The little I have is yours: another breath prayer

19
Dec

Aka When all you have to offer is a tolerance for pain, a coupla college credits, and a top-notch brain

Lest anyone think I’m trying to pass off the title of this post as my own, I hope you recognized it from Hamilton.

I’m trying to keep going with these breath prayers but I gotta tell you — it’s a challenge. There’s a lot of internal arguing with God in my head, and a lot of frustration with the way things are both on the individual and grand scales. It’s not that I think things are malfunctioning; it’s that I’m not sure the system was designed properly. Arrogant, I know, and I’m not trying to say I could do any better. I’m just here to point out that the way things are ain’t great. Yah, just what you needed to hear. You’re welcome?

Jesus, the little I have is yours.

Right now I don’t feel like I have a lot to offer. In the past, when words have failed me, paint has been the conduit through which I processed all those things that troubled or perplexed. Since these days just about everything trouble and perplexes me, it makes sense to offer these visual prayers in lieu of any analysis I could hope to toss out. So paint it is…

Part of what makes these such difficult times is that the circumstances we find ourselves in have revealed longstanding rifts in our society, as well as deep inequities and discriminatory attitudes, whether that’s about race, age, or status. The people at the helm seem incapable of imagination or compassion, and so let money drive their decisions rather than relying their humanity.

There’s so much pain.

|||

If you’ve ever heard of the enneagram, you might know some of the numbers that describe different types of motivations that direct our actions. Apparently I’m a seven, and sevens love to have fun…almost to a fault. Sevens try to steer clear of discomfort or pain, and it take a lot of discipline and reflection to stay in an uncomfortable situation. The instinct is to change the subject, make light of it, or evacuate the area. I’ve gotten better with practice, but there are still times when I have to work hard to stay present in the midst of conflict or discomfort. I’m trying hard to see and hear about the hardships people are facing. I’m very aware that there’s no guarantee these hardships won’t become my own.

People are experiencing profound pain, whether that’s because they’ve had to say goodbye to a loved one from a distance, or their livelihood is in jeopardy, or their child is struggling, or they’re deeply lonely. There’s any number of options for pain right now, and the only thing I can think to hope that people would feel God’s love in the midst of it, feel His/Her peace and buoying presence even in the darkness.

My prayer is that we would see each other’s pain and not look away. That we would bear each other’s burdens and bear witness to each other’s suffering. And then we’d strive to make changes to our systems so there are fewer cracks for people to fall through.

This all stems from the breath prayers Osheta Moore offered this summer. Click here for an intro

Moving forward in love

22
Nov

These pages in a handmade art journal were created as a response to breath prayers hosted by Osheta Moore. Most of the prayers are hers, but I missed a couple so I added my own to fill in the gaps. When in doubt assume they’re from Osheta.

Are you someone who mulls things over, reviews situations over and over again, reconsiders what should have been said or done?

Or are you a person who finds change difficult? Someone who wants to stick with what’s been tried and true, and drags your feet when forced to try new things?

We are at a point in our governmental season when it’s time to move forward. The election results are in, and you can recount what you want — the results still lead to a new president. It’s time for change. It’s too bad that the current president wants to burn it all down on his way out of office, but he’s entrenched in his self-focus, fighting and flailing to hold on to power even as he abdicates his job responsibilities in the midst of a global pandemic.

The trouble is, he has sown so much distrust in one of the most basic shared values of our country — that people have a right to participate in our government by casting a vote that impacts the direction of our country — that some people are willing to entertain his conspiratorial spitballing in a way that stretches the imagination.

I’ve heard people saying we need to come together and move on. That’s not totally wrong, but it’s incomplete.

The past four years have revealed deep divisions in what we believe the role of government should be, revealed deeply held mistrust of the global community, and an inordinate trust in the conspiracies woven so confoundingly they’re almost nonsensical.

The thing I’m struggling with, and why I turn to breath prayers to calm my racing mind, is the idea that we’re supposed to pretend the past four years didn’t happen and people didn’t show their true bigoted colors. Almost half the country voted to give this guy another four years. I understand that once upon a time you could claim you were voting for the platform, not the specific candidate. But that ship has sailed. People have shown they are perfectly comfortable with discriminatory policies, rolling back environmental protections, cronyism, nepotism, and thinly veiled racism.

It’s unreasonable to ask those who disagree with such positions and tactics to just let bygones be bygones. There’s bigger issues at play here, and those are compounded by the fact that most politicians in the president’s party refuse to break with him.

