Leaves of Life

2011-11-22T09:14:00.000-08:00

Well, it's Thanksgiving time again. Praise God from whom all blessings flow, praise him creatures here below.

I have to say that Thanksgiving is not my favorite time of year for some reason. I must try to figure out what in the world happened to make it so distasteful for me. I try now to isolate my feelings to the love that I have for God, my family and my children, and my church. However, there is something very wrong about the whole thing.

I love turkey and dressing and cranberry sauce. I love the relaxing and chilling out with the relaxing, calm, gentle, loving, gleeful, happy, joyful family. What I do not like is the stress of having to make it all happen so perfectly. The having to have it all come together "or else" by a certain time 1:00PM. Who says this stuff? By the way, whose family is that anyway. It wasn't mine.

Theologically, I know God is with me and that I do not go through any of this by myself. Yet, I must confess shopping at the store was some panicky this year. I wanted to ask God to just shop for me. I imagined I could just give God a list with all my needs on it. God would deliver and put it all away for me. By the way, God can you cook it too?

This year, I am not having the normal fifteen or so people to my home and yet I still took on the stress of the entire event as always. "I must clean the house, dust, vacuum, clean bathrooms oh so much work to do. I feel like the stepchild in the story Cinderella. I just want to be happy, go to the ball and dance all night long.

Oh well enough ranting and raving about the perfection of this holiday. Let me just sit with it this year. No pain, no thoughts, no worries, no cares. Let me just enjoy the time that I have with loved ones for this year. Thank you God for all I have. Thank you God for all you do. Thank you God for being you!

Monday Morning Changes

2011-08-08T07:29:00.000-07:00

Well, it's Monday morning hello world. I feel like I am able to start anew today. It is so amazing how renewed and begin again I feel some Mondays. It's the same way I feel at certain times of the year. For me, there are several times that I feel as though I am beginning anew. A fresh new start at my work, my family, life, and so much more. For example, the change of seasons, a new year does that for me, or the birth of a new baby. I get excited again when school starts for all the children. Maybe it is from the change that I feel myself feel renewed.

I do love change. As a Christian, it seems that I am always in a change mode. Look at all of the things that made me who I am today many changes. For example, my Christan conversion. Many people grew up in the Church. They just know the church and have had a relationship with God forever as as long as they could remember. For me, it wasn't that way at all. I went through a conversion to become a Christian. It happened in some ways very fast and in others very slow. It was most definitely a "change".

It was all about change. It is the change that God was working in me. It began I suppose when I first enrolled my children in a small Christian school. God began God's work on me then. Through my children ever so slowly God molded me and reshaped me. One day I responded to all of that change going through me when I cried out for forgiveness and confessed to believing something or someone I had no real knowledge of Jesus Christ.

I suddenly felt a feeling of forgiveness that I will never fully be able to explain. God was continuing to change me as I responded to God's grace in repentance and faith. It's interesting that true repentance means change. A new direction for my life was on the horizon. Amen! I desperately needed it. Repentance and faith are the necessary responses to Jesus and His message of the kingdom.

I became gradually in ever way a changed person. Through my repentance and my childlike faith, the saving power and initiative of God was Immanuel to me. God is with us and with me specifically. God became part of my human experience. The rest is history as they say.

When I think today of change, the seasons, aging, time, children, I am reminded of a beautiful song which I love by Stevie Nicks. It's words haunt me at times. It is called "Landslide":

Well, I've been afraid of changing
Cause I've built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Even children get older
And I'm getting older too

Well, I am building my world around God now as God is continuing to change all of us and everything for His divine purposes. God changes ever day as God recreates all things!

The Times We Need to Stop and Enjoy a Cup of Tea

2011-08-04T18:37:00.000-07:00

I am watching "Expedition Impossible". In this show, several contestants are vying for the lead while journeying in Morocco. They all want to be the first to arrive at the goal line or face elimination. On this show, the teams must travel over mountains and rough terrain to get to their next stop. At one point, one team gets to a stopping place at a tea house where some members of the team want to stop for a cup of tea. They want to take time out to enjoy some Moroccan tea. They want to take time even if its just two minutes to have tea. They have the lead in the game. One member prophetically makes the statement "Why can't we stop? We are just flying though this thing. We have already accomplished so much let's take time out for some tea."

I am reminded how many of Jesus' journeys throughout the hills and desert of Israel required time to rest, ponder, pray and relax. He would often leave the masses and retire to the hills to pray. He could not take a steady stream of healing and preaching without rest, meditation and prayer.

We should aspire to Jesus' model in our own lives. So many times we rush through life like it it a contest to get to the finish line or be eliminated. In reality, we never reach the finish line in this life or the next. With and through Christ, it is always a journey that takes us winding through a variety of terrains. Some days it's mountains, some days lakes, streams or deserts. Each detour molds us to refine us to His image. It requires peace, patience, and prayer along the way. At times, it may even require a two minute cup of tea.

