Feast of the Epiphany

Our readings for the Feast of the Epiphany are:

1. Isaiah 60: 1-6
2. Psalms 72: 1-2, 7-8, 10-11, 12-13
3. Ephesians 3: 2-3a, 5-6
4. Matthew 2: 1-12

• Manifestations
• Some of us feel that God hides in the little things, others believe that He walks cloaked in coincidence.  I believe that His manifestations are everywhere, if we just look for them.
• Who in your life has shown you God's generosity?
• How did that abundance change your life?
• How did you come to recognize that manifestation of God in your life?

• Vote early, vote often
• It's easy to get cynical about politics, politicians, government and our ability to have any sort of impact in the public sector.
• Is it worth it to pray for our elected officials?
• Is it worth it to hold them accountable for their actions?
• Is it worth it for us to become familiar with and understand all of the complexities of the issues that they have to deal with day in and day out?
• If you did pray for our elected officials, what would you pray?
• How would you tell if God answered that prayer?

• From the wrong side of the tracks
• Here in California, the Jesus movement of the 60s caught many by surprise.  Established churches felt that they had little in common with, and less to offer those on the fringes, the hippies, the protesters, those who burned their draft cards or their bras, but others caught a vision of God working in and through those passionate members of that generation to make a bigger difference in the world than any of them could imagine.
• Who are the folks that would surprise you by coming to your church?  Would it be AIDS victims, the unemployed, the young, addicts, maybe folks sporting dreadlocks, ...?
• How would you be able to be a manifestation of Jesus in their lives?
• How can you prepare to be more welcoming, more inclusive, more holy?

• The power of God
• Being king is a stressful occupation.  Everyone else wants your job.  Unfortunately, in Jesus' day, when your rule was at an end, it was not a golden handshake that you got, or a nice apartment adjoining the palace.  Your end was likely to be violent.
• What are some things that you cannot think of living without?  Maybe its the home that has been the place for so many happy memories, or a person in your life who means so much to you, or a successful job where you are appreciated and cherished.
• Are any of those so precious to you that you could not give it up if you needed to in order to move forward in your life?
• What are you going to do about it?

• Preparation for Reconciliation:

1. How can I manifest God's abundance through my life?
2. How can I find hope for my country, for the world?
3. Where is God calling me to greater hospitality?
4. Where is God calling me to leave things behind, to move on in my life?

God of Surprises

Oh God, beyond all praising,
Teach me the way of the humble,
The path of the lowly.

That I might see You
Whether you come by camel,
Life in all its messiness, or an extended hand.

Clear my eyes to see you as others see you
To see how you manifest Yourself to all of us
To realize the holiness of a warm welcome.

That my prayers may unite with theirs
In appreciation of your radiance
In all its thousands of hues and faces.

Merry Christmas!

Holy Family

Our readings for the Feast of the Holy Family are:

1. Sirach 3: 2-6
2. Psalms 128: 1-2, 3, 4-5
3. Colossians 3: 12-21
4. Matthew 2: 13-15, 19-23

• Learning humility?
• Caring for the elderly gives you a whole new outlook on life.  Things that you used to take for granted, like getting a fork full of food to your mouth, somehow becomes a significant challenge at some point.  When you were a kid, falling was just a part of having a good time.  For your aging father or mother, a fall could mean the beginning of the end.  Most of all, it teaches you to be humble, to shift your priorities to meet the needs of someone else, to see past disabilities, annoying habits, to God present in your life as someone lonely, confused, looking for help and comfort in a world suddenly grown so very strange.  And at bottom, we fear that all that loss of dignity and more is just around the corner for us as well.
• Think of a time when your priorities suddenly got shifted.  How did you respond?
• Did things ever get back to "normal"?
• How did that experience change you?

• Enjoying the work of your hands
• We all want to feel that hard work and determination will have predictable outcomes in our lives, that there is a cosmic justice at work and that we all get what's coming to us, in this life and the next.  Anything less demoralizes us, saps our drive, makes us indifferent.
• Have you ever gotten more than you deserve from effort that you have put into something?
• How did that make you feel?
• Did you want to do that same thing again?
• How does your work ethic jive with the grace of Jesus in your life?

• Hold still, I'm removing that splinter from your eye
• Admonishing each other is so hard.  If our own house is not in order, all that we end up doing is criticizing someone close to us for resembling us.  Or we see something in someone's life that needs a nudge, and we cannot bring ourselves to say anything for fear of what sort of reaction we will get from them.
• Has anyone ever told you of something in your life that needed mending?
• How did you receive that initially?
• What gave them the right to say that to you?
• What sort of community would be open to such corrections?