Found poetry from a poem by Rumi: We feel the call of God, and the journey changes. / The mountain feels level under us. Love becomes agile and quick/ This traveling’s not done with the body. God’s secret takes form in your loving, pure soul. / Messengers invite us to walk with them. They say, “You May feel happy enlightened where you are, but we can’t do without you any longer!” / My guide, my soul, only sadness is when I am not walking with you.

There’s something to be said for moving forward in love. But the love needed is the kind that presses someone to do better, to rise to their potential, a love that is so invested that refuses to sugarcoat conflict or difficult issues. I want to move forward in love, but not at the expense of dehumanizing and disenfranchising fellow citizens and minimizing issues that most directly impact their daily lives.

As I work through my indignation in these difficult times, I do try to focus on how I’m breathing, where my shoulders are, what jaw and forehead are doing, and how long I’m letting myself ruminate on what I’m thinking about.

We can all use a little breathing room to process our positions and next steps as we all try to move forward together, and hopefully we can move forward in love.

Handling hot emotions as we wait

2
Nov

This is an intense period in society here in the United States. There are strong feelings on all sides. As a general position in any situation, I dislike conflict, so any election season is tiring. You can probably guess (and I bet I’m not alone) that it’s been a lo-o-o-ong few months. I’m finding it hard to stay detached from the campaign and the results. The values I thought we shared as a nation have turned out to be negotiable and quickly cast aside, seemingly in a cheap swap for fear. Rather than being fringe positions held by outliers and discouraged by social norms, the president has normalized bigotry and tribalism (I think that’s fair to say), and has emboldened those who share his views. Some of the people I love dearly are sure to vote for him.

*My kids noticed these Biden campaign signs in a dumpster*.

Sometimes I feel pretty angry about it all.

This is a beautiful post by a friend of mine, Misty, who talks about art and anger, and I’d love to have you check it out. It’s easy to think of anger as being destructive or negative, and sometimes it is. But it doesn’t have to be. It’s similar to the idea of being “not fragile like a flower, fragile like a bomb.” Anger doesn’t have to be something that renders a person frothing and senseless. It can be a catalyst, an animating force that moves us to action.

*A breath prayer. Maybe you, like me, need to be reminded to breathe today.*

My friend Misty skillfully articulates the process of disappointment and heartbreak that so many people have experienced broadly by discovering their (our) own complicity in systems of oppression, and then specifically addresses disappointment with the white evangelical church. You can pop over to read it by clicking here.

One of the things we can try to do on the other side of this election is to listen to one another. That was a theme of the 2016 election and the success of 45; people who felt discounted thought someone was finally listening to them. It’s so easy to create cardboard cut-outs of one another, a mentality of ‘you voted for so-and-so which means you agree with everything they say’. Some folks are less reflective or analytical, and they vote the way they’ve always voted simply because that’s what they do.

It does seem like a fair question to ask if someone holds the same priorities as “their candidate” but things are often more nuanced than they’re presented in the quick bites we get in headlines. When we are given an either/or scenario, one that eschews both/and, it inherently limits the common ground we’ll be able to find. It might take some time to get the whole story. I’m willing to allow for that, and I think everyone is capable of growth and change. Change doesn’t happen overnight.

However, it means everyone should be listening, not only one side or the other. And when people decry the discriminatory policies and hate-mongering rhetoric of the administration, their voices and perspectives should be heard.

As for that in-between time we currently inhabit, we need grace, patience, and the willingness to continue open conversations, even when that’s uncomfortable. Do we need to have potentially awkward and hard discussions with people who hold different views than we do? Do we need invest in becoming more aware of and involved in the political process? Should we evaluate the goals we’d like to achieve and how can we help reach them? I think the resounding answer is yes.

Personally, while we wait I’m eating a blueberry muffin and a special coffee that’s flavored with honey and cinnamon. I’m being aware of my physical posture and checking in with my shoulders and eyebrows. I will be trying to limit how click-crazy I get and often I allow myself to check the results. Maybe I’ll take a peek at lunchtime but then I’ll try to wait until late afternoon before I look again. [That’s a lie: I’ve already checked two more times. But I can TRY to look LESS than I would otherwise.]

Then I’m going to make a plan for putting my anger into action, a plan for making change. If this election is showing us something, it’s showing us that the last four years have not been objectionable for almost half of the United States. I want to do something to change that.

In the meantime, we can all remember to breathe.

