How was church?

How was church today is a question that I get asked quite a bit as a pastor. On Sundays when I get home after church and one of my sons is home they may ask, how was church? Or if I’m visiting a family member they may ask, how was church?

Most of the time I’ll ask someone who was there at the service how it was for them. I can answer how it was for me but standing behind the pulpit preaching, offering prayers, or serving Communion, it feels different. I like to hear how it was for the folks who were in the pews experiencing the worship service. Not just the sermon that I preached, but the entire service, complete with the music, prayers, including the sermon.

On this Sunday, in particular, I can answer that question. However, it may have an unexpected twist.

Both of my sons are walking in this world as young men in their early twenties yet still carrying the spirit of the tiny children they once were. Those tiny little beings that I carried around in my arms as they grew to be walking bigger children, then into teenagers who worked to figure out who they were in the world with all the struggles that accompany those growing up years.

Now as young men, I can see the fully human beings they were from the beginning, yet still the little dudes who, to this day, put a smile on my face and a warmth in my heart, no matter that they outgrew me in height. When I am in their presence those men still hold the spirit of my baby boys.

My youngest son asked me how church was today. I asked his mom, who was in the kitchen with us and who had attended, how it was for her. She expressed her appreciation for the people of the church, saying it was lovely as always, and how she liked what I preached, even if it had a twinge of uncomfortable.

It was Transfiguration Sunday. This is the Sunday where Jesus takes a couple of His disciples with Him up a mountain and experiences the angelic visitation of Moses and Elijah. One of His crew, Peter, wants to pitch camp and stay in the moment instead of going to Jerusalem, where he knows that Jesus will be crucified.

My wife explained that it was one of those sermons I preach every now and then that she knows she needs to hear but doesn’t want to. She did talk about the message of hope that will sustain us, even in the uncomfortable moments of our lives.

Her favorite college basketball team was on in a few minutes so she left us to talk.

I leaned against the sink where it feels like only a moment ago this young man with a deep voice was scurrying around, no taller than the counter tops.

We ended up talking about the task of writing a book and stepping into a whole new realm for me. I shared with him that sometimes I don’t feel I have the intellect to be doing some of the things that I’m doing. Writing a book about antiracism and theology is an entirely new and different experience for me. An experience that stretches beyond my comfort zone and touches on the nerve of vulnerability that we all carry.

That conversation ended up dovetailing into dialogue about what it was like being a father and my shortcomings I felt when they were little. He affirmed how much he appreciates me as his dad, and I shared how proud I am of him as a young man, how proud I am of both of them, coming into their own.

We both shared a couple of stories about being stretched out of our comfort zone. I was able to express how there were times when they were little, I knew I wanted to do it differently than I had experienced my dad. I told him how when I was younger my father kind of cut me off emotionally once I hit a certain age. I have great respect, admiration and love for my father, but I felt I wanted to do it differently with my boys.

I was able to share that I knew when they were young, if we were to have the kind of relationship I wanted with them when they got to be later teens, and into young adulthood, that relational groundwork had to be laid in the very early years of our relationship.

It was a wonderful conversation. My son and I were both able to share our appreciation for each other, from child to parent, and from parent to child. It was the open and honest conversation I envisioned having with my kids who are now young men.

How was church today? Church was beautiful today.

You see, I wonder if that is what church is meant to do. Instead of church simply being just a moment in time to share songs and teachings, maybe church is the spiritual space we need to open our hearts to the movement of the Spirit . Then, when we leave church, the Spirit goes with us and carries us to the next time we come to experience the movement of the spirit in community: church.

How was church today? Church was beautiful today.

I carried church with me into that conversation with my son. In that conversation we were able to share openly and lovingly. I was reminded that church is much more than a moment in time for an hour or so on Sunday mornings. 

Church is one of many spiritual conduits that we are given to open our minds, our hearts and our souls to the movement of the spirit.

Today the title of my sermon was A Hope Which Sustains.

Hope, found in our Christian tradition, tells us that love is eternal. Not the little love, but big love. Love big enough to hold the universe together in relationship. No matter what we do to one another in the name of the empire of greed and power, including lynching the One who came to show all of humanity what big love looks like alive in the world, love will never leave.

The One who showed them and shares with us:

Where there is love there is hope.

Where there is big love there is big hope

A hope which sustains.

How was church today? Church was beautiful today!

Politics lands on bodies

I have struggled with what to say and when. How to react to this last election and its consequences, which is not about one person. Politics is about our country and who we believe ourselves to be. It is about how we organize ourselves in the community we call America, how we set up these institutions of self-governance.

 I have struggled with my anger which stems from the deep pain of knowing that the policies that are being enacted will hurt people I know. The dehumanizing language that was a central part of many campaigns landed on bodies. These were not just words. They are violent and destructive to the soul of our nation.

Over the last few weeks, I have been in conversation with people who are genuinely scared of how the forthcoming policies will affect them and their families. These are human beings: gay, lesbian, transgender, black, brown, male, female, immigrant, American, white, poverty stricken, and so on. But their identity as “other” is being be used as a pawn for the betterment of the empire of greed and power. These are human beings, part of the diversity that is creation itself. We are allowing ourselves to be split into us and them so that a minority can hold power over the majority. The majority is diverse in the full range of creation, a beautiful tapestry woven together in original blessing.

 Our outward physical appearance is a reflection and expression of an inward divine presence. We are all walking this earth, for a short span of time, each one of us, as a reflection of the Divine image. Imago Dei, the image of God in Latin. I-Ma-Go Da-E.

We all begin and have our being as the image of God. We all begin and have our being in the image of love. Our outward physical appearance is simply that. The skeleton and the skin that surrounds our soul. That outward expression of the inward spark of love is not something that can be taken away by any policy or politician.

We are allowing ourselves to be split into us and them so that a minority can hold power over the majority and that minority is using all the tools of racism, sexism, heteroizm as a means to identify a false us and them.

For me I say no! There are no them. There is only one cosmic we, created in the image of one cosmic Love.

What we all must fight against is when our outward expression is used as a tool of separation so that the powerful and the greedy can expand their wealth. After all, that is what all this is about. Money and power! Human beings, human bodies are being used as a means of exploitation in service to the greedy empire.

I’m reminded of the statue of liberty that sits in upper New York bay, and it makes me wonder if that is who we believe ourselves to be as a country any longer. I know that some will say that we never were what the Statue of Liberty claims. I hold onto the notion that we can still become what we dream for America. The American dream won’t be legislated or policy created. It will be made real by those of us who call America home.

Creating the kind of America we want, working to create it and see it come to fruition is upon us. Some want to create an America that is a place set aside for a select few instead of being a home to the many, the masses as Lady Liberty states.

"The Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World" was a gift of friendship from the people of France to the United States and is recognized as a universal symbol of freedom and democracy. The Statue of Liberty was dedicated on October 28, 1886.[1]

 The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Emma Lazarus
November 2, 1883[2]

The Statue of Liberty stands as a lie until we make a truth.

I was at a gathering on Zoom recently, a small group of only five of us. It was a good discussion, and we used Cole Arthur Riley’s, Black Liturgies: Poems, Prayers, and meditations for staying human. We opened the conversation in the chapter on belonging.

As I sat and listened, I could feel a sense of community, love and empathy for each other for a time such as this. After a few minutes and the usual light conversation it got, as they say, real. I could feel the anxiety ebb and flow as we talked about our life circumstances. The conversation is all to similar since the country elected a person who professes revenge and uses hateful language when talking about all those people I know and love who don’t fit the white-hetero-male stereotype of “America”.

There are people I know and love who are in the lgbtqia+ community, immigrant, black, female, on the edge of poverty, barely making it under the weight of medical issues and struggling with how they will have any health insurance, teachers who are already under attack for valuing diversity, equity and inclusion and so on.

The list goes on of those who are and have been under attack and I ask myself, how is it that a majority of our countries people are scared of the President of the United States. Seriously scared!

If you are reading this and feel lonely or scared know you are not alone. If you need someone to talk to, respond to this post with your contact information and I will get a hold of you.

If you are reading this and don’t understand why or what people are scared of, listen to those voices. We all need to listen to each other and turn off the socials and the “news”. We all need to get back in touch with our shared humanity.

During the conversation today I shared that we all yearn for connection and community. I believe that we need to hear how our politics and our language is landing on the human body and affecting the human spirit in America. Because as of today there are a great number of us who are scared for our well being and the well being of those we love. All people of all colors, creeds, cultures and expressions are feeling the weight of worry and fear.

I believe that if we can get back to connection, community, and empathy we can begin to hear that real worry in the voices of those who are being targeted by this current administration. If we can hear the humanity in those voices we may be able to create a more beloved community of welcome.

Connection is the way forward. It always has been.

All theologies around the world speak of that Divine connection to humanity and how best to live into that connection by how we treat one another.

When we loose touch with the art of empathy, we loose touch with our connection to one another.

I know deep down that love is what holds this world together. It is the spirit that flows. Love is the air we breathe.

I also know that it can feel as if we are being suffocated by the circumstances of the day. Evil seems to be screaming at the top of its lungs.

