Being patient is difficult. It is not just waiting until something happens over which we have no control: the arrival of the bus, the end of the rain, the return of a friend, the resolution of a conflict. Patience is not waiting passively until someone else does something. Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely present to the moment, to taste the here and now, to be where we are. When we are impatient, we try to get away from where we are. We behave as if the real thing will happen tomorrow, later, and somewhere else. Be patient and trust that the treasure you are looking for is hidden in the ground on which you stand.
Some excellent words of wisdom from John Pavlovitz!
Take a quick second and look back on the past week or so of your life.
Have you received a text that was truly urgent?
An email that honestly needed to be be responded to right away?
A voicemail that simply could not wait?If we’re honest, those are few and far between.
— Read on johnpavlovitz.com/2022/04/07/that-text-can-wait-the-present-cant/
Verse of the day
Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.
– Romans 12:15
Voice of the day
Radical empathy, on the other hand, means putting in the work to educate oneself and to listen with a humble heart to understand another’s experience from their perspective, not as we imagine we would feel.
– Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (2020)
Prayer of the day
Teach us to listen for shared feelings, for places of connection. Teach us to be curious and open to hearing differences. Teach us to love into brokenness to give space for, to be patient with, healing.
The spiritual life starts at the place where you can hear God’s voice. Where somehow you can claim that long before your father, your mother, your brother, your sister, your school, your church touched you, loved you, and wounded you—long before that, you were held safe in an eternal embrace. You were seen with eyes of perfect love long before you entered into the dark valley of life.
The spiritual life starts at the moment that you can go beyond all of the wounds and claim that there was a love that was perfect and unlimited, long before that perfect love became reflected in the imperfect and limited, conditional love of people.
The spiritual life starts where you dare to claim the first love. “Love one another because I have loved you first” (see John 4:19).
Verse of the day
If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town.
– Matthew 10:14
Voice of the day
[T]here’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless’. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.
– Arundhati Roy, Ordinary Person’s Guide To Empire (2004)
Prayer of the day
May we shake off the dust of silence, trading control for care.
“Through nonviolent action a union of another possible world arises. The action is (also) an attempt to break up a categorical we-them dichotomy and aid a mutual identification across conflict borders.”
—Stellan Vinthagen, A Theory of Nonviolent Action
Verse of the day
Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.
– Matthew 21:12
Voice of the day
My anger can be a force for good. My anger can be creative and imaginative, seeing a better world that doesn’t yet exist. It can fuel a righteous movement toward justice and freedom.
– Austin Channing Brown, I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness (2018)
Prayer of the day
Invite us to feel your holy anger. Let it be the creative force which drives our ability to right wrongs.
When we freely allow fear to dominate and change us, we live in misery far from our home of unconditional love.
Meanwhile Jesus, our example, says to the disciples and to us, “Don’t be afraid. Perfect love casts out fear.” He walked freely, lived freely, and carried on an intimate relationship with the One who sent him into the world.
Throughout the nights or early mornings Jesus spent time communing with the One who loved him. Among his last words he tells us, “As the Father has loved me, so I also love you. . . If you keep my word, the Father and I will come to you and we will make our home in you. . . I will send you my Spirit, who will dwell with you forever, and will remind you of all I have said to you.”
Jesus came to convince us that Our Maker’s love is pure gift, unearned and free. We are free to relate with the Source of all life or not. A great love embraces all the love that you and I have ever known, from father, mother, spouses, brothers, sisters, children, teachers, friends, partners, or counselors.
Welcoming unconditional love automatically makes us more like the Unconditional Lover. Divine love lasts forever.
I have found myself staying away from Television unless it is College Football season. We watch movies and shows on BritBox, Amazon Prime, and Netflix in addition to the occasional DVD from our small collection. I have also tried to limit my time on Social Media, especially when it comes to “hot topics” that raise my blood pressure. Yes, I get news emails but I often find myself gleaning through reputable sources once or twice a day. It isn’t always easy but it is always necessary for my own spiritual, emotional, and mental health.
