Refuge

It can be easier taking refuge in worldwide and earth-shaking movements than it is facing the depth of being within ourselves.

The Risks of Truth-Telling

If someone reached what seemed a truth, a word he thought should be spoken because it seemed important; and if, having said it to a thousand people, he found most did not listen and of those who did many did not understand, while others smiled and greed then forgot or chose not to act, it still would have been true.  Still worth the effort, still worth risking the rejection or indifference.

If only one person really listens, and even if no one does, there is meaning.  Truth has value in itself, a value beyond foolish smiles and nodding, or wagging, heads.  It is something that simply has to be.  A word must be said since saying gives it life.  It is what Jesus knew about the truth he thought he'd reached.  He recognized a debt to what he had come to, and without paying it, without risking the speaking of what he believed, he would not have been himself.  I think we owe similar debts, but maybe fear paying them.

Contest With Cancer

The cancer stole parts of our past and all of our future, but it could not take what we had and could never touch who we were to each other.  It took away what might have been, but we had what was.  If it was a contest, I think we won.  If we won, why does it hurt so bad?

Being Honest With God

In the Psalms are the voices of people who can be honest with God.  They say what they feel and say it out loud because their God is a person rather than an untouchable, unreachable majesty.  He shepherded them in the desert and walks with them now.  He can hear and understand, and even change his mind.  He cares for them and seems to need them as much as they need him.

A Mission for the Church

Despair seems so prevalent.  For whatever reason, a number of people are alone and lost, thinking no one cares.  No one stops.  No one hears.  They feel they need not be, and then wish they were not.  Maybe, along with everything else, it is the Church's mission to stop, to listen and care, to tell them they are not alone, they are loved (and not merely by God).

Naming Pain

He rarely mentions her name anymore.  It looks like denial, but I think its name is pain.

More Than Just A Word

Love is just a word until it becomes attached to and identified with one other person.

Saying and Listening

It is so much easier to talk than to listen.  Less important what we say than that we say it.

In Search of God

We look for God and sometimes think we can almost see him, that he is maybe just ahead or around that next bend in the road.  But even when we call, he may not answer.  Still, we know he is there, that we will catch up and that the search will have been worthwhile.

People Make Mistakes

People do not make mistakes because the are bad but because they are people.

Dad's Birthday

Sounds Like Anger

He is angry and calls it concern saying he is motivating, teaching or protecting; but it sounds like anger.

Knowing Our Responsibility

We hear about law and order, about the power government should or should not have, about our need to take stands and our responsibility in social spheres.  Maybe these are the questions discussed in Jesus' time.  It is maybe what they are asking in the Gospel when the Pharisees and Herodians want to know:  should we, as Jews, pay an unjust tax; must we, who are God's people, live under oppression; can we, in conscience, support Rome?  And if not, what should we do?

How does Jesus answer?  I don't think he does.  He gives us some guidelines.  He tell them give government what it has the right to.  He says what is God's will should also be done.  But he doesn't answer the question.  He says nothing about what to do here and now.  It is up to them.  It is their decision.  They are on their own.

It is the same still.  God has given some guidelines or indications.  In Jesus he pointed out a direction, but he has not given answers to all our questions.  He has in some ways given more questions than answers.  So, just as did the people of Jesus' time we have decisions to make, deciding what seems right, what seems to be God's will.

Sometimes it will be difficult, but it is all right since God remains on our side and is less concerned with success or failure than with effort.

Impossible Standards

So many seem so attached to such a cruel God, a God who will sooner or later get even with those unable to live up to the impossible standard they say he demands; and as they begin to, as they near what they think he may want, the standard is raised and the penalty is not lessened.  You might wonder why they named him God.

Each Person's Reality

We speak of reality, but what is it?  It may be different for each person.  Everyone's reality is distinct, but real nonetheless.  Although diverse, it is as real as the person who perceives it, or is it.

Deliver Us

Lord, deliver us please from practical men and from those who do wrong things for the right reasons, and vice versa.

Progress

Is it a sign of progress that Christians, who once were being stoned, are now throwing the rocks?

We can do so much without accomplishing a thing

Unconditionally Lovable

Is it unfair to love people simply because Jesus is in them?  Shouldn't they be lovable simply because they are; because they are present in and to themselves, apart from Jesus?

This Nowhere Place

I stand sometimes outside myself unsure I would be welcome within.  Not knowing how to enter but wishing it were my home.  It's lonely and sad, this nowhere place.

Limitations of History

Understanding how things developed, knowing what they mean to signify and appreciating how once they were used does not really explain why they should continue, since history cannot always give something significance.

Perspective

It is wonderful that in her life there were so few unsatisfying events that she could remember each in great detail.  It would be sad to have few good times that they could be recalled with such clarity.

What Failure Is

The failure is less in what we do than in what we leave undone.

Human Like Us

What we tend to forget about people is that they are human, that they are persons with real needs, feelings, and desires.  Too often we forget they are just like us.

Annoying But Necessary

As annoying as it may be, dissent is necessary.  It forces reevaluation, which brings about change through increased awareness.  Some say dissent, for its own sake, can be dangerous.  I wonder if there is such a thing as that, whether aimless disagreement exists.  It may seem extreme, and so threatening, but I think every act or expression has a point, even if we may not understand it.

A Little Clarity

God, if you could say plainly what you have in mind we could, I am sure, discuss it; but you don't speak plainly and we must guess at what you mean.  An inefficient system, at least from our side.

What Is It That Scares Us So?

Like the people gathered at the foot of Mount Sinai we are afraid to see God's face.  We are frightened lest we hear his voice.  We would rather remain distant, safe and unsure, wanting to know but unwilling to listen.

What is it that scares us so?  Are we afraid of what he will look like, this God we call Father; or of what he will say, this God we call Love.

You Have the Answer, Because...

Everyone has part of the answer, since each can ask a different part of the question.

To Cherish and Learn

Things that are over remain with us as things to be cherished or from which we can learn.  They are not there to flay ourselves with.  If they serve only to hurt they don't belong anymore and we can let them truly end.

Far Enough to Be Safe

At one tmie we worried about Biafra and Vietnam.  Then Rhodesia and South Africa.  They were thousands of miles away.  They never touched us.  Then we worried about the Sudan, and again about South Africa.  They are still far away, far enough not to really grab hold, forcing us to see and hear.  Tragic as they are, they are sufficiently far away to be perfectly safe.

Missed Message

O.K., God.  Where do we go from here?  If you are trying to tell me something, I don't get the message.  (It's not the first time).