tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27328148295422262612024-02-07T12:52:59.273-05:00Tarmama WanderingsReflections of a wanderer in this place between the 2 comings of Christ.Zibahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09567716256604769311noreply@blogger.comBlogger45125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732814829542226261.post-33560152555669830222013-03-30T11:35:00.000-04:002013-03-30T11:37:38.107-04:00A "Good" Friday?I spent a large part of yesterday trying to live in the events of the last day of Christ's incarnated life. I read the story in Matthew and then I watched <u>The Passion of Christ</u> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0335345/<br />
I attended our tenebrae service in the evening. I was a wrung out by the flood of emotion as I found myself identifying with so many of the players in the drama.<br />
<br />
I was a disciple not able to stay awake and pray. I was frightened by the strange behavior Christ was demonstrating in Gethsemane. I too wanted to fight and then flee when Judas came with a large crowd bearing swords and clubs. I was amazed by how non confrontational Jesus was and how much he seemed to know before it happened. I was shocked to hear Him call Judas a friend. I struggled to remember what Jesus had said at the Passover meal and to understand what was happening.<br />
<br />
I was appalled by the driven behavior of Caiaphas and the teachers and the elders. I was not surprised that they really didn't understand. But, their obsession with finding a way to silence Jesus and put an end to his movement was horrific. Caiaphas needed to be in control. I don't think Caiaphas was really interested in truth prevailing. I saw him as a political manipulator and likely "in bed with" the Romans. He rigged the trial. Perhaps he was threatened and feared the loss of his power. Best case scenario is that he was loyal to the Jewish faith and was compelled to to put an end to all blasphemy. But, I doubt that was the case.<br />
<br />
Pilate's ambivalence toward the Jewish people and even toward Jesus made me uneasy and triggered awareness of my own tendency to inner conflict. When Pilate washes his hands and seeks a way out of any part in putting an innocent man to death, I recognized my own inclinations to accuse others of my own guilt. Pilate, like Caiaphas, didn't want the boat to rock out fear he might lose his seat in the captain's chair.<br />
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I was tormented by shame and self loathing with Peter as he vehemently denied ever knowing the man he, just hours earlier, had vowed to follow even to death. I could taste the bile as the cock crowed and I realized with Peter that I too am unable to remain faithful. With Peter I felt disgusted and heartbroken and shocked by the reality that I cannot truly love.<br />
<br />
The fear and the instinctive urge to flee and hide was overwhelmingly physical. The confusion and the conflicting behavior of the crowds of people only caused more chaos and disorder. I felt the anger and hate and fear and the sense that nothing was going right. I felt the panic on both sides of the conflict. I felt the helplessness and powerlessness generated by circumstances out of my control.<br />
<br />
But, Jesus, in every way and in every place stood out as different. In Gethsemane, before the Sanhedrin, and before Pilate, He knew who He was, where He had come from, and where he was going. But, He was fully human through it all. He was not spared the physical, and mental pain of his march through death. All the while he despised the shame and endured the cross because He could see what came next. He knew we would not be able to grasp the eternal significance. It was not that it wasn't important that we "get it". It seemed that it was most important at the time that the scriptures be fulfilled and that the work God set in motion from the beginning of time could be completed. Understanding would come later and it seemed that Jesus knew this. So he stepped right into it all, fully aware of what had to happen, fully aware He would have to do it alone.<br />
<br />
While driving home after the evening service, I thought about Jesus dead and in the grave, His life spent in full for us all. And I cried with Peter and with Judas as a fearful denier and a betrayer. And I confessed my longing to know with my whole being the impact of Christ's death in my stead.<br />
<br />
God's response to my confession is to remind me of the truth and invite me to embrace it. God is love. In Christ we know God and His love. We know He loves us as He lays down His life. Love doesn't expect us to "get it". Love gives even though we don't. Love is greater than our weakness. Love is greater than our denial and our betrayal. Love is greater than our need to be in control and our fear of being out of control. Love bears all things: the pain, the suffering, the abandonment, the shame, the guilt, the failures, the weakness, the unknowing, and the grief and carries it all to the cross. Love knows that we know not what we do. Love forgives. Love puts an end to the old so the new can rise up.