LENT I

Posted on March 10, 2019 by shepsewell

The Old Testament and New Testament are mirrors reflecting the other. Early Christians found in the Old Testament figures that pre-figure the new revelation in Jesus. • Adam is the first man who blew it and Jesus was the Second Adam who regained what the 1st Adam lost. = number with meaning

TEMPTATION ONE : Cyril of Alexandria – Adam fell because he ate food not his to eat and Jesus overcame because he depended on God to provide his needs. He fed others by his power but not himself. Deut. 8:3

TEMPTATION TWO: Cyril of Alexandria – The devil has taken the world by fraud. Christ restores the world back to proper authority through his obedient suffering. Deut 6:13 The OT story where the early church found parallels to Jesus temptation was the story of Esau and his birthright.

TEMPTATION THREE: Devil now uses Scripture. He gave his angels charge …Psalm 91:12
Origen, the student and successor of Cyril at Alexandria – Homilies on the Gospel of Luke ‘The evil one says, “He gave his angels a command concerning you that they should raise you up in their hands, lest perhaps you strike you foot against a stone.’ See how crafty he is, even in the texts he quotes. For he wishes to diminish the Savior’s glory, as if the Savior needed the help of angels. It is as if he would strike his foot unless he were supported by their hands. The devil takes this verse from Scripture and applies it to Christ. Yet it is written not of Christ but of the saints in general. Freely and in confidence I contradict the devil. This passage cannot be applied to the person of the Christ, for Christ does not need the help of angels. He is greater than the angels and obtained a better name than they by inheritance. ‘God never said to any of the angels, ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you.’”

CONCLUSION
Austin Farrar, an Anglican priest writes, “Temptation is what distracts us, beguiles us or bullies us off the path! Temptation is what makes real life different from the world of our dreams. We dream a world which is wax under the molding of our ambitions or of our aspirations; we meet a world which faces us with trials we have not the character to surmount, and with seductions we have the virtue to resist.”

That is true because of the First Adam BUT there came a Second Adam: Jesus…

Easter Day 2015

Posted on April 6, 2015 by shepsewell

Paschal (Easter) Candle – Chapel of the Cross, Madison, Mississippi

On Thursdays since last Labor Day, my SOULWorks Group has volunteered at Manna House, a place of radical hospitality at Cleveland and Jefferson. There street folk can shower, get clean clothes and several cups of the strongest coffee in Memphis, Tennessee. I have many new friends there. I have yet to hear anyone complain about their lot. Actually, “I woke up this morning and I’m glad to be moving, today,” is the most common remark. I now know both coming and going a profound truth. Namely, having little doesn’t necessarily produce bitterness any more than having everything necessarily produces gratitude.

A young man there is tormented by voices in his head. That’s an irony as his name is Emmanuel, “God with us.” Every time I meet him, it is for the first time. He looks carefully, quizzically at my face and I introduce myself (again). Recently, I learned that his mother comes there most every day. She stands and looks at him, he looks back, but he never knows her. Yet she comes. That’s what mothers do. What she feels, she has never said.

Presentation in Temple

Certainly Jesus knew his mother that Friday morning, as they began to crucify him. Perhaps, amnesia would have been a kindness. She stood looking up, he looking down and their eyes met. I’ve often wondered if Simeon’s words echoed in Mary’s memory that Friday noon. He had snatched Jesus from her arms over thirty years earlier, announcing to anyone who would stop and listen that this one was Messiah! His parting line, “Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed,” gained strangling clarity as she stood in the mid-day sun.

That strangling clarity is exactly what we avoid knowing and especially feeling. No avoidance can protect us. It is futile. It is futile because in the deepest place in our souls, we know: Suffering is the promise life always keeps. Suffering is the promise life always keeps. Never achieving your dream Suffering is the promise life always keeps Achieving your dream, only to discover it was unworthy Suffering is the promise life always keeps Marrying and family Suffering is the promise life always keeps Unwed and solitary Suffering is the promise life always keeps In spite of our ego’s best laid plans, promoting our terminal uniqueness. Regardless our wealth, family, ethnicity, race, nationality, or zip code It is a true saying and worthy of all to be received, that all humans are more alike than we are different! Therefore, beloved… Suffering is the promise life always keeps

