Spiritual Awakening

"The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw - and knew I saw - All things in God and God in all things."
Mechtild of Magdeburg

Cranky, Beautiful Faith

I've just finished reading Cranky, Beautiful Faith by Nadia Bolz-Weber. It's an autobiography packed with stories of faith, hope and honesty. Honesty,  being real is what undergirds this book and makes it so interesting and challenging. Nadia bears her soul and much more.

The book imparts  spiritual truths and insights that reflect the love and grace of our Savior.

Here are a few quotes:

"God's grace is a gift freely given to us. We don't earn a thing when it comes to God's love, and we only try to live in response to the gift."

"Grace is not God being forgiving to us  even though we sin. Grace is when God is a source of wholeness, which makes up for my failings. My failings hurt me and others and even the planet, God's grace to me is that my brokenness is not the final word...instead God makes beautiful things out of even my shit".

"Grace is not God creating humans as flawed beings and then acting all hurt when we inevitably fail and then stepping in like a hero to grant us grace- like saying 'it's ok, I'll be a good guy and forgive you'. Grace is God saying 'I love the world too much to let your sin  define you and be the final word. I am a God who makes all things new".

Nadia stresses that the Christian message is one of death and resurrection. We need to die to our selves, our addictions, our selfish desires and rise to a new life in Christ.

She also numerates the Lutheran ethos in which she is grounded.

- No one is climbing the spiritual ladder. We don't continually improve until we are so spiritual we no longer need God. We die and are made new, but that's different from spiritual self-improvement.

- We are simultaneously sinner and saint, 100% both, all the time.

- The Bible is not God. The Bible is simply the cradle that holds Christ. Anything in the Bible that does not hold up to the Gospel  of Jesus Christ simply does not have the same authority?

- The movement in our relationship with God is always from God to us. Always. We can't, through our piety or goodness move closer to God. God is always coming near to us. Most especially in the Eucharist and in the stranger.


Here's her take on preaching:

"The job of the preacher: to find some good news for people. Good news about who God is, and how God works, and what God has done and what God will do. What passes for preaching in many cases is more ' here's the problem, and here's what you can do about it' - this is not good news."

On suffering:

"There is no knowable answer to the question of why there is suffering. But there is meaning. And that
meaning is related to Jesus - Emmanuel 'God with us'. We want to go to God for answers, but sometimes what we get is God's presence."

On repentance:

"Repentance, 'thinking differently afterward', is what happens to me when the truth of who I am and the truth of who God is scatter the darkness of competing ideas".

I highly recommend Cranky, Beautiful Faith - it's down to earth full of stories that recount the lives of ordinary ( and not so ordinary) people who are on a journey of faith, like us they haven't yet made it, but they often limp their way through life by the grace of God. This book is packed with beautiful poignant gems that could and possibly will change your life.

Accepting the Mercy

Yet in facing the contradictions that we ourselves are, we become living icons of Yes/And. Once we can accept mercy, it is almost natural to hand it on to others. You become a conduit of what you yourself have received
Richar Rohr

Pleasure, Joy and Life

You will show me the path of life; *
     in your presence there is fullness of joy,
     and in your right hand are pleasures for evermore.

Psalm 16: 11

A wonderful verse found in today's psalm in the Book of Common Prayer...

I love the idea that God is kind enough to reveal to us the path of life...abundant life, real life...

God isn't some sort of old mean guy who looks down at us ready to pounce at any wrong move 

that we may make. Thank God he's not like that.

He wants to give us pleasure, joy and life!

TRINITY

A few interesting thoughts on the Trinty by Richard Rohr:

Niels Bohr, the Danish physicist who was a major contributor to quantum physics and nuclear fission, said the universe is “not only stranger than we think, but stranger than we can think.” Our supposed logic has to break down before we can comprehend the nature of the universe and the bare beginnings of the nature of God. I think the doctrine of the Trinity is saying the same thing. The “principle of three” breaks down all dualistic either-or thinking and sets us on a dynamic course of ongoing experience.

God is not only stranger than we think, but stranger than the logical mind can think. Perhaps much of the weakness of the first two thousand years of reflection on the Trinity, and many of our doctrines and dogmas, is that we’ve tried to do it with a logical mind instead of with prayer. The belief in God as a Trinity is saying God is more an active verb than a stable noun. You know it in the flow of life itself.

