email: whitpresby@mindspring.com
Spiritual readings "Greetings from Whittier Presbyterian Church"
May 2000 Emails
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Electrons, galaxies & human attraction |
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Forgiveness |
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Mother’s Day reflection |
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Various words for mothers. |
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Forgiveness |
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Another definition of sin |
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God's beams of love |
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What is prayer? |
Some of the most astounding material that I have read in the last few years is Brian Swimme’s “The Universe is a Green Dragon.” He has a profound way of talking about cosmology in very human terms. He points out that gravity, one of the basic laws of physics, is rooted in ‘allurement.’ As electrons and galaxies are drawn to each other, so humans are drawn to other humans or other phenomenon, like music or art. He says “This mysterious attraction that we call ‘interest’ or ‘fascination,’ is as mysterious, as basic, as the allurement that we call gravitation.”
The implications for our attitude toward the universe and the environment are most profound. May it be that this kind of thinking is a gift from God, just when we need it? Would that be just like God to give the things that are needed, just when we need them.
I will begin a series of sermons on forgiveness and reconciliation this Sunday. In yet another bestseller for her, “Amazing Grace,” Kathleen Norris has a pithy couple of sentences about forgiveness. She is talking about the situation between Jacob & Esau in Genesis 33. She says:
“This story says to me that if we have ever been truly forgiven, we have the face of God. If we’ve ever been on the receiving end of an act of mercy that made a difference in our lives, we have seen the face of God.”
For my money, few in our day say it as well as Norris.
This is a week to contemplate families and the values they are able to instill in us as we grow up in them.
An anonymous proverb: The spirit of a household reaches farther than from the front door to the back. It shines forth from a child’s eyes and shows in the way a man hurries back to his home.
Victor Hugo:
A house built of logs and stone,
Of tiles and posts and piers,
A home is built of loving deeds
That stand a thousand years.
And from St. Augustine: God does not demand impossibilities. Our grand business in life is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.
Here are some inspirational words about mothers that I ran across.
From Victor Hugo:
She broke the bread into two fragments and gave them to the children, who ate with avidity. “She hath kept none for herself.” Grumbled the Sergeant. “Because she is not hungry,” said a soldier. “Because she is a mother,” said the Sergeant.
From Abraham Lincoln:
All I am or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother…I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.
From John Wesley:
My mother was the source from which I derived the guiding principles of my life.
And finally, from that source of much modern proverbial wisdom, the side of a Celestial Seasonings tea box:
Blessed are the mothers of the earth, for they have combined the practical and the spiritual into one workable way of human life. They have darned little socks, mended little dresses, washed little faces, and have pointed little eyes to the stars and little souls to eternal things.
In my reading for the sermons on forgiveness and reconciliation, I ran across this great definition of forgiveness. It comes from an article by Marjorie J. Thompson in the magazine “Weavings” from March/April 1992.
“To forgive is to make a conscious choice to release the person who has wounded us from the sentence of our judgment, however justified that judgment may be.”
There is a short sentence packed with significance and meaning enough to chew on for days, even weeks. Oh, to be able to forgive like this!
Matthew Fox is a noted writer in what is called “Creation Spirituality.” He is in Los Angeles for some kind of alternative medicine conference and I heard him speak on a radio show the other day. I looked up his latest book, “Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh.” I’d bought it at the Companions on the Inner Way Conference last February. Fox is one of the leading proponents of New Age Christian spirituality, yet his roots are deep enough in history and Christian theology. Sin has been a topic that New Age folks have avoided or seen as outmoded and old fashioned. Here is Fox’s introductory remarks about sin:
“In my opinion we do need to talk about sin today, but not in the same way we talked about it in the past. Sin evolves, as culture evolves. Our capacity for destruction and alienation, self-hatred and social resentment, luxurious living among gross injustice, evolves. WE must talk about sin again because not to do so perpetuates our problems, just as any kind of denial invariably creates more complex problems (Like the alcoholic who insists he is only a ‘social drinker.’) We must talk about sin again because while our news is filled with it, we would be fools to let newscasters and journalists be our surrogate theologians; because the earth is dying due to human transgressions; because our hearts are sad and we are without energy; and because elders have a responsibility to show the young where boundaries lie. Indeed, the ecological disasters of our time, whose reality appears daily in our news reports, have reintroduced sin—by whatever name—to our awareness.”
My apologies for the length of this, but I felt it helpful to remind us of the continued value of our tradition, even those parts of it less popular or politically correct.
Richard J. Foster published a book in 1982, “Celebration of Discipline,” that became one of the key works fostering(pun intended) the renewed growth of ancient spiritual practices within the mainline churches. In the spirit of prayer that seems to have been my theme this week, here are some of his words about prayer.
“William Blake tells us that our task in life is to learn to bear God’s “beams of love.” How often we fashion cloaks of evasion—beam-proof shelters—in order to elude our Eternal Lover. But when we pray God slowly and graciously reveals to us our hiding places, and sets us free from them.
May your journey in prayer lead you ever more to become “beam bearers.”
Grace & peace to you all. Blessed Memorial day to you.
Jacob Boehme was a German Lutheran mystic of the late 16th early 17th centuries who was greatly influential upon such as William Blake, John Milton, Isaac Newton, William Law (one of last week’s email sources) and many others. He spent his life as a shepherd then a cobbler, all the while writing spiritual material of great depth. From his “The Way to Christ” comes this insight on prayer. I’ve taken liberty to update the language.
“Prayer is not such a matter as when a person comes before a worldly king, or lord, to whom one has attached oneself, and prays for grace and often thinks quite differently in one’s heart. No, it is rather a going out of oneself, so that one gives oneself to God with all one’s powers, with everything that one is and that one possesses.”
I like the phrase “…and often thinks quite differently in one’s heart.” How many times, particularly when speaking to those we deem more powerful than us, do we say things with our lips when we feel quite differently in our hearts? Maybe I’m the only one who behaves that way!
May you find the way to speak honestly and lovingly in everything you do.
