Tall Monastic Guy: Scandalous Invitations- the year that was

December 31, 2010

Scandalous Invitations- the year that was

Toward Gambling... Among all the invitations I picked up on in 2010 the invitation to know the incarnate God remains the one that I put my money on. With that in mind, I can easily acknowledge that this past year involved more high stakes gambling with greater intentionality than ever before. And as I pulled up to the table that was 2010 I tried to take the card dealer a bit more seriously when he suggested, “If you want to find your life your best bet is to risk losing it all.” (a gamblers translation of Matthew 16:25)

My understanding of what the payoff really amounts to may have slightly evolved and become even more compelling this year. Losing my life for God’s sake means handing myself over to a vast sea of obscurity… Along the way I find that the art that captivates me most and calls me into the depths of reality are the pieces that are left seemingly unfinished and looking incomplete and oft overlooked.

Toward paradox… What I once thought as profane is perhaps far more sacred than I may have ever imagined. If you’re willing to risk it you may find beauty in trash dumps and truth being spoken by the homeless man who just polished off a bottle of Jack… but again I'll warn it feels so much like gambling to consider truth, beauty, and wisdom coming from such profane and unsightly sources.

Toward playing more jazz… If I have any specific ambition for 2011 it’s to live and breathe with even more conscious awareness of all occassions of life and breath. Awareness means listening with what jazz musicians call the 3^rd ear picking up on the unique rhythms and catching on to the sacred invitation to contribute my own riff to the beat. Again… discarding ones inhibitions and doubts for the sake of a contribution to the rhythm will feel like a gamble… perhaps a waste of time… irresponsible budgeting of my life and investments.

Here’s to 2011 a year of deeper congruence and integrity to the moment, to allowing dirty things like mud and spit to transform my sight. Here’s to entering the scandal of the incarnation - the sacred meshing with and redemption of what once was seen only as profane.

And being further convinced of radical acceptance...

Here’s to risking all in order to receive the invitation of radical acceptance... A scandalous invitation to learn to love beyond conditions and limitations because God loved us first.

Posted at 02:13 PM in Ryan's ruminations | Permalink

Comments

YESZIR!!!! GAMBLE AWAY!!

Posted by: SLAM | December 31, 2010 at 03:07 PM

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"It becomes so clear to me as I grow older that people who change, and keep changing, are the only people who grow up." -Richard Rohr
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"It is not allowable to love the Creation according to the purposes one has for it, any more than it is allowable to love one’s neighbor in order to borrow his tools." Wendell Berry
"All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers. Each one owes infinitely more to the human race than the particular country in which he was born." -Francois Fenelon
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"Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves. They never get round to being the particular poet or particular monk that they are intended to be by God." "In order to become myself I must cease to be what I always thought I wanted to be." -Thomas Merton
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