 I recently had the honor of attending the ‘celebration of life’ gathering for my wife’s grandmother, Ruth. Ruth was an amazing, 97 year old, woman, daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother, and great grandmother. As you can imagine, a life spanning 97 years makes many connections, creating a great ‘ripple of Ruth’ extending out to all she touched. I got to hear many stories from those she connected with along her path. Among the things Ruth enjoyed were puzzles. There were many puzzles at the gathering, and as I heard about all the different ways Ruth influenced the lives of others, the puzzles kept coming back to my mind.
The following day, my wife and kids became engrossed in some of Ruth’s puzzles. There was a rare quiet in a house with five people, including three young kids. I mentioned to my wife that it felt like the spirit of Ruth was quite alive as they quietly searched for each puzzle piece. Watching my family enjoy the quiet focus of their puzzles, I was drawn back to the many pictures, stories, and people, that were still fresh in my mind from the celebration of life.  Some of us have a hard time feeling the gentle, constant flow of God’s will for us in the midst of the crashing waves that occur in our lives. If you’ve ever tried to calm a screaming, writhing, toddler, in the midst of a temper tantrum, you know that your most soothing and comforting voice just doesn’t seem to get through their ears to their unsettled mind. But we also know that screaming back at them will just make things worse. The only thing to do is be calm, consistent, persistent, and make sure that our calm and reassuring voice outlasts the frantic moments the toddler doesn’t realize could be over in a moment. When the tantrum suddenly ends, and they hear our calm voice, feel that we are holding them gently, it’s like magic. They settle in and accept the comfort only they chose to turn away from just moments before. It's a wonder, at times, that this can exist all in one and the same child!
How often, in our own lives, are we writhing and protesting, perhaps even to God in a so called prayer, so fervently that we’ve forgotten how to be still, to listen? When is the last time you can remember being so still, so quiet and open, that you might hear the whispers of God in your ear?  Sermon for October 21, 2018
We don’t always want to acknowledge this, but, often secretly, many of us worship our ability, the outer world, our ideas about ourselves, other people’s idea of us, the totality of what we have come to think of as our existence, even while we profess to want to know God, to trust in God. We say we have faith but we really believe we are what we look like, where we live, what we do for work etc. If we didn’t allow all these things to define us, our anxiety wouldn’t exist, our doubt wouldn’t exist, and we would see things as they actually are and not as what we make them up to be. If we would see that it isn’t the world, or even our idea of ourselves, that we must change to find peace and truth, we would slowly realize that God has truly created us in His image. To truly see ourselves is to see God- but it isn’t the self we normally identify with. We must only become aware that we are already what we seek, and everything ‘outside’ of what we truly are will suddenly be seen in it’s perfection, as it always has been.  Forgiveness is the trail we walk to the summit, where love resides. At some point in our lives, most likely many times, we will be challenged to forgive. This might be a very personal type of forgiveness, one person to another, or it may be less personal, toward a group, a kind of idea, or toward the universe, or God, or the nature of things. We could be angry at a family member, or angry at the way things are because we have a disease or health issue. Whatever the specifics might be, we will feel so many different things- anger, confusion, defensiveness, isolation, sadness, fear, victimization - and all these things will tempt us to get caught in a cycle where these destructive forces will reinforce themselves and drive us further into helplessness and pain.