<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><strong style="border: 0px; color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">©Schreiner/The Odes Project</strong></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><strong style="border: 0px; color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></strong><span style="color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">You who sometimes were brought so low, Rise up, RISE UP</span><br style="color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">You who were in silence: now raise your voice , Rise up, RISE UP</span><br style="color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">You that were despised be lifted up, Rise up, RISE UP</span><br style="color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">For the right hand of the Lord is with you right now Rise up, RISE UP</span><br style="color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Open your hearts, All you who are saved, IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER</span><br style="color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Through all generations, abiding in His love, IN THE NAME OF THE SON</span><br style="color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Now and forever, Let your love abound, IN THE NAME OF THE SPIRIT</span><br style="color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">For the right hand of the Lord is with you right now Rise up, RISE UPChorus:</span><br style="color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Christ in us, this wondrous mystery</span><br style="color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Christ in us, from age to age</span><br style="color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Christ in us, the hope of glory</span><br style="color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">For You have sealed us in your nameYou who sometimes were brought so low, stand tall, RISE UP</span><br style="color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">You who were in silence: may you shout for joy, RISE UP</span><br style="color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">You who were despised may you be lifted up, RISE UP</span><br style="color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="color: #555555; font-family: 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">For the right hand of the Lord is with you right now Rise up, RISE UP</span></span><br />
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Listen here: <a href="http://yea.to/xww3">Rise Up! (Ode 8)</a><br />
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<br />Zibahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09567716256604769311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732814829542226261.post-42855315677750595692013-03-28T08:26:00.000-04:002013-03-30T11:36:49.149-04:00A few Maundy thoughts<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Beginning in chapter 12 of the Book
of John<span style="color: red;">,</span> the Pharisees begin actively plotting to kill Jesus and Jesus,
knowing this, rides right into Jerusalem and into the center of the plot. With
this hostility as His backdrop, to His disciples, Jesus predicts His
death and calls His disciples to follow Him. To the crowd, the challenge
is made to walk in the light while they still have the light. Then He leaves
and hides Himself. The tension is felt by everyone. Jesus has left them holding the weight of His words: Time culminating, light dissipating, judgment, death, salvation. and eternity.</div>
<div class="Nospacesparagraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In chapter 13, “knowing that it was
time for him to leave this world”, Jesus communes very intimately with
His disciples in what has come to be known as the “upper room discourse”. He knows from where He has come and where he is going. He knows His disciples can't possibly grasp the depths of what he is talking about but he presses on. Though what is set before him to do in the next days should justify complete self absorption, silence, and isolation, instead it is
here in this place, in His last hours with these chosen friends, that Jesus, in
an act of greatest humility, washes their feet.
Songwriter Michael Card describes this act in his song entitled <b><i>The
Basin and the Towel .</i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b>And the call is to community<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b>The impoverished power that sets
the soul free</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b>In humility to take the vow<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b>That day after day we must take up
the basin and the towel<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b>And the space between ourselves
sometimes </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b>is more than the distance between the stars<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b>By the fragile bridge of the
servant’s bow, </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b>We take up the basin and
the towel</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsSlLiatlTQ">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsSlLiatlTQ</a></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The example has been laid before them and the tone set for
the rest of the evening. After this call to community through his example of
humble service, Jesus speaks grievously of how He will be betrayed by one of
the very ones whose feet He held and washed. And if this is not enough pain for
Him to bear, He has to bring to light a truth not yet realized … Peter’s denial.
