tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90999811501783744062024-03-13T06:45:57.739-07:00The thin placesThe Celtic tradition of place that gives us an opening into the wonder of God's Presence are called “Thin Places.” There is a Celtic saying that heaven and earth are only three feet apart, but in the thin places that distance is even smaller. A thin place is where the veil that separates heaven and earth is lifted. Both seen and unseen, Where the door between the world And the next is cracked open for a moment And the light is not all on the other side. God shaped space. Holy.Rob Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15003909117448739564noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9099981150178374406.post-29405873037173492872019-01-04T05:48:00.002-08:002019-01-04T05:51:12.609-08:00Epiphany<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSMc8VTWLAf2unwVO9FFvPjA78m6501Y_2TBGZj5TeAtivUEesoOIe8geMYzHCbB2P0HgBA3byVM-E9vpHNM-j49WUmhNRvZyyVh-d7X_MgDhACPLctWznaqla0rvF2Zy8haG1gxAlFJ0/s1600/epiphany2016banner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="703" data-original-width="1600" height="140" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSMc8VTWLAf2unwVO9FFvPjA78m6501Y_2TBGZj5TeAtivUEesoOIe8geMYzHCbB2P0HgBA3byVM-E9vpHNM-j49WUmhNRvZyyVh-d7X_MgDhACPLctWznaqla0rvF2Zy8haG1gxAlFJ0/s320/epiphany2016banner.jpg" width="320" /></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;">TWELFTH NIGHT/EPIPHANY</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;"> I read this
line in a interview with Christian Wiman in Christianity Today:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"Jurgen Moltmann once wrote that all
theology, especially a theology of hope, had to be conducted 'in the earshot of
the dying Christ.'"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Joy is what it
is because death--and suffering--is what it is too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The two are inseparable in theology and in
life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;"> I also read
NY Times Book Review about first time novelist Ayana Mathis. Her novel titled <u>The
Twelve Tribes of Hattie</u>, opens up the life of a black woman who came north
with the Great Migration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The reviewer
admires the book, but clearly doesn't love it because, by her estimation,
there's simply too much grief and sadness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;"> The Twelve
Tribes of Hattie is exactly the kind of novel I like, even love--historical
fiction that burrows into the lives of real human beings in a different--mostly
American--time and place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I'm not
reading this one because I've come to the age where I don't want to indulge
sadness. I'm not interested in happy faces either, but long, depressing
literary work, no matter how glorious in style, simply doesn't hold much appeal
right now; I'm 61, and I've seen enough of that myself, and I'm going to see
more, I'm sure.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;"> This weekend
is Epiphany.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today, even in our house,
the Christmas tree gets tossed out by the mailbox, and if it isn't windy, gets
picked up with the garbage and recycling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It's a calendar date that we really can't avoid, even if we don't know
the tradition or the liturgy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Life
occurs always within the earshot of the dying Christ.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;"> And we can't
avoid Twelfth Night because it is, for better or for worse, a significant
chapter in our own stories, as important and wonderful and promising as the day
that tree went up in early December.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Just as surely, it must come down, and it has.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;"> Sounds awful,
I know--but think of it this way:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Easter
is 'a'comin.</span><span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif;"> Think of it
this way:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>there's always Easter.</span>
</div>
Rob Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15003909117448739564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9099981150178374406.post-84209807884924683872018-12-05T08:46:00.002-08:002018-12-05T08:49:59.866-08:00Christmas music<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Closing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB5I9W3bFC5Q13mfwjlRauH4pkR3FGbITsgH-ypYplhRutBgYd3EeghytyPue8_scnXIr_BYU7geC3D178OcoDWCxcfSeER4wdfY4dnCvsfcMe-UbixfYdvBKFZaP1EclA9bwUs7_VAV4/s1600/Doorknob.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB5I9W3bFC5Q13mfwjlRauH4pkR3FGbITsgH-ypYplhRutBgYd3EeghytyPue8_scnXIr_BYU7geC3D178OcoDWCxcfSeER4wdfY4dnCvsfcMe-UbixfYdvBKFZaP1EclA9bwUs7_VAV4/s200/Doorknob.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We are two blocks from Court Street, far too close in
December because the downtown pole speakers play Christmas muzak all over the
street, and consequently all over the surrounding area. We hear it whether we
want to or not. Fortunately, windows are shut down tight or “White Christmas”
would find its way inside, like those pesky lady bugs that just now are dying,
thanks to the cold.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I could stand outside in beautiful first snow and hear
far more than I wanted to know about Mommy kissing Santa Claus underneath the
mistletoe.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I love Christmas music. In my life, I must have been part
of a thousand gatherings were “Joy to the World” brought the assembled to their
feet. I never tire of it. “Lo, How a Rose e’er Blooming” is as gorgeous as it
is haunting, and that last line of the refrain of “Hark, the Herald Angels
Sing” is enough to conjure up all the very best images of all my Christmases
past. My wife and I play Christmas music on our Sonos speakers in the center of
the living room. A week before Christmas, Handel’s Messiah is on most all the
time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’m no Scrooge, is what I’m saying, but I found the
downtown speakers constant blaring of seasonal music—most of it
secular—horribly annoying.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Christmas itself is so familiar, so intimate, that it
seems almost like a buddy from whom we expect so much that we can’t help but
somehow be letdown. Christmas is so close to us that a whole lot of us have a
love/hate thing with the whole season. Yuletide brings out the best in us—and
the worst. Ask any retail clerk.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It isn’t perfect, and everybody knows it. But that having
been said and despite the Wal-Mart excesses of Black Friday, the whole season
is an immense blessing for all of us—no matter what our faith.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’m still, always, happy for the season. I love the
golden glow our wreath casts nightly over the snow on the front porch. I love
the bear nativity scene that comes out of nowhere and sits on our lampstand
table. I love the tree decorations, little tokens of where we’ve been
throughout our married life. I love buying gifts for people, lots of them. I
love the story. I love the love he’s brought—Jesus Christ that is. At
Christmas, we’re all kids.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">One of every winter’s greatest disappointment is
Christmas being over. For a moment, even through the muzak, God’s perfect
beauty shines forth in sometimes very imperfect ways; but what it brings is,
well, joy to the world.</span></div>
Rob Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15003909117448739564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9099981150178374406.post-41998410697121423812018-11-30T06:09:00.001-08:002018-11-30T06:13:53.434-08:00All Saints<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik3CzUwk_cRv8FbBKBygQBa84HOUSJ3YTaJPIMvzO8QtFlUwSfZsLxLVJIZGqEvKUnaLptVsCz278iK7f2YFwUMk5-GZN7So3KIqwic2FBFtmRnQFE1LWDj79JsQL8KdYDDE-COfKx8bg/s1600/467953759-58b5e6ca5f9b586046066c0a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="424" data-original-width="768" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik3CzUwk_cRv8FbBKBygQBa84HOUSJ3YTaJPIMvzO8QtFlUwSfZsLxLVJIZGqEvKUnaLptVsCz278iK7f2YFwUMk5-GZN7So3KIqwic2FBFtmRnQFE1LWDj79JsQL8KdYDDE-COfKx8bg/s320/467953759-58b5e6ca5f9b586046066c0a.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: large;">All Saints </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As I write this reflection, eleven people in a
Pittsburgh synagogue are dead, gunned down by an anti-Semitic man with an
assault rifle. On Wednesday, a white man shot and killed two black people at a
Kroger supermarket in Jeffersontown, Kentucky. Earlier, he had tried to enter a
predominantly black church minutes before the fatal shooting. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Over the past few
days, at least a dozen prominent American Democrats, including two former
presidents, have been the targets of assassination attempts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even a cursory glance at international news
headlines yields stories just as horrific: dozens dead in Eastern Syria;
millions starving in Yemen; widespread killings, kidnappings, and communal
violence in central Nigeria.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the
midst of life, we are in death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This week, Christians around the world celebrate All
Souls and All Saints.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a world that
fears, cheapens, and desecrates death, the Church invites God’s people to
linger at the grave in grief, remembrance, gratitude, and hope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a world that mistreats and abuses
countless men, women, and children, the Church affirms the value of every
single soul, every single life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a
world that privileges the individual, the Church honors the deep
interconnectedness of God’s family across time, culture, history, and
eternity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, it’s true: in the midst
of life, we are in death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But All Souls
and All Saints remind us of a deeper truth: in the midst of death, we are
promised life.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">What breaks our hearts?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What splits us open in sorrow?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What enrages us?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can we mobilize into those very spaces?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can we work for transformation in our places
of devastation?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can our sorrow lead us
to justice? </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This week, as we gather to honor All Souls and All
Saints, as we take time to remember, to mourn, and to celebrate those who have
gone on before us, I hope that our faith can be our guide.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hope honest expressions of sorrow will give
us the permission, the company, and the impetus we need, not only to do the
work of grief and healing, but to move with powerful compassion into a world
that sorely needs our empathy and our love. Yes, we are in death, but we serve
a God who calls us to life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our journey
is not to the grave, but through it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
God who weeps is also the God who resurrects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>So we mourn in hope.</span></div>
Rob Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15003909117448739564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9099981150178374406.post-87078618918282009762018-07-04T07:19:00.001-07:002018-07-04T07:19:50.891-07:00The Practice of Blessing<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Lately I have been thinking about the practice of giving
blessings, like the Aaronic Blessing from the book of Deuteronomy, </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Lord bless you</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and keep
you;</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">the Lord make His face shine upon you</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and be
gracious to you;</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">the Lord turn His face toward you</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and give
you peace. “</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Or, like the blessing that Jesus gave the children in Mark
where Jesus takes them in his arms and blesses them, or like the Irish blessing,
“May the road rise up to meet you…,” </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I used to think a blessing was just sort of a vague wish.
