Saying 25
Jesus said: Love your brother as your own soul. Protect him as you protect the pupil of your eye.
I am called to love my soul, fully, the whole glorious shebang, with all its "house guests" as Rumi calls them: meanness, grandiosity, jealousy, self-centered fear, dishonesty, the need for approval and control... Those "uninvited guests" teach me humility, take me to freedom, and are sent from God.
I'm given a song of gritty truth. The love and protection I am to extend to my brothers and sisters is not prissy. When I can see the truth of myself and still know and experience that I'm loved by God, am in the body of Christ, I can extend that same unconditional love to others, together in surprised-by-joy unity.
I blink when something comes at my eye; the inborn protection of my pupil happens with automaticity. Let's be born out of our learned selfishness and find the same reflex to protect our brothers and sisters. Reason later. What is the opposite? Consider the actions or inactions of the Pharisees, Pilate, the Inquisition, of lynching mobs, of Melania Trump's "I Really Don't Care Do U?" jacket, of Sula and Nel in Toni Morrison's "Sula," and our absolute capacity for oblivious or conscious cruelty on any given day at any given moment. Isn't it a real form of violence to go on a yoga retreat to Costa Rica, when my neighbors can't afford to fix their heater?
Jesus said: Love your brother as your own soul. Protect him as you protect the pupil of your eye.
I am called to love my soul, fully, the whole glorious shebang, with all its "house guests" as Rumi calls them: meanness, grandiosity, jealousy, self-centered fear, dishonesty, the need for approval and control... Those "uninvited guests" teach me humility, take me to freedom, and are sent from God.
I'm given a song of gritty truth. The love and protection I am to extend to my brothers and sisters is not prissy. When I can see the truth of myself and still know and experience that I'm loved by God, am in the body of Christ, I can extend that same unconditional love to others, together in surprised-by-joy unity.
I blink when something comes at my eye; the inborn protection of my pupil happens with automaticity. Let's be born out of our learned selfishness and find the same reflex to protect our brothers and sisters. Reason later. What is the opposite? Consider the actions or inactions of the Pharisees, Pilate, the Inquisition, of lynching mobs, of Melania Trump's "I Really Don't Care Do U?" jacket, of Sula and Nel in Toni Morrison's "Sula," and our absolute capacity for oblivious or conscious cruelty on any given day at any given moment. Isn't it a real form of violence to go on a yoga retreat to Costa Rica, when my neighbors can't afford to fix their heater?
Saying 26
Jesus said: You see the splinter in your brother's eye, but you do not see the log that is in your own eye. Remove the log from your own eye, and then you can clearly see to remove the splinter from your brother's eye.
My delusion is that I'm a nice, unselfish person doing her best all the time who can see your selfishness (the "log in your eye") very clearly so "let me help you get that out." Trouble is, if the log is in my own eye I'm the wrong person for that surgery. Are the blind allowed to operate?
Thank God for honest, prayerful self-examination so I can stay awake to the shenanigans I'm engaged in and perhaps from a place of gentle God-centeredness, remove the splinter from others' eyes.
Jesus said: You see the splinter in your brother's eye, but you do not see the log that is in your own eye. Remove the log from your own eye, and then you can clearly see to remove the splinter from your brother's eye.
My delusion is that I'm a nice, unselfish person doing her best all the time who can see your selfishness (the "log in your eye") very clearly so "let me help you get that out." Trouble is, if the log is in my own eye I'm the wrong person for that surgery. Are the blind allowed to operate?
Thank God for honest, prayerful self-examination so I can stay awake to the shenanigans I'm engaged in and perhaps from a place of gentle God-centeredness, remove the splinter from others' eyes.
Saying 27
If you do not fast from the world you will not find the Kingdom.
If you do not keep the Sabbath as a Sabbath, you will never see the Father.
We know Jesus really doesn't give much of a hoot about the "what" of our food. This isn't exclusively a food fast but a "fast from the world." How do you do that? A quiet place to pray? An inner room where the cell phone, computer are off? A journal and a sacred space to talk with God and allow God to disclose truths from within and from without about my attachments to control, money, approval, sex, food, people, places, and stuff?
Fasting might mean getting quiet, praying, and meditating on God's truth to start each day. "Be still and know that I am God." In that space, God's truth and spirit extricate me from the worldwide web. Likewise, I keep the Sabbath by unifying with the One, with the Word, with Jesus, with the great "I am" and get restored, rested, and energized in that place to be in alignment with the motion and e-motion that lead me to where I am supposed to be, where God wants me to be.
There is another perspective on this, too, from Isaiah 58. The true fast is to serve the poor, house the homeless, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, stay aware of my own ego. That makes sense too. All those choices require a disconnection from the world's priorities in order to make God's will my priority.
If you do not fast from the world you will not find the Kingdom.
If you do not keep the Sabbath as a Sabbath, you will never see the Father.
We know Jesus really doesn't give much of a hoot about the "what" of our food. This isn't exclusively a food fast but a "fast from the world." How do you do that? A quiet place to pray? An inner room where the cell phone, computer are off? A journal and a sacred space to talk with God and allow God to disclose truths from within and from without about my attachments to control, money, approval, sex, food, people, places, and stuff?
Fasting might mean getting quiet, praying, and meditating on God's truth to start each day. "Be still and know that I am God." In that space, God's truth and spirit extricate me from the worldwide web. Likewise, I keep the Sabbath by unifying with the One, with the Word, with Jesus, with the great "I am" and get restored, rested, and energized in that place to be in alignment with the motion and e-motion that lead me to where I am supposed to be, where God wants me to be.
There is another perspective on this, too, from Isaiah 58. The true fast is to serve the poor, house the homeless, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, stay aware of my own ego. That makes sense too. All those choices require a disconnection from the world's priorities in order to make God's will my priority.
