Friday, February 28, 2014

The Bridge to Somewhere....





Oh my goodness...I was really surprised to discover this picture of the Capital Island (Maine) footbridge long before the bridge for cars was made.  I recall as a very young kid as my family parked on one side and we walked the bridge.  It took me to the world that was to be the way it always needed to be--with the pains, worries, fears, losses--of the world in which I was growing up. I was always a child at heart here--the place where walking the dirt roads (and still dirt to this day!)--I walked the footsteps of where my parents met, married and gave me life.  I still find life in all its forms in this place. 

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Finding your Way in the World

This sign not only exists in Maine...but it is accurate!  These are all Maine cities within this range of miles.  For years it has been a favorite postcard. 

CS Lewis said that when we are lost in the woods, the sight of any sign matters alot.  We stop.  Read. Get our sense of direction.  Then hit the road and try again.  It especially helps, he adds, when we know our destination! 

This prayer of discernment has always been special to me.  It says that God is the sign to look for in the world.  God is always at hand, right before our eyes when we truly seek him! 







Discernment Prayer (Sisters of Notre Dame
Walk with me, good and loving God, as I journey through life.
May I take Your hand and be led by Your Holy Spirit.
Fill me, inspire me, free me to respond generously to Your call.
For I believe You desire my deepest joy,
And it is only in Your company
That my soul will be satisfied
And my life will find its meaning and purpose.     Amen.

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

The gift of forgiveness...

c. Michael Podesta Graphics


If I have harmed anyone in any way
either knowingly or unknowingly
through my own confusions
I ask their forgiveness.

If anyone has harmed me in any way
either knowingly or unknowingly
through their own confusions
I forgive them.

And for all the ways that I harm myself,
by judging or doubting or being unkind
through my own confusions
I forgive myself.


Buddhist Prayer of Forgiveness 


I love both of these--the graphic image and the Buddhist Prayer!  The word "Alleluia" is connected in one circle and literally means "to God be praise."  It is an unending chorus that builds from within, moves into the world and connects others into the circle of prayer.  Now read the Buddhist Prayer.  It is circular as well...and that is the message of forgiveness--that it moves on all those levels and ultimately between all people.  In both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, the Great Commandment is to love God and your neighbor as yourself.  Isn't forgiveness a part of that circle? And never mind that little song about "Happiness runs in a circular motion!"  

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Farewell to Harold Ramis

How terribly sad to hear the news that Harold Ramis died, aka Egon amongst so many wonderful actors let alone the scripts that he gave us.  For me, it will always be Egon in Ghostbusters--the brain-child of the bunch who seemed to be the only one who really understood their far-out technology.  When all is said and done--and we look back at what we have done with our lives, I think the question is--have we enriched the lives of others, or dare to say that we have loved?  Harold Ramis made us laugh and with a sometimes serious character, we were able to let go and take ourselves a little more lightly.

There is a part of Jesus in all of that--how he enabled people who came in contact with him to take the opinions of others and made them righteous less seriously than the love of God given so freely.  And there was no acting in a life that lived to show us God's love and to give it away. 

Monday, February 24, 2014

Can You Take It With You?

You gotta love the oldie but goody movies!  I walked in on "You Can't Take It With You," the 1938 Frank Capra classic--and I immediately was struck by the fact that--somebody had to actually think through and develop an meaningful plot that made its point without being a smorgasbord of special effects.  The characters carry the day!  And how well the young Jimmy Stewart and the older Lionel Barrymore to name just a few really did just that.  As the audience, I had to watch the characters develop through their behavior rather than the manipulation of lighting, effects--and to make it rhyme--sex! 

Maybe the movie makes its point about the real values, the intangibles that cannot be bought.  Sure...I get it...after all, we can't take it with us.  But that only surfaces the real question of what truly matters.  At the heart of all human relationship lies the pearl of great price--the one Jesus spoke of--that once found, sell everything for it.  Through the human heart, no matter how crucified and scarred--we find our way into the Kingdom that God waits to give us. And, you CAN take it with you!

Friday, February 21, 2014

Snow Walk

This picture was posted at weather.com and shows a woman walking along the reflecting pool of the Lincoln Memorial in February.  The reflecting pool is frozen over, giving the ere reflection from the lights above.  Rather than a photographic critique, what I see is the stark loneliness of the woman as she walks along--yet bathed in the light from above.  Maybe it takes this kind of a very special day to see that light opening up the path in front of her--but nevertheless, it is there.  We all walk this world in all kinds of different weather, especially the weather of the heart.  There are those times of abject loneliness and the feeling of isolation.  We walk by ourselves--that's what we brought into this world and what we shall take out.  Yet however, there is this light and the woman is hardly alone if we catch a glimpse of the Light. 

