Parakalein

Today I sat in a "memorial service" of an obviously loved and loving pastor.

I listened as person after person spoke about how she would not have believed that this many people would show up as she never really thought of herself s special but always treated people as if they were very special and unusually important.  This theme was spoken by the voices of old and young, nuclear family and church family, and religious community and general community.

The church was filled beyond capacity for this memorial service for this special person who treated everyone as special but did not think of herself as special at all.  This is why she would be so surprised to see hundreds of people there, nearly 500% of regular church attendance.

Philippians 2:3b "In humility consider others as better than yourself".  What a mindset to be mindful of others rather than minding other people's business. To esteem others better than yourself, not because they are, but because in doing so you are fulfilled while simultaneously fulfilling others.  In the economy of "spirit energy" when a humble spirit treats others as if they are more important than themselves the other person feels so valued and valuable that they automatically respond by treating you as having more importance than them. Instead of a mutual admiration society what this command intentionally creates (which is the intention of the creator) is a mutual affirmation of worth society that makes us all live better and be better inside and out.

What a gold mine toward "transformation".  As a group of youth put it to me upon discussing this principle and passage of scripture.  If I treat everyone as better than me and if everyone does that for everyone then everyone would feel better and be better toward everyone.  What a way to transform the world!  Imagine!

The secret of this pastor is that she practiced:  "in humility esteem others as better than you" and you will be affirmed as the best by all.

No wonder they came from far and wide to say "you made us feel loved" because she really loved them.
This is a tribute to a person and a principle.

In the sacred space of your today do and be sacred to others and sacred will come back to you!

I visited a good friend and found that her husband had died.  Our paths crossed in church life but our hearts were wormed not by the crossing of the paths at church but the intersection of the open heart and open mind of Bill.  He was a very strong and opinionated man but as strong as his opinion was also the strength of his heart of compassion and care.  He sang from his heart and lived from his heart and that is the heart of the matter.

As I left a time of sharing grief together with his wife who had recently been through a triple bypass of her heart, perhaps anticipating that her heart need to be strengthened for the loss of her life companion.
They as a couple and he as an individual gave from their heart in everything they did: from committee member to choir member and just being present. His seat in the chair in the corner of the coffee hour will never look the same.  I noticed their neighbor across the hall had a saying on her wall by her door, it read:

Peace 
It does not mean to be in a place
Where there is no noise, trouble or hard work   It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart
Author Unknown


I mused as Bill and I had often mused together so here is my musing in honor of and in memory of Bill:
Peace does not mean being in a certain place during a swirling storm or a surging tsunami where there is no noise, no trouble, or no hard work of cleaning up after the storm

Peace means having a certain calmness that keeps the heart calm in the presence of the storm, the noise, the trouble or hard work of grief. 

The perfect storm of grief that swirls around us and threatens to engulf us is always met by the perfect calm of grace that sits in the center of the swirl with the certainty and courage of a calm and compassionate heart.




That was and is Bill!


Thank you for touching my life and so many other lives in your living!

Last Thursday, April 19, 2012, Ruth Graham http://blog.beliefnet.com/safeplacewithruthgraham/was the speaker at the Albany Area Prayer Breakfast.  Her theme was that "Praise was the Language of heaven".   As I shook her hand before the breakfast started, I recalled internally shaking her Dad's hand 22 years ago.  I felt a message as I did.  I needed to listen to her words for a message to her dad and to me as a grandfather.

As I heard her of her dad, "As Dad grows older, I have watched his fires of compassion wane into embers. I am more impressed today by the embers, than I ever was by the fire" (or something close to that).  That was the message.  I got it. We all have egos and our egos are fed by the fires around us and inside of us.  I used to preach with "the fire of compassion" now I think it is more like the "embers of compassion".  Our spirit is present in the embers of compassion not so much in the "fires of our good passions".  I was also reminded in reflection that the embers burn more steadily and longer without any help or care than the fire ever did. In what matters for eternity and reflects our true heart it is the embers of our presence more than the fire of our preaching.  The eternal measure of time and value is different than that of earth.

So I want to thank Ruth for that thought and the courage to speak it.  I also want to thank Billy Graham for a message through his embers to all of us. It might be the most eternally valuable message of our day.

I also am thank that God who is a consuming fire sets aside his fire and invites us to know the embers of compassion at the cross of his passion for the world.  God received the fiery anger of humanity and transformed it into the embers of God's love.

Thanks be to God

Everyone wants to be sure of something as it seems to give the illusion of certainty.

But being comfortable even comforted in uncertainty expresses a certain confidence and calmness that itself is comforting.

Enforcing my Certainty about anything  breeds prejudice, narrow mindedness, ego centricity
Impulsivity, hostility, exclusivity, and global conflicts 

Embracing uncertainty with Open mindedness and open hearted ness breeds expansiveness, inclusivity, cooperation,  coalescence, global community. 


I am sure of it.

