Archive of "faith" Category
Let the “No” define you and the “Yes” inspire…
I can not stop thinking about how good it felt after a sales meeting when a president of a local grocery store said, “I can not go with your coffee because It would be like shooting myself in the head.” What he was saying in my perspective is: you do not represent what I want.
Stop for just one min and contemplate that:
“Your product is not what I want.”
This is a phrase communicated though out the day in the economy of people. We are communicating all the time about what we want and what we do not want.
“Let the No define you and the Yes inspire you…” rang in my ear as I walked out that meeting late one night.
What people want defines who they are. When we cloud what we want with words from another vocabulary we miscommunicate to people. When we do not say what we mean we miscommunicate and confuse others. Then we become frustrated by the no, the passive aggressive no.
The metaphor of product as people is a bit controversial, and I enjoy entering in the conversation of consumerism a “buzz” word that interests me.
Here is what I hear when I listen to people talking about consumerism as bad.
I hear:
“you must watch what you buy”
“scrutinize every purchase”
“become a conservationist”
“don’t buy certain things”
I hear a generalization of the natural order of society, which is production and consumption.
I am a producer and people I sell to are consumers or customers. In order to make a transaction I need to connect to the basic need of that person, to consume what I produce.
What I am saying is this, most people are extremely picky about what they buy or do not buy, and in doing so, put people in catagories intentionally or unintentionally by what they buy. The conversation I have been apart of is more about categorizing people than it is about responsibility.
Here are some questions:
Is it more sustainable or socially responsible for a low income family to shop at Walmart?
Can the only middle and upper class families shop green?
A reflection on communion as talked about in the gospels/acts.
Jesus used the consumption language in communion and it dumbfounds me to this day.
Are we suppose to consume relationships?
Are we missing the point of relationships by categorizing people by what they consume?
For example:
Do we love overweight people less? (they consume a lot of food, right?)
Do we judge someone who wares a t-shirt that represents something we resent.
Have our judgments become resentments leading to categories for people? Affect they way we treat others.
Here is what I have observed.
People are starting to judge others and make cases against others,
The question being asked is who is in and out of their community.
Who is lost and does not get it?
Are they worth talking to and listening to what they say?
Is what they represent not what you are looking for and therefor like shooting yourself in the head?
Here is what I know:
Jesus brought those outside of the religious community in, and he even consumed or took part in unholly things, like wine and healing on the sabbath. I like how confusing Jesus becomes when we put him in our context and I like how simple the gospel becomes when we look at the gospel story literally.
Side note: I hope this was as fun to read as it was to write
When youtube becomes a preacher
Jim and Casper go to church on youtube is an off the map production.
There was a comment made at the end of this clip about how Casper is sure their are good things going on in some churches.
I am reminded of a life changing movie, “On the Waterfront” Here are some quotes:
Father Barry: Some people think the Crucifixion only took place on Calvary. Well, they better wise up!
Father Barry: You want to know what’s wrong with our waterfront? It’s the love of a lousy buck. It’s making love of a buck – -the cushy job – -more important than the love of man!
Edie: Shouldn’t everybody care about everybody else?
Terry: Boy, what a fruitcake you are!
Sometimes I feel like a “fruitcake”.
There is something stirring in my soul/spirit again.
My mind races with thoughts of friends in leadership at church’s around the country in crisis. Overall most people would say the American church is in Crisis, I tend to agree.
The clip from youtube gives me insight into what I have felt about the modern evangelical church.
There needs to be a response, a simple clear response like Father Barry confronting the Mob on the water front.
Father Barry: Isn’t it simple as one, two, three? One: The working conditions are bad. Two: They’re bad because the mob does the hiring. And three: The only way we can break the mob is to stop letting them get away with murder.
Or by confronting the religious complacency like Eddie:
Edie: What kind of saint hides in a church?
The movement needs all types of people:
Who will you be?
In your love my salvation
This morning the prayer and the song became one. As I listen to Alexi Murdock’s “Orange Sky” I read from “>www.Sacredspace.ie, the site I visit for spiritual formation, I felt the salvation of my soul.
I read these words:
Lord, help me to be fully alive to your holy presence.
Enfold me in your love.
Let my heart become one with yours.
I heard these words:
“In your love, my salvation, in your love, my salvation.”
These are the words I hear when I read the gospels, when thinking of the church these words seem faint.
Salvation seems to have lost it’s relevance in the American society. With out a need for a savior we no longer look, or seek one.
Jesus is has become a pop icon and the church has become the irrelevant contribution to this mess.
Maybe I say this because of what I have been observing over the past couple months in my community.
This past week has been late night conversations about the kingdom, the church and frustration with the expectation of how the people of God should be… I am tired by the critique, I want to see the salvation, the return of the simple words of Jesus.
Those of you who are misplaced, sick and tired come to me and you will find rest.
Go into the world and follow me. I am already there. (A paraphrase of the theme I pull out in Christ’s words through out the Gospels)
There is a subtle story line of a God who has both come to heal, and come to fulfill the call. No longer do we have to see our own calling as a personal role, we can now enter a story beyond our understanding of a God/Man who is apart of the Father and has given himself to the world. As the Spirit remains we are the remembrance, we are the spirit. As we begin to trust in the end result of all things done by God for God we see ourselves a small and significant to the Mission.
May you hear the words of, “In your love my salvation, in your love my salvation.”
With love and peace in my heart…
“Practicing the Omni-Presence of God”
This is a quote by a gentlemen named Joseph R. Myers:
I was privileged to sit in a class with him this past Friday, when he said this phrase, “so often we practice the omni-presence of Evil, I try to practice the omni-presence of God.”
God is present and all people belong to God, that means I belong.
The very thing I have longed for the majority of my life was to belong.
Since God is present and I am in present, I belong. It is in this space of thinking I find security. My ego is satisfied if only for a moment and I am home. Connected to where I have come from and where I will be, I am there. Suspended beyond time and memory to the very nature of my being, my true source of self is freedom.
We create constraints on our self, what we can do and not do. There are limitations in our own mind create by our connections we have made and we live under a veil of impossibility. I know longer want to live behind such a veil.
This is where I meet God. If I where to self create an outcome for my life, it would be limited to my own desires and passion. Though I have to start somewhere, I begin with self and move from there.
There is a great parable in Luke 5, where Jesus comes upon the soon to be disciples and tells them to through their nets on the other side and this will not be the last time they are asked to do something irrational. They had been fishing all night and the boat was small. To through a net, which would not make it into a new part of the water, on the other side of the boast would prove itself foolish if it was not for the possibility of God’s interaction in the World.
It is at this moment they meet God at the intersection of faith and reason, something takes place beyond themselves opening them up to a realm of possibility.
“could this be God?” They fall to their knees in an unworthy posture to the creator and created being of God.
May this posture position our own minds into the realm of practicing the omni-presence of God.