Am I burying my head in the sand? Absolutely not. I am simply avoiding overdosing on the 24/7 media monster. When I was growing up my family watched the local news and then the national news. The news was brought to our living room via Walter Cronkite or the Huntley-Brinkley Report. Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, and Walter Cronkite were reporters who reported the news and were trustworthy. There wasn’t a whole lot of hype nor was there the constant yelling over the other speakers to “get your point across.”
With the birth of the 24/7 news cycle in the 1980s came the talking heads and armchair experts. Over the decades they have only become louder and more obnoxious. On September 11th, 2001 I was on Active Duty with the Air Force as a Chaplain. The repeated viewings of the planes hitting the towers was too much for those of us who were preparing the base defenses, let alone our families at home. At my urging, my now ex-wife turned off the news prior to our son getting home from school. I was in another location and wouldn’t be home for 48 hours. Our son didn’t need hysterics, he needed the calm and safety of home.
This phenomenon/cycle has only become worse as time has gone on. Between politics and the pandemic it has become too much. Television and Social Media have become incredibly toxic and I have had to limit my intake for my own well-being. I only wish that other people would step away from the media nightmare. The following quote from Thomas Merton is especially relevant in this toxic environment.
The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds and makes all political and social life a mass illness. Without this housecleaning we cannot begin to see. Unless we see we cannot think. The purification must begin with the mass media. How? (p. 72 Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander)
How do we purify this this mess? Thomas my friend, I wish I knew the answer to your question. For me it is one mouse click and remote control click at a time in order to reduce the level of toxicity in my environment. Additionally I seek to encourage others to do the same thing. Perhaps then people would begin talking to each other instead of yelling and screaming at each other? That is my hope and my prayer, Thomas… just as I imagine it was your hope and prayer decades ago.
This time of Sabbath rest has been unusual to say the least. Stepping away from active ministry has given our spirits time to recalibrate. It has also given us time to focus on completing a task/journey that began for Denise on October 4th, 2021. With the exception of Christmas, Thanksgiving, and downtime as we recovered from COVID (Merry Christmas 2021!) Denise was spending four days a week in Florence, Alabama sorting through her parent’s possessions and decades of paperwork from her dad’s professional life with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) as a research scientist.
This week the keys to the apartments were turned in and the cars were sold. But it was last week (Thursday March 24th to be exact) that a wonderful sabbath gift came into our lives. That morning, Denise heard meowing coming from under her dad’s truck. A poor, hungry kitten who looked like she had spent a long time outside in the elements was asking for help. Denise bought a can of food which was gobbled up immediately! Three cans later (an hour or more between cans) the little one’s appetite seemed to be temporarily satisfied.
Looking at each other we realized that we had been adopted. After a visit to the vet (the follow up appointment is next week) and a trip to the store, Stella has a carrier, litter box, toys, food, and treats. More importantly, she has a safe place to live and us to care for her. What a transformation we have seen in our sweet Stella.
It has been through this encounter that I have begun to reflect more fully on our time of Sabbath rest. Has it been busy? Yes. Has it been what we planned? Nope. I have always said, If you want to make God laugh, tell God your plans! Has it been exactly what we needed? Yes!! Even though the pace may not have slowed down as we had hoped, the spiritual recalibration is happening. For me, the focus on being with and helping Denise with the monumental work in Florence has been life-giving. Yes, that even included packing a 26’ UHAUL full of furniture and driving it to Mobile where a homeless rehousing initiative at Denise’s church (Central Presbyterian Church in Midtown) had a storage unit that we filled! Life giving activity and work are truly a gift. Spending this time with my beloved has also been tremendously life giving.
Thomas Merton wrote in his book Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander about the need for balance in life. There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.
Activism and overwork are indeed a serious issue these days. This combination leads to the kind of burnout that I experienced over the past seven years of ministry and the deaths of family members and the decline of another. As I continue to digest the lessons of these past two months I am sure that more lessons will be revealed. In the meantime I am going to take a lesson from our sweet Pixie who crossed the rainbow bridge this past November. That same energy and lesson is now channeled through sweet Stella. The two HRH’s had/have a lot to teach me if I’ll slow down and pay attention.
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