One of those that He was most intimate with would, out of fear, deny that he
ever knew Him. And another would hand him over to those who seek to kill him.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I can not imagine the all body. mind, and soul pain that Jesus endured that night as He anticipated what lay ahead. I can imagine the chaos in the body, minds, and souls of his disciples. The next days for them and for us are cataclysmic. </div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="Nospacesparagraph">
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Zibahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09567716256604769311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732814829542226261.post-72148618139076881092013-02-13T10:51:00.001-05:002013-02-13T10:53:49.137-05:00Onward and Upward into the LightI have come full circle. It is time once again for me to pursue my staff and coax from them a yearly evaluation and begin the process of turning toward a new fiscal year. I am a few weeks into my annual turning from the descent into the middle of winter and darkness, the sluggishness of hibernation, and the spent energy of the seasons of Christmas and of Epiphany. I have made some tentative steps toward and with the increasing light. I am walking or riding my bike most days, slowly gaining new fitness lost. Epiphany, though historically is considered a season in which we celebrate the birth of Christ the Savior, for me is really a journey through the night and then on toward a slow awakening. In each cycle of 24 hours after the winter solstice my body senses movement as the daylight increases. Between January and February the daylight increases by almost an hour for each 24 hour cycle. Even though, I know Christ has been born, it is as though He has been hidden away in the month of January, to be revealed to me at some other time.<br />
<br />
Yesterday was Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday. In New Orleans there was a big party, the last day of celebration, the end of the season of Epiphany. It marked an end of the celebration of Christ's birth and a turning of all attention toward and our participation in Christ's last days before his death. I ate my pancakes and contemplated the journey ahead through Lent.<br />
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Lent, with its conjugation with the increasing light, has become a longed for season in my life of cycles. I know and look forward to the time of turning from what was and toward what will be. I am not afraid to repent. I am grateful for the continual call to look intently and thoroughly at myself, knowing that I may strip off these filthy clothes through this process and that my naked. raw self will be clothed in Christ's blood stain garment. The light will purify me in the end. Lent and it's 40 days of desert dwelling is not to be dreaded because I know the know of the end of the story.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlEi8NqcLxKLeJFHH89LTsarPwnK7xT8CoDt2dU95PehOxpRxWhHuwI9qq1tBR1ACl7JQPBoL6Gco85X7U7z6AITXOVyOlbo1lN8usp64QLH22vJQJZhZF1s2oPS1ngWdXZRHfJiXb-DAO/s1600/0225=225.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlEi8NqcLxKLeJFHH89LTsarPwnK7xT8CoDt2dU95PehOxpRxWhHuwI9qq1tBR1ACl7JQPBoL6Gco85X7U7z6AITXOVyOlbo1lN8usp64QLH22vJQJZhZF1s2oPS1ngWdXZRHfJiXb-DAO/s320/0225=225.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I know that the evaluation process is a good thing. It is a time to put off with the goal to put on the new. I will call my staff to look and examine with the goal being new growth. The light will increase with each new day. I will increase my walks and bike rides in distance and intensity. Christ will turn his face toward Jerusalem and I will follow once again. I know his death and mine with Him is a goal and a doorway. I do rejoice. Christ was born to die and be raised again. I am a part of his creative order. I will keep turning and the light will increase and we will cycle through from life to death to life. Upward and onward into the Light.Zibahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09567716256604769311noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732814829542226261.post-31942692893107174092013-02-02T00:02:00.002-05:002013-02-02T00:04:40.009-05:00Preparing for Ashes: Looking Back at the Necessity of Pruning<br />
<div align="center" class="Nospacesparagraph" style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">John 15-16 </span></i></b><b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Women's Bible Study</span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="Nospacesparagraph" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Blacknall Presbyterian Church</span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="Nospacesparagraph" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> <i>March
13, 2003<o:p></o:p></i></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="Nospacesparagraph" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Beginning in <span style="color: red;">chapter 12 of the Book
of John,</span> the <u>Pharisees</u> begin actively plotting to kill Jesus and <u>Jesus,</u>
knowing this, rides right into Jerusalem and into the center of the plot. With
this hostility as His backdrop, to His <u>disciples</u>, Jesus predicts His
death and calls His disciples to follow Him. To the <u>crowd,</u> the challenge
is made to walk in the light while they still have the light. Then He leaves
and hides Himself with His disciples. </div>
<div class="Nospacesparagraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In <span style="color: red;">chapter 13, “knowing that it was
time for him to leave this world”</span>, Jesus communes very intimately with
His disciples in what has come to be known as the “upper room discourse”. It is
here in this place, in His last hours with these chosen friends, that Jesus, in
an act of greatest humility, washes their feet.
