Rus Blassoples

Grow Into Your Loveliness

2012-02-24T10:52:00.003+02:00

Young people at St Stephen's Church, Pinelands

May we be drawn, more and more, into how unutterably precious others, the earth, animals, ourselves, and things are. How unutterably precious God is... May we grow into our loveliness.
Reteach one another this loveliness
as Galway Kinnell poems.

And may we hear
what Jesus heard at the river Jordan:

You are my love,
My lovie love,
My beloved...

May we
believe that for ourselves
and of ourselves too.
May we be
who we
in essence
are.

Love
Lovie love
Beloved

Love

Wrapped in Purple Cloth

2012-02-24T00:03:00.000+02:00

We wrapped the colour purple around some of the trees in the garden in front of St Stephen's Church, Pinelands. Lent, for me, is always a purple-green time. A time of profuse spiritual growth... In the ancient world, purple fabric was precious. What a precious gift the season of Lent is. Like a tree, may you grow up towards the sky and down towards and into the earth.

Postscript: I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it - Alice Walker.

Dreaming My Boy

2012-02-22T22:20:00.001+02:00

The dream put me on the other side of the lens, there where you are

I dreamt of you in the early hours of this morning, for the very first time since you died. What a precious, priceless Lenten gift. I could hear, touch, feel, and smell you in 3D again...What a gift dreams are!

And you laughed alot. Thank you. In the dream, you were a boy of 9 or 10 (close to where you are in the photo above). But it was still all you. There was an unspoken sadness also in our happiness. We both didn't hold on to the other too much. I was scared to break the spell and thread of the dream. I'm usually good at manipulating my dreams (I dream lucidly)... but this one was far too precious, far too soft and sacred. It is as if I reached another side I'm too afraid to admit exists. Sad that I may not be able to find my way there again...

I remember only thinking in my dream, but not saying it out loud, for fear that it would scare you. I remember thinking repeatedly, 'But you died...' And then you'd laugh that boyish laugh and we'd both be alive.

I felt seen, and loved, and held. Hope you felt the same. What a precious, priceless gift. The energy of which, my baby boy, has spilt over into my day, and into right now as I type... as I look. As I long...

Ash Wednesday

2012-02-22T07:32:00.001+02:00

I delight in this story attributed to Jesus and hope that if and when he told it, or stories like it, he was very animated! Jesus tells the story of those who fasted pulling long and gloomy faces (Matthew 6: 16 - 18). I hope when he told these stories, he too pulled a long, gloomy and unsightly face. And perhaps his audience (which, in all likelihood included children), would have ...rolled about and laughed out loud. And through their laughter, lose their inhibitions, and then resettle more deeply into their true Selves. Also, through their laughter, resettle into the many truths his teachings must have awakened in them.

Postscript: Sometimes we can be so humourless and loveless; so institutional as church. So unlike the rabbi in whose name we dare to speak.

Today, as we join millions of Christians throughout the world in our Lenten Journey, groom yourself - don't look sullen and gloomy about your fast. Do it secretly... it in itself will reward you... and your abba who sees these secret and soulful things, will be over the moon with delight (Matthew 6:17).

A Healing Journey

2012-02-20T22:37:00.000+02:00

In Mark's gospel, stories of healing appear one after theother – and right at the beginning. It is almost as if Mark is so excitedto say that healing is part of the gift Jesus brings.

Last week, Jesuscured a man with leprosy; he was moved to anger because this unnamed man,thought of himself so disparagingly.

In today’s gospel (Mark 2:1-12),Jesus comes to Capernaum; the new place he has now calls home. I love thisvery telling line; Nazareth, you see, was his hometown (where he grew up). But Jesus also seemed to have beenprepared to be completely at home anywhere. I mention this, just as an aside,and as a point of interest. We all have our hometowns; but sometimes, on thisjourney we are also called to be at home – or to make our home elsewhere. If we are gracious (or spacious) enough todo so, it can be very healing to ourselves and to others.

So Jesus comes toCapernaum; the new place he now calls home. And he causes an excited frenzy;everyone wanted to hear him speak the word to them. He spoke good and God tothem in such fresh tones that their hunger for him grew.

Four people come toJesus, carrying a fifth man – who is paralysed, on a mat.

It takes some gutsand graciousness to allow yourself to be helped, to be assisted, to be carried. Ittakes big-heartedness to learn to walk, or live life at a different pace. Ittakes big-heartedness to use a walking stick, or a walker – to allow yourselfto be assisted by something orsomeone. To realize that we really can’t do this Journey, all on our own. Prideand self-consciousness, even vanity,must be put in its proper place. Such graciousness and big-heartedness is foundin abundance, here at St Stephen’s (the Parish I am in). Never underestimate how healing suchgraciousness and big-heartedness can be - to others and to yourself.

Four people come toJesus, carrying a fifth. When they could not bring him to Jesus because of thecrowd, they removed the roof above him. It was easy to get onto the flat roofsof many houses in Jesus’ day and time via an outside staircase. So this is whatthey do.

I love that theydidn’t just give up. But that they pressed on, and made another plan. Exhaustedall the options, as it were.

As you know, sometimes,there are many obstacles on this Journey towards healing and wholeness. I praythat you will have the blessing of friends who, from time to time, will carryyou – and bring you to moments of healing through whatever you find hard orharrowing; bring you to the feet of an incredible healer when you yourselfcan’t (for whatever reason). Friends who will persist; who will keep at it – and friends who will keep at you.Whispering to you, words of encouragement.

I like to think thatperhaps, the man on the mat, when they struggled to get through the door,perhaps he said, ‘Guys, never mind. Let’s not do it. I’ll have no more.’ Thejourney, you see, can really be exhausting. But it’s good to have those who, uptheir sleeves, or in their back pockets, will have a plan B. So up the steps –a steeper climb, involving more effort and risk… So up the steps and throughthe roof they go.

That house atCapernaum, where Jesus made his new home, is thought by some, to have beenSimon Peter’s house. And that perhaps Jesus, lodged there. Who knows thesethings for sure? But I sometimes wonder, just as an aside, how Peter must havefelt to have his roof so thoroughly wrecked.

Our journey towardshealing and wholeness is sometimes fraught with complications and obstacles.Love the image that they had to perhaps literally ‘dig through the roof.’ Coming tothese moments of healing and holiness can be hard work. So they dug, not with aspade, but with their hands. When you dig with your hands, you almost alwaysfind yourself, on your knees. And that is what the four did.

They lowered their friend.They let down the mat. Part of the healing is actually also just to let go. Tolet things really leave our hands so that they can be received into the handsof this Healer every clambered round to see.

I hope Jesus smiledwhen he saw their faith. This phrase whenhe saw their faith. When he saw her faith or his faith appears many timesin the gospels.

When he sees howmuch they trust in a bigger outcome, he is moved. And healing happens.

Just like lastweek’s gospel, after healing this man, Jesus does not expect him or his fourfriends to join the proverbial bandwagon– to join his crusade. Jesus is unconditionally kind. It’s so unlike the way wedo love – the way we do Christianity today.

Jesus isunconditionally kind. But Jesus says this marvellous thing. Stand up. Take yourmat. And he doesn’t say, ‘follow me’. Jesus says to the man, ‘Go to your home’.

TS Eliot wouldwrite, many, many, many years later, Homeis where we start from. And perhaps Jesus is saying, go and make a freshstart.

But of course, justlike last week’s gospel, the man began to tell all! He couldn’t keep his mouthshut. He doesn’t listen to Jesus at all! Mark must have a sense of humour.

And people who heardhis story were amazed and glorified God. For they had never seen anything likethis before!

First Kiss

2012-02-17T14:33:00.002+02:00

Photo of Gabriel Burger, by Cristiano Madureira, googled

A Poem by Rus entitled

FIRST KISS, which excludes kissess from family
(including especially, kisses from grannies,
uncles, aunts and the like...)
FIRST KISS. FIRST KISS

It wasn't just a kiss.
It was a kiss where at the other end of me,
there was you

Canon of Scripture

2012-02-16T17:01:00.001+02:00

Photo by Neil Wade, used with permission

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We are the ones who make the scriptures, Scripture. We are the ones who decide what's sacred and what's not. And, in a sense, there's nothing the matter with that. It does not diminish God. It makes our responsible participation in God all the more real, heavy and holy. Bringing into sharp focus that God is wrapped up in our DNA or we in God's (these things are interchangeable).

As I've said before, never in their wildest dreams did people like Paul and others who wrote the letters we now find in the New Testament, never did they think they were writing scripture as we regard their writings today.

My soul smiles therefore, again and again, when the lectionary makes us read passages like this and umpteen similar ones: 'You will do well if you fulfil the royal law according to the scripture' (emphasis added)... And then the author of the Letter of James, goes on to quote what he and his religious tradition deemed as scripture (see James 2:8). The author quotes from the Hebrew Bible - the only scriptures they - and Jesus knew and revered. The author hardly considered his letter to be scripture.

I am astounded at our arrogance, from some quarters of our Christian family. Astounded and ashamed at how we dismiss other religious traditions and their sacred writings and scriptures. I'm humbled to my core when I come across these gems in our own New Testament. Because, at some point in our ecclesiastical history, the writings we now revere, were canonized and declared to be sacred. Said to be Scripture.

Sadly, those who tout the Christian scriptures so violently as being the exclusive 'Word of God' would rarely acknowledge this historic, human moment. And, because it is historic and human, this does not make it less holy or less God-inspired. What does taint the picture, however, is our arrogant assertions and the implicit belief that we are the only ones on the planet to have had such human, historic, and holy God moments. I smile like the Buddha, and weep like the Christ.

Spiritual Teachers

2012-02-12T20:30:00.002+02:00

Photo by Don Elmore

Great spiritual teachers awaken in us what has always been there. Like Jacob, asleep on his stone pillow, a great spiritual teacher will always help us articulate this truth, 'You were with me all along, but I did not know it.'

The Bandwagon

2012-02-12T18:50:00.003+02:00

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Again and again, in the gospels, you will find Jesus being healing, helpful and kind – not to win people over to 'his cause' or to bolster his popularity or numbers… but he is kind and helpful and healing for its own sake; and because he has such a marvellously compassionate – huge heart.

It's so different to the way we do Christianity and package the gospel today - obssessed with 'winning souls for Christ' as it were. When many times, in the gospels, Jesus encourages those he has touched, or helped, or healed, not really to join the bandwagon, but to go home or he simply leaves them alone. Today's gospel is no exception, see Mark 1:40-45.
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Chancel Steps

2012-02-11T22:00:00.000+02:00

Image from Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ

Standing there on the chancel steps, I am always filled with both happiness and hurt; honour and humiliation. Love - and the mature expression of that love is the birthright of us all.

Postscript: Recently, I officiated at my 40th wedding as priest. The couple is delightful and do not take the privilege of marriage for granted. They've come a long, long way. As you may or may not know, the church discriminates horribly against its own. Some priests are allowed to be in committed loving relationships, and are allowed to get married, while others are forced to be celibate (in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa). I always stand on the chancel steps filled with both happiness and hurt; honour and humiliation. I know in my marrow that Love - and the mature expression of that love is the birth and human right of us all. I dream for this day.

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Human First

2012-02-10T23:26:00.002+02:00

St Peter Receiving the Keys to Heaven. Image Googled.

You are a human being first, before you are a Hindu, or Buddhist, or Christian, or Muslim, or Jew, or atheist, before you are gay, or straight, or whatever... a human being... And that humanness, in my estimation, is what guarantees you a Seat at Table. Not really what or who you believe or do not believe in. You don't need to hold the keys, like Peter. You are the key. Your humanness will unlock any hallowed door.

Postscript: In the world of Jesus, at night, a shepherd was often, literally, the gate of the sheepfold. Buddhism talks about the Gateless gate through which we pass. (Y)our humanness is the key that will unlock any hallowed door.
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Knowing the Rules

2012-02-06T19:26:00.002+02:00

'Teacher', the rich man said,

'I have kept all these [commandments] since my youth.'

Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said...

If you come to the end of this Journey and all you know are rules (or, to use Church language, all you know are the canons), that would be very sad indeed...

I love that Jesus, many times, uses party imagery (eating and feasting) when talking about 'God's kingdom' - God's dream for the earth and for us. You don't go to a party with a set of rules; you go to engage and participate on a different level. A level that involves not just your clever or manipulative mind; but also your stomach, your vulnerable self and soul. This is the self and soul that 'tastes' heaven as it were.

Jesus, Children and a Rich Man

2012-02-06T14:40:00.002+02:00

Likemany good teachers, Jesus must have had asense of drama, and probably a good sense of humour about him. A sour puss doesn’t really draw crowds; and ittakes a certain kind of personality to have children becomfortable around you. I think Jesus had that going for him. Not, necessarily,because he was God’s Son, but just because he was Jesus. He was being hisauthentic self. And this Self, drew people to him.

He told memorable andmade up stories to illustrate his point – parables are what we call them. Hemust have moved his audience (often, a mixed audience of adults and children, Imight add)… He must have moved them to laughter and tears. I hope he was veryanimated when he told these stories (like my grandmother used to be), makingthem laugh out loud; or having them be stirred and moved into soft and soulfulsilence. Moved to that place where they felt a burning transformation inside.

He certainly seemed to be very hands on. Like tonight’s gospel story (Mark 10:13 – 22).

People were bringinglittle children to him in order that he might touch them.

It strikes me that theybrought children to Jesus, not, necessarily, because they were sick. They werejust children. And they brought them to him just to be touched by him. And his touch was all the blessing theyneeded. Not his words; not his clever thoughts about God; but his touch.

Some ancient societiesbelieved that your soul came through your fingertips. Perhaps those ancient parentsknew this truth too. There is something really transformative and powerful intouch. Touch, as you know, can often carry us far beyond what words can do.Touch, you see, doesn’t just involve your head… it requires your whole self.

And that’s was Jesus wasdoing. His disciples wanted to stop this nonsense. Perhaps because they thoughthe needed rest, or because it was a waste of time; him fraternizing with littlechildren. But Jesus was indignant and said, Letthem come to me.

And so, he teaches hisdisciples; those in his inner circle – those in the know as it were; he teaches them that child-likeness iscentral, and not incidental, to really getting a more complete picture of God.

In other words, if youwant to enter into the reality of God, more than head-faculty is required. Morethan clever, systematic arguments; more than just following a set of rules isrequired. You’ve got to bring your wholeself, as it were, to the party; to the banquet. Not for a lecture I might add,but to eat.

