Category Archives: Love
Grace for a Bottomless Pit of Needs and Wants
“Simply realize who is hidden within you.” –osho
“Story telling has always been at the heart of being human because it serves some of our most basic needs: passing along our traditions, confessing failings, healing wounds, engendering hope, strengthening our sense of community. …………….when our discourse becomes more abstract, the less connected we feel.” Parker J. Palmer (These are quotes from the blog: makebelieveboutique.com)
They really hit me where I live. Not very many people relate to my writing because I tell, instead of show. I’m a theory person in that I explore the world through concepts, connections and possibilities.
But my responses to daily experiences come straight from my emotions. That makes me feel very vulnerable, so I stay focused on the outside world of theories as much as I can.
I have many “God” experience stories that are beyond statistical coincidence. But most of them came out of my struggle with repeated failures to love, because of being a bottomless pit of needs and wants. Needy people are not people who are able to love unconditionally. We may do a lot for others, but it is at least partly, if not mostly, out of our need for constant confirmation that we are worthwhile people.
My favorite autobiographical spiritual writer is Anne Lamott, because she too is a needy person who has often messed up big time because of it, but has found the grace to be open about her flawed humanity through her ongoing experiences of God and His love.
To be honest, I’m not sure I really want that kind of courage enough to ask God for that grace. But I am becoming increasingly uncomfortable with where I am, so like it or not, that may be where God is calling me.
The Heart of True Religion
The heart of true religion is spirituality. Then and only then can it become communal. If our faith communities are not made up of people with a humble personal relationship with God based on our own ongoing needing and receiving forgiveness, our faith communities will become legalistic, judgmental, unforgiving, about pride and power, and ultimately conflict ridden.
The heart of the spiritual life is a personal journey from recognizing our human weakness and failures, then experiencing forgiveness and unconditional love, to an ongoing response to this grace of becoming more and more able to love others in the same way. It’s an ongoing cycle of repentance and grace and growth in the freedom to love.
The heart of unconditional love is forgiveness. No one is perfect. We all need forgiveness and new beginnings throughout our lives. Truly accepting forgiveness and forgiving others are interdependent. And forgiveness and love are inseparable. We can’t accept or give one without the other.
Each day we are called to open our hearts and minds to God, to find God’s grace in: a first cup of coffee, morning birdsong and sunlight, star filled darkness, storms, fear, difficult people, beauty, a tearful child, a faithful pet, sharing our daily bread, our own and others’ brokenness, sorrow, joy, forgiving, laughter, loss, love, every moment, every human experience, every human relationship, and every human being. When we have “God” eyes, we see God and God’s love everywhere. When we are filled to overflowing, God’s love can pour out for everyone, even those who need our forgiveness.
In Our Hearts We Are One
When things fall apart and we can’t get the pieces back together, when we lose something dear to us, when the whole thing is just not working and we don’t know what to do, this is the time when the natural warmth of tenderness, the warmth of empathy and kindness, are just waiting to be uncovered, just waiting to be embraced. This is our chance to come out of our self-protecting bubble and to realize that we are never alone. This is our chance to finally understand that wherever we go, everyone we meet is essentially just like us. Our own suffering, if we turn toward it, can open us to a loving relationship with the world. ~Pema Chodron
From the blog: Make Believe Boutique
Letter to Politicians on Four Issues Relating to Anti-gay Marriage Resolutions
1. I believe freedom for and from religion are the same thing. As a “born again” Christian in America, I want to protect that legal freedom.
2. Homosexuality runs in families. It isn’t a choice. I had a great-great aunt that became a pediatrician in the late 1800’s and established a health clinic for the poor. She was our family’s best kept secret, because she lived with the same woman all her life. I have a kind and deeply spiritual brother who has been in a 25 year monogamous relationship with another man. I have a son, who with his partner of 17 years, teaches at an orphanage for children born HIV positive in Cambodia.
3. The most important thing in my life is my relationship with Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. I want all people to have the chance to accept the unconditional love of God expressed in Jesus as Savior, so He can truly become their Lord. But I think history shows that making people be nominal Christians by law, violence, fear, family tradition or cultural pressure doesn’t accomplish that. Jesus died for sinners and He spoke against judging others more than any other sin.
4. Having been married to the same man for 57 years, I have come to believe that marriage is the institution designed by God to not just populate the world, but to challenge, teach and enable us to learn to love another imperfect human being up close long enough to love them as they really are. (Admittedly, some people need more practice than others, but it is still our best bet.) I want that choice for all people. I do not want to limit any people by law to promiscuity or deceit in order to experience human love.
I realize that the way that I have come to understand faith in the love of God is not necessarily shared by all Christians. The freedom for that diversity of how our faith is lived out is part of what I am wanting to protect. But, I also understand that you are elected officials who live with the tension between what your conscience says and what your electorate wants.
All I ask is that you seriously consider all sides, and if you are a person of prayer, that you will prayerfully listen to the many ways God speaks to our minds and hearts.
