Watchword for 2018

In our Moravian tradition we choose a "watchword" for the year as the new year begins. There are a variety of ways that different congregations do it. In general they are pulled at random from a collection of scripture passages like those used in the daily devotional guide, The Daily Texts (Losungen in the German tradition). The Losungen tradition goes back to May 1728 (yes, 290 years!) as a daily "watchword" was chosen from an Old Testament passage. The Moravian Daily Texts book is still published and is translated into over 50 languages. LINK to more information on The Daily Texts.

Sometimes people can look at these chosen watchwords in some superstitious or "prophetic" way. The main idea is for it to be word that guide you through the day and year. Not being in a Moravian Church at this point, I still find it a great way to start the year. I first look at the watchword (OT) text for my birthday, and this year, as is often the case, it was right on target.

In [God's] hand is the life of every living thing.
-Job 12:10

I double-checked the full passage and, as usual, found more that adds to the power of the word. It is Job himself who's speaking. He is reacting to the attempted words of "comfort" from his three friends. They have been chastising Job for his challenging God and asking the creator for answers to why this was happening to him, a righteous man. (We know he is a righteous man. The story sets it up that way. Also, Job has to be one of my favorite books of the Bible raising very contemporary concerns and questions. But that's another post.)

They come up with all the standard answers but focused mainly on the punishing aspect of God. In other words, they tell him that he is in denial, he is not such a good person, he must have done something really awful for God to punish him this badly. "Repent, Job, and all will be okay," is their heartless message.

Job argues very simply that they are wrong. Period. Yes, everyone, in fact all of creation knows that God takes care of everything and that God is aware of everything. The difficulty is that we want to know what God is, or isn't, doing.

In short, this passage is a statement of trust. Way back in chapter 1, Job had proclaimed that the LORD has given and the LORD has taken away- blessed be the Name of the LORD! He is reiterating that here in response to the "comfort" of his friends.

In the end, at this point in Job's life, that may be all that can be said.

Trust in God. Radical trust in God.

No matter what.

Work therefore to feel the presence and the hand of God on me...

No matter what.

Talk about continuing the resistance to the ways of the world. A good watchword for 2018!

Unveiled in Eden

It started with this quote from online friend, Bob Holmes:

Do you worship God under
the veil of your soul,
or do you worship unveiled,
spirit to Spirit,
center to center?

I was hit up the side of the spiritual head by it. What a wondrous insight. What a scary challenge.

I thought of Adam and Eve cowering in fear as they knew they were unveiled in Eden.

I thought of those moments of my own fear when I stood in the presence of my Lord and God and realized how poor and powerless I am by myself. Unveiled in my own garden of good and evil.

I could only describe it as being spirit naked.
I can no longer hide behind
my soul or
my humanness or
my sinfulness or
my imperfection.

All those melt away in the cleansing light of
God's Spirit meeting my spirit.

I am
Meeting God,
no longer veiled by my soul, but
spirit to Spirit.

Naked
Open and free

Running on empty, seeking, yet
nowhere to run
averting my eyes,
peeking
like a child on Christmas.

Open and vulnerable
in need of
Grace.

Different Wagers- Certainty or Mystery?

I came across this quote a few weeks ago in the book, Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman by James Gleick. It made me stop and think:

I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of uncertainty about different things, but I am not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here. I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell.
― Richard Feynman

In reflecting on it I thought also of another somewhat related and quite famous bit of philosophy known as Pascal's Wager:

a rational person should live as though God exists and seek to believe in God. If God does not actually exist, such a person will have only a finite loss (some pleasures, luxury, etc.), whereas they stand to receive infinite gains (as represented by eternity in Heaven) and avoid infinite losses (eternity in Hell).
-Wikipedia

I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. It all has to do with mystery and wonder and awe. When you make a wager like Pascal's you are potentially closing the possibility to finding new ways to relate to the spiritual. One of the reasons I often have problems with the fundamentalist mindset is that it is so rigid, so fixed, as if all the answers are right there in front of you. All you have to do is believe the right way and it will all fall into place.

