Valentine's Day thought. . .

Power to Love

 Agape love is the power to love the unlovable. It is the power to love people we do not like. Jesus commands us to love our enemies in order to be like God. We are not told to love in order to win our enemies or to get results, but that we may be children of God, who sends the rain on the just and the unjust, who looks after both the good and the evil. The predominant characteristic of this agape love is that, no matter what a person is like, God seeks nothing but his or her highest good.

N. Gordon Cosby

Source: Unknown

from Inward/Outward

Love's Mystery

Love, planted in every heart,

Present only to bravely, faithfully extend blessing in
A world of pain and isolation, brings whole healing.

Love, designed to be received more than given,
Once embraced to the full, fuels
Great, passionate living.

But, the mysterious key to ecstasy
Discovered, understood only in being
Open.

Exactly as the Creator, in extending and in receiving.

Human mediation to loving God

It is not enough to say that love of God is inseparable from the love of one's neighbor.  It must be added that love for God is unavoidably expressed through love of one's neighbor.  Moreover, God is loved in the neighbor:  "But if a man says, 'I love God,' while hating his brother, he is a liar.  If he does not love the brother whom he has seen, it cannot be that he loves God whom he has not seen" (1 John 4:20).  To love one's brother, to love all persons, is a necessary and indispensable mediation of the love of God; it is to love God:  "You did it for me, . . .you did not do it for me." 

We find the Lord in our encounters with others, especially the poor, marginated, and exploited ones.  An act of love towards them is an act of love towards God.  This is why Congar speaks of "the sacrament of our neighbor," who as a visible reality reveals to us and allows us to welcome the Lord:  "But there is one thing that is privileged to be a paradoxical sign of God, in relation to which men are able to manifest their deepest commitment--our Neighbor.  The sacrament of our Neighbor!" (pages 114, 115)

Gustavo Gutierrez

 A Theology of Liberation

Thoughts offered in our time of war. . .

Somehow we find it far too easy to forget that our nation remains involved in a horrific war on the other side of the globe. 

I often wonder how long the conflict would last if the nation instituted a universal draft that touched us all more directly than our current recruiting process for an all-volunteer military. 

Then, there is the cost associated with our long-term conflict.  To be sure, the cost affects the well-being of the poor in the U. S. and around the world. 

Possibly most important, there is the spiritual side, that dimension that leads us to decide for hate or love. 

Consider these words from one of our nation's "soul leaders."

I mourn the loss of thousands of lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy.  Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.  Darkness cannot drive out darkness:  only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate:  only love can do that.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr

West Wisdom

"Justice is what love looks like in public."

~ Cornel West

"Including others" . . .you must watch!

Do you believe in angels? 

I do.

Take a look at this.

Reflect on it.

Get back to me!

Foundation principle for community building

"So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets."

Jesus

Matthew 7:12

Another great tune from Willie. . .

Wordless love

The greatest love stories can be told without a word.

The story of Carl and Ellie reveal the way it was intended to be between a man and a woman. . .forever.

This is dedicated to Jessika and Lou, one of my special Angels and her Beloved. Best forever and ever, kids!

Meister Eckehart on love and others

My seminary days come back to me often. 

Today I picked up the following quotes from an article in the December website edition of Harpers magazine ("The Trinity of Love") concerning the life and message of Meister Eckehart, a 14th century Dominican priest.  I first read Eckehart when I was about 25-years-old.  His writings and sermons were among the sources that first exposed me to the rich mysticism of Christian thought in the Middle Ages.  Hear him:

If you love yourself, then you love all others as yourself. As long as you love a single human being less than yourself, you cannot truly love yourself—if you do not love all others as yourself, in one human being all human beings: and this human being is God and man.

–Meister Eckehart, Sermon No. 13, “Qui audit me” (Sept. 8, 1325) in Meister Eckharts deutsche und lateinische Werke, vol. 1, p. 195 (J. Quint ed. 1936)(S.H. transl.)

The Harpers' commentary following the quote challenges me: 

He then develops this idea in the context of a new doctrine of love in which love of self is carefully juxtaposed against the love of fellow humans and of God. He cites a passage from Paul of Tarsus in Romans 9:3 in which he wishes to be “cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers.” Self-sacrifice is thus defined as the essence of love and the overcoming of the self (in his words–thus is a human truly human).