Beyond Labels

Here's a wonderful article from the Evangelical Alliance:


Beyond the labels

Pope Francis has done it again.
 
This week he published an exhortation,Evangeli Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), to his followers in the Catholic Church. In it he said: “I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and clinging to its own security.”
 
There's something refreshingly unsettling about this Pontiff. He certainly isn't clinging to the security of life behind the powerful and secretive walls of Vatican City. His humility has been clear right from the papal announcement where he chose to wear simple robes and immediately asked millions across the world to pray for him. He chose to stay in a hostel instead of the official mansion residence and travels largely in a Ford Focus, rejecting the papal limousine where possible.
 
He has not been afraid to challenge hypocrisy and injustice within the religious, political and economic structures of the day. But beyond these macro-engagements on the world stage, or through Twitter, it is his encounters with individuals that has characterised his papacy so far. He has joked with journalists, washed the feet of prisoners, kissed and blessed those with disabilities and lived among the poor.
 
Pope Francis speaks of Jesus often and encourages a personal relationship with him. Again in this week’s exhortation he said: “The joy of the gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin, inner emptiness and loneliness. With Christ, joy is constantly born anew. In this exhortation I wish to encourage the Christian faithful to embark on a new chapter of evangelisation marked by this joy, while pointing out new paths for the Church's journey in years to come.”
 
Growing up as a Protestant in Northern Ireland I am fascinated by this man and especially hearing him talk of evangelisation and being born anew. Many Protestants here were told from a church pulpit that the Pope was the anti-Christ. Yet this man challenges me deeply both in how I look at him and how I look at others.
 
You see, I label people. Not as the literal anti-Christ so much, but try as I might not to, I do label others who claim to follow Christ: sound, liberal, fundamentalist, happy-clappy. And it's not just me or confined to the Church. A brief reading of the headlines this week shows some of the labels society places on others: prostitute, druggie, slave, alcoholic. We take someone's action or aspect of their personhood and use that to define that entire person. We constantly use labels to separate ourselves and to define 'us' against 'them'. In doing so we dehumanise the image of God in others, reducing them down to a word.
 
I can't escape the fact that when I look at the way Pope Francis rejects labels and encounters individuals I am reminded of Christ. Jesus looked at people through God's eyes, literally. He refused to put labels on people, seeing the holy humanity of each person made in the image of God. When we encounter Jesus and become his followers he takes our labels away. This is part of the 'joy of the gospel', a new identity in Christ. We are given new life, new relationships with God and others and a new identity beyond our labels.

I am not a Catholic, I don't believe all the Pope believes or all his Church teaches. But seeing beyond the labels, I see a humble man made in the image of his maker with a practical love of Jesus. I can only hope others see that in me.
 
So here's the challenge this weekend. What labels have you put on yourself or on others? Is there someone you need to take out of a pigeonhole? What's stopping you seeing people through Jesus's eyes?
 
David Smyth is public policy officer at the Evangelical Alliance Northern Ireland .

The Characteristics of a Sacred Economy

I'm still ploughing through (when I've got the time) Charles Eisenstein's Sacred Economics - I'm about half-way through.

I teach English in some Business Schools in Lille and I thought it would be a good idea to discover some other economic models. After all I have the sneaking suspicion that our current economic model is taking us down a road that leads to misery and destruction!

Here's Eisenstein's characteristics of a 'Sacred Economy':

It will restore the mentality of the gift to our vocations and economic life.
It will reverse the money-induced homogenization and depersonalization of society.
It will be an extension of the ecosystem, not a violation.
It will promote local economies and revive community
It will encourage initiative and reward entrepreneurship.
It will be consistent with zero growth, yet foster the continued development of our uniquely human      gifts.
It will promote an equitable distribution of wealth.
It will promote a new materialism that treats the world as sacred.
It will be aligned with political egalitarianism and people power and will not induce more centralized control.
It will restore lost realms of natural, social, cultural, and spiritual capital.

And, most importantly (according to Eisenstein), it is something that we can start creating right now!