Our nation is again rocked with racial tension since George Zimmerman allegedly gunned down Treyvon Martin in Florida.  Last week George Zimmerman was charged with second degree murder.  Clearly Treyvon Martin did not deserve to be shot.  Clearly for justice to be done in this case all factors of both individuals need to be justly and honestly assessed and appropriate accountability and responsibility enforced.  Regardless of how the case goes the tension will continue.

On Saturday, April 14th, 2012 the Boston Globe on page A1,and A4 published the article copied below.  I leaped for joy as an act of colorless bravery was courageously placed on page one of the Globe.  Most of the time these good stories are reserved for somewhere inside the paper but this took prominence!

Saving a fellow pilot regardless of anything about that pilot except that he was a fellow countrymen or just a fellow human being in distress had these two brave soldiers tell a story that goes beyond color or creed.  A man by the name of Thomas risked his own life to attempt to save Jesse a kinsman navy pilot whose plane had crashed.  Thomas crashed his won plane in an attempt to save his kinsman.  He said, no heroism here is was "the only thing to do".  It was not an issue of right or wrong, nor an issue of color, nor an issue of creed, "it was the only thing to do".  How wonderful a legacy to follow.

Recently, my wife and I attended a play, "Black Pearl Sings" in which there was a line, "stupid comes in all colors".  Kindness and compassion comes in all colors, in all creeds, in all ethnic and social strata.  Being calmly compassionate and courageous is always and everywhere "the only thing to do".

Imagine if we all lived that way!

PS  Maybe the Navy Warship Should be called The Thomas-Jesse Ship?

As I spoke to a congregation at the Pascal Eve Service I invited everyone to close their eyes and enter into the darkness of their own inner world.  I invited them to imagine Jesus in the darkness of the grave on that longest day of darkness, despair and aloneness.  Their is no place of aloneness as dark and dismal as the place of total abandonment, detachment, and despair like the grave.  Jesus spent a few hours in the grace on Friday night and if tradition holds a minute in the grave on Sunday morning but an entire 24 hours of the whole of Saturday in the dark deep hole of aloneness and tomb of numbness.  He spent only a minute of Sunday in the grave to fulfill hat he had to be in the grave for three days but he refused to let the grave hold him for anymore than one minute on that third day so a s tradition holds at 12:01 am, up from the grave he arose.

I invited the congregation to return to the place of darkness and to recall a time that they felt all alone and to receive what might be what Jesus would speak to us in the darkness form the darkness:


"I sit alone in the darkness, I need no light as their is a light inside of me.  That light is the essence of peace and love that is with me as clarity and confidence in the darkness.  While I fee alone I am not alone.  When I spoke from the cross 'Father forgiven them they do not know what they are doing' I was speaking as many of you know to those who had put the nails in my hands and feet, hung me on the cross, and mocked the very love and peace I offered them.  It was the light inside that had me speak.  I expected their anger and wrath as they had set that intention against me form before my birth in the manger.  They had mangled and murdered many children out of that hatred.  It was one thing to spill blood in hatred and another to spill blood in a loving living sacrifice.  They did not get the difference.  I also said, 'Father forgive them they do not know what they are doing' to those who abandoned me because of their fears, who I had healed by my touch, who I had loved with my heart, who I had taught from my mind, all those who I had given to they all of them were in denial, betrayal, or cowards filled with avoission (combination of avoidance and aversion of pain and suffering).  The sword that pierce my side was "them".  I did not expect the desertion and the denial of pain and suffering.  To them I also spoke 'Father forgive them as they do not know what they are doing'.  Protection or preservation of life was their intention.  My intention was to lead by example into the darkest arena of loss and grief of total aloneness and to there in the cavern of the tomb know the presence of light that preserves and protects life into eternity." 

I invited the congregation to see the light in their darkness to consider all the wounds of grief that have pierced their side by people closest to them and then to offer them light and love.  Then I invited them to open their eyes.


Corrie Ten Boom said in her book The Hiding Place: "There is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still".  Let grace meet your grief in the light of God's love in the darkness of your hole no matter how dark that hole is.  In the Darkness see light.


"Nothing shall separate you form the Love of God, neither height nor depth, principalities or powers, things present or things to come nor anything shall separate you from the love of God which is in you form Jesus Christ" Romans 8:31

What is the core value we embrace?

At the core of my being there are two driving forces that create polarity but intend to create or propel community, cooperation and collaboration.

There is the human-self with the drive to lust or long for control over others and the fear of the loss of control or domination and oppression of others.

There is the divine or Spirit-Self that has no agenda but to be with all and in all with compassion, courage,  creativity and calmness.

When the needs and desires, the fears and threats dominate we are in chaos confusion and conflict.

When the peace and love of the core dominate there is self-control, self awareness, self-clarity and other respectfulness.  Balance and harmony in any system perpetuates community in the system.

The core value I embrace is balance and harmony inside and living from that balance and harmony a life of love and peace in the world.

Regardless of anything I want and purpose to live not the my purpose driven life but the release driven life.

