climbing cracks with Jesus

"They are in terror, great terror, where there is no terror"

Psalm 53:5

I have a passion for climbing rocks. It's not so much that I'm an adrenaline junkie, although I do like to get my freak on, its that I have a passion to be in beautiful places. There are fewer more striking places to be than five hundred feet off the ground on the side of a cliff with nothing but air under your feet accept perhaps, inside a nice barrel while surfing...

Folks who don't climb assume that it is a constant fear-fest. To be sure "back in the day" I loved these climbs. I would free-solo without a rope. When I used a rope I would let go of the cliff and take falls for fun. My life has changed and so has my climbing. I appreciate mellower climbing (now) well within my limits.

 Even when I was climbing on the edge of the sport there was limited fear for a number of reasons; 

1. I climbed a lot. I was strong. I knew my ability

2. I used a rope (most often) and was tied to a person who I trusted with my life

3. We were both anchored to the cliff by means of special gear that we would move along

4. My rope was designed for climbing, was expensive and tested in a lab

5. The rest of my gear was expensive as well

6. Most often we climbed on routes that had been climbed before and relied on information as to where to go.

So you see, I have little to fear. Yes, things can break, even the rock, but when you understand that there is safety all around you, you can concentrate on what you are doing and not your fear in your heart. 

The writer of Psalm 53 I think was a climber. He, like others who climb, responded to those on the ground in terror to take one foot off Terra ferma "come on! Wadda ya afraid of?!" 

He, like the climber, understands that safety is all around us when we are in God (Psalm 139:5). He did not forget that God was strong and would keep him safe. He did not forget God had provided for his people, even when they turned his back on them. He did not forget that God was trustworthy.

When we forget and think that we are in control of our lives we live (rightly so) in terror. When we can rest in God the terror subsides, even and especially when we face foes we cannot defeat; death.

I am not saying we will not be afraid, nor that some due to mental illness live a life of anxiousness. What I am saying is that underneath it all, we are safe. Do you think you are?

There are protocols before you begin a rock climb. Partners check each others knots on the rope and then one asks "belay on" and the reply comes "on belay". They are asking each other if you have my back, is it safe for me to go into danger, if I fall are you ready to catch me.

Today, right now, do you know God has you on belay? Can you step out in faith knowing there is no terror? God has been tested to be faithful. The gear he uses to save your life was of greatest cost to him; his own son.

dumpster diving for Jesus

It is not the work of our obedience to spiritual disciplines that make us Holy, it is the God who meets us in our submission. When we allow the work of the Holy Spirit to grant us the gift of humbling ourselves we are then, and only then taken into the presence of God (Luke 14:11).  This is the way of Christ (Philippians 2:8ff). It is the way of the pilgrim. We are to keep this in the front of our minds as we enter into Lent; we are simply taking action to bend the knee of our minds and hearts, to place our lives under the Christ. In this posture we can see the face of Christ who is at our feet, washing them as he did the disciples.

"Lord of all pots and pans and things...

Make me a saint by getting meals

And washing up the plates!"

May I please take a brief detour from following the readings and share a part of God's story in me...

In 2009 God asked me to follow through on a call I had been given while on my first trip to Tanzania in 2006. I was serving in a denomination that was asking me to deny my understanding of Jesus, the Bible and my call to mission. My orders were revoked and I was given shelter from the Anglican Church in a mission diocese in Tabora, Tanzania. I traveled alone 18,000 miles  to be priested by a group of Christians whom I loved dearly. God had asked me to live as a missionary in America and to teach the church how to love their neighbors in Word and deed.

 I returned to Tanzania and the day I was to be priested the Lord revealed my heart to me, and it was not pretty. It was as if I was waiting to hear the heavens open and a voice descend saying "well done, good and faithful white man! You are the chosen one!" Instead I heard a near audible voice saying "thanks Bryan for answering the call. I know you love me. I have been raising up people for my will from the ends of the earth since the dawn of time. Thanks for being one of them."

I was blessed indeed. 

