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Dying Under a Hard Sky (A Good Friday Reflection)

"I only got half my intestines." Renegade practically shouts while lifting his shirt revealing a snake-sized scar crawling up & over his gargantuan belly toward his chest. "Shot up in Nam. I was a machine gunner. When I eat I need to be close to a bathroom." He laughs loudly but suddenly stops & says, "That ain't funny." And then he smiles a wide toothless grin.

Renegade’s a big man with a big grey-white beard & a bigger belly tucked into a red flannel shirt. He has a big voice & in many ways he reminds me of the bear from the animated Jungle Book movie, Baloo, jolly & jovial most of the time but strong enough to protect himself from an onslaught of angry men.

Once in December while he was throwing a sign for money in downtown Monterey a little boy ran up to him and jumped in his lap. Without missing a beat Renegade told the earnest youngster, "Well son you know I'm off duty right now but I'll make an exception - but just this once. Now listen - if you do good in school & I'm tellin' you you gotta do your best. And you obey your ma & pop you'll get what's coming for Christmas - now tell me what it is you want." And the boy proceeded to tell Renegade all his Christmas wishes while a startled father relaxed at the incarnation of Santa right before his eyes.

For a few Sundays at our little 'inconsequential' homeless church on the beach Renegade hovers around sitting one picnic table away from where we read Scripture & pray for one another. He pretends not to listen. But I see him lean closer at times straining to hear what's being discussed while he sips a can of beer wrapped up in a brown paper bag. I think in some ways he believes he’s paying due respect by not 'attending' church while drinking.

"Me and God are straight. I ain't saying I'm perfect - I like my beer & I like to smoke my weed. He knows where I stand. And when I get up there,” he says pointing to the sky, “ain't no secrets gonna be between Him & me. Me & Him have a deal." Renegade repeats that refrain every time I see him. It seems to be a kind of testament to his honesty but one that betrays a hurricane of destruction churning & slashing the outer banks of his spirit.

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Good Friday - Lenten Reflection (worth the repost)

Enjoy -

Stop Burning People & Start Loving the Unlovely

"We operate with the assumption that giving people new ideas changes people.  It doesn’t.  Believing ideas is, in fact, a way of not having to change in any significant way, especially if you can argue about them.  Ideas become defenses.

 

you have the right words, you are considered an orthodox and law-abiding Christian.  We burned people at the stake for not having the right words, but never to my knowledge for failing to love or forgive, or to care for the poor.  Religion has had a love affair with words and correct ideas, whereas Jesus loved people, who are always imperfect.

You do not have to substantially change to think some new ideas.  You always have to change to love and forgive ordinary people.  We love any religion that asks us to change other people.  We avoid any religion that keeps telling us to change."

-Richard Rohr (adapted from How Men Change: A Thin Time)

 

Choosing Joy - Henri Nouwen

Joy is what makes life worth living, but for many joy seems hard to find. They complain that their lives are sorrowful and depressing. What then brings the joy we so much desire? Are some people just lucky, while others have run out of luck? Strange as it may sound, we can choose joy. Two people can be part of the same event, but one may choose to live it quite differently than the other. One may choose to trust that what happened, painful as it may be, holds a promise. The other may choose despair and be destroyed by it.

What makes us human is precisely this freedom of choice.

 

-Henri Nouwen

What are you risking into in 2011?

My oldest loves to climb & slack-line. Our family received a slack-line for Christmas. Slack-lining is both sport & meditation - it requires a semblance of courage, focus, & balance. I can manage about six steps at best. And then the fall. But perhaps I'll manage six steps more in 2011. Not all of us will cross huge chasms in 2011. But really the question is why not? What's preventing us from doing something remarkable? Something different & out of the ordinary that will move us toward goodness, beauty, renewal, & deep adventure. The honest person will say it is simply fear. The curmudgeon will declare that risk is for fools. The courageous will say that there is no other way to truly live. Please, please don't opt for predictable living in 2011. Start with one step - keep going - and move courageously & uncertainly ahead as the path unfolds before you.

Love-for-Us

"So how can we get to the second half of our own lives?  We all know uptight men and women at 60 who still cannot let go and trust God or themselves.  The secular person has no one to surrender to, so we can understand them being control freaks.

Christians supposedly do know a loving and trustworthy God, but they still do not entrust themselves to this God or others who are not just like them.  Rigid and controlling people are almost always fear-based people.  Only love thaws such coldness.

We each must fall into the hands of a living and loving God, sooner or later.  It comes down to interior journeys of prayer, and leaps of faith where we learn to actively test and trust whether God is really with us, and whether God really cares.  Only then can we deeply know that God is truly faithful and forgiving love—for us."

                                        -Richard Rohr

 

What If Jesus Meant All That Stuff? by Shane Claiborne (Article from Esquire Magazine)

This radical Christian's ministry for the poor, The Simple Way, has gotten him in some trouble with his fellow Evangelicals. We asked him to address those who don't believe.

By: Shane Claiborne

To all my nonbelieving, sort-of-believing, and used-to-be-believing friends: I feel like I should begin with a confession. I am sorry that so often the biggest obstacle to God has been Christians. Christians who have had so much to say with our mouths and so little to show with our lives. I am sorry that so often we have forgotten the Christ of our Christianity.

Forgive us. Forgive us for the embarrassing things we have done in the name of God.

The other night I headed into downtown Philly for a stroll with some friends from out of town. We walked down to Penn's Landing along the river, where there are street performers, artists, musicians. We passed a great magician who did some pretty sweet tricks like pour change out of his iPhone, and then there was a preacher. He wasn't quite as captivating as the magician. He stood on a box, yelling into a microphone, and beside him was a coffin with a fake dead body inside. He talked about how we are all going to die and go to hell if we don't know Jesus.

Some folks snickered. Some told him to shut the hell up. A couple of teenagers tried to steal the dead body in the coffin. All I could do was think to myself, I want to jump up on a box beside him and yell at the top of my lungs, "God is not a monster." Maybe next time I will.

The more I have read the Bible and studied the life of Jesus, the more I have become convinced that Christianity spreads best not through force but through fascination.