And then, Mark blesses uswith such a marvellous picture which Church historians and iconographers neverwrite about. Like the disciples, those who recorded and had such a hugeinfluence over the shaping of Western Christianity, rarely do they make a bigdeal out of this magnificent picture:

He took the little children up in his arms, laid hishands on them, and blessed them. This Jesus, isnot often written on icons, or truly celebrated – and made central by thechurch as institution.

This brings me to thesecond picture, and then I will conclude:

A rich man comes toJesus; a man who has been following all the rules, since he was a youth. Hewants to get the bigger picture. He wants to participate in God’s dream for theearth. And he asks, very legitimately, ‘What must I do?’ We are so do-oriented.I wish he had also asked Jesus – not only what must I do; but also who must I be?

And, looking at him, Jesusloved him, and perhaps would have said:

Be like a child; be bornagain; be yourself – don’t try to be someone else.

Be the person who you inessence are – beyond what and how the world limits you.

Be beyond your trappings;your ego power and wealth

Be who you, in essenceare.

The Good God saw in thebeginning;

when you were formed andyour limbs were still imperfect.

Be that… and more.

It’s good to know therules. We all start by knowing the rules, by knowing what to do. But thatcannot be our continuing point, as Richard Rohr would say. And nor can it be our end point (paraphrasing Richard Rohr). Ifyou come to the end of this journey and all you know are rules (or, to usechurch language, all you know are the canons), that would be very sad.

When he heard this, hewas shocked and went away grieving, for he was possessed by many things. Heknew what to do. And there’s nothing the matter with that. But to take the nextstep in this transformation journey, we must also know what and who to be.

Be descent. Be kind. Bereasonable. Be gentle. Be firm. Be considerate. Be human. Be yourself. Behappy. Be a child of God. Be a blessing. Don’t just say your prayers. Be aprayer (paraphrasing Rohr).

Loving Him for Him

2012-02-04T23:22:00.002+02:00

The very first followers did not read the Story as we do.

They lived the Love moment by moment

The very first followers of Jesus appear to have loved him before they knew what we now know, read and preach about him. The very first ones appear to have loved him for him and not for the titles, miracles, or deeds that – in time, have come to be associated with or attributed to him. Not even because he 'died for their sins'. That event, and theologies about that event was still in the making. The very first ones appear to have been drawn to an unmediated, naked, him. They appear to love more than simply theologies, creeds and doctrines about him. They appear to love him - not because he died for their sins, or rose on the third day, or because he was 'their personal saviour' (as so many Christians talk and testify today). They appear to love him, just for him.

That is the him I am more intrigued to get to know. Unmediated, naked, him. I don't care if he could or could not walk on water. I'd rather his Spirit forever walk with and towards me. That will be more than miracle enough.

Postscript: Photo from Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ

I Love

2012-02-03T22:35:00.003+02:00

I love the yellow
of scrambled eggs
the green of fresh peas inside and out of their pods

I love the sound a wooden baking spoon makes
against a porcelain bowl

I love the sound of Merlot poured into a wide-rimmed,
tall-stemmed glass

I love the soft feel of pencil
on paper and the sound my writing makes as my hand
moves across the page

I love the puck puck sound our lips make when we kiss softly and repeatedly, practicing
so that we can only
get better at Love

I love the smell of freshly shampooed hair, wet hair,
your hair - shampooed or not

I love the smell of laundry
taken out of a tumble drier

I love your two front teeth

I love the smell of Kimberley summer rain -
more than Cape Town winter rain

And I love the smell of wet fynbos
and wet bushes in the Karoo

I love the crisp feel of a Kimberley winter's night
on my cheeks, and the cold brightness of stars

I love that Jesus must have looked at the stars too -
and the same moon we see,
he saw - and sees now with me

I love when Kyle was 10, Lee 14 and Chad 6
I love that they're growing better with age

I love it when a Communion wafer sticks to my palate
I hope it makes Jesus smile

I love it when I'm supposed to be
super serious in church and
something out there
cracks me up

I love what love is doing to me

I love when you are on a sugar high
and when you sing - when you sing to me

I love not knowing where tomorrow will take us

I love knowing that you are alive and breathing at this very instant

I love hearing you laugh when I'm in the room next door

I love that your fingertips can find mine
under the warm darkness of a duvet

I love hearing you laugh
even louder after just one drink

I love when we read poems,
or sing hymns, or short verses to each another

I love the way you taste

I love when we are in our socks;
when you stand on my feet and we dance

I love when you dishevel my hair

I love the way you look at me

I love when you say, 'Do it for me, toe'

Love

2012-02-03T22:26:00.000+02:00

Love is like riding a
bicycle. You never
forget how

Image Googled
theberry.com

Happy Holiness

2012-02-02T14:06:00.003+02:00

I think, mostly, we shy away from enjoying the bond that there is between happiness and holiness. Often, we exclusively associate holiness with hardness; with being hard on ourselves - and hard on others (in the name of a God who is, in essence, good). We sit on hard pews in our churches, believing that such hardness will 'get us into heaven'. As if that's the goal of religion. Crap!

But in holiness, there must also happiness; in a human heart, also heaven. This has been my experience and joy. A holiness, happiness, a heaven found right here at the heart of all that is earthed. For this, I am eternally grateful.

Postscript: Image Googled. Love that in the Buddhist tradition, their images are pleasant, smile or sometimes, laugh out loud. Holiness and heaven in the human and in the humour. Notice how the lips curl slightly upward.

Be Still - A Meditation

2012-01-30T20:47:00.001+02:00

Be still and know that you are loved by God.

For this moment, simply revel in that love and put aside all restlessness. Gently close your eyes and relax into the stillness. If there’s a tightness in your chest, around the area of your heart – or a warmness, acknowledge it with kindness. If there are similar feelings in your stomach, do the same.

Breathe deeply but naturally and relax. Drop your shoulders, unclench your fists, relax your jaw, relax your brow. Soften your gaze. Still your thoughts.

Imagine a clear pool of water at the centre of your life. Gently drop from the sky, three petals into this Pool of God’s Love for all the significant people, places and moments that have brought you here. People and places around which the Chapters of your Life hinge – those points – turning points that have giving you an opportunity to grow like the Green Shoot of Jesse…

As you drop these petals into the clear Pool, notice the gentle ripples they make – ripples on the Pool of Love going out into the world from the very heart of God…

As the petals fall, whisper to the ones you love (and those you find hard to love), whisper to them:

May you be Well

May you be truly Happy

May you be free from Suffering

Repeat this as many times as you like. God honours these well-wishes – these blessings radiating from the centre of God’s Heart and your heart.You may do this Practice as often as you like. It is also very good to wish yourSelf wellness, happiness and a life free from suffering. Don't neglect yourSelf! So often we think of everyone else but ourselves.

In the honouring of People and Places,
honour yourSelf, for you too are made in the image of God.

Be Still...

Pray the "shh-shh-shh shhh" Prayer.
Be Still and know this Truth - as if, as if for the very first time...
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Jesus the Teacher

2012-01-30T17:55:00.004+02:00

More than anything else, Jesus is called teacher or rabbi in all four gospels. And perhaps, because it is placed hereat the very beginning of Mark’s gospel (1: 21 - 28), the author – from the outset, could be saying to us, ‘Take note; don’t overlook this aspect of Jesus’ life andministry. It is important. He is many wonderful things - a healer and caster-out-of-demons, but he is also ateacher.’

Teaching us what? Teaching us how to live; how to love; how to be with and how to be for one another. Teaching us how to bring about God’s dream – God’skingdom, right here on earth. Not waiting for a space in heaven; but bringingheaven and holiness down to everyday earth. I think his Spirit wants to teachus how to be with and for the planet, animals and things. He wantsto teach us how to be. We are, afterall, human beings.

But often, if we are honest, we get this being human thing so completely wrong. Sometimes, we can beanything but human; we can be deliberately, unashamedly hurtful,horrible, and harmful instead of helpful, wholesome, humble and healing… Youget my point? I know you do...

I think Jesus wants to teach us how to be. To be our true and authenticselves – the way he was – and is.

Did you know that of all the creatures God created, only we human beingscan be what we are not. We can pretend. Unlike a tree, or a cat, or a dog (satisfied to be who they are). Not even a chameleon can do what wecan. We can be quite inhumane, inhospitable, possessed by all sorts of uncleanthings; like the man in today’s gospel reading…

So it saddens me greatly that this central aspect of Jesus – asTeacher, is not celebrated much in the institutional church. We don’t have greatfeasts and festivals (churches and basilicas) in honour and celebration ofJesus the Teacher; like we have many triumphalist feasts. Christ the King, orChrist the Redeemer to name but two. In the Church calendar, we emphasise hisHoly Innocence, his Transfiguration, his horrific crucifixion and death, hismiraculous Resurrection, his Ascension and so forth. And there’s nothing thematter with emphasizing these; but we never quite make a big deal about Jesusthe Teacher, the title, the thing he is mostcalled in the gospels.

Perhaps because to be taught – to be teachable, truly requires something ofus: openness and vulnerability; a greenness; a flexibility; admitting that we don’tknow it all… Things we, in the main, shy away from or would not want to admit.Openness and vulnerability. For to be taught – and to be teachable, we haveto rely on others – we can't do it on our own. Even if you are taught from a book,there is a reliance on others. But in the main, we shy away from this deep-seated, build-in need.

Perhaps because his teachings are so radical, so astounding, solife-changing – life-reorienting that it scares us to come and sit daily -constantly at the feet of this Teacher, who like a fire transforms us – warmsand consumes us. Who knows these things?

But in today’s gospel we meet this man who taught those in his day withsuch profound authority.

This word, authority, is very interesting. It has a negative spin and apositive one. In the worst sense, it is to do with ego-power. ‘I haveauthority, so I have the power, and in some sense, I can do just what Iplease’. In our climate today, we find this kind of brute authority operating(on personal and corporate levels; in the secular and sacred worlds). That’s the worst sense.

But at its best sense – and I think this is the way Jesus acted with authority; at its best sense, it isbecause Jesus knew intimately the Authorof All Things (God); and so he taught and acted from that place ofauthority – and authenticity. Andpeople could pick up on this intuitively. They could respond to this. They wereastounded. Amazed. For what was coming to them was fresh, radically new andutterly disturbing.

He must have been so different to what they had been used to; to thescribes, to the established elite, to the professionals of their day. He wasdifferent. And his first hearings, his first believers – that is to say thosewho committed to him because they loved him, they all consistently called himwhat we as an institution seldom celebrate or do. They called him, teacher. Or,more personally, rabbouni – myteacher.

Every morning, I practice silent meditation (zazen). The prayer below is a version of how I begin:

Bless me, Lord Jesus,

My Rabbi and Rinpoche

True teacher on life’s way;

Your love keeps me to these

practices day after day.

I know you too, personally, have practices

where you put yourself at the feet of this Teacher, daily.

Continue to do so. And, if you don’t

Don’t be horrible with yourself.

Be kind, and say, ‘Today, I will sit with

my Lord and Teacher in a radically new way’.

Perhaps lighting a candle will help;

Or imagining that Jesus is sitting right there with you.

In your imagining, picture upon his face a smile more than a frown.

An eternal welcome saying, ‘Come, come, come, sit down’.

And then sit,

for as little, or a long as it must take .

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Postscript: In Tibetan Buddhism, rinpoche is more than just a teacher, it is a precious one

Love Language

2012-01-27T13:46:00.001+02:00

Photo Googled

Love language will say things like, 'You are the most beautiful person in the world'. It is not a statement of fact; someone else may think, 'Are you nuts?' But those who love deeply know this - and talk like this naturally and intuitively.

You are the way, the truth and the life - for me and many others, falls into this language of love, commitment and devotion too. It is not a statement of utter fact, and nor does it diminish the Jesus to whom - and about whom - these things have been - and are being said...

When you love someone, in a very real and true sense, they become a significant part of your way, your truth, your life - and so much more. Such statements are expressions of complete devotion and love; not statements of concrete fact. Our love for Jesus (as Christians) makes us say these things to him and of him. But another fact of the matter is that other religious traditions will say the same of their central figures too; or of the God - or Gods to which their teachings point. Why should their love and devotion be any less than ours?

Rus under the influence of Marcus Borg and Rabbi Harold Kushner.
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Ways of Praying

2012-01-26T17:11:00.000+02:00

Just being in the Presence can sometimes be More than Enough

Anyone who has ever loved another (human or divine) knows this simply-wanting-to-be kind of prayer I'm referring to here. Wanting to be in the other person's Presence... not to ask, or to get, or to manipulate, or to placate... but simply just to be, just to bask...

I find this form of prayer neglected in the modern Christian world.

Love, therefore, that in the gospels, they never record what Jesus acutually prayed about or for (the Our Father withstanding). But they do consistently say that he went out to pray. Yay for them who wrote the gospels, and yay to us for not knowing the content of Jesus' prayers!

Prayer can't just be about asking God for stuff (petitions), or even about 'believing' - that is to say, having 'faith hard enough' so that what you've asked, demanded, deserved, or grovelled for, will somehow come true; nor can it just be about praying for others (interceding)... It must also be about wanting to be in God's Presence without necessarily asking or even 'praising' - that is to say, mouthing back to God some of the attributes we have attached to God.

Answers From God

2012-01-26T17:01:00.003+02:00

God, I am strangely glad that you don't speak to me with such clarity and in well-articulated certainties and 'catch'phrases. I can never really quite capture, or put into words what you 'say' to me... Sometimes I wonder if it really is you or just me. I am strangely glad for those doubts too. Glad that listening to you (for me, anyway) is like being in a dark room where I, as in the poem by Billy Collins would say, 'must feel my way towards the lightswitch', or towards that smidgen of crisp air through a paper thin cut in the door; feel my way to the window latch, blind and grateful for what is beyond it.

In this process, I feel that you take me seriously, even in my struggles and in my groping... feel that the answers are not always easy, clear, unshakable or certain... but that they are there, in the darkness and in the searching... answers not only there to be found but there where I am lost and in the looking... I like that enormously about you, God!

When I Die

2012-01-20T22:08:00.002+02:00

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When I die, I will truly miss being here and looking into the faces of those I love – and those who love me back. Human faces and other faces. Heaven, if there is one, has got huge work cut out for it, for I have experienced much, much more than heaven by looking at and into those I love; and feeling, feeling that they are doing the same for me.

Postscript: Richard Rohr paraphrases Thomas Merton like this: One thing's for sure about heaven, there won't be much of you there. In other words, the you that you think is you - that won't be there. Love the way St Paul puts it, 'I, yet not I'. There's a shift in identity - not in some distant future (heaven) but in our lifetime. Me, yet not me. I, yet not I. Fascinating.

