What's in a question?

 

God won't ask what kind of car you drove, but God will ask how many people you drove who didn't have transportation.

God won't ask the square footage of your house, but God will ask how many people you welcomed into your home.

God won't ask about the clothes you had in your closet, but God will ask how many you helped to clothe.

God won't ask about your social status, but God will ask what kind of class you displayed.

God won't ask how many material possessions you had, but God will ask if they dictated your life.

God won't ask what your highest salary was, but God will ask if you compromised your character to obtain it.

God won't ask how many promotions you received, but God will ask how you promoted others.

God won't ask what your job title was, but God will ask if you performed your job to the best of your ability.

God won't ask what you did to help yourself, but God will  ask what you did to help others.

God won't ask how many friends you had, but God will ask how many people to whom you were a friend.

God won't ask what you did to protect your rights, but God will ask what you did to protect the rights of others.

God won't ask in what neighborhood you lived, but God will ask how you treated your neighbors.

God won't ask about the color of your skin, but God will ask about the content of your character.

God won't ask how many times your deeds matched your words, but God will ask how many times they didn't.

Author Unknown

 

 

 

 

BUILD BRIDGES NOT FENCES

Once upon a time two brothers who lived on adjoining farms fell into conflict. It was the first serious rift in 40 years of farming side by side, sharing machinery, and trading labor and goods as needed without a hitch. Then the long collaboration fell apart. It began with a small misunderstanding and it grew into a major difference, and finally it exploded into an exchange of bitter words followed by weeks of silence.

One morning there was a knock on the older brother's door. He opened it to find a man with a carpenter's toolbox. "I'm looking for a few days work" he said. "Perhaps you would have a few small jobs here and there I could help with? Could I help you?"

"Yes," said the older brother. "I do have a job for you. Look across the creek at that farm. That's my neighbor, in fact, it's my younger brother. Last week there was a meadow between us and he took his bulldozer to the river levee and now there is a creek between us. Well, he may have done this to spite me, but I'll go him one better. See that pile of lumber by the barn? I want you to build me a fence - - an 8-foot fence -- so I won't need to see his place or his face anymore."

The carpenter said, "I think I understand the situation. Show me the nails and the post-hole digger and I'll be able to do a job that pleases you."

The older brother had to go to town, so he helped the carpenter get the materials ready and then he was off for the day. The carpenter worked hard all that day measuring, sawing, nailing. About sunset when the farmer returned, the carpenter had just finished his job. The farmer's eyes opened wide, his jaw dropped. There was no fence there at all. It was a bridge -- a bridge stretching from one side of the creek to the other! A fine piece of work, handrails and all -- and the neighbor, his younger brother, was coming across, his hand outstretched.

"You are quite a fellow to build this bridge after all I've said and done." The two brothers stood at each end of the bridge, and then they met in the middle, taking each other's hand. They turned to see the carpenter hoist his toolbox on his shoulder. "No, wait! Stay a few days. I've a lot of other projects for you," said the older brother. "I'd love to stay on," the carpenter said, "but, I have many more bridges to build."

(Source Unknown)

A Waiting Time Blessing . . .

 

Blessing for Waiting

Who wait for the night to end.

bless them.

Who wait for the night  to begin

bless them.

 

Who wait in the hospital room

who wait in the cell

who wait in prayer

bless them.

Who wait for news

who wait for the phone call

who wait for a word

who wait for a job

a house. a child

bless them.

Who wait for one who will come home…

who wait for one who will not come home

bless them.

 

Who wait with fear

who wait with joy

who wait with peace

who wait with rage

who wait for the end

who wait for the beginning

who wait alone

who wait together

bless them

Who wait without knowing

what they wait for or why

bless them.

Who wait when they should not wait

who wait when they should be in motion

who wait when they need to rise

who wait when they need to set out

bless them.

 

Who wait for the end of waiting

who wait for the fullness of time

who wait emptied and

open and ready

who wait

for you,

O bless.

 

Jan Richardson

Circle of Grace

A Blessing . . .

