Everyone Loves a Parade

The tragic sense of life is ironically not tragic at all, at least in the Big Picture. Living in such deep time, connected to past and future, prepares us for necessary suffering, keeps us from despair about our own failure and loss, and ironically offers us a way through it all. We are merely joining the great parade of humanity that has walked ahead of us and will follow after us. The tragic sense of life is not unbelief, pessimism, fatalism, or cynicism. It is just ultimate and humiliating realism, which for some reason demands a lot of forgiveness of almost everything. Faith is simply to trust the real, and to trust that God is found within it--even before we change it. This is perhaps our major stumbling stone, the price we must pay to keep the human heart from closing down and to keep the soul open for something more. 

FALLING UPWARD, Richard Rohr

Mystery and Transformation

There is a deeper voice of God, which you must learn to hear and obey in the second half of life. It will sound an awful lot like the voices of risk, of trust, of surrender, of soul, of “common sense,” of destiny, of love, of an intimate stranger, of your deepest self, of soulful “Beatrice.” The true faith journey only begins at this point. Up to now everything is mere preparation. Finally, we leave a container strong enough to hold the contents of our real life, which is always filled with contradictions and adventures and immense challenges. Psychological wholeness and spiritual holiness never exclude the problem from the solution. If it is wholeness, then it is always paradoxical, and holds both the dark and light sides of things. Wholeness and holiness will always stretch us beyond our small comfort zone. How could they not?    

...it will feel like a loss of faith or loss of self. But it is only the death of the false self, and is very often the very birth of the soul. Instead of being ego driven, you will begin to be soul drawn…  

St. John of the Cross taught that God has to work in the soul in secret and in darkness, because if we fully knew what was happening, and what Mystery/transformation/God/grace will eventually ask of us, we would either try to take charge or stop the whole process. No one oversees his or her own demise willingly, even when it is the false self that is dying.

FALLING UPWARD, Richard Rohr  

I began reading this book last week and it has stirred many questions in me. Am I still in the first half of life? Have the essential questions, "What makes me significant?" "How can I support myself?" and "Who will go with me?" been answered enough to create a proper container in which to start living the second half? It doesn't feel like they have been.

I wonder if I have more of a container than I can see, if believing I don't have the answers to these questions is really a lie? If that is why it feels full of risk, of trust, of surrender?

When I think of it as "falling upward," it feels much more about the "very birth of the soul," and that really challenges my dread and my fear in some of the choices that I need to be making in the near future.

Isaiah 26:12-15

Lord, you establish peace for us;
    all that we have accomplished you have done for us.
Lord our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us,
    but your name alone do we honor.
They are now dead, they live no more;
    their spirits do not rise.
You punished them and brought them to ruin;
    you wiped out all memory of them.
You enlarged the nation, Lord;
    you have enlarged the nation.
You have gained glory for yourself;
    you have extended all the borders of the land.

These are verses I first read as in high school during a time when I was fighting with my best friend. In those years I was simply caught up by the peace God offered. But over the years these verses have grown with me as I have returned to them over and over. He is about removing anything that rules over us in order to extend his glory.

(Thanks to Renee Neiser Lorincz, my high school volleyball coach who encouraged me to turn to God and the Scriptures when life felt hard)

Holding Nothing Back - Ryan Stevenson

Sleepless in Winona Lake

I guess I am not sleeping much tonight... it is 12:09 a.m., I am awake thinking and wondering what the future holds. A different job? different housing? relationships?

A line from Natalie Grant's song Hurricane keeps popping into my head, "Step out on the edge... Don't be afraid of it... And when you feel the rain... Call His name... He'll find you in the hurricane." She wrote the song after reading in Matthew 14 about how Jesus walked on the water during a storm. Jesus chose to walk through the storm. The disciples were afraid and doubted his presence. I am clinging to that truth, that he will reach me in this storm despite my fear and doubts.

What does it mean to walk faithfully in these days of uncertainty? What does it mean to believe that this painful path is the path to life?  Step out on the edge... Don't be afraid of it... Really? Most of the time my focus is on the fear, but perhaps it should be more on the moving. Maybe the difference is made in each single step.

Matthew 14:22-32
²² Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. ²³ After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, ²⁴ and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.²⁵ Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. ²⁶ When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.²⁷ But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
²⁸ “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”²⁹ “Come,” he said.Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. ³⁰ But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”³¹ Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”³² And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. ³³ Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” 

Poverty

Our Poverty, God's Dwelling Place

How can we embrace poverty as a way to God when everyone around us wants to become rich?   Poverty has many forms.  We have to ask ourselves:  "What is my poverty?"  Is it lack of money, lack of emotional stability, lack of a loving partner, lack of security, lack of safety, lack of self-confidence?  Each human being has a place of poverty.  That's the place where God wants to dwell!  "How blessed are the poor," Jesus says (Matthew 5:3).  This means that our blessing is hidden in our poverty.

We are so inclined to cover up our poverty and ignore it that we often miss the opportunity to discover God, who dwells in it.   Let's dare to see our poverty as the land where our treasure is hidden.     (Taken from Henri Nouwen Society's Daily Meditation - August 18, 2013)

By this definition "lack of money, lack of emotional stability, lack of a loving partner, lack of security, lack of safety, lack of self-confidence?" I am extremely impoverished. But, perhaps this is a large opportunity to discover God or a opportunity to discover a large God.

Clinging to God's Promises

Psalm 31:7-9

I will be glad and rejoice in your love,

    for you saw my affliction
    and knew the anguish of my soul.
You have not given me into the hands of the enemy
    but have set my feet in a spacious place.

Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am in distress;
    my eyes grow weak with sorrow,
    my soul and body with grief.

Jeremiah 29:11-13

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, 

    “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, 

    plans to give you hope and a future. 

Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, 

    and I will listen to you. 

You will seek me and find me 

    when you seek me with all your heart.