1 AVOIDANCE OF PAIN – PURSUIT OF POWER

The unfortunate incident in the Garden of Eden never tells how evil began. The fall of Eve & Adam explains how humanity go entangled with evil and sin. Sin and its consequences, suffering and death is lot of all humanity just as sure as sparks fly upward. We cannot not assume that all people that have ever lived on this green Earth felt joy. We can assume that every person who has ever taken breath on this green Earth has experienced pain. The strategy for avoiding pain and sorrow, loss and suffering has always been power. We have pursued power, to protect ourselves from pain. The exercise of force, can in fact, keep many species of wolves away from our proverbial doors. ‘

But then, because power is addictive in itself, we pursue it for its own sake. Naturally, as with any competition, where everybody is driving and finally diving for the prize, there must a winner and lots of losers.

How many remember who won the final-four last year? How many remember the third runner up? How many remember last year’s runner up.

Winners are empowered and losers are not. But even the winners are empowered for a short time before it all begins again. On and on it goes. As it has ever since Cain lost God’s regard that time and enraged at his loss of power, murdered his brother Abel.

Regardless then we lose or win, we have the same fear: having enough, or not being enough or, finally not being at all, that twists us into perverse caricatures of what a human should be. There we will always trust our own ego above all others and distrust anyone else.

Power has been our strategy, Control is our universal policy. We have consoled ourselves with the idea that if we worked hard enough, learned enough built technology powerful we could in our way finally achieve what our distant ancestors could not achieve that time with the tower.

Truly it is true that never in the history of our race have so many had so much for such a long time. We split the atom looking for power, last century and we found it. The irony is that while splitting the atom produced power beyond imagination, the bitter irony is that nuclear energy is lethal. Our will to power is lethal such that it will cost us our souls. The Gospel revealed by God in Christ is that something is terribly wrong in the human heart – and before the foundation of the world, God set out to do something about it.

2 THE BIZARRE OPTION

Of course no one got what God was about. That has been clear since, the Evil One gave Jesus advice on how to get the Kingdom underway that time in the Wilderness. The disciples didn’t get it either, nor his family or the priests, scribes, Romans of every station and power. And frankly, few have ever “gotten it”! Why was that? God’s plan was so outrageous, so clever that we marvel today at the elegant equation of grave. God’s secret weapon was humility.

I believe that I speak for all of us when I state that this is, in point of fact, exactly what we are not looking for!

As Woody Allen once said, “I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying. I don’t want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen; I want to live on in my apartment.”

3 KILLING DEATH BY DEATH

John Behr, the Dean of Saint Vladimir’s Russian Orthodox Seminary, succinctly states Jesus’ counter-intuitive strategy of “surrendering to win,” in his recent book, Becoming Human, (I’m borrowing several passages)

“Christ does not show himself to be God by being “almighty,” as we tend to think of this. As moving mountains, throwing lightning bolts and so on – It is rather by the all-too-human act of dying, in the particular manner that he dies.“ BH [21]
Death is, in point of fact, the only thing that men and women have in common from the beginning of the world onwards, throughout all regions and cultures of the world.
And thus Christ reveals what it is to be God through the only thing that we have in common. He does this not simply by dying –, he does it by the way that he has died.
Had Christ revealed what it is to be God in any other way – for example:
- by being rich and powerful (reflecting our own desires),
- by being poor and outcast (as we might conclude by the special place the poor have in the heart of God.)
Any such option will have excluded some people: for those who do not fit any such group would have had no part in him.
Alternatively, if it were simply because he was human, like us, that he died, but because he is also God he is able to get himself of the grave that would have been great for him, but would not really have helped others. It is rather because he conquers death by his death that he enables all men and women also to use their own mortality to come to life in him. BH [23]

Victor Safonkin

Ironically, it is precisely where the world detects the most obvious example of weakness— the cross— that God triumphs over sin and death at the peak of their most deadly power. Here’s the irony: Just where the highest and holiest victim of truly undeserved suffering cries out, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” victory over sin and death is taking place. This the foolishness and weakness that trump the wisdom and power of the ages! Horton, Michael S. – A Place for Weakness: Preparing Yourself for Suffering (p. 28y).

4 ALL WE NEED DO IS BE DEAD.

You do know we are all going to die? Is this not incredible? The only thing we have to do is be dead! We begin to die by repenting.