 

O God of all seasons and senses, grant us the sense of your timing to submit                            gracefully and rejoice quietly in the turn of the seasons.

In this season of short days and long nights,
of grey and white and cold,
teach us the lessons of endings;
children growing, friends leaving, loved ones dying,
grieving over,
grudges over,
blaming over,
excuses over.

O God, grant us a sense of your timing.
In this season of short days and long nights,
of grey and white and cold,
teach us the lessons of beginnings;
that such waitings and endings may be the starting place,
a planting of seeds which bring to birth what is ready to be born—
something right and just and different,
a new song, a deeper relationship, a fuller love—
in the fullness of your time.
O God, grant us the sense of your timing.

Taken from Guerrillas of Grace by Ted Loder

Christina R. Zaker Preaches for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (01/3...

Does “Call” Have an Expiration Date?

According to the food and drug administration an expiration date is the date past which a product, such as food or medicine, must be sold or removed from availability – it is no longer expected to be fresh or effective.  In my musings, I was wondering if each of us in relationship to our call has an expiration date and do we ever lose our freshness and effectiveness?

God’s nature has always been about sharing, including, and being all embracing, thinking personally, intimately, and acting galactically, cosmically, and beyond!! God has always invited human beings to share in the divine mission in the world.  God’s call “comes long before we hear it. It lingers until we name it, and it never completely goes away.”  God’s call to us is continuous, particular, and it takes a lifetime to truly grasp it, for it “grows and changes as we come into a fuller realization of our adult journey of faith.”  Call is not a onetime deal.  There is no “drive-thru” for call.  It is “a life-long conversation with God” to explore and discover our direction and purpose.  This is God’s design for us; to find and follow our mysterious path of hope, joy, and service.

I definitely know that when I was in third grade, I sensed a call and considered being a sister.  Then when I got a few years older and noticed that life offered lots of fun, jobs, travel, and an abundance of distractions– I tucked away the echoes of the call until late in high school.  Again I heard it and could no longer ignore it or resist it and took the dare.  “One distinctive, unforgettable moment comes when you answer the call.  But there will be other moments that will come again and again, marking your way and giving you the assurance that the God who called still calls.”

Authors have reflected that God’s call begins with an idea in our mind, and then it is often triggered by some significant event.  It can be clear and focused or blurry-clear. Whatever the clarity – it gets our attention.  It weaves its way in and through our consciousness and it is in our quieting, reflecting, and noticing that the call is heard in the depths of our souls and the vibrations of its urgency moves us to decide, to respond, and to risk.

So how do we keep our call fresh? 

We need to daily live with gratitude so as to keep our call fresh, clear, and strong.  So no matter how much we resist, procrastinate, hesitate, or reject God’s call, it will always be there.  God truly cares about us deeply; we are invited to be open to the form of the call which will evolve again and again.  For then we will eventually discover that there is no expiration date to our call.  God will continue to seek us out, for call “lingers until we name it, and it never completely goes away.”

 

Mumbi Kigutha, CPPS Preaches for the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Agnes - A woman before her time!

 

Someone once wrote: “If you were accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?”  Today, January 21st, we gather to remember and to celebrate St. Agnes of Rome, under whose patronage the Sisters of St. Agnes were founded. She declared herself Christian in a pagan society and committed herself to remain virgin in a patriarchal culture.  She gave testimony that she had chosen Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior with the public sacrifice of her life.

Much of her life and death are surrounded by legend, but early writings tell us that Agnes was born into a wealthy and powerful Roman Christian family and, according to tradition, she suffered martyrdom at the age of 12 or 13 during the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian on January 21, in the year 305.

The story is told how the Prefect Sempronius wished Agnes to marry his son, for women, at that time, were property of the State and had children to promote the State’s agenda.  But Agnes refused a forced marriage and remained adamant that she had consecrated her virginity to Jesus Christ.  Her refusal was considered an act of treason and punishable by death.  At that time, Roman law did not permit the execution of virgins, so Sempronius had a naked Agnes dragged through the streets to a brothel.  In one version of the story, it is said, that as she processed through the streets, Agnes prayed, and her hair grew and covered her entire body.

