can I go…. into people who are thinking about what can I give, how can I touch with healing, how can help someone go far…

What a difference would it make in our lives if we didn’t work for the bread that goes bad but worked to be like Jesus, to be bread that would give others nourishment. If my goal was to feed others….physically, emotionally, spiritually, how would I live in this world?

Grace and peace to you
harry

Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Are there things worse than death? I think so. I think there are things that may be worse than physical death. After Fiona and I looked after her parents during that last part of their lives as they both suffered with cancer, death seemed like a relief to their suffering.

There is much about life and death in the bible and also in the New Testament a lot of talk about eternal life. Our passage in the gospel John 6:41-51 talks about it. 47Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. There is something in our faith that says that even though we physically die we will live. Obviously there is much speculation as to how that happens and in what form, and I think most of that speculation is fruitless and unnecessary. Life after death while promised and I believe real in some way, is not the primary focus of our faith or not necessarily even the primary focus of the phrase eternal life.

But let me digress to the Old Testament text for today to give us a little context. The story is of Abraham and Sarah who finally have their own child, Isaac, when Abraham is 100 and Sarah is 90. this is good and they are very happy. But their backup plan, that they had already put in place now is staring Sarah right in the face. It was her idea when she couldn’t have a child for Abraham to have a child with her slave Hagar, which he did; and so there is already a son of Abraham on the scene, Ishmael. And Sarah decides that Ishmael must go and puts an ultimatum to Abraham. And Abraham gives Hagar a picnic lunch and sends Hagar and Ishmael out into the wilderness to what must seem like certain death.

And they would have died if God had not rescued them.

But here is death of a different kind, the kind of death that the bible often means when it speaks of death. Death is to be excluded and cut off. Death is to be cast out. Death is to be not chosen, to be not welcome, to be on the outside looking in. Death also is to be alone.

We all have these death experiences in life: The child who doesn’t make the basketball team or the hockey team. They are cut; the girl or boy who is ostracized at school and is ridiculed by their peers; the girlfriend who is dumped because the boyfriend has found another; the gay couple who show up to church and are ignored by the congregants.

There are some categories of people that find it very hard to be accepted such as people with mental illness.

The good news we hear and read about concerning Jesus is that he does not cast us out or exclude us, no matter who we are. We never have to be alone. We never have to feel that we are not wanted or welcome. God in Christ welcomes us.

So eternal life in this context is not so much living for ever, but being connected to that which is eternal, an eternal love or essence that can never die.

And much of my meditation is about just that. Not talking or even thinking. Not asking, just being connected to this eternal love and being in union and harmony with that eternal love, which is connected to all living things. Just being in that presence and letting go of ego and self and being caught up in oneness and eternity.

But the second part of eternal life, the more challenging part of eating the bread of heaven is that eternal life is not just being connected to this eternal love, it is becoming eternal love. Eternal life is a quality of life as well.

We do not connect to this eternal love and feel oneness and connection and life and love and joy, just to feel good and it can feel very good. It can feel amazing.

But we connect to this eternal life, so that we can ourselves be loving and lifegiving, and give joy; and help others feel good; and help others to know that they are not alone; that we will connect with them and welcome them and include them and not give up on them.

Grace and peace to you

harry

Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Today we have one of those stories in the bible which just makes me cringe. It is the story of Abraham willing to sacrifice his son Isaac. And we also have in the gospels, Jesus saying that we have to eat his flesh and drink his blood.

I hope we can see that the gospel is metaphorical and not literal, and in so doing maybe the first story is more metaphor than literal.

It is my belief that the Abraham story is a polemic against child sacrifice. In a culture where child sacrifice was common, we have a story which at the end basically says that God doesn’t need child sacrifice. It is probably a very defining story in the history of faith as one sees the idea of God constantly changing and refining and new understandings. The ancients believed in gods as omnipotent despots who controlled everything and that humans were just the pawns who had to try and appease these fickle gods as best they could. They were cruel and capricious and violent and brooked no opposition.

And we see in stories like the flood and in the sacrifice of Isaac, the story starting out with that kind of traditional view of God and at the end of the story God being something different.

But for my purpose I put myself in the story. I know what it is like to be the one trussed up and laid on the altar. It has happened to me in church and it has happened in part of my life…the one who is the pawn, the one who is expendable, the one who is the sacrificial lamb, or maybe the scapegoat…

I don’t see myself as pure and holy, but I do know what it is like to be laid on the altar for sacrifice.

And so I take great hope in the fact that this is not what God wants, not does he sacrifice us. I take great hope in the fact that it is God’s will for me and all of his children to be set free from the bonds that lay us on the altars of others, who seek to appease themselves, their consciences, their unresolved issues, their anger, their frustration, by taking it out on others.

The sad part is that I know what it is like to be Abraham with someone trussed up under me, with me ready to sacrifice them. As a parent, as a minister, as a coach, as a human, I am painfully aware of some of the mistakes I made in which I sacrificed others for my own ends, or maybe even just as bad, for what I thought was a higher good. I like you know all the tools of threatening, anger, cajoling, pleading, whining, crying, manipulating, bribing, buttering up, sucking up, and every other technique to try and get my own way and try to get somebody else to do what maybe they don’t want to do.

Some ministers are very good at it. But I am wondering if that is not all a form of laying somebody on an altar and sacrificing their own will, for one’s own.

And Jesus shows us another way. Not to sacrifice someone else, but to give one’s own self. Eating the flesh of Jesus and drinking his blood are not only a way of union with Christ but I think they refer to a way of being in the world, which is the way of Christ who went to a cross.

I think it is John’s way of saying what Mark said of Jesus. If we want to follow Jesus we need to take up our cross.

I am still working on that, because I don’t think cross means doormat, but sometimes that is how I have done it. Just let others have their way.

But I do think there is a way to live in this world which is essentially Christian, which is to take up and cross, and crucify ego and live our true selves, which is to love and care and give and speak and live the truth, and to stand up for others even when it might cost us.

I know what to do, but I still find it really hard to do it.

Grace and peace to you

Harry

Monday, February 08, 2010

One of the threads that holds our Old Testament story together with our Gospel reading is that of hunger and thirst. The Old Testament story is of Esau selling his birthright to Jacob because he had come in from a few days of hunting and presumably a couple of days without food, and is so hungry that in exchange for a stew he sells his inheritance. In our gospel text, Jesus says: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me.”

But these are really contrasting statements. Esau’s hunger drove him to sell what was his future. It is a kind of metaphor I think for all our temporary hungers. What do we sell or give up to satisfy immediate and temporary hungers? For some it is the short term pleasure of a piece of cake vs. the long term goal of a healthy body. For others it might be personal integrity to climb the corporate ladder.

Maybe for me personally, as a minister and a person whose nature it is to please, maybe I more desire people to like me in my congregation than I do to be prophetic and challenge them to give or sacrifice. Maybe I give up some of my own integrity in order to please. Maybe I do things for my congregation that others should do. Maybe I am more interested in keeping on good terms with my congregation so I can receive a nice stipend and avoid any conflict. Maybe.

In some ways we all sell out, and sell parts of ourselves to satisfy certain hungers. But there is another way and that is to go to Jesus and quench our thirst.  The difference is that the thirst we are quenching is not a short term thing which makes us feel good for the moment. The thirst we are quenching is an ultimate thirst. It is the thirst for meaning in life, for connection, for deep satisfaction, for ultimate relationship, for acceptance, for love and for unity.

And when we drink deeply of Jesus, and we ourselves tap into that love, that acceptance, that meaning, that unity, that connection…then we ourselves become places of living water….we ourselves pour forth love, acceptance, connection and relationship. ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water’. And then the gospel writer John says that Jesus is talking about the Spirit.

In Borg and Crossan’s book, “The First Paul” they make the point that one of the meanings of the resurrection is that of internal transformation. “I am crucified with Christ” says Paul, “and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”

For Paul the Cross is not just some event which happened to Jesus, but an event that happens to us, where we have a transplant. Our spirits our replaced by the Spirit of Christ. Paul talks about this all the time by the phrases “in Christ” and “in the Spirit.”

So the gospel for today, the good news for Harry today (and for us), is that instead of indulging himself in what he thinks will make him feel good, happy, or safe….that he is to drink deeply of Jesus and have a Spirit transplant and live in Christ and let Christ live in him…..

Ultimately he will be happier and more fulfilled, although he still has to let go of those worldly hungers to control, manipulate, protect ego and indulge what feels good.

Grace and peace to you

harry

“Neither do I condemn you,” says Jesus to the woman caught in adultery. What a mantra that would be for the church. What a mission statement that could be for a congregation. We don’t condemn you. We are not about judgement. We are not about pointing fingers. We are about love, acceptance and forgiveness.

Last night at Yoga teacher’s training we did a meditation where we said four statements. May you have happiness. May you be free. May you be peaceful. May you be fulfilled. We said this four times for four different people or groups, self, loved one, someone with whom we have problems and all people.

And it was especially freeing to pray this for those with whom I have difficulties. It was freeing and releasing. Our egos don’t want to be healed or reconciled or let go of difficulties with others. They want to keep dragging it up, creating tension, being offended. Our egos love to wallow in that muck and not forgive, or get over it, because egos by nature want to stand alone. Egos like to chew the cud of hurt and tension and problems. Maybe you find yourself playing over and over and over again some difficulty, some hurt, some wound, some problem. That is normal, but the question is…are you trying to get over it or wallow in it?

Praying for our enemies is what both Jesus and Paul tell us. Do good to those who hurt us. Forgive people.

Do I feel safe telling my sins and faults and weaknesses at church? Not really. A little bit maybe. But should not the church be a safe place? I could go to AA and find a much safer place for confession than the church. Why isn’t the church safer? Why do we not say: “It’s all right. We don’t condemn you.”

The reason I think we are not more accepting is that we think the basic message of our faith is that we are terrible wicked sinners who are going to hell if we don’t repent and believe in Jesus.

But I think the basic message that Jesus tells us is we are special and precious in his sight, that he loves and forgive us, that we are children of God, treasured by God; and that we made to love God and one another. And Jesus loved us enough to die and show us that love and forgiveness is the way even with those who hurt us.

He didn’t come to save us from a place called hell, but a condition called hell where we condemn, and don’t forgive, and judge, and point fingers, and get into arguments, and fight, and be violent, and hold grudges, and get even, and retaliate, and cut off connection with one another.

In our Old Testament text for today, five times it says that Isaac and his people dug a well. What a wonderful image that is. A well is a place of life, of nourishment of refreshment. So my prayer today is that I would be a well of forgiveness, a well of love, a well of acceptance, a well of peace… that I would be a place of healing and compassion. And my prayer is that the church too, could be a well that people would come to and find Jesus and hear his words: Neither do I condemn you.

Grace and peace to you

harry

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Today’s Old Testament story of Jacob tricking Esau out of his blessing has so much going on that it is hard to know where to start. One could talk about the brother theme. The theme of siblings fighting and not getting along (a la Cain and Abel) is a prominent theme in scripture. Or one could talk about greed and being a taker, not a giver. (did that recently) One could also focus in on each of the characters. For instance, I wonder why Rebecca gets off easy afterwards. It was her idea. She got the goat skin. What kind of mother is this? But I want to focus on Isaac.

