New Year, new look

Listen, I'm like most everyone else:
I charge out of the gate all set to take control of most things in life and then somewhere along the way I get tripped up.

To be honest I have lots of potholes;
I pastor a church, I have a wife, we have two kids (three and five), we own two cars, we own a house.....the list goes on.

Yet in the midst of all this, first and foremost I am a follower of Christ and I believe (rightly so I contend) that how I see myself in him (and he in me), will effect everything else in my life.

We don't need a hall of mirrors to tell us what our false-self looks like.

We need the God-head to reveal to us our true and his desired nature.

The Bible says we are to do it this way...by doing a continual inventory of our lives:

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Romans 12:1-2 The Message 

Great, been there, tried that, memorized the verse...

The problem is application, not what God is asking you to do. There are some folks who have nailed the application and it boiled it down to "

-->The Examen of Consciousness"

Here is how it goes:

...You must understand that you are helpless to change yourself. This is not a self-help tool but  rather a tool that will help yourself. It can be done anytime, anywhere but you must be in a place to still your inner voice for 10-15 minutes. Do not linger longer than this. That will turn into adoration or confession both of which are good for the soul but not the goal if the self-examen.

1.   Recall that you are in the presence of God.

2.   Spend a moment looking over your day with gratitude for this day's gifts. All of them, large and small.

3.   Ask God to send you His Holy Spirit to help you look at your actions and attitudes and motives with honesty and patience.

4.   Now review your day. This is the longest of the steps. Recall the events of your day; explore the context of your actions. Search for the internal movements of your heart and your interaction with what was before you. Ask what you were involved in and who you were with, and review your hopes and hesitations. Many situations will show that your heart was divided—wavering between helping and disregarding, scoffing and encouraging, listening and ignoring, rebuking and forgiving, speaking and silence, neglecting and thanking.

5.   The final step is our heart-to-heart talk with Jesus. Here you speak with Jesus about your day. You share your thoughts on your actions, attitudes, feelings and interactions. You might like to finish your time with the Lords Prayer.*

We do not need a house of mirrors.

Yes, I will indeed try and resolve to live a more ordered and structured life which I pray will spill into all aspects of my day-to-day living. But crave solid food, not milk. Go beyond external change, strive for deeper things. And always and everywhere never forget that you are loved with a never-stopping, always-and-forver-love by God. That is called grace.

Happiest of days beloved,
Bryan+

*for the full text I invite you to visit  http://norprov.org/spirituality/ignatianprayer.htm

 

it is what it is and its broken

It is what it is...

There are few things I hate in this world;
1) sin
2) this statement

I spent the last two hours with one of my pastor friends in town. We both have young kids, adore Jesus, and are convicted to not allow what it is to be the "new normal". We walked, prayed, repented, praised, asked for super-natural gifts for ourselves and each others' churches and listened.

As followers of Christ we are called to live out, to the best of our ability, what it is going to be in the New Heaven and the New Earth

It is going to be:
beautiful, whole, healed, joyful, Holy, thankful, light, alive....always

What it is now is:
broken and decaying sporadic appearances of the above.

Need proof? Of course not.

But do not despair, just get busy.

John Wesley offered these tips:

Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.”

 

Let it be so.  

Yes it is what it is, it ain't what it should be, it's going to be something we can't fathom. 

remembering days of daisy chains

A friend of mine commented the other day commented how grateful he was  that I have been naming the things that have been haunting our collective souls and is so doing allowing us to grieve.

We have found many scapegoats and demons which to rage against but be aware that there is but one mastermind behind the entire event. No, it was not God.

God has desired will and permitted will.

God's desired will was that all living and non-living things he created would never experience decay or destruction. We were created as immortal beings. We were made "very good".

Rocks were not made to fall on people and water was not designed to drown nations. They were made "good".

Floods, landslides, cancer and murder are the ill effects due to God's permitted will of giving us free will. Death and decay were intruders in the garden, thus the rage against it on the cross. The pride of Angels and of Men has led to suffering for one of three reasons;
Our sin...(we are the reason we are suffering)
another person's sin...(they have sinned against us)
or we live in a sin-sick natural order..(waters that were for life bring death)

Grief is the first step towards healing, so let us heal a little more.

Today please allow me to name another tear in the fabric of our hearts, in that by so naming it we can ask the Healer to repair the damage.

Our children are  growing up in a land desperately bereft of innocence. Kindness is random and acts of beauty have become senseless. Yes, it is there...but it is so fleeting that when we see it we celebrate it. Why? Because it is not our "normal". Images and stories of innocence and kindness goes viral because they are so rare.