Some also asserted that all of the men who attempted to rape her were immediately struck blind.  She was sentenced to death with many other Christian companions who refused to worship the Roman gods and to pay homage to the emperor as divine.

Agnes grew up in a patriarchal culture, whose religion included many gods – a religion of laws, customs, and prescriptions that no longer had the power to define her.  Agnes chose a new way of life – a life of virginity.  She was resolute in choosing her own power in Christ to define her new identity.

So what is the Good News for us today?

• Our God continues to invite everyone to live with hope, trust, courage, and faith.  We are all called to be witnesses of the Risen Christ. 
• As women and men religious, associates, friends, and partners in ministry, it is on such a feast as today, that we are invited to ponder our own witness to our faith and the values of our Christian lives.
• That like Agnes, when we find ourselves standing “naked” in our vulnerabilities, limitations, powerlessness, doubts, dilemmas, and decisions that affect the social, economic, cultural, religious, and political challenges of life, may we more and more learn to call upon the Spirit for guidance, grit, and grace – for it is in God that we live and move and have our being.
  

  

  Tomb of St. Agnes in Rome

  (Previously posted)

Martin, we hear your voice!!

 

A Prayer in Honor of Martin Luther King Day
By Lilly Kaufman, January 2012

Dr. King would have faced hard facts today.
He would know the number of children
going hungry in America this very minute.
He would know the number of our war dead,
and those wounded in new ways.

He would know the astounding costs
of financial corruption.
He would have seen beyond the numbers,
to the faces of our people,
and he would still have faith in them,
and in what is right.

He would be preaching now
a determined, measured, poetic, prophetic outrage.
He would be teaching by example
our civic duty of compassion,
and decrying the grave civic danger of cynicism.

He would challenge the strange new ideas
that money equals speech
and corporations are people
in a democracy.

When he gave his life for peoples’ rights
of speech, and assembly, and the vote,
it was for people
who had no money to pay for speech.

They knew speech as an unalienable right,
and their wealth of spirit sufficed.
Dr. King had faith in a few great things:
one was our essential American dream.
Not a middle-class American dream,
or an upper-class, a working-poor,
or an impoverished-class American dream.

But the defining American dream
which lifts up those bowed down.
The abiding American dream
of liberty and justice for all.
Amen.

Waiting, Looking, Loving Time . . .

 

A Prayer

 You keep us waiting.

You, the God of all time,

Want us to wait for the right time

in which to discover

Who we are, where we must go,

Who will be with us, and what we must do.

So, thank you . . . for waiting time.

 

You keep us looking.

You, the God of all space,

Want us to look in the right and wrong places

for signs of hope,

For people who are hopeless,

For visions of a better world

that will appear among the disappointments

of the world we know.

So, thank you . . . for the looking time.

 

You keep us loving.

You, the God whose name is Love,

Want us to be like you –

To love the loveless and the unlovely and the unlovable;

To love without jealousy or design or threat,

And most difficult of all, to love ourselves.

So, thank you . . . for loving time.

 

And in all this you keep us,

Through hard questions with no easy answers;

Through falling where we hoped to succeed

and making an impact when we felt useless;

Through the patience and the dreams

and the love of others;

And through Jesus Christ and his Spirit, you keep us.

(By Lisa Terneus of the Iona Community in Scotland)

 

When there is too muching!

Sometimes, Lord,

it just seems to be too much:

    too much violence, too much fear;

    too much of demands and problems;

    too much of broken dreams and broken lives;

    too much of war and slums and dying;

    too much of greed and squishy fatness

        and the sounds of people

            devouring each other

                and the earth;

too much of stale routines and quarrels,

    unpaid bills and dead ends;

too much of words lobbed in to explode

    and leaving shredded hearts and lacerated souls;

too much turned-away backs and yellow silence,

    red rage and bitter taste of ashes in my mouth

Sometimes the very air seems scorched

    by threats and rejection and decay

        until there is nothing

        but to inhale pain

            and exhale confusion.