Life Unfolding

2011-08-03T10:24:00.000-07:00

Hi all, I know it has been a while since I wrote anything. I have problems with discipline. I suppose I rebel from all of the discipline I had during my childhood. Anyway, I am thinking today about life and how it unfolds too quickly. For example, it seems as though the more I plan for the future the faster my life goes by. I can just remember what seems like a few months ago when it was the first of the year. Now the year is already 8/12th gone. Oh my!

I am reminded of the time that I worried so much about all of the years of my life that I felt I had wasted. What good had I done? All of the fear that I carried with me wherever I went. Life unfolded and I grew some in knowledge of the Lord.

I remember God's quiet words in my mind saying that even though the grasshoppers devour everything you have the Lord can give back in multitudes. It gave me such hope. Now hope is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. I remember also fondly those words I learned from my children's Bible memory at the Heiskell School.

Oh how I miss those days of picking up my children from school and doing something fun with them each day. Some days it was just going to the mall to take Kevin to Gamestop. It was so fun and enjoyable just spending time with my children. Life has unfolded into a new time. I can still recall the warm feelings if I have to drive in the vicinity of their old schools. Where did the time go? Life is just unfolding.

Now I am lucky if I get to see my son as he passes by from one room to the next. My daughter calls randomly to say hello and oh by the way do you remember the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon, little boy blue and the man in the moon. "When you coming home, mom?" "I don't know when, but we'll get together then. You know we will get together then!! Life is just unfolding. Life is just unfolding.

"Redemption Island"

2011-04-13T11:46:00.000-07:00

I at times tune in to the weekly TV show called “Survivor”. Many persons already know the plot. There are people who are stranded on an island somewhere in the world. They get voted off one by one by their peers for various reasons.

This season the popular TV show added a new twist. This year when a survivor gets voted off by their peers they go to "Redemption Island." It is on this island that they may find their way back into the game if they can win a battle against another survivor. The point to my story is that redemption is a key element to getting saved and being able to continue to live in the game.

This TV show is not that far off from what our life is like in this world. We all must be redeemed for our sins from the legacy we inherited from the first sinner Adam.

The question becomes: how do you get redeemed and choose life when you are facing death each and every day? What does Jesus mean when he says in John’s Gospel that "this illness does not lead to death rather it is for God's glory" so that the Son of God may be glorified through it." He’s correct. Lazarus’ illness does not lead to his death but it ultimately does lead to Jesus’.

These questions bring us to the Gospel text of John 11:9-41. We are told early that Lazarus has died. Jesus meanwhile knowing full well that he could have saved his beloved friend waits two more days then tells the Disciples "our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep" died, dead, gone! He was your friend hello!!

“And Jesus wept.” “You love us and you loved him; why did you not come and cure him while he was still alive?” I think many of us ask God that question when a loved one dies. Jesus asked it from the cross: “God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” You always think of love as something you can have because you are alive. But the opposite is true. Life is something you can have because you are rooted in love. Death does not erase love, it brings you more deeply back to it, to the place you came from—love’s rich loam.

Jesus tells her " your brother will rise again". She knows that he will rise in the ressurection so she really believes cause she says so. But Jesus tells her I am the resuurection and the life . Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live and everyone who loves and

"Jesus began to weep" most divine and the most human aspects of Jesus

Jesus reveals, God is not so much a rescuing God as a redeeming one. God does not protect us from pain, but instead enters it and ultimately redeems it. That might sound simplistic in the face of real death and evil, but it is not. That sorrow and grief and anger may be appropriate emotions at times. We do not need to hide them. But we also cannot allow them to stop us from continuing to move forward... even if our destiny is with Christ's... on the cross.

"Lazarus come out!" Mary is asking the universal, timeless question about suffering and God’s seeming absence. Her query (“Where were you when my brother died?”) asks that question for everyone: Where is God when innocent people suffer? Where was God during the holocaust? Where is God when anyone’s brother dies? He enters into peoples’ helplessness and pain. Instead he redeems our suffering afterwards. He came out his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said "unbind him and let him go". We too are to be unbound and set free by the saving grace of Jesus Christ. Who has redeemed us by His precious blood. Yes we are redeemed not rescued. We still have our own lives to live on this island knowing that we indeed have been saved.

Open My Eyes

2011-04-05T09:21:00.000-07:00

I remember the movie title “Close Encounters” from a movie about our world’s first encounter with aliens. At first, one would think that it would have no correlation to the Gospel of John 9:1-41. However, in looking at how we can have so many close encounters with Christ, I wonder how many of our encounters result in our being changed. Many times when we first come to Christ we actually feel like the alien ourselves. We have become isolated and estranged from our creator. Once we have a close encounter with Jesus it is unlikely that we will ever be the same.