Words Into God's Mouth

2012-01-20T21:42:00.001+02:00

Above, the mouth of one of my godchildren when he was still a little boy

I think God rejoices in and is sometimes devastated by the many subtle and overt ways people, through religion, express God to others, themselves and to the world. God must sometimes be appalled and other times be really touched by the way we - through religion - attribute things, thoughts, qualities and actions to God...putting as it were words into God's mouth. Words that are, at times truly healing, wholesome and holy and, at others times, horrible and hounding into what seems an eternity.

One of the Desert Fathers advised, and I paraphrase: If youu want to go on a spiritual journey, learn to shut your mouth. I think he was being very polite.

Jesus as God

2012-01-20T00:37:00.001+02:00

Image from Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. Mary holds Jesus as a boy

I somehow don't think that the very first followers of Jesus, those who met him at the lake or elsewhere, saw him as God. I don't think that these initial followers regarded Jesus in the same God-like way he is regarded by many Christians today. I seriously doubt that Jesus thought of himself as God. In the gospels, the only consistent self-reference attributed to him is ben adam, son or child of humanity.

Theological ideas, doctrines and unshakable convictions about him as God - or being the Son of God, Second Person of the Holy Trinity, and more... all these evolved and developed over time. In my estimation, they were not there with him, or with the initial ones, at the lake.

I do think, however, that in his lifetime, Jesus must have brought good and God into sharp and utter focus for those first followers in ways that perhaps no one before him ever had. The initial ones, we modern Christians often forget, were Jews looking and longing for a messiah, that is to say an anointed one; a spiritual and political leader - and freedom fighter. They were not explicitly looking for or even expecting an Emmanuel - a God with us... But, true to the essential generosity wrapped up in the DNA of God, they (and the millions upon millions to follow) got far more than they had ever bargained for. God, I think, is like that. Benevolent, compassionate, recklessly generous to a nauseatingly, bittersweet, happy and holy fault.

Broken Heart

2012-01-19T16:51:00.000+02:00

Even with Jesus in your life your heart will not escape grief. And that's a good thing. It teaches you to be as real and as authentic as he was.

Photo googled: Yoo Seung-ho

What Gift We Bring

2012-01-18T14:45:00.001+02:00

What Gift, Good and God We Bring

When the ordained visits a hospital or sickbed, she or he carries with them something no medical practitioner can in their doctor's bag alone. To all in this vocation, especially our young up-and-coming clergy in the Diocese to which I belong, may you walk into these spaces with confidence and humility; for the ground upon which you stand is always holy and, as a human being, wherever you are, hints and intuitions of home are never far. Trust and make yourself vulnerable - open - to this Presence.

I know this is also true for anyone, soaked in love, visiting another in hospital or at home. We are part of the medicine and miracle, the health and healing too. It may be your profession, but it is also the anointed soul within you that does the essential and vital touch and work.

Image of Mother Teresa is googled

Sacred Stories and Truth

2012-01-18T11:00:00.001+02:00

It is delightful that both the Hebrew Bible and what we now call the New Testament is populated with stories. One of our great tragedies, however, as scientifically minded (post)moderns, is that we literalize everything. Even and especially our sacred stories, timeless gifts from our spiritual ancestors. I think more than 95 percent of all scripture is Sacred Story – is metaphor resting upon the bare bones of a few seminal facts... But mostly, we don't seem to get this. We cling to and crave for, as it were, hard, tangible, ‘scientific’ facts almost exclusively... The lion must literally as it were lie down with the lamb for God's word to be considered valid, accurate and true. Jesus must literally come down with the clouds, because it says so in the Bible. These assertions makes me smile, laugh out loud and cry (not necessarily in that order).
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Trans-Egoic Jesus

2012-01-18T08:00:00.001+02:00

Great spiritual teachers awaken in us what has always been there.

Like Jacob on his stone pillow we say, 'You were with me all along, but I did not know it'.

I think the Jesus of the gospels is kind and compassionate not to get something from us or óut of it', but to awaken something priceless within us. All great teachers are like that. They never really want a commitment to ego-them (or even to their cause). As strong as their egos may have to be in articulating profound truths, great spiritual teachers are also trans-egoic. The ego, you see, loves transactions. Án eye for an eye mentality'; Í do this for you, if you do that for me'. But in the gospels, Jesus appears to subvert this mentality all the time. He is kind, and helpful, healing and good to a staggering fault - for its own sake... And that, to use religious language, is what 'saves' or 'redeems'.. and not necessarily that you were 'saved' by him or by his slain blood. What the teacher has awakened within you has been there all along, and is - in my estimation - the balm that heals, the voice that calls you out of the tomb.

Image googled. Jacobs Dream by Jose De Ribera
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Above Animals and Angels

2012-01-17T14:46:00.001+02:00

I think one of the things that lifts us high above animals and perhaps even angels, is our love of stories. Gathered around a campfire or hearth, or in the comforture of a warm bed or armchair, around a dinner table or counter at a pub, both creatures and angels stand by in envy and awe as we open our souls up to stories (one of our primary loves).

A Prayer

2012-01-16T11:00:00.001+02:00

I pray you a pillow on which to dream; a morning that will come - swiftly or gently, to help you live and make real what night has planted within. I pray you come to know silence as one of your truest friends, from which place you will have the energy and heart to voice fresh and essential worlds into being.

Knowing Jesus

2012-01-15T12:01:00.001+02:00

Image Googled. Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ

The very first followers of Jesus of Nazareth appear to have loved him before they knew what we now know, cherish, love and revere about him. The very first ones appear to have loved him for him and not for the titles, miracles, or deeds that – in time, have come to be associated with or attributed to him. Not even because he 'died for their sins'. The very first ones appear to have been allured by and drawn to an unmediated him. They appear to love more than simply theologies, creeds and doctrines about him. They seem to love him… perhaps not even for what he could or would do, but for who and what he was... (and for us now, still is).

Mostly, in the gospels, they call him teacher. More so than they call him 'my personal saviour', or messiah, Lord or even God’s Son. Teacher is how they most often call. Or, rabbouni ( that is, my teacher, more personally). I find such unmediated presence hugely attractive, potent and pertinent to us. It compels us to seriously look at the helpful and harmful ways we package and present this Jesus to others in the 21 century.

Is an unmediated experience of this same Jesus Presence possible today? A resounding yes. But it takes enormous courage – heart – to enter this Ground that is both sure and unsettling. It requires us to learn the art of unlearning; to see the filters and frames, the structures and styles for who and what they are; and to gaze towards whom they point... Always towards the Numinous, the Mystery, the Unnameable, the Mysterious What-You-Cannot-Really-Touch but who really touches every fibre and strand of your existence. It takes huge courage and humility to enter this holy Ground found at the heart and edge of All.
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My Religion

2012-01-08T17:45:00.001+02:00

My religion can't be the only religion God loves. Rus paraphrasing Richard Rohr. What a small God that would be!

Hear the Word

2012-01-02T12:24:00.000+02:00

Hear the word of the Lord is vastly different to saying Here is the (exclusive) word (of the Lord). An ego-assertion many Christians and other religious fundamentalists all too often make.

In some traditions, like the Anglican one to which I belong, this is how we round off the reading of scripture. We say, Hear the word of the Lord... often also allowing space for a slight pause. A pause opening us up to the nunc stans, the eternal Now, always forever present.

This way of rounding off, to me, is restful and hugely challenging; giving space for insight or in-seeing; it is open-ended and potentially transformative. This hearing as you've guessed, is done more than with just our ears, or even our sentimental hearts or overly rational minds...

In this hearing or listening, all these faculties are used - and more. The word soul comes close to naming the numinous centre from which we are asked to hear what is behind, between, within and beyond all the words we've just heard or read.

The Colour Green

2011-12-15T18:15:00.001+02:00

The colour green, as in grass, shrubs, bushes, river reeds, bamboo shoots and trees; as in peas, cucumbers, broccoli and cabbage...the colour green has a hugely soothing effect on my soul...

Though I may not

always like to wear it,

I do like to watch it

and spoon it

into my

mouth

It has such a settling effect on my soul

Child of Palestine

2011-12-12T14:00:00.001+02:00

Israeli soldier. Palestinian boy. Jesus, Child of Palestine.

Jesus, King of the Jews

Photo Googled

Jesus was not a Christian

2011-12-12T13:00:00.001+02:00

Jesus, Child of Palestine. Palestinian boys reading the Quran. Photo Googled.
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I am thrilled that Jesus of Nazareth was not and never died 'a Christian' - nor did his mother, Mary, and his father, Joseph. Nor did Abraham or any other of the Hebrew prophets and sages we - as Christians, honour and revere... That Jesus was not a Christian should never be forgotten or underplayed, especially in our arrogance and sometimes our Christian insistence to make everyone think like us, believe like us, pray like us... This arrogance and over-assertions as the be all and end all of the Story of God, makes God juvenile and really small. Furthermore, such competitive and exclusivist behaviour which insists that we - or the one we have on our side - is the only way, the only truth, and the only life, seems to me to be more a reflection of an ego than of a God (with or without a capital 'g').

Radical Inclusivity

2011-11-28T18:46:00.001+02:00

Photo, from The Centurion, Googled

Today's gospel reading is brilliant (Matthew 8:5-13). Jesus is being his radically inclusive Self once again - A radical Self which we many times tend to diminish, or miss seeing completely.

Jesus is so eager to help a Roman centurion. I skip with delight, because in this gospel picture, Jesus apparently doesn't seem to care whether the soldier is 'a believer' or not! Being 'a believer' or even 'believing in Jesus' is not Jesus' yardstick for a heart that oozes compassion for everyone - regardless of creed, colour, nationality and, in this case, also religion.

But sadly, and often, it is our yardstick,
measuring who's in and who's out -
and we do this in Jesus' name.

In this gospel picture,
without a moment's hesitation,
Jesus says, 'I will come and cure him'.

Jesus appears to love for love's sake.
Jesus heals for healing's sake.
Jesus appears to be so at home in all homes -
in religous or 'irreligious' homes.

Then Jesus makes the rattling statement:
'In no one in Israel have I found such faith'.

Jesus becomes even more inclusive:
'Many will come from east and west
and will eat with Abraham, and Isaac and Jacob...'

Sadly, and often, we are the ones who
restrict others from eating 'at the table' - and we do it in Jesus' name.
We have Jesus clubs; surrounding ourselves with people who think, look and believe like us.
How small-minded is that? How silly when it is done to the exclusion of others.

I don't want to believe in a God
who heads up an exclusive club.
Jesus, in my estimation, is so not like that.

This is my Advent Prayer:

Come to me, Lord, in
whichever form you choose.
I give you my heart for you to love and use.

Christ the King

2011-11-20T17:45:00.001+02:00

You are more like us than we give you credit, ben adam, child of humanity

I doubt whether Jesus thought of himself as a sovereign, or king. In the gospels, he seems to duck or downplay forms of titles (or entitlement). This makes him so appealing and hugely refreshing (to me).

On Christ the King Sunday, it is important to hold before us, pictures like this of Jesus. Jesus who is never on any kind of ego trip; a Jesus whose kingship is in direct contrast to the trappings, and allurements of power and sovereignty we would have found in his world and in ours today. He was - and is not - that kind of king.

I seriously doubt whether he would have called himself Christos Rex, ‘Christ the King’ - let alone ‘King of the Jews’… In fact, a priest friend of mine, recently pointed out that this feast of Christ the King, which we’ve inherited, is not a very ancient one, but was introduced when the king of Italy shrunk the territory of the Pope to what is now called the Vatican. But I will have to invite my historian friend to come and speak more accurately on this… It is just very interesting, though.

There’s a lovely incident in John’s gospel (6:15) where others wanted to force Jesus to be king; anoint him, as it were, as they often did with leaders, prophets, kings and priests. But on learning this, Jesus runs away… he evades their grasp. You see, they wanted a political leader to free them from the oppressive regime of their time - but Jesus was to bring them a different kind of leadership and potency; a different kind of reign and rule which the gospel of today points to. In a moment, I will turn to the gospel text.

But clearly and obviously, Jesus was anointed (this cannot be downplayed). Goodness and Godness seemed to ooze out of his pores. Healing rushed towards others through the touch not just of his skin, but of his clothes; through the breath of his mouth; through the warmth and roar of his laughter; through the light of his smile; the embrace of his arms; through the challenges, parables, stories and words that he’d bring… Clearly and obviously he was God’s genuine and authentic thing… But he never explicitly called himself messiah or king. Others called him this, or did this proclamation for him. More often, in the gospels, he is called rabbi, teacher, or more intimately, rabbouni, my teacher…

What all four gospels do record, 87 times in fact, is this self-reference Jesus makes. ‘I am ben adam’ he says; more than any others self-reference; more than teacher, or anything else. 87 times, in all four gospels, ‘I am ben adam’. Richard Rohr translates this to be I am a son of the human one. In other words, I am more like you than you give me credit. I am like you. This, for me, makes Jesus so appealing and refreshing.

It staggers and saddens me, therefore, that churches are never named after Jesus, the son of man; Jesus, the One so Like Us. Nor do we have an explicit feast in honour of Jesus, ben adam. Churches and festivals aren’t dedicated to Jesus the teacher; or Jesus who called us his Friends…

Sometimes we elevate his divinity at the unfortunate expense of his humanity. We only see him as glory and king - without noticing that he is of our same kind. He is more our kin (without the g, than king). But we never explicitly celebrate this. Even though we know that at the heart of our Christian story - at its core - it teaches that in Jesus, God became like us. And 87 times, Jesus makes this self-reference, I am ben adam - a son of the human one. In other words, I am more like you than you give me credit.

Now, briefly to the gospel (Mathhew 25: 31 - 46) reading and then to the ancient picture found in Ezekiel (34:11-24).

I love that in the gospel reading even the chosen ones, those who are placed on the right; and those who are not chosen, those placed on the left… all of them get it wrong; they do not recognize this king - this child of humanity, who comes to us so differently, and often so ordinarily; disguised not only in human form; but in and among our weaknesses, frailties, our misfortunes, our deepest needs, hungers, thirsts and pain. This is how he comes to us and how, in turn, we come to him.

The gospel is clear; the deciding factor is this: It is in what we do; and it is in what we do not do.

I love that in this gospel picture, it is not in what or who we believe in; or even in our grand or articulate theologies we espouse; but it is in the practice of goodness that eternity is opened up to us. What saves us is our goodness – and our Godness towards others. What we do; and what we do not do.