Songwriter Michael Card describes this act in his song entitled <b><i>The
Basin and the Towel .<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue;">And the call is to <b>community</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue;">The impoverished power that sets
the soul free In <b>humility</b> to take the vow<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue;">That day after day we must take up
the basin and the towel<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue;">And the space between ourselves
sometimes is more than the distance between the stars<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue;">By the fragile bridge of the
servant’s bow, We take up the basin and
the towel<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The example has been laid before them and the tone set for
the rest of the evening. After this call to community through his example of
humble service, Jesus speaks grievously of how He will be betrayed by one of
the very ones whose feet He held and washed. And if this is not enough pain for
Him to bear, He has to bring to light a truth not yet realized … Peter’s denial.
One of those that He was most intimate with would, out of fear, deny that he
ever knew Him. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="color: lime;">I believe that this caused Jesus the deepest grief possible
as that denial broke their unity. It was not until they met on the beach after
Christ’s resurrection <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="color: lime;">that that fracture was bound and restoration began. When
Jesus asked Peter 3X, “Do you love me?”, he was calling Peter back into the
relationship. When He commanded Peter to feed His sheep, He was calling Peter
again, giving Him the invitation to remain and to obey His command to Love One
Another.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="Nospacesparagraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Last week we heard Margot speak from<span style="color: red;"> </span><span style="color: blue;">Chapter 14</span> of the of tenderness
and compassion of Jesus in response to the disciples’ grief over what He had
been saying and their confusion over what had been happening. Jesus speaks of
Himself as the way home to the Father and He promises the Holy Spirit…the
counselor…the Spirit of truth…the one who would show them the way and teach and
remind them. Then He speaks these
amazing words:<span style="color: red;"> <u>Peace </u>I leave with you, <u>my</u>
peace I give to you….do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.</span>
He declares at the <span style="color: blue;">end of Chapter 14 ,</span> <span style="color: red;">“The world must learn that I love the Father and that I do
exactly what my Father has commanded me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Nospacesparagraph">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="color: windowtext;">Jesus has been doing,
saying and predicting hard things. He has been asking them to follow Him to
death. He talks about going away and coming back. He speaks of the prince of
this world coming. In spite of the
comforting words spoken prior, can’t you feel the angst in the room. Can’t you
hear the unspoken questions? Can you feel the tension in the room mounting as
Christ’s words pile up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
As we come to Chapter 15,
the subject matter begins to take on a heavier
weight. <span style="color: windowtext;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="color: windowtext;">Here </span>we will hear Jesus discuss 3 relationships:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
His relationship with His
Father….the vine and the gardener<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
His relationship with His
disciples….the vine and the branches<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
His relationship and the
disciples’ relationship with the world<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<b><span style="color: lime;">Unity or lack of unity in Relationships are the leading
players in the drama of<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<b><span style="color: lime;">creation. It is in relationships that we see and participate
in the fleshing out of the triune God.. It is also in relationships that we see
and participate in the brokenness that results from sin.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
I am the TRUE vine and my Father is the gardener. He cuts
off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear
fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean
because of the Word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in
you. No branch can bear fruit by itself: it must remain in the vine. Neither
can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.<span style="color: blue;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue;">Grape harvest in Northwest PA where we lived for almost 16 years would take
place around the first of November. In a
matter of days the vineyard in front and back of our house would be stripped
bare. The season would be over. The vineyard would lay fallow….but life would
not end. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue;">At some point not long after the
harvest, I might look out my front window, across the mile and a half toward
the McDonald’s on Rt.20 or off the back deck toward Lake Erie a mile away.
Somewhere across this orderly array of vineyard rows I would see through the
snow that was falling sideways, a lone trimmer. Bundled in his Carhardt
coveralls, with trimming tools hanging from his shoulder and waist, he would
begin to move slowly and meticulously from branch to branch. He was skilled and
thorough. He knew exactly what to do in order to make sure each branch that had
produced fruit in the previous season would be able to do so again in the next.
