A New Year

This is just a short bit. It is almost a new year and a time when we may find ourselves looking back and looking forward in a way we perhaps rarely do. Sometimes, I suppose, we hardly want to look back if the year has been a hard one for us - illness, sorrow, financial problems - whatever troubles our lives. Looking forward is always a hopeful thing I think but a bit unsubstantial because life never quite goes where we had hoped it might. Sometimes it is even more wonderful than we dreamed; sometimes it is a bit worse. 

But in all this: the good, the hard, the unexpected, I believe that it can all be seen with a heart of gratitude. Does that seem odd when you are faced with hardship? sorrow? terrible difficulties? It isn't that it makes light of hardship or that it is in any way a good thing but that somehow, a gift of gratitude lightens the burden of our sorrow. It is still sorrow but it is lightened by a sense that there is much that we can be grateful for - perhaps most especially that we are loved and cherished by our God.

Someone recently sent this link which I found expressed all that I might want to say about gratitude and joy and my hope for today and tomorrow and the coming year.  http://clicks.robertgenn.com/critique-self.php . Watch it full-screen if you can.

Christmas

I imagine most of us know the experience of finding that the anticipation of a something can be better than the reality. If it is a vacation, you long for the sun, the warmth, the relaxation  and when the reality comes it just doesn't live up to all the dreams. Maybe it can't.  I think something like this happens at Christmas.

Perhaps more than most holidays Christmas has dreams attached.  Family. A tree with lovely lights and baubles. Presents. Peace. Snow. All these things have emotions attached to them and a lot of our imagination and anticipation is invested in these emotions. But the day comes and perhaps there is disappointment: we squabble with the family, the weather is dreadful, we don't like our presents or someone we love doesn't seem to like what we gave them. I have wondered what these probably unreal expectations say about our understanding of Christmas.


It seems that for so many people Christmas has become a secular holiday. This probably means that  the great majority of people no longer know the origins of the feast in the birth of Jesus. Perhaps then, that also means that people aren't quite sure just what Christmas is 'for'. It is true that there is much that gives many people joy at Christmas - it is a time for family and for celebrating friendships around a shared meal, for giving and receiving gifts. It is sadly, also a time when the lonely feel more alone, when the homeless suffer more from the loss of their roots, when the elderly long for a visit from their family and often may not get it, when the poor can't share in the abundant gifts on offer in the stores. Has it just become an opportunity to have a rather light-hearted family festival in the middle of winter?


The older I get the more simple Christmas becomes for me. Of course, I love giving and getting gifts and being with family but if all that were taken away Christmas would still be, for me, a wonderful time of gratitude and joy. The gratitude is for the most elegant and transforming gift of all: the gift of God's love for us in Jesus, the human face of God. And the joy is just joy for such a gift. Oddly, this is not dependent upon lots of presents or their value or on whether life is going smoothly or is suffering. It is simply and purely the only gift that in the end, gives my life any meaning.


Right now some of my family are celebrating Hannukuh. It too is a feast in recognition of God's goodness and love and it is a feast filled with light and family and thanksgiving. I think we all need something like that to keep us from simply living on the surface.


So, to all who may read this I wish you a blessed holiday, a Christmas filled with love that lasts, a Hannukuh filled with life. I will be back in a couple of weeks.

More about God

I have been doing some more pondering about God .

As I said before, the most helpful way I see God is through and in, the person of Jesus as he is unveiled to me in the Gospels and as my heart unfolds to him. Again, I know that God is revealed to others differently through their faith or through other mysterious ways. But I believe it is the same God.

As I said too, I think there are probably as many ways to see God as there are people. For many God is: 'out there' , 'judge', 'angry', 'all powerful', 'aloof', 'silent'.  There are others who have seen or experienced someone (or something) different. This God is: 'for us', 'beauty', 'joy', 'compassion', 'truth', 'integrity', 'delight in us'. How do we come to see such a different picture? Are there some right and some wrong? Could all be true? Obviously, I don't know the answer but I think that is why I find the God Jesus reveals to be something that 'makes sense' in my deepest heart .

I am reading another lovely book by Elizabeth Johnson called: Friends of God and Prophets. In one part of it she is talking about what the phrase 'the glory of God' has meant to people. She says ' Uttering words of comfort to people suffering the distress of exile, second Isaiah proclaims the glory of the Lord will be revealed namely, when they are delivered... [The glory of God] signifies divine beauty flashing out in the world and in particular bent over brokenness and anguish, moving to heal, redeem and liberate. It is a synonym for the holy God's elusive presence and action in the midst of historical trouble.' 

It seems likely that the God who is described there by Elizabeth Johnson and Isaiah is one we would like most; one who comes to us with comfort and healing and who mends our brokenness. But of course, we still have to contend with the God who seems silent and aloof because that is so often our experience. That for me is where Jesus fits in.

