FEMA came late and left early, but the presence that persists is the presence of the faith community. Our church, our denomination continues to send volunteers, money and other resources to the communities still trying to heal after Hurricane Katrina. Entire neighborhoods are still left abandoned with debris piled on the sidewalks, but people of faith continue to face the daunting task and do what they can to help clean up.

Week of Compassion made it possible for you and I to be present with resources from the moment recovery began. This offering provides emergency relief and development resources throughout the whole world. God has the whole world in God’s hands and we take to heart our call to care for all, not just for some.

Every February, the Week of Compassion offering is emphasized. Fortunately for the places where people are hurting, Week of Compassion lasts more than a week and more than a month. Week of Compassion makes it possible for us to provide a presence of healing and hope all year long to people in places we can’t otherwise reach.

The link below will take you to the list of places Week of Compassion has helped us have presence in the year 2011. I encourage you to click the link and simply scroll down. It is impressive and encouraging. It makes me grateful to be part of a company of disciples of Jesus, committed to bring God’s healing to the world, ready to respond to tragedy as it is happening. Jesus met people in their need; we are privileged to stand in his place.

http://www.weekofcompassion.org/2011-responses/

Practicing the Christian faith is indeed an outward expression of an inward reality, so how about that inward reality? Tending to the inward reality is also practicing the Christian faith. I am all for the outward expression, the actions that make Christ’s love more apparent in the world. I am also aware that a sporadic connection to the inward reality of our spirit and God’s Spirit leaves us more susceptible to the strains of doing.

Practicing the Christian faith includes tending your spirit. I continue to contend that quiet listening with God is critical to practicing our Christian faith. Being still to know God must precede all the doing, inform all the doing and even be part of the doing. Sometimes the most productive action we can take is to stop and do nothing. How can God inform and inspire us when we won’t stop long enough to be still and listen, just listen?

I dare you to stop what you are doing right now and listen for one minute. Say to God, “God, I’m listening.” and listen for a full minute. Go on now.

 The man answered, “I’m running to make a living.”

And the rabbi says to him, “How come you’re so sure that the living is in front of you and you have to run to catch it up. Maybe it’s behind you and you’ve got to stop and let it catch up with you.”

 I heard this story told by the chief rabbi of Great Britain, Lord Jonathan Sacks who went on to say, “Which bits of contemporary culture do we stop and let our blessings catch up with us? That is called the Sabbath which we all share: when we celebrate the things that are important, but not urgent.”

 Many of us live according to the tyranny of the urgent, whether it’s a deadline at work or an important appointment with a doctor. Regardless of our age or life circumstance all of us deal with the tyranny of the urgent. Our Sabbath is Sunday; a time to reflect on what is important in our life, individually and collectively in a way that doesn’t give in to what can be the oppressive tyranny of the urgent. Worship is our window of opportunity to breathe in the Spirit of God, to breathe with the Spirit of God, recalibrating our internal pace.

 Go ahead, breathe, anticipate Sabbath rest and let its blessing catch up with you.

            Conviction is not belief, but rather a profound inner knowing that supports us through times of challenge, a compassionate knowing that is steady and deep without being rigid or positional. The process of developing conviction is gradual and developmental. It happens invisibly as we practice consistently over time, and we cannot fast track it.

Christmas approaches and we may or we may not believe in actual angels and a virgin birth. What we SHARE is the conviction, the confidence that God’s eternity intersect our own time, repeatedly. What we SHARE is the conviction, the confidence that the Christ comes into the world over and over again, like the tidal forces of the ocean that cannot be stopped.

Deep down, we know that God is with us. We don’t need to be rigid about it or defend our position. Our position, our location is with God, in the fullness of time. We come to this position and fullness gradually over years of stretching our imagination into the imagination of God.

We are imagined by God as the image of God: imago Dei. We are God made flesh in our time so that Christ is born again and again in every generation, like tidal forces of the ocean that cannot be held back.

The love of God flows through your life and you are swept up in the great ocean current of God’s love made flesh with power. We SHARE this conviction, this confidence that we are invited by Christ to be the substance of God’s tidal forces of love and hope, peace and joy and we cannot be stopped.

Come to church with your slippers if you like, just come and help us adore the one who brings light and life to all.

Join with us in worship as we celebrate the coming of Christ into our world. Light refreshments are served afterwards.

Service begins at 8 p.m. and lasts approximately one hour.

Help us to have both the courage to look beyond the expected and familiar ways and the humilty to recognize the wisdom of them.

Avery Brook, Plain Prayers in a Complicated World

• Casting of lots – See Esther 3:7
• Vision in the temple – Samuel is called by God in the temple
• Heavenly messenger – Jacob wrestles with an angel, heavenly visitors come to Abraham and Sarah
• A promise from God – to Abraham and Sarah that their descendants would outnumber the stars, to Noah that God would not destroy the earth again
• A sign – the rainbow
• A childless old couple – Abraham and Sarah

These are parts of the Zechariah story too, but now it’s about something new that is happening. That something new stands on the foundations of what already is, namely the nation of Israel and Judaism. God is at work from within the institution of the Temple, from within the rituals and practices of Judaism, transforming the world.