The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

As a younger person when I first heard the story, I used to think “Bid deal. It’s only a blessing.” Not only did I not understand its function in ancient days, I didn’t understand blessing today, because I was thinking more along material blessings or physical blessings. As a young man I was pretty blessed in some ways. I was top of the class and arguably the best athlete. I was well fed and while not rich certainly not suffering. My mom and grandparents treated us well.

But as I got older and today I understand blessing much more. It is a crucial thing in someone’s life to feel blessed not so much materially or physically, but to be blessed emotionally. To feel loved, wanted, accepted, needed, valued. To have a parent look on you with love and pride, knowing that you are their treasure.

My friend Elwyn tells the story of when he was a little boy. He was in the living room and he picked up a family heirloom which was very valuable, and played with it and broke it. He knew he was in big trouble and he started crying. His mom came out and asked him what was wrong. She saw the broken treasure and knew exactly what was wrong. But instead of scolding him, she picked him up and hugged him and said it was okay. Elwyn learned that day that he was the biggest treasure in the house. He was blessed.

Good old Isaac, in his old age and dotage, may lead you to believe that he didn’t know it was Jacob, that he was tricked by Esau, but I just don’t buy it. He even said it sounded like Jacob. And really goat skin? You ever feel a goat’s skin?

Let us face the almost inevitable conclusion that Isaac played favourites. He blessed the child he wanted to bless. And you say: I thought his favourite was Esau. It was. But in the end he thought that Jacob showed more initiative, was brighter, more intelligent and would be the better leader. How bright is Esau if he sells his inheritance for a pot of stew? Sure Esau was a good man and a good hunter but he didn’t have what it takes to lead. And Isaac blesses Jacob. And then he cannot bless Esau.

The story tells us that everyone is not blessed the same. There are those who are faster, stronger, smarter, better looking. There are those born with silver spoons in their mouths. There are those who have every advantage in life. There are those who have nothing. And there are those parents who are plainly bad and mistreat their children. We do not control the blessings and curses that come our way.

But what we do have control of…is the blessings we mete out to others. Isaac and Rebecca doled out blessings to the child they favoured and withheld blessings from the other. We have to confess (at least I have to confess) that we do the same. We favour some over others. It is human nature. Studies will show that men play favourites with women they don’t even know and the pretty girls/women get the better tips. We favour our friends or our family. We hand out blessings unequally. You have to know somebody in order to get a job or to get ahead, right? Nepotism is alive and well. Family compacts exist all over the place.

The good news of God and of Jesus is that their blessings are for everyone, rich or poor, good or bad, young or old, that everyone can be their friend, their family, their treasure.

And the message for me today is to bless people. Bless all people. I think we bless people when we see them and notice them. I think we bless them when we really listen to them. I think we bless people when we say good things to them and about them. (I won’t have to tell you how to curse them. We know how to do that. I will say that gossip is one form or curse.)

I know what it is like to be blessed and I know what it is like when people have cursed me. I know what it is like to be Jacob and to be Esau.

Sometimes when I feel more cursed than blessed I try to bless myself. The problem with blessing oneself is that frequently we bless ourselves with something that in the long run isn’t a great blessing. Chocolate bars and not a great blessing to a diabetic even if they taste good. Someone the other day told me that she blesses herself by buying stuff. The problem is that she buys more than she can afford. There are many who bless themselves because they feel they lack blessings

There is nothing wrong with blessing ourselves mind you, if we truly bless ourselves with things that are good for us. And there are many: walks, silence, healthy meals, hobbies, reading, visiting a friend, pets etc. to name just a few, but the reality is that we really feel blessed when somebody else blesses us.

Trusting in God and resting in his love helps. One of the simple meditations I do is to imagine sitting in the arms of God or Jesus and being loved. I just feel that love.

But we can make a difference in this world, by blessing others. Just think how many people you could bless today, with friendship, with listening, with noticing, with praise, encouragement. Just think of all the people and all the ways you could bless.

Grace and peace to you,

Harry

Thursday, February 11, 2010

When the going gets tough, the tough get going. And that is what Jacob did. He got out of Dodge on the very next train. He ran away for his mother told him that Esau was going to kill him.

One way to handle a problem is to try and run away from it. One way to handle conflict is to turn and run as fast as your little legs can carry you. Usually that doesn’t solve anything or fix anything, although occasionally if someone is ready to hit you with a frying pan, it might save a headache on that day.

One way to solve problems with your significant other is to run away and leave. And many have used that approach.

The problem is however that running away doesn’t actually solve problems. It avoids them and inevitably those unresolved problems come back to haunt you.

One way as a minister to solve a real problem in your congregation is to leave and take a call to another congregation that gives you the line that you are exactly what they need. Your ego likes this and your ego is taking a beating in your current congregation, so God calls you away.

The problem is that problems are not solved that way. I am not saying a minister should ever leave or that all problems can be overcome. If you are in an abusive relationship, leaving is probably the best option.

I am in congregation number 6 in my 27 years of ministry. And while at the time, each time I took a new call I believed it was a gospel call, in retrospect some of those calls were as much about being called away as they were called to…

But one of the realities of running away from something, from conflict or problems is that one cannot run away from oneself, and since conflict sometimes takes 2 sides, running away doesn’t help whatever you contributed to the conflict.

The thesis of Edwin Friedman’s classic tome: Generation to Generation: Family process in church and synagogue, is that most conflicts and issues in the church are the result of individuals or families playing out their unresolved issues in the church. And these unresolved issues are passed on from generation to generation, and sometimes from church to church if you happen to be the one with unresolved issues and you decide that the solution is to go to a new church.

Scott Peck in his wonderful book: The Road Less Travelled suggests that the way to handle problems is not to run away from them, but face them. He suggest four strategies or disciplines (biblical word) to handle our problems: ·  Delaying gratification: Sacrificing present comfort for future gains. ·  Acceptance of responsibility: Accepting responsibility for one’s own decisions. ·  Dedication to truth: Honesty, both in word and deed. ·  Balancing: Handling conflicting requirements.

The truth shall indeed set us free. Jacob’s trickster ways are not done. It will cause him family problems and he will be tricked himself later. And he will wrestle with his issues for a long time until he finally decides he has to return home and face his brother and face God and face the truth about himself.

One of the purposes of intermission, of spending time with God is to face the truth. The truth about oneself. Not with judgement I think, but with compassion.

Jesus in the gospel lesson for today says: “I told you that you would die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he.”

It sounds pretty harsh, but if I paraphrase it a bit it may sound a bit better. “I told you that you would die in ignorance not knowing the truth unless you can see that I am the truth.”

The point of believing in Jesus in not so we can get to heaven, but so we can truly connected to what is real and true and loving and good, for Jesus and God are so intimately connected that Jesus can say that he is one with the Father.

I am not so sure that we can ever really see the truth about ourselves without a connection to God, to real truth.

Instead we just keep on repeating that patterns of the past, all the emotional junk and baggage goes along with us as we run from one problem to the next.

Part of me being saved from sins, is that the more I can deal with my unresolved issues, the more I don’t pass them on to my children, my church and all with whom I have relationships.

It’s too late for my children and for some of you. I have already infected you, I suppose. But maybe, just maybe, you can deal with your unresolved issues before you pass them on to others.

Grace and peace to you

harry

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

“My kingdom is not of this world.” says Jesus. What about my kingdom? It seems to me that we all have kingdoms. We may have more than one. We may have several. Our kingdom is the place where we are in control and where we have power. It may be that at work, even though we work under someone’s authority, we have certain choices or duties and decisions that are ours. That is a little kingdom. At home we may have certain authority in the family, or it may be that according to the division of labour, we may have an area of the family that is our responsibility and the decisions made are ours to make. When it comes to the cars at our house, I have the responsibility and authority to clean them and look after oil changes, repairs etc. We all have these little kingdoms, authority over certain people or in charge or certain things. According to the Dog Whisperer, you may be the leader of the pack when it comes to your dog or dogs. You are in charge, not the dogs. (at least hopefully). Our kingdom is where we have the power of choice. It may be that you don’t have a lot of money but at least you choose how that will be spent. Maybe at home you are the one who does most of the cooking and you choose the menu. That is power.

Even the poorest among us and those who think they have very little power still have some power. That is the power to choose who you will be in the situation. Victor Frankl a Jewish psychiatrist who survived the holocaust noted that even in the most horrific of situations we all have the choice to find meaning and to choose love and to find meaning and even fulfillment on a spiritual plane.

It is not wrong to have kingdoms. We cannot avoid choice, nor the exercise of power. The problem is when our kingdoms become too important. What happens is that our ego becomes identified with our kingdoms and so we have to support our kingdom to prop up our ego.

The Pharisees and Sadducees brought Jesus to Pilate to be killed because they wanted to end the threat to their kingdom. They had power…a lot of economic and political power. That is why they wanted rid of Jesus.

Sometimes I do the same, I sacrifice principals for my kingdom or kingdoms, for my ego.

So the question is: Can we let our real kingdom, the kingdom not of this world be the kingdom that ultimately rules us and govern us? Can we let the kingdom of God be our true kingdom? And the Kingdom of God is that place and way of being that has God in charge, Jesus ruling, and being led by the Spirit.

The old testament text from the proverbs is about our egos running things and thereby being stupid.  The wisdom writer suggests that we could learn a few things from some animals whose instincts are smarter than ours. One of those animals is the ant. When you think about it, ants have not egos and work for the good of the colony. (not like Woody Allen in the movie Antz)

The reading from the epistle is about Paul saying that he had a very good pedigree as a Pharisee and impeccable follower of the law and yet he counts all this as rubbish.

He gets out of his ego (although between you and me, at times I think he has a bit of spiritual ego) and says that the only power he wants is the power of Christ’s resurrection which includes the sharing of Christ’s suffering.

The resurrection power of Christ is the power to get us out of our egos and into our true self, which is the operation of Christ within us, so that the decisions we make are the decisions we think Christ would make.

I suppose one of my kingdoms is First Church. Sometimes I let fear worry me about the future of First Church. Sometimes I admit that I am afraid to tell it like it is because I don’t want any friction or conflict. This little kingdom supports me financially and I don’t want to upset the apple cart. Sometimes my ego get wrapped up in this kingdom and I take undue pride in this little kingdom and forget that this little kingdom exists to serve people and to do Christ’s will. (as do I)

So the good news for today is to seek first the Kingdom of God, and let it determine all our lesser kingdoms, and as we do that, everything else is put in its place and we can find joy, meaning and fulfillment; and nothing will have any power over us to keep us from being good and kind and loving and Christlike. Amen.

Grace and peace to you

harry

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Here is one of these texts that just makes us cringe, when the writer of Hebrews suggests that our sufferings and pains are God’s way of punishing us, correcting us and disciplining us as a parent would a child. However, may I remind you that this is a metaphor. It isn’t God punishing us and correcting us, but it is like a parent correcting a child, in that our pain is a teacher and can help us learn.