Monks and nuns live out this principle beautifully. St Francis, put it like this, ‘Preach the gospel at all times and when [absolutely] necessary use words.’ Mother Teresa forbids her nuns to talk explicitly about Jesus to those in their care - because she wanted them to be Jesus and, equally important, she wanted them to meet Jesus in others (regardless of their religious background). Ultimately, what ‘saves’ – in this gospel picture, is our practical goodness and our Godness towards others.

Lastly, the lectionary gives us this ancient picture of a king as shepherd - in other words, a common herd boy in the fields (Ezekiel 34: 11 - 14). ‘I myself shall tend my flock, and find them a place to rest, says the Lord God’. In other words, I will get my hands dirty for you. And I shall search for you.

Many years later Jesus, probably influenced by pictures like this, would teach of a foolish God and shepherd king who would leave 99 behind to look and search for one (Luke 15:4). But this is the type of king, God in Jesus, gives and brings... one who will allow us to sleep and dream (as we lie down in the comfiture of green pastures). A God and king who is like a medicine man, who will ‘bandage the injured, strengthen the sick’ and, wait for it… one who will ‘leave the healthy and strong to play’ (Ezekiel 34:16). A God and king who, like a mother, will feed us with proper, appropriate food... nurishment for the journey. Which feeding process can, at times, be joyful and messy.

Being Human

2011-11-09T07:30:00.001+02:00

Photo Googled

I grew up with Hindu and Muslim friends who let me into their homes and hearts.Thank God we never tried to convert one another. It's humbling to know that there are so many ways to being human. I want to believe in a God big enough to celebrate in them all. Big enough to have had lots to say before any words about God were ever written down. I think Jesus believed in such a wide-angled, spacious God. In his parables, the banquet is always bursting at the seams with the least and last expected...

Craig

2011-11-02T17:30:00.001+02:00

Thank you for letting me photograph you almost all your life...

What a privilege being at the other end of this lens, looking at and loving you.
Thank you for looking at and loving Tony and me.

Standing beside your coffin, looking at your lifeless body was one of the worse moments in my life. I so wanted you to know that you are far bigger than the box we had to place you in. But I didn't quite know how to reach or rouse you. So I stood, motionless, weeping like Mary Magdalene; weeping with Meagan, your parents, your sister and Kez.

This death thing - your death is far too big a thing for me to wrap myself around. I regret not spending more time with your lifeless body, child of my soul... because with or without life, it is still your body; one that I miss and love. As hard as it was, I wanted to be nowhere else but there with you...

As a boy, Tony and I used to put you to bed and watch you fall asleep. Your parents entrusted you to us. And for that time, you were all ours, and we, yours... We were always worried that you would stop breathing - because your breath was like a shadow, like silk... I long to be worried about you like that again, to have you wake up to us...

Grief, Tears and Joy

2011-11-02T07:15:00.001+02:00

Craig, I ache for your physical presence. I still want you back.

The gospels tell us that it is only after Jesus’ disciples are plunged into grief that they experience joy again.

Grief and wounds are real, and Jesus and his disciples had to learn this first hand. There are no exceptions. Even with Jesus in your life, your heart will not escape grief.

We live in a world and time that in the main, discourages us from weeping, grieving, or mourning because it sees these things as weaknesses; a world that expects us to ‘get over’ change, or people, relationships or loss – even the loss of a significant other really quickly – instantly – sometimes almost heartlessly. But perhaps, just perhaps our hearts aren’t designed to simply ‘get over things’. But in their suppleness, designed to bear then - even as they break under this burden. Perhaps our hearts are designed to bear them; to see them through (for however long or short it must take).

In this bearing, may you be blessed by the angel of tears; the angel of gentleness and patience as you put one foot in front of the other, or simply rest by the wayside. May you be blessed by the angel of dignity, courage and strength…

In the Easter story, Mary Magdalene, a dear friend of Jesus of Nazareth, stood alone by his tomb, weeping… bearing her soul. This, for me, takes great strength and courage. And while she was weeping, she had the heart to peer into the darkness and found there, the presence of angels.

On our own journeys through change or hard places, difficult memories, painful patches, may we, like Mary Magdalene, have the heart to peer into our own darkness – and in it – not over it – but in it, may we be given the grace to find the presence of angels too. Messengers from the very depth of God, sent to uplift and encourage us – to put fresh heart back into us; to help us remember again.

But to see these presences, these heavenly things, we must have the courage (the heart) to look deeply into the darkness and not simply glance over it.

It is significant, that it is in her apparent weakness – while she is weeping – that Mary is able to see more clearly (intensely). It was as if heaven opened up to her and she was able to see her dear friend, Jesus, who, three days earlier had been murdered before her very eyes!

Years later, another great Christian saint, Paul would write, that it is in our weakness that God is strong. It is when we fall apart that we give good and God a chance to work miracles; to hold and ensoul us, like a parent would a child. Mary lived out this principle, in my weakness Another is strong, at the grave of her master and friend.

May God give you the strength to live this out too in moments when you and your heart are plunged into grief. Be patient with yourself until you come to that time of joy again… a joy far deeper than happiness… bringing to your life a warmth and smile that has travelled to you from the farthest reaches of your soul.

Go(o)d Stories are Told

2011-10-31T22:30:00.001+02:00

Photo Googled

Our spiritual ancestors told the stories of God to one another first, long before they were ever committed to writing. To listen to a story awakens not just the intellect, but the imagination. The telling of these sacred stories is so different to the way we (post)moderns in the main tend to read the Bible. Some of us are obsessed, in a sense, with the knowing, flaunting and quoting of chapters and verses (things which were never there in the original to begin with). As if such knowledge saves or makes us better Christians.

I like to believe that our spiritual foreparents first told the sacred stories around perhaps a campfire, or in the shade of a dusty sychemore or olive tree; or underneath the canopy of cedars. Emphasis, you could say, wasn’t so much on the details of the word (as we obsess about them today); but perhaps on a heart open and able to hear. Hear the word of the Lord is vastly different to saying Here is the (exclusive) word of the Lord. An ego-assertion we all too often make.

In some traditions (like the Anglican one to which I belong), this is how we round off the reading of scripture or sacred texts. We say, Hear the word of the Lord... It is deeply challenging, insightful, open-ended and potentially transformative. This hearing is done more than with just your ears, or even your mind...

Bible Sunday

2011-10-31T11:46:00.001+02:00

A piece of the parchment of the gospel of Judas

As you know, the Christian Bible, did not just fall from the sky. It evolved, over a long period of time; a collection of books – not just one kind of book. From narratives of miraculous events, to records of history, to poems, prophesies and letters.

It is also good to note that ancient societies did not record events and history the way we scientifically record facts today. But this does not mean that they did not reach depths of truth. They did! And that’s probably why these texts are still as fresh and inspirational for us now. Because they reach a truth (often found beyond mere facts; falling outside of space/time).

Sometimes, however, we behave as if one person on a particular day decided to write down God’s Word – and that it came to this person (probably a man) in one big bang! It is good, therefore, to remind ourselves that the Christian Scriptures, as we have them today, were written by many people over an extended period of time; the Hebrew Scriptures, in a span of about 1000 or more years.

It is also good to remind ourselves that these Scriptures were written by human beings – people like you and me.

As you know, the stories of Abraham, Isaac and Moses were first told to God’s people before they were ever committed to writing. I like to believe they were first told around a campfire, or in the shade of a dusty sychemore or olive tree; or underneath the canopy of cedars. You could say that emphasis wasn’t so much on 'the word' or letters; not so much on chapters or verses (these were added much later by us moderns), but on a heart open and able to hear. 'Hear the word of the Lord' is a very insightful ending to a reading.

Of course you know that Jesus did not have a Bible (as we have one today); but that he knew the Hebrew Scriptures; he knew the pictures and stories of God because they were told to him from an early age (probably by his father and mother).

We don’t learn anything off by heart anymore. And that’s a great pity. I personally find that these simple, heartfelt-prayers; these one-liners are often able to pray for us when we cannot pray for ourselves. ‘Jesus, hold my hand’ is the simple, repetitive, heartfelt-prayer my grandmother used to pray when, many times on her bed, she found herself at her wits end.

Jesus probably learnt such simple prayers too – pieces from the scriptures which helped him see life’s journey through. It always moves me to think that moments before his death, a Jewish prayer, said at bedtimes, is put on his lips by the gospel writer:‘Into your hand, Lord, I commend my spirit’. And, as a grown man, he prays this before he dies.

Sometimes we forget that real human beings lived out, talk about, and wrote down their experiences of God. Timothy, for example, whom Paul writes to and talks about was shy, and seemed to have needed encouragement and reassurance. Paul regarded him as his spiritual son – his child.

Timothy suffered endless stomach problems, so much so that when Paul writes to him, Paul says, ‘Stop drinking water only; in view of your frequent ailments, take a little wine to help your digestion’ (1 Tim 5:23). What amazing practical, human, down-to-earth advice...

I am convinced that when Paul wrote these letters to the various early Christian communities, he never thought that we would be looking at them - and regarding them the way we regard them today. But this does not mean that they did not reach depths of truth. They did! And that’s why, I believe, they are still as fresh and inspirational for us now. Because they reach a truth (often beyond literal facts).

In his Second Letter to Timothy, Paul, is writing from prison and nearing the end of his life. Interspersed throughout the letter are traces, memories and echoes of Paul the human being. Paul, a person, not unlike you and me.

Paul’s heart longs to see Timothy; so near to the end of the letter – and because winter is approaching, Paul says, ‘When you come, bring the cloak I left with Carpus at Troas, and the books, particularly my notebooks’ (2 Tim 4:13). How can we not identify with that? And those notebooks… those notebooks. I wonder what filled them? And, if we were to find them today (hidden in some urns in a desert somewhere), how would we regard them? These things fascinate me.

Some, I find, make an idol of the Bible; worshiping the words and not necessarily God’s Spirit behind all these words. Our scientific view of the world, makes us want to literalize everything, as if literal truth is the only truth there is. But you know that often, it is metaphors and stories that have a far deeper (and richer) way of reaching truths.

If we take everything the Bible says literally, we will find ourselves in a real pickle. Women would literally have to cover their heads or wear a hat to church (whether you have a hat face or not); and they would not be allowed to speak. If we take everything literally, then Moses literally lived to the age of 120, Abraham to 175, and Sarah had a baby at 90.

It is only today - with the help of modern medicine that we are living longer... But The point, I think, these ancient stories are making about our spiritual foreparents is that God spared them to live and really love in a world and time where you were not expected to live very long. Or, that they really lived their lives - truly lived and loved before they died...

Read your Bible imaginatively. Employ your head and your heart in this unfolding. Let the soul of the story speak to you. In our Anglican tradition, at the end of the readings of scripture we say, 'Hear the word of the Lord'. We don't say, 'Here is the word of the Lord'. Something far deeper needs to be heard and heeded too.

What is the point you are wanting me to get? Let me open up my heart and my mind to your Word and will beyond all these words.

Postscript: Bible verses are from the Revised English Bible. In the New Revised Standard Version, the notesbooks are referred to as parchments, and the possessive pronoun, 'my', is not used.

Practicing Kindness

2011-10-27T16:16:00.001+02:00

Photo Googled

Practice kindness. Be kind to the earth, and kind to one another. Recycle. And, if these words were written on paper, after its use, recyle the paper. In the spirit of Benedict and others, treat it with as much reverence as you would a leaf out of the Bible. Recycle the paper, or do something creative with it.

By putting all the bits of good together, we can make an unimaginable difference (paraphrasing Desmond Tutu). In the gospels, Jesus is often moved to acts of kindness and compassion – even more so than necessarily wanting to convince someone to follow him. And yet, we can follow his example by practicing kindness. Be kind not just to people, not just to our own kind, but kind towards the earth, animals, things… and, kind towards yourSelf. Let what we practice also be our prayer (especially when others are not looking).

2011-10-25T18:01:00.001+02:00

This blog is 3 years old today

Words, Silence and Prayer

2011-10-25T09:30:00.001+02:00

Photo taken at Churchhaven

Words are like a boat on a lake. They serve a useful and an incredible purpose, journeying us from here to (t)here. We need them. How else would you be reading or getting this? And metaphors, in particular, by their very definition, are transporters, carriers - taking us beyond or across. When we've reached the other side of the lake, however, the boat needs to be set aside and the journey undertaken on foot. In prayer, silence is that foot to take us further.

Simply Praying

2011-10-24T14:30:00.001+02:00

Photo Googled

These days, more and more, my prayers are becoming very simple.

Sometimes they’re in the form of a line, or even a just word… But nestled all around them, is a lot of silent space. Sometimes these lines or words are repeated like mantras which go back and forth. It’s very comforting. It’s like being in a huge rocking chair, positioned at the hearth, where your ego is lulled to sleep in the arms of your soul. Here, true possibilities swim, dream, root and grow. In this comfoture, you croon and smile not just with your mouth but with your Self.

But, increasingly, what’s coming through is the desire to actually shut up in the Presence… A petering out into a Silence that is as vast and deep as it is intimate and very immediate.

When you look into the face of someone you love. When you are close to them, so as to smell and feel them, words are often not big enough to describe or contain such joy. It is like this for me when I pray; pray this kind of wordless prayer. A love that shuts you up and sets you free.

When words give way, that is when I find I pray… best

Boaz Notices Ruth

2011-10-23T17:46:00.001+02:00

Image Googled

Last week, we looked at Naomi – a mother-in-law, whose loving arms seemed to have been very elastic – stretchable and able to embrace her two daughters-in-law, who came from a very different background, ethnicity, culture and religion. I drew attention to the fact that all three lavished a kindness upon the other. And I alluded to the fact that kindness really is one of the most precious gifts we can ever give to the so-called other.

I tried to emphasize that kindness can be found everywhere – and that it is not the exclusive property of a particular group, or culture, ethnicity – or even religion.

And I seriously believe that our own beloved Jesus of Nazareth was one of the best practitioners of kindness (not just in his time, but throughout all time) – and that he showed this extraordinary kindness; in fact lavished it especially upon those he was expected not to be kind towards.

So I love the fact that collectively we are called mankind or humankind. Kindness, you could say, is engrained in us – woven as it were, in the strands of our DNA.

When we look beyond outward forms (as Naomi and her daughters-in-law did); when we strive our whole life long, to hear the whole story (as Boaz did); when we look to what truly is essential, we begin to see – beyond the hardness of bone, there hidden in the softness (in the vulnerability) of marrow, that we are all of the same kind.

From antiquity, great teachers and sages have encouraged us to look in this insightful, deeper way – to see beyond veneers, beyond the gloss, or even the grit – to see what truly is there. Jesus put it this way in the gospels (and I paraphrase), it’s not just the outside of the cup that matters; but the inside too.