I returned home. A number of friends who loved me helped me pay my bills while I listened and read to flesh out God's call. He had me driving down the street looking for discarded car seats and cribs to bring to single mothers who honored life. He had me walk up to tag sales and ask for the leftovers to bring to families who were moving out of homeless shelters. My friends and I pooled our money to purchase $99 mattress and box spring sets from Bobs Discount Furniture and get whole families off the floor. I prayed and the Lord led met to purchase a Toyota Tacoma so that I would have a pickup to use for the work. We collected household items to sell at tag sales to purchase malaria medications for children dying back in in Tanzania. 

We kept the furniture in our garage. My kids bikes and wagons were always hidden under or around something. They got into it as well as Olivia would yell as we drove down the street; "dad, stop! A car seat we can give to a kid!" I purchased a bakers rack and storage bins from Costco to keep the clothes  in my basement. My mom and dad would come over once a month to help me sort them out.  I would be contacted by individuals and agencies from all over who had gotten my name from some one some where. When people moved I was always given first dibs. 

I had a list of a dozen friends who would go with me to help deliver and pray for folks but often I would go alone. God allowed by to purchase a Blackberry with a GPS so I wouldn't get lost. I always wore a clerical collar for two reasons; I wanted folks to see the church coming to them and to be honest it made me feel safe in some of the places I ended up. 

The ministry grew out of our basement and garage and we felt our kids need to be able to have a bit of our house for their things so some friends helped out and we began to rent unit #172 at the UHAUL self-storage facility near us. We were faithful to the Lord of all pots and pans and things.

God has me in a new place now. I am new serving as the Rector (pastor) of New Hope Anglican Church Church. These folks have bent the knee and are serving in Word and deed with a passion and fire that is growing in them daily. We have partnered with Acts4 Ministries in Waterbury and bi-monthly bring furniture to folks who have nothing...it would take too long to list all the places they go to and to be honest I don't even know them all. Each week I learn of one more person reaching into the community in another way. They are faithful to the Lord of all pots and pans and things. 

Yesterday I closed out the UHAUL storage space. At first it made me sad and then my friends reminded me that God had stretched the wineskin to near breaking. New Wine needs New Wine Skins. 

I donated the remaining items to local charities and returned to office to check out. I've spent a good amount of time talking to and praying for the folks who worked there. I've prayed for Angie and her daughter who is dying of cancer, for Jose and his demons, for the homeless woman who I would help out. As I left John gave me my receipt saying I had checked out and thanked me for my business over the years. "Hey John, I was wondering are you a Christian? Don't want to pry, just wondering" I asked. Shifting feet he said yes but he has not been in church for a long, long time. I reached into my bag and took out a copy of the New Testament and gave it to him. "I'd like to give you this gift. It's the last thing I have here. It's getting close to Easter, a time of new things. Why don't you give it a read. You can never go so far away from God that he won't take you back."

And so I left but those years will never leave me.

Someday I would love to sit with you and share the storied of the folks I have met, about the coolaid I've shared and babies I've prayed over. The fire escapes, the state translators, the gifts in the mail...

The beautitul happened. Not what I did for God but rather what he did for me. He taught me how to love without question, to serve when asked, and to trust in him. I was a dumpster diving for Christ because he dove in dumpster to save me.

"Lord of all pots and pans and things....

Make me a saint by getting meals

and washing up plates"

Amercican Redcross says vampires suck

 I've always understood that blood saved lives. My dad has a rare blood type so every month we would get a phone call from the Red Cross asking my dad to come in and donate. He never said no. Back in those days they would give out pins signifying how many gallons you had donated. I would stare at his collection in the top drawer when he wasn't around. My dad's blood saved countless lives of people I would never know.

There is life in the blood, and not just breathing life. The Twilight franchise alone has sucked over $4 million dollars out of it's fans and the Vampire Diaries are advertising monsters.

God would agree with us on this one, or rather we would agree with him. But it wasn't sexy, or glamorous. He guarded the blood in his children unto death. He promised he wouldn't shed it and told us to do the same.

But there was a need for it. It had to be given.