Trying to remain hopeful and keep believing

17
Oct

Another Breath Prayer

This is a challenging time. There are a lot of things happening in the United States that can make a person question the democratic process and second guess the values you thought were shared as common to our society. Civility and common courtesy seem to be at an all-time low, people are dehumanizing one another, and we are not listening to each other. People seem unwilling to see the world from anyone else’s point of view, and we’re painting one another as caricatures, unable to allow for nuance or middle ground.

This crosses over into matters of faith as well. There are many aspects that I once held as true that I just don’t see the same way. And there are leaders I was taught to trust who are making decisions that do not line up with the faith I thought we shared. It’s hard for me to see any validity in their position, so I understand how easy it is to write-off someone because of a position they hold. I have to work very hard to remain open and see past their positions to their humanity.

It’s a disorienting, disappointing thing to go through. It’s disorienting to feel yourself take yet another step away from the community you were raised in. I’m disappointed in others and disappointed in my response to them. I doubt I’m the only one who feels this way, but it’s hard to talk about.

It’s difficult not to feel discouraged. Praying about this feels like a burden right now. I’ve been listening to this song by Beyoncé and it’s been filling some musical spiritual need I didn’t know I had. I think it made it a little easier to keep having faith in the possibilities. Maybe you will feel it do that for you too.

We have to keep watching for opportunities to be inspired.

Keep trying to find those moments of lightness, those glimmers of what could be.

Keep pushing back on those assumptions of how things have to be because they’ve always been that way.

Be that agent of change.

And if we don’t connect again before the beginning of November, be sure to get out there and vote.

Glory shown through us

15
Sep

This should start by saying if you don’t believe in God, this conversation will be interesting only as a mental exercise. Because if there is no god then of course God doesn’t show his/her glory since there’s no one to do the showing.

If you do think there’s a God, however, you might have heard the idea of doing something for God’s glory or wanting to see God’s glory. Especially in Christian circles there is often an emphasis on making ourselves smaller in order to glorify God.

That sentiment – that I would need to diminish so that God could be made larger – has negative consequences when improperly applied. In many cases, women are taught that they should not think too much of themselves and certainly not talk about their skills or gifts. That would be immodest and you’d be accused of trying to claim for yourself what ought to be directed towards God.

Have a nice singing voice and someone compliments you? Give God the glory.

Make a sweet shot in basketball? Point to the sky and aim the glory toward God.

Get a strong score on a test? Praise God for the ability to study and that He helped you pass.

See what it does?

If it doesn’t undercut any confidence you might have in your own abilities, it certainly stymies any language you might have for articulating this or advocating for your own merit. If you aren’t supposed to acknowledge your own skills how are you supposed to pursue that higher position at work or talk about your contributions to the company when negotiating a raise? Or even take on more leadership in that organization where you volunteer?

As a woman, maybe you’re being shown that you aren’t supposed to do these things. That’s definitely true in some denominations more than others.

It’s worth noting that if God’s the creator, it makes sense for Him/Her to revel in you as part of creation. It makes sense for Him to take joy in those times when you find your sweet spot and engage in doing something you’re uniquely equipped to do. Why would God be jealous of that? I don’t think She would.

But that’s not the point — the point, this thinking goes, is the reverse…that we forget about God when we pay too much attention to ourselves and our accomplishments. And bet we can agree that we all can think of somebody who thinks too highly of themselves and puts themselves at the center of every conversation or event.

There’s wisdom in focusing the glory on God, as well as seeking out ways to see His glory, whatever that looks like in a modern, practical way. Right about the time I start getting myself into a mental twist about this, it occurs to me that we see His glory more often than we realize, maybe because we haven’t thought to associate glory with a beautiful sunset or when you see a loved one step into themselves and the air thrums with purpose and fulfillment.

God’s glory can be observed when we are most fully alive.

That thought loosens up my heart, and helps me remember that these are breath prayers. And so, I remember to breath.

These are a series of breath prayers. You can see all of them by looking at my page on FB or on IG. These are all either written or inspired by Osheta Moore.

Storyteller – a third breath prayer

26
Aug

Note: this is another installment in a series of breath prayers. You can read the first post here

In recent years there’s been an emphasis on the concept of story. From Bob Goff sharing inspiring examples of how he chose to invest in making his life a great story (and he does tell of exciting adventures and an openness that has brought opportunities that would never have happened with a closed-off attitude), to the TED talks to audiobooks. There’s even been a focus on “narrative” in the media — story is permeating our culture. The thinking is that story connects us, draws us in, makes us aware of our own impact, and helps us listen to the perspective of others. Just because something hasn’t happened to us, it doesn’t mean it’s not a real part of someone else’s lived experience.

