HEAVEN BREAKING THROUGH

William Law, an eighteenth-century English cleric, wrote, “All that is sweet, delightful, and amiable in this world, in the serenity of the air, the fineness of seasons, the joy of light, the melody of sounds, the beauty of colors, the fragrancy of smells, the splendor of precious stones, is nothing else but Heaven breaking through the veil of this world.”


This quote reminds us that God is present in his world. 
May he give us the grace to see with the eye of our heart, the wonders of his presence.
And in return may we worship.

GRACE THAT DEFIES LOGIC

 Bono of Irish rock band U2 (you knew that anyway) has said, “Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff.”

He also sung:

Grace
She takes the blame
She covers the shame
Removes the stain
It could be her name
Grace
It's a name for a girl
It's also a thought that changed the world
And when she walks on the street
You can hear the strings
Grace finds goodness in everything
Grace, she carries a world on her hips
No champagne flute for her lips
No twirls or skips between her fingertips
She carries a pearl in perfect condition

What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stings
Because grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things

CREATION IS SPLENDID !

John Calvin, sixteenth-century theologian and reformer, wrote, “The creation is quite like a spacious and splendid house, provided and filled with the most exquisite and the most abundant furnishings. Everything in it tells us of God.”

HAPPY BIRTHDAY - MLK

January 15, 1929, Marin Luther King was born in Atlanta, Georgia...in 1983 - the third Monday in January was made a bank holiday in the USA - to celebrate the great civil rights leader.

Martin Luther King Jr. preached, “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, that rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”


May we be ever conscious of our dreams and creative to see them fulfilled, remembering that so often they come with a price.

BLESS THE OTHER

I was talking to a good pastor friend who told me recently that there was going to be a Mosque built in his town. he was horrified by this and even more so when he received a visit from the Iman who asked him to bless the Mosque. My pastor friend was outraged by this request and emphatically turned it down. He told me that no way was he going to go and bless the Mosque.
I asked him why not? I went on to say that it would be good to bless the people who will attend the Mosque. I was simply suggesting that it's on God's heart to bless, to want the best for every human being on this planet. So as a follower of Jesus we may also want to bless, to love those who may be different from ourselves.

I read an article in January/February's edition of Third Way magazine http://www.thirdwaymagazine.co.uk/ entitled Pillars of Faith, where the journalist recounted an amazing story from Egypt. On Christmas Eve a church in Alexandria was bombed by Islamic extremists killing twenty-five people. The Egyptian entrepreneur Mohamed El Sawy called on his fellow Muslims to act as protecting shields outside churches as Mass was celebrated. The campaign was backed by a journalist who created a symbol of a crescent and a cross combined as a sign of unity between the two communities.
Thousands responded to the call. 'I'm here to tell all my coptic brothers that Muslims and Christians are an inseparable pillar of Egypt's texture' said one attendee. 'Copts have to know that we will share any pains or threats they go through'.

The article testifies to authentic brotherhood, when one is prepared to share the pains or threats of the other. In this case we see the demonstration of the love of God seen in the other, the Muslim.
Here, the Muslim is compelled to bless his Christian brothers.
That completely blows away our Western Christian caricature of our Muslim brother.
Yes the other becomes our (br)other when we reach out to him in love.

May God grant us the grace to bless,
for the sake of His Kingdom.

GOD, MY DANCING PARTNER

“God, you were here all along, and I never knew it” (Genesis 28:16), says Jacob on awakening from his stone pillow.


I came across this verse last week and I was blow away by the fact that God is here, right now in our world, culture, city, home, skin,...and we so easily forget this wonderful reality...
maybe it's because we are unable to 'see'...
maybe it's because we only expect to meet with God in the 'holy' place of Church...
maybe it's because we're so busy that we no longer take the time to be still and actively 'wait' for Him...


Here's Richard Rohr's take on this verse:

The essential religious experience is that you are being “known through” more than knowing anything in particular yourself. Yet despite this difference, it will feel like true knowing. This new way of knowing can be called contemplation, nondualistic thinking, or “third-eye” seeing. Such prayer, such seeing, takes away your anxiety about figuring it all out fully for yourself, or needing to be right about your formulations.

At this point, God becomes more a verb than a noun, more a process than a conclusion, more an experience than a dogma, more a personal relationship than an idea. There is Someone dancing with you, and you are not so afraid of making mistakes. You know even those will be used in your favor. At that point you also have awakened from your stone pillow, and you know with a new clarity what you partly knew all along!

I love the idea of God being more that a static noun or dogma or conclusion...

God is so much more, and the relational aspect of His nature is marvelous...

I can't dance to save my life...

so the image of God as my dancing partner who doesn't scold me when I take the wrong step or tread on his toes is comforting...

Here's a quote from the late GK Chesterton:

Poetry is sane

Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite seam and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion, like the physical exhaustion of Mr. Holbein. To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain. The poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get heaven into his head. And it is his head that splits.

GK Chesterton

Orthodoxy