He trimmed each branch to just the right place so that the branch would still
draw life from the vine. The portion no longer useful would be pulled and piled
between the rows. And the branches that were no longer producing fruit would be
cut off from the vine entirely. It was a process with a purpose…that fruit
might be produced by way of the life line of the vine through the branches.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue;">Over the course of the fierce PA
winter the trimmer would make his way through the vineyard. There was no
mechanical substitution for this work. It was lonely and it was slow. But it
had to be done and it had to be done thoroughly for the branches to have a
chance to be healthy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue;">There was a vineyard down the road
from us that had not been tended for
several seasons. The branches had not been trimmed and had grown out of
control…long and wild. There were so many branches and so much foliage each
season that in time this vineyard produced no fruit at all. This vineyard
eventually was cut down. Ruined by unmanaged excess that had “looked” good with
all its foliage and proliferation of branches, only to have fruit production
choked off.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue;">In contrast, the vineyard trimmed
and cared for through the dreary frigid days of winter would be able to produce
its fruit in season, in keeping with the
purpose drawn from the vine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in
me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If
anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and
withers; such branches are picked up and thrown
into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you,
ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory
that you bear much fruit showing yourselves to be my disciples.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In these 2 short paragraphs Jesus uses the word <b><u>REMAIN </u></b><u>8X’s</u>. In the next
paragraph He will use it 3 more times. Can you sense the urgency in His message?
This was a crucial time in the spiritual development of the disciples. They
desperately needed to “get it”. What was to come would test them to the limit. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let us try to understand this command to remain by first
looking at<b><i> the results of remaining. </i></b>Let’s
look again at the image of the vine and the branches and at barrenness and
fruitbearing in the context of remaining.
<span style="color: blue;">vs2</span><span style="color: red;"> : He cuts
off every branch in me that bears no fruit.
</span><span style="color: blue;">vs4</span><span style="color: red;">: No
branch can bear fruit unless you remain in me.
</span><span style="color: blue;">vs.6</span><span style="color: red;"> If
anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and
withers. </span>And in contrast:<span style="color: blue;"> </span><span style="color: red;">vs2</span><span style="color: blue;"> While every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that
it will be even more fruitful. I am the vine, you are the branches. If a man
remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit. </span>Remain in
me…I in Him….bear fruit….remain in me. Don’t remain…wither…be thrown into the
fire.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
May we say then, that to Remain
means: to abide, continue to choose to stay, go on being, endure, persist, in
order to produce fruit. <span style="color: red;">If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear fruit. </span>Is
it adequate to say it to remain means to BE IN and STAY IN relationship with
Christ such that fruit bearing the image of the Vine is able to grow? May we
also say that to remain means to be in and stay in a healthy relationship with
the church, with one another, with the Body of Christ?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let’s look at this from a different angle. Doesn’t <i>to remain</i> imply that these disciples,
and now we who believe, are already in Christ, in this <b>intimate relationship</b>… as branches growing from the vine. Sometimes
we get confused and think, if even unconsciously, that we are not there yet,
that <b><i>we</i></b>
have to get into Christ … as though the branch had a life of its own and could
somehow grow itself into that connection…. No, you believe, you are there. It
is Christ that has taken hold of you. He has loved you first. Now, your
response…remain. “BE “ in that relationship…sharing thoughts, emotions,
intentions, and power. Stay in that relationship. Relate…in Christ, <b><i>Him
in you</i></b>. Stay connected.…and bear fruit.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Palatino, serif; font-size: 11pt;"><br clear="all" style="page-break-before: always;" />
</span>
<br />
<div class="MsoBodyText3">
Ask yourself:<span style="color: blue;"> Am I connected to the vine? How do I know? Do I believe? Do
I bear fruit? What does my fruit look like? Does it look more and more like
Jesus…or does it look like the world? Is
my love for Jesus manifesting itself in footwashing behavior? If it
isn’t …have I drifted away…am I denying I know him because I am afraid of the
consequences? Or worse, am I grievously betraying Him out of selfishness or
