It’s the day of Pentecost for Christians, a day we celebrate the Holy Spirit, an honored member of the Trinity, the self-expression of Godde that is pure energy in motion. Spirit pulls for transformative healing connections throughout creation. The Spirit represents the breadth, the reach of divine compassion. I call Her the Great Connector.
A good friend and writing companion brought me to attention recently asking a question about Israel. She didn’t say What about Israel but wondered if lawn signs might be in order to remind people not to forget Israel and not to abandon her.
It’s a question again of balance, or both/and not either/or.
The concern brought me up short. Of course we haven’t forgotten Israel. How could we? I plan to visit her in 2012.
But concern for Palestinian displacements and harsh defensive Israeli politics has perhaps displaced compassion for Israel. She is a little country with so much at stake, a country that is also full of innocent people who are afraid of losing a dear homeland. Everyone needs a dear homeland and there is room for all.
Spirit helps people and leaders bend without breaking. This peace is Her job now.
If I were to put up a yard sign it would say something like SAVE ISRAEL TOO.
Showing posts with label a dangerous spirituality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label a dangerous spirituality. Show all posts
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
2010.10.20 Inner LIght by John T. Brakeman
INNER LIGHT
by John T. Brakeman
John Brakeman, my son and fourth child, teaches fifth grade. He wrote this meditation in 2008 to share with his students after he had been through extensive surgeries and had lived with pain and in fear for his life.
Paradoxically, the more pain and suffering he endured the stronger his faith in prayer and Higher Power/God became.
Paradoxically as well, the more spiritual his self-expression became the less welcome it was in school the principal of which told him he couldn't share this with his students because, although it was entirely personal in nature, it might rouse parental ire.
Today the meditation is framed and hangs above my home altar. It reminds me of John's courage, and also of the ultimate fragility of the one small sweet life each of us has and that humanity is by nature spiritual.
INNER LIGHT
A bond with light signals so much change.
A light is used to see so many things.
With just a fleeting thought we think of light as a way for us to see in the dark.
This is to secure us for the things that we might run into.
Light bends and can be made into many different colors.
Its flexibility shows us that change is possible.
The human spirit has light and possesses almost the same properties.
What do we want the light to show us and what do we want the dark to open up to us?
It’s those things that are opened to us that allow us to see ourselves.
How do we want to exist for the rest of our lives?
Life challenges or God’s plate allows us to see our light.
When the light presents itself it will ask you one question—What have you learned?
by John T. Brakeman
John Brakeman, my son and fourth child, teaches fifth grade. He wrote this meditation in 2008 to share with his students after he had been through extensive surgeries and had lived with pain and in fear for his life.
Paradoxically, the more pain and suffering he endured the stronger his faith in prayer and Higher Power/God became.
Paradoxically as well, the more spiritual his self-expression became the less welcome it was in school the principal of which told him he couldn't share this with his students because, although it was entirely personal in nature, it might rouse parental ire.
Today the meditation is framed and hangs above my home altar. It reminds me of John's courage, and also of the ultimate fragility of the one small sweet life each of us has and that humanity is by nature spiritual.
INNER LIGHT
A bond with light signals so much change.
A light is used to see so many things.
With just a fleeting thought we think of light as a way for us to see in the dark.
This is to secure us for the things that we might run into.
Light bends and can be made into many different colors.
Its flexibility shows us that change is possible.
The human spirit has light and possesses almost the same properties.
What do we want the light to show us and what do we want the dark to open up to us?
It’s those things that are opened to us that allow us to see ourselves.
How do we want to exist for the rest of our lives?
Life challenges or God’s plate allows us to see our light.
When the light presents itself it will ask you one question—What have you learned?
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
A House Divided
It’s the morning after the election to fill the senate seat left vacant by the death of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, “Teddy.” All I can think of is the biblical phrase in the mouth of Jesus: "A house divided against itself cannot stand.: (Mark 3:25)
Is America that house?
In a heavily Democratic state (Massachusetts), devoted supposedly to progressive liberal politics and the common good for all, the likely candidate to win this election was Attorney General Martha Coakley. She lost to conservative Republican Scott Brown. Why?
I passed a station wagon yesterday with its rear door up and open to expose a sign propped against the seat on which was written in bold black letters: “The People Against the Machine.” I wondered if the subtext was “the people against the people.” Who/what/which the machine? Who/what/which the people?
Thirty plus years ago I changed my political party registration from Republican to Democrat. I snuck into the town hall furtively watching for my staunch Republican father around every corner. I switched my party allegiance because I thought the Democratic party platform more closely aligned to my Christian values, my biblical values. I thought Jesus would have voted to the left. Moses, the liberator, too.
Now I don’t know where and in whom those values live—values that trust in the elective process to elect government officials who will carve out policies that reduce the division between rich and poor, haves and have nots, a government willing to tax in order that those with wealth will provide some tax dollars for those who have less opportunity either by chance, bad luck, illness or even sloth, a government that really does represent a people who really do believe in and respect the dignity and worth of all human persons and the whole created universe.
I do not think either candidate in this election was particularly stellar (part of the problem), but I thought Coakley more qualified to continue the legacy of Teddy who, in a lifelong effort to make amends for a life run wild resulting in part in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, worked steadfastly with both innocence and wiliness to shape U.S. government policies in favor of the common not the particular good.
I admire President Obama though I voted for Hillary Clinton. Obama came to Boston to rally support for Coakley. He stuck his political neck out. Many say it was a bad move, one that would hurt his reputation. Why did he do it? Lots of reasons, chief among them the need for a favorable vote on his stalled health care plan. But I think he did it because he’s a nice man, willing to risk his own beloved neck. To be in politics today you have to be nasty or at least more nasty than nice and you have to be tough-skinned and bloody. Not a nice climate. What's the difference between courage and brash disregard? Dangerous spirituality.
