Meditation on the Day after all Saint’s Day
Yesterday’s meditation asked us all to look for those persons in our lives who have achieved a high stature. Who are the people we respect most? Who motivates us to do our best, to take the high road, to follow our calling for God? Whose life speaks to the world in its darkness? Who speaks to us in our darkness?
I jotted down a few names and gave homage to them. These were the saints I never new, or knew only slightly or by reputation. These people have a strength that transcends time and space. I appreciated them, and wanted to be like them. I hoped to least borrow their strength for a few minutes. Then I stopped working so hard and made a list of the people I know and like. That list was more fun, and just as telling. These are people I wanted to be with. Sometimes it was a list that included fun-lovers. But more often it was a list of people who have touched me somehow and even when I think about them today I feel their effect. Somehow it has lasted. It seems making a list of people around whom I feel delight also makes me sense a deeper side of life. Sometimes these people are folks with whom I’ve related for years. It also contained the six people I met yesterday—really!
I John 3
11”For this is the message you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.”
This leads to another level of connection—people freely offer themselves to us strengthen us and give vibrancy to our lives. Do you suppose that’s a model worth considering? Shall we not do the same and offer ourselves to others? Is this not the heart of the gospel? Is this not creation? Is this not the beginning?
Friday, November 2
Thursday, November 1
Meditation on All Saints Day
A Meditation on All Saints Day
In the earliest years of the church, way back when it was illegal to be Christian, the faithful had their property and livelihood taken from them. This was to discourage worshipping any God but Caesar. In extreme circumstances, people were killed because of their Christian religious practices. These deaths were remembered once a year. Later on, this day became All Saints Day. This day, or All Saints Sunday, is still recognized in many church traditions. While martyrs are no longer the main focus, we do remember the faithful people we know who have died within the past year.
We remember people who have affected us with their attitude about life, those who overcame great obstacles during their lifespan, or those who inspired us at one time or another.
I encourage you today to remember people in your life who stood for something positive and hopeful, someone who believed in offering life more than death and destruction, hope more than retaliation. I encourage you to recall and claim for yourself the strength and power that comes from those around you who have overcome tremendous obstacles just to survive. Baseball player Kirby Puckett died last year. His quoted comment on life was simple: “It’s not where you came from that’s important. It’s how you play the game.”
Living legend Archbishop Desmond Tutu said recently in Omaha at a Girls, Inc luncheon that forgiveness is the only thing that matters. That’s how he plays the game of life—with forgiveness. “Forgiveness is not for sissies,” he said. In past decades he helped lead the overcoming of the effects of apartheid through the institutionalizing a forgiveness process across South Africa. Victims on all sides had an opportunity to tell their story and be offered or offer forgiveness. He was right about how much courage it takes to forgive because it takes confrontation, courage and a view of life larger than retribution to make forgiveness (not forgetfulness) a reality.
Today is a good day to think about your values and how you got them. And it’s a good day to put them into practice. It’s a good day to remember yourself. Think large.
Matthew 16
21From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” 23But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
Rev. William Sloane Coffin -- Peace activist who was a leader of the antiwar movement as the chaplain of the Yale University in the 1960.
"Oh God may we think for peace, struggle for peace, suffer for peace. And may we live as if the life of all mankind were at stake, as indeed it is. Amen."
In the earliest years of the church, way back when it was illegal to be Christian, the faithful had their property and livelihood taken from them. This was to discourage worshipping any God but Caesar. In extreme circumstances, people were killed because of their Christian religious practices. These deaths were remembered once a year. Later on, this day became All Saints Day. This day, or All Saints Sunday, is still recognized in many church traditions. While martyrs are no longer the main focus, we do remember the faithful people we know who have died within the past year.
We remember people who have affected us with their attitude about life, those who overcame great obstacles during their lifespan, or those who inspired us at one time or another.
I encourage you today to remember people in your life who stood for something positive and hopeful, someone who believed in offering life more than death and destruction, hope more than retaliation. I encourage you to recall and claim for yourself the strength and power that comes from those around you who have overcome tremendous obstacles just to survive. Baseball player Kirby Puckett died last year. His quoted comment on life was simple: “It’s not where you came from that’s important. It’s how you play the game.”
