Christ or No Christ?

… Jesus said to them, ” … unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life for yourselves.  He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life …

He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him …

It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are the spirit and are life. 

Jn 6:53, 56, 63

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Christ offers himself to us; He lives for us.  We are to take Him in, devour Him, ingest Him – recognize that He abides in us.

We are to fully integrate Him into our existence.  No greater source of sustenance will we ever have.  He is for us eternal life.

Do you integrate Christ?  Ask yourself: Do I give preference to the voices of those who do not integrate Christ?  If so, to what effect?  Think about it, what does discipleship mean?  Does it not require discipline?

If you cede authority to those without Christ, are you following Christ?  It hardly seems so.  You must be committed; life is a great challenge.  Christ or no Christ?  It is that simple.  Where are you?

Shalom.

Tomorrow’s Post: Christ and Innocence

Loaves and Fishes: God Not Politics

Therefore when the people saw the sign which He had performed, they said, “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.” 

So Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone.

Jn 6:14,15

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“So Jesus, perceiving … they intended to make Him a king, withdrew …”

Jesus was not a politician.  He was God.  He came not to govern but to liberate by showing us that we are not just earth-bound material beings but spiritual beings whose life exceeds mortal limit.  He was the union of the material and the Spirit.  His argument with the Pharisees was precisely this: they were in the law bound by this world as if there was no God but law and earthly governance only.

We are a highly political culture.  Many people bank on the political as if it is God Almighty.  We have a higher regard for politics than faith in our mass culture.  We defer to the President but not to God and this is one of the more unhealthy aspects of secular American life.

If we spent as much time on our knees in prayer as we spend focused on politics we would be far happier, far healthier, far more secure, far more peaceful, far more content, far more loving, far more kind and far more neighborly people.

But alas, we seem to shelve our faith and God in favor of our own ideas as to creating heaven here on earth.

Can anything good come from those whose lives focus on politics?  No.  Contrary to Rousseau and all who come after to deify politics and human governance, nothing good comes from focusing on politics.  Focus on God.  God alone is that for which we yearn.

Politics places man at the center of life where God belongs.  Yes, from the get-go that is a misstep of crippling consequences.

We would do just fine with far less government and far more God.

Think about it.

Prayer

Jesus said, “I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.”  (Jn 5:30)  We are governed by those who seek their own will – they spew forth deceit and destruction.  We are in bad times.

So we pray as Joab did that we may be strong and courageous for the sake of our nation and its people and may the Lord do what is good in His sight.  (Sam 10:12)  Amen.

Loaves and Fishes: Challenges

… Jesus … said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so we may eat?”

This He was saying to test him, for He Himself knew what He was intending to do.

Jn 6:5,6

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Ah, the tale of the loaves and the fishes, how rich in learning is Scripture – particularly the Gospels.

God welcomes challenges, so should we.  In challenge comes our testing, our growth, our maturity, our faith.  The greater the challenge the greater the opportunity. Those who shy away from challenges remain infants all their life.  Those who do not gain wisdom.  It is the latter who lead, never the former. Politics in present culture is full of infants with no undestanding of the world around them.

You know a person by knowing what they have faced in life. Likewise you can know a person by what they have avoided in life. In each instance, act accordingly or suffer grave consequences. 

In challenges, God teaches us to have confidence in Him, trust in Him – a strong and unshakable faith.

The foolishness of our culture is plainly visible in our distrust of God and faith, and in the hostility shown both, and their exile from present consciousness and the civic square.

In challenges like that above, God is letting us see beyond the bleak and limited material existence of mere imperfect (and significantly flawed) mortals, to that which sits beyond our limits and our folly.

There are no loaves and fishes without God.  None.  Only starvation in the land of wheat and water.

Shalom.  Be smart.  Think critically.  Live your faith.  Accept the gift of challenges.  Be counter-cultural, or risk grave losses.

Trust in God

Those of steadfast mind you keep in peace – in peace because they trust in you.

Trust in the LORD forever … He has brought low the inhabitants of the height; the lofty city He lays low.

Is 26:4,5

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This passage is from Judah’s Song of Victory.  It is a song celebrating God’s defense of Jerusalem and God’s defeat of its enemies.

In a verse prior to the one above (Is 26:2) we read that a secure and righteous nation (city or land) is one that keeps faith and from that, as the above verse says: peace resides because of that faith, that trust in God.

It is no less true today than it was with Isaiah.

To be well as a person or a people – to know peace and be secure as a person or a nation, we must trust in God and live in God’s ways.

The troublesome events of our day (Benghazi, the IRS attacks on free speech and the Justice Department’s secret subpoenas of the press) are dangerous signs of distrust.