It seems that so much of our lives we feel like aliens ourselves. We are separated and at times cut off from the love that is in God through Jesus. How many times do we have “encounters" with our own blindness and spiritual deadness? This story in John’s Gospel gives us the reality of Christ’s power to make us see and live again. When our hearts which hold our values, our will, and our emotions are in Christ, we can see much more clearly, too.

How many times are we blinded to the truth? Doesn’t this happen to so many of our politicians and leaders? They become blinded to what is the truth. We do the same thing. If we are all too busy trying to protect our fiefdoms, money, fame, power or whatever we stockpile, we still do not see.

To contemplate divine life is to find freedom; but it is also to encounter that which we do not like in ourselves. It is to stand up when there are those who oppose our new found freedom. However, we must open our eyes and be healed by the power of Jesus Christ. Only then can we be finally open to the evil, injustice and oppression all around us. Yes, we are all healed and made whole once we are opened to the light and no longer are blind in darkness.

I still vividly remember the horror of waking up to blindness in my left eye last November. I had a detached retina that happened over night. It came very quickly yet its scars still remain. I think the issue for me was not being able to see, being blind and no longer being able to see the light. I love light. I love the beauty that God has opened up to me through God’s eternal love and grace. I am no longer blind because I too had years ago a close encounter with God and I , too, will never be the same!

The Clash of Life

2011-03-22T14:51:00.000-07:00

There are times and days that make you pause. Some times it can be bad news you hear. It can be something that turns your life upside down. It could be some harsh criticism that came your way through no fault of your own. It is at those times that I have to stop and collect my mind. My mind is usually going in all directions and never pausing to hear my stop warnings.

You are what you think. Well, if that's true I could be a bowl of mess. My thoughts can be so disjointed and on those days so rattled that it is difficult to make sense of anything.

Today was one of those days. I hate death and dying. I do not like to be separated from anyone whom I love. I do not like knowing for sure that nothing can be done. I do not like losing dear friends or family to disease. Why can't they figure out how to cure cancer? What seems to be the problem? How many more people have to die from this dreaded illness. I know there have been major breakthroughs and I'm thankful for those. I just don't like losing another person then another. I know they may be old. Who cares? They still have beautiful souls that laugh and love others. Isn't that good enough?

I know that God works in all things. I realize that life is about toil and troubles that may come your way at any time. I know that pain and separation are a part of life.

I believe in my higher power whom I choose to call God. All of that is a given. I know people can't live forever or we'd be full. I know people have to get old (not exciting at all). I am sensitive to the fact that the body wears out.

My issue is about a mystery that I may never know. It is about the all knowing ,all loving, all powerful God that is moving and working even as I am writing this post. Why God does the pain have to feel so great. Why does the ache have to hurt through to the soul. Why does it have to happen again and again and again?

Lenten Beginnings

2011-03-05T12:39:00.000-08:00

Today we had a Lenten Prayer Breakfast. There were many "aha" moments during the session. One in particular was the thought of prayer in our life. At this time of Lent, I am reminded of what Dietrich Bonhoeffer said about prayer:

Prayer does not mean simply to pour out one's heart. It means rather to find the way to God and to speak with him, whether the heart is full or empty.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Some times I fail to recognize if my heart is full or empty. How can that be? I believe that I am not unlike many persons who are simply not in touch with themselves. We for the most part have no clear direction in our lives. We allow ourselves to be thrown from one side of the boat to the other. We let the wind alter our course and blow us to places we never intended. We are really never in control of our lives and our world. We don't even sit still long enough to know what we are thinking or feeling. Is our heart full or empty? More importantly, what is making it that way. I ponder at times if that is really all bad. God has control of the boat anyway!

We are about to begin another Lenten season. A time for reflection and pause in our lives. I invite every person to spend time with themselves this Lenten season. Sit, pray or contemplate all that God has in store for you. Look at what has come between you and God. Concentrate on keeping your journey simple, focused and aimed towards God. Try to sit with yourself even if it makes you uncomfortable. It is in our discomfort that we learn the most about ourselves. Whatever is between you and God needs to be examined for its merit. Perhaps it stays. Most likely, it goes and we become more in tuned to our creator.

A Land of the Holy

2011-03-04T15:34:00.000-08:00

I returned last Friday from a ten day trip to the Holy Land. As I saw so many ancient 1st century artifacts, I also saw barbed wire atop walls separating and isolating nation by nation. The city of Bethlehem which is in the West Bank was isolated by a wall separating it from the rest of Jerusalem. It was difficult to see Christ between the wall, barbed wire and land mines signs.

Muslin, Hebrew, Christian all inhabited the smallest of geographic areas.

