Truth and Water





More prayers for you on my Birthday




A Lifetime of Bearing Fruit






Seeing Colors




The Waiting Game


To wait, is to stay in one place in expectation of something. Waiting is never easy in this day and age and I think it would be safe to say that we do it badly. It can inspire the worst behavior, whether it is in traffic, or shopping, shipping, or security lines at the airport. It can also inspire despair, waiting for justice, for assistance, for long awaited promises. We expect and often times demand immediate results. In doing so we lose the sacred element of expectation: faith, hope and love. What if we could use this season of light to relish waiting, to use the pensive moments we often hate to take a beat and just relish the expectation of what is to come, instead of giving into the fear it often inspires, i.e. the unworthiness that comes when we don’t get what we want, or think we deserve?

Waiting gives us an opportunity to exercise faith, to trust, regardless of our present circumstances, that the goodness we are waiting for will come. Waiting gives us a powerful opportunity to extend that same faith toward our brothers and sisters, often inspiring the same hope in them, which, in turn gets extended out to even more people. Most importantly, though, it brings a precious opportunity to reflect on what it is we are waiting for. In the the readings for the third Sunday of Advent, Jesus asks the people, regarding John the Baptist,

What did you go out to the desert to see?
A reed swayed by the wind?
Then what did you go out to see?
Someone dressed in fine clothing?
Those who wear fine clothing are in royal palaces.
Then why did you go out? To see a prophet?
Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.
This is the one about whom it is written:
Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you;
he will prepare your way before you.

Amen, I say to you,
among those born of women
there has been none greater than John the Baptist;

So, if all we celebrate this Advent is to become of any consequence at all, we must anticipate with hope, faith and love all that Jesus promised. He lived, died was resurrected so that we have, by his grace, that special place in the kingdom of heaven. If we could live in that space of anticipation, the world would become transformed. Let this truly become a season of goodwill toward all, in every moment of preparation for Christmas.

On Seeing the Glass Half Full

half-full-glassIt’s been awhile, and the reason is simple: life happens and sometimes life is hard. Events occur and people we love grow ill and the future teeters in a precarious balance that seems beyond everything but hope and prayer. The world is fraught with crisis and to weigh in demands I make a choice. Will I be a glass half empty person or a glass half full person. I choose to stand on the side of the half fullers. For me its not a Pollyanna thing but a hard stance in the face of negativity and dare you to defy my hope kind of thing. Ultimately, it is a requirement of my faith…for without it, I am just a seed on rocky ground. This world is so good, and so full of great things happening every day, and not the apocalyptic nightmare purported over the many means of media.

It’s also a science thing for me…in a quantum situation, i.e. light can exist as a particle or a wave depending on how its observed (note, prior to this double slit experiment, it had to be one or the other, light could not exist as both). Life can be good or bad, I as the observer determine which…and that determination matters more than anything. I can affect an outcome through faith, hope and love. Words matter, telling the truth matters, prayer matters, looking to the future no matter how daunting with God, in whatever form, augmenting our weakness with deep abiding love and strength matters. It ultimately distinguishes who gets up and moves forward.

For you glass half empties…I offer you my prayer to learn to see with hopeful eyes


Giving from Need and not Want


One of the observations that Jesus makes both comforts and convicts me in equal measure. Jesus first warns his disciples:


He then goes on to make this observation:

When he looked up he saw some wealthy people putting their offerings into the treasury and he noticed a poor widow putting in two small coins. He said, ‘I tell you truly, this poor widow put in more than all the rest; for those others have all made offerings from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has offered her whole livelihood.’

I’m not about to get close to the subject of people and their money. No one thinks they have enough, and certainly don’t want to let go of it…to their detriment anyway. At my core, I’m no different, and it is with great effort and sometimes with great ease, that I consciously release the hold it has on me every day. It expands my faith and my trust in God that I will have enough…that I will be enough and it actually makes me walk in the world differently.

I want to explore other kinds of want, and that has been the greater task for me this year. Loving when I don’t feel loved, being respectful when I don’t feel respected, empathizing when I don’t feel empathy, offering hope when I don’t feel hopeful, trusting someone when I am plagued with distrust, extending peace when I am full of rage, all lessen the need itself. The distinction is subtle…but like the widow, when I give out of my need, with all my present resources, I not only see that I have enough, but the need loses its hold on my soul.

Exhausting needs, and offering all I have to another, allows God to replenish me and create a surplus that wasn’t there before. The mystery of letting go and letting God is manifested. Otherwise it’s just talk. Otherwise we become like the scribes who never lessen their wealth, but gain all the accolades for their holiness. Otherwise faith, hope and love lose and fear wins. I won’t let that happen. Today, I give from need and not want.





Can Optimism Rule?

julian-of-norwichI have to say, this one is a tough one to write. It’s tough because I am, at heart, an eternal optimist. Maybe its the way my brain is wired, or faith, or experience, or insight…or delusion, or any combination of therein. My life has not been easy or tragedy free. All I know, deep in my gut, my core is that all will be well and all manner of things will be well. So it is hard to admit, given how I’m wired…why I’ve struggled with pessimism lately.