 Sermon for October 7, 2018
Luke 9 23 Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. Some will see through the illusion that the world can fulfill us relatively early. For others, it will take longer, with more painful lessons, more wearing away of the layers of our identity. When we finally see that even the greatest joys life has to offer are fleeting, unable to truly satisfy what we are really seeking, Christ points to the way beyond this predicament. One way we can view these verses is to apply it to our worldly lives. We can see ‘taking up our cross’ as encouragement to persevere through the troubles of the world. The cross, and those trials in our lives we undergo, bind our worldly bodies, and our worldly minds, to the world. We, however, carry the cross ourselves, to our own crucifixion, often denying the final destination. We believe carrying the cross will benefit our individual identity in some way that will be lasting. We believe we can save ourselves. Our burden, and our binding, however, are the path to ultimate salvation that transcends the individual, but we must first persevere through the trial.  Sermon for September 30, 2018
2 Corinthians 12 9 And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” We’ll come back to these verses , many times, because the world is loud. The world excites our senses to attend to it. The Truth is subtle, abiding quietly, and requires something other than senses, other than intellect. First, who is the “you” spoken of here? Often, we take this for granted, as if we know who we are, how God defines us. This is a grave error. Once you make the assumption that the “you” you perceive is accurate, you are off down a path that leads to a false, self made, idea only. Your idea of who you are, as opposed to your actual identity in God, is a primary cause of suffering. In those times when we get a faint, or strong, sense of this, the ‘there must be something more’ feeling, we begin to seek. In these times, we begin to try to bring the sense of a greater truth into our moment to moment consciousness. It’s natural to want an answer to the question of who is this “you”. It cannot, ultimately, be communicated in words. You must explore it in experience, in silence.  Sermon for September 23, 2018
The lives we craft are the illusions that keep us from truth. This is why we swat away the fly. This is why God proclaims his strength is perfected in our weakness, and not in the supposed greatness of the lives we build. We spend entire lifetimes swatting away the flies, never realizing they are messengers of truth. The presenter in the koan is symbolic of us in our lives. He picks the right place to film, the right camera, the perfect time of day. A message is crafted, the voice and tone of speech are honed to a specific style, and his clothes reflect an appropriate style for the setting and message.  Sermon for September 16, 2018
The Fly “A person once endeavored to explain the Truth. Given that this was a modern endeavor, a video was chosen as the medium. Wisely, a beautiful clearing, by a lake in the countryside, was chosen for the location. With a breathtaking natural scene as the backdrop, profound words began to paint a picture of our human condition. As the deep, winding, intertwined truths continued to bring forth a vision for the awaiting seeker, a fly buzzed the camera, and then the speaker, abruptly interrupting the speaker, and the message. A video of a fly was the only thing shown at church the following Sunday.” The truth of this “Koan” requires nothing extra from you. What you find in it is only what you would naturally find within yourself. Sit with it, ponder it, approach it as you will.  Sermon for September 9, 2018
A sense of futility can be a great teacher. It can be the ultimate teacher. Most of us, no doubt all of us at one time or another, run away from the feeling of futility. It’s something we fear because we believe it will take away our ability to go on in life. Futility seems like a punishment, something that makes life unbearable. In the myths of Tantalus and Sisyphus, futility is used as a punishment. Tantalus is constantly trying to get relief from his desire that is always just out of reach while Sisyphus is condemned to push a boulder up a hill only to see it roll back down, over and over, with no reprieve. How could futility possibly have any value? Indeed, in many situations in life, others try to warn us against futility. People will often try to tell us what our limitations are, who we are, when we should give up, how we should define our lives. When you accept these things, go down the rabbit hole of allowing specific meanings, even meanings assigned to you by others, this is the beginning of the end of your life. What if Rosa Parks accepted someone’s idea of the futility of her actions? God forbid!  Sermon for September 2, 2018
One of the most consistent complaints, or requests, depending on how you look at it, from spiritual seekers concerns the contrast between being told, in a sermon or lecture or whatever the format might be, about what the reality of our existence is versus how to actually ‘get there’. I’ve heard this apparent dilemma described as the difference between someone giving a “description” of reality versus a “prescription” to get to liberation. I think it is safe to say that anyone who has delved into spiritual issues for any length of time will eventually reach a point where they no longer want to hear about what is, they want to ‘be’ what is. They want to get to the destination and stop hearing about how beautiful it is. On a purely surface, scriptural level, it appears that Jesus does offer us a ‘way’, a ‘prescription’ rather than just a ‘description’. However, as St. Paul alluded to in his struggles with the ‘thorn’ in his side, and his admission that although he constantly tries to take the path he intellectually, even spiritually, knows is right, he often errs again and again, this ‘way’ is not as simple as some would have us believe. |
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