For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, 

and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

So I share the message with you. There is life in the blood. Simple.Jesus recieved his call at his baptism. He didn't give pints, quarts or gallons. He gave it all. He was not called in to save one person in mortal danger, he was called on for all of humanity.  It was poured out on the cross so save the lives of all who would receive this transfusion.  Starve all the vampires. They suck (see John 10:10).  Jesus was given much more than a few pins, he was given the highest place of honor.

if Jesus wore an 80's tee shirt

First Psalm: Psalm 63:1-8; Psalm 63:9-11; Psalm 98 Second Psalm: Psalm 103
Old Testament: Daniel 9:3-10 New Testament: Hebrews 2:10-18
Gospel: John 12:44-50

 Bartel's and James...."Thank you for your support"

Valley Girl..."gag me with a spoon"
Hans and Frans..."where going to pump you up!"
Everybody..."no pain, no gain!"

Iconic words to live by? Perhaps not, but if you are a child who lived through the 80's you heard them and come on, admit it, you mimicked them all to often. We'd lift a drink as Ed Bartells, toss our hair as a valley girl and stick our fingers in our mouths, flex and clap as Hans. And well, no pain no gain? 

So if Jesus wore an 80's tee shirt, today's readings tell us for sure it would read no pain, no gain. Or perhaps it might make more sense to us if it read "my pain, your gain".

See, we got all messed up in the 80's, and I don't just mean because cocaine was the drug of choice for Wall Street and the back street, not because people took pictures of the Flock of Seagulls to the barber and said "I want to look like that". Not because steroids brought instant gratification.  No, we became fooled into believing that our suffering would bring rewards for us. If we worked hard enough, we could accomplish anything!

The generations before us would agree that hard work was good, but the focus was on others not themselves. The 80's told us that we are worth it. All of if.  We could fix every thing if we had a big concert with a lot of bands and televised it. It was the generation of "us-aid".

And Jesus, dang it, messes all that up in the readings today. Your pain, he tells us, cannot fix your pain. Only my pain can. He was made like us so that he could taste and take the temptations and sufferings that we could not. We couldn't drink from his cup, the cup of wrath that was to be poured out on all flesh.(Jer. 25:15-28). We can share in his sufferings we are told though. What does that mean? We, who are in Christ can benefit from his work. Those who have found that they are like the skinny dude on the back of the comic book getting sand kicked their faces and not the muscle-dude who has the girl hanging on his arm actually win!

So I would argue that indeed, no gain, no gain.


Still trying to pump yourself up? Find yourself gagging on what you are spooning into your mouth? Trying to gain the world by sacrificing your life?

Stop it, for the love of God. His pain, is your gain.  He was made perfect in his suffering so that we would be too.

the feather-plucking love of God...

Daily Readings:

First Psalm: Psalm 30; Psalm 32 Second Psalm: Psalm 42; Psalm 43
Old Testament: Ezekiel 39:21-29 New Testament: Philippians 4:10-20
Gospel: John 17:20-26

My love of animals led me to work at a few pet stores during my days of ramblings.  Fish, dogs, cats, snakes, lizards, birds I've cleaned up behind them all and been bitten by most of them at one point or another. It was in the store an hour before the doors were unlocked with all of these critters that I was able to witness their true nature.

Love Birds really are love birds. They mate for life. If you separate them awhile to clean a cage, they squawk loudly to one another, pacing back and forth, climbing up and down the bars of it's cage. When they are reunited they huddle together and preen each others feathers to remove any thing that may have gotten on them.

It is a pitiful sight when one dies and it is not long before the other joins. Birds who are in deep, chronic distress literally pull their feathers out. What once created to be two intertwined life-mates with radiant color has become a naked, shaking, pitiful remnant. I am convinced they die of a broken heart. Like a grandparent who has lost their spouse of many years they loose their will to live.

Todays' readings remind us that we are God's love bird, bonded for life. In our sinful state we took our eyes off our mate and flew the coop after other Gods. We were placed in exile apart from him. We were adulterous and we were chastised not for our destruction, but so that we would be restored.  We plucked our feathers in desperation; lying in sackcloth.

"O LORD my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me.   

O LORD, you have brought up my soul from Sheol; you restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit."

