A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS

Etty Hillesum, in An Interrupted Life, wrote "One does not put things on paper to create masterpieces, but rather to gain some clarity."  Robert Benson quotes this in That We May Perfectly Love Thee followed by, "My work at least as I have come to see it and understand it, is to try to tell my own story with some degree of clarity and art."

This is how I feel about what I put here.  Today is just a group of really, non-related things that have gone through my mind the last several days.

 

I am reading Dorothy Day's autobiography and my mind is going a hundred miles a minute.  On page

38 she writes, "I felt even at fifteen, that God meant man to be happy, that God meant to provide him with what he needed to maintain life in order to be happy, and that we did not need to have quite so much destitution and misery as I saw all around and read of in the daily press. From my earliest remembrance the destitue were alwayslooked upon as the shiftless, the worthless, those without talent of any kind, let alone the ability to make a living for themselves.  They were that way because of their own fault.  They chose their lot.  They drank.  They were the prodigal sons who were eating the swines' husks only because they had squandered their inheritnace.  Since it was in the bible it must be so.  Even Our Lord Himself said that the poor we would always have with us."

 

I fear I was somewhat raised with his attitude as well.  I cannot remember the church I was raised in ever talk about caring for the poor.  I know the scriptures were read but we were never encouraged to do something about it.  In my mother's family, we had a few that were always poor.  And, truth be told much of their pain was self-inflicted in that they made some really bad decisions.  However, we never discussed what kind of pain forced them into those decisions.  It was just that Grandpa and Grandma kept bailing them out.  I cannot remember a time when my nuclear family did something to help the poor we didn't know.

I want that thing that is deep in my heart to be gone.  There has been a guilt-driven attention to this act of love active in me lately.  But, I have yet to find my focus to act it out.  This is not an excuse!  The time has come.



Now, a totally disconnected direction....Here are some haikus I have written over the last several months.  I just thought it would be good for me to share them.

I am alone here

Now waiting to be rescued

Trying to have faith

God, my mystery

Where now have you brought me to?

God, my mystery

I once knew a God

He has become a stranger

Shall we meet again?

My heart, once vital

Has become blinded by words

Can silence restore?

Words, words, words, words, words

Words destroy, destroy, destroy

Words, words words, words, words.

A Memory - Yet Present

I came across this in one of my journals from last year.  Realizing I still feel this way, I decided to include it here.

Walking the beach at Cayucos, this awareness comes creeping up slowly.  I don't even recognize it's arrival.  As I try to identify it; I guess at it's meaning.  While standing by the waves as they endlessly, tirelessly continue to come, I feel how small and insignificant I have become.

Is there really not to be anymore to my life than it is right now?  Was my life at some point purposeful and directional?  Or do I just remember it that way?

I suddenly feel as though I have been born to a new life; one vaguely connected to my previous one.  As I think about this it is as though I have been dropped into this place with a directive - "so, go...live!"

I have to be honest with myself - I don't know how to "so, go...live!"  Am I not to have some great purpose?  What would be said about me when I die if this is the extent of my "power and influence"?

If ----big question here---this is my path, how do I learn to walk it with joy and satisfaction?  How do I discover the possibility of more?  How do I let that possibility go?

THE GATHERING

Two experiences this weekend has brought back a familiar question.  What is church?  Now for those of you who may read this and not consider yourselves religious or spiritual, read anyway.  I’d like your thoughts.

Saturday night we met at friends’ home along with 10 other adults and a few kids.  We had dinner.  We watched some football (well, the guys did).  The ladies talked about kids, education, grandkids, serving others, and even sharing when each of us started our periods.  When the football game was over we all got together and started discussing God, the universe and man.  A dvd was started about a man traveling around the US asking people on the street what they thought about God, her followers and the church.  If some of us weren’t so old we could have stayed longer and continued the discussion among ourselves.  We left loving each other more and being aware of carrying each other in our hearts and minds.

This morning Brad and I attended a traditional church service.  There was some prayer, some singing, a reading of scripture and a “message” of which the majority was about the business of the denomination.  Now, let me say, we have attended this church a few weeks.  The people are very gracious and friendly and there is nothing “offensive” about the liturgy.

While sitting in the service I kept thinking about our Saturday night experience and the question kept reverberating in my brain, “Which one of these is really church?”  Now I know this is probably very subjective but isn’t anything dealing with spirituality and how it is worked out in your own life?  I find myself asking questions like:

                Which of these experiences caused my love for friends to grow?

                Which of these experiences inspired me to be more involved in justice (or the lack thereof)?

                Which of these experiences caused my spirituality to be challenged and fanned to greater   intensity?

