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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.

(read the rest by clicking below)

 

Good Friday - Lenten Reflection (worth the repost)

Enjoy -

Perfecting the Imperfect - (Excerpt of the Week)

Just received this in my inbox today & I do have to say that I wish more of us could have the courage to live as such

"We grow spiritually much more by doing it wrong than by doing it right.  That might just be the central message of how spiritual growth happens; yet nothing in us wants to believe it….

If there is such a thing as human perfection, it seems to emerge precisely from how we handle the imperfection that is everywhere, especially our own.  What a clever place for God to hide holiness, so that only the humble and earnest will find it!  A 'perfect' person ends up being one who can consciously forgive and include imperfection rather than one who thinks he or she is totally above and beyond imperfection.

It becomes sort of obvious once you say it out loud.  In fact, I would say that the demand for the perfect is the greatest enemy of the good.  Perfection is a mathematical or divine concept, goodness is a beautiful human concept that includes us all."

 

-Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

 

 

 

Loneliness is Painful

"All human beings are alone. No other person will completely feel like we do, think like we do, act like we do. Each of us is unique, and our aloneness is the other side of our uniqueness. The question is whether we let our aloneness become loneliness or whether we allow it to lead us into solitude. Loneliness is painful; solitude is peaceful. Loneliness makes us cling to others in desperation; solitude allows us to respect others in their uniqueness and create community.

Letting our aloneness grow into solitude and not into loneliness is a lifelong struggle. It requires conscious choices about whom to be with, what to study, how to pray, and when to ask for counsel. But wise choices will help us to find the solitude where our hearts can grow in love."

 

                                  -Henri Nouwen

What's Your Art? II (A Skate Escalation - Kilian Martin & Brett Novak & Patrick Watson)

Art is canvas & paint.  Art is brush & pen.  Art is music & movement.  

The question we need to ask is what is my particular canvas?  What brush do I work with best?  And what music do I really move to - deeply & intimately. Or rather - what is the thing I do that I lose myself in entirely? That I get so far caught up into the "flow" & "zone" of this activity that hours become seconds & days become mere hours?

My daughter who is seven & can't help but move her legs & dance puts it this way - "I love to dance - I just have a song in my feet & it has to come out."

Beautiful.

And so then I must ask myself - what is the song in my feet that just has to come out?  And why I am so incessant at keeping that song unsung? 

The point is - we all have a song in our feet.  We've been to the promised land of having lost ourselves in something at some point in our living.  The greatest gift is finding our way back there.  To move out of the house of the mundane & to rhythm into the house of our art - our deepest calling.  

And there we must relentlessly guard the sacredness of that living.  This is not selfish. It is the unfolding of ourselves - of who we were meant to become.  And in that unfolding there exists great renewal not only for ourselves but for the universe at large.

God didn't make pawns - God made giants in the breath of love.  We simply need to wake up from our dogmatic slumber of the routine & the small. 

But here's the catch.  You will not get an official invitation in your inbox or mailbox asking you to risk into your art.  In fact the opposite is true: you'll receive a hundred invitations a day to live into the quick & the easy - and it's all junk mail.

Rather the great grand invitation from the King is inside of you.  And a response is inevitable.  You can deny it & give up the sacredness of your life.  You can accept it & embrace a journey that will lead into dark valleys & grand peaks.  Or you can ignore it (which I think many people do -religious & non-religious folk included) - and live reluctantly in the land of bitterness & regret.

The short films below are a meditation of sorts.  Initially we may be tempted to think that the only artist is the skater - indeed the art is in the choreography & power of the skating - but it is also exists in the colors & the shadows & angles of the film that the director captures, & it is in the music that underscores the depth & intimacy of the skater & his particular canvas.  Thanks to Dustin for giving me a heads up on these videos & cheers & blessings to him as he lives into his art in Antarctica starting tomorrow.

 

Spiritual Transformation of the I into the 'Thee' . . . Thelma Hall

"A simple ancient fable reveals this artfully, in telling of one seeking the Beloved.  He knocks at his door and hears: 'Who is there?'  He replies, 'It is I.'  The response comes: 'There is no room in here for both of us.'  Despondent, he goes away into the forest and for long months meditates on the words he has heard.  Then he returns and knocks again at the door.  In response to the same question, 'Who is there?'  He replies,  'It is Thee!' - and the door opens to receive him.

The transformation of the 'I' into the 'Thee' in this fable indicates the prospect of a real kind of death.  We begin to realize the seriousness of this imperative when we are able to suspend our defenses and really hear what Jesus is saying, in teaching that to follow him we must 'deny' and 'renounce' ourselves, and even 'hate' and 'lose' our lives, for his sake.  And we begin to sense a strange inner contradiction, in discovering that what we now most long for, we most resist, and even fear.  Instinctively, we try to look past those words of Jesus and go on to more consoling ones."

-Thelma Hall, Too Deep for Words

The Lost Art of Welcoming the Stranger - (radical hospitality)

Let all guests who arrive be received like Christ, for He is going to say, "I came as a guest, and you received Me."

Rule of St. Benedict (Chapter 53)

It is so difficult to welcome the stranger in our midst.  A kind of disposition toward suspicion rules supreme in many North American realities.  Most of us don't even know the names of our neighbors let alone their dreams or their needs or their gifts to this world.  But if you have traveled overseas at all - and often it is among the poorest of the world - being welcomed into a home & offered a meal & a cup of tea or water by complete strangers is as natural as breathing.  It seems we have a lot of growing up to do.  And it seems that perhaps if we begin with a simple hello to our next door neighbor this evening - it could be a simple step in a radically renewing direction toward shared living, toward deep trust.