We are all going to have to listen to the voices of love so that evil, hate and anger, don’t rule our lives and hearts. So that our voices of love speak to a world in pain.

If all you can do is listen.

Listen up!

If you have a voice and a platform

Speak up!

If you have energy to advocate

Show up!

The spirit and soul of our country are depending on us.

Listen up!

Speak up!

Show up!

[1] https://www.nps.gov/stli/index.htm

[2] https://www.nps.gov/stli/learn/historyculture/colossus.htm

Invitational Eternal Love

This quote came across my feed recently, and it got me to thinking.

“Christianity did not begin with a confession. It began with an invitation into friendship, into creating a new community, into forming relationships based on love and service.”
― Diana Butler Bass, Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening

I have read quite a lot of Diana Butler bass over the years. Her book Christianity After Religion was an eye-opening read for me. It spoke to me and invited me into this thing called religion. In my growing up years we did not attend church and to be quite honest religion left a bad taste in my mouth when I was in my late teens an early 20s. It wasn’t until I began attending church, my wife’s childhood church after we moved back to town from New York City, that I began to feel a sense of belonging within a religious community.

I was called into pastoral ministry through preaching and worship preparation in this caring church. What began as a couple of sermons turned into a need, not a want or an inkling, but a deep need to learn. As I think back I’m so thankful to that Pastor who saw or heard something in me, invited me to wrestle with whatever it was I was feeling, and opened the pulpit to me so that I could explore. So, I began reading and since that time almost 20 years ago I typically have one or two books I’m working my way through.

 Whatever was going on in my spirit during that time, the pulpit was the invitation to the spiritual growth that I was experiencing without even knowing it. At that time, I did not know what it was, but as I think about the above quote about Christianity began with an invitation, my ministry began with an invitation from a caring pastor.

I fear that Diana has landed on something that is still prevalent in our life and in the church today. She wrote that book in 2012 and it still speaks to me and remains on my bookshelf as a wonderful reference.

You see I wonder if we are missing the invitation that is Jesus.

What if we did understand Jesus as invitation? What if Jesus is inviting us into a life of eternal love? What would happen to us, the church, and the world if we read our sacred Christian text with that word at the forefront of our learning? Invitation.

 To help us understand this, there’s a wonderful teaching text found in the gospel story of Matthew.

“All things have been committed to me by God. No one knows the Son except God, and no one knows God except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

This can be read as an exclusionary text. If we simply stop at this point and say to ourselves, Jesus is exclusionary instead of invitational. Some of us simply stop at this point and forget the next line.

“Come to me all you are weary and are carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble and heart, and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Can we hear the invitation?

 Another one that helps us is possibly one of the most famous lines in the gospel. John 3:16.

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Another very powerful book that has been a great influence on me is written by Neil Douglas Klotz called Prayers of the Cosmos. This is another one of those books that opened up for me a new understanding of our gospel that expanded the story of the Christ in Jesus.

 A tradition of both native Middle Eastern and Hebraic mysticism says that each statement of sacred teaching must be examined from at least three points of view: the intellectual, the metaphorical, and the universal (or mystical). From this viewpoint, we consider the face value of the words in question – what so-called modern people normally call the “literal” meaning. According to native Middle Eastern mysticism, however, each Aramaic word presents several possible literal translations. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth” could easily be translated “blessed are the gentle” or “blessed are those who have softened the rigidity within.” The word “earth” in Aramaic also carries the meanings of “earthiness,” “the natural abundance of nature,” and “everything that appears in particular forms.”

Taking all of this together what we might be listening to, and quite possibly throughout the entire gospel story, or the life of Jesus, is an invitation to live in eternal love.

We enter into, within, and are a part of that cosmic, mystical, expansive, eternal love, not only in Jesus, but in all of life. What Jesus is teaching us is that we can’t enter that eternal love through our pocketbook or the material world. We cannot journey into that eternal love through anything that we can buy or do in the material world.

What Jesus may be helping us understand is that we can’t enter that eternal love through power. As was the case, then, and as is the case now. The most powerful among us are the humble servants much more than the rich and powerful. Even deeper than that is oh boy, be weary of those who wield and ask for more power. Be very weary.

When we listen with our expansive understanding with an ear towards invitation, we can hear Jesus saying and the gospel writers if we really pay attention, “I am the invitation to eternal love.”

I am the invitation to this eternal love (the universal Christ), Jesus says. The beautiful part is that if we accept this invitation, then we become the invitation ourselves to share this eternal love with a hurting world.

We may read it into the gospel story, but Jesus never said I am the only invitation. We, in our interpretation down through the ages, put that too heavy a yoke, only, upon Jesus. Yes, he was setting himself up and against a materialistic, hierarchical destructive world view of religion and power. (Roman rulers and the Jewish religious elite)

In that sense, he was setting himself aside. “No one comes to the Father (God) except through me,” in the Matthew text, in an expansive understanding of the literal words may be understood as, the powerful “fathers” of the ruling class are not the path towards this eternal love I am inviting you too. So all of you who are weary are invited to get to know me and this Love that I walk and live in within my spirit. Join me.

This brings me back to the original question… what if the church could view itself as the wide open, accepting, open and affirming, expansive invitation to live in eternal love? What a world the church could help create. What a world indeed we could live in.

Quite simply if we want to understand what eternal means: all the way back to when there was no time, and all the way forward beyond our lifetime into the spiritual eternal to come.

We are living in eternal love. If only we can see it. If only we can live it.

Our humanity, our inner divine spark, is the gift of original blessing.

We were loved into being with the breath of life.

We have all been invited to be the invitation.

Listen one and all

Jesus invites us

Live into this one eternal love

Reaching towards gratitude

Dinner church is a time to gather in fellowship and exploring in a relaxed atmosphere outside of the typical Sunday morning worship service. .

Recently our church, TheMightyLCUCC, came together with friends to talk about the things of life and God around a dinner table. We all know that sometimes in life it can feel disrupted by difficult and challenging circumstances.

During this last gathering we talked about the spiritual practice of finding the goodness in the world as a balm to the difficulties. Those reflections became a poem: Reaching Towards Gratitude.

This is a spiritual practice that can help in trying times to remember the goodness which surrounds us. It is the practice of naming or listing ten things you are thankful for and then thinking about something you may want to offer up in prayer.

We hope that from our Dinner Church gathering you can take this spiritual practice of reaching towards goodness. These are the things we are thankful for.

When the weight of life Feels heavy

There is a well of goodness

A place of gratitude

Inside each of us

You’ll find us there

Reaching for the goodness of life and humanity

At home in our wonderful church

A family of support where we are uplifted

A place where we are not afraid to love  

Authentically welcome

Enjoying the noises of childhood echoing

vibrating in our hearts

Holy presence, alive, dwelling in each soul

Church all over

Sanctuary of the Great Creator

God space all around

This God who always comes anyway

Within this Great Mystery

The cosmic knowing

There is no judgement

Blessed with family, long life and wonderful luck

The elixir of life, coffee

Friends, basketball

A place to call home

A wide-open door of returning

A warm place of comfort, care, compassion, and acceptance

Seasons of warmth stretching

History of growth

This come along faith

In the goodness of life

God, Ruach, Breath, Spirit, Christ in Jesus

With us,

Within us

We pray for all those who are suffering, struggling with loss, grief and emotional turmoil. We pray for this nation and world in this time of need. Grant us with the healing and unity we yearn for. Grant us spiritual knowing that You are with us all the days of this life and the eternal yet to come. In you O God, is our faith and hope for better days.

For when our eyes are on Your Goodness alive in us we can see the sunshine behind every cloud. Amen and Asè

An easy way to remember this spiritual practice: 10 Thank You’s and an Amen.

Sparkles of Goodness

The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better: Richard Rohr.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. The Christ in Jesus from the Gospel of John.

For some right now it may seem that there is no path towards the better. On some days and some moments during the day this describes where my spirit resides.

We are witnessing the rise of hate as a political tool like no other time in my life. We are witnessing leaders use dehumanizing language to quench their thirst for more power and ultimately more money. Some of us, me included, feel angry and dismayed about where we are as a nation.

However, Anger is usually a veil that covers over pain. Sometimes that veil can be thick and as hard as a rock. Sometimes that veil can be paper thin and just under the surface lies our vulnerability. Even as a pastor who knows this, anger is usually a cover for pain, it took me a long time to turn that lens inward and spend time with my own pain.

The circumstances of this last decade, listening to the people who have been and continue to be demonized and dehumanized as a political tool, have made me angry as this language that has become all too familiar and sadly all too accepted. This language is landing on the bodies of the LGBTQ plus community, the immigrant community in our country, woman, the poor, children, the black and brown bodies who have historically been oppressed and so on.

Some words have been used to describe this language as racism, sexism, homophobia, misogynistic, nationalism and others. The truth is that these words only describe what is, at its roots, language that describes some to be less than human.  It is disgusting to hear and it is hurtful.

I have decided to spend my time cultivating goodness in the garden of my soul.

