University of Cancer

Good news in "the alley"

A truly great sermon. . .

Lenten Poem 2: Father Michel Quoist

Another poem from a good friend from Father Michel Quoist. 

The Subway

The last ones squeeze in,

The door rolls shut.

The subway rumbles off,

I can't move.

I am no longer an individual but a crowd,

A crowd that moves in one piece like jellied soup in its can.

A nameless and indifferent crowd, probably far from you, Lord.

I am one with the crowd, and I see why it's sometimes hard for me to rise higher.

The crowd is heavy-leaden soles on my feet, my slow feet-a crowd too large for my overburdened skiff.

Yet, Lord, I have no right to overlook these people; they are my brothers,

And I cannot save myself, alone.

Lord, since you wish it, I shall head for heaven "in the subway."

Matthew 25:31-46

The good life

How to Live

How should one live?

Live

Welcoming

to all.

Mechtild of Magdeburg

Advent Conflict

Advent tensions. . . reading the Gospels

A "virgin birth"                                       A teenage mom

Emmanuel (God with us)                        A very poor child     

A father's dreams                                    Harsh reality facing fathers

A political tyrant                                     Suffering people

Oppression and lies                                 Dishonesty with the poor

Refugee family                                        Immigrants systematically excluded

Children murdered                                  Children in toxic stress

A special child                                         Syrian children

Surprised by joy!                                     Tables turned upside down

Birth                                                         All people included

Waiting ended                                          Celebration of jutice realized

Wise men & shepherds                             Classless community

Advent                                                      Advent

                    

                                      

Simple/Profound

What Life Is About

No matter how varied and rich our experiences, how honored we’ve been, how great our achievements, we will have missed what life was all about if we do not become love…. I think one of the great failures of ministers like myself is that we have exhorted people to love, and we have deplored the lack of love in the world, yet we have not become love. We have not known how to instruct our own souls in the art of loving.

Seized by the Power of a Great Affection is available here.

N. Gordon Cosby
Source: Seized by the Power of a Great Affection

Add your thoughts at inward/outward

Out

If anyone calls me
Tell them I'm out.
Out of patience
Out of line
Out of my element
Out of my mind
Out in the street
Preparing the feast
The bread and the wine
For lost and for least
Out of my bubble
In to the flow
Out of myself
Finding my whole
They'll know where to find me
I'm out.

Jim Biard

Stranger?

Welcome Something New

To offer hospitality to a stranger is to welcome something new, unfamiliar and unknown into our life-world…. Strangers have stories to tell which we have never heard before, stories which can redirect our seeing and stimulate our imaginations. The stories invite us to view the world from a novel perspective.

Thomas Ogletree
Source: Hospitality to the Stranger

Flowers for mom. . .

The "native Texas" plant (read here "weed") in full bloom appeared on our makeshift communion table/altar at Church at the Square last Sunday. It had been carefully prepared for the occasion of Mother's Day by one of the fairly regular members of the church. 

Planted in a disposable coffee cup, wrapped carefully in tin foil, with pieces of bark and black earth, the gentleman placed it carefully among the symbols of our faith arrayed on the table of the Lord.

"I brought this for Mother's Day," he declared with a smile on his face and a compelling twinkle in his eye.  "I wanted us to remember our moms on this special day." 

After the morning service concluded, the church enjoyed breakfast brunch prepared by culinary arts students from CitySquare. 

When the morning concluded, the man retrieved his plant and went on his way--back out on to the streets of Dallas, his only option.  No doubt, he intended to enjoy the beauty of his and God's creation for a while longer. 

A sweet gift offered in appreciation for mothers, including his and mine. A respect for what's good in life and the world. 

I'm thankful for my brother who brought new meaning to the day and to our communion together.

Prayer before Texas Medical Association 2016 General Meeting

God of many names and of all people,
We pause to reflect in gratitude for the gift of,
As our very poor neighbor have taught us,
"Another day we weren't promised."

We are grateful for this meeting,
For the anticipated experience of the event.

We give thanks for the fellowship of our tables and the goodness of friendship.

We give thanks for he gift, the science, the art of healing
And for those who have given themselves to the grand Mystery of it all.

As we express gratitude for the day and its wonder,
We remember those in our community who struggle this morning;
Those who call tents "home," and even now are on the move in our city.

May we be sensitive to the concerns and the harsh realities facing
The poor, the sick, the wounded, the addicted and the broken.

In a world of complexity, strife and fear on the one hand,
And a life of joy, discovery and promise on the other,
May we take the path between,
A path that lead to just solutions, resilient hope and new promise.

Amen.

All the same. . .

The Same As We Are

He whom we look down upon, whom we cannot bear to see, the very sight of whom causes us to vomit, is the same as we are, formed with us from the self-same clay, compacted of the same elements. Whatever he suffers, we also can suffer.

St. Jerome

Incarnation

Where Is God Now?

The SS hung two Jewish men and a boy before the assembled inhabitants of the camp. The men died quickly but the death struggle of the boy lasted half an hour. “Where is God? Where is he?” a man behind me asked. As the boy, after a long time, was still in agony on the rope, I heard the man cry again, “Where is God now?” And I heard a voice within me answer, “Here he is—he is hanging here on this gallows….”

Elie Wiesel
Source: Night

A vision, a promise

A World of Graves

Death puts on all kinds of clothes

For a hungry child, an empty stomach, a tomb
A no-job father finds Death in idle hopelessness
A mother fears Death's darkness, blackened in by her baby's tears
The homeless veteran cannot escape his plot defined by fear and hard, hard memory
Dying folk face Death in the eye, trying to stare it down, but no
Rejected, marginalized people move in and out of Death's shadows
Hated immigrants feel a Death separating them from home, while serving their captors right well
A poor beggar, standing at a busy urban intersection, wrestles Death a car at a time
The lonely know Death's solitude, resigned
Prisoners endure a life behind Death's locked door
The naked experience Death as humiliating uncovering
All sorts of blind people live in a darkness no one understands but Death
Abused, violated women live in a hellish sector of Death
Oppressed people know Death's weight
Homeless strugglers know Death in the great ourdoors
Crippled, broken bodies linger around souls chasing Death away
The world can be understood as a tomb
Death's home

What we need is a way out, through, beyond, up--liberation
The Liberator overcomes
The Warrior drives out fear
The Rescuer kills death
Leaving only an
Empty Tomb!

Our faith, in a world of graves

New eyes and hearts

Hope, not optimism

Hope or Optimism

Hope is not merely the optimistic view that somehow everything will turn out all right in the end if everyone just does as we do. Hope is the more rugged, the more muscular view that even if things don’t turn out all right and aren’t all right, we endure through and beyond the times that disappoint or threaten to destroy us.

Peter Gomes
Source: The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus

Horror and Hope

Hope in the Depths

If you find hope in the ground of history, you are united with the great prophets who were able to look into the depth of their times, who tried to escape it, because they could not stand the horror of their visions, and who yet had the strength to look to an even deeper level and there to discover hope.

Paul Tillich
Source: The Shaking of the Foundations

Leadership

Who Can Be Trusted? A Translation of Psalm 15   Lord, who can be trusted with power, and who may act in your place? Those with a passion for justice, who speak the truth from their hearts; who have let go of selfish interests and grown beyond their own lives; who see the wretched as their family and the poor as their flesh and blood. They alone are impartial and worthy of the people’s trust. Their compassion lights up the whole earth, and their kindness endures forever. Stephen Mitchell Source: A Book of Psalms