Simple Things

Ted Loder, in his prayer, ‘The kettle of the day,’ wrote something that woke up my brain.

The prayer is a simple one full of small gratitudes.

“For nothing to do,

                          sitting still,

            listening,

        watching,

            thinking,

        praying,

      sleeping.

For loving and being loved.”

I decided to sit and think a moment about what I so often ignore, or take for granted.  

The question I asked my self was what it might be like not to have: 

   

a brain to think,

     ears to hear,

   eyes to see,

      a nose to smell,

 taste buds to taste,

                     hands to touch,

                       legs to walk. 

All ordinary abilities we unmindfully brush aside as nothing to give much thought to.   Yet so important to our every day lives.

In a year of feeling limited, confined and unable to gather with friends, family; and do just normal activity.  It is good to be reminded to appreciate things we do so naturally that we don’t even recognize as blessings.  

And one other precious truth we may miss.

                                     God’s living Spirit blowing in the wind.

¹ O come, let us sing to the Lord;

   let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! 

² Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;

   let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! 

³ For the Lord is a great God,

   and a great King above all gods. 

⁴ In his hand are the depths of the earth;

   the heights of the mountains are his also. 

⁵ The sea is his, for he made it,

   and the dry land, which his hands have formed. 

⁶ O come, let us worship and bow down,

   let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! 

⁷ For he is our God,

   and we are the people of his pasture,

   and the sheep of his hand. 

O that today you would listen to his voice! 

          (Ps.95)

Faith Does Indeed Count

 The election, the pandemic, and the will of God/Jesus have my mind in an exciting whirl.

The assumption I will start, this mental conversation, with is that most people know what God's will is for those who desire to follow in his ways.  

We know Jesus asked his follower/students to demonstrate empathy in their living and speaking.

If we know nothing else, we know Jesus asks us to love as he loves — which is basically unconditionally.

He asks us to forgive others as we have been so freely forgiven.

He ask us to be unquestionably aware of others needs and feelings. 

He asks us to live peaceably with each other — building up, not tearing down, the identity of others.

And, by the way, I think that Jesus would ask us all to wear masks.

I just had to add that point(;

So, about now your mind might be suggesting that I have said all this before.

And you would be correct.

However, I am inviting you to think about what you already know.  I am asking you to do this because all of Jesus requests are critically relevant to todays particular national and world-wide situations.

An  election that is being unfoundedly contested.

A pandemic that has flared up in extraordinarily massive numbers.

All of which has heightened the emotional tensions of the population all over the world.

God, I believe, is asking us to pay more attention then ever to the call to follow his original plan for the human creation.

Now, more that ever, we are all called to step up and do our part in bring order into all of the chaos.

³For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, ⁴for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. (1 John 5)

 

They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love

 ³⁴I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. ³⁵By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’(Jn. 13)

My mind is still full of thoughts about the parable of the ten bridesmaids.

As I think back over the history of Christianity; I would have to say that we humans have not done such a good job at following Jesus’ call to servanthood and humility.  

I don’t think we have dishonored Jesus intentionally.  However we have given a somewhat skewed — not symmetrical — definition of what being one of His followers means.

What made me  think of this, as I was enjoying a quiet time in bed this morning, was the lyrics to a song: 

“They'll know we are Christians by our love…”

As well as a quote Mahatma Gandhi from years ago: 

“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians.  Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

I got to thinking about the message of bridesmaids and what it is telling us.  At least in my mind,  Jesus was telling us to live our lives more intentionally all the time.  Sometimes that idea seems almost humanly impossible no matter how much we would want to.

The little song is the dream Peter Scholtes wrote about in 1991.

His dream was the unity of Christians all over the globe.

Listen to his dream:

“We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord….And we pray that all unity will one day be restored.

Refrain:  They’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love, yes they’ll know we are Christians by our love.

We will walk with each other, we will walk hand in hand,…And together we’ll spread the news that God is in our land.

We will work with each other, we will work side by side;….And we’ll guard each man’s dignity and save each man’s pride….”

That little song’s message certainly expresses the four Gospels in a nutshell — unity in the Spirit, God’s presence in our land, equal dignity and pride for every human, the love of Christ for all.

It certainly expresses a positive definition of what each follower of Jesus is to look like.

Now heres how crazy was my mind work.  

I am wondering if our world is coming full circle in this ideal Christians  dream.

I am wondering if we have all, or mostly all, have seen our land almost totally miss the point of Jesus’s Gospels.  

That is, we almost slid right past the dream of unity to a place of destruction.  The ruin of the American Dream. 

The dream of a nation “under God” where all are “equal.”  

The dream of a government:  “of the people, by the people and for the people” is actually a reality.

I am thinking that this is the beginning of a re-creation of what we almost lost in the last four years.  Four years with an unfortunate mistake in the White House.  Ending with a depressing pandemic that has caused so many lives to be cut short.

I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, ²with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, ³making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. ⁴There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, ⁵one Lord, one faith, one baptism, ⁶one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.(Eph. 4)

What do you think?