For the Joy of the Journey

So Much To Think About

George April 7, 2022 Notes Anthology 0 Comments

Christian Witness
There is a beautiful story from years ago about an interview Dan Rather did with Mother Teresa. He was asking her about prayer. Here’s how I remember it. Rather asked Mother, “When you pray, what do you say to God?” She replied, “I don’t say anything. I listen.” He then prodded further, “What then does God say?” She responded, “God doesn’t say anything. He listens.” Then she wryly added, “And if you don’t understand that, I can’t explain it.”

Listening to the Bible
…one of my big problems with both progressive and evangelical Christians is that neither group listens to the Bible as each already knows exactly what the Bible has to say. Why read the book when you already know all the answers? Both groups pin Jesus in the case as a specimen of their preferred politics. Neither group realizes that Jesus is their critic and crisis.
Richard Beck

Beauty and Wonder
Over the years, I have come to believe more deeply in the importance of regularly engaging with things that move us to awe and wonder. So much of our early adult years can be spent trying to nail things to the floor (theological, relational, philosophical, spiritual, or otherwise) that simply cannot be wrangled in that way. Engaging with beauty and wonder pries our grip off of our felt need to lock things in so we can control them. Russ Ramsey

Context
…what I mean by context is, “stuff you might want to know if you were going to have a compelling conversation about stuff going on,” or, “stuff people leave out of the conversations I see on TV.”
Jonah Goldberg

Christian ? Witness
A gentleman in this park invited us to join (after paying the cost of course) a group for Easter dinner outside over by the club house. This guy, I’m sure you’ve seen/maybe met, was in charge of this Lord’s Luncheon to break bread together and I’m sure he would lead us all in a lengthy Easter prayer. He proudly touts his christian faith. After asking me if I wanted tickets (following the cable/internet public meeting), I said I would speak to my bride and seek her opinion. I did mention we would be just getting back from Disney, as it is Barb’s birthday wish to go there for the 50 year anniversary. Before I could even finish, I was bashed and ridiculed as to why would anyone go to Disney! He stated, and I quote,” the place is full of gays and those LGBTQ people, I will never go there and I hope DeSantas closes the place down.”
We are not attending the Easter dinner, and we are going to Disney to support those folks.
We have to have a name for the masses of Christian wanna bees. Christian is not what they are.
A non- wannabe Christian friend

Rembrandt’s Transformation

Try to put well in practice what you already know; and in so doing, you will in good time, discover the hidden things which you now inquire about. Practice what you know, and it will help to make clear what now you do not know.”
In his younger work, he flexed for the viewer, showing off his technical abilities, which were unmatched. To think a man in his mid-twenties painted The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple is hard to get my mind around. As impressive as it is, however, it’s not that intimate. But later, he paints the same scene again, only this time he is an old man, approaching death. He has suffered. He has lost a wife, three children, his fortune, and reputation. This version is intimate, warm, and simple. In his early painting, he wanted to show us what he could do, but in the later version, it’s as though all the old man wants to do is hold Jesus. Those two paintings come together to tell the story of one man, and how youthful self-assurance gives way humility and dependence—and often by way of suffering.

Capturing it all.
Some years back, my wife and I stood beside the Grand Canyon. I had bought a small camera for the trip and felt a deep frustration as I tried to take pictures. Every picture I took, no matter how I pointed the camera, no matter how I adjusted the lens, was a failure. Every picture was entirely accurate. However, no picture could capture what I saw and felt. The Grand Canyon, and the experience of standing on its edge, cannot fit in a standard camera (if any). I think that reason is somewhat like that. It can do an amazing job of expressing and understanding certain things. It cannot, however, do everything. If there is a “reason” that can comprehend the whole of things, then it is unknown to human beings.
Fr Stephen Freeman

Reenactment
This past week we traveled to Abilene, Texas for Ann’s brother and wife’s 50th wedding anniversary celebration. Ann and I met on our first day of college at Abilene Christian College. We had a great celebration and visit with family and friends. Walking around the campus of Abilene Christian University, we located the place where we had our first kiss. We reenacted the event. It was as good as the first one 62 years ago. Actually, it was better.

STILL ON THE JOURNEY

So Much To Think About

George March 31, 2022 Notes Anthology 1 Comment

Fear
Look beneath your fear and you will discover what it is you really care about. What you wish to protect: people, places, things, hopes, dreams. Aggression, shame, and disconnection—even as attempts at making a better life for me or a better world for all of us—don’t work. But as we expand our circle of caring to include all people, all places, all of creation, we discover that our fears are shared and that all our cares come from the same place. Come to understand your fear, and you may find that we’re all just trying to figure out how to love.
Gareth Higgins

If you don’t think you can learn from people who are wrong, you’ll have a hard time understanding why other people are right. Jonah Goldberg

The Gospel
The Gospel contains the seed of transformation that lead to solutions, but the seeds are too often killed by planting them in the ground of political gain and culture wars.
When the day comes when we desire transformation by the Gospel through the Spirit…then we may change the world. Phoenix Preacher

Going Home
I think most of you probably noticed the words “going home” on the inside of the casket lid.
It is somewhat ironic that I recently read a quote attributed to a dying character on a TV show in which he described what he thought dying is like.