I have told this story before in this. What I lose in novelty, let me take up by way of testimony. I want to tell you of the day that the truth the way down is the way up became more than theology, more than abstraction, a nice idea but unrealistic. It happened on this wise… In the winter of 1978, I was driving on the Bluegrass Parkway in the central Kentucky. 1978 was a brutal winter over all this country. Snow was deep and the road icy and dangerous. I say that because I was literally had seen no other car for miles and hours. Well, I was doing pretty well, having experience in icy weather. That was when it happened. Suddenly, without warning the car began to spin 360° – as the landscape began to spin, time slowed & I thought, I hadn’t planned on this what and I going to do after the car turns upside down? My foot and leg and already learned that slamming on the brake was a really bad idea. Steering wildly had no good outcome.

Then I had that moment of clarity. A thought came to me, one so outrageous and counter-intuitive I would never have entertained had I any other option. But, I was flat out of options. There was simply nothing I could do to fix my problem. I could makes things worse but not better. I took my hands off the steering wheel, held them in mid-air. No longer in charge, having given up any power I had remaining was just along for the ride. The car righted itself. Now, I was headed in the wrong direction and grateful. What I learned that day in the frozen hills of Kentucky has served me well all these years and decades in two different centuries. Dealing with matters of power and faith is like driving a car on ice. Doing what comes naturally, is almost always not the thing to do.

The death of Jesus shows us what an authentic human being looks like AND the death of Jesus releases grace, the energy, to get over ourselves and our ego. I see this power at work in lives of people every day.

Every day, Alcoholics Anonymous teaches me that what can never be done with white-knuckled will power, happens whenever any of us finally take our hands off the steering wheel, raise them in the air and surrender to the power of Christ’s death.

In that moment we die in the death of Christ.
In that moment we also rise with Christ in his resurrection.

What one repents of is sin, but sin is understood as ‘a matter of trying to block the activity of God, which entrails some curtailing of human freedom. [106] The Necessary Unity of Opposites: The Thinking of Northrop Frye – Brian Russell Graham

We first give up blocking God • We limit our ego • We take up freedom

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, “here is the true Christian definition of freedom. Freedom is self-limitation: self-limitation for the sake of others.”

From Under the Rubble; Repentance and self-limitation in the lives of nations.

We are free, beloved, we are free to limit ourselves for the sake of others. Brothers and Sisters of the household of faith, I say to you this Easter day, self-limitation is true freedom.

The ‘particular manner’ in which Jesus died was exactly self-limitation for the sake of others.
And by exercising this true freedom, by pursuing humility instead of power, his suffering was transformed into salvation.
And now we, on this Easter Day, praise him in celebration of the downward trail he blazed.
We follow the way Jesus, the Christ leads by limiting ourselves, for the sake of others,
We do this in faith that in humility, our suffering, too, is transformed into salvation.

TO HIM, BE GLORY NOW AND FOREVER.

Alleluia, Alleluia – Christ is Risen – The Lord is risen indeed Alleluia, Alleluia

Feast of Saint Hubert

Posted on October 26, 2014 by shepsewell

Patron of Hunters & Dogs

October 26, 2014

Hubert (657 – 727 AD) was the self-absorbed heir of the Duchy of Aquitaine in the 600’s. He was obsessed with hunting and went every day. Hubert could not restrain himself even in Lent continuing the chase during the forty days of self-denial. He crossed the line when he when he chased an enormous stag on Good Friday. With his dogs in full cry he pursued the deer – only to have the animal stop and turn. In the stags antlers was a crucifix – and the animal spoke said essentially, “Hubert if you don’t get your act together you are going to Hell!”

This young man got more than he expected on that Good Friday hunt. He became a priest and then a bishop and followed Jesus as a hunter of Men.

Jame Tissot "And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom. And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright." (Genesis 25:30-31)

James Tissot
“And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom. And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright.” (Genesis 25:30-31)

In the OT reading, Isaac and Rebecca had twin sons, Esau and Jacob:
Esau was a hairy man’s man – a mighty hunter – a Bubba – with gun-racks (or in this case bow-racks) on his chariot.

Jacob was a momma’s boy – staying at home reading cook books, while there is nothing wrong with cooking and many of the great chefs are male, the little brother has not yet begun to move from the nurture of childhood into the journey toward man-hood.