As a Christian pastor who follows and learns from the Jesus of history, I believe Jesus is angry and weeping, the heart of God is breaking and Jesus is screaming….Love as you have been loved!

As I turn the spiritual lens inward, I realize that the anger is pain which stems from listening with empathy to the people that this language is aimed at. This ugly language is not located in one political party, it is not located in one nation, and it is not located in one race or sexual orientation or one time and place in history. This language has been part of human history. In our current time we are not standing outside of the human predicament. We are centered inside the human predicament and this language is hurting people that I love. Their very lives and freedoms are being threatened in real ways.

The best criticism of the bad is to do better. Years ago, there was another quote that came from a street artist in St. Louis called Ghetto Monk: we cannot unsee what we have seen, and there must be a better way.

The better way, or the doing of the better, is to spend our time cultivating goodness. This does not mean that in the face of injustice, we should put our heads in the sand or stand on the sidelines as people are dying at the hands of this evil empire of greed and power. This is not simply political rhetoric. It is real human beings of all walks of life expressing the diversity of creation. whose lives are at risk.

In order to sustain our spiritual health so that we can be a beacon of hope and goodness for all to see and witness in us, we must find ways to cultivate goodness. It may feel difficult at times, but if we are ever going to fulfill God’s promise of a beloved community, to live out our vocation as cocreators with the Divine, where everyone is free to live in their own freedom and human thriving, it will take work. It will take the work of all of us for all of us.

Many have been in fight mode for a long time and we are tired. Many have been fighting this their whole life as they walk in this world, facing ridicule, even death, and oppression every day.

Even as these difficulties exist within the human predicament, their exists human creativity, human strength, human flourishing and resilience in the face of violence and persecution. Let us remember Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Óscar Romero, Mahatma Gandhi, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy Jr., and many others who stood firmly on their spiritual grounding of the goodness of God, while calling truth to power and saying no, these dehumanizing policies don’t belong!

In dark times, it can be difficult to see. In dark times, it could feel as if the love and goodness of the world doesn’t exist. To speak of the goodness of the world, we must cultivate the goodness of humanity and creation.

As I think about cultivating goodness, I stand firmly on my own spiritual grounding that the goodness of God/Breath of life/the Great Spirit/the Divine sacred is not controlled by human hands. Goodness is not something that is bestowed upon us by any human institution. Our innate goodness is our original blessing, given freely and it cannot be earned. This means that nothing can take that goodness out of this world, and nothing can take it out of humanity. It is the original blessing of creation itself.

Each of us is a piece of that original blessing no matter the outward physical expression of the inward sacred goodness. It is ours to cultivate in ourselves so that when those loved ones around us and in our community need a reminder of their own innate goodness and beauty, we are the shining reminder of the goodness that is alive and thriving in this world.

Unfortunately our news media, our economy, our social feeds and our politics are not in the business cultivating goodness. This does not mean that people who are in the news media or politics are cultivating evil. What it does mean is that their business is business, and that economic model is not to cultivate goodness.

Our business as children of the Great Creator is to help cultivate the goodness that is alive in us, and in the world. If we want to grow a garden of love and compassion, we will need to refocus the eyes of our heart to look for goodness every day. We are called to tend this garden which is alive in us. We will need to focus on those tiny little moments of goodness that are happening in the world, and in our lives every single day.

Our headlines scream at us and our social feeds that can at times pull us into despair. Maybe we need to be rebooted so that the algorithm feeds us the goodness that is alive in the world.

Again, this does not mean that we simply stick our head in the sand and stand on the sidelines and let injustice trample on humanity. What it does mean is, if we are going to be strengthened to stand up, speak up and speak out, and do something about the injustices that we see we will need to strengthen ourselves with the nourishment of the goodness that is alive in the world.

The other things of life, the difficulties and the injustices, are all too easy to find. But what if that wasn’t the case? What if we retooled and retuned our searching to look for those moments of goodness? What would happen in our spirit and our soul if what we fed ourselves every day was a large dose of goodness as a counterbalance to the injustices. Or a good come along friend as we work to restore humanity’s relationship with the Divine in everyone. I call this honoring the Divine Spark in you as I honor it in myself. This is the Sacred relationship of creation.

For me, I look to the relationships that I have in my life. I hold tight to the memory of the hug that I shared with my wife. I hold tight to the conversation that I just had with my son. I hold tight to the memories of my own childhood, of my family and of my wonderful two boys. I know many people personally who do not have or have grown up with the same economic privilege that I did. I know how blessed I am, and I carry that as a responsibility, not a crown of greatness. I believe, oh how I try, to be there for people who need a touchstone of goodness in their lives. I try to live in gratitude so that I can live in abundance so that I can share abundantly.

These are examples of how we all can cultivate goodness in our lives. Sometimes it will look like finding people who are telling the truth about the ugly inhumane oppression that the empire of greed and power is doing to bodies. It may look like witnessing with others to the atrocities of our human existence and putting our bodies on the line in protest.

Sometimes it may be a poem, or sitting quietly in contemplation and rest, or walk in nature, or phone call to a friend to lament, and be honest about our own pain, or seeing the love shared between two friends.

All this other stuff that is happening in the world can feel like it is overshadowing this goodness. If we look to the night sky and only see the darkness, we miss the twinkling of the stars. If we look out into the world and allow ourselves only to see the ugliness, we will miss the millions and millions of twinkling moments goodness, which is alive within us, all around us.

There is a garden in each of us. A garden of abundance filled with flowers of compassion, sunflowers of yearning, roses of love, lavender of sweetness, stubborn day lilies are all planted in the garden of eternity.

This is the garden of goodness that needs cultivating.

The nourishment that our hearts need is all around us. If only we can see it, if only we can show it.

Let us not stare too long into the darkness so that we cannot see.

Let us look towards the sparkles of goodness twinkling all around us.

My Soul Awakens!!

Some days more than others
My heart grows weary and angry

Some days more than others
The world feels heavy and dark
I can’t see the forest for the trees
Or the sunshine behind the clouds

Some days more than others
It feels like humankind
Would rather hate and kill each other
Then build each other up

Some days more than others
Tears fill my eyes
Grief incircles my body
The noise of the world creeps in
A headache takes up space in my head

Some days more than others
The systems of humankind
Step on, squash, and maim the people of humanity

Some days more than others
Lying still and hidden
Seems like the only way forward
Faith just isn’t enough

Some days more than others
My soul awakens
Anger churns and toils into energy
Saying to my spirit
You can’t have that

Some days more than others
Churning, toiling, awakening
The energy comes to life within
I say
You can’t have that
You can’t have my love
You can’t have my compassion
You can’t have my Grace
You can’t have my care
You can’t have my smile
You can’t have my eyes
You can’t have my mind
You can’t have my ears

Some days, more than others
Love speaks louder

Says to tyranny
Screams to anger
Proclaims to hate
Shakes a fist to violence
Tells despair not today

You can’t have that
My eyes see the beauty within all of humanity
My ears are tuned to the vibrations all around
To the harmonies of creation

Most days
This is the toiling of my empathy

Today
My soul awakens
The ugly parts of humankind
Can’t have my love
It lives within
I get to say where and when and how
My love is lived in the world

Today
In the midst of despair

Today
In the midst of worry

Today
In the midst of anger

Yes, even today
My soul awakens

I declare
You can’t have this
These things are mine
No, you can't make me blind
No, you can't make me deaf
To the goodness that's surrounds us

No, you cannot have that
It
Is
Mine

Yes, even today
My soul awakens
My energy is strong
My voice is loud
My body is ready
My spirit, may be crying

Yes, even today
With a shaky voice
A mind of confusion
A tear on my cheek
Clarity remains

I was born in original blessing
My body loved into being from the dust of creation
The love of the great spirit
Each of these things reside in me

Oh yes, even on this day
My soul awakens
My spirit is alive
I can hear the melody of Creation

Oh yes, even on this day
My hands are outstretched
Ready, willing, able
To hold hands, embrace justice,
Walk with those among us who need a partner
Care for those among us who are in despair
Sit with those who need an ear or a shoulder, or a leg to stand on

Oh yes, even on this day
My soul awakens
Ready to stand in the breach
To bring peace

Oh yes, even on this day my soul awakens
I stand at the ready with others

Who say today
To the preachers of tyranny
To the promoters of hate
To the erectors of oppression
We have seen you tear us down before
Yet still we rise

We are children of original blessing
The eternal family of humanity
The co-creators, with the Great Spirit of God
Of the beloved community

You can’t have what we’ve got
We have seen your hell before

Oh yes, even today, my soul awakens
The Great Creator of the Good Road
Beckons me

They can’t have what I’ve given you
We have work to do, you and I

Today
We rest
We cry
We lament
We swear
We cuss at the stars

Tomorrow we rise
To scream with one voice

With the same hate speech in a different outfit
You can't have what we are building
What we are Co-Creating
What the ancestors of justice bestowed

Today we rest
Breathe
Find peace

For tomorrow
Our soul awakens
We get to work

Rev. Michael Young

The story of America: Still Being Written

 The Work of Christmas

When the song of the angels is stilled,

When the star in the sky is gone,

When the kings and princes are home,

When the shepherds are back with their flock,

The work of Christmas begins: To find the lost, To heal the broken, To feed the hungry,

To release the prisoner, To rebuild the nations,

To bring peace among others, To make music in the heart.