On our last day, we visited the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. Mounds of shoes left before people went to their death. People who were slowly and methodically isolated and inhibited from their day to day activities. The horrific sights and sounds of people telling their story. The woman who cried as she echoed the horrors of those days.

All the while it made me think about what I was seeing in Israel. People intentionally being separated from economic and social opportunities. Have the people of Israel forgotten all they endured not too long ago?

A small country with so much going for it. A beautiful land, a fertile land for thousands of years. Religion seeming to go side by side with the land, the people and the story.

Making Disciples

2011-01-27T10:57:00.000-08:00

This past Sunday, I preached on the topic of making Disciples. Many of you might have heard the podcast already on the web. I asked two key questions that I think deserve more attention. The first was "Am I in Christ?" and the second one was "Am I in my calling?"

While in business for close to thirty years, I saw so many people who seemed to randomly live their life. Yes, they had a job and made enough salary to get by and then some. However, they did not possess the "it" factor. They did not have a sense of calling in their life. They perhaps were not living up to their full potential in God. I was one of those persons for most of that twenty five years in the corporate world. All I saw and did somehow seemed to flow through the eyes of the company. My family was seen through that lens. I remember always thinking that life must be about more than I was seeing and feeling every day.

I found that difference once I was called by God just as the first Disciples were. After preaching the sermon from Matthew where the first Disciples are called, I realized that God has an imprint already on all of us from the beginning of our lives. We have been sought out and bought by God to be redeemed. All of the work has been done for us or has it?

Jesus first called two brothers then two more. They were all fishermen but none were "fishers of men". None of them really understood or realized the impact on their lives through their dedication and commitment to Jesus. We all are something or have something. The problem is that we never seem to use all that we were created to be for God's highest glory and desire for us.

Yes, God fits, qualifies, authorizes and even commissions us. We have all that we need. All we are to do is follow. There is the rub. For to follow means to sever ourselves from all else so that we can maintain a diligent attendance on Christ. We must know Him inside and out and be able to imitate Him in all that we do. We found it difficult to maintain a constant diligence on anything these days. There is too much in our lives. There is too much complexity and information and knowing. We find it almost impossible to sever ourselves to be with our children or ourselves.

Severing ourselves can be quite difficult. Depending on all that you possess, your family ties, your job, your self identity, we can be quite tied up in our humanity.

I believe that is where God meets us. In our humanity, Jesus issued two commands in the Gospel in Matthew of the calling of the first Disciples 1. repent (I realize that you are human so just say you are sorry) 2. Come after me or follow me. The Gospel suggests that both of these acts are quite important and necessary for our salvation. I am reminded of the Nike ad "Just Do It". I think to become a Disciple we must all really look at Jesus' slogan "Just Follow".

Routine with a "N"

2011-01-19T20:13:00.000-08:00

What an experience was felt by me today. My son after having pain for some time underwent a colonoscopy on January 7th to check for Crone's disease. A twenty millimeter polyp was found. It was removed and the results were to come in from pathology within ten days. Today after getting an early morning call from my son complaining of severe pain again. Being a helicopter mom, I called his doctor's office. I left a message stating all that had transpired along with a comment that we had not yet received the results of his colon test.

Throughout the day, I spoke to my son as he asked me if they had returned my call. Some time in the late afternoon, my cell phone rang. My son said "mom have you spoken to the doctor yet?" I responded "no not yet". His voice sounded strange. He then said "they called me". "What did they say," I asked? He responded "I have cancer". I really don't remember what he said after that point. I remember thinking I must not react. I must be strong."What do you mean son?" "That's not funny. Please don't say that" I hurried the reply. "Mom do you think I would be kidding about something like that"?

My world collapsed right in front of me. "What? I don't understand what happened?" "What did they say"?? "What are they going to do"?? "What is happening. I need to talk to the doctor. Let me call you back".

The story ends well. It seems that the biopsy show pre-cancer tissues or cells. Come back in one year to do the colonoscopy over. There was no cancer. However, the emotion was overwhelming during the ten minute time period that went from routine to the non-routine.

I have to reflect on our health care systems. How does a child who is only twenty years old hear over the telephone something that is obviously medically a routine diagnosis. It is of course to everyone except the patient. More subtle to reflect upon is the quick movement from routine life to the non-routine.

It makes me think about all that we consider routine in life and how quickly the routine can suddenly shift without notice. The routine can quickly become the horrific. An example, the recent shootings in Arizona. A routine campaign to meet your politician in a shopping center where people are just routinely wandering by. In a matter of minutes, it becomes the non-routine. People are being shot and killed. Many are wounded. Many are dead.

God is in the details. God is in the big picture. God is with us throughout everything the routine and the not so routine. Our challenge is keeping God in our routine enough so that when the non-routine happens, we still see God. His presence is evident.