On the inside, we are of the same kind. If you cut us, from the inside, we bleed the same blood. Or, to paraphrase the poet, Billy Collins... return to the belief, as you did when you were just a child. There's nothing under your skin but light; and if you were to cut yourself, you'd shine. On the inside, we share the same radiance.

I believe Naomi and her daughters-in-law, had for one another, this deeper vision, this insight or in-seeing. They were all women; and – in all honesty, this highly sensitized way of seeing – this overt showing of emotions and kindness seems to come more easily to women. But thank God, the story doesn’t end there. Thank God for a person like Boaz who, as a man, perhaps wants to teach something very essential to other men (and women). God is so balanced!

I can summarize the teaching in one sentence: Love will always make you notice the other. And that is what Boaz did. He noticed her. Perhaps Ruth was just drop-dead gorgeous! I think she was; and that’s why Boaz had to order the young men to stop bothering her (Ruth 2:9b). But having said this, Boaz does what love often does. He notices her and is moved to acts of kindness and compassion.

Ruth says, ‘Why are you so kind as to take notice of me, when I am just a foreigner?’

I love Boaz’s reply, ‘I’ve been told the whole story…’ Too often we don’t hear or believe the whole story of others – and of ourselves. We receive the other too narrowly.

We need, therefore, great teachers, saints and sages to remind us of the enormous truths we hold within us – and sometimes in spite of us. Teachers who talk using images and parables; coaxing us out of our recededness, back into the vastness of who we in essence are.

At first, we may be tempted to think that Boaz is simply just attracted to the outward beauty and form. Perhaps he was. But, being open to deeper qualities and a seeing beyond surface things, Boaz retells Ruth the truth of her own journey and story. And, in that instant, Boaz does what love at its very best often does… he mirrors her – he reminds her of an essential something she seems to have forgotten… the kindness woven into her DNA – and how this kindness has been translated into actions. He says, ‘I have heard the whole story of what you have done…’

Perhaps Ruth was at a low point in her life. After all, she left everything – including her parents behind to follow her mother-in-law. When we are at these low points, we see ourselves very narrowly; as if we are not worth being seen, or being noticed, or shown kindness to.

In the gospels you will often notice how Jesus sees people who feel that they are not worth being seen, noticed, or shown kindness to. He calls them out of the crowds; he spots them in a tree; or notices them when he himself is sitting under the shade of a tree. Often, he'd go home to eat and drink with them… drawing them into the whole story again.

We define ourselves too narrowly. We see ourselves as not worth being seen. We forget some essential truths about others – and about ourselves. Somewhere along the way, we lose our human kindness… until a great teacher comes along to remind us. Galway Kinnell puts it this way (and I paraphrase), we’ve got to reteach a thing its loveliness. Remember what's woven into the strands of your DNA!

The Franciscan teacher, Richard Rohr, believes that there are two such great teachers that, if we let them, will transform our vision… Great suffering and great love.

I wish for you (as I wish for myself) the latter. Great love. Great love that will notice you when you have a beautiful, outward form; notice you when that form begins to fade or let you down. Great love that is not short-sighted but revels in the whole story – and will help you see your unique place in the bigger scheme of things. Great love that will show you kindness, and mirror your beauty back to you…

To make the journey from the dust of stars; to be born here in human form and never to allow yourself to love – or to be loved, is such an insult to the One who knew you while your limbs were yet imperfect (an echo of psalm 139: 15).

I wish for you such great love.

Kindheartedness

2011-10-21T18:30:00.001+02:00

From The Kite Runner, the friendship between Amir and Hassan. Kindness would do it for you, a thousand times over

The kind heart of Jesus of Nazareth may convict or 'convert' us – but I’m not convinced that that is his ultimate motivation. ‘I’ll be kind to you because I want something from you; because I want a commitment out of you’. Jesus is kind and compassionate not to get something from us, but to awaken something priceless within us. All great teachers do this. They are transegoic. The ego, you see, loves transactions. But in the gospels, Jesus subverts this all the time. He is kind for its own sake - and that, to use religious language, is what saves or redeems.

Near Eastern Boy

2011-10-16T18:00:00.001+02:00

Photo Googled

The Jesus we love and adore
did not speak our language (English);
nor did he listen to the style of music
we’ve grown up with or today enjoy.

Jesus, historically, was a Near Eastern boy.

More than any other thing,
he referred to himself as, ben adam –
the child of humankind.

Like Naomi, Ruth and Orpah
He exposed his heart,
Felt and expressed not just
his mind and thoughts
but feelings too.

He was way ahead of his time.

He often included whom
we today would exclude –
To whom, and of whom we’d say,
‘No way can love extend that far!’

But anyone who has ever loved
Will know how elastic, how fluid
The arms of love are.

Son of Man

2011-10-16T12:20:00.001+02:00

Khalil Gibran's pencil sketch, Son of Man

In the gospels, Jesus does not refer to himself as messiah, nor rabbi, nor teacher. Others call him that. All self-references, attributed to him, is made this way - he seems to call himself , 'Son of Man'. In fact, in the four gospels, this occurs 87 times. Ben adam in Hebrew. Richard Rohr translates this as 'a son of the human one'. It's not a title and in the Hebrew there's no capitalization. What could this be saying to us? If anything, perhaps Jesus is saying, by calling himself ben adam, 'I am more like you than you give us both credit.' I have a heart as deep, fathomless and as infinite as yours! I choose to use this heart completely; live this life fully.'

His human heart comes out strongly and consistently in the gospels when Jesus is moved to acts of kindness and compassion - especially towards those he is not supposed to be kind too. He is moved to these acts not to convert, or to convince them to join his bandwagon. He is kind just to be kind. Something modern Christians seem to overlook in an ego-effort to 'win souls', or to have God be pleased with them and 'prosper' their ego-driven work. Such goodness is not about the other really, but about securing a place for ego-I in some future heaven after this life.

Naomi and Ruth

2011-10-16T12:01:00.001+02:00

Image Googled

Naomi had two sons, Mahlon and Chilion. Both married non-Jewish Moabite women. In today’s equivalent, perhaps it would be like both my children – if I had any, marrying a Hindu or a Buddhist (after we relocated to say India or Japan for a better life). The point being they’d marry somebody who really falls outside of the comfort of our particular religious zone. That’s what seemed to have happened to Naomi and her family when they moved from Bethlehem to live in the country of Moab. Both her sons fell in love with foreign women – women from a different nation, language, religious tradition, and culture. As we read this story, we really need to hold this before us.

From this distance, and from the text itself, it is difficult to tell with certainty whether Ruth and her sister-in-law, Orpah, converted to Judaism. It certainly was – and I suspect still is, one of the requirements – that a woman should take on the faith of their husband. In a patriarchic world, what else would you expect? But it’s difficult to tell whether Ruth and Orpah converted. Firstly, because Naomi seems to encourage both of them to return to their people and to their gods. Secondly, Ruth, after having been married for about ten years, say to Naomi, ‘your people will be my people, and your God my God’ (Ruth 1:16). One would have expected Ruth to have said this to her husband – not ten years later to her mother-in-law, but to her husband at the beginning of their marriage. These nuances are interesting and I put them before you to mull over.

But let us look at the relationship between these three women, and tease out a few thoughts:

Naomi seems to have a remarkable relationship with both her daughters-in-law – regardless of their language, religious backgrounds, culture, ethnicity and nationality. In fact, from the extract we’ve just read, three times, Naomi calls them her daughters. In other words, they’ve become like her very own children. They’ve shifted from formality to being family.

Anyone who has ever truly loved another will know how elastic – how fluid, how generous (sometimes to a fault), how accommodating, how all encompassing the arms of love can be. How these liquid arms can hold on to – and how they are able to let go with grace and generosity. Naomi seemed to have had such an embrace on her two girls.

Secondly, she is very complimentary of her daughters-in-law. And, as their journey together comes to an apparent end, she wishes kindness upon them – as they have been kind not only to her two sons (who have since died), but kind also towards her.

This, for me, is really significant – and should not be read over too quickly, nor overlooked or diminished in any way. Kindness, you see, transcends the many forms of prejudice and narrowness that hem us in – including national, cultural, ethnic and religious prejudice. Kindness is not just in nations, a language, a culture or religion – not just confined to them – but in a very real way, transcends all them.

Naomi finds kindness in a foreign land; in foreign people. With her heart, she looks beyond the obvious outwards forms and sees the face of family. Two weeks ago, on the video uplink, His Holiness said to Archbishop Desmond, ‘Even from this distance, I can see your face, and that makes me happy’. We need to be looking out for this face beyond all forms...

In the gospels, you will often find that Jesus is moved to acts of kindness and compassion. And he does these acts not necessarily to convert, or even to convince (someone to follow him). He does them because he has a heart – a beating, feeling human heart.

I love that in the gospels, Jesus does not refer to himself as messiah, nor rabbi, nor teacher (others call him that). He does, however, refer to himself as ‘son of man’. In fact, in the four gospels, this occurs 87 times – ben adam. Translated it means ‘a son of the human one’. It’s not a title and in the Hebrew there’s no capitalization. What is this saying to us? If anything, Jesus may be saying, by calling himself ben adam, ‘I’m more like you than you give us both credit’. And this theme of his human heart comes out most strongly when he is consistently moved to acts of kindness and compassion (even moments before he dies - he is kind to a total stranger).

His kind heart may convict us – but I’m not convinced that that is his ultimate motivation. ‘I’ll be kind to you because I want something from you; because I want a commitment out of you’. Jesus is kind and compassionate not to get something from us, but to awaken something priceless within us. The ego, you see, loves transactions. But Jesus subverts this all the time.

Back to Ruth and Naomi: So awesome and typical of most women, Naomi and her daughters-in-law show their emotions. They don’t put up the proverbial ‘brave front’ masculine culture teaches us to do. When she kisses them goodbye, they all weep – and weep out loud. They do that ugly cry so typical in many indigenous cultures (no less Near Eastern, Middle Eastern, Mediterranean and African cultures). Furthermore, her daughters-in-law feel for her. When Naomi tells them how bitter life has been for her, ‘they weep aloud again’ (Ruth 1:13b). All three seem to be emotionally literate and in tune.

And then we have this bittersweet moment: Orpah kisses Naomi goodbye while Ruth clings on to her. Naomi is able to let go of one; and she allows the other to come along. In both instances, Naomi is being very gracious. She is doing, what love at its generous best, knows well how to do… to hold on and how to let go. To embrace and how to face a future distant and unknown.

In summary:

The Jesus we love and adore

did not speak our language (English);

nor did he listen to the style of music

we’ve grown up with or today enjoy.

Jesus, historically, was a Near Eastern boy.

More than any other thing,

he referred to himself as, ben adam –

the child of humankind.

Like the three women above

He exposed his heart,

Felt and expressed not just

his mind and thoughts

but feelings too.

He was way ahead of his time.

He often included whom

we today would exclude –

To whom, and of whom we’d say,

‘No way can love extend that far!’

But anyone who has ever loved

Will know how elastic, how fluid

The arms of love are.

The Dalai Lama

2011-10-16T11:55:00.001+02:00

His Holiness said to Desmond Tutu, 'Even from this distance,

I can see your face, and that makes me happy'

Photo Googled

Two Saturday's ago, thanks to 21st century technology; thanks to Google, to satellite feeds and a video uplink – technologies that our beloved Jesus of Nazareth knew nothing of in his earthly lifetime… thanks to these technologies, I and a few hundred others who gathered at the University of the Western Cape, were charmed, delighted, spellbound, stilled, privileged and laughed out loud as we sat in the presence of His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama.

For me, personally, it was a dream come true. I’ve been wanting to meet Kundun since forever. Archbishop Tutu said that the Dalai Lama makes holiness look so attractive. So let’s look at this term, holiness for just a moment. In our tradition and from its Hebrew root, it means to be set apart. We all need to come to these moments where we realize that we are set apart (consecrated as it were) for something, someone, some purpose. We are not here by accident. We all need to realize our specialness, loveliness, our uniqueness. When you realize that in yourself, in others, in things – your life takes on a holiness that others can bite into, taste, see, smell, and feel…

Perhaps some may take offence that I’ve mention the Dalai Lama (in the context of this homily) because he is not even Christian. Please forgive me. But whenever this is thrown at me – that a particular people or religious group is not even Christian, I like to gently remind those doing the pelting, that nor was Jesus, nor was his immediate family, nor was his core disciples… and nor were all the great heroes and prophets of the Hebrew Bible that we revere today – nor were they Christian. Not even Moses. And dare I say it… nor did they die as Christians. They were Hebrews, they were Jews. I think it is vitally important for us as Christians living in the 21st century to acknowledge this and to make this gear shift within our souls. To say with deep humility, ‘Thank you, God, for using all people (not just my type of people or like-minded people) to bring about your purposes; to bring about your peace’. This, for me, does not diminish the gospel – but makes it more!

The thief on the cross, for example; he was just a so-called thief – but Jesus extended so much generosity, feeling and compassion towards him by saying ‘Today you will be with me in paradise.’ He didn’t ask, ‘Are you a Christian?’ Nor did he say, ‘Believe in me first. Believe that I am the truth, the life and the way.’ Without any questions asked, Jesus said, we will be together, today.

Another instance. When Jesus sees a mother, who also happens to be a widow, about to bury her young son, ‘his heart [runs] out to her’ (Luke 7: 13). This is such an arresting picture. His heart runs out to her. Not his head, not his theology, not his orthodoxy (his so-called right thoughts about God), but his heart runs out to her.

He stops the funeral procession in its tracks, not to interrogate, not to set conditions or even to ask, ‘Are you a Christian?’ Nor even to say to her, ‘Follow me’. He wasn’t interested in making a disciple of her it seems. But the sight of this stranger broke his heart and he stepped to the fore to offer what he had – not only in this hands, but from his self and soul. Now that, for me, is religion – mission at its best! In the help, there was healing, wholeness – holiness in action. At the end of it all, he didn’t even say to her or to her son, ‘Follow me.’ He just restored a boy to his mother. You see, the ego loves transactions. ‘I’ve done something for you; now you must do something for me’. But Jesus is beyond such pettiness. And we must be beyond that too.

So often, in the gospels, Jesus applauds others – including women – who fall outside of the tight religious circles into which he and they were born; he applauds them for their faith. Faith meaning their utter trust in the bigness, in the Mystery we call God. A trust in something – or someone you cannot fully grasp or understand.