Esau and Jacob are the twin issues of men not leaving home and not growing up AND leaving home but not growing up either.

Esau comes home down and very hungry from a hunt having bagged nothing. Jacob has cooked up a pot of red lentils which must have smelled better than I imagine, so he says he’s dying can he have some of the, literally, red-red stuff. Jacob says sure big brother, it’s yours if you will give me the birth-right making me the eldest of the two of us and the heir. So Bubba did it despising his birth-right.

Esau could read the signs in the field but he could not discern the signs in his own life, does not connect to the deepest issues of his heart. In this we, especially men, are the sons of Esau who sell our treasure without considering its value.

The twin’s grand-father, Abraham, was a great hunter. Although there is no mention of his hunting game – he stalked a greater prize – a country promised by God and left everything behind to go and hunt the place that God promised. By faith he left home not knowing where he was going – and he went

Faith is the evidence of things not seen – Abraham is the type of this for believers ever since – today the religions count him as their spiritual ancestor. Abraham is the grand-father of hunters and from him the lore and the art of spiritual hunting is our legacy and our inheritance.

What are we hunting when we go hunting and who is hunting us when we go hunting? Hunting is a metaphor for growing up and going on adventure – the goal being maturity and wholeness.

Jesus is God’s best and most complete attempt to come and hunt so that we and all who have ever lived and ever will live may be saved. After all, he said he came to seek and to save that which was lost. He of course tended to bring them back alive as he told the fishermen by the lake, “come and follow me and I will make you fishers of men;” of course he could just as easily told a party of hunters to follow him and he would make them hunters of men.

This hunting metaphor becomes the metaphor of evangelism. While hunting and feeding on the animal becomes the language of sacrament, “behold the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world” AND Jesus’ admonition, “eat my body and drink my blood” has been practiced by Christians ever since. In matters of faith as in nutrition you are what you eat.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is passing through Jericho, the oldest continuous human settlement on the planet. Here the trade routes from Africa, Asia and Europe intersect. And wherever the trade goes the tax-collector follows.

Rome said, “Come and follow me and I will make your taxers of men.” Tax-collecting was a franchise with a stated amount required by the state, whatever else the tax-man could squeeze out of the traffic was his to keep; and trust me they could squeeze quite a lot – Zacchaeus was the head-taxer and therefore filthy rich.

He goes out to see Jesus and he is a little man so the crowd no doubt made sure he couldn’t see (the sort of petty revenge taken by the weak on the powerful). But Zac didn’t get where he was because of his dignity or passivity so he shinnied up a sycamore tree. As Jesus came along he looked up and realized that he has treed something or this case someone.

Jesus said, “Zacchaeus, come on down, I’m inviting myself and a bunch of my closest friends to lunch.” The text doesn’t record the reaction of Mrs. Zacchaeus when her husband showed up with all those strangers.

After lunch, Zacchaeus – I will give half of all I have to the poor and if I have defrauded anyone [of course he had], I will pay them four times as much. You see that when you are hunted and treed by Jesus things change, they change for the better and they they change in a hurry.

In 1492 Columbus set sail to the west to find the orient only to run into the Americas, and in that case for the explorer, as the tax-collector in Jericho, what he found turned out to be better than what he was looking for.

The Vision of Saint Hubert – Jan Brueghel – after Rubens

Saint Hubert heard the call of God and laid down his bow and took the hunt for souls, even as Jesus called the disciples. Let us seek God knowing that we find be found by Him and know that he sent his Son so that we might be…

…brought back alive – in fact more alive than we have ever been before – to have life and that life abundantly; may that be the ultimate concern of all hunting. In the name of God… Amen

Lenten Meditation

Posted on March 10, 2014 by shepsewell

Monday of Lent I – March 10, 2014

The Garden of Eden – Thomas Cole

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7

The mischief began early. Eve and Adam, unlike many newlyweds, lived in a new planned neighborhood called Eden. (It was a family development). The rent was reasonable; all they had to do was look after the place which practically ran itself.

Naturally there were covenants; the prime one was a prohibition of picking the fruit on the specimen trees in the common land. Rumor had it that at least one of them was poisonous. They decided not to even touch it let alone eat the fruit.

Having put a fence around the God’s probation (He never said not to touch but that may have been wise). We must learn that good intentions are no guarantee of righteousness, temptation being what it is. But, I get ahead of myself.