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Sandra Bullock Revelation

I know what I heard her say and it is really worth repeating....

"I made a decision a long time ago to have a baby. I gave up so much in my career.  But it was nothing, nothing at all, to what I received.  Maybe a  baby breaks a mother's heart open to feel her way through the world in a new way."  

Sandra Bullock continued by saying...

"Now my life is rooted in joy.  I get up in the more and I look for joy in the world.,  What else is there?" 

Perhaps the revelation is that something this deep and enlightened came out of Hollywood.  For once, an actress who seems to know the difference between the stage, the camera set and real life.  Joy is not happiness.  It is not a Gospel of "don't worry--be happy."  Joy is what we find when our lives have been split open and we see what really means the most. 

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Celebrate the New Day!~



i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e.e. cummings
1894-1962

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Moonscape....

Take a walk in the evening when the snow has fallen and the moon rises above it.  The world is brand new with images not seen when the ground alone swallows moonlight.  Stick figures walk out of nowhere, alive as beings of the evening, reaching out their hands toward you. Let the imagination go to work and you land in Tolkien's world the the Ents--the walking, talking trees. 

It is said that the essence of living is to reenter your ordinary world where the routine is expected and be able to gain a whole new vision.  A new vision of the same world reveals the truth that life is always more than surface appearances and may change at any time.

We behold Jesus the man in his public ministry.  At what point and in what ways do we see something more--far greater than imagination and enduring than by the light cast by the moon on the world of snow. 

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Snow Sunrise!





This is the day that the Lord has made;
   let us rejoice and be glad in it.*

                                                         Psalm 118.24



Ever get up to watch a snow-sunrise? 

There’s just something magical and splendid about seeing the sun peek into the world in winter.  As soon as its rays touch the snow, they reflect out into a brilliant color that for a moment—fills the world in a wonderful way.  It teaches the eternal truth that we are created to reflect God’s light.  Annie Dillard writes about “the light uncreated.”  Now, imagine when that Light hits us and for sometimes only a moment—we see ourselves with something of the delight which God has for creation—and us.  We are part of that day that the Lord has created.  Is there ever enough joy to be glad in that gift? 


 

 






Saturday, February 15, 2014

Grief like the snow....

There's just something about this picture that tells me she has lived many years, seen a lot, and endured the loss of much.  Call it the inevitable sweep of time.  Maybe these bags hold the remainder of her life.  Without speculation--she is alone, very alone on the bench.  Such is the world of grief. 

Now that we have been deluged with snow--and it is reported that 49 of the states have snow on the ground--here's a classic Longfellow poem that relates the falling of snow to the world of grief, which like the weather, remains out of control. 



Snow-flakes


Out of the bosom of the Air,
      Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
      Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
            Silent, and soft, and slow
            Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take
      Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
      In the white countenance confession,
            The troubled sky reveals
            The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,
      Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
      Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
            Now whispered and revealed
            To wood and field.


Friday, February 14, 2014

The Real Valentine...


"To love another person is to see the face of God."
Les Miserables

The story behind Valentine's Day goes all the way back to High Middle Ages.  They took the mythological story of St. Valentius, who died leaving his girlfriend a note signed "St. Valentine," and turned it into a custom of leaving romantic notes and gifts.  Still, even in a myth, the literal facts of the story may not be true, but it still teaches a timeless truth.  God is love and those dwelling in love--and there are many kinds--can find themselves close to God.  Perhaps the difference with today's culture is this:  we give cards and gifts to persuade others that they are loved.  Jesus came to tell people God is love and loves them.  We are born to reflect and share that eternal fact of life.

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Shutting Down the World

I love the way the snow shuts down the world,
as if Mother Nature has had just too much of
our running around with endless lists, forgetting
our place in the world, actually more humble
than most of us ever want to admit. 

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Where do the homeless go....

 A storm sweeps up the South with an icy broom,
As people huddle indoors after cleaning out the stores.
But I wonder to myself if the storm called catastrophic
Means anything to those who always live outdoors,
Homes under bridges, tents of cardboard, the weather
Meaningless when death can come and take them home...
At any time anyway. 

