These words are the title of one of my all time favorite anthems – especially for youth choirs (more about that in the next post) – but they came to my mind recently with the reading of another book that is surely among the best I have ever read – Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life* by Father Richard Rohr.

As I did in the previous post with another book I offer a snipet of Father Richard’s book with the hope of enticing you to buy and read the book – I am confident that you will be very glad you did!

“There is much evidence on several levels that there are at least two major tasks to human life.  The first task is to build a strong ‘container’ or identity; the second is to find the contents that the container was meant to hold.  The first task we take for granted as the very purpose of life, which does not mean we do it well.  The second task, I am told, is more encountered than sought; few arrive at it with much preplanning, purpose, or passion.

We are a ‘first-half-of-life culture,’ largely concerned about surviving successfully . . . establishing an identity, a home, relationships, friends, community, security, and building a proper platform for our only life.

Integrity largely has to do with purifying our intentions and a growing honesty about our actual motives.  It is hard work.  Most often we don’t pay attention to that inner task until we have had some kind of fall or failure in our outer tasks . . . life, if we ar ehonest about it, is made up of many failing and fallings, amidst all of our hopeful growing and achieving.  Those failings and fallings must be there for a purpose, a purpose that neither culture nor church has fully understood . . . that doesn’t mean that we can avoid the journey itself.  Each of us still has to walk it for ourselves before we get the big picture of human life.” (15-16)

*http://www.amazon.com/Falling-Upward-Spirituality-Halves-Life/dp/0470907754/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1306673018&sr=1-1

One of the most compelling new books that I have read recently is Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived* by Rob Bell.  I was informed by several people that it was a controversial book – which of course led me to move it to the top of my must read list.  I am very happy to report that I have now read the book and it now is at the top of my recommended reading list.

Following is a snipet that I hope will intrigue you to buy and read this wonderfully insightful book:

“So when the gospel is diminished to a question of whether or not a person will ‘get into heaven,’ that reduces the good news to a ticket, a way to get past the bouncer and into the club.

The good news is better than that.

This is why Christians who talk the most about going to heaven while everybody else goes to hell don’t throw very good parties.

When the gospel is understood primarily in terms of entrance rather than joyous participation, it can actually serve to cut people off from the explosive, liberating experience of God who is an endless giving circle of joy and creativity.

Life has never been about just ‘getting in.’  It’s about thriving in God’s good world.  It’s stillness, peace, and that feeling of your soul being at rest, while at the same time it’s about asking things, learning things, creating things, and sharing it all with others who are finding the same kind of joy in the same good world.” (152-153)

*http://www.amazon.com/Love-Wins-About-Heaven-Person/dp/006204964X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1306594428&sr=1-1

An article by Rabbi Sarah H. Reines* is valuable in helping our understanding of the word “repentance.”  Rabbi Reines writes:

“True repentance demands action.  The Hebrew word teshuva is generally used to mean repentance, but it literally means turning.  Teshuva expresses a process of reorientation that demands a complete change of mind, heart, and behavior.  It requires (1) recognizing our wrongdoing, (2) expressing our regret, (3) doing our best to reconcile with the injured party or, at least, make appropriate restitution to those we have wronged, and (4) changing our ways.  We achieve full teshuva when, faced with the reality of our wrongdoing, we acknowledge the transtression, then choose an appropriate and ethical response.  At that point, we will know we have turned away from evil and towards righteousness.

The process of teshuva is not articulated in Torah (the Five Books of Moses).  Its development throughout centuries of interpretation is one example of how normative Judaism grows out of the more expansive definition of Torah – namely, the entirety of Jewish scriptural tradition that encompasses the many centuries of interpretation postdating both the canonization of the Hebrew Bible and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

Too often, we brush off mistakes and misdeeds with empty words of apology.  Like the perfunctory ritual sacrifice, this is a meaningless gesture.  And when we take atonement less seriously, we risk taking transgression less seriously, as well.  True repentance is painful and difficult.  It doesn’t happen quickly, but it has lasting effect and is deeply fulfilling – for the penitent and for all creation.  As it is said, ‘Great is teshuva; it brings healing to the world.'”

*Rabbi Sarah H. Reines.  “Turning Ourselves Around.”  The Living Pulpit.  April-June 2007, pages 8-9.