Pessimism, you weigh heavy on the world like a thick blanket, and rightly so I suppose, given the circumstances, be it depression, disease, violence, poverty, isolation, ignorance or evil, it can be overwhelming. I have to remind myself daily, no hourly, and sometimes minute by minute that being an optimist doesn’t reject those bad things in the world, it simply means that you decide not to be defined or defeated by them. Life is, at times, hard and depressing because that is its nature. Hardship often presents the greatest lessons and growth, the most poignant evolution. And while my rational mind scoffs at this obvious conclusion, my emotional, more intuitive side stamps its foot at the difficulty and discomfort of it all. It’s at this point of the book when I want to skip over the hard and scary parts and jump to the conclusion and see how it all ends.

I know my life and movement is tethered to the many, that my single commitment to optimism is doomed if others can’t be swayed to jump on the hope train. The reason is that my faith demands that I be part of a larger body and help make it work. I am not alone, and yet I feel alone a lot of the time. There is unrest and anger that inhibits the function of the larger body I am part of. There is fear there too, paralyzing fear. Fear that is covered up by institutional mandates and paranoia that on the surface state that they are there for our own protection, but really serve no other purpose but to cut out those parts of the body that are felt to be less honorable. Remember what Paul said:

those parts of the body we consider less honorable we surround with greater honor, and less presentable parts are treated with greater propriety. Whereas our more presentable parts do not need this. But God has so constructed the body as to give greater honor to a part that is without it, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the parts may have the same concern for one another. If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy.

Being an optimist does require embracing at the most fundamental level that the dynamic gifts of each person on this planet are essential to keeping the body of Christ functional  in transforming our world to make it better. So to all you pessimists out there, if you can’t embrace the dynamic gifts of those you hold to be less honorable, then you doom us all. Your pessimism halts the function of the body. It makes it weak and susceptible to the very evils that were vanquished by the death, and resurrection of Christ.

I am vague on who the less honorable are, because they are different for every individual. You may hold gay people as less honorable, or transgender people, or straight people, poor people, or rich people, or powerful people, or famous people, or beautiful people,or the sick, the dying, the imprisoned. It doesn’t really matter who. What really matters is that you, pessimist, with your inability to see that each person is essential in God’s eye, limit the power and function of the most powerful body in existence. A body that has the superpowers of Grace and love, and a gospel of instructions on how to make the body move. It would be easy for me to tell you to get lost, find another body to be part of, but then I would be no better than you. My anger would keep me from recognizing your value, your part to play. So let me say this: my optimism trumps your pessimism. I do know the ending to this story, and I win. So win with me, say over and over again that all things shall be well and all manner of things shall be well, and soon your eyes will be open to the world I wake up to every day. As dark as the world may seem, know that the battle is won. When God is with us (and I mean all of us) who can be against us?

Being an optimist begins with you, it means embracing this truth: you are an essential ingredient in maintaining, sustaining and transforming our human evolution. It means that you have impact and worth regardless of any feedback. You act, because you know on even the smallest level that you can move the world forward. Let it bring a smile to your face, a confidence that you have never had before. No one, not even the most pessimistic hater can ever take that away. Let me honor you, celebrate you and share your joy. And if you can’t, know that I will suffer with you, and pray for your transformation.


Magical Thinking

magical thinkingBelieving in the causal relationship between actions and events that can’t be justified simply by reason and observation is a tripping point for many who have a hard time embracing a life rooted in faith in Jesus Christ. I don’t. Not because I choose to believe in magic, but because I believe that there is so much more that exists beyond human limitation and comprehension. For me to believe that the vastness of the universe is limited to the four dimensions of space and time simply because that is all the human mind has evolved to, as yet, is just as absurd. There is plenty of science out there with feasible theories that speak of multiple dimensions…and I’m ok with that too.

My point is that suspending my limitations for a moment, and trusting that there is an omniscience that holds us in dear regard, is as feasible as the probability that there are dimensions beyond the four we experience as science suggests. It is as simple as that, in my mind. When I look around at the insanity going on in the world today, mostly in my own country, with gun violence, racism, and (true to the promise I made at the beginning of the year to speak without filters), idiots like Donald Trump running for president, who is more a candidate for magical thinking that anyone with religious belief (and if there is anyone out there reading this who actually thinks the Donald has a real place in this election, I will pray for you). Why is it any less reasonable to believe in God, than America being the home of the free and the brave? Contrary to what you might think, there is more reasonable evidence of God in the world than America being reasonable and brave.

Hold on, before you freak out…because God only knows a true American would never, could never criticize their birth place. America will never be the country it is touted to be, when the freedom to carry a gun, unhindered by any rules outweighs the ability for any citizen to live free. It isn’t a left-wing, liberal notion to believe that the gun violence in this country has gotten out of hand…it is just the opposite, it is reasonable and observable. It isn’t a marker of bravery to hold onto a weapon for fear that someone is out to get you, just the opposite. Living in fear certainly isn’t living free. A true example of magical thinking is the belief that a gun will keep anyone safe from the “bad guy” often portrayed as a person of color, a different sexual orientation, a different ethnicity. And it is just as magical to think that those shallow distinctions of race, color and sexual orientation are an inherent threat to anyone’s freedom. Our own violence, lack of reason and false observations created the present environment. And only until and when we can embrace something more than can be reasonably seen and understood by our own limitations, the violence, the hatred and the absurdity will continue. I, for one, can’t let that happen. While my belief that grace has freed me from sin instills a deep hope for the future of humanity, it hasn’t freed any of us from the responsibility to stop the future sin. Let’s leave the magical thinking to Donald Trump and focus on the kind of leadership that actually has the courage to see the problem and fix it.

Vengence is Mine, Sayeth the Lord…I will Repay