Trust is critical to relationships.  No trust, no relationship.  Trust is critical to a free society.  No trust, no free society.  Trust is critical to peace.  No trust, no peace.

Nothing destroys trust, or relationships, or a free society, or peace – like lying.

It is a grave sign that we see in the Executive Branch’s handling of the Benghazi attacks and killings – multiple renditions of an “explanation” that excised what was true in favor of what was not true; and, that this process involved representatives of the Secretary of State, the Director of the CIA, and the White House and subsequently the President and the Secretary of State and those who spoke publicly and internationally for them.

Likewise the words of the Attorney General and the Acting Director of the IRS as to matters of attacking free speech of American citizens and the press show themselves to be less than truthful.

Psychotherapists understand lies to be indication of serious personal disorder.

Some very respected psychotherapists see lying as evil – an act of anniliation that destroys the Spirit, kills the soul.

Lying, for sure, is corrosive and NOT the action of a healthy, mature, stable person or organization.  Public lying is particularly serious for those who are untrue on a grand and public scale are showing signs of habit, a life of routine disorder, of who they actually are – yes, they show themselves evil.

Lying by people with access to power who are charged with leading and protecting the nation is a grave risk to all of us.

While I take no delight in focusing on politics, when our souls and our heritage of freedom are put to serious risk by the conduct of those who have been placed in leadership positions - something must be said … and something very decisive must be done to salvage truth and trust.  The stakes are high.

A healthy life, peace, security, relationship, freedom and a free society cannot be realized without trust and trust demands truth.  Lying is the face of evil, a deep and disordered state.  Nothing but disaster and death flows from evil.

It is time for those who lied, when called to lead, to depart.  A mature, healthy and contrite person would do nothing less.  

We are all being tested in this present moment.  Live in truth and realize trust.  Let faith flourish and God be at the center.  There is no other option.

Shalom.

Prayer Request - Please remember in your prayer my friend Phyllis who is tending to her 93 year old mother whose health seems to be waning.  These are hard times for each of us, as you well know.  Prayers help.

Reality

Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom!  Listen to the teaching of our God you people of Gomorrah!

Is 1:10

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What is reality?

Christian reality is laid out in a simple statement by Cistercian Monk Thomas Keating who reminds us that Jesus, the Christ, is the manifestation of God in human nature, the template for a human life in its fullness.

Jesus is for us the embodiment and spirit of human love and mercy.  He shows us what a human and divine life looks like.  He demonstrates the divine in us, in mortal and imperfect human existence.  He shows us our reality, the basic truth and ultimate identity of the human person – all human people.

But is this our reality?  Is this the reality advanced by our culture, in our land, in the West, by our actions and choices, by how we behave, and think and react?

Reality TV is far from the mark.  Stranded on and island with “survivors” and a film crew of a hundred or more of well fed people: reality?  Dancing with the “stars:” reality?  American Idol: reality?  Endless TV crime shows with curvy police women who look more like models than donut consumers: reality?  Housewives of Hollywood, or Miami, of some glamour place: reality?  TV entertainment “news” shows breathlessly reported: reality?

What is our shared, cultural reality?  What is your individual reality?  Who defines you?  Christ?  Culture?

Think of last week’s news: the IRS targeting select Americans at the request of Democratic Senators chasing dollars for elections at the expense of the First Amendment, the free speech of citizens and a free representative democracy itself.  Or the Justice Department secret subpoenas of the Associated Press.  Or the twisted tale of Benghazi with the truth tortured explanation for why four Americans were left alone for nine hours to die on American territory at the hands of a ramshackled collection of street terrorists.  And think of an Attorney General who knows nothing of his Department’s subpoenas (he says) – or a President who learns about the IRS scandal from the newspaper.  Reality?  Illusion?  Lies?

Does anyone live in reality or care to?  Are we so far lost we cannot speak truthfully, or act honestly?  Do we no longer know what truth is?  Can we tell lie from truth?

What is your reality?  By what reality are you guided?  Do you live?

Fool yourself long enough and you will not even have the capacity to know when you are being untruthful.  Stay close to reality – not what you think reality to be as you wish it to be.   Thomas Keating’s remarks are a foundation to what is real.

“Alice came to a fork in the road.  ‘Which road do I take?’ she asked.

  “Where do you want to go?’ responded the Cheshire Cat.

‘I don’t know,’ Alice answered.

  ‘Then,’ said the Cat, ‘it doesn’t matter.”

Lewis Carroll

Journey wisely.