In some ways that is what Pascal's wager leads  us to. You just have to stick with the rigid and clear beliefs. Of course, whose explanation of those beliefs do you stick with? In Pascal's time- even more so than ours- it would have been The Belief as explained by The Church. Today we would have to ask which church or even which branch of which church in which country?

I like Feynman's insight. He  is not looking to make sure he gets to heaven or stays out of hell. He is, in essence, taking the second part of Pascal's wager- and betting that will be okay. As an intuitive person of amazing depth and insight, Feynman could look at what was happening around him- and be okay with what he didn't know.

So here's that closing piece from Feynman, one more time. It might be fun to ponder and meditate on this one for a while.

I don't have to know an answer.

I don't feel frightened not knowing things,

by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose,

which is the way it really is as far as I can tell.

Different Ways to See This

Note: About to be a spiritual curmudgeon. 

Just thought I would warn you!

Saw a meme posted on Facebook the other day.

Say AMEN if God has ever answered your prayer.
Hit like if you believe in the power of prayer.

Well, I did neither! Not because God has never answered my prayer or because I don't believe in the power of prayer. Both statements reflect truth in my life.

But not the way these memes usually mean it.

God always answers my prayers.

• The answer is "No!" when the prayer is about what I want and I haven't asked what God's will might be.
• The answer is "No!" when I'm being selfish or self-centered.
• The answer is "No!" because God has more important things to do than my petty wishes.

Do I believe in the power of prayer?

Of course I do. But that power only works when I am keeping my prayers focused on what prayer is really all about.

• Improving my contact with God. 
• I do that when the only thing I pray for is the knowledge of God's will for me (and others) and the power to live it in my life.

This view of prayer does not look for God to be like Santa giving good boys and girls what they want while placing lumps of coal in the stockings of the bad boys and girls. This view of prayer leads us into deeper communion with God as Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Then, as we grow deeper into that communion, we begin to realize that what we have and what we are doing needs always to be in communion with God's will.

When prayer "fails" it is usually our selfishness pulling us away from the will and grace of God.

A Better Saying

I have often been hard on Church signs that have sayings that don't make sense, are overly cute, or just plain inane. Once in a while I do come across one that manages to say something that is a good reminder to me of my daily walk with my God and Higher Power. Here's the one I recently responded to in a positive way:

Is God your first thought or last resort?

My first response was easily

Great question!

As I pondered it further I naturally went to the old line that

there are no atheists in foxholes.

I'm not sure that is explicitly true, but it does clearly say that when our backs are up against a wall and there's no other way, people are more likely to turn to something or someone for help.

God as a last resort.

There's nothing wrong with that, of course. Most of the time we don't need to be stopping and praying to God for the least little thing. Those are the things I have always referred to as "parking place prayers." You know, you are running late, need to get to a store and out quickly so you say a prayer- God help me get a parking place quickly. [Full disclosure: While I admit to believing that the Creator of the universe has more important things to do, I do say those prayers from time to time.] But if that is the way I live, it is probably not the healthiest, in the long run. It can become simply a way of doing whatever I want to do and then asking God to bail me out.

So, I continued pondering the quote. I realized that this is the basic philosophy and way-of-life of the Twelve-Step groups. It is, in fact, Step Eleven:

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry it out.

In the Big Book of AA, Bill W. wrote,

We shouldn't be shy in this matter of prayer. Better men than we are using it constantly. It works, if we have the proper attitude and work at it.

The basic message is the challenge to make God our first thought instead of last resort. That means living my life in the presence of God, knowing God's love and grace, ever aware of my need for God's power(!) and God's daily willingness to provide we what I need, not always what I want.

In other words, God's will should be my first thought, my daily prayer, and my constant source of gratitude. As one begins to live that in more and more ways (and it is not as simple as some make it sound!!!) one  learns the truth of the admonition to

Pray without ceasing!

What a burden is lifted at that point. I don't have to know what's next. I just have to work at keeping myself in God's will or, as one hears in the Twelve-Step fellowships

just doing the next right thing

I guess that church sign did its job the other day. It didn't get me in "their" church, but it did keep me thinking about my faith and spirituality.

Must have been my Higher Power at work.

As usual.