Psalm 30:2-3

 God and his people were created to like the lovebird; monogamous and faithful. We flew the coop and God flew after us. We are separated from full intimacy with him but for awhile. He promised that would never leave us or forsake us forever (Hebrews 13:5). This fact should keep us faithful and calm no matter what hits us. This is the "secret" Paul speaks about concerning being content in all circumstances (Philippians 4:10-12).

Do you find yourself plucked naked feeling alone? Be of good cheer, your lovebird promised He would return. God did more than pluck his feathers while we were apart. He will give us new plumage, He will preen them whiter than snow.  He is faithful, unto death.

God's one weak finger

We love stories of under dogs; Seabiscuit, Clark Kent, The Great While Hope...Aslan, Frodo.  They give hope to all of us who by the standards of world, and by our own self-limiting lies are doomed to live a life always in the shadows of the great ones.

God is more than for the underdogs, they are his chosen people. God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.(1 Cor. 1:27)

William Cutts was born breach, had a twisted spine, a short leg, lost an eye,  by the end of his life could use but one finger and could barely breath. If he were a dog in a country song he would have been named "lucky". He and his wife and children spent their entire lives in the mission field  translating the Bible into the local dialect of an unreached peoples' group in Papaw New Guinea. It was the most isolated area where Whitclyffe Bible Translators operated. William had been rejected by most of the world, but not God. God used his weakness for His glory.

The Moni  gave him a name which translated into "weak thing". This weak thing spent his life hiking up and down the steep cliffs of the rain forest and lived among waring tribes, witchdoctors, and intense isolation.  What was weak in the eyes of men was powerful in the hand of God. When William  died a lay pastor he raised up preached that he was greeted by thousands of whooping and dancing tribesman in heaven and together they all sang around the throne of God praising the lamb.

And that is our call to allow the Holy Spirit rush upon us (1 Sam 16:13) so that we will be a lamp unto those in darkness. "We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves". (1 Cor. 2:47 NLT).

But this can only happen when we know we can't do it, and often we only get to this point when our physical, emotional and spiritual strength have failed us. When we are the man on the side of the road, understanding that we can't fool God with all of our empty religious acts and broken promises then he rushes in. Then, and only then can God's power be displayed.

We weak things are used daily; in our homes, our workplaces, our neighborhoods. Not just on the battlefield against giants or in the rainforest in Indonesia. I knew of one very special lady;

Her name was Agnes Hjerpe (sounds like Jerpi). We met when I was serving as a part-time outreach minister at a Methodist Church, the other half of my time was spent as the janitor. Each week for over 30 years the "Monday Morning Group" of ladies would meet for coffee and cake (they always saved me the biggest piece) and while they chatted, sipped and snacked they would rip twin sheets into two inch strips and then wrap them around a #2 Pencil to be shipped off in shoe boxes overseas to be used as bandages in third-world hospitals. These frugal ladies didn't waste a thing! They even saved individual threads off the ripped sheets to tie up the rolls.

Agnes had the anchor leg for the whole process. She was well into her 80's at the time and was confined to a wheelchair. Her right hand was useless due to a stroke. Her left was gnarled to due arthritis save for one finger,  and this one finger God used for his glory. After the sheets were ripped and rolled, a woman next to Agnes would wrap a thread around the roll and begin the knot and then Anges would reach out with her one finger and hold the thread while the knot was tied.

All she had she gave, and God used it for his glory.  He did not look at the outside, and the Spirit rushed upon her.

lucky dogs

I was sitting in traffic on day after a surf session when a puppy came wandering between the cars. It was  two lane street full of commuters going home. My brain didn't have time to process until he was past me that it was indeed a dog.

A moment after that a kid came walking down the side of the road, holding a leash. His face was read and puffy, with tears streaming down his face.

It took awhile again to put it all together and by the time it hit me that he had lost his dog were were moving and there was no way I could go back. I have never forgotten that kid and his face.

The dog was in deep trouble. He had chosen what he thought was freedom, but it led to almost certain death.

And we are that same dog we are reminded today. We are being asked  know that life is in God and what we think is freedom is actually death.