When it comes to story the focus in Christian churches quickly pans over to Jesus, the teller of parables, who used examples from everyday life to illuminate complex concepts that blew people’s hair back in their radicalness.

Out of myself, but wanting to go beyond that, wanting what I see in your eyes, not power, but to kiss the ground with the dawn/breeze for company, wearing white pilgrim cloth. I have a certain knowing. Now I want sight.
Rumi

One thing Jesus often did was use figurative language that made metaphoric mincemeat of the religious leaders of the time. I mean, ouch. He didn’t hold back. He was probably quite offensive to a certain set of people, just as he was enthralling to a different set. He upset the balance and he was not sorry. He made people question everything they thought they knew.

Great Storyteller, give us the words of life.

The thing about storytelling is that is narrows the gap between “us” and “them”, and helps us see our universal humanity. None of us got where we are without accumulating some life experiences that shaped our opinions and perspectives. Listening respectfully to one another’s stories can help us all have more compassion for one another. No one side has all the answers, and no one side is always wrong about every single thing all the time. I think allowing for that is a sign of maturity, maturity we could all use right now.

When I think about storytelling from a Jesus-informed position, I have to wonder who he’d be calling out right now and who he’d be standing beside. It’s definitely something worth considering…and potentially very convicting if we allow ourselves to really think about it.

This all began because Osheta Moore was hosting breath prayers on Instagram. Please be sure to search for her, as she is a wonderfully nurturing source of grace and spiritual wisdom.

Breath prayers: a series

2
Aug

I’ve been working on something for the last few months, during this challenging time, when we’re facing situations and challenges, awakenings and reckonings, an author and pastor introduced a series of morning breath prayers. That pastor’s name is Osheta Moore, and she is a lovely human who wrote Shalom Sistas, and preaches at Woodland Hills and Roots Covenant, among other places.

While facing a pandemic of an illness that zeroes in on the lungs, breath prayers seemed keenly appropriate. That was In late March/ April. Then at the end of May in Minneapolis a police office knelt on the neck of George Floyd and killed him. And the outrage at this, and the national reckoning with institutions that are set up to keep people down that followed is making people take a hard look at the ways their silence — my silence — has supported racism.

All that to say, it’s been a good time for breath prayers.

I thought I’d spread them out over the month of August, a time when the summer weather in Minnesota usually reaches its peak. Right now there’s a fever pitch of stress surrounding school’s plans for fall and how people are going to support their kids’ education, especially in this time of pandemic. It’s hard to know what the right decision is, and there’s not one cookie-cutter answer for every family, for every child. So how do we even start to pray about it?

Again, it’s a good time for breath prayers.

The cover of my handmade journal that began life as a box of crackers headed for the recycling bin.

A breath prayer is so simple, with the goal of giving our busy minds time to rest and time to pause. Almost a form of meditation, you just focus on a simple phrase, usually one that is short and can be said in one inhale or one exhale. Maybe the two portions work together. Maybe it’s longer and takes two breathes to complete, o pne phrase used on the inhale, one used with the exhale. The idea though is that it’s short enough to mimic our breathing, and can slow our breathing and slow our racing minds.

This post will probably be one of the longer of the series. I hope to share one or two per week during August. I will try to be clear which prayers are from Osheta and which ones are from me, because I think it’s important to give Osheta credit for these beautiful prayers and for the inspiration for this journal. For example, today’s prayer is from Osheta.

Today’s prayer: Mother God, distract me with delight.

There are a couple dictionary entries on this page, and a blackout (or whiteout in this case) poem based from a book of poems by Rumi.

The definition of pray: to request or make a request for in a humble, beseeching manner syn plead, petition, appeal, entreat

The poem reads:

God is giving a general introductory lecture.

We hear and read it everywhere, in the field, through the branches.

We’ll never finish studying, yet we’re considering.

Shall I say this with other metaphors? A barn crowded with souls. Quietness served around a table. Two people talk along a road that’s paved with words.

Mother God / distract us with delight.

The next page simply says breathe in / breathe out

As I use these prayers I try to focus on that prayer’s thought throughout the day, paying attention to where it pops up or how I feel in relation to it. I think God shows us things this way, even if it’s just showing us something more about ourselves.

And that’s it! I hope you’ll enjoy this series, and I’d love to hear what kinds of prayer are meaningful to you. Feel free to leave a comment and share with friends who might find this helpful.