Time

2010-11-03T12:56:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking today about time. I am reading a book that refers to the time between. I think between what? I next wonder about that thought of a time between time. What happens in that time. I learned at seminary that the word Kairos is an ancient Greek word. It means the right or opportune moment (the supreme moment). I love the moment. It pinpoints time so well. It seems to reflect no movement in time at all. Everything is still in the moment.

We seem to move so quickly each day. We scurry about from time to time and place to place. The seasons roll together. It is soon to be Christmas again. I just remember putting the items of Christmas away. It seems like just yesterday. I thought about all that was to come in time the time between this Christmas and next. Here we are. It is quickly approaching.

It is interesting that the ancient Greeks had two words for time, chronos and kairos. While the former refers to chronological or sequential time, the latter signifies a time in between, a moment of undetermined period of time in which something special happens. While chronos is quantitative, kairos has a qualitative nature. I think that is God's time. The time in between. The time that no one ever thinks about. The in between time.

The term kairos is used in theology to describe the qualitative form of time. In theology, it can be for a passing instant when an opening appears. We call success moving through that period of time when the door is open. The issue becomes that we must make a choice to go through the door of time when it opens. We must be in tune with God and God's time or we miss the opportunity.

In the New Testament, kairos means "the appointed time in the purpose of God", the time when God acts. We see that reference in the Gospel of Mark 1.15, the kairos is fulfilled. Our question today should be first, are we aware of our time? Secondly, are we aware enough to choose to actually take advantage of time and walk through it. Are we really in tune with time? Perhaps not.

Let's begin to watch our time more closely. Be aware of every moment. Be in the moment. Watch as it occurs. Be in time as a fully present being. I think that is where we will find God. God is in the in between. The time between is God time. Enjoy time. Enjoy God!

Some Gleeful Thoughts!

2010-10-05T20:15:00.000-07:00

I watched the show Glee tonight. I love the show because of its beautiful singing and its diversification of characters. The subject tonight was church and Jesus. It seems that Jesus' face was displayed in a grilled cheese sandwich that was made by one of the characters. It was the clear image of Jesus to me. I saw it too.

It makes me think of how Christ can be found no matter where we look even in a grilled cheese sandwich. It reminded me of all of those who came to Conyers to see the appearance of Holy Mary. Many saw and many did not. They all came from far away. Some I guess will never see or get it.

We are all called to continue to look for Christ in everything. When was the last time you saw Christ in something. A song, a bird, a person, the day, the sun, they are all examples of the beauty of what Christ was and is and will be.

As an example, the story recently of the hiker who was lost in a California national park. He said he wrote his last will and testament on his hat. He thought God had left him in the wilderness to die alone. He lived as a rescue helicopter discovered him. He may not have seen God yet God was certainly with him. He lives.

Sermon Thoughts 9/12

2010-09-14T13:50:00.000-07:00

The liturgy for this week is about the lost sheep. "Who wouldn't go and find a lost sheep and leave the ninety-nine others? I have to think about that for a moment. My first thought is well maybe the ninety-nine are the most important. It's only one little sheep I have ninety-nine more. However, with that attitude then, what if I loose another then another until they are all gone. What happens then? I have no sheep! I know that Jesus is telling us to drop everything to go and find the lost. My goal for this lesson is to uncover why??

From my sermon 9/12:

It was 9/11 yesterday. As many of us ran errands and did chores around the house, many cried their eyes out yesterday because their loved ones were lost on September 11th. When there is a tragedy so significant and horrific, people run to help to try to find that which they hope will not be lost forever. In a burning tower, a flooded house, a muddy slide, a devastated land, people search every ounce of the area to find those who are missing.

Let me ask you this question: Do they stop and say, "Was this person a sinner or a tax collector? If so, I'‘m not going to save them". No of course not! They save anybody they can. Every life is so precious that they will search until they cannot search any more. This searching is exactly what God does for us when we are lost. There is so much great celebration from heaven and all the angels and all people rejoice for one who was lost has now been found.

Jesus rejects the idea that the responsible party for restoration is the "sinner." The stories Jesus tells are clear about this. Why do you think that Jesus tells this parable and uses lost things such as coins or sheep. It is because lost coins and lost sheep cannot restore themselves. Neither do lost people. So to Jesus, we all have the responsibility as the community to help these lost people. They cannot do it on their own. They are lost. The lost themselves cannot find their way home. That’s why we call them lost.

I can tell you all without any hesitation that if one of my children were lost. I would never give up until I found them. God never gives up on us. God never quits searching for those who may be lost.

Everyone is part of God's keeping, and those who have gotten lost in one way or another therefore need special attention from God and from us.

Thoughts on Emotions

2010-09-08T11:33:00.000-07:00

I am thinking a lot about emotions and trauma lately. In this book that I am reading about trauma, it states that there are three aspects of each of us: what we think (mind), what we do (actions) and what we feel (emotions). Life is about patterns of each and all of those.