Ed Friedman, my teacher, used to warn us by saying, “When things are going really well, look out!” Our language warns us of the danger, “leave well-enough alone”; pride goes before a fall (or in this case THE fall); know when to hold ‘em and when fold ‘em.

Lord, today remind me when I need to watch out. Amen. ©

The Bible in Fifty Words

Posted on December 1, 2013 by shepsewell

God made
Adam bit
Noah arked
Abraham split
Jacob fooled
Joseph ruled
Bush talked
Pharaoh plagued
Sea divided
Tablets guided
Promise landed
Judges led
Saul freaked
David peeked
Kingdom divided
Prophets warned
People exiled
Hope rose
Jesus born
God walked
Anger crucified
Love rose
Spirit flamed
Word spread
God remained.

Botony of Desire: Apple

Video

To read the Holy Word egocentrically will lead to trouble. When God told Adam to have “Dominion” over creation, I’m afraid we understood our role in the very worse sense of the word. To have dominion is to be separate from; other than or to be exalted above, we thought, rather than to be steward of creation as the text most likely means. We read it as creation being something to be used (up?). You saw of course where that train was headed even before the whistle blew…

The Apple Gathers – Sir Ralph Spencer

We see ourselves as radically removed from nature rather than as a part of it. We are offended at being called the human animal. Our bent toward alienation makes us adverse to humility when the dirt is our salvation for we are not separate from nature.

Enter the apple…

English: Central Asia Español: Asia Central (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The apple has an elegant strategy for survival. Beginning in Central Asia the plant has taken root across the earth helped along by mammals love affair with its fruit, whose sweetness, a trait rare in nature, but very attractive to mammals. So off the apple went soon making common cause with animals/humans thus covering the earth. The success of the apple points out that humanity is more integrated as part of creation than we in our egocentricity are willing to admit.

For Better for Worse (you are not kidding)

Posted on November 7, 2013 by shepsewell

Wedding by Beau Bartlett

What is it about life that makes us assume the living of it will meet the expectations we have of it? Hold that thought, I’ll be back to it. My stories do come to an end but the telling of them goes round in circles before getting there so please be patient. I took some career testing about ten years ago and I tested out in the 98^thpercentile to do the very thing I do. How cool is that? I love being a priest. I love it more now than I did over thirty years ago when Bishop Stough laying his hands on my head pushed down hard symbolizing as he put it, “the weight of the tradition falling on my head.”

Marriage Feast at Cana – Paolo Veronese (c. 1528-88)

I didn’t’ see stars then but have from time to time since. However, I confess that of all the tasks of the priesthood the one that has worn thin for me is weddings. The unscientific poll I run with colleagues of all Christian stripes and even across lines of religion reveals a distinct cooling of the ardor of clergy for the joining of the ardor of others. It’s nigh universal. Why? You clearly have never lived through the doing of one. Not that they are all bad because they are not, but odds being what they are, ever so often the ancient gods or some other infernal power decides it is time to afflict the House of Saint John with what my staff calls the “wedding from hell.”

Wedding from Hell

I’ve come to the conclusion that weddings should be produced like funerals: planned quickly, executed carefully after which we move on. No such luck, wedding planning begins the day the baby girl is born. If you can put your hands on a copy of Bride Magazine at the bride’s house you would find that the subscription began nine months before her birth. Even before we routinely learned the gender before birth, even then, hope sprung eternal.

Saint George’s Hall Windsor

Premarital counseling is required by Episcopal Canon Law. It’s a good idea in theory. However, it is almost impossible to get a message to people moving toward one another accelerated by the rock of ages from their families of origin. No matter how hard you chase after them the message never catches up. It actually works better six months later. A wedding really belong to the bride’s mother not the bride. So long as everyone knows that nobody will get hurt. I have a theory about that, the only original thought I’ve had, namely that Eve, being made from Adam’s rib and all. never had a fancy wedding so she stole her daughter’s and the disruption has been displaced by one generation ever since.