No, we cannot blame the media for sensationalizing evil. Evil does not need to help to go viral. It is viral.

As the father of young kids I am heart sick about this, but not Hopeless. It causes me to pray all the more earnestly "maranatha, come Lord Jesus."....now, today. Make all things new...always and forever.

I am faced with the death of innocence for my children. I will grieve for it as I do for all things that die...well and deep but not without Hope.

Some will surely say cannot go back in time. Others will say 'the good old days" were not really "good old days". This may be true of television...but not of God.

God has a plan to reclaim the days...

He has promised it to us that one day he'll come back and  make all things New again.

It seemed like a dream, too good to be true,
    when God returned Zion’s exiles.
 

We laughed, we sang,
    we couldn’t believe our good fortune.
We were the talk of the nations—
    “God was wonderful to them!”
God was wonderful to us;
    we are one happy people.

And now, God, do it again—
    

 bring rains to our drought-stricken lives
So those who planted their crops in despair
    will shout hurrahs at the harvest,
So those who went off with heavy hearts
    will come home laughing, with armloads of blessing.

 Psalm 126

 

my greatest act of protest

I have marched on the White House, the UN,  the Capital and outside the US Embassy of foreign soil.

I have picked coffee for the Sandinista Government at the height of the Contra War six miles from the fighting.

I have held signs, made phone calls and sent letters.

I have been accused of abandoning the faith and have held my head up as I was slandered.

But in the last 24 hours I have engaged in the two boldest acts of defiance yet in my life:
I celebrated the Eucharist at church on Sunday, 
and  I placed by five-year-old daughter on the school bus today.

Sunday as I held the bread high above my head, I proclaimed to the Universe and to Satan that Love has won, that the Evil that fell upon Sandy Hook has been crushed, and Christ was and is and will be victorious.

Hebrews  10:34 reads that the world has "plundered our possessions" and we witnessed that last Friday. As I broke the Host I proclaimed that Christ has plundered Hell  and taken back what was stolen that day. Forever.

This morning I lived out the reality of that theological truth; I placed my daughter on the school bus.

Up until that moment I had felt physically ill. The bus was early, she turned and kissed me quickly, shouted "I love you", ran up the steps and blew me kisses out the window. I had no time to cry, worry, or even pray again. The Master has my daughter. He alone has the words of Life, power over death, and breathed the stars into existence. He will take care of her body and her mind.

So my greatest acts of defiance were in reality my greatest acts of trust I suppose. I trust more today, and I am more constrained to proclaim the Good News of Jesus' plundering of Hell and to battle injustice every time it rears its ugly head.

To God be the glory.

a healing rose in Connecticut

Beloved,

As tragedy strikes, allow each other to "not be ok". Don't be too quick with a tissue, nor even a hug at times. It may feel uncomfortable to you. You want to stop their pain because it makes you feel bad and it is hard to watch a person in distress but let them be.


To often we act as a drain plug to grief.

I need you all to understand that the church where I minister lies a good twenty minutes away from Newtown. We have no direct losses in our parish, but the town does.

Last night after the conclusion of our candle light vigil a woman walked up into the gazebo and crept around all those who had spoken and offered prayers. She placed a single red rose on the top of the wreath. She told me it was given to her from a person from Newtown. She worked there as a dental assistant. She had been taking care of those kids for 10 years. Then she began to shake.

She had such a look in her eyes, and there amid all of the busyness I was able to ask her the anointed question "how are you" ... she could not speak. I gave her some time to talk. It felt like eternity. Her body language spoke for her.

"Not very well" I said. "That's ok. May I pray for you?" She simple nodded and embraced me, holding on very tight.

I prayed for her dreams, and that God would be as close to her as her next breath. I could feel her breath again. She trembled and then silence.

As I think this morning she was much like the woman who grabbed Jesus' garment, sneaking around the pastors, the "important people" to place a flower and perhaps find healing in her pain...I am no Jesus, but I thank God that the Spirit had me turn and ask "may I pray for you?"...would you like to be well.

These are the ones to look for. The silent ones who feel they need to steal a healing. These are the ones with the faith to be made well. These are the ones who think they are too much of a bother to ask...

 Christians, here is your task. Go to them, find them, keep your eyes open, and ask if they want to be well. Then for Heaven's sake do not hold back the Balm of Gilead! This is Advent! The World became Flesh and dwelt among us! He did not come to live in our churches! He came to heal, rule, and set captives free!

mail man of the Gospel

This creed was in my mind as a young child...

"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds"

My brother and I had fun with it, fueled by the Pony Express and Wells Fargo shotgun toting cowboys in old westerns. To pop a few bubbles it was around long before the UPS.