Toward Pentecost (25): Knowledge

Second Sunday After Christmas ~ Power to Become

The Twelve Days of Christmas
2nd Sunday after Christmas Day

The Power to Become

The age old question that children have had to answer for centuries, no doubt.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Actually, I would guess that in earlier generations the question didn't have to be asked. Whatever it was your father or mother did, that's what you would be when you grew up. Choices were few and far between. Actually there were fewer choices for women. Even if you weren't to become the same as your parent, they often set the expectations you were going to meet.

In the Gospel for this 2nd Sunday of Christmas we hear Jesus talk about HIS desire for us when we "grow up":

John 1:12-14: But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

I just realized that what Jesus did was take us back to an even earlier generation than his. He takes us back to the Garden when we were, by nature, the children of God. "So what are you going to be when you grow up," Jesus asks?

"Go ask your heavenly parent," is the answer. "Why be anything other than what your parent in heaven is? Be a child of God. Live like a child of God."

And Jesus spends the rest of his life showing us what that means.

Third Sunday in Advent: Believing While Waiting and Not Knowing You're Waiting

In a discussion about faith, religion, spirituality and the like the other evening a moment of insight came to me.

I have never been an agnostic.

Even when I didn't know what I believed, or how it all fit together; even when I was unchurched, semi-churched, irreligious or non-religious, I never doubted the existence of "God." My understanding of "God" has undergone more than my share of transitions, revisions, revolutions and revelations. The breadth and depth of my understanding of God has changed drastically over the years and I know far, far, FAR less about God today than when I was younger. At the same time I am far, far, FAR more convinced of God's presence, grace, love and all those other words I have been posting daily in my picture devotional.

What I came to think about in that discussion on Friday evening was "waiting," which is what Advent is all about. Waiting- and being accepting of where I am at in any given moment of my faith journey. Pilgrimage is how I name it- my movement through my days seeking, in each day, the signs and grace of God. Waiting is not "inaction," which is how we often think of it. Waiting is actively moving forward in the direction of grace. Waiting is knowing that if I am honest I can admit that I don't know all that I need to know.

Waiting is finally realizing that if I ever get to the point where I really, totally, completely understand and can explain God- I have gone off the path- or I have died. Even then I have a hunch that I won't know it all or have all the answers- they just won't  matter any more.

So perhaps I should stop worrying about finding "the answers" now and instead learn to live in the presence and the grace. Yes, we are in the Advent season when waiting is uplifted. But in the waiting, we are still active in God's world. The pictures I have been posting at times have attempted to illustrate that.

The Holy Spirit is still hovering over the depths of the earth whether those are the depths of the oceans or the depths of our human souls. The Holy Spirit continues to inform our waiting and perhaps even illuminate us more deeply.

It was in God's time (Greek- kairos) that Jesus came. It is always in God's kairos, far different from our chronological time, that God gives us the next part of our understanding.

So let's wait and watch and live what we already know.

Grace.

Older Than Dirt

A headline yesterday on the Google news feed from NBC News certainly grabbed my attention:

Study Finds Solar System's Water Is Older Than the Sun

The lead paragraph explained:

Water found in Earth’s oceans, in meteorites and frozen in lunar craters predates the birth of the solar system, a study published in this week's issue of the journal Science shows. The finding has implications for the search for life on other planets: Scientists have long debated whether the solar system’s water came from ice ionized during the formation of the solar system, or if it predated the solar system and originated in the cold interstellar cloud of gas from which the sun itself was formed.

It brought me up short. The frozen water in places on our very planet or our moon is older, repeat, OLDER than the sun. It existed prior to the existence of the planet where it now resides.

Wow!

Actually, double WOW! and WOW!

These are the kinds of things that force my poor human mind to stretch to its limits. Water is old. It has been around longer than the very core of our solar system. This is all conjecture based on extrapolation of information. It will probably prove to be a short-sighted observation and far more nuanced than a simple NBC News headline. But the idea that we can even begin to postulate such a thing is incredible.

It took me back to a thought I wrote in my journal a number of years ago. I was reflecting on the "young earth" and "intelligent design" views out there. They postulate that much of what we see as "old" (older than 6000 years) was put there as a kind of puzzle from God to keep us off-base. They are all red herrings since the world, solar system and universe is not billions of years old. God did all that creating in 4004 BC, or so.