Sometimes it is hard to think of pain as a sign of Christ, because most of us are conditioned to run away from pain and avoid pain as much as possible. Scott Peck in his book the Road Less Travelled, makes that point that the easy way and the road mostly travelled is the road of avoiding pain and running away from pain. The Road Less Travelled is to meet our challenges and problems and pains head on and deal with them.
The strange thing is that pain is good. Pain is not bad.
You sit on a tack and what do you feel. You feel pain. That pain is saying, “Get up off the tack.” Pain is a teacher. When you are physically injured, pain is your teacher. It tells you that you may need to rest a joint or a limb, or that you may need to go to a doctor or that you need to change something physically.
You might need to go on a healthier diet or change your exercise habits or do extra strength and conditioning exercises.
Psychological pain arises when old traumas come back to haunt you and they have ripened to a point that it is time to go inside and go deep and be healed. It might be an abuse or a shock from childhood and now it is time to deal with it and be healed.
Emotional pain is pain that comes from relationships. You have depended on someone and that person let you down. You feel betrayed by another. The pain is a teacher. It tells you that you have given your power away to another and you have tried to be a complete person by borrowing from someone else and using them, instead of being a complete person all on your own.
You see what is happening is that within each one of us there is a battle raging and the battlefield is our sense of self-esteem, our lives and our life work. And truly it is a classic battle of good against evil, of hero against monster, of Christ against Satan.
False ego or False self or Satan deceives you into thinking that the pain is bad and it is to be avoided… but that pain is Christ struggling to emerge and take rightful place.      It is our true self… the image of God fighting against our childishness and immaturity and our self-destructiveness and the lies we foist on ourselves.
So as Christ went to the cross, our pain is a symbol of Christ and Christ can be found in it as we look at it, move into it, bear it, and surrender to it. Christ is known as the suffering servant and it was through suffering that healing and life came.
But Fear holds us back. We are afraid of the pain. We think it will destroy us. We feel crucified, naked on the cross. We feel exposed. We think that others are looking at us… seeing us fall to pieces.
But on the other side of that pain is resurrection and joy. It is a joy to live in the truth. It is a joy to not be dependent emotionally on other egocentric people. It is a joy to find freedom to be who you really are, not worrying about what others think. It is a joy to find the power of Christ within you, to find that true self, to be the image of God, so that you can live as that beautiful child of God, loving and caring and compassionate and forgiving,   no matter what others may do to you.
Christ is found in pain.

The gospel is the classis tale of the Sinner and the Pharisee who both pray to God. The Pharisee thanks God that he is not like the sinner and he does all these wonderful things. The Sinner prays for God to be merciful to him a sinner. Jesus makes that point that the Sinner went home right with God. Not because he was a sinner, but because he was honest about his pain and the pain he caused others, because he was getting out of his ego and into his true self. The Pharisee just lived in his ego and his ego lied to him, for this Pharisee knew pain and caused pain, but his ego would not let him face the truth. The truth would set him free.

Grace and peace to you

harry

Thursday, February 18, 201

And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. Eternal life is not destination, heaven or hell; it is not just what happens after we die; it is not so much that we live for ever; eternal life is relationship and connection with that which is eternal, with God, with Christ and with Spirit.  And therefore with everything that the Godhead is about: love, forgiveness, understanding, compassion, righteousness, justice, mercy, truth, creation, community, unity etc…

I was listening to a lecture by John Bell, the Scottish minister, musician, poet, lecturer who talked about the future of the church and responded to concerns that the church is dying and losing numbers. One of the things I got our of the lecture (although I am by no means giving an accurate representation of what he said, more what he got me thinking about) is that we talk in numbers of bums in the seats as if that is the test of the church. Our numbers and budgets are dwindling. Maybe what is more important is connection with Jesus and God. Maybe what is more important is all those things we talked about which are eternal, like love, forgiveness, compassion etc. So the question is not: “How many people attend church?” The question is…is the church more loving, more just, more caring, more connected, more united, more inclusive, more compassionate, more truthful etc. and if we look back over the history of the church over the last 50 years, maybe we will note that since the heyday of bums in the seats in the 1950’s and 1960’s that most/many/some congregations and churches and denominations have made some progress in justice and mercy and inclusion etc.

I suppose this well may be what Paul is also talking about when he talks about our citizenship being in heaven. It is this connection to God, to Christ, to Spirit. It is not that we have a condo reserved in heaven, or that we will be issued Passports stamped “citizen of heaven”. (Just imagine presenting that at the US border.) It is about this connection with God and will all that God is about and Paul contrasts that with setting our mind on earthly things. It is not that fact that we live on earth and eat and drink and have families and jobs etc. he doesn’t mean we are to spend all our time praying and not work or enjoy family or enjoy creation. It is about finding God in creation, it is about an orientation of mind and heart and spirit which looks for god in creation, shares God with creation, thinks about life from a divine perspective and lives one’s life as if Christ were inside and living through us.

One of the other things I got out of the John Bell lecture is that if connection with the divine is what it is all about, maybe one thing the church is not about is relevancy. Maybe the tendency of the church to try and be relevant in worship, in music, in language of whatever is not as important as being connected to God. Not that I think that the church is irrelevant, but that if we are concerned about relevance, we are concerned about pleasing people and not so much about pleasing God. Part of what the church offers is something counter to the prevailing culture, such as: peace through non-violence, radical sharing of the world’s resources so that everyone has enough; a simple life that is focused on love and relationships and not on power, success and material things; connection with the divine; radical forgiveness; justice for the marginalized; inclusion of those whom the world thinks are worthless; to name a few.

All of these things stem out of our connection to God, letting God live in us and we in him. Sometimes I have to admit when writing a sermon, I want to be funny and relevant and want people to like it so maybe they will come back to church or invite people to church to hear and see Harry. May I never forget that it is a word of God. (Not that God doesn’t have a sense of humour and if you don’t think so, take a long look in the mirror.) But may I never forget that is it a word of God I preach, a connection from the divine through me to others. I should be less concerned about what is relevant to the people, that what it relevant to God. What are Jesus’ issues and concerns? That is what is really relevant? Not my concerns. The problem with my concerns, is that they usually come out of ego space and they often totally mask my deeper and real concerns. That is why it is more fruitful to start with God and God’s concerns and bring it to the people, than the other way round. God’s concerns cut through our masks and our false selves and our so-called relevancies and focus on what really matters, what real concerns are, what will make a real difference in this world.

My goal, our goal is to be connected with God, with Christ, with Spirit and let the eternal guide our lives.

Grace and peace to you

harry

Monday, February 22, 2010

Today the epistle hits me squarely in the face when Paul talks about divisions and unity within the church. I have argued and I believe that the church should be more inclusive, more open, more tolerant, more ecumenical and even more open to working with other faiths. But while I talk about tolerance, I become intolerant of the intolerant. I find that those who have a much more narrow focus on Christianity, to be people I don’t want to work with, people I avoid, people I begin to look down on. I become self-righteous in the face of the self-righteous. I become small-minded in the face of the small minded.

It is a very difficult thing. If I am truly inclusive, I include the narrow-minded as well as the open-minded, I include the very conservative as well as the very liberal. I include the ones who I think are so far off base in their Christianity as well as the ones who hit the mark.

I have stood and prayed like the Pharisee: Thank you God, I am not any more a homophobic, sexist, paternalistic, dogmatic, narrow-minded, hell-fire, fundamentalist Christian like those narrow minded Christians, (narrow minded is not limited to Christians, there are narrow minded in all faiths and with those who have no particular faith) over there, when I should be praying: Have mercy on me god, for I have trouble loving all people.

This is not to say that I agree with or even in a sense condone Christian faith or any faith that espouses a paternalistic, homophobic, and/or violent God, but that I am not the Saviour of the world. I am on my spiritual journey and everyone else is on their journey and I have to respect that. I am called to love all people, to have a sense of unity with all people. I am also reminded that I don’t have all truth and I am not right. I am just who I am. It is a difficult thing and I am still growing and learning how to truly be inclusive. How do I stand for what I think is truth against those who have a different truth, and yet stand with those who have a different truth?

The gospel deepens this a bit when Mark in the first chapter talks about the baptism of Jesus. Mark’s understanding of baptism of the Holy Spirit is different than Matthew’s and Luke’s. They talk about the cleansing aspect of the Holy Spirit, like a fire purifies gold, or one separates the chaff from the wheat. However mark identifies baptism of the Holy Spirit, with suffering and death, with taking up a cross. “Can you be baptized with the baptism I will be baptized with?” Jesus asks, speaking about his suffering and death. Jesus took up a cross and suffered and died for the whole world. If we are therefore baptized in the Spirit we are baptized into Jesus’ death and suffering.

What deepens the whole tolerance thing is that Jesus died for the intolerant. Jesus didn’t come for the righteous but for those who are so sick that they intolerant and bigoted and evil and cruel. And if we are baptized with the Holy Spirit, then we take up our crosses, not to exclude, but to reach out and care for and help the intolerant, the bigoted, the evil and the cruel. I have to be honest. In my ministry I have focused my attention a lot more on the good guys (so to speak) than the bad guys. To be perfectly honest I am not sure how to minister at times to the intolerant, the bigoted, the evil, the cruel.

What I do know is that they are part of this world, that they were made in the image of God, no matter how much that image is marred, that I am called to love them and that I too am in my own way at times, intolerant, bigoted, evil and cruel. I am not immune from any of the faults that others may have in greater degree than I. I also know that great transformations have taken place in people’s lives and there is potential in each and everyone of us to be much more than we once were. We have all seen profound changes, death and resurrections in the lives of people, so we do not give up.

I suppose the best thing I can do, is to try and take up my cross, to be killed by the Spirit of God, so that I die to my ego and selfishness, and be born again so that the divine Christ lives in me, and therefore in some ways it is no longer Harry’s ego that lives in me, but Christ who lives in me. (don’t hold your breath)

Grace and peace to you

Harry

Today I am also journaling about Yoga’s Yamas. Tomorrow I will journal about the Niyamas. The Yamas and the Niyamas are 2 branches of the eight-limbed path of Yoga. The Yamas are 5 wise characteristics or restraints and the Niyamas are 5 observances or codes for living soulfully. They are remarkably similar in some way to the ten commandments and they reiterate the overall spiritual principle that the truth worth of a person is not what they do or what they have, but in who they are and in how they live.

Yamas

1. Ahimsa: Non violence or reverence for all life

For me this is about respecting all of life. It is also about a way of life that nurtures, cares for and affirms. Our world has often learned that power and violence are what is important. To get what you want you take it and the more power you have then the more you can get. And using force, either deadly or non-deadly is how we get people to do what we want. This is about not hurting others and not violating others.

The interesting thing is that we often hurt ourselves and violate ourselves. Even if we look in the mirror and say something nasty about ourselves we can be doing a violence to ourselves. We have to love and respect ourselves too.

And violence is more than just physical violence, it is the use of any kind of force to get what we want at the expense of others. Every time we manipulate, cajole, threaten, plead, beg, whine, use the silent treatment, criticize, ostracize, torment, ridicule, name-call, swear at someone, talk down to, intimidate, belittle, put down…we are violating somebody and trying to get something at their expense, even if it is just to build up our ego at their expense.

In the bible you will find the same principle in the following: “Thou shalt not kill.” “Live peaceably with all.” “Love one another.” “Do not repay evil with evil but with good.” “When someone strikes you on one cheek, turn your other.”

2. Satya: Truthfulness

What more can we say than that honesty is the best policy. It is the foundation of all relationships and institutions and governments. Without truth and honesty everything falls apart. This is not only about being honest with each other, it is about us being honest with ourselves. Scott Peck in his great book: The Road less traveled talks about one of the four principles for dealing with problems in life is a dedication to the truth. So many of us deceive ourselves and lie to ourselves, and if we do, then how can we be honest with others. Sometimes that is why it is good to have a mentor, or a spiritual director or visit a counselor, to help us with our deceptions.