I see Jesus showing us not the all powerful, angry, judgmental God but the God who will transform our hearts so that we will care for one another; love one another; heal one another. I think he is saying that it is our hearts that matter not whether we live or die today; not whether we suffer or don't, today. I think Jesus' God is saying, 'if your hearts are open and loving then much of the suffering and anger and poverty and violence will be over and the glory of God will be found in the earth. 


Suffering is horrible and we should do all that we can to overcome it. But it will come to us whether we like it or not and it seems to me that the God whose glory hovers over the brokenness and anguish, redeeming and liberating is the God I want around then and always. I know I am part of that brokenness and anguish and that is why I need that God.


I write these words knowing that whoever reads them will struggle with them, will challenge them perhaps but is that not good? Because each struggle and each challenge hopefully,  brings us all closer to the real God whom we still hardly know.

How do you think of God?

I was recently at a bible study group and someone asked the question: ' who is God for you?' or 'how do you see God?'. That question took me back to a time some years ago when a group of children (maybe they were 11 or 12 years old ) came to our monastery to learn about our life. We started to talk about how we felt called to that kind of life by God, and were going on from there except... One little girl raised her hand and said ' what is this word God, what is God?'

Internally at least, my mouth dropped! I realized that I was totally out of touch with that aspect of much of today's world. We were usually only in contact with people who, even if they didn't believe much, had some concept of what the word God might mean. My goodness. None of us knew quite how to answer that question in a way that might provide some understandable idea for these children. It was a very, very important moment for me because it opened a new door onto our world as it is for many people.

So, when we were asked this time, about who or what God is, I knew my answer was only my answer. I know that there is a catechism answer but I don't think that has much, if any real meaning these days. My answer - my answer - was right now at this time of my life, to recall what Jesus is made to say in John's gospel: 'to have seen me, is to have seen the Father' (or the beloved or whatever word you might want to use) so if I look at Jesus I see what God is like. That suits me because it gives me a picture and a way of life and a spirit of love to identify with and I need that. 

One of the other people in the group said that his image of God was something like 'the beating heart at the center of the world' - which is beautiful. Another said something about 'God is spirit, the Spirit of love in our hearts'. 

It does seem to me that God can be rather elusive and so it is hard for us to get close. That for me, is why I much appreciate the role of Jesus. He is someone I can relate to, someone who teaches me. But at the same time I have no doubt about the presence of Jesus still as Spirit - deep in our hearts, empowering us to live his life if we so choose.

I know there are as many ways of seeing God as there are people and maybe that says something amazing about God - something about availability and presence in a way that makes sense to each of us. I think the only thing that constrains that is that one's own way of knowing God cannot be evil or harmful or violent. God , real God, can only be good and loving. It is sometimes hard to comprehend that in our world of violence and innocent suffering but I think that has more to do with us and our abuse of freedom than it does with God.

So how do you see God? or do you?

A delightful Scarlet Pimpernel

I love words. And as with most people, over the years I have come to experience their power - for better and for worse. We all know the sorrow and despair of hurtful words and too, the joy and healing of words of love. We know the way words can be twisted and misused; we know words that will clarify and speak truth. 

There is one word that particularly appeals to me at this season of the year. It is the word 'delight'. I find this word so wonderfully powerful especially when it is used of God. In the scriptures we hear that God delights in us; that God delights in all creation. Delight is about joy I think, and so instead of the God of wrath and judgment we should be hearing about this God of joy who delights in all of us.

I believe that Christmas is all about experiencing this word. For God gives us a gift out of delight.  God gives us first, the vulnerable baby and then the man. This man, Jesus,  both shows us how to be human and how to be delight-ful. I am sure that for other religions there are also many reflections of God's delight but for me, I see through Christian eyes so that is what I can speak of.

So we feel delight that is a reflection of Jesus' delight. Even in small daily ways we can experience it. When a child does something simple and beautiful, like smile or laugh or play we feel delight. When the sun shines on the tree-tops and turns them orange and makes them glow, we take delight. When we hear a piece of music that transforms our spirits, that too is delightful. 

It also feels to me that there is not  a big difference between delight and beauty. Certainly beauty gives us delight and both are Godly. Beauty is what makes our spirits lift . I can recall walking in a field some years ago. It was a perfect summer day, sunny with the enveloping sensation of  the scent of fresh grass and the rustle of trees in the breeze. I looked down towards the edge of the path and saw this tiny, tiny flower, hardly visible in the long grass. I knelt down to examine it and I thought my heart would burst with delight and joy. It was, I now know, a Scarlet Pimpernel. It was exquisitely formed and deep in its center were beautiful shades of yellow and burnt orange contrasting with the scarlet of the flower. There were tiny dots of other color as well and all this beauty hardly visible, rarely seen, but blossoming there in the long summer grass as if it were the most beautiful thing in the world. Perhaps we have all experienced something like this. I hope so.

I guess I am writing about this because that is how I see Christmas. Perhaps our world would be a happier place if we knew how to be more aware of the delight all around us; if we took delight in one another and if we trusted that we ourselves are delightful in God's eyes.