That causes me to shake my head in dismay and wonder why a Creator God would even think of doing that. It is more about making sure that what they take as "truth" must remain "true." All other "truths" must then be "lies."

Anyway, what is even more awe-inspiring and downright miraculous is how the universe is put together, with all the intricacies, chaos, repeating fractal-design and on and on. The Creator God who did THIS is, in my mind far more powerful and far more transcendent than an "intelligent design-god" playing mind games with the creation. The world IS a miracle.

Each morning is another one.

Did you see the sunrise this morning or the sunset last night?

Did you see the pictures of the Northern Lights from last week?

How about those exploding colors those of us in the northern latitudes are experiencing?

And I've only just begun.

And we are all made of the same substances, created at the beginning of time and consistently being recycled into what is right in front of us today.

We truly are stardust!


So, as a sidelight, here is a wonderful video to ponder along with the billion year-old frozen stardust water.

A Sunday for Theology

Trinity Sunday

The day set aside to discuss Christian doctrine.

Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior.

Yet the Trinity is one of those doctrines that resists explanation. The use of Celtic knots does a far better job. There's the triangle knot, in this case also looking like three fish intertwined. The fish (Ichthus) symbol being one of those ancient symbols of the faith. - Ichthus. As always the circle of the completeness of God holding it all together in one.

As does an M. C. Escher-ish triangle. No end, no beginning, no one side or the other. Just when you think you have it figured out, you look again and it doesn't quite meet our expectations. Just like God. Every time I think I have God figured out, everything shifts. Up is down, right is left, what I thought was light is dark and darkness is overcome.

This one also says it well for me. Another Celtic knot-type design with the triangle interweaving with itself, winding around and around in a way that is unsolvable. Holding it all in one is the circle, the completeness of God.


But you don't have to understand it. You don't have to be a theologian with advanced degrees. We experience God in these three-

Father
Son
Holy Spirit

Creator

Redeemer

Sustainer

God.

One God.

Forever and ever.

What more is there?

The First Sunday After Easter

A wonderful quote for every doubting Thomas, which means all of us, no exceptions...

“What is essential, therefore, is not that you no longer believe, but that God continues to believe in you.”

― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, Of Love and Other Demons

Defending God- Who Doesn't Need It

From The Life of Pi by Yann Martel:

There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God, as if Ultimate Reality, as if the sustaining frame of existence, were something weak and helpless. These people walk by a widow deformed by leprosy begging for a few paise, walk by children dressed in rags living in the street, and they think, “Business as usual.” But they perceive a slight against God, it is a different story. Their faces go red, their chests heave mightily, they sputter angry words. The degree of their indignation is astonishing. Their resolve is frightening.

Ah, yes, why do we think God is so weak that the Almighty will buckle under criticism or worse, apathy from the creation? How dare you speak of MY God like that. He [sic] will get you for that.

But the poor and powerless, the ones who need defending, who need support and care, well, you know, it's their own fault. In fact we will make it more difficult on them to get what they need.

But let me stand up and defend God!

If my God needs to be defended by me, perhaps God doesn't deserve the capital "G".

Epiphany: January 6, 2014

“It is not objective proof of God's existence that we want but,

whether we use religious language for it or not,

the experience of God's presence.”

― Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat

The Second Sunday of Christmas: January 5, 2014

"God himself does not give answers. He gives himself.”

― Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale

Humbled and Silent

I sat listening to a great deal of talk about God. It’s not usually that specific, but this was a night about

Step 2: Came to believe

Reading from a chapter To The Agnostic.

The members talked; I listened as I often do on that subject; a “professional”

                Spiritual person needs to remain silent in the face of

                The Words of God being spoken so eloquently.

Honest Theology flowing

From the heart split by pain and alcohol

Visions of God shared

From dark days long gone yet ever so present

In memory or ever so real possibility

Words of Grace received

When not worthy; never worthy, really;

Filling the cracks and

black holes

with Light

                and

                                wonder.

I listen in silence to a sermon far

                Better than any I ever preached.

No big words filling the spaces,

                No deep, unintelligible thoughts

Instead a common experience of

                Uncommon awakening.

The humble moment of gratitude not just for their experiences

But because they are mine as well.