My grandmother and mother used to say that if you don’t have something nice to say then don’t say it. Maybe we could change that. If we have something to say and we are not sure that it is absolutely truthful, then don’t say it. How much of our communication is innuendo and supposition and exaggeration and gossip and imagination.

This also means, I think standing up for the truth when it is difficult to do so.

In the bible we find the same principle in: “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” “The truth shall set you free.”

3. Asteya: Not stealing. Not getting without giving

One of the presuppositions in life that most of us operate with is this: That our happiness is dependant on what we have. If that is so then we need to have more to make us happier. Therefore we become takers. In North American or Western world our materialistic and selfish society is all about having, owning and taking.

Asteya is really about not taking and especially not taking from others what is not freely given to us. This not taking is not only not taking material things from others, it not taking in all its forms. It is not demanding of others time and attention, it is not taking honour away from others. It is not taking fun and pleasure away from others. Asteya is not about looking after our own needs and wants and the expense of others. Part of Asteya is also learning to be self-sufficient so we are not a burden on others.

It is also about giving back. We are not just takers in this world but givers. We can give to others, care, love and attention. We can give back to this earth that gives to us.

In the bible we find the same principle in: “Thou shalt not steal.” “It is better to give than to receive.”

4. Bramacharya: Sexual purity

This is often translated as celibacy but is much wider than that. It is first and foremost a recognition of our sexuality and our sexual energy, and that we should respect the complementary qualities of masculine and feminine. It speaks to the importance of not using our sexual energy in harmful ways, but in ways of mutuality and intimacy; and that our sexual energy can also be focused and harnessed toward the divine and towards the God that lives within us.

This is an understanding that sexual communion is a wonderful and great thing and can enhance our lives, but only when such a communion is not a show or power, force, dependency or selfishness, but of, mutuality, harmony and love.

There is also an understanding that the containment and restraint of sexual energy is a good thing too. The question is whether we use our sexual energy to take us farther away from our true self and from God, or towards our true self and God.

In the bible we find the same principle in: “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” “The body is not to be used for sexual immorality but to serve the Lord.” “In the image of God, both male and female, he made them.”

5. Aparigraha: Not Grasping or Keeping simple needs

This is about recognizing our excessive desire for things is an imbalance and that as has been said: things do not make us happy. I very much like the theology of Rene Girard who suggests that what he calls mimetic desire, or the wanting of what someone else has, is very much at the core of all human violence.

Learning to be content with what we have and not desiring so much stuff and so much of what others have is where we will find happiness.

Our egos have a tendency to build and build. Our egos are fortified by out stuff, out possessions, our material things.  We identify with a job, with a car, with a house, with a portfolio, with our sexual or athletic  conquests or prowess. And the more we have and the more our ego builds up the more we hold on.

Letting go is what is needed. We have to let go of our stuff, material stuff, pride, ego, our roles, our power, our control of life, so that we are set free to be our true selves and set free to grow and change. This often can start with just be modest and simple with our material needs and wants, but it really is about our spiritual selves.

In the bible we find the same principle in: “Thou shalt not covet or desire thy neighbour’s wife, thy neighbour’s house or anything that is thy neighbour’s.” “God made us plain and simple but we have made ourselves complicated.” “So do not start worrying: ‘Where will my food come from? or my drink? or my clothes?’, Instead be concerned above everything else with the Kingdom of God.”

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

One of the problems with a lectionary, is that when you get a little story in the gospel, it is hard to understand it except in the context of the whole gospel. When Jesus calls his first disciples, it is hard to know exactly what it means to follow Jesus unless you read the whole gospel of Mark. But in this text, there is a little clue with the story that follows. The story that follows is about Jesus casting an unclean spirit out of a person. And if you read the gospels, it is Mark’s gospel that predominantly portrays Jesus as an exorcist. He doesn’t cast our demons or unclean spirits in John’s gospel.

But what I think Mark is saying is that one of the fundamental struggles, if not the fundamental struggle of human life is the internal struggle. It is the struggle that the disciples face, the struggle the Pharisees face, the struggle that Pilate will face, the struggle you and I face. It is an internal struggle. It is the struggle to use Mark’s analogy with the unclean spirit within us… to come clean. And Mark’s gospel makes it clear that it is Jesus who can change us and transform us.

But what is this struggle all about? We get a glimpse of it when we look at the Old Testament text today and see that Joseph’s brothers who are insanely jealous of him and also afraid in some way that his dreams of dominance might actually come true, decide to get rid of him and they throw him in a pit. At least one of the brothers didn’t actually want to kill him.

You might say that the problem with the brothers is sin. And that has been a standard answer for centuries. Of course it is sinful to be so jealous and fearful and angry that you are ready to kill your brother.

But what makes people jealous and fearful and angry. In spirituality we call it our false self. In psychology we call it our ego.

The basic premise in my spirituality and what I learned in spiritual direction is that we are made in the image of God and carry God within us. However as we grow up in this world a few things happen. One is that as we learn about the self, (especially we learn this in the terrible twos) we learn that we are not one with the world, we start looking out for ourselves and self concern becomes selfishness. Another is we learn that this world is not always a safe place, so we learn to put on roles and masks to protect ourselves and fit in with the world. And a third thing that happens is called socialization: The process of internalizing our family’s values and the values of our culture, including language and thought patterns etc. and messages about how we are to live. Therefore our identity is thus shaped by the world and the world of the infant of unconditional love and oneness with God and the universe are left behind.

And so we don’t grow up as our true selves, but with false selves. We see ourselves not the way God sees us, but the way the world sees us and labels us, such as smart, stupid, beautiful, ugly, famous, a loser etc… Another word for this false self is ego. The ego is very concerned with how we relate to the world and others and wants to look good. It is selfish and concerned with self. Paradoxically shy people have big egos. We have often used the word ego to refer to those who are boastful and braggards. We might say about someone who is showing off: “He or she has a big ego.”  And that is probably true. But shy people are shy because of their egos. They are concerned about what others think and are afraid. That comes from the ego too.

I quote from Eckhart Tolle:

Most of the so-called bad things that happen in people’s lives are due to unconsciousness…..they are self created, or rather ego-created….”drama”. ….the basic ego patterns are designed to combat its own deep seated fear and sense of lack.  They are resistance, control, power, greed, defence, and attack.  Some of the ego’s strategies are extremely clever, yet they never truly solve any of its problems, simply because the ego is the problem itself.  (The Power of the NOW by Eckhart Tolle p150)

In part that is why we need to be “born again” to us one of John’s terms, or to have the unclean spirit made clean, to use Mark’s metaphor.

By connecting with Jesus who was his true self, who played no roles, who was truly himself and was one with God and the universe, that true self within us, that God-self within us can wake up, come to life and we start living our true self.

And it is not the wisdom of the world that wakes us up, it is an encounter with Christ, who we see living his true self, so much so that he is killed for it. He is put to the cross, and yet what does he do? He continues to love and be himself and be connected to God.

When we live our true self and get out of our egos, we stay connected to God and we love. This love casts out our fear and casts out our jealousy and casts out greed and casts out wanting to hurt, because we are now content to be what we were always created to be, children of God, loved and precious and valuable and gifted and of infinite worth. Nothing can change that no matter what the world says, nor even if we do not know it or do not live it. But if we can have our eyes opened, maybe just maybe we start living out what we created to be in the first place, and we who have the divine, begin to love unconditionally and are one with God and the universe.

grace and peace to you

harry

Today I am also journaling about Yoga’s Niyamas. Yesterday I journalled about the Yamas. The Yamas and the Niyamas are 2 branches of the eight-limbed path of Yoga. The Yamas are 5 wise characteristics or restraints and the Niyamas are 5 observances or codes for living soulfully. They are remarkably similar in some way to the ten commandments and they reiterate the overall spiritual principle that the truth worth of a person is not what they do or what they have, but in who they are and in how they live.

Niyamas

1. Sauca or Shauca: Purity

Someone coined the phrase one time: “Garbage in, garbage out.” The idea is that if you feed your body garbage, then what you get is garbage or an unhealthy body.

Purity or purification is about the understanding what we feed our bodies, our spirits and minds makes a difference, so we are going to choose to feed ourselves on all levels what is natural and pure and good and wholesome and healthy. Part of Sauca is understanding our bodies and how they work; and looking after them by feeding our bodies healthy food and healthy exercise. Yoga is concerned with the health of the body, but it is also concerned with the health of the mind and spirit: Education  and entertainment that enlightens us and lifts our spirits; Creating an atmosphere of simple love and acceptance; Meditating on things that are good and true and loving; Creating a diet that is natural and healthy; are just some examples. This is not so much about denial but about choosing what is good for us on all levels.

One way of meditating is to bring up a problem, or something that is a hang-up, something that is an attachment, an addiction, or an unhealthy desire, and start thinking about or praying about whether this is what you really desire at your deep level, and if indulged what it will do to you, and what choices you could make to bring health. Mostly you focus on what you really want and desire for your health and on those choices that could bring it about. Whenever tempted, go back to the meditation of what you really want.

Another thing to consider is that we do not live in a Pollyanna world where everything is lovely and we are constantly face with things that are not good. Part of Sauca is also attitude, it is to look for the good, for God, for meaning, for truth and be attentive to it. And you will notice that you can see it and be aware of it in day to day life and in some of the most unusual situations.

In the bible Paul says in Ephesians, “… fill your minds with those things that are good and that deserve praise: things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and honourable.” And in 1 Corinthians: ” Don’t you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and who was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourselves but to God; ²⁰he bought you for a price. So use your bodies for God’s glory.

2. Santosha: Contentment

Sometimes the striving for happiness produces unhappiness, because it is based on the idea that happiness is out there somewhere and that if we find the right job, right spouse, right income, right philosophy, right church or something then we will be happy.

But Santosha says that we learn to be content with who we are and where we are and what we are and what we have and we will be content. Most of us have everything we need and then some, especially in western culture and yet we seem to be no happier than people in cultures who are significantly poorer.

I don’t mean that we are happy with states of injustice of cruelty and that we shouldn’t work to change them, but that ultimately our happiness and joy is more about who we choose to be and the attitude with which we face the world, and that comes from freeing our egos and connecting with universal love.

Contentment is also an acknowledging that even in the most difficult of situations and in painful occasions of life that this might be a stage of growth, and that one can still connect with the divine and find fulfillment.

This is also about gratitude for all one has and is and the willingness to be thankful and use all of one’s gifts and resources for personal growth and to help others.

In the bible Paul writes in Philippians: ” I have learnt to be satisfied with what I have. ¹²I know what it is to be in need and what it is to have more than enough. I have learnt this secret, so that anywhere, at any time, I am content, whether I am full or hungry, whether I have too much or too little. ¹³I have the strength to face all conditions by the power that Christ gives me.”

3. Tapas: Passionate Effort or Burning enthusiasm

Tapas literally translated means “fire” or “heat.” Sometimes this is understood as asceticism and it is understood as those who are so on fire for positive change that they will give up or renounce anything that gets it the way of their ultimate goal of fulfillment and it means doing things that one might consider difficult or undesirable in order to reach the ultimate goal.

However it is probably better to be understood as passion or enthusiasm to be and live our true self. In the bible the word “zeal” is sometimes used. It was referred to Jesus as being zealous for god’s house. What that means was that he was passionate about his relationship to God and to being in God’s house for worship.