And you know what is so astounding about our beloved Jesus of Nazareth? In the gospels, he would consistently say to them – these apparent outsides, ‘What faith you have’. I love that Jesus never says, ‘What faith you have in me’. You see he is not caught up in his own ego. He simply says, ‘What faith you have.’ Or, ‘Your faith has healed you’. Not, ‘Your faith in me…’

Of a Roman centurion nogal Jesus said, ‘Never have I found such faith in all of Israel.’ Of course this is deliberate exaggeration – hyperbole, but look to the point Jesus is trying to make. God’s goodness can never be hemmed in or dictated too. It knows no bounds. Or, in the words of a well-known hymn, ‘There’s a wideness in God’s mercy, as the wideness of the sea.’ We are the ones who draw the circle around the mystery of God too tightly.

I hope that Jesus has a big fat pencil behind his ear with an eraser at the top end. Smiling and crying, crying and smiling, he rubs out our narrowness and the huge ways we hem him in.

I think it’s important to realize the bigness, wideness, depth and scope of the God we love and worship. To have the humility and grace to realize that we can never bottle God; nor can we bottle the numerous ways in which God has chosen – and still chooses to express GodSelf. We can never have the monopoly on God. Crucial to acknowledgement that often, there are many things about God that will go beyond our egos and understanding (an echo of Philippians 4: 7).

It is important for us to make these shifts in our souls as Christians living in the 21st century. To be born again, and again, and again as it were. Which, to me means, to make ourselves vulnerable, willing to be nursed, fed, to have our bottoms changed. Willing to learn; and willing to be taught; to get things right and to get them wrong; to scrap our knees; to bleed - and also to bud, blossom and bloom.

I was struck by the childlikeness of both of these grown men – huge spiritual teachers and leaders living in our own times; how mischievous and frivolous they were – and how they both laughed like little girls. I was reminded of Jesus and the centrality of child-likeness in his thoughts and spirituality. Struck, not by the obvious differences in our religious traditions, but by the friendship and love. And I thought to myself, if those are the only two things we ever offer one another – friendship and love, each will have served the other very well. And we’d do God - by any Name - so proud.

Read Metaphorically

2011-10-04T16:01:00.001+02:00

If God planted in us the capacity for both literal and metaphoric truth,why do we always and only want the Bible to be literally true? Why do we always want to be literally 'caught up in the sky'?

Its disappointing how intelligent people can sometimes drag the text down by taking everything so literally- as if the lion must literally lie down with the lamb. As if heaven must literally be a place (frequently opposite to hell) to which we go to after this life.

I think we need to learn to read pictures more - to rest and revel in stories. And flex our imaginations. Sit more frequently at the feet of Master storytellers and allow metaphor to do its job - to carry us beyond. Ironically that is what meta-phor literally means - to transport, to carry beyond. Often beyond the smallness of ego mind into the vastness of mystery and soul. But to be carried requires vulnerability, trust, surrender... things that sit unconfortably with ego mind.

St Francis, Friendship and Taming

2011-10-03T09:15:00.001+02:00

When you tame something, you will begin to need it as much as it will begin to need you.
Photo of fox Googled. Yesterday's homily.

St Francis is probably the most popular of all Christian saints. Google his name and his life story jumps out at you! There are hundreds of references to him – perhaps more than any other of our saints.

Though he was born into privilege and wealth, Francis rejected these things and is known for his radical simplicity. In fact, the well-known Franciscan teacher and monk, Richard Rohr, notes that the brown Franciscan habit now worn by the friars and Poor Clares the world over, eventually took on this colour because Francis would not wash it. It was undyed fabric (probably the colour of calico). Francis’ father was a wealthy cloth merchant. Among other things, this must have irked his dad very much!

Francis is often pictured – written in icons, with birds resting on or about his person. His friendship with animals; his reverence and closeness to nature is what I would like to draw on below.

In the spirit of St Francis, and in the spirit of Jesus who often taught using stories and parables, I’d like to read to you a short extract from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince. After which I will draw out several points in conclusion.

We meet the little prince as he is about to tame a fox. He’s been on a long journey from a distant star. Finally, he’s come to earth, in search of people. In the story, taming is a metaphor for that deep need found in friendship. When you tame something you form a beautiful bond – a friendship with it. And you will begin to need it as much as it will need you.

‘Good morning,’ said the fox.

‘Good morning,’ the little prince responded politely, although when he turned around he saw nothing. ‘I’m right here,’ the voice said, ‘under the apple tree.’ ‘Who are you?’ asked the prince, and added, ‘You are very pretty to look at.’ ‘I am a fox’ the fox said. ‘Come and play with me,’ proposed the little prince. ‘I am so unhappy.’

‘I cannot play with you,’ the fox said. ‘I am not tamed.’

‘Ah! Please excuse me,’ said the little prince. But, after some thought, he added:

‘What does that mean – tame?’

‘It means to establish ties,’ said the fox. ‘To establish ties’?

‘Just that,’ said the fox. ‘To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world…’ ‘I am beginning to understand,’ said the little prince.

The fox continued, ‘If you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow… You see the grain-fields down yonder? [and the fox pointed with his paw]. I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me… But you have hair that is the colour of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat…’ The fox gazed at the little prince, for a long time. ‘Please – tame me’, he said.

‘What must I do to tame you?’ asked the little prince.

‘You must be very patient,’ replied the fox. ‘First, you will sit down at a little distance from me… I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, everyday…’

The next day the little prince came back. ‘It would have been better to come back at the same hour,’ said the fox. ‘If, for example, you came at four o’clock, then at three, I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o’clock, I shall be jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am! But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you…’

So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near, the fox said, ‘I shall cry.’ This distressed the little prince. He did not want to hurt the fox or see him sad and cry. And the little prince thought to himself, 'Taming is no good.' But the fox said, ‘It has done me the world of good. When I look at the wheat-fields, I shall also be looking at you. I will never look at the world in quite the same way again…'

Some thoughts:

When you tame something or, when you allow yourself to be tame, you form a beautiful bond, a tie, a friendship with that someone or something… and it makes you look at the world in a deep and different way. You allow poetry to come out of your person and out of your pores. Love that Jesus of Nazareth said, I call you my friends. I think he had an enormous taming effect on his followers.

We, like the fox, must want to be tamed. We must want the friendship out loud (Jelaluddin Rumi). There must be a desire (a seed; a star burning inside of us) for this transformative friendship. Which Jesus offered his disciples – and still offers us today through relationships – with people, with things, and with animals.

We mustn’t just be patient, the fox says, we must be very patient. The ego loves to race, to compete, to win, to be in control, to be right – even to the point of being acid and rude. While these things have their place; they are not everything. So, we must learn…

We must sit down. In other words, become acquainted with the ground. The soul is used to sitting. And the posture of sitting, in several religious traditions, is very significant. In the Judeo-tradition, which we have inherited, rabbis in antiquity taught sitting down. In the gospels, when Jesus sits down – or makes others sit down, you know he is going to teach. ‘First,’ says the fox, ‘you must sit down.’ Come off of your high horse as it were. We are brought down through illness, suffering, heartache; through whatever rocks the foundation of our world. But the converse is also true: great love also brings us down to earth.

The fox says, we must sit at a little distance and come closer gradually. Another echo of being very patient. It flies in the face of our all too instant world – where everything can be had or transacted, communicated, or terminated at the press of a button, the move of mouse.

In this friendship that we must want, there will be gazing. Eastern spirituality, knows this best. We have this too in our Anglican tradition: sacred spaces, isles, down which you can simply gaze. When you gaze upon something or someone, the mute button is always pressed. Anyone who has ever, ever loved knows this truth intuitively. There is a necessary saying nothing. So the fox gazed at the little prince, for a long time.

We must make time for this friendship; build it into our routine. Be committed to it. Love is often and also found in repetition and in the routine. This repetition and routine makes us long for it when it is not there. So the fox says, ‘If I know you’re coming at four o’clock, at three I will already begin to be happy’. Anyone who has ever, ever loved, knows this truth intuitively.

On this journey, like the fox, express your happiness. Don’t hide your happiness under a basin. The fox says, ‘I shall show you how happy I am!’

The fox and the little prince remind us that tears are part of love’s deal. And the fox in effect says to the prince, ‘When you are away from me, I shall remember you.’ In other words, I shall see you in everything. Anyone who has ever, ever loved knows this truth intuitively: You see your beloved everywhere - and in everything - even in a piece of bread, in a sip of wine, in the smell of rain, in the taste of a pear, the opening of a cupboard, in the sitting of a chair...

Love that Jesus of Nazareth said, Do this and you will remember me. I will be nowhere else but (t)here...

Praise and Worship

2011-09-29T11:15:00.001+02:00

Photo of Olive Tree Googled

Part of our human - and 'born again' Christian arrogance is that we often think we are the 'experts' at praise and worship... That such praise must be expressed mainly through song - through for example 'Hillsongs'; through loud shouts, grunts, drama, moments of being slain and the like. I'm always humbled and moved by how the psalms return us to our senses: 'Sun, moon and stars praise the Lord; waters above and below; sea-monsters and all deeps; mountains and hills; fruiting trees and all cedars; creeping things and winged birds' psalm 148.

But to get this you need imagination and poetic sensibility. I adore what Thomas Merton said, 'A tree gives glory to God by being a tree'. In other words, by being itself. The same must be true for us too. We honour and praise God - perhaps more than anything else - by being none other than our authentic selves.

Stuck in our Story

2011-09-23T10:15:00.001+02:00

Friendship is perhaps one of the deepest

religious acts we can offer one another. Photo of Tibetan monks Googled.

I was at a meeting of religious ministers recently and someone put that we consider at some future point, 'missioning' to the Muslims moving into 'our' area. What a small, silly, and insulting world we live in. And many times we do these insults in the name of God. Sometimes we can be so stuck in our own salvation stories, in our tickets to heaven.

Archbishop Tutu is spot on.God is not Christian - and nor was Jesus - not in his entire life, not at his death. I wonder, with tongue in cheek, who's missioning to them? Rus smiles and cries.

I resonate with the Dalai Lama when he says kindness is his religion. I believe that at the heart of kindness - and through its eyes - is a profound recognition that, at our essence, we are of the same kind. Made of the same stuff of the stars. Our 'salvation stories', our saviours, our emphases and life paths may differ, but at the inarticulate depth of our soul, there is common ground, we are the same. Kindness - more than a wanting to convert someone, recognizes this.

I was told this, and I believe it to be true: In heaven two surprises await us. The first is that we are there; and the the second is to see who else God has invited to the party.

I resonate with Coleman Barks who says that friendship is perhaps one of the deepest religious acts. Love that mother Teresa of Calcutta offered friendship and hospitality to the poor - discouraging her sisters to even talk about Jesus. Encouraging them rather to be Jesus. That was her mission.

I believe in friendship we are all offered a chance of 'conversion'. Not just me coming with my story, or you trying to win me over with yours. Love that Jesus of Nazareth is reputed to have said, I call you my friends. Did he perhaps also know and tap into the same perennial stream of Wisdom Barks taps into above?

In the world of ego someone must be a winner, another a loser with a capital L.We play these games as Church as well. Someone (like Peter) must hold the keys; someone must have all the answers. Someone must save, while another must be saved. Surely God must be beyond such dualistic, oppositional crap?

Jesus to me seems to go beyond such in groups and out groups. Scandalously and consistently he'd invite to the table who we would uninvite - or not even consider. And he'd friendship, fraternize,eat and drink with many of them. Expanding their worlds, while they, like that Canaanite woman,expanded his.When we offer one another friendship, and meet one another as human beings, metanoia (conversion)- literally a going beyond (ego) mind happens to all, and in all, and for all. A win-win situation.

St Matthew

2011-09-21T09:16:00.001+02:00

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Tax collectors were not highly regarded by their fellow Jews. They were considered collaborators with the oppressive Roman government. Matthew (or Levi as he is also called) was one of those ‘collaborators’. So, for Jesus to notice and invite him into his inner circle was quite scandalous; rubbing many of his fellow Jews up the wrong way.

There is a generosity about God that sometimes we may find hard to stomach. Often, what and who we will want to omit, overlook, or exclude from the party, God in Jesus, will admit, notice, include and over-indulge.

We seem to draw the circle around God too tightly – hemming God and goodness in. Fortunately there's an eraser at the top end of the pencil Jesus carries behind his ear; rubbing out our lines with a huge smile and huge tears.

Today we remember Matthew. Someone who, from a narrow perspective, God should not have called. Someone who God should not have associated with.

Too often, we put limits on God's goodness and generosity. But thank God for a Teacher and person like Jesus, who blows the lid of those limits sky high by consistently being scandalously inclusive. Happy St Matthew's day. The church needs to follow this lead.

Holy Cross

2011-09-14T11:45:00.001+02:00

Scripture

2011-09-13T09:32:00.009+02:00

Never in his wildest dreams did Paul think he was writing scripture when he wrote many of the Letters compiled into what we today call the New Testament. Love this telling line from one of today's lectionary readings: 'Therefore, in the words of scripture...' And then Paul goes on to quote a piece of scripture (1 Cor. 1: 31). His letters are peppered with many such examples. And, by scripture, he meant the Hebrew scriptures... Sometimes we can be so arrogant as Christians - particularly about what God says in 'God's Word'.

In addition, many times, Paul - and even words attributed to Jesus himself, Paul and Jesus never says where in scripture the text is from or found... So different to the way many pelt pieces of scripture about today (quoting chapter and verse)... to prove their point; to prove ego-I has the right (and often only) answers (to everything)... We seriously need to get a life. Love, therefore, these words attributed to Jesus of Nazareth, I've come so that you may have life abundantly.

Image Googled

A Saviour 'Out There'

2011-09-12T12:00:00.007+02:00

We have too often been taught to diminish and disregard ourselves.To look for a saviour somewhere 'out there' like damsels waiting for their knight.It heartens me so much to find a Jesus who validates you and your faith - not a faith even in him - but your faith. Faith like a little opening, a spiracle, inviting you into the Moreness there always is... not just on the outside, but also within...
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The universe we live in is always both/and
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Something about Jesus and about You

2011-09-12T10:30:00.017+02:00

from the movie Centurion. That Something in you recognizing the Same Thing in me

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The very first disciples of Jesus fell in love with and followed him not because he died for their sins, or rose from the dead... They didn't know the story as we know it today. But they knew and were drawn to some mysterious, can't-quite-put-my-finger-on-it, thing... They recognized it in Jesus; inexplicable deep calling to deep. I believe a huge shift happens in you when you love him like that and for that. That, I believe, is what 'saves' you.
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Jesus seemed to have recognized this inexplicable depth in others too. In the gospels, he says consistently,'Your faith has saved you' and not 'Your faith in me'. And again he says,'What faith you have' and not 'What faith you have in me'. I'm humbled by his generosity and humility (in the truest sense of that word); by his recognition and knowing who, in essence, he is and who, in essence, we are (fearfully and wonderfully made)...
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In today's lectionary reading at the Eucharist, Jesus says of a Roman centurion, 'not even in Israel [among God's chosen] have I found such faith' (Luke 7:9b).
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Postscript: Cynthia Bourgeault, in her book The Wisdom Jesus, speaks of him as a 'recognition event'

Dogs and Learning New Tricks

2011-08-13T19:00:00.014+02:00

Jesus, the teacher from Nazareth, was a person who challenged others to think, live and love beyond themselves. In every sense, he was a revolutionary. For he turned their world and ways of looking at the world upside down, or – as Albert Nolan would say, he turned it right side up! And so, some of the wisdom sayings and teachings attributed to Jesus are sometimes eyebrow-raising, shocking or earth-shattering; meant to yank us out of our sleep and complacency. Today’s gospel teaching is like that (Matthew 15:21-28).