But this “true” human is essentially also what Eckehart calls a “just man.” For him, the demand for justice must be everything, what he lives and breathes to achieve, more important than the outer formality of religion. And it is radical in its social implications, as Eckehart the noble says “I call you not servants, but friends.” But it starts with the abandonment of temporal connections in the quest for a mystical union with the spiritual. . . .says Eckehart—“the highest and most extreme thing that the human can give up, that is that he give up God for the sake of God.” These words may confound, and they certainly challenge the temporal and sacred authority of his time, but there is a clear internal logic to them, which challenges its audience to reject the paths they tread in favor of a new and mystical view of the world and humankind.

Living Christmas. . .

This from The New York Times on December 22, 2009.  Fitting Christmas meditation it seems to me.

Ben Kennedy

By VERLYN KLINKENBORG
Published: December 22, 2009

Unless you live in Helena, Mont., you’re unlikely to have any notion of who Ben Kennedy was. And even if you live in Helena, you may have never knew his name. You might have seen him on the street or in the alleys behind buildings downtown, collecting cans and flattening cardboard boxes for recycling. He probably would have caught your attention if you drifted downwind of him, for, in truth, his scent was high and overripe. His hair was wild, and his mouth had long been going bald of teeth.

Ben Kennedy was a native of Belt, Mont., a few miles east of Great Falls. You could be forgiven for thinking he was homeless, but he died in his subsidized housing in Helena on Dec. 2, just short of his 87th birthday.

To read more click here.

Classic country. . .funeral music

Bob Wills' classic performed by Asleep at the Wheel!

Dr. Steve Tucker, my buddy from Tulane graduate school days and a leading expert on the history and sociology of American country music, always told me to "Play this one at my funeral!"

Not sure what he meant. Maybe its the "wailsome" tone!

Enjoy.

Merton travels

Merton. . .again

More on Merton

Country blues. . .possibly the best country song ever!

As I've said often before, I love country music. It's just where I came from!

This could be the best country, blues song ever!

Enjoy.

Thomas Merton

Grandchildren and puppies

Not long ago, Uncle Bill and Aunt Judy and Uncle Kyle received 8 new Doberman Pinscher puppies into their world!

Sage, the mother, produced the amazing litter, with the help of old Bear, the father!

The video is simply a feel-good deal for me.

Our grandchildren love these pups!

Enjoy!

Happy Father's Day!

Pain and poverty

What I am about to say may sound self-evident, but I think we seldom experience the grace of true understanding when it comes to people who live in poverty.

"Poor people" hurt just like the rest of us (Note: I instinctively resist and resent using the phrase "the poor" to categorize human beings--people aren't poor, they have the circumstances of poverty thrust upon them, often through no fault of their own, as we are learning in this present economy. . .).

Of course, the burdens of poverty dump unusual difficulty on those who must endure that broad, often comprehensive burden. Surely, it hurts to be homeless in ways that I will not understand until I enter that state of being. It hurts to be ill without ready recourse to treatment, care and medication. It hurts to be unable to get places. It hurts to be broke. It hurts to be hungry.

But these are not the pains I have in mind today.

No, I'm thinking of the pains of the heart.

Being hungry hurts. What's worse and deeper and extremely painful to the heart is to see your child hungry and you having no way to relieve that pain.

Going further, those of us who try "to help" people who live in poverty seldom think in terms of the heart, the emotional life of people who face severe, often intractable economic and social problems.

Joe is a friend. He lost a 7-year-old child in a car crash. Joe knows poverty. Joe's heart was broken when his little girl died. Joe will be shaped by this one loss for the rest of his life, just as I would be should something like that happen to me. Will anyone see that, take the time to know that reality, to really know Joe?

People who face poverty also see marriages end, experience the apparent death of key relationships, have hearts broken wide open by betrayal and loss, watch children suffer and fail, stand and look down the road as a friend walks away. They know what it feels like to be ignored, passed over, and shoved to the back of most lines. They feel a deep agony as their children are sent away to prison.