Passion is an amazing thing. We are attracted to passion. When someone is passionate about something, we see the fire within them, the energy, the enthusiasm and the spark and it is exciting. The teachers that inspired us at school were passionate, the spiritual leaders, the political leaders we admire have passion. That is they truly believe in and are working towards their goal and harnessing their energy and disciplining themselves and letting go of extraneous things as they move toward their goal.

We see that in the Olympics and those athletes who are so passionate that they give up almost everything except their quest for Olympic excellence.

How do we rediscover the passion in our lives? The passion to work for healthy change, to feed our minds, bodies and spirits that which is healthy, to move toward the divine with enthusiasm and let go or the garbage or the non-essentials that keeps us from being our true selves and living truly.

In the bible the last part of Jesus life and his death is called “The Passion.” Jesus was passionate about his mission to love people unconditionally and be the truth. He was so passionate about it that he went to the cross. He calls his followers to take up a cross and suffer with them. In other word he asks his followers to be passionate, to share his passion to love god and love others, no matter what the cost.

4. Svadhyaya: Self-study

Knowing ourselves, our bodies, our minds, our speech, and our spirits is part of Svadhyaya. Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living. When we truly study ourselves we will get be able to understand out truth better, to make changes better, to be who we are better. There are many ways to do this, to study ourselves, our minds, our bodies and spirits. Reading, prayer, meditation, studying religion, scripture or philosophy, being in reflection groups that talk about various things, are just some of the ways. We can learn about ourselves at the gym, at worship, at home, with friends or by ourselves. We can learn about ourselves as we learn a musical instrument, on the job, as we lead a group, present a seminar, make a speech, or deal with pain or problems, or when we make mistakes. Life is an endless opportunity to learn about ourselves.

The point is that we take time to reflect. As we reflect one thing that happens is that we begin to uncover our true self. As we look in the mirror and see our thoughts, both conscious and conscious, and as we go deep inside, we see through our ego to our true self and as we uncover our true self, our thoughts, our actions, our words and our being start to align and we live more and more in harmony with the divine. And the more we see into our true self and into our divine self, the more we are able to accept other for who they are and not let our unresolved issues get in the way of seeing them. The more we can see ourselves for who we truly are, the more we see others and accept them.

In the bible Jesus says “repent.” It means to turn around and go a new way. This repentance happens when our eyes are opened, when our ears are opened, when we are empowered to stand up and walk where we were unable to walk before. This is all about seeing through our masks and illusions and sins and seeing our true selves. It is also talked about as dying to our old self or false self and being resurrected and being a new creation. It is finding our true self, our divine self, or finding God or Christ or spirit who lives within us.

5. Ishvara Pranidhana: Devotion to a higher power or Celebration of the Spiritual.

Yoga is not a religion or a specific faith, but it encourages us to be spiritual to find a higher power, to celebrate meaning in life. There are two objects in Ishvara Pranidhana. The first is devotion to a higher power, to ultimate meaning, to spiritual significance. The second is to live selflessly with love and service to others.

This is about recognizing that life is much more that me and the self and that I alone do not give all the meaning to this world. It is a further recognition that in some ways we are all connected. The oxygen we breathe for instance has been the same oxygen that million, even billions have breathed, that the atoms that make up our bodies and been a part of the air, the ground, the plants, the animals. We are all connected.

This is also about recognizing that there is a bigger picture in the world that just what we can see. We have our own story and our own meaning but it can connect to a much larger story, a much larger meaning. Personally I believe that the larger story is called “grace” …that there is so much goodness and love in this universe that is universal and everlasting and can never be destroyed; and that it is operating in the lives of people and even in nature itself and its goal is love, unconditional love. I call this grace “God” and I have read about it, seen it, heard it, felt it, touched it, experienced it and even lived it. For Christians the truth of grace was revealed supremely in Jesus Christ. And I am a very small part of this universal and everlasting grace, and/or it is a part of me.

In the bible Jesus says: The most important (commandment) one is this: ‘Listen, Israel! The Lord our God is the only Lord. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second most important commandment is this: ‘Love your neighbour as you love yourself.’

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

In the musical Joseph and his amazing technicolour dreamcoat , Joseph’s brothers after selling Jospeh into slavery, make up a coak and bull story about Jospeh being a big hero and saving them from a wild beast who killed Joseph. They sing it in a country and western style: There’s one more angel in heaven, There’s one more star in the sky, Joseph we’ll never forget you, It’s tough but we’re gonna get by.

They are lying of course, They hate him. But they have no problem telling their father a big fat lie. The question is: What about us? Do I have a problem with the truth? Do we? When it comes to somebody we can’t stand, some egotistical fathead, some degenerate loser, someone who has gone out of their way to hurt us, can we even see the truth in them at all, or do we just interpret everything they say or do in a negative way. We are skillful in the art of reinterpretation and twisting things to suit us and make us look bad. I am always the good guy in the drama of my life and somebody else is always the bad guy. Can I even live and tell the truth about myself? Or is what I think even about myself a lie?

Today’s gospel is all about healing. Jesus casts out demons and heals all kinds of illness. May I suggest where the church needs healing, where I need healing and where the church needs demons cast our and where I need demons cast out is in the whole area of communication and our ability to twist communication or withhold communication or give false communication.

There are several types of bad communication that end up in churches. All of them are attempts to avoid responsibility, gain power and alienate others. Two of the obvious ones are malicious gossip and just plain old gossip. Malicious gossip is when somebody tells something that isn’t true to somebody else with the express purpose of making someone else look bad. Plain old gossip may be telling someone the truth (usually part truth) about somebody else, but it usually done not with any intention of helping, but out of one’s ego to look good and make somebody else look bad.

These are types of triangulation. Triangulation is when person has a problem with another and instead of dealing the problem directly, goes to somebody else to tell the problem. This often happens with people trying to tell the minister something about another. The minister can be caught between two opposing factions or people and put in a delicate position. Taking sides usually makes things worse.

Another form of unhelpful communication is called pass through communication. Instead of telling someone directly one passes the message on through another person. Bother with triangulations and pass-through communication misunderstandings occur. Like the children’s game of whispering into someone’s ear and passing the message on down the line, by the time the message gets to the intended receiver it often is distorted.

Another form of bad communication is anonymous feedback. Some elder comes to session for instance and says that some people are very concerned about the liturgy and want changes. When asked “who are these people?” The answer is that they want to remain anonymous. Anonymous communication is damaging to everyone in the congregation because feelings are often expressed but cannot be resolved. Wounds are named but cannot be healed. Criticism is offered without the chance to explore the possibility of healing.  The strength and depth of feeling cannot be explored. The people who give anonymous feedback sometimes don’t want resolution or sometimes what they complain about is not their real beef. To stop anonymous feedback, clergy and lay leaders need to agree that it is counterproductive. You can’t apologize to anonymous. Anonymous will remain angry or sad until he or she comes forward with the truth. Anonymous others cannot and should not be considered when making leadership decisions or resolving conflicts.

All these forms of bad communication can hide secrets, agendas and conflicts and at the same time create secrets, agendas and conflicts.

The Alban Institute suggests the following from Healthy Disclosure: Solving Communication Quandaries in Congregations , as ways to help clean up bad communication habits:

Speak directly to the person or committee that the issue concerns. Refuse to carry a message from one person or group to another. If two people talk with you about each other, offer to meet with both of them together or to find them a mediator. If a person complains to you about someone else but refuses to directly talk with the person to resolve the problem, ask him or her to stop talking to you or others about it. Reduce venting by first listening and then asking what action the person will undertake to resolve the problem. Refuse to take nonspecific or anonymous feedback seriously.

Grace and peace to you

harry

Tuesday, March 02, 2010

Whoever does the will of God is my brother and my sister and my mother. Notice that Jesus didn’t say, “Whoever believes in the will of God.” nor “Whoever is confirmed a Presbyterian” nor “Whoever has the right doctrine” nor “Whoever believes in the resurrection or the virgin birth or the Trinity ”

Jesus says: “Whoever does the will of God.” Now if we were to take that literally, then what does that mean. Well the will of God to put it succinctly is to love God and love one another. So if Muslims love God and one another… If Buddhists love God and one another….If Bahai love God and one another… If Jews love God and one another… doesn’t that mean they are the brother and sisters and mothers of Jesus.

Doesn’t that mean they are God’s family? If we take the scripture literally that is. And if Presbyterians, or Baptists, or Catholics do not do the will of God, that is, do not love, then they are not part of God’s family.

Something to think about. It seems that in Western faith the emphasis has been on belief. Churches have split many times on all kinds of beliefs. I heard that at one time there were 64 branches of Presbyterian Churches all with slightly different beliefs.

But maybe what Jesus is interested in is practice. Whether we love…Whether we forgive…Whether we are peacemakers. Not people who believe in peace, but people who practice peace, who work for peace.

I read this most marvelous book recently by Marianne Williamson entitled “A Return to Love”

Let me give you a tiny taste. She basically says that when we were born we were programmed perfectly… to love, to be creative, to use our imaginations, to be connected and in union with others and with the divine. That we were connected to heaven so to speak and to the miraculous.

But something went wrong. We were taught to focus elsewhere, not on love but on fear. We were taught to think things like competition, struggle, sickness, finite resources, limitation, guilt, loss, evil and we not only thought these things, we began to know them. We were taught we are separate from others, to be scared of others, that we have to beat others to get ahead. We learned that we weren’t good enough.

Love is what we were born with but fear is what we have learned and that the whole spiritual journey is the acceptance of love back into our hearts for love is our ultimate reality and purpose. Hence the title of the book: “Return to love.” Loving is the truth, whether we realize it or not. And the real miracle in any life is when that person returns to love.

And another book I read recently by Thomas Keating is entitled “An invitation to love.” It is a book that sets the psychological foundations for centering prayer.

In it Keating suggests that centering prayer is one way to return to love and to God. (Centering prayer is not a prayer of our thoughts and imaginations, nor a conversation with God, but a silent time of prayer where we let our thoughts go and rest in God. It is also called contemplative prayer and is basically also a form of meditation.)

The idea is that this type of prayer is a kind of divine therapy and healing, because it goes into our unconscious, where our inner unresolved issues lie, where our emotional programming lies, where our hidden motivations lie, where are false self has been constructed but where our true self has been hidden.

Centering prayer helps us let go of our thoughts, wishes, feelings and commentaries and connect deeply with God. Connect deeply with love.

Recently, I was privileged to see the musical “The Lion King.” I was blown away. Totally awesome. The costumes, the music, the acting, the drama…wow. I was quite familiar with the story and the movie, but the musical was really powerful.

I thought as I watched, and listened and felt and even participated in spirit with the story that this too was about a return to love and a return to one’s identity. Simba has been told that he is bad, that he won’t be accepted, that he is responsible for the death of his father… and in fear he runs aways. It takes a spiritseeker to remind him of who he is, that he is not alone, that he is connected, and that his life of Hakuna Mutata, of no worries, is selfishness and not love. He remembers he is a child of the king and returns home.

Remember who you are. Remember that you were born in love and from love and to love and for love. There’s a story of a four year old boy who always wanted to be alone with his baby brother, but his parents were a little nervous to let him be alone. But he kept on asking to be alone with his baby brother. So finally the parents agreed, but they put the baby monitor on so they could listen in.