God is at work within the institution of our church, our congregation, transforming the world. We are also part of God’s salvation history on the corner of Park and Artesia.

We asked ourselves these three questions:

1. What do we really need to tend and care for inside our institutions?Over and over the answers resonated with the word “relationship”. One response I found particularly provocative. It employs a verb we don’t usually associate with church community: pursue. “We need to pursue our relationship with Christ and our relationship with each other. If we are not pursuing relationships with each other we are not building the body of Christ.” To pursue requires each of us to be in an active role, not a passive role. Another person recognized how hard it is for people to give themselves to another person.
2. What rituals and practices of our faith will help usher in the new?     Over and over the answers began with the Table. It is the centralizing point of community. Appreciation was expressed for the open table, that there is no litmus test of faith or age requirement to participate in the Lord’s Supper. Bible study and prayer were named and so was mission. “Who we are, our identity is something we need to keep at the fore. Our mission is what brings us together and galvanizes us to act together.” I wonder, though, how each of us might define that mission.
3. What is new?                                                                                                          You said, the teachings of Jesus. You said, new people. Whatever is new is likely still unknown.

Matthew’s gospel wants to eliminate the old for the sake of the new: old wineskins can’t hold new wine. Luke has a different perspective. He proclaims the new can’t come into being without the support of what has come before. In some ways they are both right. Sometimes we have to let go of ways of doing things that no longer support the work of the church. And sometimes we have to tend and care for the ways that have served the work of the church. Our work is carefully discerning the difference.

I hope you are provoked as I am by the word pursue and will pursue your
relationship with Christ this Advent season and pursue one another to build the body of Christ that gathers at the corner of Park and Artesia.

Thousands of them shimmering

Pieces of gold illuminating the space in which they hang

From gray limbs and branches, brighter now as silver for the reflection of the golden glow.

Thousands of gold leaf pieces, perfectly shaped

Petaled on the ground, carpeting the trail

Walking on light, the golden radiance lifting

the countenance of my despair and disquiet

To contented stillness

Perfect order of chaotic placement

Let the leaves fall where they may

This is the orderly account

Of God’s chaotic created order

Set down in seasons of gold and orange

Barren and gray

Green and growing.

Jacqueline Beckley heads a product development group and helped design a study sponsored by McCormick (the spice company). The study was called “Crave It!” and was “one attempt to find out what gets people excited about certain foods.” (The End of Overeating, Dr. David Kessler, p. 126) Food manufacturers and restaurants design foods to be craveable. When asked what makes a hamburger craveable, Beckley responded, “A hamburger has all the required flavors, all the texture. It gets you excited, gets your juices running. You begin to chew through it, you feel alive. It suspends time for a brief moment. . .craveability is about the body. Your body is trying to modulate its happiness. It is trying to get to a state of bliss.” (Ibid.)

Is it any wonder our country has a problem with obesity and other countries aren’t far behind. There are entire industries pooling their resources to pursue our hard wired need to experience bliss. It’s not enough to say, “Well, just resist,” because we are bombarded with seductive invitations to literally feed that bliss everywhere we go.

What else can feed this bliss our bodies and spirits so desperately crave. I know it may not sound as thrilling as a hot fudge sundae (Norm’s anyone?), but the practices of our faith tradition can be a place where we experience bliss. Granted, the experience is sometimes fleeting, moments long, but so is the experience of a hamburgers with bacon and cheese.

When I read that sentence, “it is trying to get to a state of bliss,” I thought, “That is one purpose of spiritual practices, at least I think it is.” There are numerous ways we try to comfort ourselves: watching TV, eating, shopping, etc. Could we see that blissful moments are available to us in worship, in prayer, in the study of the scriptures? If we gave ourselves over to worship the way we might immerse ourselves in the experience of a hot fudge sundae, what would our experience of worship be like? If we could anticipate being with other Christians in study, the way we look forward to a TCU or LSU game, would learning be more engaging, more fun?

“Follow your bliss” is a phrase used to encourage people to do what brings them joy, lasting joy. I will be going to Norm’s for a hot fudge sundae at some point, but what sustains me and stokes the embers of lasting joy is prayerful reading of the scriptures (four stranded garland – email me for instructions), music as an expression of connection with God, practicing Reiki and more. What opens you to a state of bliss?  What modulates your happiness? Your Christian faith is on the menu of choices.

Because I’m not convinced anyone reads these articles, let me know by email or phone call or in person that you did. And let me know if it was interesting, boring, helpful, confusing, clear, etc.