Howard Thurman

It may seem odd to begin an essay about America with a Christmas poem written by Howard Thurman. Thurman is reminding us that the work of Christmas begins on Christmas morning and continues long after the presents are put away and the decorations are returned to their respective storage places. Christmas isn’t a season.

The work of Christmas, or the story of Christmas, is written in our everyday lives as we work to treat each other with dignity, as we work to honor the Divine in all of humanity, as we work to care for the child of Jesus in our midst. Even though Christmas is a Christian holiday, it represents the knowledge that God is with us. That knowledge, story, and narrative can be found in all faith traditions, even if it may be expressed in different ways, with different symbols and deities, and different understandings.

The story of America is still being written.

Long after the playlist is paused,

Long after the parades are over

When the fireworks cease their boom,

When the 4th turns to the 5th,

When summer becomes back to school,

The story of America continues:

I wonder if most of us feel that America is settled. By that I mean that America is done being built. America is a final finished product. Instead, it may help us to think of America as an idea and even a story still being written. America is a story in perpetual rewriting and editing.

America ain’t America yet.

On a cold winter day or a rainy summer day it can feel good to cuddle in with a good book and relax into the day. In a good novel there is tension, characters, good and evil, plot twists, and an emotional buy in on the part of the reader. In some books it may feel like a many progressive steps forward followed by a few frustrating steps back.

America is a story that began with a group of men who wanted to live free and dictate their own way of life and government. These men declared themselves free from the king. That is the beginning of our mythical story of our founding.

Some don’t want to offer any true historical context to the beginning of America. Some have written our story and left out the most difficult parts. Kind of like a family that doesn’t want its most embarrassing pieces told. So, over the course of the retelling of that story, the ancestors who may have embarrassed the family name have been forgotten or rewritten out. The family history becomes a narrative, a myth instead of a true historical story.

What we are truly wrestling with is the question of who gets to tell the story of America? Who’s experience counts when talking about the honest history of America? Whose voice is heard? Who gets to edit the book before it’s published and who will be called upon to ensure its honesty as we continue to write the story of America.

I think this may help us to understand what’s going on currently in our country. America isn’t done yet. This nation has always been a developing idea. Some may even declare that it was never meant for them. America was meant for white land-owning men and the founding documents reflect this fact, especially when read through the eyes of those who were left out, indigenous first nations people and African slaves, of the Freedom this country is said to celebrate. No matter how difficult the past may be, true as it may be the horrific experiences of those who were thought of as less than, we are all here now.

We are all authors in the American story.

It comes down to what story are we going to write? What is America going to be? History may be in the past, but the human predicament is endless, and we are all caught up in this human community. The story of humanity is a historical document reaching as far back as our collective memories will allow us to go. Our country is but one tiny blip on this space time continuum. This may help to understand the notion that America is situated within this human predicament with all its history, good and bad. 

The story of America continues.

We tend to think of developing countries in economic or technological terms. Our country can’t still be developing because we are economically and technologically advanced. Some may say the most advanced nation in the world. If America began as an idea yet to be fulfilled, if America is a continually developing story, then our story isn’t over yet.

No matter what some may think, do, legislate, or defend with politics, policy, and violence, each one of our voices are vitally important in the telling of our past along with the current one we are writing.

As we look back on our history and think currently, we can find heroes and villains both. Can we look back on our history and allow it to inform our future? Can we face up to the worst we have done, learn from those atrocities, and continue to write the story of America that truly lives into its idea of We The People, free to be who are, each and every one of us.

Some want to silence the voices who don’t agree with the historically inaccurate narrative, the myth of America. We are still wrestling with our white supremacist, racist past. No matter how tight we close the door of our closet with barricades and deadbolts, the white robes and hoods keep falling out.

No matter how we like to look to Hitler, as just one example, as the evil one in history, we have our own violent past filled with human atrocities, bloodied bodies, and genocide. If we listen to the voices of the first nations people and the ancestors of slaves, we can hear an honest telling of our history. It is those voices that can offer the wisdom of the past that can help us forge a better future for our nation. If we will listen instead of silence the voices of truth we’d rather ignore.

It is us, we the people, all the people, every voice, who write this ever expanding, ever being rewritten, story of America.

I know that for myself I want the story to be done. I want to get to the end of our story to the happily ever after part. I want to flip the pages and peak at the ending to make sure everything turns out ok. I want to know that in the end all relationships are healed, all characters are made whole again, and the message of hope is secured for all time for everyone. I want to know that this country will be a beacon of freedom for everyone in the coming generations of our children and their children.

Unfortunately, the story of America is a long-complicated novel.

There are villains who are trying to take ownership of our country and our story. A group who wants us all to ignore the reality of the lived experiences of those who have been historically voiceless and left out of the supposed freedom proclaimed over two hundred years ago.

There are those who feel it is their story to tell, they want to own the narrative. These folks want it all. The trees, the land, the paper mill, the printing press, the publishing house, the artist and so on. They want to own the story of America.

As Maya Angelou stated, Still I Rise.

We all need to stand, raise our voices so that the story of America that is being written is one that expresses our deepest desire that all of humanity, each one who calls America home, can live in true freedom and thriving. If we are a nation gathered under the protective umbrella of the Divine, it is the Their wish that all of humanity lives in freedom.

If America is an idea, it is an idea yet to be fully realized. If our founding was based on freedom for all of humankind, it has yet to live up to its founding proclamations that all who call America home can live in true, lived freedom everyday, in every circumstances no matter location, physically and culturally.

America ain’t America yet.

What story do you want to tell?

What America do you want to create?

Our story of America is still being written.

Rest up.

Speak up.

We all have work to do.

We all have a story to tell.  

Every voice matters.

What would Jesus ask?

The country is digesting the results of the debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. It is a time when a large part of our country tunes in to listen in on what the candidates for president have to say. This is moderated by someone from the media company that is hosting the debate. CNN was the host of the debate and will moderate the questions.  

These debates were meant to be a way for those of us tuning in to make an educated decision as to who we might vote for in the upcoming election. The questions were thought out and the moderator tries to help move the debate along in a sensible manner. 

Well…not so much anymore.  

For years, ever since I was a little kid sitting with my dad watching Walter Payton play for the Chicago Bears, I have enjoyed watching the games. Even today I still sit down on most Sundays and watch a game or two. We like our rivalries. We like it when our team is playing against the other team we have been taught to dislike. For instance, the Detroit Lions and Chicago Bears are not friends. It’s the rivalry between the two teams that don’t like each other that gets our blood moving. We like it when our team wins and hate it when our team loses, especially loses to our rival teams.  

A few years ago, I was tuning into a presidential debate. Two to three weeks prior to the actual debate most networks would air ads so that folks would turn their remote to that channel for the pre-debate discussion and the post-debate opinion, spin, debate about the debate, post-debate show. One of those ads reminded me of a pre-game football ad that would beg us to tune in to the rivalry that was the upcoming game of the week on a given channel.  

I remember watching one of the pre-debate ads and it reminded me of the pre-game ad that was airing during the week. They seemed to match. But the narrative caused me to pause.  

The pre-debate ad was almost as conflict inducing as the football ad. It occurred to me. What are we doing to ourselves with these presidential debates.  

They have lost their intellectual appeal. They seemed to have lost all value for the common good of our nation as an informed electorate. These debates have increasingly turned into a sort of reality show instead of an intellectual conversation about the trajectory of our nation.  

In a sense we are tuning into a game of the week between two rivalry teams instead of watching to gather information about each candidate for the President of these United States of America.  

I wonder. 

What would Jesus ask? What if Jesus was the moderator of these debates? What kind of questions would He ask of the candidates? What would Jesus be interested in?  

If we want to explore what Jesus might ask, we can turn to His words. If we want to ponder in our spirit what Jesus would ask, we can turn to his ministry.  

This becomes relevant when we think about what kind of world do we wish to live in. What kind of leadership are we looking for? Who will guide us as we continue the work of creating a nation of true freedom for everyone.  

What kind of world do we want to live in and who will guide us in creating that world?

A deeper question may be, is what do we believe, as Christians, we are called to do and be. Even more important is what we believe we are called to do as human beings. Are we called to care for our fellow humans? Are we called to co-create with God a more just world where everyone can live in freedom and thrive.  

Is Jesus interested in every human of every expression living in freedom to be who they are? Does Jesus honor and protect the Divine Spark in all of humanity for all time? Again, if we want to know that answer we can look to the Gospel story.  

Some would say that the most concise expression of the ministry of Jesus, the calling of God on all of humanity, could be found in the beatitudes. This might guide us in our wondering.  

The Beatitudes were recorded in the Gospel of Matthew and Luke as concise sayings which Jesus expressed in a mountain top sermon with a large crowd listening in on His wisdom.