I bless you, I wish good things for you. But giving a blessing actually does
something to us, and this story helps explain that. It’s a true story. A man
named Christopher tells about looking forward to welcoming his wife home after
hip surgery. He wanted to show his love for her by taking good care of her. He
wanted to be a good husband. The first morning after she got home, Christopher
realized he was feeling a little cranky. He is not a morning person. Some of us
are morning people, and others of us have to live with morning people.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Christopher is not a morning person, but he was still
doing what he needed to do to take care of his wife. And then he started
feeling hungry, because he hadn’t had breakfast yet, and that made him even
more cranky. Do you get cranky when you’re hungry?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And then he started feeling guilty. He started worrying
that he wasn’t a good husband, because he was feeling cranky. And then he
started thinking this was all his wife’s fault anyway, because she had this
surgery. We do that sometimes. We feel bad, and so we blame other people. But he caught himself. He realized what he was thinking
and feeling, and he took a couple of deep breaths. Which almost always helps. And then he thought, “I don’t want either one of us to
suffer.” He thought: “May neither one of us suffer.”</span></div>
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<br />
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">May neither one of us suffer. Christopher called this a
“mindful intervention.” This is a fancy way to say he became aware of what he
was thinking, and turned it around with what we would call a blessing. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">May neither of us suffer</i>. In just those
few words, he turned his heart toward his wife, and it kind of softened him. It
softened his feelings, and he realized he wanted the best for her.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Blessing is a practice because when we bless someone or
something, God turns our heart toward the person or the thing. God makes space
in our heart, God softens our heart to love the person or thing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Blessings in the Old
Testament were usually for your family, or for your own people, your own tribe.</span><span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> But Jesus shows us something very different. In Jesus’
time, children were not very important. I know that’s hard to imagine, but
that’s why the disciples were telling them to go away. Children weren’t thought
of as people. But Jesus said, “Let them come to me.” He said it takes a simple,
open and trusting heart to understand what God wants us to be. And then he
blessed them. Jesus shows us that we are to bless people who aren’t in our
family, who aren’t in our neighborhood or town or school, even those people we
would rather not even think about, because blessing opens our hearts to them,
and makes a space in our hearts for them.</span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I challenge you to think of someone or some group that
you think of as outsiders, not part of your family, your group, your tribe.
Then think about how you might bless them.</span></div>
Rob Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15003909117448739564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9099981150178374406.post-22151982298812745242011-08-02T11:55:00.001-07:002011-09-30T11:23:57.243-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjo70FYP_HOX8rz4NFwML2OCSYWu_MgrNKUMA5XDHZo6aR8yMkQMKwuQJEw6BKkUu8JcpLFhH_84H2oebsa_5F8KT8FIvnP3npUGxinB4qe0J7Ox5a4Baom-cxR9kgLSLJLH1NlKNDIcg/s1600/DSC_9143.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjo70FYP_HOX8rz4NFwML2OCSYWu_MgrNKUMA5XDHZo6aR8yMkQMKwuQJEw6BKkUu8JcpLFhH_84H2oebsa_5F8KT8FIvnP3npUGxinB4qe0J7Ox5a4Baom-cxR9kgLSLJLH1NlKNDIcg/s320/DSC_9143.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
On Sunday, I went to church. I know, it's summer, and why would you go to church in the summer? It's hot, so hot that one of my members thought the only appropriate sermon topic was Dante's inferno. There's no regular Sunday school, and no regular choir, and there are plenty of other things to do. At least, that seems to be what several people think. But I am the pastor, and I was preaching, so I went to church.<br />
<br />
Here's what I saw there:<br />
<br />
I saw a smile on the face of a woman who told me that she got to see her husband and attend a great conference. I saw tears on the face of a woman who wanted me to pray for the family of a friend of hers who died last week.<br />
<br />
I saw a two year old boy run up to the front of the church for the children's sermon with a wonderful red lollipop in his mouth. I wanted my own lollipop when I saw his.<br />
<br />
I saw an older woman give our organist a hug. I saw him smile.<br />
<br />
I saw a woman with a small boy who wrote on their visitor card that they were former members who had moved to Colorado and had come for a visit. Following worship, she said it was good to be back at Crescent Avenue and that she continued to pray for the church.<br />
<br />
I do as well. I pray for the church, the people of God, the ones who came and sang and prayed and cried and laughed with us on Sunday. I pray for the ones who were not here, for whatever reason, whether they are traveling or whether they are busy or whether they just can't figure out a reason to be here with us.Rob Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15003909117448739564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9099981150178374406.post-63310119718022918432011-07-15T08:50:00.000-07:002011-09-30T11:26:32.967-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOoHKKRqtoxvnxMpzOpwXUbD8KEg2CuJ3vqtF0UPEhZAUKLBznI3Lbx6p0ZZRWjbuGU64mWFEfqaxbWYc_cpnZD2LfBvwBncZMVxIfTC2UOg2VYKwYPpQ8hElj_xspfSBtUpkjnImfvPo/s1600/51iGIExOalL._SS500_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOoHKKRqtoxvnxMpzOpwXUbD8KEg2CuJ3vqtF0UPEhZAUKLBznI3Lbx6p0ZZRWjbuGU64mWFEfqaxbWYc_cpnZD2LfBvwBncZMVxIfTC2UOg2VYKwYPpQ8hElj_xspfSBtUpkjnImfvPo/s320/51iGIExOalL._SS500_.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;">KINGDOM HEARTS</span><br />
<br />
<br />
What we need most, we do not have, until we discover that God is always with us. And in the mystery of God’s grace, the dominion of heaven establishes a presence in our hearts. It’s stated pretty well by writer Frederick Buechner:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">If we only had eyes to see and ears to hear and wits to understand, we would know that the Kingdom of God in the sense of holiness, goodness, beauty is as close as breathing and is crying out to be born both within ourselves and within the world; we would know that the Kingdom of God is what we all of us hunger for above all other things even when we don’t know its name or realize that it’s what we’re starving to death for. The Kingdom of God is where our best dreams come from and our truest prayers. We glimpse it at those moments when we find ourselves being better than we are and wiser than we know. We catch sight of it when at some moment of crisis a strength seems to come to us that is greater than our own strength. The Kingdom of God is where we belong. It is home, and whether we realize it or not, I think all of us are homesick for it.</span> (The Clown in the Belfry, p. 152)<br />
<br />
This is the blessing we receive when we come before God, ready to be filled. We pray for God to finish what we cannot. We announce how we depend on God for all things. We see how little we have within ourselves. And then the moment comes when we discover that everything we need has been given to us as a gift. In the end we pray not so much for confirmation as for clarity. Clarity to see the kingdom of God breaking in all around us.Rob Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15003909117448739564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9099981150178374406.post-82688386622658315432011-07-12T08:03:00.001-07:002011-09-30T11:30:30.479-07:00ControlWhen you grow up like I did, you try to know-it-all. Everything depends on it. Supposedly.<br />
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It has been a long time since "growing up", but still some strange place in your head never quite forgives you for not holding together what was never in your power to hold together anyhow— the loss of a parent, hoped-for joys of holidays and ordinary days quashed by volatility, or some other such thing.<br />
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Trying to be right, to know it all, brings the need for control; after all, it's so much easier to be right when you understand the playing field, have set the boundary lines yourself, inasmuch as that is possible.<br />
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Then along comes Life with a suggestion: let go, drift. In creation there is an <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">inherent</span> sense that we are not in control. In creation there's a sense of encounter, immediacy, Presence that we cannot control.<br />
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For a time, I too felt such an invitation. Let go. Drift with green grasses, morning dew, the stars. Then it came to an end, partly because my commitments call me back to a sense of control and management, but perhaps too because God knew it was time to set me in a new place of encounter, where I could not easily be in control. <br />