“… death is like when you’re a child and you get sick and feverish. You go to bed at night sweating, shivering, feeling wretched enough to die. The next morning you awake, your fever is broken, and you are feeling much better. You feel secure, snug, and strong – and suddenly you realize why. You’re now in your parents’ bed. In the middle of the night some one came to get you to take you home.”

Those words could take our thoughts in several directions, but what I want you to understand is that my experiences with my Uncle Bill and Aunt Imogene … coming to their house, being a part of their lives; even though less seldom than I had hoped, always made me feel secure, snug, and strong. It was like awaking in the warmth and comfort of your parent’s bed.
From my Uncle Bill Page’s eulogy 2006

TODAY
Today, I will be incompetent. (I can do nothing alone, but only through God)

Today, I will be present to those in front of me, and to Go(To REALLY listen to people, giving them full attention, and not missing out on anything in my presence. Also, that I may spend the entire day in the presence of God, listening to everything He is trying to say)

Today, I will be the Christ.(Being Jesus to all those around me)

Today, I will see the Christ (Seeing Jesus in those around me, especially the pestilence. Recognizing that everyone is a son/daughter of God changes my perspective of them as a whole!)

Randy Harris 2006

Servant
Mar. 1st, 2006 | 05:47 am
I was challenged by a recent sermon which pointed out that many Christians are mostly about doing service when in fact they are called to be servants. It is good to do service but we can do service without being servants. In just doing service we maintain control. When we are servants we relinquish all control to our master. Jesus has called us to leave everything and follow him.
I believe that I must first become a servant and follow Jesus and he will lead me in whatever service is to be rendered. My focus has been to figure out what service I need to do more than surrendering to the lead of Jesus.

Self-sufficient people
All self-sufficient people remain outsiders to the mystery of divine love because they will always misuse it. Only the need of a beloved knows how to receive the need and gift of the lover, and only the need of a lover knows how to receive the need and gift of the beloved without misusing such love. It is a kind of deliberate “poverty” on both sides. A mutually admitted emptiness is the ultimate safety net for love.
Richard Rohr

Real Church
“One of our great allies at present is the Church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes even our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans.”
Screwtape Letters

Enchantment (transcendence)
…the doggedly faithful will share stories about burning bush moments in their lives when they bumped into God, encountered a Love and Mystery beyond words and descriptions. These “strange sights” are not flights of fantasy or wishful thinking. They are the most reality-filled moments of our lives, the truest things we have ever experienced. These mystical encounters, as rare as they may be, are the foundations of faith.

Enchantment hasn’t been the supernatural vision but the surprising rush of joy and love—enjoying the gift of a sunrise, bearing witness to a small act of kindness, watching the breeze dancing in the branches of a tree, or seeing the person standing right in front you shining like the sun.
(unknown)

Pain of grief
Unlike people who tried to soothe my pain, part of the comfort God offered me was to never flinch or look away. God saw my pain and knew not to try to make me feel better, but to sit with me in the endless ache. God knows the only thing that can slightly lessen the pain of death is for it to be seen and known. So Jesus wept. And God does not forget, even for an instant, the stories of every single person who is gone.
Hannah Mitchell

Saved by grace
Sadly, much of Christianity has created an “extrinsic” view of our relationship with God and the path of salvation. In this, God is seen as exterior to our life, our relationship with Him being analogous to the individualized contractual relationships of modern culture. As such the Christian relationship with God is reduced to psychology and morality.
It is reduced to psychology in that the concern is shifted to God’s “attitude” towards us. The psychologized atonement concerns itself with God’s wrath. It is reduced to morality in that our behavior is no more than our private efforts to conform to an external set of rules and norms. We are considered “good” or “bad” based on our performance, but without regard to the nature of that performance. St. Paul says that “whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” Only our lives-lived-in-union-with-Christ have the nature of true salvation, true humanity. This is the proper meaning of being “saved by grace.”
Fr Stephen Freeman

STILL ON THE JOURNEY

Things This Old Man Thinks About

George March 29, 2022 Things this old man thinks about 3 Comments

Hands and feet

I regularly hear compliments about how I don’t look like I’m 79, or, as I say, almost 80. Looking in the mirror at just the right angle and light, I say, “Hmm, not too bad.”
Then I look at my hands… any illusions of looking younger than my age suddenly disappear. Gloves aren’t very fashionable so I guess I’ll just keep my hands in my pockets.

Hands are a dead give away of age but nothing like feet. I’ve never gotten a “Your feet certainly don’t look like you are almost 80.” compliment. People who politely invite me to remove my shoes when entering their home have no idea what they are asking of me. I’d rather take my shirt off and show my stomach surgery scar than expose my feet. I have sent pictures of my feet to my children to use for identification in case I die in an accident and the only thing left is a foot. People thought shoes were intended to protect feet until they saw my feet and realized my shoes were for their protection.
My feet would be an elephant in the room. “Gross” is a description I often hear. Just imagine me sitting in our church Life Group barefoot, and someone prays “lord, help us be the hands and feet of Jesus” and there is chorus of “Amens”

Wanting to be the hands and feet Jesus has a special meaning for me. Praying for a miracle.

Something this old man thinks about.

Still on the Journey .
(hands in my pockets and shoes on my feet)