Again, these become relevant as we ponder the direction of our country. Not as a Christian nation but a nation that holds the value of each human in highest regard and Jesus being one of the many expressions of Divine Love alive in the world.

What would Jesus ask? What is Jesus interested in? What kind of leadership is Jesus expecting from us now?  

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. 

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. 

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

It seems that these beatitudes guided the ministry of Jesus.  

If we understand the importance of these beatitudes, we may interpret Jesus’s expectations for us now. From there we imagine what Jesus may ask as the moderator of any leadership debate today, and what does Jesus expect of His church.

How are you treating the poor among you? 

How are you sitting with those who are grieving? 

How are you tending to the downtrodden? 

How are you seeking righteousness, right-relationship with your fellow humans? 

How have you shown mercy to your neighbor today? 

How are you seeking God’s presence in your heart? 

How are you making peace in your community? 

How have you put your privilege on the line? 

How have you been ridiculed for giving up a piece of your privilege? 

What would Jesus ask?  

I was thinking about this, noodling on it as it were, while I was on a Zoom call with Christena Cleveland. We started talking about and laughing about what would Jesus do in response to the debate. What types of questions would he ask.  

With a smile and a chuckle, we agreed that Jesus would be outside the debate hall feeding those who were hungry. Jesus would probably not engage in the silliness of the debate. Instead, he’d be high on a mountaintop feeding and teaching. To take this a step further, the attendees would then begin to flow from the debate center to see what Jesus was up to. One by one the arena would be emptied as folks realized how hungry they were for a refreshing, abundant filled presence and message. They would realize the foolishness of the event and begin to look for authenticity instead of fake empathy, fear, anger, division, lying and incompetence.   

What would Jesus ask if he was the moderator of the debate? 

“What are you doing to help my brothers and sisters who live out here in the reality of the world?” 

Come on out here. Come on down from your towers and your temples.  

Come be a part of this new kin-dom, which God is creating in your midst.  

If you follow me, we can all live in the eternal peace of God.  

No matter anyones faith practice or even no faith practice at all. No matter if you follow Jesus or any other wisdom teacher. It may do us all good to find a person, organization, book, app, channel, or faith that helps us listen to the best that humanity has to offer.

I cannot thank Dr. Christena Cleveland enough for the influence she has had on my ministry and my life. I have been following Christena Cleveland for a few years now. I enjoy her strength, wisdom, unyielding truth telling, and her connection to and expression of the movement of the Divine.

You can find out Christena Cleveland Phd. here: https://christenacleveland.com 

Ubuntu Please!

Ubuntu, a philosophy with its origins in Africa, can sometimes be translated as "I am because we are". A way of knowing and living the interconnectedness of all things. We are all reflections of the Divine of the universe. Every time we look at another person or all of creation for that matter, we are seeing the Divine Spark alive within everything.: the Divine Spark alive within everything connects all things.

Ubuntu is closely related to the golden rule, which I regard as a truth instead of a rule to be broken and a God who will punish us: do unto others as you would have them do unto you is a truth, a spiritual truth, that the more we treat each other as we would like to be treated the better humankind will be, the better our world will be, and the more every human can thrive and live in freedom. Jesus expands this succinctly in the Gospel of John as well other places: Love as you have been loved.

This concept of Ubuntu is a universal spiritual truth: We are all connected to one another. It may seem that someone starving in another land, or a child dying on another continent, or someone is freezing because of being unhoused, or a parent is overwhelmed, or someone fighting addiction is not our problem because of being physically separated.

If we truly understand this concept of Ubuntu and hold the Golden Truth in our forethought, we may begin to realize our vocation as human beings is to co-create, along with the Great Creator, God, YHWH, Christ, a community called beloved. What Jesus refers as the Kindom of heaven. The heart and essence of God.

Before we can get to a place of real human thriving and freedom for everyone we must deal with the negative side of humanity, the human predicament of every generation. When we only think about our own little selves, in our own little communities, in our own little families, we begin to live in silos of separation.  When we live like this, we become blind to the divine spark in our neighbor, ready willing and able to crush the human spirit under the weight of oppression.

When we become blind the Divine spark in all of humanity, all of creation, we then turn our attention to “them”, “those people”, “those others” who are not like us and a creation to be exploited to annihilation. This becomes a slippery slope towards dehumanizing “others”, which we can more easily oppress, disregard, plunder, kill, maim, enslave, obliterate, exploit, and so on.

Not all hate speech leads to genocide. But all genocide begins with hate speech. When we allow the dehumanization of others to be our language, we not only sin against the Divine, we also perpetuate an unhealthy living environment for all of us.

Think of slavery and the treatment of the indigenous people on this continent as well as Hitler and the Jewish Holocaust as only a couple examples as to what happens when we lose our ability to not just see but to honor the divine spark in others as we honor it in ourselves. When this happens, we are played for fools by tyrants and humanity is poisoned.

The most pressing problems of the world won’t be solved by more division, separation, hate speech, and separation between us and them. We need fresh ideas and fresh ways of understanding how to be in community with one another. Maybe that begins with realizing our connectedness to one another.

The idea of Ubuntu, the golden truth, begins with honoring the divine spark in others runs counter to the empirical, hierarchical, patriarchal world view that leads to domination.

Seeing the divine spark in others opens our hearts to see their plight as our plight, their hunger as our hunger, their oppression as our oppression, and their right to human thriving and freedom as our own.

If I truly honor that divine spark in myself then I seek to answer the most pressing questions that stymy human flourishing. Human flourishing for me and mine is tied up in the human flourishing in all of humanity.

To live in Ubuntu, to live the Golden Truth, is to humanize all of creation. Humanizing all of creation means that our first spiritual response is empathy towards others instead of exploitation and oppression.

Let us open the eyes of our hearts.

Let us do the work of honoring the divine spark in all of creation.

Let us do the work to break down all barriers to human flourishing and freedom.

Let us begin by honoring the Divine Spark within each of us.

Let us all live into our vocation as spiritual beings, divine spark bearers, as co-creators with the Great Creator of this community God calls beloved.

Let us live into the ethic of Christ in Jesus: Love as you have been loved.

Ubuntu please.

Holy Week

Each day of the week we will post a YouTube link to our Journey through Holy Week short videos.

Check back all through the week and discover the deeper story of Resurrection Sunday.

The thematic focus for these videos is the notion that Resurrection Sunday, without the truth of the Cross, becomes nothing but a cute Easter bunny.

Swaying Within the Web of the eternal divine

Richard Rohr can help us dive into this discussion of the Eternal Divine: The here-and-now has the power to become the gateway and the breakthrough point to the universal. The concrete, the specific, the physical, the here-and-now—when we can be present to it in all of its ordinariness—becomes the gateway to the Eternal. 

In the heaven and hell dualistic way of thinking, eternal life begins after death. Quite succinctly, heaven is to come if we do the right things now, in this life, we can earn eternal life. Even as this worldview is not unique to Christianity, it has been a part of and continues to permeate much of Christian theology.

Richard Rohr helps us see a more inclusive, expansive, and experiential understanding, the connection within all of time and space. We are all part of the eternal web of life now and as well as the one to come: The Universal Eternal Now. (my summation).

So that in terms of humanity, humankind in history, we are all part of the eternal now: one long journey of time within the Eternal Divine.

If only we could see it. If only we could live it.

Maybe if and when we can understand that time is not something that begins and ends with us. Think of the cycle of life that we witness. Our ancestors dealt with life and death and went about the business of creating institutions, secular and religious, to answer the deepest questions of life and death.

As a matter of fact, since the beginning of humankind and human thought, life and death have been the subject of endless conversation. This is the basis of Christianity really. To wrestle with life, death, God, and community.

If we can understand that time and God are eternal, then we may begin to understand that we are all part of the web of the eternal Divine. We may see the different strands of the One Eternal Web of the Divine as separate. If we look closely at the web however, in the right light, we may see that it is all connected. Time, space, us and God, we are all stuck together within this web, connected by time and space.

If the wind blows the web to swaying, we all sway with the movement of the Spirit.

If only we could see it. If only we could live it.

No matter where we may find ourselves on the different strands of the web, we are all connected within the eternal Divine. If and when we can realize our connectedness we may begin seeing each human as part of the Divine creation. This seeing may help to stem the tide of mistreating each other.

If only we could live it.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This is one the most well known sayings in the world: The Golden Rule. Not just in Christianity from Jesus. But in all faiths this is expressed in different ways and languages. This rule, or spiritual truth, can help us see how connected we are. That to treat the world as we wish to be treated is a much better way to live together on this tiny little dot in the universe we call earth.

It is even deeper than that. Our well being is collective much more than individualistic. We are tied together much more than we are seperated.

This is the lesson of the Eternal Web of the Divine. When we understand, learn as then to live as if we are our neighbor. Not each others neighbor. But we are the neighbor. What we do to others we do ourselves.

If only we could see it. If only we could live it.

Then we may be able to live and thrive together in peace, love, compassion, and thriving for all of human kind.

Love God, neighbor, self. Not one or the other. All three in loving harmony.