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At some point I must have wanted to relinquish the burden of being right, knowing-it-all (it is tiring, often perplexing). And this desire sent me on unlikely journeys— first into Creation, now into daily writing. The words sometimes come, and at other times do not. I worry, fret, labor, and finally give myself over to God’s grace, trusting that the words will come - and I am not in control.Rob Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15003909117448739564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9099981150178374406.post-34569220350276733632011-07-06T06:34:00.000-07:002011-07-06T06:43:13.236-07:00This past week the Crescent Avenue Church and Watchung Avenue Church participated in a work camp at Stony Point, a Presbyterian Conference Center. We worked on demolishing four garages to prepare the site for a new Arts Center that will be constructed in 2012. On our last day I was asked to reflect on the day and the week. Here is what I wrote:<br /><br />It’s Friday, not in the TGIF kind of Friday, but a Friday that has us packing and anticipating heading home. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfo4VplI2yDYC3kVs5ivsXrWfwxwUeqBp_jabsETOA7g2lXVJO8LgAle4_gG30OvW1mytR2Rl2QpCLy6PfsmIE7Oz45ydDvCJpze9aGfuIgggpwCPnpwTGwJPL2MR4jx2ZlYVJU1Ix2hg/s1600/IMG_0918.JPG"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfo4VplI2yDYC3kVs5ivsXrWfwxwUeqBp_jabsETOA7g2lXVJO8LgAle4_gG30OvW1mytR2Rl2QpCLy6PfsmIE7Oz45ydDvCJpze9aGfuIgggpwCPnpwTGwJPL2MR4jx2ZlYVJU1Ix2hg/s320/IMG_0918.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626233618327739298" border="0" /></a><br /><br />We walked the shady drive following breakfast and worship this morning— fields and hills opening out beyond with tall green trees reaching to the heavens. We ramble past the herb garden and I think, this garden contains possibility— basil for red sauce, sage for French lentil salad, rosemary for new potatoes, chives for cream cheese. Henni, the cook here at Stony Point is in league with the Devil. Her food is so delicious that everything I encounter conjures up thoughts of recipes and our next meal. I must focus on the task at hand this morning, to remove the pitched roof, rafters, and plywood, the last hurdle of our whirlwind week.<br /><br />Benji and Mike head up the ladders to begin removing the roof. Fernando just looks at Jake and myself and says slyly that the makeshift scaffolding only holds 600 lbs. I guess Jake and I are grounded for the duration of the roof removal. Mike and Benji work steadily, sure-footed, and safe as board after board comes down. I envy them their youth and endless energy until Benji puts his foot through the flat roof underneath. By lunch the roof and rafters are down. My mind wanders back to the herb garden and what awaits us at lunch.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEVsCVdMzMS9zr-k4bKB0M62_RKX5hZiI5zL6EM1gNYcf_2ESLe-6DlhCB6IJ6thfYqp9oa-UaDLzx6H0nblZH2nvqjIR6R8nDUFnGd-EbK6nSPgReCPHhsoSOeVu3zwKdQScsVQ21h9M/s1600/IMG_0911.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEVsCVdMzMS9zr-k4bKB0M62_RKX5hZiI5zL6EM1gNYcf_2ESLe-6DlhCB6IJ6thfYqp9oa-UaDLzx6H0nblZH2nvqjIR6R8nDUFnGd-EbK6nSPgReCPHhsoSOeVu3zwKdQScsVQ21h9M/s320/IMG_0911.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626234038373103426" border="0" /></a><br />Beyond the low cut building we are working on are the gardens. At the fringe is a locust tree. Shelby calls this the “tree of death”. It has a huge, weathered branch that Shelby pulls until a twig is released. We can see the large thorns as she makes her way to us under the sycamore tree. I silently wonder if Jesus’ crown of thorns were made of these. As I sit sharing water and a bench with the work crew I think of how fortunate I have been to spend the week with these amazing co-workers. I do not want to leave. The friendship, work, sweet peas, chicken paprika, corny jokes, and late night smore fires. I do not want to leave this day, this hour.Rob Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15003909117448739564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9099981150178374406.post-82201065525655188332011-06-17T07:04:00.000-07:002011-06-17T07:07:25.976-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQvJtRDzseIZjeZ8n0Dj7LYxurQzL6mU1ioXz2rrN00XuC_dghsCNOaaeB8-J6oOQB-jPFdXmOnmxy-mP5ZAM3tl1q9ctZsrC9dOFk2lUww5SDsF6wkfos3N8MnTmcgaeDqY9ltZFiKvY/s1600/DSCN1290.JPG"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQvJtRDzseIZjeZ8n0Dj7LYxurQzL6mU1ioXz2rrN00XuC_dghsCNOaaeB8-J6oOQB-jPFdXmOnmxy-mP5ZAM3tl1q9ctZsrC9dOFk2lUww5SDsF6wkfos3N8MnTmcgaeDqY9ltZFiKvY/s320/DSCN1290.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5619190044831249234" border="0" /></a><br /><style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Times New Roman"; panose-1:0 2 2 6 3 5 4 5 2 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-parent:""; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none">Life confronts us with a lot of choices. I thought about this as I sat along with thousands of others at my son, Benji’s graduation this past month. We have to decide where we will go to school and what we will study, what type of work we will do, where we will live, how we will spend our money, and the list goes on and on. But the most important choices sneak up on you. These are the choices about love and friendship, about how you will handle disappointment and adversity, about what is really important to you and the convictions by which you will live your life. Usually you have already made these choices long before you knew you did. These important choices are simply cognitive. Something from a deep place inside you emerges, and only then do you know what to do.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none">The older I get, the more I realize that maturity is about embracing who I am, who I have always been, and who I was before I knew it. When I was young, I believed those who told me I could be whoever I wanted to be. I believed the world was nothing but opportunity and resources. And I believed that I could choose my dream and then knock myself out to make it come true. What those who were peddling this highly individualistic drivel forgot to mention was that they had no dreams worthy of one’s life, and no good ideas for how to find one. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none">The late 20th-century advice peddlers thought they were liberating us from tradition and freeing us to be ourselves. But the tragic irony is that by dismantling the traditions they only made it impossible to know who we are or what our dream for life should be. Thus, we have seen so many people who have no idea of their <span style="color:black;">identity waste their fleeting years by making unimportant choices, hoping that they will stumble into a life they like.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:black;">The Apostle Paul has a different idea. When he writes his epistles to Timothy, Paul is near the end of his life. Timothy is a young pastor, still near the beginning of his life. Paul knows that the leadership of the church is about to pass to Timothy’s generation. These epistles can be read as his last words of advice and spiritual counsel to the next generation, and to our next generation. So what does Paul say to Timothy? Not that he should go out and start shopping for a dream. Nor does he tell him to knock himself out as a pastor to build a successful mega-church. No, Paul tells him to</span><span style="color:black;"> rekindle the gift that is already within him. Paul begins by demonstrating how he has done this in his own life. He says that he is grateful to God to whom he gives worship as his ancestors did. Tradition is an inevitable inheritance. Even if you reject your inheritance, it is still setting the agenda. No one ever escapes tradition. But it does fall to the members of each generation to receive this inheritance, and then to mold and shape it during the years while they hold the baton. Tradition is dynamic. I do not celebrate Christmas or Easter the way my parents did. I do not even worship the way they did. But I did not invent these traditions. They invented me.</span> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; text-autospace:none"><span style="color:black;"> Paul then speaks about the Christian tradition that has already shaped Timothy. He says, “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois, and your mother Eunice, and now lives in you.” This means that Timothy was a third-generation Christian. He was the second to grow up on the lap of faith. So this faith is not something that Timothy chose. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; text-autospace:none"><span style="color:black;">As a result of this great faith that now lives within us, Paul says we “have not received a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power, love, and self-discipline.” As every adult has long known, and as the teenagers already know, our society will give you so many reasons to be afraid. It will find thousands of ways to ask, “Who are you?” It will try to make you afraid. But you have this powerful gift. It was in you before you knew it. When you need it, the powerful faith is waiting. You also have love. God loved you as infants before you knew God’s name, or what it meant to receive and respond to God’s love. And you have self-discipline. That will save you from the bad choices which only hurt yourself.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none; text-autospace:none"><span style="color:black;"> Not only will our world try to make you afraid, it will also keep finding ways to tell you that you are ordinary. No one can stay out of the game of life. No one can opt out of the great conflict between good and evil. You have to choose a side! Either you are working for the faith that is within you, or you are working against it. This great faith claims that your life is not an accident. Your skills, talents, experiences, and even your hurts have a sacred purpose to them. If you want to find that purpose, you don’t have to look far. It is there waiting for you, in the great faith the Church has given you. But as Paul cautions, you have to rekindle that faith. You have to keep it alive and burning bright. You have to choose not to be ordinary, but to make a difference. And for that, you have to choose what God, Lois, Eunice, and generations of prophets and martyrs have chosen for you. You have to embrace who you are, who you have always been, who you were before you knew it.</span></p>Rob Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15003909117448739564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9099981150178374406.post-47430672415791097742011-06-17T06:54:00.001-07:002011-06-17T07:10:57.617-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2M7VNDrrFilPFT_bHIf8heuoAfDdWlCG4zV_pRS5DvDaT_sf-UlhrM2Ov5oLWgdOF9ys0e62JiZ8yOoVDvdId5-HgzMZQxV0CcLbedrFoVFFTLl5ShhOGpzcuHSRGDgzlQdzM93qSY98/s1600/404816.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 250px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2M7VNDrrFilPFT_bHIf8heuoAfDdWlCG4zV_pRS5DvDaT_sf-UlhrM2Ov5oLWgdOF9ys0e62JiZ8yOoVDvdId5-HgzMZQxV0CcLbedrFoVFFTLl5ShhOGpzcuHSRGDgzlQdzM93qSY98/s320/404816.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5619190969315883090" border="0" /></a><br />I received an invitation this week to a new exhibit opening at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The exhibit is called, “Rembrandt and the face of Jesus”. What caught my attention was one of the pieces on display: Christ as a Gardener Appearing to Mary Magdalene. In the painting, Jesus is shown as a gardener, with a big gardener’s hat and a spade. Rembrandt based his painting from an account in the Gospel of John.