Living legend Archbishop Desmond Tutu said recently in Omaha at a Girls, Inc luncheon that forgiveness is the only thing that matters. That’s how he plays the game of life—with forgiveness. “Forgiveness is not for sissies,” he said. In past decades he helped lead the overcoming of the effects of apartheid through the institutionalizing a forgiveness process across South Africa. Victims on all sides had an opportunity to tell their story and be offered or offer forgiveness. He was right about how much courage it takes to forgive because it takes confrontation, courage and a view of life larger than retribution to make forgiveness (not forgetfulness) a reality.
Today is a good day to think about your values and how you got them. And it’s a good day to put them into practice. It’s a good day to remember yourself. Think large.
Matthew 16
21From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” 23But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
Rev. William Sloane Coffin -- Peace activist who was a leader of the antiwar movement as the chaplain of the Yale University in the 1960.
"Oh God may we think for peace, struggle for peace, suffer for peace. And may we live as if the life of all mankind were at stake, as indeed it is. Amen."
Wednesday, October 31
Meditation on Halloween #2
Meditation on Halloween #2
It’s a long established understanding that “the clothes make the man.” Increasing, men and women are judged by what they wear. Students often wear T-Shirts in a fashionably shabby layered look. Faculty wear casual dress: dresses, jackets, ties and the like. At the minimum, it’s a khaki world. Of course, corporate wears blue and black corporate.
Dress separates our lives and gives us easy understanding of who’s responsible for what. Just imagine what the world at UNO would look like if corporate wore T-shirts, faculty dress blues and blacks, and students wore khaki’s. That would be upside down. Even more upside down would be a life where students had more than enough income from the University and corporate people would wait tables to have enough money to pay bills. I would volunteer to take a photo of that!
Jesus was a beggar, you know. The guy the corporation was named after went through the countryside with an entourage of a few dozen (only 12 were notables) and they had to scrounge for food. Dumpster Divers maybe. It was common for that time that holy men and women were often beggars, living off the good graces of those who had enough to spare.
Matthew 12
1At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the sabbath; his disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. 2When the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the sabbath.” 3He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4He entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him or his companions to eat, but only for the priests. 5Or have you not read in the law that on the sabbath the priests in the temple break the sabbath and yet are guiltless? 6I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. 7But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. 8For the Son of Man is lord of the sabbath.”
In those days, life was immediate, death close at hand, and to survive, people learned to share. Jesus’ life was not pretty. He was a beggar. He had nothing, and what he had, he tended to give away.
It’s odd that Halloween has become a time of begging from door to door. Maybe we should try begging a little more often. At least we would learn, as individuals and in groups, that we have a connection with the destitute.
A fun thing to do today: stop by the Weber Arts Center and visit the Hispanic exhibit on the “Day of the Dead”: hilarious views of death and the dead.
It’s a long established understanding that “the clothes make the man.” Increasing, men and women are judged by what they wear. Students often wear T-Shirts in a fashionably shabby layered look. Faculty wear casual dress: dresses, jackets, ties and the like. At the minimum, it’s a khaki world. Of course, corporate wears blue and black corporate.
Dress separates our lives and gives us easy understanding of who’s responsible for what. Just imagine what the world at UNO would look like if corporate wore T-shirts, faculty dress blues and blacks, and students wore khaki’s. That would be upside down. Even more upside down would be a life where students had more than enough income from the University and corporate people would wait tables to have enough money to pay bills. I would volunteer to take a photo of that!
Jesus was a beggar, you know. The guy the corporation was named after went through the countryside with an entourage of a few dozen (only 12 were notables) and they had to scrounge for food. Dumpster Divers maybe. It was common for that time that holy men and women were often beggars, living off the good graces of those who had enough to spare.
Matthew 12
1At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the sabbath; his disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. 2When the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the sabbath.” 3He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4He entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him or his companions to eat, but only for the priests. 5Or have you not read in the law that on the sabbath the priests in the temple break the sabbath and yet are guiltless? 6I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. 7But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. 8For the Son of Man is lord of the sabbath.”
