Parakalein

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