This is the design of the universe.

This is the design of the Eternal Web of the Divine.

Ruach: The Hebrew word for breath.

I spent my childhood vacations camping on an island in the middle of the Mississippi river and I grew up in Michigan from the time I was a teenager. So, I have been lucky enough to spend time on the shores of the Mississippi as well as lake Michigan. My soul is at its most peaceful when my toes are in the sand next to a body of water.

Very recently we were on vacation recently in the Dominican Republic. It was a wonderful time of relaxation and peace while we spent time walking along the beach under sunlight as well as moonlight. During the whole time we were there the sound of the ocean, the sound of the wind moving in the palm trees and over the water was rumbling in the background. It never got quiet. The wind and the ocean were never at rest.

From my experience both Lake Michigan and the Mississippi river rested at night. As a matter of fact, when the earth turned away from the sun the calm, quiet water glistened under the light of the moon. The sound of the ocean constantly rumbling was not something I had experienced before, especially at night.

On the first night of our return a thunderstorm was brewing. It was unseasonably warm during the evening hours and into the morning. We decided to keep the windows open for the night and enjoy the fresh air.

I had awoken for some reason. While I lay there, I listened to the sounds of the evening hoping to get back to deep sleep. For the most part it was a quiet evening outside accept a few cars could be heard coming down our road.

I could hear a sound off in the distance. I thought I had unconsciously kept the sounds of the rumbling ocean in my head. I thought that’s what I was hearing even though we were hundreds of miles away from an ocean or any body of water for that matter.

It took me a minute to decipher the sound as the wind moving through the trees ahead of the coming thunderstorm. I could hear the light breeze, almost none at all, in the distance and then a quiet roar as the wind moved over the trees closer to the house.

I kept going back to the sound of the distant roar of the ocean until I realized that it was the sound of the wind moving over creation. Both over the water and among the trees. Both were Ruach, the Spirit of the living God.

In the ancient Hebrew text God is known as wind, Ruach. The spirit of God (Ruach Elohim) moved over all the formless creation.

God loved us into being and breathed life into all of creation. The breath of God moves among us, within us. If we listen, hear the spirit in our hearts, we can hear Ruach, the breath of God calling to us.

When we are at rest, at peace in our hearts, we can hear the breath of God moving within us. God’s voice is like the constant roar of the ocean and the quiet wind in the distance.

Sometimes we can hear God speaking to us. Sometimes we can barely hear the whisper of God far off in the distance. Sometimes it takes resting in a deep sleep to heart the voice, Ruach, of God moving in our lives.

May we find quiet times in our lives to sit and be still to hear the voice of God moving, brooding, breathing, among all of creation. May we find quiet times to breathe; to let the Spirit of God fill our lungs and fill our spirit.  

Quiet down.

Listen.

It may be a whisper at times.

It may be a roar.

Ruach, the wind, the Divine voice is constant.

Even if we are hard of hearing at times.

The Spirit of the living, loving God never ceases to be on the move among us, within us.

Asé

Have a listen!

Church, we need to talk.

I invite you to pull up and ear, open your hearts, and listen. Take a breath. Breathe in the Holy Spirit of Love everlasting. Breathe out all preconceived notions. Let us talk.

Howard Thurman reminds us that the spirit of Christmas is a year around affair. Even as we take down the decorations and put away the tree, Christmas is an all the time mind set of empathy and caring. Sometimes, all too often maybe, we forget to carry the spirit of Christmas with us throughout the year.   

When the song of the angels is stilled When the star in the sky is gone, 
When the kings and princes are home When the shepherds are back with their flock, 
 The work of Christmas begins:  To find the lost, 
To heal the broken, 
To feed the hungry, 
To release the prisoner, 
To rebuild the nations, 
To bring peace among brothers, 
To make music in the heart.  

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is celebrated each year on his birthday. All too many times, in too many places and spaces, folks bring out his I Have a Dream speech and forget about the history of racism and white supremacy that led to that speech. All too many times, in too many spaces we forget about his dream of the Beloved Community. We try to forget about the history of racism that grew and continues to prosper and stems from a white supremacist world view.  

I gave a sermon a few weeks ago and expressed to those gathered that a bullet may have killed Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. but white supremacy, backed by a white supremacist theology, loaded the gun and pulled the trigger. In many instances the violence that befell Martin Luther King Jr., along with hundreds of thousands of others, is the natural violent end when white supremacy is challenged, especially when that challenge comes from Black Indigenous People of color.  

Church. We need to talk! 

We must wrestle with our past complacency with racism and white supremacy. We need to reckon with our past racism if we are ever to realize God’s dream of human unity, or the Beloved Community that Martin spoke about and what we ask, yearn for, in our Lord’s Prayer: Thy Kingdom/Kindom come on earth as it is in heaven. In this heaven to come, which we pray breaks through in our time and place in history, racism doesn’t exist.  

In heaven, if all humanity is united in peaceful harmony, if we ask God to break in, now, how can we imagine that we are called to be a white supremacist creation. If heaven is a place of beauty and harmony, if heaven is the beloved community, then how do we work to sustain, ignore, and even create a white supremacist, racist, and violent community? How dare we? How dare we be so arrogant to deny the Image of God in all of creation? 

Let Us make them in Our Image, in Our Image let Us make them.  

Church. We need to talk! 

We do not need to be active in creating, sustaining, or defending a white supremacist world view, nor do we need to be actively violent in our racism. But to deny our racism and the history of white supremacy in our churches is to be complacent and complacency only allows racism to flourish, and a white supremacist theology continues to infect our churches and communities.  

We are all being infected with the poison of racism. Either we believe a white supremacist world view and work to sustain it, even to point of violence, or we are being oppressed and killed, or we are complacent, or we are actively doing antiracism work. The more we are complacent, the more white supremacy and racism flourish, and people are dying due to racist policies and theology.  

Racism is the poisonous water which is poisoning our collective soul. We all, especially followers of Jesus, must do the difficult and courageous work of confronting racism in ourselves, in the institutions where we reside, pray, and work.

It is only through visiting the physician of truth that we may be healed.  

Alas Jesus tells us that we are not left alone in our work: Remember, I Am with you always, to the end of the age. These are the last words spoken to the Disciples of Christ as reported in the Gospel of Matthew.  

God joins us in this co-creation of the beloved community so that all of humanity, each an expression of the Divine image, regardless of our outwardly expression, may thrive.  

It is only in the truth telling, that we may be healed.  

It is only in the healing that we may live as one humanity.  

It is only living as one humanity that the Beloved Community, Thy King/Kindom may come, and may be realized in our here and now of history.

May we remember that the work of Christmas is a year around affair, a way of life, a way of empathy and care for ever more.

May we join in the co-creating, with God, the beloved community.

May we hold tight to the hand of Jesus, lean on and into the Divine Christ in our midst.

May we follow the Spirit of God towards human unity: one humanity created in the Image of the Divine.

May we honor the Divine Spark in others as we honor the Divine Spark in us.

May it be so!

Ashe.

I Love Church!!

I Love Church!

I know how difficult church can be just as I realize how difficult family can be at times,.

I love my family. I love every one of them, even as I remember some of the most difficult and hurtful times in our lives together. Family isn’t easy, and I am no different. I know I had my own times of difficult, and even hurtful behavior.

As I think about getting together with my brothers, our families, and our momma, I smile from ear to ear. I love them and we have fun together. We have a lifetime of memories to share.

I love my church family. I love every one of them, even as I remember some of the most difficult and hurtful times in our lives together, over the years and multiple churches where I served in various capacities before being ordained and called to my current congregation.

I love the feeling of walking into the empty sanctuary, sitting in a pew to get a different view from the one I usually see from the pulpit as pastor and preacher. I especially love listening as the church fills up on Sunday morning with the spirit of love and community. I love to see old friends hug, smiles shared, prayers lifted, songs of praise and lament sung. I love to feel the energy of a sanctuary that comes to life in the Holy Spirit.

I have come to love the spirit of a church that wrestles, discerns, prays and loves together as a community of people gathered by a common faith. Not a right faith. Not a correct tradition. Not an exclusive path to some distant land. But a community of people who gather in varying ways and in varying spaces, to learn from one another and lean on one another.

Church, when church does church well, is a place of community. A place of learning, stretching, and exploring a common faith that pulls us closer to God’s presence. It is a place to experience the Divine within all of creation and to then share that goodness with a world in need.

I love church.

Recently we invested in statues based on the Gospel of Matthew’s reporting of Jesus saying: I was hungry, you fed me; I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink; I was homeless, you gave me a room; I was shivering, you gave me clothes; I was sick, you stopped to visit; I was in prison, you came to me.

It hit me. Sitting as I arranged the statues in our fellowship room.

I love a church that centers Jesus in all that it does.

Not the Jesus of exclusiveness but the Jesus of inclusion.

Not the Jesus of right/wrong beliefs and extreme dualistic worldview. The Jesus that shows us the expansive Spirit of God in all there is.

Not the Jesus of only that time and place in history, but the Jesus that shows the Divine of our own time and place in history now, just as He did then.