"It is said that as many days as there are in the whole journey, so many are the men and horses that stand along the road, each horse and man at the interval of a day’s journey; and these are stayed neither by snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness from accomplishing their appointed course with all speed."

—Herodotus, Histories (8.98) (trans. A.D. Godley, 1924)

There is something intrinsically honorable in it, it resonates a truth. It makes us take pause.

The last time I was deeply moved by the men and women of the postal service was in 2001. Anthrax was being sent randomly through the mail. I was working at Starbucks at the time and one of my regulars, Ron, was a postman as was my good friend Jim. I would pray for them daily. They both, and all their other coworkers were fearing death, day in and day out, from a white powdery substance that my be in any one of the hundreds of thousands of pieces of mail they handled.

After the attacks the postal service added this:
"We are mothers and fathers. And sons and daughters. Who every day go about our lives with duty, honor and pride. And neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night, nor the winds of change, nor a nation challenged, will stay us from the swift completion of our appointed rounds. Ever"
( 2001 Comprehensive Statement on Postal Operations (1.A-1)

Today, as Advent continues and the readings get frighting I will take this charge, tweak it, and live it.

 We are mothers and fathers. And sons and daughters of the Most High God. Who every day go about our lives with duty, honor and pride. And neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night, nor the winds of change, nor a nation challenged, will stay us from the swift completion of our appointed rounds. Ever" 

God and the creeping rocks of Death Valley

God is bedrock under my feet, the castle in which I live, my rescuing knight. 

My God - the high crag where I run for dear life, 

hiding behind the boulders, safe in the granite hideout. 

Last night I when I came home from a zoning meeting I read an article about the moving rocks of Death Valley.

Wikipedia states:
"Sailing stones, sliding rocks, and moving rocks all refer to a geological phenomenon where rocks move in long tracks along a smooth valley floor without human or animal intervention. They have been recorded and studied in a number of places around Racetrack Playa, Death Valley, where the number and length of travel grooves are notable. The force behind their movement is not confirmed and is the subject of research.

The stones move only every two or three years and most tracks develop over three or four years. Stones with rough bottoms leave straight striated tracks while those with smooth bottoms wander. Stones sometimes turn over, exposing another edge to the ground and leaving a different track in the stone's wake.

Trails differ in both direction and length. Rocks that start next to each other may travel parallel for a time, before one abruptly changes direction to the left, right, or even back the direction it came from. Trail length also varies – two similarly sized and shaped rocks may travel uniformly, then one could move ahead or stop in its track."

This is what we saw first-hand last night. Not in the desert of California, but in the high school of Watertown! The Rock which is taller than us moved. We saw the trail, we didn't touch a thing..but it happened at God's pace and God's way. 

God can move painfully slow, but God moves. God has placed us in our building and our tower is fighting for us...we are just showing up.

Our rock has been moving all of us ever slowly, to place us where he wants the entire universe to be.  He is making all things new, putting all things right. At times the movement is subtle like the stillness after the rain, other times it is as loud as the silence of the empty tomb.


Beloved, God is moving! This is the message of Advent!

Do not despair my friends.

If God can move the rocks through Death Valley he can certainly move you through the Valley of Death!

God is bedrock under my feet, the castle in which I live, my rescuing knight. 

My God - the high crag where I run for dear life, 

hiding behind the boulders, safe in the granite hideout. 

 

waiting on my bff

so is this what Advent is about?

Will bff Jesus be able to defeat all that is wrong with creation?

bff Jesus will restore all righteousness? Really?

Israel waited for hundreds of years for this?

What are you waiting for?

facebook is my righteousness

All I have to do is not scroll down and I'll be good to go?! Sweet!

 I just have to add a comment to that photo-shopped picture of Jesus in the clouds or the angle next to the car-crash victim?

You mean the cross wasn't really needed at all?

The Lord does not have to be my righteousness?

I guess there are error translations! It should read;

"If you post on your wall and click on the like you shall be saved?"

Romans 10:6 The Facebook Translation

Sounds like oversimplification, but sadly too many understand work of salvation much deeper. If I believe in Jesus, if I profess him has Lord and Savior I am right with God. 

Are there fruits in your life beyond your Facebook Wall that God has laid claim on you? The soul who professes with its lips The Lord is my righteousness do so from the very depths of their being. They have opened themselves and understand that the Holy Spirit searches all things and that the fullness of God's judgment must be fulfilled. This soul strives to live a holy life, knowing that one day we will be asked what we did with the gift of faith we were given. Did we worship God? Did we strive to conform to his image? Did we pray as desperate people? Did we proclaim release to the captives?

Or will our sole defense be our Facebook Wall?