• The power of God
• I think that Hollywood's preoccupation with superhero movies lately might reflect a deep desire in our hearts for men and women of courage, who have the resolve to do the right thing, and have the resources to make things happen.  We don't want to don a cape and fly off to prevent some disaster, it would be enough to know that somewhere, some superhero will hear the call and answer.
• Sadly, we hardly ever get what we want in this life.  The supply of superheroes seems pretty well spent.  So that means that we all have to be heroes, we all have to look out for those weaker and more vulnerable than we are.
• Who are the heroes in your life?
• What did they have to do or say to earn that status?
• What have you learned from them?
• Would they be proud of you if they could see you today?

• Preparation for Reconciliation:

1. Where are the opportunities for humility in action in my life?
2. How can I be free from my own expectations of what's right and just?
3. Where is God calling me to be prophetic?
4. Where is God calling me to be someone's hero?

God of many heroes

This God of ours must have nerves of steel
Entrusting frail, fickle folk like you and me
To safeguard His children in this world of His
To be the Samaritan who rescues His fallen.

The question is, who has the time?
Even Spiderman needs to sleep from time to time,
I have the mortgage to pay, tuition to tend,
A demanding career that puts beans on the table.

All of these things demand steady time and attention,
I live in an unforgiving world with no second chances
If you miss a payment, forget your heating bill,
Show up late to work.

Surely, out of all these people on the planet,
There is someone who can help,
Some agency commissioned to extend a helping hand
Why me God, why not someone else?

How do I make room in my life
For the unexpected needs, the "I didn't see that coming?"
A little appreciation would go a long ways
Toward making me willing.

Believe me, I will be the first in line to help Jesus
If he needs directions to an inn with vacancies,
Or how to get to the nearest Jewish settlement
Here in Egypt.  Just show me who He is.

After all, there's only one Jesus, right?
How much time and attention can He need?
I cannot save every puppy in the pound,
Can I?

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Day

Our readings for Christmas Day are:

1. Isaiah 52: 7-10
2. Psalms 98: 1, 2-3, 3-4, 5-6
3. Hebrews 1: 1-6
4. John 1: 1-18

• What Good News do you bring?
• If we are going to bring people to Jesus, we have to have something that they want.  The Prosperity Gospel suggests that God is here to fulfill our needs.  Not responsible Christianity.  But what do we offer that's even better?
• From your own life story, what promises would you make to anyone thinking about giving their lives to Jesus?
• How does your life announce the Good News?

• The grand stage of history
• God's goodness and love are in the little things, and the big things.  This very moment and the long sweep of history.
• Where have you seen God's work in your life, your family's, your community's, your nation?
• How do those actions of God shape your view of your existence today?
• Where do you fit into that bigger picture?

• Imago Dei
• We all bear the image and likeness of God.  I hope that doesn't mean that He's losing His hair too.
• Can you think of any ways that you share in the Shekhinah glory of God?
• What prepared you for that experience?
• What can you do to be more prepared the next time that God chooses to visit you?

• How much revelation is enough?
• We are all called to be prophetic, to herald the approach of God, who comes in large ways and small.  How much revelation do you think the world needs?
• How have others shown you the glory of God?
• Was that attractive, or frightening?
• If one of us doesn't do their job revealing God to those around them, do you think that God will find someone else?
• Is that a good thing?

• Preparation for Reconciliation:

1. How is my life Good News to those around me?
2. How am I being the ongoing incarnation of God?
3. How can I show the glory of God more in my life?
4. What am I inspiring in others?

I Can't Seem to Find my Harp

For some reason, popular imagination puts a harp into the hands of the angels.
I'm hoping that there is a corner of heaven where the angels play the bagpipes.

Bagpipes need a lot of room.  They don't fit well into a studio.
The only time I ever heard someone practicing on the pipes was outdoors.

The pipes are not pretty, nor polite, but urgent, calling you forward.
Over the brow of that next hill to see what awaits you.

The best part of heaven is that everyone there will praise God in their own way.
The way that they were created to praise Him.

No more will we try to praise God in ways that do not suit our character,
No more will we waste time and talent trying to find our true voice.

No more will we punish ourselves with uncertainty or false modesty,
But in humble ardor belt out narratives of God's glory in our own life story.