The Jesus that invites us to see His Divine Spark, The Christ, so that we can witness that same divine spark in all of creation, even those who society and cultures consider the “least of these” as He says. When and if you do it to anyone, any human, any piece of Creation, you do it to all of humanity: Me, Jesus, the Christ, the Divine, the Human one who lives, walks, and proclaims the divine within each of us.

A church that centers the person of Jesus who still to this day shows us the Sacred, Universal, Cosmic Christ is a church that lives in discernment.

A church that centers Jesus is a church that wrestles with how best embody, as He did, the Love of God in the world.

A church that centers Jesus is a church that explores the depths of God among us. Not just in Jesus but in all of creation.

A church that centers Jesus welcomes all faith traditions as spiritual conduits which allow us, humanity, to experience, explore, and wonder with awe as to the Divine presence, no matter the person, symbol, or tradition that pulls our collective spirit towards deeper love for all of creation and our deepening relationship with and within God.

A church that centers Jesus is a church which sees Jesus in in all of humanity, not just “Christian believers.”

Church is not easy all the time. As a matter of fact, many people have been spiritually, emotionally, and physically hurt by churches proclaiming to be “Christian” but operate far from a Jesus centered faith. In some instances, churches like church more than they like Jesus.

But I love church. The idea of a place where love guides the life of the gathered community can be a good place to find God present and alive in the world. It can be a place to find Jesus, and a catalyst for moving our communities toward a more loving and caring way of being in the world, so that the world may be a more loving and caring place for all.

A good church is a place that replenishes our spirit, a place where we feel cared for, and a place of exploration and expanding our welcome to include all of God’s people.

We may not need more churches in order that people find God. Maybe not.

But a church that invites others to experience God in community and to share that love with the world and one another...O Boy!!!

Those churches are important and have important things to do and say.

I love church!

Learning to cherish

As they say in ministry, a word landed on my heart recently: cherish. 

Cherish is to hold something dear, to protect it. To cherish something or someone is to love, revere, care for, look after, tend, protect, preserve, keep safe, nurture, and so on.

This idea of cherishing someone on a spiritual level sunk deeper into my heart when my wife and I started our family and I realized that when they hurt, I hurt. When they feel joy or healing, I feel joyful and healed myself. The relationships in my life have become something which I hold dear to my heart, in my soul.

When I think of the most wonderful times in my life, moments of deep joy, it has been when these relationships connect my spirit, my soul, my heart, and mind to deep love. The type of love that will both crease a smile of joy across my cheek and water a tear of awe in my eye at the same time. 

I cherish these moments and relationships. They have become the most important things in my life. I want to protect these loved ones. I hold them dear in my heart. I want to keep them safe and nurture their thriving in life.

This idea of cherishing reminds me of the season of Advent as that time each year when we mark, with anticipation and longing, the arrival of the Child, the Christ incarnated in Jesus. The Divine come to be among us. Born human to point us all to the Divine among and within. To help us understand the paradox of the finite and the infinite. To help us see and live into the space of the material and the spiritual.

In the church we spend this season anticipating with longing the coming of the Christ child. We end up cherishing the child Jesus during Christmas time. We hold Him dear in our heart through our gathering for worship.

Jesus is our Christian reminder that God cherishes us so much that They needed to come be among us, to teach all of humankind the importance of relationship. They cherished us so much that They became one of us to remind us that we are all connected to each other and the eternal Divine. Jesus is the reminder that God came by here then and comes by here now and will continue coming by here, showing up for all to witness and experience.  

Jesus grows up to challenge any system that tramples one human being in order that some may have at the expense of others who go without. Jesus grows up to say NO to the empire of greed and power. We, humanity in history, stop cherishing the child Jesus when we disregard Jesus the adult and His earthly ministry.

If we cherished the child in Jesus, we would simply stop killing one another.

If we cherished the child in Jesus, we would stop oppressing others as less than for our own greed.

If we cherished the child in Jesus, we would cherish everything that Jesus cherished. Which, when we read the text and look for the deeper meaning contained in the Gospel, is all of creation. Each piece, part, and person.

If we cherished the child in Jesus there would be no other to oppress or devalue as less than fully human.

We cherish the child in Jesus when we witness HIs presence no matter where He shows up.

If we can learn to fully grasp the concept that Jesus was fully human as well as fully divine, we may be able to learn to cherish Jesus not just during Advent and Christmas. We may be able to cherish the child Jesus who is alive as the Christ in us and all of creation, as was alive in the universe prior to the Child born in Jesus.

This all means that we cherish each child of creation, even as we are all children of the Creation. It means that the child in any space or in any time is worth our spiritual cherishing.

When we cherish the child in Jesus, when we listen for His voice, we hear God saying back, We/Us/They/God cherish these moments, these relationships. They are the most important things, and We want to protect these loved ones. We hold them dear in Our heart. We want to keep them safe and nurture their thriving in life.

When we cherish each piece, part, and person of creation we are cherishing Jesus as God so cherishes each of us.

Holding the Christ Child in Jesus within our hearts reminds us that God is holding all of creation within the Heart of all that was, all that is, and that will ever be.

Can You See It?

In the midst of yet another senseless bombing and kidnapping of innocent people and the ensuing war, we are all aghast as we watch the killing and displacement of innocent families and children.

This is not unique to the people of Israel and Palestine. We have seen this play out many times during the history of humankind. Each time the loss is human life, and nothing is gained.

In every instance war is a failure of humanity. Each time we witness the killing of innocent people, the loss of life and home, and the displacement of families and children, we are witnessing a break down and a breaking apart of our shared humanity. What we witness is the dehumanization of our neighbors who we are called to love as ourselves. Dehumanization does not just happen in times of war.

Dehumanization happens every day. All we must do is tune in to our social feeds or most 24 hr. news channels. Or simply click on any headline. It seems that all the forces of nature and our world are aligned with the singular agenda of winning at any cost and doing it with hateful rhetoric. I wrestle with this behavior myself. Allowing my frustration to become anger in me. Even if I direct that anger in hateful behavior or words towards an injustice, I allow that anger to live in me and ruin who I am in the world.

You see I believe that I am called to be love in the world. In my Christian tradition my template for how that happens is the person of Jesus. Who, guided by the Christ within, did stand up in moments of anger. But it did not overtake him to the point of revenge. Instead, his devotion to all of humanity cost Him his life. Jesus, led by God’s spirit within his soul, the Christ, did not allow the ways of the world to ruin His spirit.

That’s a pretty good template for life.

But it can be difficult.

I refuse!

I refuse to allow the world to ruin who I am, what I am called to be and do in this lifetime.

I refuse to believe that war, death, hate, anger, and rage are the ways of the world.

Or more to the point…. the ways of God.

If we see and live the Way of Jesus, we see that the realm of God, the heart of the Divine is not anger and rage. I realize that differing interpretations of our sacred text, which we call the bible, may hold other beliefs. Even the people who shared the stories had differing views of God.

If we take Jesus seriously as our guide along this new Way of being and doing in the world, we see someone who expresses his frustration towards the empire of greed and power yet lifts not one single finger towards revenge. As a matter of fact, some of Jesus’s last utterances; “forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”, Luke 23:34, is a radical way to live free of a vengeful heart, even in death.

In today’s world it may seem difficult to see the goodness of humanity. We are witnessing senseless killing and dehumanization of others as a way of communication, not just war. This way of being in the world is ruinous to our collective soul.

We can all do our part to be the goodness of God and to put God’s goodness back into a hurting world. We can all do our own little part to take a stand on the moral arc of the universe and bend it towards justice.

If we look around we can see the goodness of God alive and thriving in our time and place in history.

Take a look around.  

When we can see and feel the goodness of God within all there is, within us, within all of humanity, then we can express that innate goodness in all that we do so that the current disfunction, war, and dehumanization don’t take over our soul. So that our spirit is one of goodness for all the world to witness.

There are millions of little moments of goodness happening every day, all around us. If we look for them, we can see them when we turn the eyes of our heart towards the goodness that exists.

Can you see it?

See the smile on a child’s face.

See someone hugging another.

See someone open the door for another.

See someone paying it forward.

See the generosity of your neighbor.

See the twinkle in the eyes of your partner.

See the smile on your face as you witness the goodness in the world.

See the smiles on the faces around you.

 Can you see it?

See the sunset.

See the sunrise.

See the trees moving with the wind.

See the birds in the sky.

See the twinkling of the stars.

Can you feel it?

Feel the love in your heart

Feel the compassion you posses.

Feel the Divine spark within your soul.

Feel your innate propensity towards goodness.

Feel the Spirit moving within.

Feel your love.

Feel the peace that exists deep within.

Feel the love of God for all of creation.

Feel the love of God for who you are.

May we see the innate goodness within

So that we can witness to the innate goodness of the Eternal God

Who breathed us into creation and loved us into being.

May we reflect our goodness

Back into a world yearning to see the goodness of God.

Ashe or Amen. How about both?

A few months ago we started using the word Asé (Ashe) at the end of our written prayers during worship on Sunday mornings: Amen and Ashe.