When he went in to the room where his baby brother was, the parents heard him ask: What is heaven like. I am beginning to forget.

We are the ones who have forgotten what heaven is like. It is love. Not just believing in love, but actually loving and continuing to love no matter what happens to us. Remember who you are. You are love. That is the Christ inside you that connects you with everything and everyone who loves. And we are journeying home to love.

Grace and peace to you

harry

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

“When the chickens come home to roost.” The brothers of Joseph are accused of being spies and are thrown in jail by Joseph. They don’t know that this is the brother they sold into slavery many years ago. However what they do know is what they did was wrong. And when they are thrown in jail they think it is some kind of divine justice. In literature it is called poetic justice. Bad deeds bring bad results in the end. The good are rewarded and the evil punished. What goes around comes around. The chickens come home to roost.

However, we who already know the story of Joseph know that this is not completely true in this case. In fact the brothers are not going to be punished, but forgiven. It is a real story of grace and not divine punishment.

But what we are focusing on just for a second is their awareness. It is not their punishment or lack of punishment in this text, but their awareness that they did their brother a terrible wrong. They see the truth.

It is not always easy to see the truth. The reason is that we often live out or our false self, our ego, which has been built on masks and lies and half-truths and is mightily resistant to any truth that might threaten it, or subdue it.

That is why after telling the parable of the sower, Jesus has some strange words: “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; 12in order that ‘they may indeed look, but not perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand; so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.’”

It sounds as if Jesus doesn’t want certain people to understand and be forgiven, but what I think he is saying is that truth and light and honest perception are not self-evident. They are hard work. You have to seek and knock and ask. And if you don’t…. If you just operate out of the false self, then you will see and not perceive, listen but not understand, and therefore you are unable to change. And without change the chickens come home to roost.

In Yoga the inability to see, or misunderstanding, or misapprehension is called Avidya. Avidya is experience in four ways: Asmita which is ego. It is all about “me” and “I”; Raga which is all about desire and want even if you don’t need it; Dvesa which is about avoiding anything that might cause pain or uncomfortableness even though those things are good for us, or need to be worked through, or don’t cause pain, or are just new or different; and Abhinivesa which is fear and doubt.

These things cloud our perceptions so we do not have clarity and do not see or hear the truth. In Yoga three things are happening: Tapas is the process of letting go of that we do not need to keep us physically and mentally healthy and having desire for that which is good for us; Svadhyaya is the process of finding out who we are, what we are. It is self discovery and awareness; Isvarapranishana is the process of accepting God and finding God within so that what we do is not about what we get, but about who we are.

It is all about change. It is awareness of the truth about ourselves. When I came to Yoga, I came because I wanted some change. Physical change mostly. I wanted to be more flexible and I wanted physical activity which could be good for me as I aged and couldn’t play competitive sports.  But Yoga I learned is about letting go, being in the moment and listening to one’s self and one’s body. The more I let go, the more I listened, the more I was in the present moment, I began to see that this was an avenue to God.

The more I let go and listened the closer I got to my true self. The more aware I was of truth. And letting go of that which I do not need, and listening to my true self becomes not only something I do on a Yoga mat, but something I try to do in everyday life. Yoga isn’t my faith. Jesus is my Saviour and Lord, but it has become another way to worship for me, another way to get closer to God.

I am still far from overcoming Avidya or misunderstanding. I do not always see the truth. Like the parable of the sower, there are times when the word hits me and I am impervious to it. It just sits there like seed on a hard path. There are times when the truth in me is like seed in among the rocks. I start to take it in but I have no real depth and even though I have all these good intentions to do this and that and make good and healthy changes, they don’t last and I am back to selfish ways pretty quickly. And then of course there are times that the word, or the truth is there, but I am too busy with family, with exercise, with tv, with work, with friends, with everything, that I don’t take the time to listen, to reflect and to seek God. I just float along doing my own thing.

But occasionally the truth hits me and sinks in, and I let it grow and change me. And it actually produces fruit. There are times when I am actually more loving, more forgiving, more peaceful, more joyful, gentler, more understanding, more patient. Those who know me well, say I have far to go, but all I can reply is that I have come a long way.

Grace and peace to you

harry

Thursday, March 04, 2010

“For to those who have, more will be given; and from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.”

It is not always easy to figure out what scriptures we take literally and what we take metaphorically and how to interpret all scripture. In fact one of the beautiful things about scripture is that sometimes scripture even has levels of meanings and can be explored in different ways and at different depths. And Biblical Critical Historical method aside which seeks to figure out what the writer intended, sometimes it doesn’t matter what the writer intended. If the scripture speaks to your heart to change and become more Christlike even if that isn’t what the original writer intended, it may be what Christ intends for you now. So the Holy Spirit sometimes blows where it wills even with scripture.

So the above scripture is not for me some economic scripture. It is not about the rich haves who are blessed by God, getting more and the poor have-not’s getting what little taken away. That is the way our world operates and is continuing to operate. We may give aid to Haiti and Chile, but the rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer in this world.

For me this scripture is about the inner journey. That is the important journey, the journey back to love, to Eden, to our true self, to the person we were created by God to be.

And may I be so bold as to suggest that on the inner journey, that progress is in direct proportion to how much time and effort is spent on the inner journey.

To those who spend a lot of time on the inner journey, much will be given. To those who spend no time on the inner journey, even what they have will be taken away.

In spiritual direction a couple of weeks ago, while I was sharing about my life, I sort of said as an aside, that though I had been on intermission for a month it didn’t seem like a whole lot had changed. I still feel like the same Harry. The others (it is group direction) pointed out several things in which I had changed over the last month. Sure, I still feel like the same Harry, and I still look like the same Harry, but to be perfectly honest we all change. We need to change. We certainly change physically over the years and we change emotionally, and we also change spiritually. Sometimes we don’t notice the changes, because they are small and incremental. Sometimes we can even go backwards if we are not paying attention to our physical, mental, emotional or spiritual health. However change is inevitable. (even it is to become harder and more resistant to change) The question is what do we do about our inner journey so that those changes are healthy and growing.

Yoga in the west is usually seen to be all about contortionist postures which are good for the body. Yoga is good for the body. However the goal of Yoga is ultimately the inner journey. And in Yogic thinking there is a three part self, the body, the mind and the spirit. The mind is not the true self. Sometimes a saying is used. You are not your thoughts. Or, you are more that your thoughts. The mind is often run by the ego which is not our true self.

So in Yoga just as in Christian faith it is about the inner journey. The journey back to the true self, which is the journey home to God, or as we Christians might say, to find the Christ within, to be like Christ, and in Christ.

The asanas or body postures are meant in some way as preparation for the inner journey. The body is the temple of the Spirit, (Our Corinthian text says the same thing) therefore we take care of the body and don’t feed it garbage and look after it, for if the body is not healthy how can the spirit which resides in it be healthy. They are connected. Healthier body might help with a healthier spirit (not necessarily, mind you, There are those who are so body conscious they have forgotten spirit) and the reverse is also true. Healthier spirit may help bring healthier body.

There is one school of Yogic thought, Tantric which also suggests that one way to find God is through the body itself. The body is part of the divine creation and by looking after the body and caring for it, we can actually find God. This is not a foreign notion to Christian faith, which contains various references to body. After all we believe in a resurrection of the body, not of the spirit. Paul refers to the church as the body of Christ. We have communion and ingest spiritual food into our bodies. We touch people as we pray. When we ordain we lay on hands. When we baptize we hold and touch. The disciples touched the wounds of Christ.

The body is not a bad thing, but part of the creation that God called good and is a dwelling place for you and for Christ who lives in you.

The point is, however, not so much what you do for your body, as what do you do for your inner journey. Silence, prayer, meditation, scripture, spiritual reading, reflecting, group discussion and sharing, counseling, spiritual direction, retreats, nature walks, yoga….There is so much that can be done.. and to those who spend time on the inner journey even more will be given.

Grace and peace to you

harry

Monday, March 08, 2010

Face it, Harry. I am a hedonist. I like pleasure and I am attached to it. That is the default way Harry has of dealing with pain and suffering. If something hurts then find something to make you feel better. Fortunately, I didn’t take the route of drugs and alcohol. I just found other things. Food is a good one.  Coconut macaroons with chocolate drizzled on top make you feel good pretty quickly. Sixteen ounce Kobe beef burger with sautéed onions melted sharp cheese on a toasted bun with hand cut fries makes me feel very good. At least for the moment.

And it is not only food. I like books, especially listening to them on my Ipod, sports, television and movies, spending money…

And I like to fantasize, about all sorts of things. One kind of fantasy is about me winning or succeeding, or being famous, or doing something that makes me look good. When I was younger that was probably about being a superstar athlete. The fantasies change.

Then I fantasize about the difficult times in life and how I could have handled it and what I should have done. Sometime I fantasize about beating up somebody who hurt me, or how I could have shown them up. It’s amazing how something from ten, twenty, even fourty years has gone by and something that can come up. Not that long ago I thought about a kid in high school who punched me and I walked away, and yet in my fantasy, I beat the tar out of him.

And there are of course sexual and romantic fantasies too, about how wonderful I am and the object of someone’s great affection. Don’t need describe these for you. Use your imagination.

But it was confession time this morning during prayer and I had to confess, that lately it has been easy to go into default mode, especially around food. It’s easy. You just kind of zone out and not think too much and you eat what makes you feel good.

Of course after ten days or so, you realize you have put on a few pounds and you don’t feel good, but bloated, and there is suffering or unhappiness. It really becomes a vicious cycle, because the default way to handle unhappiness, is to do what makes me feel good. Zone out and eat something. Which eventually will lead to more weight and more unhappiness and so I want to eat.

O foolish wretch that I am. I do the things I don’t want to do. Who will deliver me?

Today’s gospel is about Jesus raising a little girl to life. He says that she is not dead, just sleeping. He says to her. “Little girl get up.” “Talitha cum.” And she gets up.

That’s what I need. I need Jesus to come to me and when Harry’s true self is dead. Jesus says, “no, Harry’s true self has just gone to sleep for a bit, zone out for a bit and let his ego take over. Harry get up.”

In the epistle for today, Paul is telling the Corinthians that he thinks that the Lord is coming back soon so they shouldn’t be interested in so much stuff of this world…29I mean, brothers and sisters, the appointed time has grown short; from now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none, 30and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no possessions, 31and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it.

Paul was wrong about the impending day of the Lord, but he wasn’t completely wrong about something else, to live your life more in the present moment, not attached to things, to ideas, to people and to stuff; and to be content.

We live so much in the ego world of desire for things and fame and pleasure. And so much of our thoughts revolve around the stuff in the past that caused us pain and the stuff in the future where we are going to feel better, that our true selves are left out.

Living in the present moment doesn’t mean we don’t have a past, nor that we do not or cannot have any hopes or goals, but it means that the past doesn’t have to control our present, and the future is more about how we live in the present, which will create a better future.

It means living out of the true self, out of love and acceptance. When we live as Christ lives within us, we become non-judging and condemning of everything that passes out way including ourselves. We notice it and we bring love to the situation. That doesn’t mean we don’t believe in change, but change comes not from focusing on the exterior so much as letting the interior, the Christ within us bubble up, so the change we make come out of our true selves, and not out of our egos.