Thanks be do God that He jumped into traffic for us.

dashboard repentance

I'm not sure when automakers began to install a brain-sucker on the driver side door frame, but it is indeed highly effective at removing any sense of need for legality or safety. Most models seem to have a standard upgrade that effectively sucks out all patience and causes even the most mild-mannered people to swear loudest at the oldest and safest drivers. This anomaly increases the further you are to the left on the highway. 



And here is the conspiracy behind it; they seem to be most effective on self-proclaimed devout Christians. 


Today is a good day to look at yourself behind the wheel. It is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of a season of self-examination and reflection. It is not a call to look at church school attendance, how many witness tee shirts you own or how cool your bumper stickers are. It is not a time to count how many christian pages you like on Facebook. No, this is a time to come to grips with what our daily in-and-out lives look like.


The questions we are asked to look at personal and reflective; is the reality that Jesus died instead of me lived out in the entirety of my life? Do I trust Him in all aspects of my life, especially in the mundane things?


So here is how God showed me today how to trust him.  I picked up my yearly dashboard repentance after I left our first service. For those of you who don't understand this practice you match the numbers  on the big dial behind your car's steering wheel  the numbers on the sign with the letters "mph" on the side of the highway. Those numbers stand for "miles per hour".


 I was on a stretch of Interstate 84 headed toward West Hartford just past Plainville being passed by everyone and getting lots of looks by people who feel the right lane is used for passing the slow people in the left lane.  It really straitens out and folks move. The average speed people drive on I 84 is 70 so it is very easy to say "honey, I'm not driving fast. I'm just keeping up with traffic! It won't be safe to drive so slow!"


I was nearing the exit I wanted in Farmington. It's a left exit across three lanes so I had lots of time to convince myself that I needed to drive fast for safety reason. I was watching the cars close in fast behind me and I began to pray. "Lord, please let me pass over to the left safely without having to speed". The first wave of cars overtook me and then there was a gap followed by another large group of cars.


I was in the middle lane now and it seemed like a Derby race...would I reach the exit before the cars came up from the rear and over took me. And then, right there on I 84 driving my 2006 Honda Ridgeline at 55mph God began to show me a bit of my life....


If God could take care of the Israelites who were caught between apparent death by drowning and being hacked to pieces by the entire army of Pharaoh he sure can be trusted in the things of my life.


And as if to prove His point, I took the left exit without a hitch. The cars never caught up to me.

It is Lent. SLOW DOWN. Ask God to show you where you have taken you life into your own hands. Repent of them. Ask God to forgive you.

And today, as you wear ashes on your heads, or look at those who do allow this reality to sink in.
You cannot out-drive your mortality.

Lent...stepping out of the buffet line for Christ's sake

Most of us live our lives in a spiritual buffet line; we que up after our tables have been called and with plate in hand and fork in pocket our eyes wander down the line for whatever catches our attention.

We take a little of this and a little of that not really thinking about the final outcome of what our meal will consist of. Our plates are usually too full by the time we reach the salads and vegetables and inevitably each plate is topped off with a cookie or two.

The majority of Christians, if we are honest with ourselves and our God, live out their lives of devotion to God in much the same manner...and with the same result; a full plate but of little value to our health and lives.

Lent calls us out of the buffet line and back to looking at what we are eating. It is a time to step on the scale and  look unclothed into the mirror. It is a time to search our refrigerators and pantries to see what we have been ingesting.

...and we can do this without fear. We are not on the biggest looser scale. We are not trying to win anything from anyone. We are standing before the One who made us, who is standing alongside side us. It is a time to say sorry and thank you without fear.

Above all it is a time of honesty. Just as ours bodies cannot hide what we eat, our lives cannot hide the objects of our devotions. 

When was the last time to took a good, long honest look at yourself? Begin this Lent. The first step is tomorrow at Ash Wednesday. We lament our sins, we proclaim our mortality, and we ask for assistance. God does not need our acts of devotion or fasting. We are not trying to wrestle out a blessing.

We are simply being honest with our God.