I have been taught that it is not possible to love without first being able to forgive and that it is not possible to receive love without first being able to receive forgiveness.  I believe that is true.  This post marks the beginning of a series concerning love and forgiveness.

I begin with some profound words by scholar Dale Bruner* which continue to greatly influence my thinking:

“In the Second Table (or human side) of the Lord’s Prayer the order of petitions is instructive.  We pray first for food, then for forgiveness, and then for freedom and guidance.  There is sanity in Jesus’ sequence.  Sometimes in Jesus’ teaching the physical (or social) preceds the spiritual.  Starving persons need forgiveness, but they first need food.  A sick person needs eternal life, but in this Gospel the sick ask first for healing, and Jesus honors this human ‘first.’

‘Give’ and ‘forgive’ – these are humanity’s two great personal needs before God.  Please give us physically what we need in order to live like humans; then please forgive us spiritually those things that we do or don’t do so we can really live as humans – free of guilt . . . food is humanity’s priority need, but forgiveness is humanity’s profoundest need.” (309)

*Bruner, Frederick Dale.  Matthew: A Commentary.  Vol. 1.  Revised and Expanded Edition.  Grand Rapids:  William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004.

From the last post: “My purposes are not for my comfort, or yours.  My purposes are always and only an expression of love . . . what you see as chaos, I see as a fractal” (Young*, 191).

I was leading a group that was using Young’s book The Shack as the focus for our meetings for several weeks.  When we came to this part of the text most of us in the group looked at each other with glances that implied that we had knowledge of fractals.  As it turned out, one of the members of the group actually did have such knowledge.  A retired professor of mathematics, he taught us about fractals.  The following week he brought Benoit B. Mandelbrot’s book The Fractal Geometry of Nature to our meeting and continued to enrich our education and understanding.  A copy of Mandelbrot’s book is now a valued part of my personal library.  His concepts are still completely beyond my comprehension, but I love the wonderful pictures that are throughout the book.

Following is some information about fractals that I utilized in the preparation of a recent musical meditation for people in recovery:

The term fractal was coined by Benoît Mandelbrot in 1975 and was derived from the Latin fractus meaning “broken” or “fractured.”

A mathematical fractal is based on an equation that undergoes iteration, a form of feedback based on recursion.

A fractal is “a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole,” a property called self-similarity. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal)

 I encourage each reader to visit the following website – http://webecoist.com/2008/09/07/17-amazing-examples-of-fractals-in-nature/ .  I am confident that you will be amazed and also learn some more about fractals.

My prayer is that when we perceive chaos in nature that we remember that God the Creator has and continues to create marvelous examples of fractals.

*Young, William P.  The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity.  Los Angeles:  Windlown Media, 2007.

It has been my experience that people who have read The Shack by William P. Young* – or at least proport to have read it – either find it to be wonderful or terrible.  I find it to be a wonderful and thought provoking book and I am puzzled by some who find it inappropriate or intensely dislike it for some reason.

I am regularly concerned about the ways we attempt to make God in our own image rather than happily living as createds in God’s image, and I find numerous words in Young’s book which have been helpful in enlarging my understanding of God and becoming more realistic about the finiteness of humanity.

The following are some of the sections that I read and read again:

“People are tenacious when it comes to the treasure of their imaginary independence.  They hoard and hold their sickness with a firm grip.  They find their identity and worth in their brokenness and guard it with every ounce of strength they have.  No wonder grace has such little attraction.” (189)

“There are many folk . . . who end up locking themselves into a very small place with a monster that will ultimately betray them, that will not fill or deliver what they thought it would.  Imprisoned with such a terror, they once again have the opportunity to return to me.  The very treasure they trusted in will become their undoing.” (189)

“All evil flows from independence, and independence is your choice.  If I were to simply revoke all the choices of independnce, the world as you know it would cease to exist and love would have no meaning.  This world is not a playground where I keep all my children free from evil.  Evil is the chaos of this age that you brought to me, but it will not have the final say.  Now it touches everyone that I love, those who follow me and those who don’t.  If I take away the consequences of people’s choices, I destroy the possibility of love.  Love that is forced is no love at all.” (190)

“My purposes are not for my comfort, or yours.  My purposes are always and only an expression of love.  I purpose to work life out of death, to bring freedom out of brokenness and turn darkness into light.  What you see as chaos, I see as a fractal.” (191)

In the next post we will continue our consideration of fractals.  I hope you will join in the conversation.  Grace and peace.