Are these valid questions to ask about church?  How do we define church?  In which atmosphere would I feel more compelled to ask people to join me?   Is church supposed to be a welcoming of God into our everyday lives?  Is church to be a place that when you leave you are a more aware person; more aware of God and of others and the condition of the world?

Of course, for me this also presents a decision.  How do I find myself in this “place” on a regular basis?

Enough with the questions, now comes the answering.

         

THE STORY OR THE ENDING???

I recently read Stephen King's "Under the Dome".  Our son is a big fan of King's.  In fact, a few years ago he took me to hear Stephen King lecture for my birthday at the Benaroya Hall when we were all living in Seattle.  I have come to love his writing.

I think I have figured out something about King.  It will be interesting to see if our son agrees.  As I read the last page of the book, I thought, "That's it?  That's the end?"  But, rather than true disappointment, I smiled at how much I enjoyed the story.  That's when it hit me.  Most of King's books seems to be like this; kind of anti climatic endings.  I then realized (hopefully, accurately) that for King it is about the story, not the ending.

My mind then made this eye-opening leap.  Perhaps this is what life should be.  We put so much effort on the end: graduating from high school, getting a degree, getting another degree, getting the right job, marrying the right person.  And, in evangelical theology, ending up in the right place.

What if the joy, the purpose of life is to enjoy the story?  Rather than making all decisions to insure we get to the right place; what if we make each daily decision based on how it effects our story and the story of those we come in contact with?

One of the outcomes of discovering King's method is that the next one of his books I read I will read with sheer enjoyment of each page instead of hurrying to see how it ends.  I want to live my life like that; to learn to enjoy each moment.  If I live like this, investing in the world moment by moment I won't have to worry about the end. 

FREEDOM FROM SIN

The issue of sin.                                                                 

You can't ignore this word during Passion Week. 
Sin is one among many terms I have wrestled with these last several years.  What is it really?  A list of don'ts?  Something I am born with?  A thing I do?  An attitude I have?
This morning I am considering this:  sin is all about how we treat each other.  "Each Other".  That is like saying "who is my neighbor"?  Usually when I hear the phrase "each other", I think of those in my family, my friends, those I choose to have relationship with.  But, in fitting with the true message of the Christ, "each other" is all of God's creation.  Every person, even those I don't have a personal contact with, is my "each other".  This means taking stands for injustice.  This means the people of the world, right now, who are going through upheaval and tragedy.  This means the myriad of children in the world who are not being loved by those who should be their greatest lovers.  These are those I work with, those that live on my street, those I see living on the street, those collecting cans and bottles, those waiting in line in front of me.
Sin is when I either do something that harms or ignore harm.  If I look at the "10" commandments (for there are really only two and yet they are endless), I see they all have to do with making the world, my culture, my society, my place in the world, a place of honoring every one; of caring for everyone; of making decisions and my reactions things that place others equal or above myself.
God promises us freedom.  This indeed would be freedom: a world where we walk in peace and harmony and well-being.

I want to think about this during this Holy Week.  Passion entails not only the sorrow of suffering and death but love.

ROOM

It's interesting and
at the same time
curious that even though
I know a thing to
be true there is
still room for doubts
and questions
and even other ways.
     
                            Me

THE QUESTIONS KEEP COMING

"This is so much to absorb.  My head hurts from thinking so hard.  Do you know how much thinking you have to do in order to question?  Then you have to ask all the right questions.  Then you have to reach your own conclusion.  And then you have to take action.  It's HUGE!"

This quote is from my current reading "The Faith Club".  When I pulled this book from the library shelf I was drawn to it because of my curiosity.  How would these three women develop a friendship when they came from such different places religiously/politically?  In many areas it is difficult to seperate those two things.  We use religion to justify our politics and we use our politics to support our religion.

This quote is the exact expression of what goes on in my head and my heart.  I am continually surprised that almost any book I read (not counting many "just for fun" novels - although some of them can be surprising too), becomes a small part of my spiritual journey.  I certainly didn't expect that from this book.

If you have read my blog for a while you know that one of the recurring subjects is my sadness at the state of violence in our city, community, nation and world.  Here is a short, completely incomplete list of the peoples who have been violated because of religious/political hatred and sometimes war:

Native Americans                                                          Jews
Japan                                                                             Vietnamese
Palestinians                                                                    Armenians
Russians                                                                          Tibetans
Mexicans

Please add to this list in the comment section.  As I am writing this I feel I am making my own personal memorial to all those injured, killed, displaced.  My heart is again so full of the pain of others that it is flowing down my cheeks.  May I ask that you take a moment of silence to join your heart with mine to becoming more sensitive to these injustices.