So putting it lightly, a lot is riding on one day in the life of a couple, rather more than one 24 hour period was constructed to bear. This weighty reality is such that the marriage is almost a let down from the wedding. Not only that but we think we are to live by the phrase (taken from fairy tales, for crying out loud), “they lived happily ever after!” Give me a break, if you please. Nothing could be further from the truth and the makers of liturgical books have much lower and more realistic expectations. According to the Book of Common Prayer what matters is what you are prepared to do. Will you love and cherish? It never asks once whether you are in love such that the axis of the earth moves when you look into each others eyes. Not only that but the covenant (contract in the State of Tennessee) is just until you are dead! There is no marriage or giving in marriage in Heaven.

Icon of Wedding at Cana

It strikes me given the fact that our Lord himself tried to avoid getting involved in a wedding crisis that time in Cana, we should be more careful ourselves. He would have gotten away with it too except his momma forced his hand in the matter. Perhaps that is when they gave up on the idea and banned weddings in heaven. Now that I know there are no weddings to do in heaven, I’m even more interested in going there.

Only Three Ever Made – A Sucker Born Every Minute

Posted on August 14, 2013 by shepsewell

The 1937 Bugatti – Atlantic

I am fairly certain that I have never written in praise of an automobile. Oh, I like mine well enough, its color, handling and economy but I am not generally passionate about cars. A vehicle is a way to get from point A to point B and back again (hopefully in one piece). Then I came across a Bugatti Atlantic in a magazine; if not love then at least lethal admiration came near me. What an elegant creature with art deco lines and the mysterious air of the 1930’s. Now, that I should be smitten by a machine brings to mind the question, “what is it that makes something so attractive?”

Eros and Psyche

We could of course talk a long time about the qualities that arouse various kinds and levels of desire even passion. Things, people and other living things have their erotic [a word not used in Christian scripture, by the way] charms, certainly, but what interests me even more is what is in me or any human that is “evocable” – given that not all are moved by the same object or person? In the culture of the West we find the pattern in Genesis.

Genesis 3.1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; 3 but God said , ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’ ” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; 5 for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked ; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

NRSV Bible with the Apocrypha. Harper Collins, Inc. Kindle Edition.

I hasten to add that Adam was right there the whole time, so don’t blame Eve. Also desire is not evil! One should of course be wise (no pun intended) in how desires are met. Note the progression in verse 6, now that Eve is assured by the neighbor that in truth God is trying to hold out on the Adam’s family she ventures toward it.

Eve saw the fruit was:

good to eat.
a delight to the eyes
it was to be desired to make one wise

so she took of it and ate and gave some to her husband. The way to a man’s heart may well be through his stomach, although the aesthetic beauty of form has moved more than a few [as non-domestic beauties with caterers on speed dial can attest]. It is also true that many a wholesome boss’s daughter [with good personality] waxed beautiful in the eyes of the boss’s new hire. But the end of the progression is power. Everything in chapter three is about who has it and who doesn’t and who would like to have some, thank you. God has it, the serpent doesn’t and wants to spoil life for the humans by tempting them to over-reach for power beyond their capacity to bear.

Here the ancient practices come into play. These practices emerged as means of ordering human desire. What is God’s will for humanity? God’s will is for humanity to grow up. This is achieved by facing challenge. The greatest challenge is regulate self. Of this most of the Greeks thinkers and Jewish prophets would agree. This reason, if for no other, is reason enough to explore, extol and even emulate. – JWS+

Gain Disguised as Loss!

Posted on July 29, 2013 by shepsewell

Peace Pilgrim born Mildred Lisette Norman

The peace pilgrim was a woman who walked more than 25,000 miles, carrying on her body her only possessions. She crossed America for nearly three decades witnessing to the simplest message, “This is the way of peace: overcome evil with good, falsehood with truth and hatred with love.” I’m told that she wandered through Jackson Mississippi at least once and I suspect that she came through Memphis as well

PEACE PILGRIM’S STORY

This story is in her own words. “Let me tell you a story about an answer to prayer. I was picked up late one night by a young policeman as I was walking along a lonely highway. I believe he was thinking in terms of protective custody. He said to me, ‘Why, nobody in this town would walk out along this highway at this time of night.’ I said to him, “Well, you see, I walk completely without fear. Therefore I’m not attracting things which are not good. It says, “That which I feared came upon me. But I fear nothing and expect only good.”