Too much of darkness, Lord,          

    too much of cruelty

        and selfishness

            and indifference…

Too much, Lord,

    too much,

        too bloody,

            bruising,

                brain-washing much.

 Or is it too little,

    too little of compassion,

    too little of courage,

        of daring,

        of persistence,

        of sacrifice;

    too little of music

        and laughter

            and celebration?

O God,

make of me some nourishment

    for these starved times,

        some food for my brothers and sisters

    who are hungry for gladness and hope,

        that, being bread for them,

    I may also be fed

        And be full

Ted Loder, Guerrillas of Grace

 

Jeanne Fielding Lord Preaches for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time (01...

Healing Prayer . . .

 

Come, Holy Spirit ~

Replace the tension within us with a holy relaxation,

Replace the turbulence within us with a sacred calm,

Replace the anxiety within us with a quiet confidence,

Replace the fear within us with a strong faith,

Replace the bitterness within us with the sweetness of grace,

Replace the darkness within us with a gentle light,

Replace the coldness within us with a loving warmth,

Replace the night within us with Your day,

Replace the winter within us with Your spring,

Straighten our crookedness, fill our emptiness,

Dull the edge of our pride, sharpen the edge of our humility,

Light the fires of our love, quench within us the flames of envy,

Let us see ourselves as You see us, that we may see You as You have  promised ~

And be fortunate according to Your word, “Blessed are the pure of heart,

for they shall see God.”                                                             

(Anonymous)

 

Taking the Plunge . . .

 

(This blog post was first posted a number of years ago, yet its message is still worth a second posting.

Happy safe and blessed New Year! sjh)

As I was sequestered over the weekend because of the Polar Vortex, I was able to take in the TV movie of Episode IV - Star Wars. I instantly could name the characters and groupings that appeared, such as: Luke Skywalker and his twin sister, Princess Leia, and all the other assorted heroes, villains, scoundrels, and droids – Anakin Skywalker, Han Solo, Padme, Jar Jar Binks, C-3PO, R2-D2, Chew Bacca, Jabba the Hutt, Obi-Wan-Kenobi, Darth Vader, and Yoda the Grand Jedi Master.  These George Lucas masterpieces have so many spiritual, philosophical, and psychological themes running through them as fictional space operas and fictitious galactic stories of a galaxy far, far away - that you can even find yourself in some or all of the characters!

The “good guys” of the Jedi are all bonded together by the Force – the energy and power that is to be used for the “common good” of the Empire. But as Master Yoda comments: “Yes, a Jedi's strength flows from the Force. But beware of the dark side. Anger, fear, aggression; the dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan's apprentice.” And, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

I write this because these characters remind me of how we all are given a CALL to become the more of who we are and that there is an inner bond between and among us as people of the “Force”!  We are all invited to touch into the “force” of God’s presence within us and then make the choices to live out through that presence. However, like Luke Skywalker, a time of training and transformation is always a necessary part of BE-coming our true, authentic Self.  St. Ignatius even designed his Spiritual Exercises for this purpose – along with many other spiritual “Jedi” Christian mystics who created paths and stages of transformation for union with God.

In our Gospel this Sunday, we read of the Baptism of Jesus. His cousin, John the Baptist, has been inviting the crowds to “take the plunge” of baptism of repentance.  In this Gospel, Jesus shows up and desires to be baptized as well. 

Now above these sacred waters, the heavens split open, and “cloud talk” thunders through this desert, and the Spirit descends in the form of a dove and hovers over these heroes and movers of the Mission! Jesus is named – Beloved! 