<br /> You remember the story: Mary finds the stone rolled away from the tomb, and as she turns from it, weeping, Jesus is standing there waiting for her. Jesus asks Mary, “Woman, why are you weeping?” and as the story goes, Mary begins to tell him that someone has stolen Jesus. Mary says this to Jesus himself, because she has mistaken him for the gardener. That passage got me thinking about a few things. About faith. About expectations. About gardeners. It occurs to me that most encounters people have with their faith—at least the encounters that are worthwhile—are those that happen in a way that are different from what we expect and often different from what we are able to understand. I would argue that, as a general rule, the encounters we have with faith that are different from what we expect, the ones that make us stop and think, the ones that are difficult to understand—these are the experiences that are actually the most helpful to us. These are the encounters that help us to grow. This shouldn’t be too foreign an idea. Psychologists suggest that it is in encountering something new and uncomfortable that we are most likely to grow.<br /> There is a lot we don’t understand in these resurrection stories. Clearly there is a lot that the disciples don’t understand either. Mostly they’re just caught by surprise; Mary is a representative for them all, mistaking Jesus to be the gardener. In the midst of all of these unanswered questions, it occurs to me that if this is supposed to be a story about how Jesus is raised from the dead, it’s a strange kind of story. So I started thinking about something else. I started thinking, about gardening.<br /> Alex Trebek, the host of Jeopardy, is a gardener. I know this only because, A.J. Jacobs, an author I love to read, interviewed Trebek and wrote an account of it in one of his books. A.J. is a very smart guy, and he loves trivia, so he tells a great story about how excited he was when Esquire magazine sent him out to California to interview Alex Trebek. A.J. figured that interviewing the host of Jeopardy would be one of the best possible opportunities to go head-to-head with someone who really knows a lot of trivia and see if he could keep up—or prove that he knew even more. A.J. writes that he was sure Trebek would be arrogant and hyper intellectual, quick to prove how smart he was; A.J. was all geared up for a know-it-all showdown with Trebek. And so he was taken by surprise when the stone-faced host of Jeopardy turned out to be a kind, easygoing, regular guy, a pleasure to interview, and even highly emotional in his thoughts on life. I could tell you a lot of stories about people who turn out to be different than we expect. But the reason I chose this one is because of the way A.J.’s story begins. When he arrived at Alex Trebek’s house, he was told that he would find Alex outside. It’s a big backyard, and A.J. finds a number of men, stooped down, working. He walks around, asking them, “Have you seen Alex Trebek; I’m looking for Alex Trebek. Donde esta Alex Trebek?” Suddenly one of those gardeners stands up and turns around and says, “You’ve found him.” The whole story of A.J. being taken by surprise begins when A.J. mistakes Alex Trebek for the gardener (The Know-It-All, pp. 99–101).<br /> I read this story a few weeks ago, and I thought of it again on Easter because of that one line in the Gospel of John that caught my attention: Mary Magdalene mistakes Jesus for the gardener. Now the story about Jesus and the one about Alex Trebek have little in common, but for some reason it just caught my attention that in both cases, a well-told story about surprise and growth and understanding begins with a gardener.<br /> I come from a long line of gardeners. I know that a garden is a place where we have a general idea of what to do, but we still wrestle with unknowns. How much will it rain this year? Will the bugs or the birds or the rabbits or the deer find their way in? How long will this patch of dirt be fertile? How long until that tree gets too tall and blocks out the sun. It’s in the midst of those unknowns, those moments of not quite knowing where things are headed, that a gardener labors, and most of the time, by the grace of God, something grows, even though we never quite wrestle nature to the ground. Most avid gardeners will tell you that the real joy of gardening is in that struggle with nature that you never completely figure out. Thomas Jefferson, in his later years, used to say, “Though an old man, I am but a young gardener.”<br /> There’s something poetic about mistaking Jesus for the gardener. We don’t understand, we’re not yet fully grown, but Jesus is cultivating something within us. He’s raising up within us the ability to be and do something different, to see and take part in something even though we don’t fully understand. It’s my hunch that the point of all of this is that there are a lot of things about how the resurrection took place that we’re not supposed to figure out. It’s contrary to the way the Bible tells the story of the resurrection to expect to understand it. The people who were there don’t understand it; why should we? But look at what happens to the people who encounter the risen Jesus.<br /> The end of the story fascinates me because there John seems to come right out and say that we don’t need to understand everything about the resurrection. John admits that he could tell us much, much more, but he chooses not to because he has told us enough. Enough to surprise us, enough to disturb us, enough to cause us to grow. Enough to give us peace. And so I close with John’s conclusion: Now, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing, you may have life in his name.Rob Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15003909117448739564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9099981150178374406.post-22119616990561054942008-07-10T06:45:00.001-07:002011-06-17T09:17:01.997-07:00Summer surpriseThe trouble with a lot of religion is that it is so predictable; there is no room for surprise in it. Sam Keen, a theologian-philosopher and a very creative thinker, has written about the absence of surprise and wonder from most conventional religion and from life itself. Keen thinks surprise—and wonder—are at the heart of religion. In one of his books he remembers an incident that always makes me smile, because I can remember it too. He’s sitting in Mrs. Jones’ elementary school classroom practicing what used to be called penmanship.<br /><br /> Mrs. Jones’ classroom always seemed dark, but on this particular day it was more depressing than usual. For an eternal afternoon I sat practicing my penmanship exercises, listening to Mrs. Jones’ monotonous: “Make your ‘i’s’ come all the way up to the middle line. And don’t forget to make your ‘o’s’ nice and round. Circle. Circle. Circle. Period. Now repeat.” Caught somewhere between boredom and despair I struggled against tears and settled in to wait for the resurrection—the 3:00 bell.<br /><br /> And then it happened. A movement in a tree outside the window caught my eye, and there, in the sweet and redeeming light of the springtime world, was a summer warbler building a nest. Caught in wonder, I followed the progress of the nest construction. . . . My “i’s” and “o’s” were forgotten until Mrs. Jones materialized over my shoulder and demanded to know why three lines in my penmanship book were empty. Instinct warned me that no serendipitous warbler could provide an excuse for the neglect of my educational duties. So I bit my tongue, cherished my wonder in silence, and stayed in after school to make up my lessons.<br /><br /> “Mrs. Jones won more than the day,” Keen says. “Schooling became a habit<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRq4_qFv2q3d0ujQXZOo1wOuHvh4ivAQjI4cqeuGGFLeWnkJ7N7Xal6hoojP8CEYmdC6R9bSM80lzv0uEOu4dydyFnSzJhaL_kfOBOg1QJv90UkTnd4mxipn_cWqCs6zicFR7Zvugr3jg/s1600/51Tg04w1OpL._SL500_AA300_.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 276px; height: 276px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRq4_qFv2q3d0ujQXZOo1wOuHvh4ivAQjI4cqeuGGFLeWnkJ7N7Xal6hoojP8CEYmdC6R9bSM80lzv0uEOu4dydyFnSzJhaL_kfOBOg1QJv90UkTnd4mxipn_cWqCs6zicFR7Zvugr3jg/s320/51Tg04w1OpL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5619223258601322226" border="0" /></a> for me, and I remained in the classroom for twenty-five years and five degrees without seriously questioning the maxim that private enthusiasm must be divorced from the educational task” (To a Dancing God: Education for Serendipity, pp. 38–39).<br /> Sam Keen went on to write some important theology. In Apology for Wonder, he argues that the experience of wonder is at the heart of all true religion and all true education, that there is altogether too little of it in our churches and schools. Both religion and education, he says, strive to make everything predictable, conventional, certain, nailed down—that is to say, to eliminate the possibility of surprise, unpredictability, novelty, mystery.<br /> The Bible, on the other hand, is full of surprises. Faith in this God is not predictable. Faith is an openness to the startling, amazing, surprising grace of God coming at us, to us, in the most unlikely and unexpected of ways.<br /> Contrary to conventional wisdom, faith is not about knowing everything there is to know about God. It is knowing that there is plenty about God that we don’t know. Faith is not certainty. Faith is acknowledging that God will not be reduced to the limits of human understanding. God will be God, and there will always be surprises. “God will make a way where there is no way,” Martin Luther King Jr. used to say. God will make a way through the sea. God will bring freedom out of oppression, justice out of injustice, life out of death. It’s not that God will do everything we ask, give us whatever we think we want, as the prosperity gospel preachers promise. It is that God is God and God will do God’s will and it will be a surprise when it happens.<br /> The scientists know that discovery grows out of humility and openness to surprise. The enemy of science is certainty—the sense that there are no surprises, no mystery, that we know everything there is to know. But you and I are resistant to surprise and far prefer predictability.Edmund Steimle was a great preacher and teacher of preaching in the last generation. Commenting on the text “God’s mercies are new every morning,” he said, “At my age, the promise of newness every morning is at best a mixed blessing. I have come to the point in my life when I don’t want anything new in the morning. I want my slippers right beneath my bed where I left them the night before. I want my orange juice and bran flakes for breakfast as normal. At my age, I can do without a lot of newness, especially in the morning”<br /> The Bible is full of surprises from beginning to end. A God who time and time again comes to his people when they have given up, when they’ve concluded that God has forgotten them—if God even exists in the first place. A God who comes particularly when their backs are against the wall and their hearts are full of fear. A God who comes quietly, steadily, to be with them, to bind up their wounds, to strengthen their hearts and arms and legs, a God for whom nothing is too wonderful.<br /> Christianity is about a God of surprises. What, after all, could be more surprising than God coming into the world in the birth of a child, another child, this child born of humble parents in an insignificant village called Bethlehem? What could be more surprising than that?