My hope is that heaven won't be a surprise, a shock to me.
That I will have found my true voice long before then.

That I will have found the way that God is coming to Earth in my flesh,
That I will know in my bones and sinews that resurrection is real and throbbing within.

Merry Christmas!

4th Sunday in Advent

Our readings for the 4th Sunday in Advent are:

1. Isaiah 7: 10-14
2. Psalms 24: 1-2, 3-4, 5-6
3. Romans 1: 1-7
4. Matthew 1: 18-24

• What would make you happy?
• Ignatian spirituality encourages us to get in touch with our deepest desires.  One of the deepest desires that many of us harbor is to know that someone else cares what happens to us, and cares enough to take action on our behalf.  We want to believe in someone.
• What makes you believe in God?  Is it just that you cannot imagine not believing in Him, is it because God has proved Himself faithful, compassionate, honest to you enough times that you trust Him, is it a bio that you read of him lately ...?
• If God really wanted you to trust Him, what would He have to do to prove Himself?
• Would it be wrong to take that up with Him in prayer?

• Seeking what we cannot see
• Many from my parent's generation cherish memories of growing up in a supportive culture that fostered righteous living, where faith was part of the fabric of the community's life.  Much has changed.
• What good would come of creating a community, a neighborhood, a family where decisions were made in love, where compassion guided actions, where words were always meant to heal and where children could grow into adulthood firm in the sure knowledge that they are cherished and important?
• Where would you start to build such a community?
• Would that journey be a transformation of where you live now, or would you have to start over somewhere new?
• What are the odds of making that happen?
• Is it worth a shot?

• Looking forward
• The Gospel writers tell us over and over that Jesus' coming has been promised.
• God could have sent His son as a complete surprise, without the prophetic utterances down through the centuries.  Why do you think that He told us Jesus was coming?
• What good can come of waiting for God to come in our lives?
• What can we do to prepare better?
• What does it really mean to be ready for God?

• Discernment 101
• Joseph got through all of that without a spiritual director, but it was a near thing.  You have to wonder how accustomed he was to getting God's word in dreams.
• When you have tough decisions, where the consequences are large, do you have a process that you go through, or do you just "wing it"?
• Where does prayer factor into that process?
• Joseph sounds as though he had made up his mind, yet he took a different path?  What does that tell you about his character?
• Would you be as willing to change your mind on something so important?

• Preparation for Reconciliation:

1. Am I honest with God about my desires, my fears, my failings?
2. How am I renewing those closest to me?
3. What am I waiting for from God?
4. Am I willing to change my mind with God's guidance?

It's for you

Separating the sacred from the day to day seems like a worthy goal.

Keeping each to its corner of our lives helps keep the sacred pure.

But maybe there's another way to look at it.

Cell phones at church remind us all that we are there to worship

And yet, the rest of our lives are only barely held at bay

Demands on our time, our attention, our hearts lie in wait at the door.

The prayer of the faithful gives us a place to put all of that

On the alter, along with everyone else's "all of that"

And find connection with one another in each other's need.

Those needs are offered, accepted, transformed, and returned anew

An exchange of gifts between us, through us, with God

That we might learn compassion, and compassion lead to a helping hand.

So the next time I hear someone's cell phone go off during Eucharist,

I'll try to remember that we all are bound together in a fabric of need.

Need that Christ is looking to transform and then meet, maybe even in me.

Merry Advent!

3rd Sunday of Advent

Our readings for the 3rd Sunday in Advent are:

1. Isaiah 35: 1-6a, 10
2. Psalms 146: 6-7, 8-9, 9-10
3. James 5: 7-10
4. Matthew 11: 2-12

• The only thing that we have to fear is fear itself
• I wasn't born until well after the Great Depression, but I try to imagine myself, huddled against the cold of another winter with hardly enough money to keep boiled cabbage on the table, listening to President Roosevelt on the radio in the evening, and feeling deep down that I, my family, our community was not alone in this, that we were far from abandoned, that poverty and uncertainty were not all that life held for us.
• What do you fear most?  For me, I fear not aging gracefully.  I'm not likely to try to clutch at silly artifacts of years gone by.  I'm afraid that, as I shed one thing after another, I'll be slow to realize I really don't control nearly as much about my life as I think.
• Do you ever talk to God, or anyone else about those fears?
• What might you say to someone else who has your fears? 

