Shining Spirit

In a day and time when we all could use some good advice, some clear guidance about living a full and gracious life, I have a suggestion. The brief outline of good advice is found, in my library, in a slender, black leather book that has been opened and closed so many times that the binding is cracking and about to release the thin pages. Thus, the electricians tape I used to reinforce the spine of the book. It was all I could find at the moment.

Among the many life observations and recommended steps toward a meaningful life, these stand out: how to look at oneself as a valuable human being, what to do with anger (I know a lot of angry people), insights about human relationships, what it means to keep a promise, the dangers of revenge and retribution, how to relate to perceived enemies or hostile people, neighborliness, the development of a spiritual dimension in your life, and the dangers of being a “judgmental” person. Not bad, huh? Touches all the bases: human relationships, economics, politics, spiritual growth, personal behavior. The material is almost like a thought-out, planned outline, a blueprint for the construction of a meaningful life. I highly recommend it, especially since so many self-help books have rolled off the presses and cluttered our bookshelves.

By the way, it is very possible that you have a copy of the book in your home right now. A lot of people do, but too many of us use it for decorative purposes rather than as a life-source reference book. In order to find the information I’ve described, open the book to a section titled “Matthew” and then find the subsections identified as 5 through 7. If you get lost in the process, call me and I’ll walk you through it. You just can’t find better and more helpful insights than right there in the book.

So, read it. Think about it. Try it. Works for me and I bet it will for you, too.

I invite you, in one of your quiet moments, to read your Bible. You do? Good, but pay particular attention to Leviticus 18-19, Deuteronomy 5 and the next few chapters, and what we call The Sermon On The Mount, which is Matthew 5 and what follows there. I know, it’s a lot. But it’s pretty important.

Just before the Hebrew people were to enter the Promised Land, just out of captivity and wandering and now about to set up residence in a new land, Moses, their trusted leader, gathers all the people and gives them a blueprint for how to live, how to behave, and how to relate to their new environment. He touches on almost every aspect of life: money, sexuality, courts and justice, speech, worship, etc. It is a comprehensive outline of societal living. Now move from the Old Testament stories to the New Testament words in Matthew 5 and following. This is the Sermon On The Mount, the famous words of Jesus delivered to the Hebrews of his time. Note that Moses went up on the mountain to get his message for the people and Jesus did the same thing. A mountaintop, sacred experience meant to be delivered to the people waiting at the foot of the mountain, a people who would hear the remarkable words and live them out everyday. They would become a new and decisively different community from that of their new neighbors. They would follow different rules, observe different standards, and look to a very different authority…in their case, God, not a tribal leader or, in the time of Jesus, a reigning Caesar. This would have been astonishing to them and to the local culture into which they were moving. Nothing like this existed before. Of course there would be local leadership to help the new society function, but the basic framework of culture and society was unalterably set on the foundation of this new covenant pronounced by God and delivered by Moses and later Jesus.

I think it is rightly assumed that as we ignore or betray the covenant outline, as we disregard the blueprint in favor of our own personal interpretations or adaptations, the wheels fall off the wagon and we become our own worst enemies. One of the worst things that ever happened in the history of our covenant gift was “personalization.” The shift from “we” to “me” undermined the covenant plan. To say it another way: my “personal” salvation is much more caught up in community than I’ve been taught over the last few centuries. Neither Moses nor Jesus took people one at a time and discussed their “personal” salvation. And when Jesus did address individuals, he always called them back into covenant with God. The message they delivered was “here’s how we live together under ethical, moral, and spiritual guidelines directly from the mind of God.”

It’s about “we.” It’s about each of us living in our minds, our hearts and through our behavior in covenant with each other. Everything Jesus taught emphasized covenant and community…the blueprint of living productively, peacefully, and gratefully as “a people” not simply “as an individual.”

At least, that’s what I think.

When I sit down each morning to listen in the quiet, waiting for something I can send to you as Shining Spirit, I look out over the neighborhood through a second-story window. My desk used to be on the opposite side of the room, which meant I faced a wall. Windows are better than walls. If I time my waiting just right, I can see the world slowly change from darkness to light, faint at first but amazingly reliable. The Santa Catalina mountains, invisible in the darkness, begin to take shape and other landmarks emerge from night’s concealment, as if being born over and over again. Someone, whose name is still lost in the darkness of my early morning mind, said: “We are always on a journey from darkness to light.” And he or she was right. No matter the age or stage of life, darkness to light. Consider: the darkness of the womb to the bright lights in the delivery room; as a child, from not knowing to learning; as a young adult, from uncertainty to self-identity; the light of the newly learned profession, the light of meaningful relationships; faith development, and so it goes. Always moving from darkness of various kinds to the light of revealing, awareness and growth. And then there is the reality of moving, in the totality of a lifetime, from self to God, from the shadows of my world more and more into the Light of wisdom and truth. Life itself is the journey from birth to death, which is little more than darkness to faint light to partial clarity to Brilliance. Maybe the purpose of our days is to be cognizant of life as “journey” and to be gratefully open to all that calls us, shapes us, into human beings. For sure, life as journey is a gift and an opportunity. Being afraid to move from darkness to light, no matter what the context might be; choosing to live in darkness is a thankless response to a precious gift.