Maybe I Haven’t Really Tried Christianity Yet (Edited and Expanded )
I have struggled off and on throughout my life with the statement: “Christianity hasn’t failed. It just hasn’t been tried yet.”
Because over the centuries there have been individuals that took Jesus literally about not killing, even in self-defense. Many more have been willing to lay down their own lives by serving others. In my own times, I remember Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Corrie Ten Boom and her family, the lone unarmed Chinese student standing in front of a line of tanks, the students killed while protesting at Kent State.
There are unsung heroes that have given their lives in different ways for others in every century, of every gender, from every nation, religion and walk of life. In the 13th century when the church with the help of the King of France began a crusade to wipe out the Cathars, a heretical group in the Southwest of France, the Cathars’ Christian neighbors and friends tried to protect them by joining them when they sought sanctuary in the Cathedral at Beziers. Unfortunately, the “Christian” military leader decided to let God sort them out and burned the Cathedral down with both heretics and Christians inside it.
On the public stage three people come to mind immediately who changed governments by putting their lives on the line for justice and mercy without counting the cost. They inspired others to do the same. One, Gandhi, admired Jesus, but didn’t claim to follow him, though his actions spoke louder than his words. The other two, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela did claim to follow Jesus. None were perfect, but they all were willing to lay down their lives for others and not to return evil for evil. And they changed their worlds.
Frankly, when I look at history and listen to Jesus Christ, this is what true Christianity looks like to me. Yet most Christians cannot seem to accept the reality that not only was Jesus non-violent, but throughout history violence has never put an end to violence.
The main difference between Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King and militia protest groups now on our front pages is that the first three didn’t come to confrontations armed and Mandela came out of prison determined to lead people to forgive and reconcile.
The difference between Jesus and some of our loudest nominal Christians is that he invites, “Come and follow me.” He was never deluded, as centuries of Crusader Christians continue to be, that people can be forced to truly follow Him by law or fear or discrimination.
Who are the “bad” guys in your eyes? ISIS? Obama? Militia Groups? Gays who want to get married? Donald Trump? Muslims? Immigrants who take our jobs. American companies who out-source American jobs to foreign countries? Christians who want to deny other Americans religious freedom. Tea party members? Liberals who risk putting compassion for foreigners above Americans’ safety? Billionaire CEO’s of Conglomerates whose greed threatens America’s economic survival? Gun toting Christians who think violence is the answer to conflict of opinion? All of these are the “bad” guys in someone’s eyes.
As a follower of Jesus I’d like to think I’d risk my life at least for those I love or admire and hopefully for a helpless child. But Jesus died for the bad guys, everybody’s “bad” guys. Isn’t that a bummer?
I admit that I’m not there yet. But, I’m not comfortable with just accepting that. My struggle isn’t over. Maybe I haven’t really tried Christianity yet.
God is not Finished with Us Yet
Today, the first Scripture reading says: “Now the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and with the people.”
In the Gospel reading it says of the twelve year old Jesus who has caused his parents great anxiety, “Then he went down with them and was obedient to them. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.”
The important words for us here are grow and increase. If Samuel and Jesus had to grow and increase, even in wisdom and in favor with God and man, it’s a pretty safe bet we do too. And the growing doesn’t stop when we are 12, or 21, 78 or 95.
Today’s second reading says to us: “As God’s children, holy and beloved,”(Don’t you just want to wrap that word ‘beloved’ around you like a warm soft comforter?)
But it continues, “clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.”
The word clothe implies that compassion and humility and patience are not necessarily natural human traits. What follows points the way to grow and increase in them: “Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” (Not should or ought, but must.)
The scripture continues “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom.”
Oh boy, there’s the rub. I don’t know about you, but I am not very teachable and if you decide to admonish me, you probably should be prepared to run.
Here’s the good news, when we admit our own need to grow and change, accepting forgiveness brings the grace to change. Forgiveness actually has the power to free us from being trapped even in a lifelong destructive response to people or events.
THEN and only then, can we like Jesus be a witness by visibly fleshing out the power of grace through growing and changing. The best way to teach is to show how it’s done. (It’s probably the safest also.)
Listen please with an open heart to the PRAYER OF CONFESSION followed by a time of silent reflection:
God, you call us beloved. Jesus you showed us that we are called and can be freed to grow and change. Let us feel your hand on our shoulder as you gently shake your head at our blindness. As we listen in silence, free us by your tender love to see where we need to grow and change. Then help us to completely accept forgiveness in the depths of our hearts, so we may be living witnesses to God’s saving grace.
………Take time for reflection…………………
We are all God’s children. We are all God’s beloved. Feel that. Cling to it. Rejoice in it. Give thanks for it. And trust God to complete the good work he has begun in you.