In those days, life was immediate, death close at hand, and to survive, people learned to share. Jesus’ life was not pretty. He was a beggar. He had nothing, and what he had, he tended to give away.
It’s odd that Halloween has become a time of begging from door to door. Maybe we should try begging a little more often. At least we would learn, as individuals and in groups, that we have a connection with the destitute.
A fun thing to do today: stop by the Weber Arts Center and visit the Hispanic exhibit on the “Day of the Dead”: hilarious views of death and the dead.
Tuesday, October 30
Meditation on Halloween #1
Campus Ministry Schedule:
5:45 PM In the library by the coffee bar; we’ll show a DVD of students in campus ministry
6:30 PM supper at Panera’s
8:00 PM Inclusive Spiritual Seekers, MBSC, Tower Room
Meditation on Halloween: Dressing up
On Saturday, a French Maid walked by arm in arm with a Vampire, meeting up with friends who were Headless, Famous, or abstract (one time I saw someone dressed as a plunger). A current TV commercial boasts Adam and Eve, a plug and socket, and more. Designed to make people laugh or be cute, people dress up as all types of folks for Halloween. What fun we have as we go door to door in search of sweets. However, this once a year event has become the Americanized to the point of turning an ancient tradition from an unnerving time of reflection upon that which is unknown (death and afterlife) into a whizzbang opportunity for free candy and that which is cute. We love our princesses and heroes, pretty much gender based. We have, in fact, made that which is edgy into something that is domesticated and safe.
That kind of thing happens with Bible interpretation and church life as well. We want our Jesus, but we want a Jesus who is white, safe, and someone who comes with a backpack full of safe, wise, and generally accepted sayings: kind of like a Santa Claus with a pack full of happiness with the good life.
I’m not suggesting Jesus isn’t Good News, but I am suggesting Jesus is not easy news. Try this clothing story on for size:
Matthew 5:
38“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; 40and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; 41and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. 42Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.”
Gandhi mentioned something about this passage when he said, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” We see every day the problems of putting retribution in the witch’s cauldron. What comes out of that mix is indeed “double double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble.” Doing the giving thing is a bit tougher than just dressing up and getting whatever candy you can.
For Halloween this year, dress up and be wonderfully fun. But also take a moment to look for opportunities to dress up by giving your coat and cloak to those who have none. What could be dressier than that?
-f
5:45 PM In the library by the coffee bar; we’ll show a DVD of students in campus ministry
6:30 PM supper at Panera’s
8:00 PM Inclusive Spiritual Seekers, MBSC, Tower Room
Meditation on Halloween: Dressing up
On Saturday, a French Maid walked by arm in arm with a Vampire, meeting up with friends who were Headless, Famous, or abstract (one time I saw someone dressed as a plunger). A current TV commercial boasts Adam and Eve, a plug and socket, and more. Designed to make people laugh or be cute, people dress up as all types of folks for Halloween. What fun we have as we go door to door in search of sweets. However, this once a year event has become the Americanized to the point of turning an ancient tradition from an unnerving time of reflection upon that which is unknown (death and afterlife) into a whizzbang opportunity for free candy and that which is cute. We love our princesses and heroes, pretty much gender based. We have, in fact, made that which is edgy into something that is domesticated and safe.
That kind of thing happens with Bible interpretation and church life as well. We want our Jesus, but we want a Jesus who is white, safe, and someone who comes with a backpack full of safe, wise, and generally accepted sayings: kind of like a Santa Claus with a pack full of happiness with the good life.
I’m not suggesting Jesus isn’t Good News, but I am suggesting Jesus is not easy news. Try this clothing story on for size:
Matthew 5:
38“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; 40and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; 41and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. 42Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.”
Gandhi mentioned something about this passage when he said, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” We see every day the problems of putting retribution in the witch’s cauldron. What comes out of that mix is indeed “double double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble.” Doing the giving thing is a bit tougher than just dressing up and getting whatever candy you can.
For Halloween this year, dress up and be wonderfully fun. But also take a moment to look for opportunities to dress up by giving your coat and cloak to those who have none. What could be dressier than that?
-f
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