  And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’ Matthew 8: 20

 

 

 

 

 


Tuesday, February 11, 2014

The Odds of "Broadway" Joe Namath

Joe Namath made the Fur Coat famous as a Jet and wore it to the Super Bowl
My goodness!  I saw that fur coat of Namath's and I knew it from my boyhood!  He made it famous as a NY Jet when the franchise was just beginning--and he made the coat stick because he had the stats and accomplishments to back it up. That's Broadway Joe alright--and he earned the right to wear it.

But hold on Joe--what happened with that coin toss?  You forgot to ask the Seahawks captain to call it--heads or tails!  So, th3e ref intercepted the coin and started it all over.  You got away with that one as well because of who you are.  Accomplishment needs no excuses!

So who are we?  And do we need excuses?  Maybe apologies...  but we are so very human after all --no matter how the odds work one way or another.  If you are children of the living God, you are clothed in righteousness that is indelible--there forever!  God clothes us with his life, of Jesus Christ, and we need no excuses, none whatsoever--just apologies that come from the riches of God's grace that forgives all. 

Monday, February 10, 2014

The Most Important Things....





Can you take a picture of the "the real things?" 
of what matters most in life?





The real things haven't changed. 
It is still best to be honest and truthful; 
to make the most of what we have; 
to be happy with simple pleasures; 
and have courage when things go wrong.

Laura Ingalls Wilder, 1867-1957
American Author, Teacher and Journalist

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Avoid Thy Neighbor?

This could have been me the other day, sitting alone in a McDonalds (hardly with table cloth!). The car was in the shop and I was across the street spending quiet time by reading and writing with nobody else there. I soon heard a woman over my shoulder speaking to the woman at the counter.  Something about being lost and where was the closet metro station.  I ignored her and her situation.  That is, until she came into my booth for the outlet to charge her phone--I was sitting in the only booth with an outlet!  Oh of course she apologized for crashing in, but her cell was dead and she had to get a connection somehow.

The woman was African American--hair shot back, large ear-rings--with such dominant eyes, black specks floating in pools of white that danced with the fervor with which she spoke.  She was lost, way lost alright.  She had been out on MLK Day and forgot the transit was on a holiday schedule.  "Don't worry," I said, "My car will be ready from that shop over there and I will get you to the metro." There is no way she could walk over those miles, and don't ask me how she got as far as she did!

Needless to say, waiting on the car was a "trip" in itself--hearing her story and how she came to DC from CA.  She was a teacher but her love was poetry.  Oh no--how is it that perfect strangers with these mutual interests bond so quickly?  Poets just know each other--even poor poets!

Short of the long story.  My car took another hour, so I packed her away in a cab and got the fare. She called me her friend just for being there for her.  "Hey lady...I was doing everything I could to avoid you...and you found me, or rather...God put us together so you could get home and I could taste the vitality of your soul.  A God-incident....

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Goodbye Jay Leno....Really?

Jay Leno and Jimmy Fallon
Is this really good-bye, Jay?  Should I hold my applause because NBC will bring you back in a year?  Maybe that is their strategy: take you off, let the ratings sink, then bring you back to regain the audience share and more!  In any respect, I saw you fight back tears and say the farewell heard round the world by so many: "I am the luckiest guy in the world--and--these 22 years have been the best in my life."  Well, for an original guy, you just copied along of farewell folks! 

Truth is that the best time is NOW, right here and NOW!  The past is gone, memories fade and are not real; the future is not yet, may never be--it is an illusion to live the future now.  There is only now.  It is in the present that God meets us, gives us what we need, everything in fact--and we are most fully alive when we live in the here and now.  What is pain?  The baggage from the past, dead and gone, that we carry emotionally--if we so choose.  What is worry and fear? The future that is not--which only may be--and hardly ever comes about.  Mark Twain has said: I have spent my life in dreadful fear of the future, most of which has never come true!  Jesus is more direct:  which one of you can add one cubit to the span of life?  Let tomorrow worry about tomorrow. 

Humor can be a time to laugh.  To breathe in and out...  and by so doing, you are alive in the present.  Stop breathing and see what happens.  Take a deep breath and you just tasted the present! 


Friday, February 7, 2014

Follow the Fox!

I was sitting on my back porch when a caught the fox out of the corner of my eye.  It had been raining, he looked very wet, but he also had a sense of mission about him. Once he reached our fence, he flew over it as gracefully as possible--pranced through the backyard looking at nothing and then glided over the fence on the other side of the yard. Fence to fence -- levitating. 

What a comparison I drew with myself--so easily distracted; could I have made it across the yard without stopping on the way?  When I hit a barrier, can I glide so gracefully over it?  We do have fox around, so I was not surprised when this once showed up.  But what I saw was focused attention and grace, the ease of concentrating on the barrier ahead and then gliding over it. 