The Who sings about the One

I am a huge fan of the band The Who.
They spoke the folks song of the angry urban poor; sons and daughters of working-class who drowned their angst in alcohol,
hand-rolled Drum smokes and violent protest.

...subsistence farmers trying to scratch out a living in a concrete prairie with no rain in sight.  

Out of them came the universal plea of us all who are choking on dust; Love, make it rain....oh God I need a drink of cool, cool rain.

The Hebrews sang this song, asking the Yaweh to restore thier lives, to get them off the Dole of every other tribe like he had done before...

to make it rain in a place that had forgotten what it smelled like when there was not dust nor heat;

"Restore our fortunes, O Lord,like streams in the Negeb!

Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy!

He who goes out weeping,bearing the seed for sowing,

shall come home with shouts of joy,bringing his sheaves with him."

                                                                                                              Psalm 124:4-5

There is cleansing in the rain, 

There is purity in the rain

There is restoration in the rain

and there is hope.

There is healing in the waters that flow down from heaven, 

like a kiss on the forehead,

after a dark night of weeping, 

like the smell of hot asphalt 

realeasing it's heat after a summer drenching

..it whispers "it's over" 

It sings the song of the wind in the trees 

as the sun disperses the cold of night.

It is the last sigh of a baby when she can cry no more. 

It is the phone call saying its benign  

Little one, you have been in the dry land too long. 

Do not be afraid of the rain. 

Let it pour down on you. 

Under the dust is radiant gold

come under the rain with me. 

Only LOVE can make it rain

Weight? Greenwich sucks!

I remember distinctly the day as a little kid in grammar school  I learned that in a magical place called Greenwich, England there were official weights upon which the world looked as the "standard". It even housed a world clock, and a magical line running through the grass made of bronze measured the earth!

Why did we need this magical place?

Ever since humankind began to collect and make stuff or sale or trade stuff we ripped each other off. The human heart is just that way (Matthew 15:19). So we began to make measures and weights to standardize things. God was pretty clear about this stuff. Our hearts were on ourselves (Genesis. 6:6), we cheated and lied (Proverbs 11:1). No one really was seeking after honesty (Matthew 15:8).

Don't believe me? Archaeologists have found systems dating back to 2600 BC in the Indus Vally.

Sure, we need standards to know what something should equal, but really...when you walk onto a car lot, do any of us really trust that we are getting the best deal?

So God isn't so much concerned about properly calibrated things as he is about our heart condition. He doesn't hate dishonest scales because it's bad business, he hates them because one person is devaluing another. A false scale says ethically "I am more important than you. I deserve more than you. You are stupid. I am smart. I should have the bigger piece of pie."

The standard has moved from an outside magical place into myself. The cocktail party words here say that we have moved from a deontological ethic that is based on an obligation to an outside rule to teological ethic which aruges that the standard is constantly changed to meet my interior desires.

so we have two problems here;
1) Who is allowed to define the standard
2) What, if any, is the penalty for using a false weight?

In our system of "democracy" ( I would argue that we are actually a republic where our deepest national desire is to care for the oppressed minority) we rule that the majority sets the standard. This in itself denies the standard of a standard.

If we have no clear standard for a standard, how can we cry foul?

Clearly there must be a magical place that knows what justice really looks like. I would say, it looks like a sacrificial hill upon which a spotless lamb was slaughtered because the weights do not lie or change. (Numbers 23:19)....

But here's the Good Deal. We came up a day late and a dollar short as always. But someone made up the difference for us.

Jesus is for lease!

For the record:
I have picked coffee for the Sandinista Government during the height of the Contra War. I have worked along side 15 year old boys with AK47's and US grenades.

I have protested outside of the US Embassy in Honduras, marched on the White House, The Capital and the UN.

I have written so many letters and made so many phone calls to politicians that I have lost count.

I have learned to salsa from Cuba communists and drunk beer with members of the IRA. I once even played the opening protest music at a lecture from Castros' former economic adviser Ed Boorstein.