Each day is a pattern. It takes the pattern of what happens and how we react to what happens to us. As I said in my last post, we have little control over much of our life. However, we do have control over how we act and perhaps how we feel. In my readings the symbol of a triangle is used to discuss the three part system that we tend to call mood. Thoughts affect feelings, feelings affect actions and actions affect behavior. They all can interact which one another.

So as I see it from a theological perspective we are all about transformation. We are called to continually be in a change mode. Change is the one thing that is forever. The next time we tend to feel bothered by our actions or others we can change. When we feel a certain way, we can change.

Reflections on Sermon Sunday 9/5/2010

2010-09-07T13:39:00.000-07:00

Hello,

I thought it would be nice to stop and reflect on what I liked and did not like about the text I preached about on Sunday. I struggle as many of you do with control. Well the topic text on Sunday was the potter and the clay. I know that I am not the potter. I feel many days exactly like the clay being pressed upon by life as if a push for me to adjust.

I know that I am not in control of life. I know that I do not control people or things. However, the issue of God's plans and how much of them are known is an issue for me. I am like clay in the potter's hands. I have free will to do whatever I choose to do. Do I really grasped the idea of control and acceptance? To truly give up control one must accept first that they never had any control from the beginning. I think that I fool myself into thinking that at one time I may have had control over things. I realize now that I never did.

What does all of this control have to do with the great potter shaping me and forming me? It reflects each of our desires to tell the potter how and what to make of us. I want to be this or that. In reality, we can only become what we have accepted and allowed the potter to make of us. Our acceptance means that we give in to the need to control.

The clay seems to just be there and allow formation to take place. It goes with the bending and creating. It becomes something new and is ok with its newness.

Do we allow the potter to shape us? Are we being reworked each day or merely resisting the potter's movements to shape and change our lives?

Only time will tell what is really formed and by whom!

An Old Experience for Growth

2010-08-24T09:32:00.000-07:00

The ICU chaplain wanted to make me aware of a situation in ICU. She prepped me prior to my on-call shift as she was leaving. Her prepping conversations were always too real for me but my duty and call was to listen. My natural response was to begin to run out of that hospital vowing never ever to return. “There was a 24-year-old boy who over the July 4th holiday had been drinking. He fell down some concrete steps and suffered a brain bleed. He is in ICU on a vent. He had been talking to the nurses earlier in the week. However, perhaps as the swelling in the brain continued, he had lost his consciousness. You may be called by the ICU nurses tonight so be prepared”.

I was the on-call chaplain on this day and night. I hated the role of being the only voice of God in the hospital. I always felt so incompetent to even pretend to speak for God on issues of this magnitude in person’s lives. “Just be yourself, God is with you” echoed in my mind each week when I was assigned the 24 hour shift in my role as a Clinical Pastoral Education Chaplain doing a full year residency at a large community hospital in Atlanta. I would scream inside myself “I cannot speak for God. I am only a lowly person who has much sin and error in my ways. Please let me go home where it is safe. Send someone else in my place”. Some nights I would be petrified by the mere sound of a ringing telephone or that unforgiving pager.

It was not very long after I had been briefed about the situation that a call came. “Hell-o this is Sabrina in ICU”. She proceeded to tell me the same story that I had been already briefed on. I listened to the story once again. It was just as painful to hear the second time around.

“We will need you to come down once the girl friend comes in. She does not know the
Family. She wants to say goodbye to him. They did not know how involved she was with their son. Please know to come when we call”.

“OK I will be prepared”. I knew not what I could be prepared for, however, it felt good to say that phase "I will be prepared".

A few minutes later the call came. It was a different call. “Please come down now”, the nurse commanded. The family needs you. The brain scan came back saying the son has brain activity. The Dad (who is a pediatrician) has decided to pull the tubes and give him a morphine drip. “I’ll be right down”, I declared.

I go to the ICU waiting room. There are four people in the room. I entered with a sense that they had expected someone else. “Hi my name is Dawn Britt. I’m the chaplain”. They were pleasant with me. I learned that they were “pseudo Presbyterians” they professed. They had established a connection with the other chaplain who had been with them all day. They seemed very stoic, the Dad, Mom, grandfather and grandmother. There were many pregnant pauses during the brief meeting. The nurse came in to tell the family that they could now see their son. I walked with the Dad and Mom to the son’s room. As we entered the room, I looked over at the boy who was lying on the bed grasping periodically for air. His breaths were scattered and not consistent. I felt sick to my stomach from the sight. He looked so much like my stepson. I felt as though I was moving in slow motion.

I watched as both parents laid their heads on their son’s chest and caressed his face. I had tears flowing down my eyes. The Dad who had seemed so stoic to me previously looked over at me and then quickly turned toward his wife and buried his face into her shoulder.