Understanding “Sin”

But if the wicked turn away from …  sin(s) … and do what is lawful and right, they shall surely live; they shall not die …

Ez 18:21

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The idea of sin often turns people off.  It seems so onerous, a great weight.  It is an idea we naturally like to avoid, for whom among us wishes to see our faults especially when God might be part of the equation, and a reckoning (as we perceive it).

But hold on.  Think about this for a minute – and think about the above passage from a psychotherapeutic sense.  We cannot grow without recognizing our flaws, our imperfections (which we all possess).  Indeed, psychotherapists would go as far as to say the denial of our imperfections is a bridge to some very disordered behavior.  Isn’t growth all through life important!

The passage above is telling us not just of eternal life, but of full life here on earth – our healthy fully grown life of stability and understanding, of peace.

And think of this: why ignore an honest read of our flaws if doing so keeps us from good health and peace and limits the success of relationships with others while keeping us in a state of self-injury and injury of others?

Finally, would you be unwilling to see your imperfections if you really believed in a God of Love?  Confidence in a God who loves you is the ticket to honest self-examination and a balanced, healthy life of peace and contentment.  No one is perfect, and trying to be is an impossible goal, and often a route to real discontent.

You can be thankful for a loving God.  Rely on the God of Love.

Shalom.

What cliff???

The only wisdom we can hope to acquire is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.

T.S. Eliot

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T.S. Eliot.  The mans knew something about humanity, did he not?

Interestingly this is something clearly echoed over and over in Scripture.  It’s absence in exclusionary secular culture is devastating.

If humility is our destination - we are diving the bus in the wrong direction!

Cliff?  What c…l…i..iiiiiiiiiiiiiiifffffff!

Happy Motoring …

Make known to me your ways, LORD; teach me your paths.

Ps 25:4

Shalom.

Sitting Still

We spend most of our time and energy in a kind of horizontal thinking.  We move along the surface of things

… but there are times when we stop.  We sit still.  We lose ourselves in a pile of leaves or its memory.

We listen, and breezes from a whole other world begin to whisper.

James Carroll

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Sitting still we cease to “prep” for a unseeable future.  In sitting still, we let life be – and be in the moment … a place where now meets forever and ever.

Sitting still is transformative time.  In sitting still we do not search for the door, the door is opened for us.

In sitting still the divine becomes now.  You are in One.

We do not find God.  God has been here all the time.  Sitting still we come to know that.

When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he exclaimed, “Truly, the LORD is in this spot, although I did not know it!”

In solemn wonder he cried out:

“How awesome is this shrine!  This is nothing else but an abode of God, and that is the gateway to heaven!”

Gen 28:16-17

I bid you well from sunny and green Notre Dame in May.  It is good and holy ground we walk, when first we sit in stillness.

Shalom.

No Home for Misery

The greatest part of our happiness or misery depends on our disposition and not on our circumstances.

Martha Washington

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When we lose the freedom to determine our attitude toward the events of our life, we are lost; and, in being lost we are subject to the whims and control of others and the disordered forces that they unleash on us and that are released in us.

There is no shortage of ambitious and insecure people willing to claim control over you; nor are we able, by ourselves, to control our temptations and passions.

This is where faith comes in.

Do not fear to be alone.  You are uniquely called into being by the One who loves you and desires that you are here.

Do not doubt that God is always near and ready to guide you.  Ask only for God’s help.

Know the freedom of being called into being by a Father who loves you without hesitation.

With God at the heart of your existence, misery has no home in you.

Shalom.

Acknowledging Who We Are

… I know my offense; my sin is always before me.

Ps 51:5

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I am struck at how Scripture foreshadows psychological understanding.

Take the above passage from The Miserere: Prayer of Repentance.  Compare it with this from psychotherapist M. Scott Peck, M.D. in his treatise on evil: “Evil originates not in the absence of guilt but in the effort to escape it.”

The Psalm is telling us that we are imperfect, not God.  That is, we are sinners. This is the human reality.  We are made in God’s image, but are imperfect – not God.

Those who have written about evil (like Martin Buber, Ernest Becker, Erich Fromm and others) tell us that evil is not sin, but rather manifest in the denial of our basic inclination to sin.

What  they are saying and what Peck is saying is this: evil arises in a person because that person is unwilling to tolerate the idea that they are not perfect. Such a person, incidentally, is all about appearance – literally hides from any suggestion that they are sinful, imperfect.  Some say they hide from their soul. It could be said they become soulless.  For that person – appearance is everything.  Appearance is active deception.

Isn’t it interesting that we live in a culture that so stresses appearance.  Might we manufacture the opportunity for evil to seek its disguise?

Life is interesting.  We conduct much of our life without clear vision.

Shalom.