...and I love Democracy...and I love America

As an undergrad at a small liberal arts college in Southampton, NY I was surrounded by professors who were on the edge in the 60's (which really happened in the 70's). At the start of a lecture one evening my prof's leaned back and dropped a bomb that sent me a quest:

"in order to remove tyranny from society, you must eliminate from the mind"

So I ask you  Mr(s). Republican, Mr(s). Democrat, Mr(s). Tea-Party...how do you do this? How do you legislate out hatred, greed, bigotry, corruption? More taxes, less taxes, flat taxes? More spending, less spending, no spending? More laws, less laws, no laws? 

And you all claim Jesus...and mainly during election time. Is Jesus really for lease? 

If you want to change the world, change yourself. There are no thought police, no micro-chips. Just you and your interior life, the place where God dwells. If you really claim to be a follower of Jesus (whatever your political affiliation) did you forget that his is more concerned with what we do than what we say?

"You honor me with your lips, but your hearts are far from me"
                                                                          Matthew 15:8 

I have at various times in my life claimed to be an atheist, agnostic, republican, democrat, communist, and even was a member of the Young Socialist Alliance. My good friend in college was Gus Hall's granddaughter (Leader and chairman of the American Communist Party). And all the while after all the phone calls, letters and marches my neighbors still loved or hated, supported or condemned...and I was right along with them.

So what is a person to do who is paying attention and desires justice? Join my new "political party". I call it the "dinner table party". The cabinet consists of myself, my wife, and our two daughters. We do our best to follow God's desire for us. We pray for each other and those around us. We ask for God to change us so that we can be Holy, kind, merciful and loving like He is. We ask for the empowerment and indwelling of the Holy Spirit so that we can eliminate the tyranny in our minds. Then we walk out the door and try our best to live it out; we love all, don't use the words "us" or "them", we feed people, bring them furniture and say we are sorry for our wrong actions and words when we make mistakes or hurt.

...and at night we read stories about how God pursues us with a never stopping love. We pray for our friends around the block and the world.We tell God we are sorry for where we did wrong, and ask him to forgive us (he always does)....and the next day, we start all over again.

Governments rise and fall. We all judge, we all condemn, we all fall short of what we know is right. The Lord endures forever.

Peace,
Fr. Bryan

 

To us all who were "the fat kids"...you are beautiful

I'm not sure how it happened. I was "fat".  I hated the thought. Maybe some kid told me so.  My mind buried the thought so deep the origin got lost.



 The start doesn't as much as the fallout.

The first time this false reality hit me I was in fourth grade. I was getting ready to go to the pool with our Indian Guide troop. I didn't want to go. I didn't want to be seen in public without a shirt. So I did what kids do who can't put words on their emotions.  I resisted going. Somebody outside of myself began to run my life; my relationship to myself, to others, and to my parents.

We ate junk in my house,  and I watched a lot of TV but I was still active. I guess my body didn't work like other peoples. No one asked me why I looked the way I did...they just told me.

Then one day in 7th grade (the horror years of Jr. High) I started to use one of the large ace bandages we had in the house to wrap up my stomach so that I wouldn't look so fat.

I wrapped up my emotions with many other things over the years.

If I could talk to that kid now.

But I can't, so I will talk to you and your children. Perhaps you have a weight issue...but the truth of the matter is...

....you are beautiful.  

You are not a freak of nature. You were crafted by the same hands that made the stars, the flowers, the mountains and the sea.

Your worth is not found in another persons' hurtful words. Your worth is of infinite value. Your name is known by God. It is inscribed on the palm of his hands. He collects your tears in a bottle.

You carry inside of you a portion of the image of God. 

What you look like is not who you are.

Now, this all may sound good but the names and the words have left holes and non-healing wounds. Haven't they? The Master Craftsman says that words are like swords, deadly arrows and poison. How then, can we begin to heal a non-healing wound?

First, understand you have been lied to....
Second, forgive and pray for those who have lied to you
Third, begin to love yourself and see your beauty. Your worth is found in God not in the assessment of others or even yourself.

Take a step to reclaim your life and health if you do have an honest health concern due to your weight.

And lastly, today, write these words on your mirror:
"I am beautiful. I am worth it.

Blessings to you all beloved, 

Bryan