The grandfather and grandmother wanted to leave after they had said their good-byes. The grandfather took my hand to say thank you. I saw the pain in his eyes. “Thank you for what you did for our family tonight”. They left.

I eventually left also to give the parents some time to be with their son without an audience. The pain of the experience lingers with me even today.

During this time of lent, we are called to repentance, silence, solitude, prayer, meditation and the study of the Word. I experienced each of these spiritual practices on that long night while doing CPE chaplaincy with that grieving family. Although at the time, I never realized exactly how God was working.

At times during our spiritual walk, we are called to be “on the mountain alone” (John 6:15). We may feel unprepared for the event while filled with many negative emotions. However, for me, it is in these times that I feel most the presence of the Holy Spirit. Whether I ask for the presence or not, the Holy Spirit is there. The Holy Spirit is there with us all in the peace and silence of the moment. This Spirit lies in the gap between the useless words not uttered.

I have learned much from my many experiences while serving the two years of CPE. The greatest of this knowledge is to “be still and know that I am God”. So many times in our lives we find ourselves so oppressed by the burdens of living, we seek something but we know not what. For me, that night in that ICU room, I found God through the power of the Holy Spirit in full force. For that family, in the midst of there horrific pain, we all found peace and rest. It was not that we found necessarily the solution to our problems. Their son would die. What that family found that night was peace and reconciliation and most importantly love. This finding is the message for everyone: Find Your Peace. Find Your Reconciliation. Find Your Love. Be still and know that God Works In All Things.

Another Leaf Drops

2010-08-03T08:47:00.000-07:00

I lost my last aunt this past Thursday. While at first glance, she was at times a distant aunt, she was still a leaf on my tree. I gazed at her. She was not there. I knew it at once. It was not my vibrant, laughing, strong, aunt. Her eyes were closed now forever with a downward frown on her face. She was clearly with her Lord and not in this place.

My mother is the last in her family now. There is something about attending a funeral in which I was not the officiant. It somehow put me in a different place an in between spot. I was not entirely comfortable being in the in between. My mother strong and yet clearly disturb by her own loss.

We tend to have such attachments to our relatives. They are a link to our identity and our heritage. My Aunt was a major link in our family. She always seemed to smile. She was a strong lady who died with that same grace and dignity. She was a very young ninety seven born in 1913 in a so very different time. Our time will seem and be different for others in our passing too.

My mother who has really never been very religious when I asked her if she wanted me to say a prayer, quietly nodded "yes". I can only imagine all the feelings that soared through her as she gazed at the beautiful white coffin. Crosses etched into the sides. On the inside top of the coffin was embroidered the Holy Bible. I never thought about what we actually can take with us. The Bible!! Our love of people, our smiles at life, our gratitude for all that God has provided us even when we never knew. Oh aunt Mary I will sorely miss you, your love and care. God is continuing to provide for all of your needs my fallen leaf.

Thoughts in the Afternoon

2010-07-21T13:06:00.001-07:00

It is the afternoon. I am thinking about how little time we have on this earth. I remember all of the people who told me when I was growing up "oh enjoy your youth" or when I had children "oh they grow up so fast".

It is difficult not being a little grumpy about how little time we do have. I ponder the days of our life at times like these. I wonder just how much time I have wasted on "this and that". It seems that "this and that" have been around me for most of my life taking all of my time.

However, I am reminded of what God says to me: don't worry about how much time or days you have. "I will give back to you". I think about Job and all he lost in time and how in the Exodus how much wandering or time it took to get back to God.

When I want to stop time, I can't. All I can do is watch as it passes by me. "All the stars in the sky or the grains of sand" "it will all be yours" God told Abraham. I just want the grains of time and stars of life. God will provide I know!!

Who Is the Samaritan?

2010-07-17T15:58:00.000-07:00

On the way to church today I saw a woman on the side of the road walking. It was still early in the day so the heat of the day was only about 81 degrees. She was carrying a bag of groceries and some clothes that she had gotten from the cleaners. They were still in plastic. My first thought was to stop and ask her if she wanted a ride to wherever she was going. I immediately thought if I did ask I might miss church or the other hundreds of things I have to do today. I kept on going.

Two questions and two answers. “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” and “Who is my neighbor?”

Who is our neighbor? What if Jesus was the one who was hurt and lying by the road? Would we stop to help him.

In the parable today from the Gospel of Luke, both the religious leaders and the Samaritan "see" the man in the ditch, but who really "sees" him?

I have lived on my same street since 1985 or so. Who are my neighbors? I sadly say that with the exception of maybe three or four persons living in and around me, I do not know my neighbors at all. However, one summer night several years ago, I really saw my neighbor when he suffered a major heart attack and was lying in a comma at Emory Adventist Hospital. Not knowing him very well, I felt called by God to visit him in the ICU. “I put my hand on his chest and said “God loves you. God loves you” The only words I could muster up to repeat. I was truly his neighbor that night.

