Seeing Marriage

They were talking of being married fifty years. One said it would be wonderful, representing a half century of sacrifice, of surviving the suffering and difficulty of life. It made the fifty years sound like a million. Another said it should be seen as a celebration of love and closeness, of a life spent in discovery and fulfillment. It sounded like but a day.

How we see it makes it what it is. How it is lived, what people bring to it or allow it to give makes marriage real for them. And so even though in each marriage there may be sacrifice as well as love, and difficulty beside fulfillment, the dominant factor is what we allow it to be. What we will see is what is.

Loaves

Had they understood what the loaves had meant then his walking on water would not have seemed startling. It would have been dismissed as a lesser event, but they hadn't understood and so responded to the sparkle of it all.

Their Different God

Their God was different. He gave as well as took. It was sharing, not a one way traffic. Other gods demanded. They thundered and threatened. They required statues with angry faces and bodied modeled on our own. But their God cared. He loved them and they shared in a specialness the sharing created. He had no need of sacrifice. It added nothing to him, and he had meaning apart from their response. He needed no cajoling, no groveling. He hadn't to threaten and so they could learn he was real.

Conflict

Frustrated by truths that conflict with belief we cling to the safer of the two.

Forgiveness

Can we forgive God for the stupidity of death? Have we a choice?

Church's Youth

The Church is very young. It is still in its infancy and like all infants it is trying to know who and what it is, and where it is going in a world it does not yet understand. So it has to try and fail and guess and grope but it has time and in time it will learn.

Shades

Jesus is black, yellow, brown and red. He comes in more shades than "basic white."

Poverty

Today we buried someone who was poor, so poor the family had to beg for a grave. And because of their poverty some thought they had no right to their grief and sorrow. They thought instead they should be grateful and nothing more.

It is symptomatic of so much thought that excludes from humanity those who do not, or cannot, attain or what have not, for whatever reason, conformed to what seems a norm. The poor are excluded more than most. Their human-ness is denied, and in denial of it we are denying our own.

Benefits of Belief

People without belief have no one to be mad at when terrible things happen.

Indefinite

A number of things have to stay indefinite. Exactness would destroy them.

Activity

She defines herself in terms of activity and when not doing something she ceases to be.

Mom - 26 years

Stateless

God is without nationality and bound to bless the bombs of no one.

Hiding Humanity

Institutions and images challenge and confront one another. Ideologies and opinions come into conflict. But behind the image is a person. The institution is ultimately flesh and blood. The opinion conceals who stands behind it, nor do ideologies live apart from their disciples. Nothing survives as an idea. It must be sustained in the mind and heart of the believer. However, it is far easier, so much safer, to hide humanity in a movement. To be a something attaching a something else is as secure as it is impersonal.

Interest

He seems to have lost interest in living. Not that dying has any appeal, but there is so little vitality in a life that cannot be shared. It doesn't seem worth the effort.

Unspoken

Unspoken words sometimes say more, but can also hurt more.

The Prodigal's Brother

What about the son who stayed home, the prodigal's brother? What can we say about him? He did not leave. He did what he thought he'd been told. He had, in fact, every right to feel righteous and I think he did. He was faithful, but at the expense of growth and maybe he hid in his constancy. He did not change.

The prodigal who went out was not the same as the one who returned. He had taken a chance and so became different. He lost everything, but maybe in losing he found as well. Maybe he found himself. Not so his brother. He stayed in the womb that was his home, not knowing there was a need to look beyond. He stayed where there was no searching, no losing, no danger. Maybe that is why he never became someone about whom a parable might be told. Maybe it is too why he could not understand.

Because he never asked a question he was unable to see an answer. He played it too safe and so ceased to be anything more than right, and just a bit dull. He never grew, though he may have thought he did, and maybe at the end his story was seen to be a tragedy, a history of what might have been.

Small Circle

We have control only over the small circle in which we stand. This is so even if we wish, or act as though, we had control over others or were influenced by them so that choices we made could not be our own. We decide about us. It is a power we cannot cede, a right we cannot take even when it is offered.

Compromise

I hear what he is saying and I know what he means. I can even sympathize with his point of view. But I still disagree.

Rainbows

Sometimes I feel I am chasing rainbows. Since I cannot really stop I can only hope they are worth pursuing.

Problem

Having named the problem he was accused of causing it.

Mixed Message

Today I met a man who felt God was speaking to him. But while he spoke distinctly God's message was not always clear. Parts seemed to make sense. Some words were easily understood. Yet when he tried to put it together something was missing. They key to it all was not actually there. Hiding behind my image I did not reply, "I know just what you mean."

God does speak. He tries to communicate. We try to say who he is and what he would like to mean. Yet his message can sometimes be garbled, maybe because having said it as best he can he must then trust us to unravel or interpret, maybe filling in the gaps or offering the key so there will be a meaning to give value to his words.

He trusts us then to act on what we thought was heard, assuring us we would never be wrong. Because of his faith in us he believes in our reply.

Exceedingly

We used to say, "I have sinned exceedingly." We don't say that anymore. If we sin at all it is certainly not exceedingly.

Incomplete

In the beginning God created all kinds of beautiful things. He made suns, moons and stars. He made earth and mountains. He fashioned oceans, rivers and any number of animals. But it was not complete until he made man. And man was incomplete until there was woman. Only when there were people could he say it was good.

Sometimes love can hurt more than anything else in the world

The Seed

Perhaps the road had wanted to receive the seed. Maybe the stones tried to nurture it. Maybe even the weeds sought to make it into something. But they couldn't. No matter how much they tried, they couldn't be earth. They would receive according to their nature, and it would be better and mean more than trying to be something else.

Before Meaning

Before determining what something means, we do well to ask what it is. When something occurs it's to be named, a step we often overlook in our rush to clarify and interpret it, never realizing we are making clear what was never there.

Easier & Simpler

It is easier to tell you what to do than ask what you might like. Simpler for both if one of us takes charge, but it is not necessarily better. Not for either of us.

Legion

It was night and he sought no day. It was winter but he wanted no spring. He dreamed of death and thought of dying, and sometimes he thought they'd already come. He was as he was because he knew nothing better. He thought it had to be this way, and so it was.

To him God meant judge; life meant suffering; existence itself meant only resignation; and love meant nothing at all. He endured. He survived until he ceased to be. His name, unfortunately, is Legion.

Why Naming Matters

Things are what we call them. They are the name we give to them, and the name determines, permits or ratifies the action following from it.

Today

You can always think today is when the miracle will occur.

Creation

They were saying God created so there would be something, then someone, to reflect his glory - a rather self-centered or egocentric and decidedly unworthy notion. If we call the process sharing rather than reflecting, making it participation, inviting creation into the glory, it becomes more worthy, more valued action.

Mistake

God, it is too late to make the difference I wanted. It is too late to undo the death, and eternal life is not the life I need. I think you have made a terrible mistake.