He took me in anyhow, and I found myself in a cell. The floor was littered with old newspapers and cigarette butts and every old thing. The accommodations consisted of a single mattress on the floor and four ragged blankets. There were two women attempting to sleep together on that single mattress. The told me there had been eight women in that cell the night before with those accommodations. There was a rather nice feeling among the prisoners in general. They said to me, ‘You’ll need two blankets because you’ll be sleeping on the floor.’ So I took a newspaper and cleared a place on the floor, and put one blanket downs and the other blanket over me and slept comfortably enough.

It wasn’t the first time I had slept on a cement floor, nor the last. If you’re relaxed you can sleep anywhere. When I woke up in the morning I say this man staring through the bars. I said to him, ‘What time does court convene?’ He said, ‘I don’t know.” I said ‘Well, aren’t you a policeman?’ “No,’ he said, “I just like to look at the girls.’ It was one of the town sports. Anyone could come in right off the street and see what they had there today: ‘Let’s go look at the girls!’

One of the women was middle aged and was being held for being drunk and disorderly. It was her seventh offense, she told me, so it wasn’t so hard on her. But the other was an eighteen-year-old girl. She felt her entire life was ruined because of this experience. I said, ‘It’s my second time and I certainly don’t think my life is ruined!’ I got her all cheered up and we talked about what she’d do when she got out. She was to get out that day or the next day.

Then they changed the guards. I never saw a matron. The new guard saw me and said, ‘What are you doing in there? I saw your picture in the newspaper. I heard you over the air.’ Then they just let me go. But before I left I got a broom from the man who cleaned up around there and gave it to the girls so they could clean up their cell. I also got them a comb; their hair was all matted. They had been there about a week without a comb.

What I really wanted to tell you is that the eighteen-year-old girl was a deeply religious person. She had been desperately praying for help. I believe that I was picked up off the highway that night and set behind prison bars in answer to her prayers.”

PEACE PILGRIM – PAUL & SILAS

Paul and Silas in Prison – William Hatherell

This is the story of a woman at peace. Peace is not the opposite of conflict it is richer than that. Peace is a growing oneness with God and that peace may produce a conflict that doesn’t look very peaceful. I am struck by the similarity between her story and the story of Silas & Paul (Silas should first billing occasionally) in chapter 16:16-40 of the Acts of the Apostles. Paul and Silas wandered around proclaiming the Good News of the Resurrection. When they cast out a demon from a slave girl her owners were furious and they wound up in jail. An earthquake opened the jail in the middle of the night and the jailer was ready to kill himself because if any of the prisoners escaped he would have been executed anyway. But none of the prisoners had gone anywhere. The jailer discovered in Paul and Silas a power beyond anything he had ever seen before. He and his household were baptized. Both the jailer and the slave-owners had a religious experience. For the jailer it was good news and to the owners of the slave girl, who lost their investment it was bad news.

GAIN DISGUISED AS LOSS

The experience of Paul, Silas and Peace Pilgrim could be described as GAIN disguised as LOSS. Jesus dying on the cross and laid in the tomb was gain disguised as loss. How do we live into this “up-side-down” way of thinking which discerns gain disguised as loss? In her writings Peace Pilgrim speaks of four preparations for a spiritual life which I think point toward gainful loss.

A: ASSUME RIGHT ATTITUDES TOWARD LIFE:

“Stop being an escapist or a surface-liver as these attitudes can only cause in-harmony in your life. Face life squarely and get down below the froth on its surface to discover its truths and realities.”

Three young men hid themselves on a Sabbath in a barn in order to smoke. The elder discovered them and threatened to flog them for their misbehavior. One young man said, “I deserve no punishment for I forgot that today was the Sabbath.” The second youth said, “And I forgot that smoking on the Sabbath was forbidden.” The third young man said, “I, too, forgot.” “What did you forget, he was asked?” He replied, “I forgot to lock the door.”

Facing the truth about our motivations and what we are doing is essential to life in the Spirit.

B. LIVE GOOD BELIEFS.

The word “good” comes from the same Indo-European root word as the words gather and together; it means being joined or united in a fitting way.” Harmony and connectedness is a part of spirituality. Peace Pilgrim said, “Begin by putting into practice all the good things you believe.” Good beliefs are not just pious thoughts. To do the good is to see that all things, including you and me belong to a greater whole AND to begin to act like that is so.