Very little margin this Advent Season

10
Dec

At the end of November we took an epic family road trip, something we’ve never done with our extended family.

We spent a week down south and it was glorious.

I know. I’ll shut up now.

To make you feel better, you should know we returned to this…

This is the project we’ve been preparing for since spring. And now that it’s underway, we’re glad…but surprised at how many questions there are, decisions to make, and conversations to have. It’s exhausting. And it’s definitely a first-world problem.

|||

It’s into these circumstances that I walk into Advent. Things have been hectic, then restful, then stressful, then lovely, then filled with annoyances.

In a word, it’s been Life.

In the midst of all this I’m trying to carve out space to be aware of Advent, if only for the resetting value of it. If only for the value of preparations, of waiting, of anticipation, and watching.

For example, in trying to find ANY time to sit quietly, even loudly, but to sit mindfully, I could get only this much done…

This sketch then sat in my car for a couple days getting creased and coffee-marked, until I gave up on trying to steal time in the midst of errands and brought it back inside.

One day I got this done:

Then a day or two later I was able to spend more time and I finished it (over the course of an evening and morning):

There’s probably an Advent lesson there but I’ve yet to discover it. What I know is that the effort matters. It matters that even if it’s in your own thoughts, you’re trying to pay attention and notice elements of peace, hope, joy, and love.

That might be the extent of how you mark the Advent season, and that’s good enough.

A larger table

11
May

This week the world of Christian writing and thought and theology lost a pivotal figure in Rachel Held Evans. She went into the hospital at the beginning of the Lenten Easter season and passed away over the weekend of May 3. She was 37 years old. She had many books still to be written, many years with her family still to be lived, and many creative pursuits still to explore.

Almost immediately after she passed away news outlets and online sources wrote articles about her impact on modern Christianity. They talked about the way she articulated disenfranchisement with the current church, and the impact that she had in being a prophetic voice, “prophetic” here meaning one who reflects reality to the people around her and then calls them to something better.

One of the places that should have done the best job of memorializing her was the magazine, Christianity Today. This is the publication that is most frequently viewed as the voice of the majority of American Christianity and its trends, interest movements and culture. And the fact they bungled it speaks volumes.

There were also many people online who were harsh and insensitive. And even hateful. These are people who describe themselves as Christians and they celebrated her passing. This is a real problem, especially when you consider Jesus’ words in the Book of John that said love is how people will know someone is a disciple of Jesus.

This is something that is larger than just a one off anomaly in regards to a potentially divisive person within the church. This is reflective of the attitude of many Christians towards anything that does not up uphold their exacting uber-conservative demands. To see it all you have to do is look at all the ways Christians are known for what they’re against rather than the positives they’re for. It’s hard to want to be associated with a group that would be so dis-compassionate they’d be glad someone had died.

|||

To understand why Rachel might have been seen as divisive, it’s important to understand the environment she was responding to. It’s an environment where the Bible is inerrant and everything is tested against it. It’s an environment where men are generally seen as being the leaders and women are frequently the ones who do the heavy lifting of implementation. And this is all just the start of the things Rachel addressed in her writing.

Here’s the problem, particularly with the inerrancy of the Bible and the insistence that it be taken as literal: Those who claim to be Bible believers rarely realize they are not actually taking the Bible literally. And I don’t mean “literally” in the exaggerated sense as when you’re talking to someone at lunchtime and they say, ‘I literally couldn’t get out of bed today.’ I mean literal as in taking each word with it’s direct and intended meaning. Western people with the highest respect for and knowledge of the Bible are rarely observing the law of the Old Testament. They’re rarely, if ever, taking literally the proclamations of Jesus about loving your enemy or taking care of the alien or widow among you.

And guess what? Neither am I.

Everyone who lives a modern life is doing some interpretation of the Bible, wittingly or not. There’s history and traditions and interpretation thrown in that we’ve become blind to, and not by some underhanded scheme to deceive anyone, but simply by being immersed in the culture of “church”.

The fear that’s perpetuated is that if you ask hard questions about troubling passages, where will the questions take you? Where will they lead? If you question the inerrancy of the Bible, they say, you will start down a slippery slope that will probably lead to an unraveling of your faith. Better to leave those questions to the grown ups, who are most decidedly not you.