So I think this is the point I’m trying to make: this day will move from darkness to light, night to day whether I agree, approve or choose to be part of it. As a gift, it is offered to us as an opportunity to take a few more steps toward light and Light. Today is your chance to walk more fully into the light as one alert, aware, even astonished. At the end of the day, you will not be the same person you were in the early morning darkness. You will have moved toward light and Light. Do it with a grateful heart, helpful hands and a determination born of trust in sacred hope.

So, having said all of that, I will sit here at my window, fingers ready to strike the keys, waiting for the dawn of light over the mountains and the cordial arrival of Insight. When that happens, I will send it along.

When Shining Spirit: Welcoming the Wonder of Life was born in 2013, I’m not sure I made this point clearly: You don’t have to agree with everything written in the blog, but it would be nice if the reader gave genuine consideration to outrageous ideas. Truth, or spiritual insight, comes from some strange places, but sometimes you have to invite Insight in for a cup of tea and a friendly conversation in order to comprehend what otherwise seems like foolishness or faithlessness. In the give and take, spiritual insight grows like the diverse wildflowers in the field: different but beautiful, simple and sacred. Two entities side by side: we call them flowers that grow from the same earth, breathe the same air, prosper from the same sunlight, welcome the same raindrops and offer their seeds to the same wind. Different but the same.

I have on my bookshelf a picture of a small Buddha statue I saw nestled among flowering plants in someone’s garden. I don’t remember who or where, but I kept it because it reminds me of peaceful serenity, a noble and beautiful goal. As in most depictions of the Buddha, whether statue or painting, the figure’s eyes are closed, a signal that spiritual insight is found deep within one’s self. The meaning of life and the ways to live it are treasures inherent in all living begins, and to find those things, one has to explore deep within. It is there that spiritual wisdom resides and the door is open to anyone who follows that interior pathway.

While I don’t have a picture of Jesus, I do have depictions in pieces of art. It’s unlikely that anyone ever took a Polaroid of the man, so we depend on artistic interpretations. And in those interpretations, I have never seen Jesus with his eyes closed. On the contrary, he says “look and see,” “open your eyes! Wake up to The Presence. Be aware of life around you.” God moves through the world in the creation that was deemed “good” in the biblical stories of creation. One man with his eyes closed, following the interior voice of Creative Love. One man with his eyes open, observing and responding to the visible presence of Creative Love in the world. Dare we say which one is right or wrong? The best I can do is choose the path that calls me and to walk that path with trust and courage. And when I make that choice and set out on the journey, I find myself surrounded by divine diversity, avenues of insight that I never expected or experienced before.

Creation is a magnificent mystery and the wind blows from all directions. My prayer today is that we will let that Divine Breath carry us into and through the Mystery until we encounter the Eternal, eyes open or eyes closed….or both.

What is the one thing that I can do in order to draw closer to God, deeper in faith, more aware of the Spirit’s presence than I am at this moment? The one thing? But, we think, if I can do a little of a lot of things; if I try some of each of the familiar things: prayer, worship, service, leadership, teaching, learning, helping…that is, if I try a little of everything, maybe I will feel more “spiritual.” But, sometimes a little of everything ends up being nothing.

Ask yourself: how am I gifted to be in relationship with God? What is it about me that, when I do it or experience it, I feel closer to the reality of who I am. For me, it is a given that I have interests and skills, just like you. What if you narrowed your focus and identified that one skill-trait-interest-talent that is inherent in you…and let that be your doorway to the Sacred? A gardener loves to touch the earth…and finds a way to God. A writer feels something special when she creates something on the page…and finds a way to God. A painter, a person who actually enjoys organizing, cleaning, sewing, engaging neighbors, sending notes to friends, helping in the neighborhood, caring for someone…on and on it goes. The one thing we think most mundane may actually be the one thing! If you can identify that soul pleasure and offer it back to God as a gift, then you may have found the key that unlocks that stubborn door. Not to say that you give up the other avenues, only that you identify the one that brings you light and fulfillment. It is a profound moment when you realize that something as ordinary as feeding the birds or fixing a meal ushers you into the Presence of the Holy One.

Don’t make it too difficult. You hold the key. Grateful awareness will take you a long way toward the desire of your heart.

May I be overwhelmed with goodness today
and be generous enough to share it
with others.