The empowerment of the

                Powerless by a

                Power greater than any of us;

Shared through each of us

                To all of us.

Recovery!

Meditation on Forgiveness

Forgiveness

                A difficult word; hard to define and

                Harder to live.

Forgiveness, like acceptance is not

                Condoning actions or

                Being a doormat.

It is a freedom word, a liberation from the

                After-effects of actions that the other may

                Have no idea they did or that they

                Need to be forgiven for.

So I look in the mirror when I start to think about

                Forgiveness.

It doesn’t hurt.

I look in the mirror and

                Remember

                The times I needed to be

Forgiven and didn’t even know it.

                Events,

                                Actions,

                                                A sly smirk

                Or smart word that hurt someone.

I don’t easily remember those.

                My memory becomes selective remembering instead

When those happened to me. 

When I was hurt.

But behind me, more reflections

                Of others- friends and acquaintances,

                Strangers and family.

I realize they have often forgiven me.

                I hope they have, anyway.

Maybe I will know only when I find it

                Possible to forgive others-

                So I am not consumed by

                Fear, hate or resentment.

As a Christian I wonder then if we Christians really believe that

                God truly forgives and

                Wipes us white as snow?

  

                Or, worse, that we don’t believe WE are

Forgiven. Scared to come into a holy God’s presence since

                We are not worthy. We are NOT worthy.

We are unforgiven.

Then perhaps if we do not believe OUR forgiveness is possible,

                How can we even think about

                Forgiving others?

                So, we are willing to let God do ALL the

Forgiving of others

While we go on holding tight to the

                Grudges and resentments and judgments of others

Waiting for THEM to get their come-uppance.

Yet forgiveness is at the soul-filled center of my faith.

                Without it the central doctrines make

                No sense.

To forgive is to affirm life as more

Than a mere possibility-

It is to affirm life as

Reality.

Compassion, Love and Goodness

You may call God love,
you may call God goodness.
But the best name for God is compassion.
--Meister Eckhart

Love and compassion. Aren't they the same? What is Meister Eckhart trying to tell us? Does it have to do with more than loving, and more than just goodness?

Such were the initial thoughts I had when seeing that quote.

• Com-passion.
• With-passion. Or better yet
• Passion with....
• And even further- Suffering with others

To have compassion then is to feel someone else's hurts and pains.
It is not to be condescending,  or to look down on them.
It is the depth of sympathy-

• Sym-pathy
• Sym- together
• Pathos- feelings
• To be in a community of feeling, finding direction and hope- 
• together.

We all suffer at one time or another, hence we are all in need of compassion.

And because we all suffer- we also know what others may need in the midst of their suffering.

But God? Compassion? Where is Meister Eckhart going with that.

Of course, God is surely more than just love. Even saying that God is love is more than what we mean by love. Compassion? An ability to suffer with us? A willingness to walk beside us?

Oh, the problem with trying to describe such things with mere words. We think we have it down. We think we can say it- and it is so. But the reality is that if we could reduce such powerful reality into words, it would lose its ability to make a difference in our lives. To come to compassion is more than we can describe.

Sadly, many people wouldn't equate God with compassion- any more than  they do with love. Not that Old Testament image of a God (the meanest one on the block) throwing lightning bolts, and floods, and plagues and the rest of the ways God seemingly made people stop and pay attention.

Compassion? Doesn't sound like it.

But-compassion and sympathy is not "lowering" ourselves to someone else's pains or suffering. Yes, it is to walk with them in the midst of it, but it is also to walk in a way that pulls them up to a higher level. It gets them out of their misery by being able to share it. It doesn't take it away, it shares it, supports it, leads into a different way of dealing with it.

It is walking with them through hell. But we don't stop in the midst of hell. That only lengthens it, makes it worse. We keep walking- and them walking with us- so neither of us gets stuck in the mud and muck of hell.

Now I can begin to see how God can be described as compassion. AA's 2nd Step says

Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

In other words, we begin to believe that there is a way through- and out of- hell, with the help of a power greater than ourselves. Part of that is the compassionate support we can receive from whoever or whatever may be our Higher Power, God.

God is not reaching down to us- but into our hell with us. Just as we are called to do with others. The result is compassion.