Jesus speaks disrespectfully – rudely to a woman of another nationality and, initially, dismisses her plight. With his other male disciples, he tries to shoo and swat her away like you would an irritating fly. Such talk would not go down well in many circles today. He compares the Canaanite woman and her daughter to dogs – not cute puppies, but dogs. And these are the words attributed to him, ‘Let the children be satisfied first; it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs’ (Mark 7: 27).

The children Jesus was referring to was, of course, the children of Israel – the chosen of God; the in crowd. Had we been there (because we, like the Canaanite woman and her daughter – we are gentiles) – we would not be in or made to feel that we belong. Certainly not in this story, as it is unfolding at the moment. So the children are children of a certain nation, Israel, and the bread, was Jesus’ healing, and life-giving power. According to Matthew’s gospel, Jesus came to the lost sheep of Israel – and not to a Canaanite woman.

But the woman kept at Jesus. She persisted. And nor did she become insulting or rude, as often is the case (you know, a klap for a klap). Instead, very cleverly, she extends the Master’s own metaphor, and says: ‘True, sir, and yet the dogs eat the scraps that fall from their master’s table’ (Matthew 15:27).

On hearing this Jesus replied, ‘What faith you have!’ And he grants her, her heart’s desire. A desire centered not upon herself, but for the healing of her daughter. And from that instant, her daughter was restored to health. This woman, an outsider, had changed the heart and mind of Jesus of Nazareth, our Lord of the Universe. Jesus’ own willingness to change, to reconsider, to re-evaluate, to go beyond his national, cultural and systemic constraints – thrills and tickles me pink to no end!

There are many things I think we can learn from this story. But two I will point to here: The first is that our culture often shapes the way we see other people. In many ways, our culture can dictate to us. Without dialogue, it can colour and sometimes skew our vision. Jesus was born into a Jewish culture – a culture that was more exclusive than inclusive. A culture (as many still do today) that treated men superior, and differently to women and children.

A religious culture having many laws, rules and regulations to it. And so people often became stuck in observing and upholding just the veneer, the structures, the system, the ‘outside of the cup’ without living its deeper, transformative truths.

Secondly: Our culture can bring out the best and also the very worst in us.

When our culture brings out the worst in us – when it says things like men are superior to women; white is better than brown (and I'm not talking about bread); straight hair is better than curly hair; English-speaking people are superior to Afrikaans-speaking people; money makes you a better person (and the list goes on), then we should be brave enough, like Jesus, to ditch those ideas. To risk stepping out of the frame, out of the cozy box in which we were born. Like Jesus, be willing to concede, to change and let the healing begin.

But before pointing any fingers – and the ego loves pointing fingers (setting up an in crowd or an out crowd), think of one way in which (y)our cultures, or upbringings have dictated wrong things to us. Not only coloured our vision but skewed it completely. I can think of many.

I grew up with the understanding that men don’t cry. The first time I saw a man cry, up front, close and personal, was when I was 20 years old. I grew up with the understanding that the colour blue was for boys and pink for girls (how that has changed). In my day (and now I sound like Moses at 119), I never dreamt that men would wear earrings – let alone two or three or more, and in both ears nogal (how things have changed). I couldn’t imagine a woman as a priest. When I went to America, I was one year beyond my teens, and initially, couldn’t get over high heels in the sanctuary donning a dog collar and chasuble (how things have changed)… I grew up thinking that white people always know better and will always be far cleverer than people of colour.

Our cultures, our collective Mother, teaches us many right and wrong things. The expression, ‘You can’t teach an old dog new tricks’ has no place in a Christ-centred culture. For we all have to learn new things from the Master at every turn. The colour green must course through our veins.

I believe the woman in today’s story opened Jesus’ eyes, giving him the gift of a Damascus experience, as it were. And at that moment, healing began not only for her little daughter – but I bet it began for the Canaanite woman and for Jesus too...

But if I were to write this gospel story too, I’d have Peter, who just a few verses earlier, Jesus calls faithless and, even earlier, Satan, I’d have him interject and shout at Jesus moments before Jesus has a change of heart. Peter would shout, ‘What is this, Lord? What is this all about?’ And then, with narrow, soulful eyes, Jesus would smile and say, ‘Don’t be as hard as a rock, Peter. Let your soul fall to its knees. Let it bend, blow and then rise with the Wind. For that, my dear, dear friend, that is what is meant to feed us. A change of heart and mind can be manna for the Journey; meant to nourish us just there where it is needed most’.

Postscript: Manna in Hebrew literally means ‘What is that?

May You Be Seen

2011-08-12T18:30:00.006+02:00

Photo of Yoo Seung-ho Googled

Love can make you really, really happy...

Love has a way of seeing you as nothing else can - not even a pair of eyes...

Mother and Child

2011-08-12T17:01:00.011+02:00

Those who ache for a child, dream of and fall in love
with this child long before it is born. Above: Yoo Seung-ho is Korean

Yesterday, still being in the holy month of Ramadan, a highly pregnant 22 year-old Muslim woman sort my help on the steps of St Stephen's. I spent more than 3 hours with her and eventually got her to a place of safety where, hopefully, she will have her baby (as a single mother) with dignity. She kept calling the baby him and made me feel him move several times. I was moved - almost to tears - beyond what this note can now articulate... Putting the bowl of 2 minute noodles we had shared aside, she said - looking directly at me, managing a smile through lots of emotions she said that if it is a boy - like she feels it is - she would give him to me... And for that timeless instant everything in me believed her... And I said, yes

Orientation - Trust the Turn

2011-08-09T00:30:00.010+02:00

Let the video buffer first. You do so by pressing play and then when it kicks in, press pause (anywhere on the screen). Wait until the line has scrolled solidly from left to right. Turn up the volume, look and listen. Please know that this comes sincerely with love and blessings

Learn to trust the primal direction in which your body turns when, out of the corner of its many eyes, it pulls you - pulls your Self and soul through the pores of your skin, out of smallness towards the enormity of (an)Other.

Orientation

2011-08-05T11:01:00.025+02:00

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I've found from a very young age, that a sure way to test your sexual orientation is to trust the primal direction in which your body turns when, out of the corner of its many eyes, it pulls you - pulls your Self and soul through the pores of your skin, out of smallness towards the enormity of (an)Other.
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Child of the Stars, fashioned from its dust, trust the direction of that pull. Fearful, overwhelming and uncertain as these emotions may sometimes be. Buried in its gravity are true gifts, manna for the Journey.
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So... be heartful and mindful of the direction, the pull, the turn your body takes even sometimes against your upbringing, culture, religious beliefs and sensibilities. Learn to trust the deepest sense of your body.
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Ironically, in religious language, to repent is to turn around... Trust the direction in which your body turns and sometimes spins you around. Even if, at the beginning it is a little unsettling, disorienting, against the way you have been schooled... On the Journey we risk. We learn, We love. Be supple and soulful, green like a shoot. Trust the direction in which your body turns as it runs like a slow or fast-flowing stream - sometimes even in spite of yourself. As it runs towards love - not just on the inside, but outside of you. To that turning, trust... Be honest, open, be true. Let your body have its way in seeing you through.
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Postscript: Several years ago, Rabbi Steven Greenberg spoke at the University of the Western Cape and referred to this turning of your body. Photo above is googled.
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Sitting in Silence

2011-08-02T10:01:00.011+02:00

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Meditate,
not to get anything out of it.
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Sit, just to sit.
Be (t)here, just to be...
Not to be good at it - or to succeed
Not to be hard on yourself when you stray and don't succeed...
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But sit, just to sit
Show up and be there
Just to be
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And you will have done
yourSelf, the world and universe
an enormous favour
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You will have done a very precious thing
Out of which your speaking and acting can begin
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The Stuff of Miracles

2011-08-01T09:16:00.006+02:00

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Let the video buffer first. You do so by pressing play and then when it kicks in, press pause (anywhere on the screen). Wait until the line has scrolled solidly from left to right. Turn up the volume, look and listen. Please know that this comes sincerely with love and blessings
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Don't take the Journey as Nothing... From my sermon of yesterday. Some thoughts on the feeding of 5000 men (not counting the women and children) sies! A boy brings to Jesus the stuff out of which miracles are made John 6:9.
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I AM and Holy Ground

2011-07-18T09:00:00.007+02:00

Let the video buffer first. You do so by pressing play and then when it kicks in, press pause (anywhere on the screen). Wait until the line has scrolled solidly from left to right. Turn up the volume, look and listen. Please know that this comes sincerely with love and blessings

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Often, simple gestures done soulfully have the potential to reconnect us to God in ways words cannot.

Authority and Power

2011-07-07T07:15:00.008+02:00

In several places, the gospels tell us that Jesus spoke with authority. Authority, for me, is different to power (as power is used in the popular and secular sense). Power as it is mainly associated and driven by ego. Someone who speaks with authority is deeply acquainted with the Author of all things.
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I think great teachers, like Jesus of Nazareth and others, are like that. They speak from a place of authenticity - because they spend their lives at the feet of the Author of All Things. Yesterday's gospel spoke of this Jesus with authority (Matthew 10:1-7). And it is from this place that he was able to heal all kinds of infirmities... When we act and speak from that same place, we have the same effect on others, the world and upon ourselves too.
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Dreaming My Boy

2011-07-04T09:30:00.010+02:00

I have for years been in love with the dream of adopting a baby boy. Yesterday, the lectionary reading made me revisit the story of Moses and his beginnings - a story crafted around a baby boy in a basket, to perhaps point us to deeper truths not just about God, but about ourselves and our enormous capacity to love (Exodus 1:6-14,22-2:10). This short video was part of my sermon..
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Jacob Wrestles with the Angel

2011-06-27T13:16:00.007+02:00

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God who walked so intimately
with our spiritual ancestors,
Let not the Light of Holiness go out in us.
Even and especially when the ground upon which we stand
becomes unsure, strange, a daunting and daily struggle...

In this stretch of time
Remind us always of our true Name, Beloved
Reorient us towards our truest Nature, Light

Postscript: The Hebrew words for woman, man and fire all share similar roots
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Undivided Holy Trinity

2011-06-17T15:01:00.012+02:00

Chad at Sea Point, Cape Town. The two children and you add up to Three

God our abba, truest Parent of us all. Thank you that in Jesus, you are also our brother. In Jesus you are unafraid to become weak and small enough to hold not just our hearts, our dreams – but also our hands. In Jesus, you become part of our DNA. Part, not just of the teaching of the Trinity, but ingrained in our human destiny.

Through your Holy Spirit, you are with us and within us. Always and for ever. Nothing – not even death can dislodge you. Through your Holy Spirit, you move beyond words, labels – beyond boundaries and boxes. Yet still closer to us than our deepest thoughts... Our spiritual foreparents knew this Mystery intuitively, so they dared not even write or speak your name – YHWH – but rather uttered a sound similar to the flow, the in-and-out of breath…

So, Breath of our breath. Love of our love. Meaning and Miracle at the heart of our marrow. Thank you for believing in us. For inspiring us. For seeing in us what many times we cannot see in others or ourselves. All blessing to the undivided and Holy Trinity

Fasting

2011-06-15T15:15:00.009+02:00

I delight in this story attributed to Jesus and hope that if and when he told it or stories like it, he was very animated! Jesus tells the story of those who fasted pulling long and gloomy faces (Matthew 6: 16 - 18). I hope when he told these stories, he too pulled a long, gloomy and unsightly face. And perhaps his audience (which, in all likelihood included children), would have rolled about and laugh out loud. And through their laughing, lose their inhibitions, and then settle more deeply into their true Selves and the many truths his teachings must have awakened in them.
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Postscript: Sometimes we can be so humourless and loveless; so institutional as 'church'. So unlike the rabbi in whose name we dare to speak.

Burning Bush and Holy Ground

2011-06-06T12:45:00.009+02:00

Holy Ground - Exodus 3:1 - 12

I love that in this story, when Moses has an encounter with God, he is going about his everyday business. He wasn’t doing anything unusual. He was doing the mundane, doing the ordinary when he had a most extraordinary encounter with God.

Too often, we always expect encounters with God – and God’s Holy Spirit to be of the overly dramatic kind; or to be when we are out on some 'spiritual' quest or pilgrimage. But in this story, Moses was at his desk, as it were. And, it is in the ordinary that God comes to meet him.

The story tells of a bush that was blazing, yet it was not consumed. The angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in a flame of fire. Yet the flame did not consume the bush. I love this image. Because it honours not only God in the form of an angel – God in the form of fire; but it also honours the bush. It does not consume or obliterate the bush.

This suggests to me that with God seriously in your life, you seriously do matter.

You, your personality, your particularity,

Your gifts, your dreams, the shape of your soul –

all these things are not obliterated, are not consumed…

But You, the essence, the heart, the soul of your matters.

Like a typical male, when Moses becomes aware of this occurrence, he turns to the bush and tries to analyze it. He tries to see why the bush is not being burnt up; not being consumed. And there’s nothing the matter with that. But sometimes – or perhaps most times, encounters with God will often go beyond analytical thinking or grasping. And the only way we can 'talk' about these encounters are through images, pictures, metaphors, myths, poetry, songs (and the like).

I love that in this story, God calls to Moses not from the drama of the flame, but from the ordinary bush. And a bush, as you know, is not a huge oak or pine tree. It’s more like fynbos, more at home, closer to the ground. So God calls to Moses from the bush. From a place very close to the ground.

God calls Moses by name and not by number. By name and not by deeds – by what Moses has done, achieved, or even left undone. And Moses answers simply but very profoundly, ‘Here I am’. What a marvelous response, ‘Here I am’. It’s as if Moses shows up, for the very first time, on the landscape of his life.

