TEARS

     TEARS

   

Tears – salty, irritation,  flowing, cleansing

Associated with

Weeping, sorrow, grief.

A broken heart, a prophetic knowledge.

Falling Tears – destruction, rejection.

Tears of empathy, of sympathy, of compassion

Tears – self-centered or God-centered.

Tears – caring, loving, devotion

Tears – loss, suffering, rebellion

Tears – move us towards action:

hope, satisfaction, restoration

Rejoice!

   

Integrity

Oh Lord, it is so hard to understand.

Integrity, the great congregation: who are my mother and father and sister and brother?

Who are the sinners to be swept away?  Who are the hypocrites, the company of evildoers, the wicked?

Who are the idol makers:  what of the devotion and diligence to their work making the idol?  They do not know, they do not comprehend.  Will they?  Can they?

Pray for the Holy Spirit to blaze in all people.

The Living Things

My morning thoughts……

And wonder if we quit caring for the living things.

And wonder if we focused on the trivia and not on the person.

And wonder if the petty details keep us from the important things.  Like people. 

Luke 10:17-20  Jesus has given us authority over all the power of the enemy and nothing will hurt us.  Rejoice that our names are written in heaven.

The Future

THE FUTURE

Always been, someday soon

At any moment, at anytime

God’s eternal plan

Beginning---Ending

Creation---Fall

Destruction---Creation

Old---New

You---Me---Us

Eternal

The Pearl of Imagination

It was 10:30 last night and Matthew said, “Mom, tell me a story…just a super short story.”  So I finally succumbed and having been exploring how to share the parable of the pearl, I said,  “Heaven is like a beautiful pearl.”  He replied, “Is that it, is that the whole story?  It needs to have at least a ‘Once upon a time’.” So I, realizing, the nothingness of my first “story”, said, “Ok, then… Once upon a time there was a merchant who had many things: clothes and jewelry and a big house and all kinds of wonderful possessions like…….” Matthew interjected, “video games”,   “yes, and video games”.

“and, this merchant sold all of that for a single pearl.”  The pearl represents heaven or the kingdom of God.”

Matthew said, “ So the kingdom of God is worth less than all those things.”  I said, “no, the kingdom of God is worth…..well…. more that all those things.”

And he said, “No, Mom, because you said he sold his things for a pearl so they were of the same value.”

And I left his room frustrated and thought, I told the story wrong…how should I correct it?  And I thought, “ah-ha" and went back to his room and said,

“Actually there were two merchants, one selling pearls and one with many things and the one with many things recognized the specialness and value of the pearl and the one who had the pearl did not.  Matthew, what can you think of that is more valuable than all the things you have?  And you know what he said?  He said, “Imagination”.

And I said, “Wow, that is so true!”  And I thought to myself, imagination is how we connect to God.  And we feel and sense God and “imagine” what the Kingdom is like and try to compare it to our known reality which God did so amazingly well through His creative stories which connect our reality with God’s enormous and unmeasurable spirit.

And those people who find imagination to be a weakness have great difficulty finding God, who is unseeable and immeasurable.  And children, as Jesus points out, know God, because they still have the connection between their brain and their spirit and it comes out in creative wonder and imagination.

And I recalled in “Godly Play” by Jerome Berrymore, the concept of imagination as part of our human nature which enables us to meld the rational world with the spiritual world and to create a new framework for our meaning and purpose.

Symbols, such as the pearl, connect our world to an existential meaning found in our mind.  We access our imagination when we connect the two in such as metaphors and parables and sacred stories and liturgical actions.

Jerome Berrymore points out that Christ stimulates our imagination.  He brings out the image of God through relationships.  There is a critical ‘distance’ between the image created in our imagination and reality of our senses and without balance we are either to factual and scientific or to wondering and psychotic.

Wow!  I love that. 

Pagan and Christian worldviews

The Old Testament reflects the cognitive views of the ancient Near Eastern cultures. The New Testament reflects similarly, though a broader area.  God inspired his Word through human authors.  This does not mean that Israel borrowed pagan ideas to create a new faith but rather, that all cultures within a common time and location use common imagery, symbols and motifs to express their attempt at  understanding reality.  The Law given to Moses on Mount Sinai reflects the same structure as the treaties of the ancient Near East and even the laws of our nation.  These laws transcend time and culture.  Additionally, the creation story of Genesis 1 contains the same motifs that were seen in Egyptian creation stories.

These examples are just two of many which share the common environment of Israel with their pagan neighbors.  What is more difficult to see and what requires knowledge leading to wisdom, is to see how the Old Testament and New Testament authors, inspired by God, used literary techniques to reinterpret the pagan worldview to that of a monotheistic worldview.

The Bible is full of references to mythology and imagery.  This does not validate those sources as completely true.  What we can see in the Bible is the retelling of pagan stories within a monotheistic and Christian worldview.  Check out Acts 17:22 and see how Paul uses subversion by taking common terms and motifs and reworking them, eventually undermining the entire Stoic worldview but only to those who were open to understanding.

Unfortunately, literacy spreads civilization but within that evil and hopelessness as well.

As quoted from Brian Godawa in his book, Word Pictures,  “God is bigger than rationality, bigger than imagination and He is Lord of both.” Isaiah 1:18..”Come now, let us reason together,: says the LORD.  “Though you sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”

Now that is some amazing imagery/reason statement!