<br /><br /> W. H. Auden, the great poet, captures it in his Christmas Oratorio, “For the Time Being.” At the manger, the shepherds say —<br /><br /> We never left the place where we were born . . .<br /> walked thousands of miles, but only wore the grass between work and home.<br /> But . . . music and sudden light<br /> have interrupted our routine tonight,<br /> and swept the filth of habit from our hearts.<br /> O here and now our endless journey starts<br /> (“For the Time Being,” W. H. Auden, Collected Poems, p. 294)<br /><br /> What could be more surprising than the incarnation, God coming to us in that child? Only one thing actually: that child becoming a man and teaching so amazingly and clearly, healing so lovingly, reaching out to the marginalized so graciously, dying so courageously, and then, the greatest surprise of all, defeating death on Easter. A God of beautiful surprises, who makes a way where there is no way; a God who, precisely when we are afraid, literally scared to death, resigned and without hope, comes with new possibility; a God so surprising that death itself becomes the occasion for new life; a God for whom nothing is too wonderful.<br /> So take time to be surprised this summer. Get a late night cone at the dairy queen. Feel the sand between your toes. Watch the children’s laughter as they splash near a pool. Take time to be surprised by God.Rob Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15003909117448739564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9099981150178374406.post-38400135202365310552008-07-01T06:49:00.000-07:002008-07-10T06:59:40.861-07:00Truth and CompassionPentecost, the celebration of the gift of the Holy Spirit, the birthpangs of the church. The first sign the church was filled with the Spirit was that the disciples were able to speak the truth. Three thousand people were so convicted that they joined the church. The second sign the church was filled with the Spirit was that the church became a compassionate community. So the two characteristics we are given here of a Spirit-filled church is that it is known for its truth and compassion.<br /> It is never enough for a church to proclaim its truth Sunday after Sunday. There is nothing distinctive about an organization claiming it has the truth. Competing political organizations all claim the truth. Non- profits try to convince you of the truth of their cause. Advertisements peddle their products as the true answer to your needs. Most of the conflicts in society are between people who claim to have the truth. What would be distinctive is if the truth made people loving.<br /> “All who believed were together and had all things in common. They would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need . . . with glad and generous hearts.” In Acts chapter four, we are told that Barnabas chose to sell a field he owned, and he laid the proceeds at the feet of the apostles that they might care for the needs of the church. Can you imagine belonging to a group of people who cared so much about you that they would sell their possessions to take care of your needs? Not because they had to, but because they got to. Because they had glad and generous hearts. Well, you do belong to such a community. Over the last year as I have talked with so many about their commitments to our church’s campaign to build community, I have been moved by the Barnabases living among us. Those who have caught the vision for what we are trying to do have told me they will be traveling less, putting off buying a new car, or selling off their stock, all in order to give to you. It’s not because they have to. It’s because they get to. And it’s because they have glad and generous hearts.<br /> The need that we are trying to meet with this campaign is the great yearning for community today. After decades and decades of rampant individualism, self-constructed lives, lives unteathered to the great claims of a holy tradition, and each of us seeking to enlarge his or her own borders, what have we found? Some of us are successful but lonely and so very confused about the holy purpose to life. Others around us are not so successful. We would love to make a difference for them but don’t know how. We need to be a part of a community that will help us remember who we are and whose we are. And we need a community that will allow us to be loving to those who have so little.<br /> Too often we are dominated by the self. We worry about our jobs, our money, our health, our future. When we don’t get a promotion, we wonder about our dreams. When we get home and the family doesn’t rise to salute, we wonder why they don’t appreciate me. When we get stuck in traffic, we ask, “Why are they doing this to me?” After a week jammed with anxiety about me, by the time we get to church on Sunday, if you are like the rest of us, you are sick and tired of the self. You are ready for someone who has a better story going than you. That’s why we just keep talking about Jesus Christ here. He saves us from ourselves. He fills our lives with holy mission. And he gives us love for them.<br /> Those who get the deep truth of that, like Barnabas, are just so glad. And glad people are always generous. This is what the text means in claiming they “had glad and generous hearts.” So if you are not glad and generous, you don’t get the deep truth because our truth makes us loving, glad, and generous. It is for this reason that we have not marketed this building campaign, or our church’s community, for what you will get out of it. It would be easy to look at our plans and to say, “I’m not getting much out of this.” It would be easy to look at our ministry and to say, “They are not meeting my needs at the church.” You may be right on both accounts. But that is because our focus is not to appeal to your dreams but to the dreams Christ is unfolding among us. In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Nothing is more dangerous to authentic community than our dreams for it. For we will always love our dreams more than community, which is not a human idea but a divine reality.” That doesn’t mean it is perfect. And it doesn’t mean we don’t have dreams. But our dreams are not the dreams for a community but the dreams of a community. Dreams for a community are about what you want it to do for you. The dreams of a community are about what the community dreams.<br /> One of the dreams of our community is that everyone who enters here would encounter Jesus Christ not only in worship, but also in education and in hospitable fellowship. That is why we have to make changes to our facility. We don’t just need better accessibility for those with disabilities, a better way to receive visitors. We also need to encourage two or three to come together, even over coffee, because Jesus Christ is in their midst. One of the glorious dreams of this community is that we would be known for our glad and generous hearts. This may be the most important reason for our campaign. Again, truth is manifested in love. And people who love most want to give. We need to commit to this community because giving is what we do when we are at our best. You, too, can be Barnabas—not because you’ve got to, but because you get to. Because your heart is glad and generous.Rob Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15003909117448739564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9099981150178374406.post-20154974585864776672008-01-08T05:19:00.000-08:002011-09-30T11:34:55.664-07:00On the road again<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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“As they were going along the road, someone said....” All four of the gospel writers love to use this “as they were walking along” phrase. That’s because our encounters with Jesus always occur along the way in life. Jesus can find you while you are on the way to your first apartment or the nursing home. He can find you on the way to a great career or a terrible divorce, on the way to give birth or on the way to bury the dead. You thought you were on the road up, or the road down, but once you encounter Jesus along the way in life, you’ll discover that he always bids you to follow him on a new road.<br />
Jesus never stops moving. He didn’t buy any houses. He didn’t join any clubs, PTAs, pension plans, or even churches. He just kept moving toward Jerusalem. And if you are going to follow him, you’ll find that he is constantly moving your life around as well.<br />
Have you ever been at a place where you got your life just right? You have close friends who<br />
are always available when you need them, your family members are all healthy, work is going<br />
pretty well, and you’ve got yourself a good church where they sing hymns you know. Usually. Didn’t you want to say, “Okay, this is it. This is just right. Nobody move!” Well, take a picture because that is always the moment when Jesus blows a whistle and says, “Everybody out of the pool!”<br />
Do you want to know what 2008 will bring? I can’t tell you that. I can promise you what you<br />
will find in the new year—change. Now, why is that always true? Why do you have to keep letting go of cherished things and adjusting to new things? Doesn’t Jesus know you’re an old dog? Why do have to keep learning new tricks? Families, friendships, workplaces, congregations, the city—they all just keep changing. Why can’t everything stay right where it is? Because you are not to Jerusalem yet.<br />
What is so special about Jerusalem? Most of the time, the disciples don’t know. You see, Jerusalem is not just an ancient city. In the Bible it stands as a symbol, as the place of our salvation; it’s the place where we finally understand what Jesus is doing. At the end of the New Testament we are told about a New Jerusalem where God’s reign is clear, where all creation is restored, and where there are no more tears. So Jerusalem is a symbol of that place in time when you join heaven, and earth will utter the great celestial exhale because then we can all stop moving. But you are not there yet. Jerusalem comes at the end of the story, which means we are always more clear about what Jesus is asking us to give up than we are about where he is taking us.<br />
Each year of your life, he will call you to drop something else that you are carrying because it<br />
is too heavy and weighs you down. So the road to Jerusalem is always a bit difficult because we have to let go of things along the way. But by all means, Jesus cautions, “Don’t look back!” It will only make the journey harder.<br />
As a pastor, I have discovered that people have their reasons for looking back. One reason is<br />
because they have too much hurt back there. Maybe it is a hurt they caused. Maybe it is a hurt someone else gave to them. Maybe the hurt still hurts. And maybe they have become such good friends with the hurt that they can’t leave it behind.<br />