C. FIND YOUR PLACE IN THE PATTERN OF LIFE.

Peace Pilgrim said, “You have a part in the scheme of things. What that part is you can know only from within yourself. You can seek it in receptive silence. You can begin to live in accordance with it by doing all the good things you are motivated toward and giving those things priority in your life over all the superficial things that customarily occupy human lives.”

When a man whose marriage was in trouble sought his advice, the Master said, “You must learn to listen to your wife.” The man took his advice to heart and returned after a month to say that he had learned to listen to every word his wife was saying. Then the Master said with a smile, “Now go home and listen to every word she isn’t saying.”

We must learn and find our place in the scheme of things. John quotes Jesus in chapter 21 of his Gospel where Jesus prayed for the disciples; “…that they would be one, as the Father and the Son are one.” That is our place in the things of things.

D. SIMPLIFY LIFE TO BRING INNER AND OUTER WELL- BEING INTO HARMONY.

The Peace Pilgrim writes, “Unnecessary possessions are unnecessary burdens. Many lives are cluttered not only with unnecessary possessions but also with meaningless activities. Wants and needs can become the same in a human life and, when this is accomplished, there will be a sense of harmony between inner and outer well being.”

Wendell Berry

That brought to mind the words of the Kentucky agrarian poet, Wendell Berry, “Don’t own so much clutter that you will be relieved to see your house catch fire.”

GIVING IS NOT LOSS BUT GAIN

The story is told of the time before time, when the world was young, two brothers shared a field and a mill. Each night they divided the grain they had ground together during the day. Now as it happened, one of the brothers lived alone; the other had a wife and a large family. One day, the single brother thought to himself, “It isn’t really fair that we divide the grain evenly. I have only myself to care for, but my brother has children to feed.” So each night he secretly took some of his grain to his brother’s granary to insure that his brother was never without.

But the married brother said to himself one day, “It isn’t really fair that we divide the grain evenly, because I have children to provide for me in my old age, but my brother has no one. What will he do when he is old?” So every night he secretly took some of his grain to his brother’s granary so that he would never lack for anything.

As a result, both of them always found their supply of grain mysteriously replenished each morning. Then one night the brothers met each other halfway between their houses, suddenly realized what had been going on, and embraced each other in love:

GAIN DISGUISED AS LOSS IS AT THE HEART OF THE GOSPEL

The longer I read the scriptures the more I am struck by the symmetry of the whole book. We see this today in the reading from the Revelation to Saint John, which are the last words of the Christian Scriptures on matters of redemption and consummation. The words at the end of the Revelation to Saint John are the antidote to the words in Genesis 3:24 which says, “God drove out the man; and at the east of the Garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.” Ever since our ancestors, Eve and Adam, were evicted from paradise, humanity has been trying to get back in. But the Bible tells us that we can’t go back only forward.

The Old Testament is the record of the journey from Eden to the Promised Land.
The New Testament is the continuing saga of the people of God who are joined by God’s Son in our pilgrimage to God.

Painting Faith

Our Lord by his death and resurrection overcame sin and death. In Christ Jesus God has reconciled the whole world to Himself. Hear again the words that are the last words of God on the subject: “The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let everyone who hears say, “Come.” And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes to take the water of life as gift. The one who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”

When we think of our lives, the regrets, losses, brokenness and those things that make no sense to us it is important to remember that these events are the middle not the end of the story. The story is not over yet!

In Christ Jesus GAIN is disguised as LOSS. Let us never forget that in the end all will be well.

There is Grace in the Gaps

Posted on July 3, 2013 by shepsewell

Lately I’ve begun to think about the gaps in life. I suppose this is intensified by the recent death of my father for as Robert Capon writes, “We live as we marry for better or for worse.” There is a gap in all our striving.

We might think that Biblically the gap begins in Genesis 3 and the unfortunate incident with the fruit tree, but not so I think. Note Genesis 1 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, 2 the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. NRSV Bible with the Apocrypha (Kindle Locations 462-466). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Separateness produces opposites Light/Darkness & Day/Night. The recipe for fruit compote the neighbor shared over the back fence, lead to knowledge not just of good and evil but opposites in general and not just the natural ones of sequence and order but the moral opposites that gives rise to sin.

Creation endowed with freedom of possibility begets the process that leads to the gap in Genesis 3.

JWS (to be continued)

Beyond Contradiction

Gain Disguised as Loss

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