The Episcopal Prayer Book has a wonderful sentence--"singleness of heart." (which is very similar to Kirkegaard's statement, "the purity of the heart is to will one thing." Now let's not attribute too much to that fox, but what I saw was a single-minded purpose.   Doesn't the spiritual life evolve into that "singleness of heart" so whatever we pass through in this life, we have our eyes "surely fixed where true joys come, our Lord Jesus Christ." (Prayer Book) 


Thursday, February 6, 2014

John Lennon Epiphany




Imagine all the people living life in peace.

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.

I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will be as one.
John Lennon 



The TV was playing as I walked into the room, and the story of John Lennon’s murder was being retold.  Was this more about Lennon or his deranged killer Mark Chapman? The question hung in the air for me—why is it that people of peace are those who are slain in this world of ours?  Jesus? Gandhi? Martin Luther King Jr?  Maybe that’s why they are killed – because the world fundamentally rejects the peace that they stand for. 



The epiphany for me was to remember Lennon’s phrase, often quoted without his attribution. 



“Life is what happens to you when you are planning something else.” 

Yes that was Lennon.  That while he was planning something else for his life—his life was taken.  But while others plan for war, maybe peace will come, still comes in the heart despite what the world plans. 
 





 


Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Philip Seymour Hoffman

Phillip Seymour Hoffman
Many mourn the tragic death of Philip Seymour Hoffman, dead so much before his time.  The Oscar winner was also nominated 3 times as best supporting actor.  I delighted in his role as the geeky-roomate of Patch Adams.  What a straight man for Robin Williams' zany performances.  Yet, I truly wonder with sorrow why it is that we increasing see those from Hollywood who get the big prize and fail at life.  They are bigger than life on the screen and stage--yet can't handle it. Hoffman was found dead of an apparent heroin overdose, hardly any surprise for his self-admitted addiction.

In Patch Adams, Hoffman rails at Robin Williams for making life and the medical profession "a joke."  Hoffman works hard and tows the line; Williams is off the scale brilliant and just has to show to get the grades.  The lines that Hoffman used in Patch Adams was a role he could not play in life. 

We are called to be ourselves, to live authentic life--to get out of the phony roles and lines we memorize and play to cope with the world.  It is enough, quite enough--isn't it--to be who God created us to be.  Yet, there is Hollywood in all of us I suspect--wanted to claim the prize of life, earn the Oscar--rather than prize the life that we have been given by God.  What must we memorize to be ourselves as God created us to be?

Sunday, February 2, 2014

Jesus & the Temple

Hans A. Holbein c.1500
The Feast of the Presentation for Christians was really a Jewish custom.  The first born male, the first fruits of the family, was take to the temple and a sacrifice was made in thanksgiving for his birth--and to purify the mother after the rite of Moses.  The bottom line?  God blessed the whole family through its first fruits--the first born son.  But the Christian ceremony of the Presentation, celebrated on Sunday as the principal feast when it occurs then--turns the ancient tradition on its head.  Now, God blesses everyone through Jesus, his first born son.  The old law has become transformed for Christians into the means of grace.

But mark these words!  Jesus will return over and over to the temple and each time conflict breaks out because he will not be accepted for what is worship--as the revelation of God.  Soon, he will turn the tables of the money changers over--and that will lead to his death...and we quickly add, his resurrection through which people of all ages are blessed with the gift of his life. 

Some have pointed out this observation--the two woman in the back left appear to be pregnant, a sign of grace passed on through the human race....the expectancy of Emanuel, God always with us and saying "yes" with the birth of each child. 

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Walking through Fear.....and Beyond

Is it true that we would always rather take the long way around than risk the bridge that seems so fearful to us...that is even more fearful because it leads to an unknown place?  For Jesus, the known factor was God, his Father.  He learned despite circumstances to hold on to him--and God the Father was his way across and the blessing of transforming fear. 

One of my favorite poets is William E. Stafford, and he captures the gift of fear that leads to the blessing. 



For My Young Friends Who Are Afraid

There is a country to cross you will
find in the corner of your eye, in
the quick slip of your foot--air far
down, a snap that might have caught.
And maybe for you, for me, a high, passing
voice that finds its way by being
afraid. That country is there, for us,
carried as it is crossed. What you fear
will not go away: it will take you into
yourself and bless you and keep you.
That's the world, and we all live there.
William Stafford