At this point, Moses, it appears, becomes rather excited. But God says, ‘Come no closer!’ Just stand there. Be still. Be earthed. Wait. Remove your sandals. Feel the ground under your feet. For the place on which you are standing is holy ground. And in the stillness, God communicates to Moses. Reminding him of his heritage – the long line from which he comes. How the seeds of faith were planted and then passed on. And Moses is overcome with awe. He hide his face in fear.

In the stillness, Moses standing there vulnerable with naked feet. God begins to pour God’s heart out to Moses. A little different to the way we often pray. God tells Moses that God is aware of the great suffering, the many in justices… God also tells Moses that God’s got a plan. And that Moses is God’s man! Suddenly, Moses’ earlier, profound response, ‘Here I am’ turns into, ‘What? Who me?’ ‘Who am I?’

And if I were telling the story, as many of our spiritual foreparents did, I'd pencil a smile on God's face, stretching from one end of the universe to the other. I'd have God repeat Moses’ name saying ‘Moses’, ‘Moses, Moses. I will be with you’. I’d have Moses sit down on his bum. Then from the ground, put on his sandals for the road and task is love is long.
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The Light You Seek

2011-06-04T18:45:00.007+02:00

You too are the Light you Seek

On Ascension Day, those who gathered in the Garden Chapel at St Stephen's Church, Pinelands, witnessed a little liturgical drama around the extinguishing of the Easter Candle. Traditionally, this Candle may be snuffed out after the gospel reading either on Ascension Day or Pentecost Sunday (when the 50 Days of Easter come to an end). Both customs are powerful and valid.
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But since we have two Easter Candles, the clergy have decided to let one burn until Pentecost. The Easter Candle represents Christ our Light. By extinguishing this Candle and removing it from the sanctuary, the Church invites us to inhabit a more profound truth: That the Christ Light should always burn within us and right through us. Burn through the tones, overt and quiet efforts, the love-light of our lives.
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There are two other significant moments in the year when this Candle will regain prominence. Two moments when, perhaps, we need to be reminded of the brilliance and beauty, the Spirit of Christ, so unobtrusively at home within us. The Easter Candle will be relit at funerals, in the darkness of our grief; and it will be relit at baptisms, in the joy and exuberance of new life. May you be blessed by the many rituals and richness of our traditions, some of whose roots run deliciously deep into the early Church
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Ascension and Novena

2011-06-01T22:45:00.007+02:00

The practice of making a novena stems from the Ascension story in the Book of Acts (1:14f). Jesus tells his disciples to stay in Jerusalem, to wait and pray. Traditionally, this period lasts nine days (novena). So perhaps they waited in darkness, grief and fear, behind shut doors, until the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

What a marvellous picture in a world of instant gratification! Wait, Jesus says. The Easter appearances had come to an end on the day of the Ascension. This must have thrown his disciples into a winter of soul; bereft with grief again.

Why not make a Novena this year? Wait like a nascent seed in the darkness, in the not-knowing of nine days – as we open ourselves up to grace, to dreams, possibilities and goodnesses we – in our best moments – cannot even begin to dream. This dark-time, you see, is not simply tomb time – it is also womb time, from which something truly life-giving and meaningful, if we thoroughly embrace it, can emerge.

Longing Heart

2011-05-26T23:45:00.012+02:00

Photo by Neil Wade - Tibetan boy in Window

Regardless of age, religion, colour or culture, gender or sexual orientation; regardless of how hard, impenetrable, unmoved, polished, or 'together' it may look like on its veneer - essentially - all a heart longs for is to love and be loved

Postscript: The young do not hold the monopoly on love

A Love

2011-05-20T20:30:00.014+02:00

Grey Wolf Howling - Robert Franz

There’s a love you’ll love all your life. Even and especially when it’s gone, refused, denied, taken away slowly or abruptly, or a love that now has changed… There’s a love you’ll love all your life, perhaps even beyond. A love you'll howl at the moon for…A love that brought you to be better, more grounded - earthed; to be at home on all fours. This is that love you'll love all your life and more...

Sunshine

2011-05-19T23:45:00.005+02:00

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My Wedding Night

2011-05-18T15:30:00.007+02:00

This short video draws on the intuition in some mystical traditions that the night on which you die is also your wedding night. The night on which all distinctions between you and God are lost... And the illusion of seperateness is seen and laughed at...
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These thoughts are set against an extract from the music of John Williams. The photo is Googled
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My Wedding Night

2011-05-15T13:45:00.017+02:00

I love this photo so much and photographing Jason

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On my wedding night, when the illusion is seen, when my soul is lost in God’s soul, when all distinctions are put to bed, and we are like dancing, delirious echoes, each of the other – all One; if God should ask what has been one of the miracles to have brought me here, I shall smile and tearfully say: One of the gifts – a primary miracle, was feeding you tiny bits of cheese. Watching you open your mouth. Loving your two front teeth. Having you take it from me. As it was then, so it is now, my soul is brought to its knees.
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Postscript: In some traditions, the night you die is also called your Wedding Night. Ego-you is lost in union with God
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Weeping, Wounds and Grief

2011-05-13T23:00:00.007+02:00

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Let the video buffer first. You do so by pressing play and then when it kicks in, press pause (anywhere on the screen). Wait until the line has scrolled solidly from left to right. Turn up the volume, look and listen. And please know that this comes sincerely with love and blessings

A short video about Wounds, Weeping and Grieving. For Craig who died so unexpectedly. Our hearts will break and hurt for as long as it must. More than us, grief knows its way. Now more than ever is the time to trust that dark gift and guest.

Postscript: The idea that grief knows its way more than we do is not my own, but belongs to

John O'Donohue

Simon of Cyrene

2011-05-13T20:16:00.005+02:00

Yesterday, the (Anglican) Church remembered Simon. He was father of Alexander and Rufus. Simon was a daddy and he was African! The gospels tell that he was pressed, against his will, into helping Jesus carry his cross. It could have been very traumatizing for Simon and, if his sons were accompanying him, traumatizing for them too, to witness the horror and spectacle of a Roman execution. Reading it in retrospect, we sometimes sugar-coat the story that they were living moment by moment; covering up the reality in layers of complicated theology.

Press me into service, Lord.
Press out of me, like an olive on a tree,
all that is good resident inside
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You are the love
that makes me whole
You are the Journey
You, Lord, the goal
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An Easter Blessing

2011-05-10T06:04:00.011+02:00

Photo Googled

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May the quiet light
of the Easter candle
rekindle in you all that is good,
wholesome, helpful and healing.
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May you be blessed by an Easter
that is gentle and generous as a sunrise or sunset.
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Blessed by an Easter with many small miracles
buried beneath what we find mundane
and will perhaps want to dismiss far too easily.
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May you be blessed by an Easter that will touch
and get to you as the smell of freshly laundered sheets
gets to and touches me. An Easter that will both challenge and console;
that will make you weep and laugh...
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An Easter that moves you to what's true and truly whole.
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Postscript: There are 50 days to the season of Easter,
ending on the day of Pentecost. Happy Easter
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Wounds and Love

2011-05-06T11:45:00.009+02:00

Hayden Christiansen. Photo Googled and Photoshopped. My heart will hurt and break for Craig for as long as it must

One wound often opens onto another and another. It's ok to weep for them all. But see each for who and what they are. Or call upon the help of a soul friend to assist you. And if (t)here is where you find yourself, be gentle. Call too upon the angel of kindness (the other face of grief) to come and sit or stand in silent solidarity with you, your heart and aching soul. Let that angel do the holding of your hand more than you. You just be there. Be gentle and excessively patient with yourself as you wade (sit or stand absolutely numb and still) in these layers and waves of grief. Offer no resistance as they come and go, ebb and flow. More than you, they know the way, and will move you in time to a different shore. A shore more holy and healing than hollow, harrowing or haunting. One unspeakably more precious than heart-piecing. Until such time... you just be (t)here, numb in the stillness, still in your numbness. Just be (t)here

Love and Loss

2011-05-06T11:00:00.005+02:00

Loss is part of love's deal and, although I would not wish it upon anyone, or myself, I would not have it any other way. The truth is that I've also learnt how more to love through what and who I've lost

Being Human

2011-05-06T00:45:00.015+02:00

Thank you for asking for very little and for giving so very much

There's something about a human being - and the human face that brings God into sharp and utter focus as nothing else in the universe ever can.
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In you, Will, heaven has found a very beautiful home. Always be yourSelf is the mantra I pray for you consistently. That Self will always be more than enough. Spirit is woven into your DNA. You don't need ideas about God to be holy, to be touched by the light and laughter of heaven. You are that and those things, and more, because you are human - because you are so utterly yourSelf. You are the Good God made (initially, essentially, eternally).
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Too often we wait until someone's dead to speak our love and want, as Rumi says, the deep friendship out loud. But I want that and am privileged to have had that with you.
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I'm forever blessed and changed to have watched you grow in beauty (over several years), both on the outside and profoundly within your soul. Which is more rewarding, I cannot now tell. 'I love you' sounds hollow, but I honestly and truly do from the inarticulate depths of me.
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Child of my heart, the world has been holding its breath just for you. Inhabit fully what's your place and you will have done more than well. I am very proud of you, Will.a

Easter

2011-05-04T00:55:00.005+02:00

Easter, for me, is much, much more gentle. More like a sunrise or a sunset than a blast of trumpets belting out 'Alleluias!' I'm not surprised, therefore, that in all four gospel stories, women embraced it first.

Easter is for me more like a seed quietly pushing through dark soil; or like the smell of freshly laundered linen (you are not assaulted by it). It doesn't scream at you... It's more like your lovie whispering your name to you, in tones and shapes even softer than a whisper; Your lovie smiling out at you with a joy that is able to bring you to tears... Easter is like the memory of that smile too... Like the smell his love leaves on your fingertips...

Easter is for me more a consciousness that you need to grow into and unfold with (than perhaps an historical event). It probably is our most essential way of being aware, of beiong alive... more than it is an event we can bottle in a jar, or a date we can peg down (as some are encouraged to do in the front cover of a Gideon Bible)...

Will

2011-05-02T19:50:00.002+02:00

Thank you for finding your way to us, and for bringing many aspects of God and love into such sharp and utter focus. Young as you are, thank you for being really spacious in your love and letting us into sides of your Self and soul that go beyond politeness and pretence. Wherever the path of your life may lead, I'm forever changed and heaps better that for a time, here with me, is part of what you seemed to have needed. Continue to grow into who you are. That will always be more than enough... In you heaven has found a very beautiful home. Hard as it sometimes is, may you always have the heart take the next step

St Joseph

2011-05-01T16:30:00.001+02:00

Resurrection Sunday

2011-04-24T04:34:00.002+02:00

Photo Googled

Those who came to the grave of Jesus on that first Easter morning could never have been adequately prepared for what they were to find. Sunday, the first day of the week, was an ordinary working day for them. But because their hearts had been broken into a million pieces by the events of the Friday just past, and because they loved their rabbi and friend, they made the effort and found themselves at his tomb. All four gospels paint the Resurrection encounter ever so slightly differently. And that, for me, is a gift. Too often we are caught up in the details, wrapped up like linen cloth – grave clothes – stifled in the facts. Wanting to know for certain and for sure... But these Gospel pictures will for always move us beyond cock-sureness and certainty...

They will forever pull and point us towards truths far deeper and more numinous than facts or words… I love that women are first to arrive and are consistent in all the resurrection accounts and that Mary of Magdala, in particular, is always present. In John’s gospel, she is the one who remains behind while the men return home (seemingly satisfied with the fact that Jesus’ body had disappeared)… And then, it is in Mary’s heartache that Easter comes to greet and meet her. Wherever you are on your life’s journey, may you like Mary of Magdala, have the heart to press the pause button; to wait and be utterly and completely present, regardless of whether the moment is brimming over with grief or gushing with gratitude. Have the heart to pause and be fully present. Easter will come to you. And, like Mary, you will hear (y)our Teacher speak your name. May that be the beginning of an evolutionary Journey that will make you never the same.
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Judas

2011-04-20T16:30:00.001+02:00

Before Easter Comes

2011-04-20T13:23:00.000+02:00

What has died always needs to be buried and mourned for first before Easter can properly come. A heart that is wounded - before it comes into the shape, silence and starlight of its essential wonder and wisdom again, needs to wail, wallow, and weep first. Ancient and so-called indigenous cultures knew and know this perhaps more than we do. Tears, from time to time, need to be cried deep. And you need to give yourself completely to grief. More than you, it knows its way, at this point of your life’s Journey.

Grief and Being Strong

2011-04-16T22:08:00.002+02:00

'Being strong' is not always the most appropriate response for a heart guttered by grief
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Love

2011-04-16T20:15:00.002+02:00

William threading his shoe lace
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Love is always worth working on and keeping at. Its reach extends beyond blackness and whiteness into the colour, the sacred uncertainty and unfathomable depth of our souls. To love and parent another, to share in their life is an ineffable privilege around which you should tiptoe, about which you should shout, in the face of which silence and simply gazing upon (with a soulful smile) is more than appropriate.
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Craig

2011-04-03T23:30:00.002+02:00

Craig at 14. Boy of my heart and soul. More than a godson. Beautiful man,
unafraid to love. Craig died in a motor cycle accident this Saturday night.

Rus loves how he put you in this 'Buddha pose', and that you let him

When your heart is hurt by death and loss,

and your soul is bereft, your tears do become your food and drink.
They arrive unexpectedly and uninvited sometimes.
But let them in, for they are guest and gift
at this point of your journey.

Weep, cry and remain inconsolable for however long it takes.

Your heart's breaking is evidence
not of your weakness,
but greatest strength.

You cry and are guttered because you love.

Be kind, patient and excessively gentle,
especially towards yourself
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Be mad as you mourn
if you must.
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Cry hard
and coarse!
Be hurt
in your hurt
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Difficult as it is,
don't wish this wound
away too soon
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Cry your tears as only you can
and for as long as it takes; they are signs of love.
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Let your tears wet your soul
from which, in time,
something new will
begin to grow.

But until such time,
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Be gentle
and excessively kind
as you walk this dark road
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Pray

2011-03-31T16:39:00.003+02:00

St Stephen's Church, Pinelands. Will looking on.

It takes courage to pray. To find in darkness light.
To rest in the darkness, a special kind of light, and learn to see or feel in new ways. In the dark, trust and feel your way around. Be led by your fingertips out of which oozes the liquid light of your soul.
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Postscript: Some ancient societies believed that your soul came tthrough your fingertips. What a beautiful metaphor! So when you love someone and caress them, when you touch the cooing face of a baby, you are ensouling them too. Imprinting them with the softest and deepest part of you

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