Another reason why people look back is that they like the past better than the present. Have<br />
you ever noticed that some of us can make the past better with time? It can grow by mythic proportions. I do not believe that Jesus is telling us that we cannot grieve our losses or remember our past. No one ever gets over the death of a family member. And no one ever learns without remembering the past. Our lives are shaped by the joys and heartaches of the past. If we ignore that, we ignore ourselves. But that is not where life is found. Not anymore.<br />
Jesus is calling us to keep moving because the opportunity for life is now waiting down the<br />
road. But it is hard to stay on the road of change . . . unless we see Jesus along the way. That is what faith is. It is a way of seeing that Jesus is with us on the Journey. That is why we come to worship and why we commit ourselves to Sunday school classes, Bible studies, and daily devotions. It is all a way of seeing Jesus with us. It is why we learn to reach out to others with compassion and care. Jesus can always be seen in the face of those in need of a cup of cold water. It is why we put our hands to the plow and do the work we’ve been given to do today. Jesus still loves to appear along the way of our lives. And you have got to keep your eyes on him, or you’ll never make it to Jerusalem.Rob Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15003909117448739564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9099981150178374406.post-17150817481879283712007-11-27T04:42:00.001-08:002011-09-30T11:37:42.326-07:00Advent<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This past Thanksgiving weekend, many of us had several days in which we departed from our usual routine and time-tables and calendars and spent time with family or around the house, not paying much attention to the time. On one day, it was either Thursday or Friday (I’m not sure which, since I wasn’t paying much attention to the day, either!) I looked out the window and saw that it was dark, and yawned and figured it was about time to get ready for bed. I then looked at the clock for the first time in hours, and noticed that it was 6:00. It is an irony, isn’t it, that the most hopeful of all Christian seasons, the season of Advent, takes place when it is the darkest season of the calendar year.<br />
And it’s not only dark physically with shorter days, but somehow, the anticipation, the preparation for the coming of Christ stands in sharp contrast with darkness. The war in Iraq has now gone longer than World War II . The genocide in Darfur, the summit in Annapolis that will focus on Palestine and Israel. The world seems to be ever so fragile. There was crime in Plainfield and we are all aware of the violence in our own communities, on our streets, in our homes. And though this season should be a time of excitement and joy, we are reminded that illness and suffering and death do not take a holiday during the holiday season. The clouds of anxiety about the future are hovering so low and close that you can barely see your hand in front of your face.That’s why the candles on the Advent wreath does not come one second too soon for me. I need a light, a light that comes from God. And I need to hear the angel appearing to Mary, I need to feel her joy and sing with her. I need to hear a whole heavenly chorus of angels singing glorias to the shepherds. I need to visit the manger and bow with the wise men. I need this Advent season.<br />
But hold on, scripture remind us. We need to prepare. And not just by getting the tree up and buying the presents and baking the cookies. We prepare...get this... by hearing this heart-stopping message that predicts the end of the world. Jesus speaks of “signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars,” of “distress among nations,” of people who will “faint from fear and foreboding.” Isn’t that where we already are? Isn’t there enough fear and foreboding in our lives, and in our religion?<br />
The good news that God intends to make the world right again. The good news that Jeremiah proclaimed years before Jesus came onto the scene: “The days are surely coming when I will fulfill the promise I made.” Things were every bit as dark in Jeremiah’s days, perhaps even darker, yet he was sustained by his conviction that the outcome of human history was in the hands of God, who could be trusted to make the city a place of safety and the land a center of salvation. The coming of a Savior, then, is not just a personal thing between me and God. It’s not something that just begins in the heart and stops there. It’s not something that doesn’t cover much more territory than our living rooms. It’s something that happens to the whole world. Something or someone is coming to redeem not just us, and people like us, but the whole groaning and travailing creation.<br />
How about that! “the whole world waiting at the window for the day of redemption. The promise of Advent is that day will come. We do not know the day, but we do know that we will not be forsaken. For the shaking of the cosmos is not a sign of the world’s falling apart. Rather, it is just the opposite. It is evidence that, as Jesus himself put it, “your redemption is drawing near.”<br />
And so bring on the candles. Bring on the candles as we light candles to pierce the darkness of our hearts, our streets in Plainfield, and our world. Light candles to prepare for that redemption, we people of hope, by waiting at the window on behalf of the whole wide world. Light a candle, for the world’s greatest drama is about to begin! The Good News is near, even for us.Rob Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15003909117448739564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9099981150178374406.post-2564268742376581492007-11-15T13:38:00.000-08:002011-06-17T09:23:55.898-07:00Opening lines<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifSGvBriKThkMnCmD-Xk2x1c8-h2sAPW7aAWST1oxSLTBiXfT-sYOcgOj1-06wpy5ra82aglQXwEE_yNWI3Sfqr80jBuoSQ4LSMHVWFco3J5R_1XGhH2xIbFbk5hbPMhRAEgfdyOF6peg/s1600/books.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 128px; height: 193px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifSGvBriKThkMnCmD-Xk2x1c8-h2sAPW7aAWST1oxSLTBiXfT-sYOcgOj1-06wpy5ra82aglQXwEE_yNWI3Sfqr80jBuoSQ4LSMHVWFco3J5R_1XGhH2xIbFbk5hbPMhRAEgfdyOF6peg/s320/books.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5619225238835538626" /></a><br />Something grabbed me this week as I took a look at the Epistle to the church in Colossae. I don’t know what it was, but the opening touched me, and touched me almost to tears. It’s not particularly scintillating. These greetings to the church rarely are: “To the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father.” Nothing unusual there. It was the proper greeting of the day for those early Christians.<br /><br /> And then he let those dear Colossians know that he was praying for them, giving thanks to God for them. He had heard of their faith, and their love and their hope through his friend, and maybe that’s where it struck me.<br /><br /> “Have I told you recently that I love you?” Can you see why Paul’s letter struck a chord in me? “Have I told you recently that I love you?” But Paul didn’t stop there, of course. There is a prayer of thanksgiving, but there is also a prayer for the future of the church a prayer that in a gentle way urges the church on, gives us our marching orders. And so my prayers have not only been prayers of gratitude for you, but more. Paul continued: “I have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will ... so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord ... as you bear fruit in every good work.” (1:9-10)<br /> <br /> Some of you have read Sue Monk Kidd’s book, The Secret Life of Bees. There’s a passage in which Lily and August are talking.<br /><br />“How come if your favorite color is blue, you painted your house so pink? Lily asks.<br /><br />August answers, “That’s May’s doing. She was with me the day I went to the paint store to pick out the color. I had a nice tan color in mind, but May latched on to this sample called Caribbean Pink. She said it made her feel like dancing a Spanish flamenco. I thought, well, this is the tackiest color I’ve ever seen, and we’ll have half the town talking about us, but it can lift May’s heart like that, I guess she ought to live inside it.”<br /><br />“All this time I just figured you liked pink,” I said.<br /><br />She laughed again. “You know, some things don’t matter that much, Lily. Like the<br />color of a house. How big is that in the over all scheme of life? But lifting a person’s heart, no, that matters. The whole problem with people is...” “They don’t know what matters and what doesn’t,” I said.<br /><br />“I was gonna say, the problem is they know what matters, but they don’t choose it.<br />You know how hard that is, Lily? I love May, but it was still so hard to choose<br /><br />Caribbean Pink. The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters.”<br /><br /> We know what matters. We know what God requires of us. Jesus made it very simple and very clear: We love God and we love our neighbor. We know that. But the really, really hard task is to choose to do that. And so my prayer for all of us is that as we grow in our faith and in our commitment to Christ, we will choose what matters; we will choose to do what God requires of us.Rob Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15003909117448739564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9099981150178374406.post-37732234184385954152007-11-09T13:13:00.000-08:002011-09-30T11:39:07.051-07:00The Peaceable Kingdom<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I met 19th century artist, Edward Hicks, and began a life long journey with “the Peaceable Kingdom.”<br />
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Edward Hicks was trained as a carriage maker, and got acquainted with paint only as a necessary step to a finished product. Then he started to do what was called “ornamental painting,” things like tavern signs. He’d seen quite a few of those, evidently. And then he got religion. After a winter’s night of following tavern signs he saw the light. He felt the Inner Light of the Quakers and became an ardent member of the Society of Friends. He gave up drinking but not painting. The Quakers frowned on ornamental art, certainly tavern signs. But they winked. Brother Hicks needed to make a living to support his family and his other newfound vocation: that of preacher.<br />
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The man history remembers as an artist was known by his contemporaries as an eloquent preacher, a master of metaphor, and a not quite Quaker-like adversary in a conflict that eventually divided Quakerism. No peaceable kingdom there. The man who died painting the peaceable kingdom lived in an unpeaceable one, in the place you should most expect some semblance of peaceable: in the church. In his case, the Society of Friends, known as Quakers, known as pacifists, were deeply divided and finally broken apart over some of the same issues that have us quaking and dividing and unpeaceable today.<br />