Reflections on Newtown - part 3

Finding Forgiveness

Seems like an odd thought as we continue to reflect on the tragedy in Newtown, CT. Yet it is connected in my mind by a stroke of fate. Let me explain.

Two weeks ago I began a six-month course/training in Attention and Interpretation Therapy as developed at Mayo Clinic by Dr. Amit Sood. He has written an excellent book (link) on how mindfulness and developing certain core principles can make a huge difference in one's life. As part of the 6-month training the participants are to cultivate a different aspect of the principles each day of the week. Monday is gratitude; Tuesday is compassion; Wednesday is acceptance; Thursday is meaning; Friday is... yes, forgiveness.

The instructions are basically to become mindful of the world around you as you move through each day and bring the principle of the day to all you do. Last Friday was the first Friday to be practicing these principles. Gratitude and compassion were easy as the week began. Acceptance has been a core of my life in recovery for over two decades. Meaning- hey, I have been searching for that on a regular basis for most of six decades.

As I got up last Friday morning and did my morning gratitude list and lifted people into the sphere of compassion, I paused and wondered how I would ever bring the concept of forgiveness into life. At noon my wife called all distraught by the news that I hadn't even heard yet. It shook my world as it did for many. I went back to my office and looked up the news. I began to feel the anger of others watching this horror unfold. The early stages of the thoughts I would write last Saturday (posted Tuesday) began to form.

Forgiveness wasn't one of them. About mid-afternoon I stopped long enough to think of the AIT training course.

Oh, yeah, that's right. Today's about forgiveness.

Not now. No way.

In any case, forgiveness isn't mine to give in this setting. That belongs to the victims; young, hopeful angels cut down in a moment of terror and God knows what. Forgiveness belongs to them and their families; and the first responders still reeling, I am sure, from the sight they had to witness. Forgiveness? No, that's not for me to give. In the end it may only be for God to give, whatever that may mean in this terrible context.

Or is it?

A week has passed. Again I have given gratitude on Monday and compassion on Tuesday. Much of that came as a result of last Friday. I am grateful for so much and my compassion went flowing out to the victims and their families in waves of sadness. Acceptance- well, I have no choice. It has happened and cannot be changed. It is now indelibly etched in the American psyche, mine included. It is the way it is, like it or not. In the midst of that has to be a meaning to be learned. Maybe we as a nation will finally make a long-delayed move to keep these from happening as frequently as they do. Maybe that will give meaning to a meaningless act.

I come again to get ready for Friday with its core principle of forgiveness. Part of me wants to cry out to God: "Instead of forgiveness, how about fairness and justice and healing?" Many have cried, "How can Adam Lanza be forgiven? Let him burn in hell!" Great parts of me agree.

Yet, as the course I am doing reminds me, forgiveness from me isn't for Adam Lanza or anyone else. It is for me. My health and the health of my soul demands my participation in forgiveness.

Forgiveness does not:

• condone
• justify
• excuse or
• deny

Rather it

• sets me free
• to live by my own core values and spiritual principles. 

 It sets me free from the

• prison of 
• hatred and 
• anger and 
• fear.

It sets me free to

• envision hope and 
• a future where these unspeakable atrocities are part of a past evil.

Easier said than done.

That is my goal for tomorrow as it unfolds, though. I need it. The people I will meet need it. Not my forgiveness but their own. Not my condoning Adam Lanza's insanity or excusing it away; but putting it in its proper place- an act of a lone, sick, perhaps even evil young man trapped in his own hell that was far beyond his meager ability to control. As he planned and plotted he was making, perhaps, some last ditch effort to feel pain or loss or to get rid of it. Only in his own mind, twisted and unbalanced, it meant visiting more pain on others.

My forgiveness is so I do not get trapped in his sickness and continue to live his pain in my soul. I will not allow that to happen. I cannot allow that to happen or I will be another of his victims as my soul dies under his evil and hatred.

"Adam Lanza," I now want to cry, "Enough. Be gone! I am through with your works and scary eyes gazing from  over-pixeled pictures. I leave you to God and grace or forgiveness or whatever the Creator has for you."