After the first Sunday a young child in our church asked what does Ashe mean? Then more folks began asking. That prompted this Pastor’s Porch.

Just like all other aspects of life, religion, and faith, it is about the exploration of God and community much more than it is about concrete answers.  Ashe became a wonderful teaching moment for me as Pastor, the one who began using the term in the first place, and our church.

The word that comes to us as Ashe comes from the African word Asé and has multiple meanings. It stems from the Yoruba language, which originated in Nigeria.

In most western, and or American, churches it is used in the same vein as Amen. In that context both words have the same or similar meaning; may it be, we pray it, and we ask that it be so in our lifetime. Amen and Ashe can also mean a way of expressing affirmation. As in, we need more peace in the world and less war. Let it come to full fruition in our lifetime. Amen and Ashe.

Ashe also carries the meaning of the life force that is within each of us. The connection of all that is in the world through this life force.

In my spirit I began using the word, after hearing it used in black church worship services, to expand our understanding of the world. I believe that too many times we forget about the big wide world that exists outside our tiny little communities.

The world is a vast and diverse place that we live in. Even with the world available and accessible with a click or a scroll, sometimes we tend to live within our own little window of experience.

Ashe and the discussion which followed allowed us the spiritual space to remember that our window of experience is a fraction of both time and space.

Ashe recalls and celebrates the vastness and diversity of the universe along with our connection to one another, across land and sea, across cultures and languages.

One of the aspects of sharing Ashe along with the Amen is that we get to remember that we are all connected by our faith in the Divine, our yearning for connection and peace, and our one shared humanity.

Amen and Ashe open the heart of our collective spirits and allow us to experience a posture of celebration and remembrance. 

The world is vast, even if it feels small within our connections in our local communities.

The world is diverse, even if it seems everyone one around us is the same.

The tapestry of God’s creation is a beautiful work of cosmic art.

Amen and Ashe.

Everything and everyone, when we allow it, aims the eye of our heart towards the Divine Presence in our lives.

Amen and Ashe

Every piece of creation, every human form of expression bears the image of Divine creativity.

Amen and Ashe.

The Table Is Set

The table is set.

This table stretches on throughout eternity, even into the heavenly realm, that space on the other side of the veil. At this table we can eat, be merry, and interact with all those we wish to invite, those here and those who have gathered on the other side of the veil.

We have traveled through this house, this home within our hearts, within our spirit. 

Here is the secret. 

The table is the point of it all. The table is where we find the spiritual nourishment of God and the truth that, not only is there enough for everyone to be fed, but that we are enough.

All our contemplation, each step of our journey deep into the heart of our home within the heart of God, found in our soul, has been a journey that brings us to this eternal table.

We are called to set this table for everyone who is hungry in the here and now. We are called to share from a place of abundance instead of hording from a place of scarcity. We are called to set this table and invite all to come, have a seat and be fed. We are invited by a God who bids us come and be fed so that you may feed others. 

All of our wisdom and the wisdom of our ancestors leads us to this table where our bodies and spirits can be fed. Too many times in our lives we are fed by other influences that continuously tell us we are not enough. Those influences, wherever they come from, push us away from the central fact of life: We are enough.

Each of us bear the image of God and carry within us that divine spark that was imbued within each of us, even before we were born: The image of the Divine, the Christ.

The point of meditation and contemplation is to remind ourselves that no matter what the world may say, God invites us through constant reminders that we are enough.

This is the place where we remind the injured part of our human spirit that there is a seat for us all at the table of God’s eternal love. We are not required to bring something to this feast. All has been provided, everything has been prepared. We are free to relax, let go, in order to more fully enjoy the presence of God.

Come, pull up a chair, take your place at the eternal table of God’s love.

Come, pull up a chair, take a look around and see all the smiling faces, take in the feast that is set.

Come, pull up a chair, everyone is here, ready to enjoy the meal and the conversation.

Come, pull up a chair, breathe in all the fragrances that surround the table.

Come, pull up a chair, everyone is welcome.

Come, pull up a chair, be nourished in spirit, that we may all become the invitation, hosts at our own dinner table, so that everyone may be fed..

Come, pull up a chair, no one goes away hungry.

The kitchen of abundance

Within the home of our heart are many rooms, castles, mansions, places that we can reach by contemplation, prayer, or other kinds of meditation. Or just by listening to the sights and sounds of life that surrounds us.  

Here on Pastor’s Porch, we are discussing this notion as the home in our hearts. We are moving through this home and exploring these different rooms within our soul.  

After exploring these many rooms within our heart, the interior castle, we are invited to come into the kitchen of abundance. In this kitchen the cupboards are stock to overflowing. These cupboards are endless, and the kitchen is vast. The scents that we smell create in us a yearning to be fed in our spirit and in our belly’s. It reminds us how hungry we are to sit in the presence of a God who will feed us, who will fill our spirit to overflowing.

The aromas in this kitchen overtake us when we enter. They invite us deep into the heart of this place of creation, dreaming, remembering, exploring, and abundance. This kitchen, this endless supply of everything we need to be nourished in spirit and sustenance, invites us to remember the abundance of blessings in our lives. A reminder that God is an endless God who knows no bounds and breaks down all barriers that prevent human flourishing.

This kitchen reminds us that no one deserves to go hungry in body or spirit. It reminds us that there is enough, more than enough, an abundance of blessings to share. Within this meditation on abundance, we pull ourselves into a theology of more than enough and we push against a worldview or theology of scarcity.

This overflowing kitchen invites us to sit and experience what it is to be in the presence of God’s eternal plentifulness and abundance. It teaches us to sit in the spirit of gratitude and from that place of gratitude we are able share what has been given, freely and unconditionally. It invites us to dream of new and different recipes for sharing all that we have been given.

In this kitchen we are taught to prepare and openly share from an overflowing spirit of gratitude.

Come, pull up a chair.

Sit in the presence of eternal abundance.

Breathe into your spirit the aroma of plenty.

Relax as God prepares our hearts for sharing.

Look around, notice all that God has done.

Look around, notice all that God is preparing.

Explore all the ways that we can share.

Explore all the ways we can nourish our soul.

Explore all the ways that we can be nourishment for a hungry world.

The doors are open.

The kettle is on.

A meal is being prepared.

Come and be fed.

Come, no one goes hungry.

God is in the kitchen.

the room of creation

Within the home of our heart are many rooms, castles, mansions, places that we can reach by contemplation, prayer, or other kinds of meditation. Or just by listening to the sights and sounds of life that surrounds us.  

Here on Pastor’s Porch, we are discussing this notion as the home in our hearts. We are moving through this home and exploring these different rooms within our soul.  

Our journey began in the base of this home where knowledge resides within our own innate wisdom and the wisdom of our faith elders. The base of our spiritual home is our faith that sustains us. Faith that can be deepened through exploration, much more than certainty.

This is the room of creation. It is the room that may feel the most inviting as, for some of us and for me, time within the beauty of creation draws my heart to the peaceful presence of God. Whether I’m standing on the shores of a sandy beach listening to the crashing waves or deep in a forest standing on the edge of an inland lake, or a quiet field of grass, or deck sitting early in the morning, peace abounds when I am emersed in a spirit of appreciation as I witness the heart of God within creation, as it is within me.

This room is made of glass, inviting us to sit within the presence of God in all that we see. It is a warm place that allows us to even enjoy creation during the changing seasons, yes, even as the snow falls, we are sitting within the warmth of a caring God.

We can spend all of our time here, watching all the frolicking animals of the forest crinkle the leaves as they chase and play. The squirrels high in the tree, the tiny chipmunks chasing each other around the leaves, the deer moving about, the bear picking a few berries, and so on. In this place all of creation finds a home, living in harmony.

If we choose to venture out and about to put our feet on the ground, maybe laying down in the field of grass, we will be safe, never losing sight of our home or this room.

You see this room is endless, vast, and ever changing. One day it may be a forest and another day it may be a desert, or a wetland, or a lush valley, or it may be a mountain. The seasons change so that we can experience all of creation from all the different climates and terrains of the world.

This room teaches us as well: We are all connected, and creation is the blessing which is bestowed upon every creature of this world.

In this room we are taught through being present and among all of creation. We are taught not by a book or professor. We are taught by being within creation so that we can be within the heart of God and know that there is no hierarchy to creation. There is only being a part of the life cycle for a time.

In this room we realize that as we move through the seasons of our lives, the changing of seasons of this earth, God walks with us every step of the way, calling us to the home within our souls, the rooms of our heart.

In this room God beckons us, come, sit with me, and see the gifts of life.

Come, sit with me, my child, and know the beauty of who you are: a part of this creation that shows you Our presence in all there is, for all time, beyond time, and beyond space.

The heart of creation

Resides in the heart of God.

The heart of God

Resides within the heart of creation.

God resides in our souls.

Open the windows of your heart!

Listen to the vibrations of the heartbeat of God!

Open the windows of your heart!

Breathe creation in!

Exhale Creation’s love

Come sit with me She says!

Come be among Us

As we are among you!