One thing our egos like to do, is to store up every little pain and bad situation in life, so there in every situation we meet in life, we have the potential for all our past pain to be triggered. Eckart Tolle calls this the  emotional-pain body.  When this is triggered it makes us unhappy and depressed and angry and frustrated and increases separation with our true-selves and with others and with God. And this is easily triggered.

And what do we do? Satisfy some appetite for pleasure to make us feel better. But the secret is that our real hunger is for God. Instead of opening the fridge, I would be better to open the door of my heart and let Christ in, as it is written about Christ in the Revelation of John:

Listen! I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with them, and they will eat with me. Then I can be satisfied by true love and my spirit it fed

Grace and peace to you

harry

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended?

Today’s lectionary presents quite a contrast between the Old Testament and the gospel. In the old testament story, Joseph breaks down and cries in front of his brothers. These are the same brothers who sold him into slavery and into almost certain early death. These are the jealous brothers, filled with hate. And when Joseph finally has the tables turned so they are in his power, he doesn’t even reprimand them or tell them how their treachery made him feel bad. He not only loves them and forgives them, he tells them that God was in it. That it was all part of God’s plan.

In the gospel text we have Jesus teaching with great power and authority in his hometown and the people took offense at him. They were offended.

These are two different ways of approaching life. Let us deal with the second first. The way of taking offense. I think I had a sermon about offense being the best defense. Taking offense is a way of trying to control others. Taking offense is all about the self. “What is that person doing to me?” It is very ego-centred and usually has very little to do with the one supposedly giving offense.

And when we take offense, it is a matter of the ego, or false self, trying to control the situation, make the other out to be the bad guy(gal), defending the ego and trying to make the other feel guilty or putting them on the defensive, or deflecting anything way from the self onto the other.

In the movie Goodfellas, there is a classic scene when Henry calls Tommy funny; “you’re a funny guy.” Tommy gets offended. “What do you mean, I’m funny?” Tommy is part of the mafia and when he gets offended some pretty bad things can happen.

It wasn’t what Henry said that was wrong. It was Tommy’s reaction, his way of asserting his control and threatening Henry and asserting power over Henry.

Some people say and even psychologists say: We can’t control our feelings. They come up whether we like them or not. That is only partly true. In the moment we can’t often control our feelings, but just because we have a feeling doesn’t mean it is good or right. When we get offended it always means that there is something inside of us that is unresolved. We are not living out or our true self. It is some pattern that the ego is naturally reverting to in order to make itself feel good, in order to gain control, in order to distance from the other, in order to bring pain to the situation.

That is why when we pray, we bring to God our feelings and reflect on them and ask God to help us with them so we can change.

There is another way to act when someone says something, does something intentionally or unintentionally to hurt us, and that is to think of them, of the other, of what is unresolved for them, how they may be so hurt inside that they feel they have to hurt. …to bring love and compassion and even humour to the situation. No guarantees that this will make the situation all better. Jesus didn’t take offense and loved and he was still put on a cross. But Pilate and the Sanhedrin nor anyone else had the power to change him from loving and caring and bringing compassion and from forgiving. “Father forgive them.” Jesus didn’t operate out of ego but from his true self, which is God.

Joseph goes so far as to say it was God in his brothers. How would our lives change if in every icky situation, everytime someone hurt us or acted in a bad way, that we didn’t see the other as the enemy to be attacked, or the enemy we have to defend ourself from, but the instrument of God sent our way to teach us a lesson… a lesson to love and be compassionate no matter what, and to learn from every situation in life what there is to learn. It is in the tests and darknesses of life that our greatest learnings happen. Jesus accepted what was and faced it. There is another way to face life than to be in opposition to what comes one’s way. There is a story of the Buddha who was told by his advisor: “You should thank the people that abuse you.”

It seems crazy at one level, but at another deeper level, it makes perfect sense. Whenever we are abused it presents the opportunity to unconditionally love. As Jesus said and I paraphrase: “it is easy to love those who love you. Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you.”

Grace and peace to you

harry

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

I noticed as I was watching the Oscars the other night during the tribute time, that one of my all time favourite writers/producers/directors passed away. John Hughes was famous for for writing producing or directing such films as Home Alone 1-3, Some Kind of Wonderful, The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Uncle Buck, Planes Trains and Automobiles and National Lampoon’s Vacation.

He truly was one of the great ones. His themes often revolved around those who dared to stand alone against the crowd. His teen movies often had the protagonist being pressured by peers and parents to do it their way, and yet in the end the hero/heroine did what was true to them and usually what was right. Love and family were important in Hughes’s films and even though there was always conflict, and relationships were difficult, in the end the family and love were worth the struggle.

I thought of him and especially his teen movies because the John the Baptist text today, where Herod decides to honour the wishes of Salome and put John’s head on a platter, partly because he didn’t want to look bad in front of the guests.

It made me shudder to think how many times I have put somebody’s head on a platter myself, in order to look good to others, and it made me think of the times my head was put on a platter by somebody else in order for them to look good, or to please their peers.

The biblical stories are often mirrors and when we say “Mirror, mirror on the wall,” often we find out that we are not the fairest by any stretch of the imagination. Today I looked and saw that I at times have been Herod, sacrificing people, or principles or what I know to be right and good, in order that I might look good, for my ego’s sake.

In a novel I read recently, the police officer asks a young woman’s employer if he thinks that she would have been capable of the brutal murders. He replies that he is a cynic and thinks that everyone is capable of murder given the right (or wrong) situation.

I am a cynic too. I believe we are all capable of putting somebody’s head on a platter to save ourselves or make us look good.

There’s a little throwaway line in the Joseph story today. One I never noticed before, because the whole narrative is so big and sweeping and there are huge great themes in it. But I notice for the first time, that after Joseph is all reconciled to his brothers, he sends them back to Canaan to retrieve his father Jacob so the family can move to Egypt, and he says to his brothers: “Do not quarrel.” Even Joseph is a cynic. After all that has happened, all he has forgiven, all the reconciliation he has to remind them not to quarrel, because they would.

I would like to remind you… God would like to remind me… not to quarrel. Not to put somebody’s head on a platter and win the argument even if I am right. Mel Brooks said one time in a story. “I am always right. It’s a curse.” Beating up on others, even when you are right is a curse.

Paul has some very wise words which I will paraphrase. Knowledge puffs up our ego, but love builds up our true selves and builds up others.

One way we have of putting people’s heads on a platter is by labeling them or stereotyping them and writing them off that way.

So I close with a quote from the Breakfast Club. The film starts with the following:

Saturday…March 24, 1984.  Shermer High School, Shermer, Illinois. 60062.  Dear Mr. Vernon…we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was that we did wrong, what we did was wrong.  But we think you’re crazy to make us write this essay telling you who we think we are, what do you care?  You see us as you want to see us…in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions.  You see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal. Correct?  That’s the way we saw each other at seven o’clock this morning. We were brainwashed…

And the film ends with: But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain…and an athlete… and a basket case…and a princess…and a criminal…Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club.

When we look in the mirror we see that we are both Herod and Christ, both Joseph and his brothers. The only thing we can do is love and let our true nature shine and let the chips fall where they may.

Grace and peace to you,

harry

Thursday, March 11, 2010

I was on a canoe trip a few years ago. It had been a long day with a hard portage and an incredibly difficult portion of the river upstream. We had another hour or so of paddling and the wind came up and there were really big waves and we were out in the middle of the lake and I was getting a little scared, wondering why I was doing this at all. I was scared that the waves could capsize us and even though I had a life jacket on, I knew that the water was so cold, that exposure could do us in, if there wasn’t somebody to rescue us and get us to shore quickly. There were two other canoes in the party. One was way ahead of us and one behind us.

The canoe behind us caught up with us and the guy in the stern was Ray, a very experienced camper, canoeist etc. He could tell from talking to me that I was pretty worried and anxious and their canoe stayed next to us and he calmed me down telling me that the waves were not that big or not that threatening and everything would be fine. I calmed down and everything was fine. It turned out to be the most memorable day of the whole trip and the day that really defined the trip.

Ray was like a good shepherd being with me in the valley of the shadow of death. He gave me comfort.

Our gospel lesson talks about Jesus having compassion on the crowds because they were like sheep without a shepherd. Then follows the miracle of the feeing of the five thousand were Jesus takes the five loaves and two fish and breaks them and when they are shared, everyone has enough.

The interesting thing is that Jesus only gives to them what they have. And that I think is what good shepherd’s do. What they do is help us recognize what we already have, the strength, the courage within. They help us take our resources and use them.

The truth is that our world always tells us that we don’t have enough. We need things to make us happy and fulfilled. We need this drug for health, and we need this brand of car for safety and reliability, and we need this beer to have a good time, and we need Viagra for a really good time. We nee this investment company of this bank to make money and be wealthy. We need more food, more money, more possession, more clothes, more makeup, more acne medication.

Jesus speaks to us with a deeper truth. We have enough. We have more than enough. We have enough love, enough resources to share with other. We have all we need to be happy and content and fulfilled. What we need to do is share it.

At the end of the Joseph story, it says that the Egyptians despised shepherds, and that is why the Israelites move out to the land of Goshen. They despised shepherds. I guess that is because they were dirty and smelly and unclean.

However it is often a truth that the real dirty and smelly jobs in our society are sometimes despised and underpaid. Changing diapers for senior citizens in a nursing home comes to mind. Yet what a service that is.

I guess I am saying that I must be willing to be a shepherd and reach out and care for others, and help others realize that they have the resources, but at the same time, I must be willing to be help people even if it is difficult or dirty or smelly.

Grace and peace to you

harry

Monday, March 15, 2010

I am reading a book “Meditations from the Mat,” by Rolf Gates. It is 365 meditations. I have been working on it for a couple of years, a meditation at a time. In the meditation I read today Rolf talked about his wife who basically was convinced she was a physical klutz. She did no sports and especially no competitive sports. She had an image of herself as uncoordinated and weak. However as an adult when she started Yoga, she found that she liked it and it was safe. She didn’t have to compete with anyone. It was for herself. It didn’t make her anxious, but less anxious. It was a safe and nurturing environment. At first, she wasn’t that coordinated and strong, but over time she really noticed a difference in flexibility, strength, balance and coordination.

Rolf makes the point that there are some people who never received any validation for their physical abilities and were often labeled as “klutz” or worse, and the labels became internalized and the people gave up on their bodies. He goes on to say that change is possible and inevitable if we just try and persevere.

There is an interesting if somewhat disturbing gospel story today. It is the story of the Gentile woman who comes to Jesus wanting a healing for her daughter – specifically a demon cast out. Jesus gives what we might consider a racist remark: “Should I take the children’s bread and give it to the dogs?” However she persists and comments: “But even the dogs get the crumbs that fall from the master’s table.”

I don’t think Jesus is being racist at all. In fact the point of the story in part is just the opposite, to show that Jesus reaches out to all people, including those whom his society considered inferior and unworthy, like woman, children and foreigners.

But there is second point to the story. It is the persistence of the woman. This is a mini lesson in the spiritual journey and it relates also to the story of Rolf’s wife and Yoga.