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Somewhere in all of that, Hicks’ imagination was caught by Isaiah’s prophetic vision. It expressed a longing for reconciliation and unity. It acknowledged that every person had animal propensities and passions. So with carriage paint and signboards he created “The Peaceable Kingdom.”<br />
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It was a visual call for peace. The children and the animals were mild; no tension visible in postures or expressions. An ideal to make real. He painted over sixty variations on this theme over a period of thirty-some years.<br />
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Hicks had a kind of holy obsession with the peaceable kingdom. Or perhaps the kingdom had a hold on him. No mere curiosity about how a world at peace might look, but a passionate pursuit of an ideal that was as elusive—and as essential—to his world as it is to ours. He continued to bring the peaceable kingdom into sight the rest of his life, painting the subject until the very eve of his death. Moving through a chronological sequence of the kingdom paintings you start to see more than variations on composition and color. You see explorations of the meanings of Isaiah’s prophesy and their relevance to a possible reconciliation between the Quaker factions. The animals’ expressions change, as do their positions with one another. After the opposing Quaker groups actually separated, he painted tightly unified groups of animals with tense, fearful expressions as if gathered in uncomfortable and tentative peace. You wonder if Hicks kept painting that image more because he saw it less.<br />
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In one particular painting from 1834, all of Isaiah’s animals are there, some at home in the Pennsylvanian woods, and others, a little exotic and out of place, let alone proportion. Check the scale of the lion and the ox! A sermon Hicks preached during the winter of 1837 paints the lamb, the kid, the cow, and the ox as “good men and women”; the wolf, leopard, bear, and lion as “figures of the wicked” who would “cruelly destroy each other.” Interesting personality profile! All of the kingdom paintings from this period on have in the upper left a depiction of William Penn’s treaty with the Leni-Lenapi Indians, a statement about human predators and the peace needed in our political kingdoms. Isaiah’s children are there, too. Hicks painted his own children into the scene, as if to give that ancient vision a future face. A hopeful, human face.<br />
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In the prophet Isaiah’s vision of the peaceable kingdom the distinctions between predator and prey collapse. Instinct bows to a higher calling. Creatures great and small go beyond co-existence to community. They live together, sleep together, eat together, play together. The lion need not control and the lamb need not fear. The bear eats corn. The wolf looks mellow. Little children pet wild beasts. The world is a safe place even for the most vulnerable ones.<br />
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The Peaceable Kingdom. Where is it? How to love the animals in it? How to hold it and unfold it as God’s vision for us? Who are the lions, who are the lambs? Someone like Edward Hicks gives us an image, but the story of his image gives us pause, as well. It is always difficult for our vision to be clear, because we look through human experience and personal need and prejudice, and the expression of an ideal easily becomes a reflection of what is real. The animals still line up as predators and prey, good guys and bad guys. Our peace is still tentative and tense. God’s promised peace is always confident and joyful.<br />
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“The Peaceable Kingdom” hangs peacefully at the top of our stairs at home. I see in it something of Jesus’ prayer that we may all be one. I see in it something of Isaiah’s prophesy that creatures and children may be at peace, even in a new time and a strange place.<br />
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In his last painting of the Peaceable Kingdom, just before he died, Hicks portrayed a child leading a young lion off, beyond the canvas. As if to say, “Not here, not yet, but on the way. It will come. To the wolves and the lambs and all the rest. The Peaceable Kingdom. As promised.”Rob Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15003909117448739564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9099981150178374406.post-62575567921972915262007-11-09T08:41:00.000-08:002011-09-30T11:41:07.847-07:00Songlines<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Songlines are part of the sacred belief of the Australian aborigines. These people believe that the wisdom and knowledge of their ancestors are like invisible footprints, sacred tracks through their land, which they call songlines. By finding the right songline, they connect with their ancestors. In the beginning, the Great Ancestors sang the world into existence. Thus, these people believe that part of their task in life is to help keep the world created.... All of their songs, their works of art, their tending of creation is their way of making real what is already present. Perhaps not unlike the Psalms which are so precious to our faith tradition and which were originally sung. They, too, carry great wisdom and knowledge, expressing the fullest possible range of human emotions, all of which are embraced by Almighty God.<br />
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The Psalms help sing our faith into being. Many of us have held dear the promise from Psalm 40: “He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.” Sacred tracks for the terrain of our soul. Such singing is a knowing, a power and an exchange, a web and a connection to the past.... It acts like connective tissue to hold the community together and make it human.... Once you know the song, you can never get lost.<br />
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Our ancient songline is the same, even as we are different. Throughout time, communities, as well as individual lives, have experienced the ups and downs, the ebb and flow of our common story. Our human story. Our faith story.<br />
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“He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.” These images hold different things for different people: despair, danger, death, isolation, pain, fear, depression, anxiety. It is in the desolate pit or the miry bog that we often finally face our souls and the ambiguity and chaos of our inner world. <br />
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But then how remarkable it is when at last you feel the rock underfoot and can sing again.... Realizing you have escaped the quicksand of despair or failure or grief. Embracing the good, the bad and the ugly—then means we have our life in our arms to give to others; and a knowing that we are held in God’s arms always.<br />
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Consider the verbs from the Psalm—active verbs: God DREW him up and SET his feet upon a rock and PUT a new song on his mouth. That’s what God did. And what did the Psalmist do? “I waited patiently for the Lord...he inclined to me and heard my cry.” “I waited patiently.” Waited expectantly. Anticipating that surely God would respond to his cry. This is our hope. This is our songline. This is God’s promise.<br />
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Living, breathing examples of Psalm 40—of those who surely cry out to God to be drawn up from the pit. God sets our feet upon a rock so that in the graced moments that find us high and dry and hopeful, we may help others negotiate the currents and quicksand. The strength is the rock of faith.<br />
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The new song in our mouths is in the truth of our ancient songlines as we continue to sing God’s world into being. We are out of tune with God’s universe if we are unable to find joy in that hope. The God who has delivered us and continues to deliver us is the God who became flesh in Jesus Christ and thus fell into the desolate pit, the miry bog, in order to know us fully, and so that we might fully know God and the saving ways of God which will lead us from rock to rock to rock.<br />
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Sometimes we have trouble singing from the miry bog, but the melody still haunts us. Sometimes it is the waiting which stretches tunelessly ahead of us. Sometimes when we do sing, we are singing the same words but our tunes are different. This may lead to great dissonance, but may also with humility lead to new harmonies. Sometimes we’re not always sure of the next note. But sing we will and sing we must, because God gives us a new song when we least expect it, and it is part of an ancient songline. Once you know the song—you can never be lost.Rob Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15003909117448739564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9099981150178374406.post-86724666029745294902007-10-05T13:17:00.000-07:002011-09-30T11:43:02.245-07:00The Climb<span style="font-family: times new roman;">There is a mountain in New Hampshire, which is sort of a Mecca for me when I vacation up there. Mount Shaw. You just go around Lake Winnepesauke to the west side and park your car</span><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> and start hiking up. You can make the trek up and down in part of an afternoon. It’s not like</span><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> climbing nearby Mount Washington, or far away Pike’s Peak, or even farther away Mount Everest. I have been with a 3 year old who climbed it, and I have been with an 83 year old who climbed it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: times new roman;"> The first time I trekked up Shaw was probably 8 years ago, with my son Benji. If I remember correctly, I ran virtually all the way. The last time I climbed Shaw was this past summer. I didn’t run virtually all the way. As a matter of fact, I was amazed at how much steeper and higher it had gotten over the years. (Probably due to the geo-dynamic shifting of the earth’s crust to make higher and steeper mountains.) Hiking up Shaw made me think about a book called A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson, which was a journal depicting his hiking the entire Appalachian Trail.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihuoBYjcLVtnq_29JSmduvFenmzEO4x9vG3YER2qygadQDHzDsaHfuKlLlBwRQQqK23vfBeszKC3Ky07uf2bkhrZ69-ZDxJjiar9rmpOnRMwNtBHU4KAiSBbJecoFlbCAOYJk8D8YJEIQ/s1600/448246.