Tall Monastic Guy

sensory soul

During this Lenten season myself and some friends have been reading through John 20:19-29 as a Lectio Divina practice. As I've carefully read through this passage several times already this year one distinct theme has been coming into focus similar to the way the picture within the picture of a 3D image emerges after time. Based on my time in this narrative I'd say God gets a good kick out of us when we utilize those wildly wonderful senses he designed within us. And I wonder what the look is on God's face when we resign the development of our theological understanding to sensory-dulling environments like seminary classrooms and church pews.

Yes, blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed but the story crescendo-ing up until that statement tells of a God who desires to engage the valued souls of his children through the beauty of their senses...

"submerging in the sacred..."

Yesterday afternoon I spent some time with this man, a friend of mine who I interact with at the Network House on Wednesday evenings. We kept each other company a bit but I couldn't help being preoccupied during our chat by the reflection of the church in the windows directly over his head. So, at the end of our time he was more than happy to allow me to capture the image. 

After pondering the results from the snapshot and the variety of possible metaphors a couple things stood out initially. First, the "One Way" street sign which made me think of...

"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)

And then my friend along with his sign makes me think of...

"I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." (Matthew 25:40)

So, then I got to thinking is my way to the Father through friends such as this brother and other disregarded "least of these" like him? Even at the risk of sounding quite formulaic about this... If I'm to see my time with this man as if it were time with Jesus himself then in some mysterious way he and other men and women who resign themselves to holding signs on street corners may in fact be the way, the truth, and the life for us. And if these days leading up to Easter are to be occasions for me to connect with the humanity and wounds of Jesus perhaps it's the most disregarded friends like this man that I need to be in intentional communion with. 

Lastly, I want to share this Lenten prayer that was passed on to me by my friend, Jeff Johnsen, that seems to somehow be on the same track...

Come, O Life-giving Creator,

and rattle the door latch

of my slumbering heart.

Awaken me as you breathe upon

a winter-wrapped earth,

gently calling to life virgin Spring.

 

Awaken in these fortified days

of Lenten prayer and discipline

my youthful dream of holiness.

Call me forth from the prison camp

of my numerous past defeats

and my narrow patterns of being

to make my ordinary life extra-ordinarily alive,

through the passion of my love.

 

Show to me during these Lenten days

how to take the daily things of life

and by submerging them in the sacred,

to infuse them with a great love

for you, O God, and for others.

Guide me to perform simple acts of love and prayer,

the real works of reform and renewal

of this overture to the spring of the Spirit.

 

O Father of Jesus, Mother of Christ,

help me not to waste

these precious Lenten days

of my soul’s spiritual springtime.

 

~ Edward Hays, Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim 

 

B-ball reflections...

This past Friday marked the end to the 7th and 8th grade girls basketball season. Here's a few personal and simple reflections based upon coaching this year's team.  

• Just because you've logged a lot of hours on a basketball court, just because you've experienced and observed a lot of coaching strategies and styles over the years, just because you're from the state of Indiana... doesn't necessarily mean you can step onto any basketball court, wear a whistle around your neck, get out a rack of balls and effectively coach a basketball team.

• Basketball teams are made up of... people. And people need to be attended to as unique individuals with their own individual ways of processing information and carrying out a task.

does the rhetoric match the reality?

I watched this a few times this morning and I may watch it a few more times...

Belief in God means living a life of love... mercy...

Do I believe in God, most of the time I don't... but I want to!

Does the reality of who I am match the rhetoric of what I say I believe?

The heart of christianity...Pauline christianity... Participating in the death & resurrection...

We become instruments of transformation.

"The very moment that you think God isn't there, that you feel utterly forsaken by God, is the very moment that you're in the space of God, that you dwell in the very place of Christ."

a spirituality of awkwardness

Awkwardness is the inevitable fate of those who are curious. Awkwardness is what we resign to when we walk into a room of people of which we are not the expert nor could we even pretend to be if we wanted.

Typically, when folks seek to be charitable, we will walk in with the belief that we carry the needed assets to an environment and a people who are marked by their obvious deficiencies. What would happen if we courageously risked flipping that script? When we dare to imagine that perhaps it's the marginalized and forgotten people that actually possess what it is that leads our souls toward salvation, well that's just... awkward.