Reflections on Scriptures from the Revised Common Lectionary for Sunday, December 27, 2015 NRSV
1 Sam 2:18-20, 26 Col 3:12-17 Luke 2:41-52
Eleven Year Old Granddaughter Asks about Donald Trump
Her mom’s reply: My 11 year old asked me why people (Donald Trump) were saying we should deport all immigrants, Hispanic and Muslim, why he wanted to start a database or have people wear numbers, why he thinks we should close our borders to an entire race/culture, why he said such angry and ugly words about people. She said ‘a lot of my friends wear scarves on their heads. They are not bad people, they are nice and my friends’. I have tried to explain to her what’s going on. I have told her both sides. That bad people have done horrific things in the name of a perverted view of a religion. That those things keep on happening all over the world. She has seen some of the news coverage about it. She, in her 11 year old head, is trying to understand something none of us will ever understand. She also immediately understood something I think all of us should.
Let’s step back for a moment everyone. Step back and truly listen to what’s being said right now. Hate is rampant and being applauded. This has all gone too far. Do we not remember the holocaust? What’s happening in our country right now, is the beginning. Yes, there are people (monsters) who pervert a religion to justify killing innocents as there always have been. This is not new, nor is it confined to a disgusting perversion of the Muslim faith. Yes, we DO need to do something about it. No, we don’t need to incite fear and hatred.
My 11 year old understands this. Why can’t adults? After I explained, as impartially as possible, which I will admit was difficult for me, why Trump (and others) were saying the things that they are, she looked at me and in all her 11 year old wisdom asked quietly ‘isn’t that what Hitler did?’ She, as a babe, understands the ramification of what is being said. She has little 11 year old friends who are scared because they wear a headscarf or go to the mosque. She sees their fear and hurts for them. Isn’t about time we, as adults, took a page from her book of wisdom and say ‘this is enough! We will defend the innocent, but we will not do it by punishing the innocent!’
My heart hurts and my brain is tired. Please stop this hate. Stop applauding it and spreading it. Stop before it’s too late to bring this freight train of bigotry and racism to a halt.
Let’s Hear it for the Delusion that We Can Bring Order out of Chaos
Well, you know how some cultures take their shoes off at the door? I am starting a new Elder American Custom: Take off your glasses at my door. I don’t wear my glasses at home much. This works for me, because I can’t see the dust bunnies, the odd dead bug or dollop of jelly on the floors. And since most of my friends are also at the stage of life that requires glasses to notice small stuff, this new custom should allow me to maintain my laissez faire attitude toward house work while not having to hide in total silence in a darkened apartment when someone knocks at my door.
But, today, I am doing what I always do when my life feels like it is spinning out of control with disasters lurking around every corner. I am cleaning out the cabinets and the fridge. This is not house work. This is about bringing order out of chaos. This is about restoring some of the delusion that I am in control of something, however unimportant, in my life.
I never learn. I was determined last week to have enough carb free food for us when I was going to be down from my knee surgery. Well, I didn’t take into consideration that when under stress, Julian and I eat only high carb junk food and baked goods or that Julian would be the one running to the store for the one or two things I forgot. So, today I am throwing out week old beautiful chicken salad, cream cheese with olives and pecans mix for sandwiches for Julian, and some leftover chile without beans for me. So sad. So stupid! I have eaten more carbs in the last week than in the last two months! And enjoyed every single crumb, even the ones off the counters.
Well, I am recovered after sitting down for a bit, so back to enforcing law and order in my cabinets. I found some seasonings which expired in 2012. Also, found some things that don’t expire until 2020. I figure that may well be beyond my own expiration date!
All prayers and caring thoughts gratefully appreciated for my husband, Julian, who is having a lung biopsy tomorrow and my youngest son, Tommy, the father of four daughters who is having heart tests today prior to possibly having to get a pace-maker.
Inch Worms on the Plateau of Realism
I feel very sure just about everyone has blind spots or crazy spots in their personality. They come with the territory of being a human. I think they come with everyone’s DNA, but often, if not always, are intensified by experiences or lack of experiences in our impressionable youth.
One of my particular personality type’s blind spots is idealism, which is not bad if balanced with enough common sense. But unfortunately that seems to come to some of us very late in life. So, we develop survival mechanisms to minimize the pain of constant disappointment and frustration with the world, including with ourselves.
Some of us pick an idealistic goal in a particular area and simply focus on it with total tunnel vision while pouring all our energies into it. Unfortunately, eventually most of us either burn out or catch on that we can only inch toward ideals in this flawed and very unfinished world.
Others of us latch on pretty early to the pleasure principle….pleasures block pain…..so we eat, drink and make out with Mary or Harry. Eventually this either kills us, destroys our relationships or gets us run out of town, so we too are challenged to face the pitiful little realities of human existence.
So down deep many of us fear that what is actually driving us is congenital insanity. Naturally, we’d rather cling to an addiction, which we assure ourselves is either a virtue or else something that we could always get over, than face our fear that we are crazy. Because being crazy might not be something we are able to do anything about. Maybe all the world’s pills and all the world’s doctors couldn’t put our tiny cracked selves together again.
If we are lucky enough (or blessed) to find a source of love – just as we are, we can become able to bear the pain of disillusionment about ourselves and thus the rest of the world. Then most of us, after settling only temporarily in the valley of cynicism, will find our way to a reasonably satisfying existence as inch worms on the plateau of realism.
Laughter: Carbonated Grace 