It is good to be back and it is with mixed emotions that I write this first post after returning.  However, the important thing to communicate this day is that it is all about God’s grace – and to that end here are a couple of quotes from people I read when I need to be reminded of God’s gift of grace.

The first is from Gerald May*:  “Grace is the active expression of God’s love.  God’s love is the root of grace; grace itself is the dynamic flowering of this love; and the good things that result in life are the fruit of this divine process . . . God spontaneously gives us beauty and breath and touches of love . . . there is grace in the steady self-giving of God that protects our freedom and keeps us yearning.” (120)

The second from the pen of Frederick Buechner**:  “Grace is something you can never get but can only be given.  There’s no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about . . . the grace of God means something like: ‘Here is your life.  You might never have been, but you are, because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you.  Here is the world.  Beautiful and terrible things will happen.  Don’t be afraid.  I am with you.  Nothing can ever separate us.  It’s for you I created the universe.  I love you.’  There’s only one catch.  Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you’ll reach out and take it.” (139)

It is good to be back and alive in the world of God’s grace, mercy, love, and perfect justice.

*May, Gerald G., M.D.  Addiction and Grace.  San Francisco:  Harper and Row, Publishers, 1988.

**Buechner, Frederick.  Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC’s of Faith.  San Francisco:  Harper Collins Publishers, 2004.

This blog will be on vacation for a few days. Posts will resume on May 18, 2011.

Grace and peace

Sadly – I think that we often take actions and speak words that try to make us infinite – like God – rather than being the finite people that God created us to be.  Often our actions and words are well intentioned but misguided.

The only way to ltruly ive is in complete surrender of all that we are to the will of God.  Only in complete surrender are we able to experience freedom.

Gerald May* speaks of this when he writes:  “We all come ‘from freedom’ originally, and we are meant for freedom.  But addiction holds us back from our rightful destiny; it makes us prisoners of our own impulses and slaves to our own selfish idols.” (91)

Later he writes:  “Full love for God means we must turn to God over and against other things.  If our choice of God is to be made with integrity, we must first have felt other attractions and chosen, painfully, not to make them our gods.  True love, then, is not only born of freedom; it is also born of difficult choice.  A mature and meaningful love must say something like, ‘I have experienced other goodnesses, and they are beautiful, but it is You, my true heart’s desire, whom I choose above all.’  We have to turn away before we can come home with dignity.” (94)

One way we begin to do that is by embracing both our finitude and the loving and miraculous infinity of God.

*May, Gerald G., M.D.  Addiction and Grace.  San Francisco:  Harper and Row, Publishers, 1988.

Action is at the heart of the Twelve Steps.

The following is excerpted from The Good Book and The Big Book* by Dick B.:

Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only.  James 1:21-22 states:

Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.  But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

[Samuel] Shoemaker devoted an entire chapter in one of his titles (The Gospel According to You. New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1934) to this verse, stating:

I think St. James’ meaning is made much clearer in Dr. Moffatt’s translation, “Act on the Word, instead of merely listening to it.”  Try it out in experiment, and prove it by its results – otherwise you only fool yourself into believing that you have the heart of religion when you haven’t.” (Shoemaker, 45-55)

In the same chapter, Shoemaker also pointed out that prayer is often more a struggle to find God than the enjoyment of Him and cooperation with His will.  He added that “God is and is a Rewarder of them that seek Him.”

We cannot find a specific reference to James 1:21-22 in the Big Book; but A.A. stresses over and over that A.A. is a program of action that probably no human power can relieve a person of alcoholism, and “The God could and would if He were sought.”  A.A.’s program emphasizes action in the experiment of faith it adopted from John 7:17 – seeking God by following the path that leads to a relationship with God.  James 1:22 stresses doing God’s will as expressed in His Word – not merely listening to it.  James was an Akron favorite.  Shoemaker was a Wilson favorite.  “Faith without works” was a Big Book favorite; and it therefore seems possible that A.A.’s stress on action might have derived from in part from James 1:21-22. (103-104)

*Dick B.  The Good Book and The Big Book: A.A.’s Roots in the Bible.  Bridge Builders Edition.  Kihei, Hawaii:  paradise Research Publications, Inc., 1997.