Several years ago, not long after I came to Central Dallas Ministries, I met a very interesting couple. The man was several years younger than the woman. Whether they were married or not, I don't know. They certainly could have been, and they definitely were a couple. Both had experienced severe poverty and homelessness, thanks in large part to substance abuse, terrible childhoods and a basic lack of skills. She lived her life in a wheelchair. He attended to her with a tenderness that at times was palpable. At other times they fought like cats and dogs! They struggled with life, they struggled hard. We tried to intervene, to help, to make a difference. I don't judge that we were very helpful, not really.

A few years ago the woman died.

I encountered the man on the street just a few weeks after her death. He greeted me with his bear hug "hello" and promptly broke down into tears of grief as he explained his loss. He hurt so deeply for her.

You name the human situation of loss or despair and, guess what? Our neighbors who possess nothing also know, possibly as if magnified by their circumstance, the pains of life, loss and love.

We would do well to remember the power of human emotions. We must not forget the universal pain of being human.

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The stock boy and the checkout girl. . .

[I've read earlier versions of this story a few years ago, and you may have seen it already. But, I just had to share it here. Every now and then you just need a good story to lift your heart!]

In a supermarket, Kurtis the stock boy was busily working when a new voice came over the loud speaker asking for a carry-out at register 4. Kurtis was almost finished and wanted to get some fresh air, so he decided to answer the call. As he approached the checkout stand, a distant smile caught his eye ~ the checkout girl was beautiful. She was an older woman (maybe 26, and he was only 22) and he fell in love.

Later that day, after his shift was over, he waited by the punch clock to find out her name. She came into the break room, smiled softly at him, took her card, punched out, and then left. He looked at her card, BRENDA. He walked out only to see her start walking up the road. Next day, he waited outside as she left the supermarket, and offered her a ride home. He looked harmless enough, and she accepted. When he dropped her off, he asked if maybe he could see her again, outside of work. She simply said it wasn't possible.

He pressed and she explained she had two children and she couldn't afford a babysitter, so he offered to pay for the babysitter. Reluctantly she accepted his offer for a date for the following Saturday.

That Saturday night, he arrived at her door only to have her tell him that she was unable to go with him. The babysitter had called and canceled. To which Kurtis simply said, "Well, let's take the kids with us."

She tried to explain that taking the children was not an option, but again not taking no for an answer, he pressed. Finally Brenda brought him inside to meet her children. She had an older daughter who was just as cute as a bug, Kurtis thought, and then Brenda brought out her son, in a wheelchair. He was born a paraplegic with Downs Syndrome.

Kurtis told Brenda, "I still don't understand why the kids can't come with us." Brenda was amazed. Most men would run away from a woman with two kids, especially if one had disabilities ~ just like her first husband and father of her children had done. But Kurtis was not ordinary ~ he had a different mindset.

That evening Kurtis and Brenda loaded up the kids and went to dinner and the movies. When her son needed anything, Kurtis would take care of him. When he needed to use the restroom, he picked him up out of his wheelchair, took him, and brought him back. The kids loved Kurtis. At the end of the evening, Brenda knew this was the man she was going to marry and spend the rest of her life with.

A year later, they were married and Kurtis adopted both of her children. Since then they have added five more kids.

So what happened to Kurtis the stock boy at a grocery store in Cedar Falls, Iowa and Brenda the checkout girl?

Well, Mr. & Mrs. Kurt Warner now live in Arizona where he is currently employed as the quarterback of the National Football League Arizona Cardinals. Warner and his Cardinals will play in the Super Bowl tomorrow evening.

Is this a surprise ending or could you have guessed that he was not an ordinary person.

It should be noted that he also quarterbacked the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI...and he has also been the NFL's Most Valuable Player twice and the Super Bowl's Most Valuable Player.

The Warners established the First Things First Foundation in the spring of 2001 to bless the lives of those less fortunate with projects such as trips to Disney World for ill children, building recreation centers in children's hospitals, helping single moms achieve the dream of homeownership, and teaching Special Olympians the football basics. All projects are centered on Kurt and Brenda's life theme: faith and family come first. The official website is: http://www.kurtwarner.org/.

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