Start at 1:15 to hear what they say will happen if you question ANY of the Bible

|||

One of Rachel’s first books was called A Year of Biblical Womanhood . In it she tried to put into practice the laws and directives the Bible placed on women, such as sitting on her roof when she had an argument with her husband, baking bread a certain way, or even removing herself from her normal routine and sleeping in a separate tent one week out of the month.

What she accomplished through this experiment was to gently point out the absurdity of the claim while still respecting the underlying validity and importance of the Bible. She respected the Bible, felt it was full of truths and wisdom, even if it didn’t have to be used as a step by step rulebook to follow, such as Robert’s Rules of Order . That didn’t scare her, she let it be fine in its own self, rather than trying to force it to fit external set of criteria.

And that was just the tip of the iceberg. She amplified voices of those who have been underrepresented, repressed, and discriminated against. She saw Jesus as building a bigger, longer table that could include more people, not fewer. Think about the way Jesus turned things on their head by hanging with those the established religious folks wouldn’t have consorted with by light of day. That’s who Rachel wanted to make space for.

My friend once described my parents as Jesus hippies. That made me laugh and I felt very comfortable with that idea, and I think they did too. I want to be a Jesus hippy. I want to be more concerned with the way my life communicates God’s love to the world around me rather than excluding people. And I want to be courageous in speaking up for those whose voice has been silenced.

Love, grace, and peace be to the memory of Rachel Held Evans, and may we all build longer tables to accommodate a larger feast.

Here’s a lovely article remembering Rachel Held Evans by Sarah Bessey

If you want to read one of Rachel’s other books you could try Searching for Sunday or Inspired , which came out less than a year ago. And if you read any of her books I’d love to hear what you think.

Third week of Advent: we could use a little joy

23
Dec

We’re falling a little behind now, but I think it’s still worth it to write about each of the weeks of Advent rather than skipping one in order to catch up. Plus I like joy — who doesn’t like joy?? [Note: if you want to read posts on joy from previous years you can read one here, and another one here. If you’re behind on the Advent posts from this year, you can read Hope here and Love here.]

The thing is, in the past I’ve been taught that joy is a long-lasting dispositional quality, as contrasted with happiness, which is situational. I don’t disagree with that, and we all know people who are almost never positive about anything, regardless of the circumstances good or bad. So what does it matter if someone is joyous or happy, if someone is filled with joy or with happiness? I mean, are these cows joyful, or just happy (or on the verge of a stampede) and ultimately does it matter?

I suppose one could argue that they’re happy, because they’ve been released into the spring grass and they will acclimate and probably won’t continue bouncing around with glee. All I’m trying to suggest is that we don’t need to have disdain for their happiness. It’s not “less than” because it’s circumstantial. I feel much the same way as these cows when it comes to springtime sun and fresh air. Or this dog who learns to be a dog…

Again, is it happiness, is it cultivating joy, and aside from being in a healthy safe place, how important is that distinction?

I only watched like the first 5 minutes of the Paul McCartney video above, and it made my heart all warm and fuzzy, so I hope you feel the same way after watching some of it. There’s an aspect of gratitude in it that seems conducive to joy. In my experience, more grateful one is, the easier it is to find joy.

I’ve been working on an art page for a while, and I think it’s done enough to share now. I was trying to capture that feeling of joy and elation, while also using specific materials that I felt were important but challenging. There’s something about the childhood joy of getting a choice swing all to yourself without anyone pressuring you to give them a turn, when you can go as high as you want, day dreaming and imagining all sorts of adventures. If you notice something unusual about the chains on the swing, it’s because they’re made from insulin pump tubing. 🙂

|||

The coming of Jesus is an event of gratitude and joy, especially when Jesus is viewed as the great healer, the reconciler, the one who calls all people unto himself. In the United States the white evangelical church focuses so heavily on humanity’s fallen-ness, God’s wrath, and the idea of Jesus as a blood sacrifice to atone for people’s sins, there’s not much room to pay attention to how Jesus lived his life…we’re too focused on his death.

There are other positions, such as the role of Jesus as example of how to live a life, how to treat people unlike ourselves, and even as a great unifier of all things. Richard Rohr has some interesting things to share on this concept — Jesus as the Cosmic Christ. [He’s also written about the idea of the first half of our lives being all about building containers for meaning, and the second half of our lives being a process of dismantling those containers. That’s a wonderful head scratcher for anyone over 35!] But again, the evangelical church in the United States doesn’t talk much about that, since the going theology is the exclusivity of Christianity.

However, how much more joyous is it to think of Jesus as making all things new, including humanity? Definitely something to think about.

What’s bringing you joy this season?