This does not mean that any of those devastated parents or clergy or neighbors of Newtown need to do this. I cannot - I must not - pretend to even know the tiniest bit of their pain. But if I am to be part of a solution to this nightmare, if I am to be here to help them and our nation, I need to do this for me.

Forgiveness now has a new meaning as this Friday, a week later, dawns. May I have the grace and strength to find ways to live it as the day unfolds.


As if that wasn't enough for my tired soul, my Higher Power, my God, was not finished with me as I wrote those lines. My iPhone music shuffle worked its mystical ways one more time as what may be my most meaningful hymn came through the headphones.

Reminding me that we each are called to find that peace in our soul. It is the only way we can life it.

When peace like a river attendeth my way When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot you have taught me to say
It is well with my soul.

Though the devil will ruin Though trials will come
Let this blest assurance control That Christ has regarded my helpless estate
And shed his own blood for my soul.

It is well with my soul...

Lord haste the day when my faith shall be sight The clouds be rolled back like a scroll
The trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend

Even so
It is well
With my soul

Reflections on Newtown - part one

The Slaughter of the Innocents

                20 children - massacred

                                Grisly descriptions fill the airwaves

                Almost obscene in the details.

                A President stands with tears as

                Parents across the nation hug their own children

                                more closely than usual.

The Slaughter of the Innocents

                A Biblical image that we often gloss over.

                It's right there- December 28-

                Right there in the calendar as part of

                                Christmas. But no one wants

                To go there. Not at the Season of Light in the darkness.

                Why be reminded of the darkness:

                                "Weeping and great mourning," says Scripture,

                                "Rachel weeping for her children.

The Slaughter of the Innocents

                We wail and bemoan the state of the world and yet

                                Prepare for another Quentin Tarantino blood-soaked movie,

                We urge people to "Not get political" which means

                Do Nothing

                To slow the slaughter's flow of blood across the nation's landscape.

The Slaughter of the Innocents

                Columbine                          Aurora

                Milwaukee                         Virginia Tech

                Shopping malls                  Factories

                                Sikh Temple and Beauty Spa

                There are no boundaries to slaughter in a culture mired in it.

                Innocents all - children and adults-

                                Bystanders to horrific history.

The Slaughter of the Innocents

                I keep trying to clear the phrase and images from my mind.

                                Black clad gunmen, hiding their pathology

                                behind false strength and bullets.

                I sit listening to Bach or the hopeful seasonal music of

                                John Rutter.

                But Magnificats and Glorias sound hollow as the images of

                                traumatized children remain on the TV.

The Slaughter of the Innocents

                Now I am caught up in the anger of the days. My Christmas world has been shattered. 
                                My peace on earth has been broken. I am caught in the

                Web of violence within by the events- inexplicable, but so deadly common-

                                on the evening news or movie screen.

                I shudder - cringe- at my own response. At my own anger at

                                the powerlessness- the inability to make a difference. The

                hurt- and then the fear that someone- anyone- could do the same right here

                                where I am sitting- at a mall bookstore.

                Newtown is anywhere- and potentially everywhere.

The Slaughter of the Innocents

                I'm getting worn out. I can't imagine what the people of

                                Newtown must be feeling like. They are in need of healing.

                The wounds will go deep and broad, barely touchable

                                By anything available to them - or us- today.

                Untouchable by our words- the language of mere mortals.

                Only the grace of God may be able to bring about the healing.

                                But it is not the easy grace we often try to pass on,

                                The philosophical pablum that reduces God to less than

                Human, rather than greater than human.

                                It is not grace to say that God willed it, or even

                                Allowed it to happen for some unbelievably fearsome reason.

                No! This is a far more powerful grace. Not costly, like Bonhoeffer foresaw,

                                But awful. A grace that inspires awe- even as we cower in

                                Dread, anger, or hopelessness.

                The image comes of Bobby Kennedy on a chilly April night on the streets of Indianapolis

                                Giving us the words as he tried to make sense of

                                Martin Luther King's assassination, but his own brother's as well.

                They were the ancient words of Aeschylus:

Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget

falls drop by drop upon the heart, until,

in our own despair,

against our will,

comes wisdom,

through the awful grace of God.

Written on Saturday, Dec. 15, the day after.