Jesus has no light saber for he is the Light, the Way, and the Truth - that God is Good News for all – not just a select few.  He is a Force of goodness, compassion, forgiveness and unconditional love.  His identity as the Anointed One will be revealed through his words and works – the blind will see, the lame will walk, the lepers will be cleansed, the deaf will hear, and the dead will be raised.  Jesus will eventually have to take a stand again and again against the “dark side.” The threatening glances of the religious leaders, and the rejection, suspicion, and animosity of the “establishment” will pursue him all his life. - He will be a disturbing presence – and eventually lose his life.

So what is the Good News for us?  Let us ponder:
• How have we been aware of God’s presence in our lives as we encountered the Light and Darkness in our lived realities?
• Instead of asking ourselves, “Where is God in this?” – Why not ask . . .
“How am I in God?”
• How does this Gospel invite us to “take the plunge” of entering into a deeper relationship with God through reading the Scriptures, seeking out a spiritual guide, or carving out a time daily for personal prayer or quiet reflection?
• Are we willing to be called, “Beloved” as God invites us into the Mission and Light?  Pray for the grace to be open to this “training.”

“Why is it so important that you are with God and God alone on the mountain top? It’s important because it’s the place in which you can listen to the voice of the One who calls you the beloved. To pray is to listen to the One who calls you my beloved daughter, my beloved son, my beloved child. To pray is to let that voice speak to the center of your being, to your guts, and let that voice resound in your whole being. (Henri Nouwen)

Gospel:

Gospel

Mk 1:7-11

This is what John the Baptist proclaimed: 
“One mightier than I is coming after me.
I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals.
I have baptized you with water; 
he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

It happened in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee 
and was baptized in the Jordan by John.
On coming up out of the water he saw the heavens being torn open 
and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon him.
And a voice came from the heavens, 
“You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

Hide 'n Seek!

 

                            

A Prayer by St. Anselm of Canterbury

  

O my God, teach my heart where and how to seek You,
where and how to find You.
You are my God and You are my all and I have never seen You.
You have made me and remade me,
You have bestowed on me all the good things I possess,
Still I do not know You.
I have not yet done that for which I was made.
Teach me to seek You.
I cannot seek You unless You teach me
or find You unless You show Yourself to me.
Let me seek You in my desire,
let me desire You in my seeking.
Let me find You by loving You,
let me love You when I find You.

Amen

(Image by sjh)

The Grace for Big Dreams. . .

 

Disturb us, O God,

when we are too well pleased with ourselves,

when our dreams have come true

because we have dreamed too little,

when we arrived safely

because we sailed too close to the shore.

 

Disturb us, O God,

when with the abundance of things we possess

we have lost our thirst

for the waters of life.

 

Disturb us, O God,

to dare more boldly,

to venture on wider seas

where storms will show your mastery;

where losing sight of land,

we shall find the stars.

 

We ask you to push back

the horizons of our hopes;

and to push into the future

in strength, courage, hope and love.

~ attributed to Sir Francis Drake

(Photos by JF)

A New Time . . .

 

         This Time

To everything a season, a time for every purpose under heaven

and yet this time out of all other times is special

A moment of grace,

A kairos time,

A time for urgency when there is no time

A window opened on eternity where all is possible

For those with eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts to understand

 

A time to risk all that has not been risked before

so that we might flow with all that God intends.

A time to seize because it will not come again.

A time to place our lives where words have been.

 

A time for bridges to be built and others crossed, and others burned,

because there is no going back.

A time to leave the past behind because the present, this precious “now,”

is Holy Ground and from it the future beckons.

To leave the past, and not to do so lightly.

 

To take it out and dare to look and name what has been done and cannot be undone.

To allow the pain to surface.

To give voice to silent wounding, that, hearing, and being heard,

we might with due and holy reverence allow the dying to take place,

and, picking up the pieces that give life, to travel on;

our burden now a cleansed and sanctified inheritance;

one that puts into our step a spring and into our hearts

a flame of hope that cannot be extinguished.

This time so fragile and so priceless, gift of God to you and me to grasp and to embrace, to give it all we’ve got; and, in the giving and receiving, to learn to celebrate the Presence of the One who in

His mercy and Her grace has given one more time.

~Reverend Ruth Patterson