Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, July 11, 2012

At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr; on this date, 1977, the

Medal of Freedom was awarded him posthumously.

My experience of Life is that most human beings are afraid of the uniqueness of each person. I’m not sure why. Of course there are exceptions. So, we spend an enormous amount of energy trying to make people fit into “acceptable” boxes …. which results in enormous violence and fear in the World.

It would be an extremely good thing, in my humble opinion, if the human community could make joy in and appreciation of our uniqueness a common project … every religion, every ethnicity, every political system, every philosophy. The loss of the fear of each other would be an enormous boon to our common life.

I give big kudos to the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, which just changed its canons to make sure that transgendered persons are not discriminated against in any of the structures of the church. One small step.

Today, I’d like to remind us of one key aspect of this process of changing the World and eliminating separation:    

Let us be non-violent to ourselves. Let us love ourselves. Let us be determined not to allow ourselves to be defined by other’s fear. In that freedom, let’s invite every person we meet to be true to their uniqueness.

I guarantee the World will be a much better place.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, July 10, 2012

America isn’t the greatest country in the world anymore.

From the lead into the new HBO series “The Newsroom”

Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16K6m3Ua2nw

Now. If you don’t like swearing, and you don’t like criticism  -  I would say honest analysis  -  about America, then please don’t listen to this this morning. Use the 3:27 minutes to center in Love and go about the day.

I personally think that what this soundbite says is true to the facts. In it I hear the powerful words of truth of the great prophets of the past two millennia … from Isaiah and Amos to Dr. King and many others of our own time.

My point? This video addresses one of the core spiritual truths. There is no reason that America, or any other people or country, or any individual, can’t be great. But greatness can never be if one refuses to see or hear or listen to the Truth. The “Devil” is known as the Prince of Lies … and it is so very easy to be tempted to live the Lie …. we are so easily misled. But Jesus said, “You will know the Truth and the Truth will set you free” … nothing else. The Spirit Jesus promised to send is the Spirit of Truth …. and only following that Spirit leads to “all righteousness”. And Jesus understood that we have to be spiritually ready … He never demanded that anyone do what He said. He just held up the Path … which must be freely chosen. Alas, the Path is rarely preached fearlessly these days.

America is in a perilous time. We live on the edge of believing that American greatness and God’s desires and God’s Kingdom are one in the same. They are not … and as long as we think that they are, as long as we allow self-serving preachers and our own self-serving hearts to confuse us, we cannot and never will be great.

“Walk humbly with our God” means to see, with the inner eye, the Truth. And having seen it, to turn away and to change our lives.

The rather simplistic phrase goes, “Jesus died to save us all”. But there’s only one way to be “saved”:   to turn away from lies to the truth. That is the first step to greatness.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Monday, July 9, 2012

Brian’s Reflection: Monday, July 9, 2012

.. He {Jesus} could do no deed of power there,

except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them.

And he was amazed at their unbelief.

The Gospel called Mark 6

[The Gospel reading for Sunday, July 8, Proper 9 B RCL ]

[ The complete Readings for Sunday can be found at:

http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Pentecost/BProp9_RCL.html

Love. Power. Wholeness. Healing.

They are critically interconnected. The World and the human community will be sick and powerless and fragmented as long as we do not understand and practice and live Love/Compassion.

[To my hearing, our new Rector picked up the same thing in his sermon:  his last words were something like, “Think how the World will change when we go out there and live like Jesus loved!”. I’ll be interested to see if as a preacher he’s “stuck in the same rut” I’ve been for 40 years … It’s all about Love.]

St. Paul, in the Epistle [II Corinthians 12], asking to be relieved of “a thorn in the flesh”, says Jesus said to him, My grace is sufficient for you; for power is made perfect in weakness. What that means to me is, When you discover the Divine Daughter/Son within yourself, and live that Divine Love, you will be healed and powerful and whole … and you will heal and make powerful and make whole … yourself and others.

I think it’s important to remember this:  the Gospel does not (in my experience) say that we must deny our Self, our Being, when we “submit to God”. It says that when we find the God Within, we find our deepest and truest Self.

Wholeness, Power, and Healing, defined by Love. That’s the Path.

Off we go.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Friday, July 6, 2012

When I was in the military,

they gave me a medal for killing two men

and a discharge for loving one.

Leonard Matlovich, a gay Vietnam Veteran

(1943-1988)

Leonard died in 1988 at age 45 of HIV-complicated illnesses.

What kind of society would you like to live in? What kind of moral construct would you like to live in?

One that rewards you for killing and punishes you for loving … or one that punishes you for killing and rewards you for loving?

No-brainer.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, July 5, 2012

The quest of the human heart for meaning

is the heartbeat of every religion.

Brother David Steindl-Rast

Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer

This is a wonderful thing to think about today. I hope you have time to .. or make time, to do so. Of course, I speak from the luxury of being “retired” … though my days are full and I too have to make time for the things that are important. “Making Time” is a given of Life, I think; “having time” is a fantasy.