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihuoBYjcLVtnq_29JSmduvFenmzEO4x9vG3YER2qygadQDHzDsaHfuKlLlBwRQQqK23vfBeszKC3Ky07uf2bkhrZ69-ZDxJjiar9rmpOnRMwNtBHU4KAiSBbJecoFlbCAOYJk8D8YJEIQ/s1600/448246.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: times new roman;">“On the first day of the trail,” he writes, “it was hell. First days on hiking trips always are. I was hopelessly out of shape—hopelessly. The pack weighed way to much. Way to much. I had never encountered anything so hard, for which I was so ill prepared. Every step was a struggle.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: times new roman;">The hardest part was coming to terms with the constant dispiriting discovery that there is always more hill...Each time you haul yourself up to what you think must surely be the crest, you find that there is in fact more hill beyond, sloped at an angle that kept it from view before, and that beyond that slope there is another, and beyond that another and another, and beyond each of those more still, until it seems impossible that any hill could run on this long. Eventually you reach a height where you can see the tops of the topmost trees, with nothing but clear sky beyond, and your faltering spirit stirs ... nearly there now! ... but this is pitiless deception. The elusive summit continually retreats by whatever distance you oppress forward, so that each time the canopy parts enough to give a view you are dismayed to see that the topmost trees are as remote, as unattainable, as before. Still you stagger on. What else can you do?”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: times new roman;"> Mountain climbing, I suppose, is not a bad metaphor for the life of faith. Scripture is full of stories that take place on mountains. There’s Moses on Mt. Sinai, Elijah on Horeb, Jesus with the Sermon on the Mount. The mountain is the place for God’s self disclosure. Back in the fourth century, Gregory of Nyssa wrote “The knowledge of God is a mountain steep indeed, and difficult to climb.” That’s not the way we usually think of it, is it? If only we could find the right book on spiritual self-help. Perhaps there’s a conference, a spiritual retreat, perhaps if only we could develop the discipline of reading the Bible daily. All good things, don’t get me wrong. But building a relationship with God that gives us a sure sense of God’s presence, God’s guidance, and God’s sustaining love is hard, like climbing a steep mountain.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: times new roman;"> Is it worth it? Is the hard climb worth the view? Bill Bryson thought so. He continued in his</span><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> journal after collapsing from exhaustion: “Finally, with a weary puff, you roll over ... struggle to your feet, and realize ... that the view is sensational ... This really could be heaven. It’s splendid, no question; but the thought you cannot escape is that you have to walk this view.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: times new roman;"> We understand that. Too many people I know have been climbing and climbing and climbing to the point of exhaustion and despair. Some are in the midst of one heck of a climb: a teenager I know is diagnosed with cancer; parents I know whose son will soon be deployed in Iraq; a friend whose new job has crumbled after a month. Some feel that they have been walking for such a long time: Every time they hear their boss yell, it conjures up memories of their father yelling all those years. Sometimes a loss triggers memories of other losses. Sometimes it’s just weariness from too many responsibilities and too little sleep. Kids’ needs on the one hand and aging parents needs on the other, and the light is not at the end of the tunnel. And though we try hard, faith does not always come through as the comfort we would like.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: times new roman;"> But dear friends, let me say this. I believe with my whole heart that it is worth the climb, and at the end we will see the glory of God. We will know God as never before. That doesn’t mean we won’t encounter dangers and difficulties on the trek to the top. I know that there is so much more I need to learn about myself and my own limits, that I need a strength far beyond my own to make it up to the top of the mountain.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: times new roman;"> How long the climb is, I don’t know, because I’m still climbing. I do know that at times it is</span><br />
<span style="font-family: times new roman;">difficult, a hard climb. Sometimes the ascent is treacherous and demanding. But from all that I</span><br />
<span style="font-family: times new roman;">have been told, it’s well worth the climb.</span>Rob Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15003909117448739564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9099981150178374406.post-17667646261741958242007-09-09T13:30:00.000-07:002011-09-30T11:44:27.822-07:00Doom and Gloom<h1 id="blog-title" style="background-color: red;">
GLOOM AND DOOM REPORT</h1>
If there ever was a prophet of doom and gloom, it was Zephaniah. His name in Hebrew actually means “The Lord will hide.” He prophesied in Judah in the reign of the good king Josiah, a time of reform, a time of hope that things would get better. But Zephaniah did not share that hope. His message was unmitigated doom. “The Lord will sweep away everything from the face of the earth,” he began, and his message goes downhill from there. To paraphrase a bumper sticker I’ve seen, “The Lord is coming and boy is he angry!” “You remember that good creation I made? It’s all going to be wiped away if you don’t straighten up and fly right!” The only hope he holds out for the humble of the land who obey God and seek righteousness is that perhaps they may be hidden on the day of the wrath of the Lord. “The Lord will hide.”<br />
And then, suddenly and unaccountably, at the very end of his book, we come upon a song of rapturous joy. “Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion; shout O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem!”<br />
The contrast is jarring, so jarring that some scholars feel that it couldn’t have been written by the same man who warned of doom and gloom only a few verses earlier. Perhaps it was written, they say, 100 years later, at the time after the exile when the captives returned from Babylon. A little balance was needed. But if you know the human psyche, your own, you know that Zephaniah himself could have written it. The sensitive spirit that can plumb the depths of despair can also, on another day, soar to the highest heights. Haven’t you found that true to your experience, that life is made up of both?<br />
You can be down in the dumps one moment and then at the heights of ecstasy the next. It’s the human spirit. But whatever it is for Zephaniah, it is a study in joy. Israel sings to the Lord, and the Lord sings to Israel—a duet! Israel shouts and the Lord responds with loud singing. Israel exults and the Lord exults. There is an end to fear—that is said twice. An end of guilt—the Lord has taken away the judgments against you. The lame are going to be saved, the outcast will no longer be shamed; and I’m going to gather you up and bring you home! Sheer, unadulterated joy.<br />
Why the joy? Zephaniah lets us in on the secret: “The Lord, your God, is in your midst.” The Lord might be hidden, but the Lord is in our midst. This same God, whom we have heard so much about, the God who seemed so remote and far away, the God whom no one had ever seen, the God who dwelt in light unapproachable...this God would be in our midst.<br />
And when the news of the nearness of the Lord begins to unfold inside each of us, we begin to get the sense that there is no time to waste in dealing with the unfinished business of our lives. We begin to get the message that our lives count for something, that what we do for good or for ill is not insignificant. In theological language, we take part in the redemption of our time. For this is the one who, yes, comes to judge, but also comes with healing in his wings. When the Lord draws near, he intends to do us good, for the Lord loves us better than we love ourselves.<br />
This is the One Whose heart breaks over all of our brokenness, who desires nothing more than to put us back together again. This Lord who is near stands in the midst of our quarreling—in the midst of our wars and violence and our love affair with weapons and our volleys of words, even, that are turned into weapons—and offers us a way out of such a spiral. <br />
This is the One who laughs out loud when a new baby is born, or when for some other reason there is joy in our world. This is the One Who stands with us, too, when tragedy strikes. This is the One who is in your midst, Who watches expectantly through the night in the hospital room as the IV solution runs into the vein of someone who for us is the most important person on earth. This is the One who rejoices when we rejoice, who weeps when we weep, is in our midst.<br />
A week ago I arrived here early one Tuesday morning in a bit of a funk, I guess you’d say. Sunday wasn’t bad, but I just felt that maybe I hadn’t made the connection between the scripture and the congregation. It’s an occupational hazard. It was a busy week ahead of me, a lot of things were on my mind. I was really concerned about our capital campaign, feeling down over the recent loss of my Dad, and generally miserable. And then on Sunday, April 22nd I was surprised by joy. In the midst of that glorious Plainfield area Children’s Choir Festival I heard a word of hope. All was right with the world because I knew we were doing some things right. God was present in the children right here in Crescent Avenue. At that point it mattered not how my sermon was that day, or what would happen tomorrow, or that I still had thank you cards that were unwritten and the bank account at a low ebb. And that day I was reminded that even the darker things could be borne, because I read to some of our grieving that week at a members funeral service: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.” Even on the final judgment day, God will not abandon us.<br />
So Zephaniah, you ol’ prophet of doom and gloom, your mother named you better than she know. God hides. God hid God’s very self in the midst of this disturbing and perplexing time. Right in the midst of Crescent Avenue Presbyterian Church. “The Lord, your God, is in your midst.” Therefore, “Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion; Shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem ... for I will bring you home ... and I will make you praised before all the peoples of the earth.”Rob Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15003909117448739564noreply@blogger.com0