• Howdy stranger
• The stranger lives a rough life.  No one can vouch for them, no one knows whether we can trust the stranger in our midst, and frankly, we're inclined to assume the worst until events prove us wrong.
• Have you ever been in a circumstance where you were a stranger to everyone there?
• How did you get over/past that feeling?
• How was God present to you in that process?
• How can you be God's presence to others going through that process?

• Pray like a farmer
• Farming, like no other human endeavor, reminds us that we are not in control.  All it takes is unseasonable weather, a blight, a tornado, and that year's crop is done.  At some point, no matter how hard a farmer works, they have to rely on God for the rest.
• Who are some of the folks that you rely on to help you in the really important tasks in your life?
• How do you thank them for all of the support that they give you?
• How do you know that you can count on them?
• How do they know that they can count on you?

• By their fruits you will know them
• All of us are called to be healers.  Maybe not anything splashy, but those who reconcile none the less.
• Can you think of a time when someone else was a healing presence in your life?
• Where are you "good news" to others?
• Is there anyone in your life who could benefit from more of that "good news" that God offers through you?

• Preparation for Reconciliation:

1. When will I be willing to part with my fears?
2. How am I hospitable to others who are not like me?
3. Where do I need to give up being in control?
4. What fruit am I nourishing in my life?

Merry Advent!

2nd Sunday in Advent

Our readings for the 2nd Sunday in Advent are:

1. Isaiah 11: 1-10
2. Psalms 72: 1-2, 7-8, 12-13, 17
3. Romans 15: 4-9
4. Matthew 3: 1-12

• The price of change
• Very few of us like change for its own sake.  Most of us feel deep down that if some institution, some tradition, some effort is really worthwhile, it will continue, and thus prove its value.
• God seems to delight in taking a small piece of something, a remnant, and building something wonderful with that.  Think of Adam's rib, Noah's family, the small force that Gideon marched on Midian, the stump of Jesse from which Jesus sprang.
• Why do you think God doesn't just chuck the whole thing and start over? 

• What does "flourishing" look like?
• We all know what a flourishing plant looks like: abundant new growth, blossoms in the spring, fruit in the fall.  But what of justice?  What does flourishing justice look like?
• In your life, where do you see greater justice?  Perhaps more generous maternal/paternal leave programs at your office, perhaps job-retraining programs instead of layoffs, perhaps concerned citizens buying locally to support the local economy, perhaps immigration reform, maybe better attention to Title IX provisions, ...
• Do those improvements add up to a better life for just those in need, the marginalized, or do the rest of us benefit from them as well?
• What really separates each of us from the needy, the voiceless?
• Could that ever change?
• Should it?

• Mercy all around us
• How would you define mercy?
• When has God ever shown you mercy?
• How did that mercy change you?
• Are you more merciful now than you used to be?

• Good fruit is hard to find
• The fruit of the spirit (love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control Galatians 5: 22-23).
• Who are some people in your life who show one or more of those fruits in abundance?
• How did they get there?
• Why don't you ask them?

• Preparation for Reconciliation:

1. What is God building me into?
2. What am I willing to do to bring peace?
3. How am I growing in mercy?
4. What fruit am I nourishing in my life?

Back from the Desert

It had been a long, hard ride out to the desert
Sand eventually getting everywhere in my robs
Grinding into tender skin as a reminder
That our forefathers worked hard to get here
To the land flowing with milk and honey.

He looked me straight in the eye
When he sent my head under the water
And baptized me into readiness
For some coming Messiah.
I came up changed, freed, renewed.

And now, now I need to get home.
And somehow tell my wife what happened,
And find out how real this really is
This conversion that I've experienced,
This newness that I feel.

Because, if I cannot get her to understand,
Then no one will understand,
And if no one understands, I have to wonder,
Whether anything really happened at all?
Or if it was a wasted trip.

How then shall I live now?
Abandon everything and wait for Messiah?
Start praying daily to get closer to God?
Give more at the Temple?
Or try to pretend that nothing really happened?

But something did happen, I know it,
And I just need to give it a name so that I can call it
When I feel down, uncertain, lost
With no clear direction anymore,
No, clear guiding light in this life.

Something, someone, some cosmos
Reached into me and touched me
And I was one with everything
For just a moment.  I laughed and cried,
I suffered with the oppressed through the centuries,

And I knew that there was so much of life
That goes unappreciated because its not comfortable
And now I want to ponder it all, before, during, and after
Until I find the peace of the desert
In my right here and now

In my life.

Merry Advent!