I fear this vote was a vote of no confidence against Obama. But is it no confidence or is it fear? If so fear of what? I fear the return of conservative and exclusivizing ways that compartmentalize people and create a climate in which hate crimes can thrive. Less government is one thing; no government is another.
Government is needed just as parents are needed to guide and with benevolence guard the civilization and its citizenry from themselves. I’ve seen the movie and read Goldings book, “The Lord of the Flies.” How much freedom is too much? Freedom can run wild.
Today I mourn for what seems like our reactive, get-even inflamed polis. People are voting for change, any change. Is there thought? Is there prayer? Is there informed reading? If it is ‘us vs. them,’ who are they? Do people vote like match on flint? I weep for Teddy whose devotion to justice with compassion for all marked his career. I weep for other heroes who lived the same: Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Deitrich Bonhoeffer, Jesus, Moses, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Catherine Macauley, the biblical prophet Deborah, Rosa Parks, and frankly, every woman, man and child willing to sacrifice and give a little something so more can have a little something.
In Jesus’ day there were many parties all of them lobbying for political/religions power and all of them hawking their own particular and limited view of Divinity. Jesus came on the scene hawking a particular view of humanity—that all are sacred and all are invited into the unimaginable, resilient, inexhaustible, everlasting grace of God. He wanted us to honor that grace in each other and behave accordingly. We killed him and others like him— and forgot.
I remember. I remember that, by the mysterious mix of divine grace and human good willingness, there are very nice people in this country and in the world.
I have no answers, just thoughts, feelings, pained questions—also another remembrance: that the long slow work of God through Spirit is just that— long and slow—always moving toward greater good by passing through periods of instability, including I suppose "divided houses."
What do you remember?
Is America that house?
In a heavily Democratic state (Massachusetts), devoted supposedly to progressive liberal politics and the common good for all, the likely candidate to win this election was Attorney General Martha Coakley. She lost to conservative Republican Scott Brown. Why?
I passed a station wagon yesterday with its rear door up and open to expose a sign propped against the seat on which was written in bold black letters: “The People Against the Machine.” I wondered if the subtext was “the people against the people.” Who/what/which the machine? Who/what/which the people?
Thirty plus years ago I changed my political party registration from Republican to Democrat. I snuck into the town hall furtively watching for my staunch Republican father around every corner. I switched my party allegiance because I thought the Democratic party platform more closely aligned to my Christian values, my biblical values. I thought Jesus would have voted to the left. Moses, the liberator, too.
Now I don’t know where and in whom those values live—values that trust in the elective process to elect government officials who will carve out policies that reduce the division between rich and poor, haves and have nots, a government willing to tax in order that those with wealth will provide some tax dollars for those who have less opportunity either by chance, bad luck, illness or even sloth, a government that really does represent a people who really do believe in and respect the dignity and worth of all human persons and the whole created universe.
I do not think either candidate in this election was particularly stellar (part of the problem), but I thought Coakley more qualified to continue the legacy of Teddy who, in a lifelong effort to make amends for a life run wild resulting in part in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, worked steadfastly with both innocence and wiliness to shape U.S. government policies in favor of the common not the particular good.
I admire President Obama though I voted for Hillary Clinton. Obama came to Boston to rally support for Coakley. He stuck his political neck out. Many say it was a bad move, one that would hurt his reputation. Why did he do it? Lots of reasons, chief among them the need for a favorable vote on his stalled health care plan. But I think he did it because he’s a nice man, willing to risk his own beloved neck. To be in politics today you have to be nasty or at least more nasty than nice and you have to be tough-skinned and bloody. Not a nice climate. What's the difference between courage and brash disregard? Dangerous spirituality.
I fear this vote was a vote of no confidence against Obama. But is it no confidence or is it fear? If so fear of what? I fear the return of conservative and exclusivizing ways that compartmentalize people and create a climate in which hate crimes can thrive. Less government is one thing; no government is another.
Government is needed just as parents are needed to guide and with benevolence guard the civilization and its citizenry from themselves. I’ve seen the movie and read Goldings book, “The Lord of the Flies.” How much freedom is too much? Freedom can run wild.
Today I mourn for what seems like our reactive, get-even inflamed polis. People are voting for change, any change. Is there thought? Is there prayer? Is there informed reading? If it is ‘us vs. them,’ who are they? Do people vote like match on flint? I weep for Teddy whose devotion to justice with compassion for all marked his career. I weep for other heroes who lived the same: Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Deitrich Bonhoeffer, Jesus, Moses, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Catherine Macauley, the biblical prophet Deborah, Rosa Parks, and frankly, every woman, man and child willing to sacrifice and give a little something so more can have a little something.
In Jesus’ day there were many parties all of them lobbying for political/religions power and all of them hawking their own particular and limited view of Divinity. Jesus came on the scene hawking a particular view of humanity—that all are sacred and all are invited into the unimaginable, resilient, inexhaustible, everlasting grace of God. He wanted us to honor that grace in each other and behave accordingly. We killed him and others like him— and forgot.
I remember. I remember that, by the mysterious mix of divine grace and human good willingness, there are very nice people in this country and in the world.
I have no answers, just thoughts, feelings, pained questions—also another remembrance: that the long slow work of God through Spirit is just that— long and slow—always moving toward greater good by passing through periods of instability, including I suppose "divided houses."
What do you remember?
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