The Jesus way.  We are more us than me.  Jesus is with us to make us more one than many.  Father may they be one as you and are are one was his prayer.

They will be done. Amen

I imagine how the disciples must have felt.  They had spent three years with Jesus.  They had mountain top moments, Mt of Transfiguration, moments of deep disappointment, like when Peter was told to get behind me Satan, and moments of disillusionment when they began to hear that Jesus was going to leave them all alone.

No one likes being all alone.  Recall that "it is not good for man to be alone".  There is a difference between needing some alone time and being all alone.

Saturday, is the day between the death of Jesus on Golgotha on Friday and the Resurrection on Sunday morning.

Grief is a dark and lonely place where one feels abandoned by the one who is gone.  But really, the one who is gone has left everyone.  Suddenly it seems grief is very selfish, it is all about me and my loss.  Not really in fact what if it is all about, in the loss, finding great gain.

Adam and Eve felt so much grief, so alone, so separated from God and each other that blame and shame filled the sacred space of the garden.  THey went into the cave of aloneness to hide from the God who was quick to offer the smile of grace.  Not a smile that says it does not matter nor a frown that blames and shames.  God's smile is one of an understanding face and of transformational grace.  Grace that transforms the darkest of moments.  The midnight madness of despair into the midnight of clarity and compassion.

What if Adam and Eve knew that nothing, neither wrong doing or right doing, neither heights of achievements nor depths of despair, nothing can separate us form the love of God that is in the face of Jesus Christ.

In the dark despair and grief of feeling abandoned and alone we see with true light the truth that we are never alone, that we are accepted, adopted, and abundantly forgiven. Just as we are without one plea except that we know God's love is greater, richer and deeper than any pit.  As Corrie TenBoom once said, "There is no pit so deep, that God's grace is not deeper still."
So, I say to all,  when you are falling in grief and feeling all alone, let go and fall into the hole of God's grace.

When Jesus said in that dark moment of his soul, "My God, My God Why have you forsaken me" he was falling into the hands of His father's Grace.

Adam and Eve did not fall from grace, grace was not necessary until they sinned.  They fell into he hole of God's grace.

Violence comes from within.  Inside all of us is a part that wants to win and hates to lose.   That parts presents an internal conflict that creates polarities in the system of our hear and mind.

Recently I invited a group to think about someone or something they hated.  Then I asked them to focus on the part of them that hated that person or thing.  To imagine that they were right to hate and that justice would be served by expressing that hate.  Then i asked them to imagine another part that saw such hatred and justification of hatred as anything but just.  Then I asked them (and myself as I was a participant and a presenter) if they could breathe space into their internal system and invite compassion to sit where judgment sat, to look at the part hated for good reason and with good reason, and ask that judgmental part to step aside, making room for grace and releasing it from the grave of darkness into the grave of grace.  Here where grief and grace meet is where light shines.  This light does not dismiss the darkness but dispels the illusion of darkness and opens the space up to light.

Then refocus on the part in the person you hate or the thing you hate and look at that part with the compassion and calm within you.  Let he goodness within you not be overcome with the evil outside but overcome that evil outside with goodness from inside.  Evil is not good but when met with goodness it fades into the faith that sees it with grace.

Imagine that to be the message of Easter.  Let the evil of hatred and violence in the world be met by the part of me that settles the hatred and violence inside with the compassion that looks with the eyes of grace at the betrayal, the burden, the bruised and the beaten parts of me and the parts of me that would betray, burden, bruise, and beat others.

While I can justify anything from my reactions to other to warfare, that does not make it just.  Innocent parts in my brother or sister are wounded like innocent people in all wars are wounded and die.  That is not just, it is never just.

Justice is never served by acts of justice but by being just in our thoughts, feelings, reactions and actions.

It was not just that Jesus died for my sin.  But it was just for the God of justice to give himself to die to teach us that the road to justice is being just toward all within and without.  To welcome all parts of all people regardless of anything, with compassion, calmness and care and without fear of loss, desire for gain, without agenda or assumption, and with liberty and justice for all.

Christians need to lead the world in sacrificing what they want to impose on the world and embrace what they can offer to the world.

We need to get over the "Jesus is the only way thing" so that we can present and live the "Jesus is the only way truth".

The way of Jesus is the way of love and peace.  All who covenant to live in love and peace are living the Jesus way even if they do not name him as savior and Lord.  Just like many who name him savior and Lord, do not live the Jesus way, so many who have been judged and prejudged by the narrow definition of the way of Jesus do live the Jesus way.

Soren Kierkegaard said, "To know the truth and not be (live) the truth is to embellish that very truth with error".

The way of Jesus is not any particular religious or church way though some try to define it so.  The way of Jesus is a way of being and living that embodies the qualities of the divine Self in all of us as the image of God namely:  calmness, compassion, courage, and creativity.

I believe more than ever that "Jesus is the only way" but the way is narrowly and broadly defined as opposed to imposed in a narrowly defined way.

No fooling.