The spiritual journey is less about brilliance and talent than it is about showing up and being persistent. People assume that because I am a minister then I am spiritually gifted and have all these spiritual insights, and then assume that they are not spiritual and can’t be spiritual because they don’t have spiritual talent

Woody Allen said that eighty percent of success is just showing up. In the spiritual journey is not so much about one’s talent it is about doing the work and showing up and being persistent. …spending time in prayer or in reading scripture, in books with spiritual themes, in looking for God in everyday life and in reflecting upon what one reads and experiences in the presence of God…

Over time, one notices a difference. One notices that they notice God. You are watching a movie and it reminds you of God. Something happens to you in daily life and instead of reacting; you start thinking about what Jesus might do. Change is possible and change is inevitable if we just commit ourselves to the spiritual journey.

Jesus said to the deaf man: “Be opened,” and he was able to hear and able to speak. Jesus says to all those who think they are closed to spiritual things: “Be opened.” He is telling us that we don’t have to label ourselves as spiritual klutzes. And for those who are willing to trust Jesus to carry through on the journey, they will be opened to amazing grace and amazing things on the spiritual journey.

Grace and peace to you

harry

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

I remember being in summer bible camp around 1970 or so and the fundamentalist preacher from the Fundamentalist Baptist Church (that what its name was) told us boys that the bible was clear that boys were not to have long hair and girls were not to have short hair, and he referred to Corinthians to the passage in the lectionary this morning. This passage also has the scripture about the husband being the head of the wife.

I am not going to take on the whole Pauline corpus today. If you want a good treatment of that then go to Borg and Crossan’s book, “The First Paul.”

But I will make a couple of comments. First, the bible is the Word of God, not God’s actual words. It is the Word of God because we meet Jesus Christ and if we meet Jesus we meet God. Second as God’s word it invites us into conversation and relationship with God. Unfortunately the bible has been used as a barrier to God or has become God when it is used overmuch literally or as God’s literal words.

I remember 25 years or so ago, preaching on capital punishment and finding it interesting that when Achan stole a piece of silver, he and his wife and his family, and his animals and livestock too, were all put to death, but when King David commits adultery and arranges a murder, he gets to repent. Even in the bible things are not fair between rich and poor and one wonders which is the real will of God – To kill the sinner or to let the sinner repent and change.

It reminds us that we have to read the whole bible and dialogue with God and not just take little bits and say: “Hah, I have all the truth.”

You see when it comes to truth, we keep on learning and growing and knowing, so much so that one of the hard facts in life when it comes to learning truth is that we have to keep on unlearning what we thought was the truth.

The truth was, back in 1967 that hockey was the greatest game on earth. Now over the years I have had to unlearn that. I still like hockey but I also view it as legalized violence that we are not wanting to get rid off.

We all have to unlearn all kinds of things. The values that we learn from the world and society for instance are often different than those of Christ.

We live so much in our egos, and our egos are built on the lies and half truths that people give us, that there often gets to be a point where we have to unlearn our identity. In Christ we find that we were the prince or princess all along and didn’t know that a divine kiss could transform us.

Scott Peck in “the Road Less Travelled” says that we all build maps of the truth and yet we continually have to erase those maps and build new ones as information changes and as we mature and grow and learn. And of course we are quite resistant to taking those maps back to the beginning and starting over again. Most life crises such as Mid-life is often about facing uncomfortable truths, like our aging and our death, or that fact that we might not change the world or be famous.

So what does today’s scripture have to do with all this truth stuff, besides the fact that my understanding of the truth of scripture has changed a lot over the years.

Well, the truth we are being asked to face in the scripture is can we really trust God. This text is not about slavery and servitude. It is not some blanket set of rules for us to follow. In our relationships and in our marriages can we learn to trust the other, trust them enough that our lives depend on it, trust them enough that we don’t have to make all the decisions and have all the answers, but allow the other to lead.

Can I trust that Christ the head (or my wife, or my church, or my friend, etc) will lead me into truth, into life, into green pastures. Trust that this person will not abandon me in the dark valleys. Trust that this person will feed me love, friendship, safety, encouragement, praise, companionship and that I need to really survive.

And to sort of take this further, the scripture writer goes on to talk about Holy Communion, which is literally “union with” and suggests that the whole endeavor is not about our own private little faith journey, or about our sins. It is about being with others and being in relationship with others and realizing that the food we eat, both physical and spiritual is to be shared. Can we trust one another?

When I have been on a fishing or camping trip, most of the time there is someone way more experienced than I, and I have learned to trust them for advice and wisdom, to look to them as a kind of head. And sometimes I have been the one with the most experience and others have looked to me for leadership and guidance.

Against the rugged individualism of North America and Western society, the Word says to me. Be willing to trust… trust God, trust Jesus, trust the Spirit, trust my spouse, my family, my church, my friends and whoever can provide better leadership than I.

God isn’t asking me to trust everybody, nor is God saying that I can never have questions. Good leaders encourage questions and good leaders learn from the followers.

But can I learn to trust someone beside myself to lead?

Grace and peace to you

harry

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

There is seeing and there is seeing. Jesus is in the boat and the disciples have failed to bring bread. Jesus makes a comment “Beware the yeast of the Pharisees and Herod.” The disciples don’t get it and start thinking that Jesus is referring to the fact that they have no bread. Jesus basically tells them that they still don’t see and still don’t understand and refers them to the miracles of the feeding of the five thousand and the four thousand. They still don’t see that they do have bread in the boat. The bread is Jesus.

And then the gospel goes on with a miracle. The only two stage miracle in the gospels and it comes halfway in the book of Mark and is a transition if you will. Jesus heals a blind man, but in his first attempt the blind man is not completely healed. He sees people as trees walking. Then Jesus tries again and he is completely healed. In Mark’s gospel the first half of it up to this miracle is all about this question: “Who is this man?” The crowds wonder who this man is who heals, who quiets the waves, who casts out demons who teachers with authority. Then comes this two stage miracle and then the answer. Peter says: You are the Christ. The next half of the book is about this question. “If this is the Christ, then what kind of Christ is he?” This is because Jesus doesn’t fit with the Jewish expectation of a Messiah.

So the two stage miracle is like a metaphor. We can see that this man is special. We can see possibly that this is the Christ, but we still really do not see what Christ is all about. And for Mark we really do not see what Jesus is all about and what a Christ is about until we Jesus on the cross. Then the Roman centurion will say: this surely is the son of God.

So there is seeing and there is seeing. There are those who in an argument can only see their side. They are those when hurt can only see their own hurt and not the hurt in the other which caused that person to hurt them. There are those who can go to the movies and see a nice story, and there are those who would see God in the story.

Where is your blindness, my blindness, where we see only dimly and not clearly? I like most people am really good at seeing what affects me, what hurts me, what I want to do and what I have to do to get it done. My mother used to call me a bulldog, because I was smart, persistent, and worked hard at getting my own way and winning, whether is was to get the car, or to go to some party, get top marks in the class, or win a soccer game. I was good at getting my own way.

In contrast, Jesus was able to see what affects others, what hurt them, what they wanted, what they needed, what they felt, what they could do and couldn’t do.  Jesus was smart and persistent and worked hard at not getting his own way and at losing.

In the movie Avatar, the inhabitants of the planet Pandora, the Na’vi, greet each other with the phrase. “Oel ngati kameie” - “I see you.” (An actual language was created for the Na’vi). In Yoga the word, “Namaste” is used in greeting, which has come to have many meanings such as: “I bow to your spirit”; “the spirit in me salutes the spirit in you”; or “the divine in me perceives the divine you.”

There is seeing and there is seeing. My prayer is that I would see. I would see with the eyes of Christ, that I would see the divine in each person I meet, that I would truly see people, not just their outward form, but their inner spirit and soul.

Grace and peace to you. I see you.

harry

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

In today’s Old Testament story Moses and Aaron go to Pharaoh asking him to “Let my people go…” so they can go into the desert and worship for three days.

Pharaoh responds by saying that the people must be lazy and if they have so much time to worship then they have time to work harder. He commands that they have to make the same amount of bricks but now they have to gather the straw to make the bricks, where before it was delivered to them.

And of course the Israelite people complain that it is Moses’ fault, and Moses then complains that it is God’s fault.

My task this week in the last week of the intermission is to transition back to the work routine, a fairly busy routine for me. My chief concern is after spending three-five hours a day on prayer, scripture reading and meditation, how do I bring this nourishing time forward so that I continue to be nourished by scripture, prayer and meditation, yet fit in into the busy schedule.

The Pharaoh (translate ego) in me says that the important thing is work, that the worship, the prayer, the meditation comes second. It is my job to make bricks, which is money, or things, or programs in the church, or increase revenues to the church, or to get “more butts in the seat” (to quote Whoopi Goldberg from “Sister Act”).  The ego identifies heavily with my role as a minister and what I might have to do to keep the people happy.

But the God in me has a completely different story. God says that my chief purpose, indeed the chief purpose of all people is “to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” (Westminster Shorter Catechism). The interesting thing about being a minister is that the minister doesn’t work. The minister is the one who is freed from working to make a living so that the minister has time to be with God; and one of the minister’s primary calling is to encourage you to “let my people go” i.e. to call people back to God and to make time to worship and nourish their spirits, and to help people to learn to glorify God in all they do, including their work, their play and their relationships.

Today’s gospel has Jesus talking about putting stumbling blocks in front of little children and then telling us that if our hand causes us to stumble then cut off our hand.

So the question I am left with is this: What causes me to stumble in my worship? What block do I put in front of the Holy child that lives within me? What block keeps me from God….from doing God’s will….from worshiping in spirit in truth? What are the bricks that I think are so important that I do not spend time alone with God?

Grace and peace to you

harry

Friday, March 26, 2010

Why doesn’t God beat up the bad guys? Here we have the story of the plagues and Moses commands and God from up on high sends down plagues on the bad guys. Don’t we wish it were that simple? That we could just pray to God “My God My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” and because we are good, God would rain down fire and plagues on the bad guys.

Well, I will give a couple of reasons why in real life it doesn’t happen that way. The first is that it is not always easy to tell the bad guys. When Iraq and Afghanistan were invaded it wasn’t just bad guys who were invaded and killed. Thousands upon thousands of innocents have been killed, bombed, displaced, starved and so on. It is not always easy to isolate the bad guys.

The second is that if we push hard enough about who is good and bad we find that we are not always so good. The children of Israel were liberated from Egypt’s bondage, went into the wilderness and worshipped idols, engaged in a drunken orgy, doubted God, got angry at their leaders, gossiped and complained, and were not a whole lot better than the Egyptians is at all. We find that when we start pointing fingers at the bad guys, eventually the finger has to point at us to. We sin. We fail. We hurt people. We are selfish. We have met the enemy and it is us.

Human nature being what it is likes to identify the bad guys. If we can find someone to blame then it shifts blame off of us. It is called scapegoating. It is one of the fundamental ways societies hold together. They assert their rightness, their reason to be, by pointing the finger at somebody else who is bad. Those people are the reason for our problems, or at least by pointing the finger we don’t have to think about our own problems.

Yet Jesus shows another way. Instead of raining down plagues on the bad guys, Jesus lets the bad guys rain down plagues on him, and exposes that whole violent system as fruitless and pointless. We don’t mete out violence and shame and guilt and pointing the finger. We absorb it and love anyway.

Paul writes: But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.

The true light that comes into the world is not about pointing fingers at the bad guys and putting a big hurt on them. The true light loves us unconditionally and invites us to do the same and anyone who puts their faith in this love is transformed into children of God. It is about love that transforms us bad guys, not anger that destroys us. And I am humbled when Jesus tells us to love one another as he has loved us.

Grace and peace to you

harry