May I be aware of the needs of others
and turn awareness into compassionate
service.

May I accept forgiveness and give it.
Receive love and share it.
Hold fast to hope in
the midst of darkness.

May I sing
and dance my way
from the shadows into the Light.

May I look back on this day and
recognize all those moments
that were filled with You,
my Lord and my God.
Abiding Presence.

Small triumphs: knowing that your action won’t, of itself, change the outcome, but doing it anyway; one step and then one step; understanding that line by line the poem is written, brush stroke by brush stroke the painting is done.

Large hearts: the character of generosity; caring for the other as much as you care for yourself; going out of your way to do what is good and right; in the Way of Jesus.

My heros are not the people who make the headlines, but the ones who quietly, and with determination, do unto others, go the extra mile, offer the cup of cold water in the heat of the moment, think more of us than me. We need heros right now in a time when we seem to have lost our way in this complex and confusing world. If there was ever a time to “be Christ in the world”, this is it.

Remember the old line we were taught in typing class: “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country”? How many times have I written that line as a way to make my fingers nimble over the keyboard! Read it again and change the words “good men” to “all of us.” Lord Jesus, give me courage to try and strength to do it.

Press on!

Assumptions are dangerous companions. “I’m a doctor…” so I assume you are wealthy. “I am a school teacher…” I assume you’re not. “I am an officer in the U.S. Army…” so you love combat and war. “I am a non-combatant…” so you are not a patriot. Assumptions are dangerous. When someone asks me what I do in life, and when I say “I am a pastor” I sometimes get that “O, that’s too bad” look. Because the assumption is that I believe and act in certain ways which are irrational or irrelevant…by the questioner’s standards. Don’t assume people into categories; when you do, you shrink the size of the world considerably. Not everyone is like me, or you. Not everyone should be like me, or you. Diversity is life-giving. You and I are like individual cells in a living body. In ways I do not understand, I am important to life; without me, one little cell, the world would be different. Same for you. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise: what you think, say and do make a difference. You were made for this moment. But the underlying problem is that you and I assume that the real people of “value” make the headlines, accomplish big things. Maybe that false assumption is what drives some of us to seek power and control, or some of us to quit because we never make the “big time.”

Does one yellow wildflower matter in the field of flowers? Does one bird in the sky make any difference? One song? One kind act? One helping hand? So, thanks for asking what I do, or what I believe, or what I hold sacred…just don’t measure me by your personal standards which you assume to be universal. There I go preaching again! Well, I am a pastor/preacher/teacher, but I’m retired and I don’t do those things anymore. Really? Another assumption. Those things are everywhere!

May I recommend three words to keep in your mind today? As important, even urgent, as the words: “I love you!” are, I’m thinking of three others. They are found in one sentence in the scriptures, 2 Timothy 4:7. Write these down as a reminder of how life should be lived: Fought, Finished, Kept. I imagine Paul to be an old man, tired and worn down, when he wrote his younger colleague, Timothy. Paul had lived a hard life and now he was passing on a word of great wisdom to his co-worker for the Gospel of Jesus. In fact, three words.

Fought: Do not give up, Timothy. Mixed in with the good times of joy and satisfaction will come difficult days, even threatening days. Fight, Timothy. In the face of poor odds and little chance, press on with courage and conviction. Stand for what you believe. You will not be alone, my friend. It may seem that way when the valley is dark, but you are and will be in the presence of an abiding strength. Courage, Timothy. Press on! Fight the good fight.

Finish: Timothy, if you have the courage to start it, then have the determination to finish it. Don’t quit. It is lonely when others give up and go home. But the finish line is just ahead, just there beyond the turn in the road. Trust me, Timothy, and finish what you start. Doubt, discouragement and personal danger say: “Quit and go home.” But when Jesus said “Follow me” he didn’t mean halfway.

Keep: Timothy, the only thing that has kept me fighting to the finish, the only thing worthy of my life’s effort, is the good news of God offered us in the person of Jesus. Keep the faith, my son. Do not lose it when something else comes along that looks easier, quicker, more expedient. It’s ironic, isn’t it, Timothy. Keep it but don’t hesitate to give it away. I have found that the more you give, the more you have. I have fought the “good” fight; I have finished the race, and while I have given “good news” to everyone who will hear, I do not cross the goal line empty. In spite of it all, my faith is deeper, richer and more profound than when I started, Timothy. So it will be for you!

And so will it be for you.

Barren but beautiful, made so by Light.
Simple but spectacular.
Inviting and engaging.
An invitation to become part of this morning gift.
Listen to the silence.
Feel the air.
Flow with the soft lines that have no
beginning and no end.
Light reveals, renews, restores.
Light in the desert of our days.
Sit with peace and make her your friend
this good and brilliant day.