Sin Gene

Sin gene

I think of original sin in terms of genetics.  The inheritance of a trait which falls along a continuum.  Just like other development phenomena, some traits do not manifest until a certain age is reached. 

We see this most obviously in physically visible traits: sexual development, but more subtly in pathology such as arthritis, diabetes, hypertension, dementias, etc.

So I see Adam and Eve as the original sin "mutations" so to speak.  And they were adults!

So all of us are born with the sin gene; even Jesus had the sin gene, but he had not just the breathe of God to announce life within him (Genesis 2:7) but the Spirit of God.  Therefore, he and God were unified in such a way that he, Jesus, knew the mind of God.  I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you knew Me, you would know the Father as well...Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father." (John 14:6,7,9)

This is what Lent is all about:  Jesus journey from birth to death of his "Adam-man" life to the resurrection of his "God-spirit" life, eternal.

Jesus underwent temptation, clever words used by the devil...just like Eve was tempted.  Jesus had the ability to make a choice:  if he did not, than what is that to us?  What is that to us if Jesus was born without even the potential to sin.  That is like being born without the potential to develop ovaries or testicles!  Without ovaries...no chance of developing ovarian cancer or polycystic ovaries, or what ever other malady may exist that MUST have ovaries by definition.   No, I believe Jesus was born with the "sin gene" and he was tempted and he choose to not sin because he had the entire spirit of God behind him...he knew in his heart and mind (and not because of any written book) every single word of God and he referenced this to his disciples and to the devil even....."It is written",  "have you read in Scripture....",  and even at age 12, "everyone was amazed at his understanding and answers".

So Jesus, as a man just like Adam, Jesus, Son of God, is the way and the truth and the life.  Because sin's consequence was death and then God softened by creating law and this is what the book of Romans teaches us.  It teaches us that though the law was given so that we could be aware of what sin is, we still have the sin gene!  Therefore, God continued his plan of our salvation.....he brought out the final solution:

God, in his wisdom and plan and great great LOVE and mercy and compassion.......begot Jesus to show us the way and  .......foremost of all........to be our debt payment (atonement) for any and all sin.

And true, sin manifests itself first in a range of age and development.  So that an infant, young child, severely mental retarded person, etc. does not have the timing required for manifestation of the "sin gene".

And they will see salvation!  The rest of us must make our choice to the best of our sinful selves.  Ask for forgivenss and confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead and we will, too, be saved!  Romans 10:9   All in good time, all in good time.  "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen" (Rev 22:21)

So that is what I believe.

Weeping

Weeping

I feel as if there is no movement in part of my brain.

The part that connects to the tears.

Where is the link that turns on the tears?

Maybe it is God who places his hand to stop the flow, to say, “No, not necessary.”

Jesus wept.

Jesus wept for us.  No need for tears, not for the end of our lives on earth and not for those who are still living.

No need for tears, for God is great and God is good.

And I believe and I know the truth.

Love the Lord God.

Amen

On Earthly Adventures

On Earthly Adventures

So if we have a desire to climb a mountain or sail a sea and we give up our home and family and friends to pursue our adventure saying to ourselves, “If I don’t go now, I may never go and I want to go”, what is the action to us.  For if we believe in the resurrection and in eternity, then it doesn’t matter if we go now or not for it will be there for us to do or it will not be important to do; and if we don’t believe in the resurrection, then whether we do it or not, we will die and it won’t matter then if dead is dead…..And if we don’t believe in the resurrection, then why are we here on earth.  If we are only here by chance, then nothing matters, not us or those we “love”, or those we hate or the things we have unless we believe that because we are here by chance, we should make the most of the pleasures we find in our treasures, as we can take none with us when we die.

So, grace and peace to us who believe.  And faith, hope and love are our past, present and future.

Contrasts

Pride

polished arrogant

boasting, bragging, idolizing

prize, individual, apology, others

doing, loving, succumbing

Humility

Dark

scary, empty

run, hide, shiver

fear, unknown, hope, vision

skip, open, awaken

blinding, colorful

Light

Hate

Sad, mean

Hitting, hurting, scaring

Beast, enemy, friend, family

Caring, sharing, helping

good, kind

Love

Indifference

faceless, careless

ignoring, demeaning, shunning

Stoic, cold-hearted, caretaker, savior

Protecting, healing, caring

Comforter, provider

Compassion

Anything but Loving

Anything but Loving

Anything but loving,

quietly delighting when the mighty are brought low.

What does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Justice, the proper ordering of things

What does the Christian do?  We enter the world each day as ambassadors of Christ and his kingdom.

We love others by seeking their welfare through the proper ordering of things and relationships.

We seek the good of others

All to His glory, to God’s glory, all.

Freedom

                                Freedom: Under God, Indivisible

                                                 

Freedom from bondage of earthly things.

The things that tie us down.

The things that waste our energy of motion.

Releasing our precious energy towards empowering pride and jealousy and greed

Releasing our precious energy into selfishness and hatred and deceit

 and then…

The energy given to us must be replenished, restored, renewed.

Do we drop into despair and sadness; do we fold into ourselves, into the twisting spiral of inwardness.

How long before we allow our energy to be replenished to gather itself for a renewed effort at freedom,

to have enough power to release us again from bondage.

When will we learn,

When will we know that God is our unending source.

When will we know that freedom is a mighty gift from God.

When will we realize that freedom is allowing ourselves to be held in God’s love

 and that…

Jesus’ purpose and mission and ministry were to release us into the freedom from earthly bondage through the grace of God the Father Almighty.