In our text today, Jesus is described as telling this parable as a response to a question which someone has asked him “who is my neighbor?” In the Levitical law is says that one should love their neighbor. In Leviticus 19:18 it says “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.” Is the Lord our neighbor then??

We have a lawyer, a priest, a Levite and a man in a ditch. Like my incident this morning, each and every day, I can really see myself in all of these roles. The lawyer- judging the Samaritan “well how did he get in this place?” “He should have been more careful” or “maybe he did something wrong against our laws. I judge him against the laws of the land and against my own law of justice.

Or maybe, I am the Levite in my priestly role, I say “he must not be a church goer”. “I read the Bible everyday he must not”. I am the pious one. “Maybe he is not Christian at all”. “I have no patient or tolerance towards people who don't profess Christ as their Savior”.

There are of course those days when I am the man in the ditch myself. Torn and battered down weary from the battles of life. At my wits end. I have been beaten down by society, the jobless market, the economies of life. I can go no further.

Perhaps even rarely, I am the Good Samaritan. I stop and care for those who need me. I help, hold out a hand and raise the person out of the ditch. It is the Samaritan that really "sees" and "has compassion" on the needy man in the ditch. He "cares" for the man in the ditch. He also asks the innkeeper to "care". The Samaritan doesn't provide all of the direct aid to the needy man. He is the one "doing mercy".

As Christians we are called to have compassion to others; to come (near) to others; to care for others; to do mercy to others. It is not enough just to talk about "what one believes," but "what difference does it make in my life that I believe."

Some of us in our Parent's Morning Out Program recently received our first aid and CPR training. We were taught what to do, and what not to do and even to not respond or help an injured person if we were not certified to do so (beyond calling 911). The main thing that we are instructed is to get help. Help the person who is unable to help themselves. Jesus asks us as His followers to be good Samaritans to your neighbor.

“Go and do this kind of mercy to even the last person you can ever imagine as being a neighbor to you.” Go and help all those you can!

Emotional Attachment with God

2010-07-14T09:04:00.000-07:00

I was just thinking today about how we as human beings seem to attach so many emotions to situations. It is one of the primary ways that humans learn. We may store these emotions for years or just for a day. The problem with this learning is that we attach negative emotions to a situation. It then distracts us from God 's purposes for the situation and for us. We remain out of God's loop on what God desires from us and the situation.

If we can consider leaving the emotions up to God maybe situations would be less traumatic. Our reliance upon God should be for everything. If I can just do that then my emotions would be from God too.

I find myself automatically thinking that a situation is either good or bad by my thinking. However, it is my very thinking that really makes a situation as such. I am going to try to rely on God to determine my emotional take on life. I can do this by not judging myself, anyone or anything. I will leave all of the judgment up to God and Christ at least for one day at a time anyway.

Are We Hungry Today

2010-07-13T07:39:00.001-07:00

I have been reading a book called “Love Hunger”. It is about people who have food addictions. Well, it could really be any type of addiction. In our techno, broadcasted, information overloaded culture why not? What I found interesting in the book was the authors’ discussion of the six-step downward spiral of an addiction: The first step is called “Love Hunger”. Interestingly, it is the trigger mechanism that sets off the addiction–cycle like the first domino in a circle of dominos. The authors say that one hits another and then another until the entire circle of dominoes has collapsed. The difference is that in the domino example once they all fall the cycle is over. However, in the real world, the stages continue to go around and around deeper into the addiction.

What causes this first step in the process you might ask? The very first domino to fall is our hunger for love. Whether it be from trauma in early childhood, a disastrous love interest, a severe disappointment, a trauma at work or a disfiguring disease, they all serve to start our hunger for love.

For Christians, if we only know one thing, we must know internally that we are loved by our creator. As the Psalmist says in Psalm 139:14: we are “fearfully and wonderfully made”. A human being is an incredible thing: complex and intricate to have come into being without the guiding hand of a Creator.

We have been made in the image of God. At some point in our lives, we must internalize that love.. It is the key to the salvation of our spirits. Our lives are all about love. Love of God and love of one another. No matter how you got to the place where you are today, remember that God truly loves you. If you don’t believe that statement, why, ask another Christian. They most certainly will affirm God’s love for you. For no matter what we have done in the past or will do in the future, we have been restored to the image of our creator. The next time you are feeling the pressures of this world, or the past life you have lived or the worry of your future repeat John 3:16 only substitute, your name in the blanks.

John 3:16

¹⁶"For God so loved ___________that he gave his one and only Son,^[a] that _________believes in him ____________shall not perish but have eternal life.