For me, through my experience and study, the “human heart” … which includes all the human faculties … is the instrument by which the Mystery we call “God” is revealed. Maybe even created. I like to think, theologically, that “God” is “created” through every moment in which the human heart reaches out for Meaning. In one sense, one of God’s “titles” could be “Meaning” … and I think we come close to that when God says to Moses, “I AM”.

Does it disturb you to think that we create God? I don’t think it should. I think that there is no God without the maturing of each human person in the understanding that, as the early Church Fathers/Mothers … and indeed the Wise of every wise religious/philosophical path say … we come to understand that we are an Incarnation of God … just as Jesus and Zeus and Apollo and the Buddha and Shiva and all the gods/goddesses humankind have ever conceived are. Theologically, however, humans can’t be Gods/Goddesses. We are mortal … they are Divine Myths. But there is a magic moment in which the two become One in some essential way.

Every single God/Goddess we humans have ever created is a manifestation of Ourself … or, of who we think or hope or want our Self to Be.

Jesus says to His disciples: “You did not choose Me; I chose You!” How do I interpret that? In this way:  that this is a description of that superb moment when, in our search for meaning, we know in the heart that we are an Incarnation of our search for Meaning.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, July 3, 2012

I can no more think of my own life without thinking

of wine and wines and where they grew for me and

why I drank them when I did and why I picked the grapes

and where I opened the oldest procurable bottles,

and all that, than I can remember living before I breathed.

M.F.K. Fisher (Mary Frances Kennedy); this superb

woman was born on this date, 1908, at Albion MI.

She lived most of her early life in California.

I adore this woman … and I so wish that I could have met her and known her and traveled with her and eaten with her! MFK Fisher is my Alter Ego … Eric Cartman is my evil “twin” … but MFK Fisher is my divine twin … along with Elizabeth David, who puts a slightly sharper realism to my personality.

Unlike Ms. Fisher, I’m not a connoisseur of wines … I like what I like, and sometimes that’s Two-Buck Chuck! Any wine above $11.50 a bottle is a waste on me … unless it’s amazing! But I’ll tell you something:  the one wine I remember with absolutely clarity is Wente Brothers Blanc de Blanc. It was crisp and fresh on the tongue and shouted (quietly) of Joy and of the Earth … alas, they don’t make it anymore! I will always remember that taste in my mouth. I felt so alive and blessed by Mother Earth when drinking it.

Ms. Fisher’s words are a parable of how ecstatic and superb Life can be … and should be. I choose to believe that we are all  called to such a Life … it is why I feel so deeply wounded and saddened when I see how so much of the World’s people are deprived of what I believe “God” desires for us all. I’ve had the privilege of sitting in very simple Liberian and Brazilian and Mexican and Nicaraguan homes and feeling the joy and wonder of sharing food and drink and heart-connect with fellow human beings! (Thank God for my time in the Order of the Holy Cross for that!)

Ms. Fisher reminds us, through the image of her experience with good wine, that it is impossible , yes, impossible, to experience the fullness of Life without each other. We are made to uncork each other, drink of each other, appreciate the venue of each other, remember why we chose our friends, and rejoice in old friends … like any good wine, our friends are complex, bright, rich, gladdening of the heart, full of Life. They shape us into the persons we are meant to be.

Drink the wine, Friends. Drink the wine. The Breath of Life which we gulp for from the moment we enter the World is each other.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Monday, July 2, 2012

God did not make death,

And he does not delight in the death of the living.

For he created all things so that they might exist;

the generative forces of the world are wholesome,

and there is no destructive poison in them,

and the dominion of Hades is not on earth.

For righteousness is immortal.

Wisdom of Solomon 1

If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.

[ the woman with 12 years of bleeding ]

"Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping."

Mark 5

[  The Readings for this Sunday, July 1, Proper 8, Year b, can be found at:

http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Pentecost/BProp8_RCL.html  ]

Well, it’s Monday. Sunday is over, and those of you who go to a place or a group to “worship” have done so. I hope it was a useful, uplifting day. Dennis and I were away in Santa Fe, and spent the day driving back to Silver, reflecting on things as the amazing landscape that is the NM southwest floated by.

I was also thinking about the Readings for the Liturgy for yesterday. The Readings are … are we surprised … about Life. The Wisdom called after wise King Solomon has always been a favourite of the Hebrew Scriptures for me … a collection of many centuries of wise and useful thought. This reading reiterates the Message:  “God” is always about Life … What is the meaning of Life?  to Exist … as richly as possible. Even from “Solomon” we have the core:  Death is not of God … and we are to deny Death power. And, we are to remember every moment of our Life:  “the generative forces of the World are wholesome … it is we who introduce the deathlike aspect.

That wonderful woman who reached out to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment … she minds us (as my dear and valued priest friend Donna Ross said in her sermon yesterday) that we all seek wholeness/healing … and it happens in the context of our communities of Love.

And finally:  Jesus “raises the synagogue official’s daughter from death” … and here the Gospel reminds us that if we are not awake to the fullness of Life, if we are not seeking wholeness and healing, then we are “dead”.  One of the central works of Jesus … and of so many powerful and wise Teachers … is to “raise us from the dead”, to wake us up, to open us up to wholeness, found principally in loving each other.

Blessings of Wholeness today!

Brian+