greed….<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText3">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText3">
<span style="color: blue;">Is it possible for you to step
outside yourself’s center and look at <b>you</b>,
the branch? Maybe you need someone to help you do that. Are you willing to take
the risk to allow yourself to be seen honestly with the goal to bear more
fruit? Can you trust yourself to the Father to care for you? Can you trust the
Father with your productivity? or lack of? Or do you want to be the gardener?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Don’t leave. Don’t go off on your own fueled by fear,
selfishness or greed, as you will not be able to bear true fruit apart from
Christ. You may be able, for a while, to produce a lot of foliage through your
good intentions….good programs, “right” deeds, even fine preaching, teaching,
or acts of service. But, the true fruit bearing the image of Christ is only possible through remaining. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Remaining is a state of being, thinking, believing, living
with conviction and commitment, responding to and with the vine so that the
fruits of faith rooted in Christ’s love will grow through the branches. It is a
relationship. It is community. The Father…Jesus….the believers…the Gardener,
the vine, the branches…One. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How does that community happen? The One who already holds you
asks you to come, just as you are. You choose to “stay home”. You confess and
claim by faith …you say it outloud…over and over… “Jesus’ blood is sufficient
to cleanse me of all unrighteousness…To create in me a clean heart…to renew a
steadfast spirit within me…to restore and sustain me…..And make me able to
remain…You CHOOSE TO TRUST. You lay down your life. <span style="color: blue;">What
does this mean to you? How do you see this fleshed out in your life?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText2">
Maybe to remain means you choose to draw from Christ, the
Vine, what you need to be able to forgive the one who hurt you through neglect
or denial or betrayal, because you know the one who forgave you. Maybe it means
you draw from the Logos the energy you need to remain until your heart or legs
or mind are healed, knowing the One who laid His life down for you. Maybe it
means you allow the trimmer to cut away that which is causing you to
die…bitterness, anger, malice… in order to save your life. But, primarily, you
choose to believe in Christ and who He is and stay in Him even though
everything may be crumbling around you. In believing, you remain.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What would it mean to
these men Christ spoke to?<span style="color: blue;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was imperative that the disciples remain, that they
believe, that they love one another.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Things were changing. The True Vine had come into the world.
History was on the edge of a cataclysmic event. Jesus knew that these men
needed to know what it meant to remain. So He says it again…and again.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now
remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as
I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in His love. <span style="color: windowtext;">(this is the first he speaks of obedience in this vine
and branches/remaining discussion)</span> I have told you this so that my joy
may be in you and your joy may be complete. <span style="color: windowtext;">(so,
Jesus is bringing remaining and obeying and Joy together). To remain means to believe and bear fruit…and what is
that fruit?…obedience and joy …..and </span><b><u>Christ’s command that we are to obey is this</u>:</b> Love each
other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down
his life for his friends.<span style="color: windowtext;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
His example is right before their eyes. Jesus and the
Father have lived in a perfectly
harmonious relationship marked by Jesus remaining in the Father’s love and
obeying. He has fleshed this out before the disciples in the years they have
been together. Now He calls them to live out this same relationship of
remaining, believing, and obeying out of and through love. And His promise to
them is <b>Joy</b>….complete Joy. Joy that is founded in the Way and the Truth…in
Jesus. Joy that supersedes
circumstances. Joy that is greater than our own hearts’ capacity to experience
or truly understand. Joy that cannot be stolen by war in Iraq, destructive
disease, or the horror of terrorism. Joy that is indestructible as it’s origin
is founded in the One who indestructible.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Remain…obey my commands…love one another…joy</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
They are all connected…inseparable.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But, can’t you hear the disciples thoughts? …our thoughts?
“Lord, this is TOO BIG. I am weak…just a
person…Not like you. I don’t think I can do this. I don’t think I can take up
this responsibility. I don’t know if I want to take on this responsibility. I am afraid I will fail.” Jesus doesn’t let
them off the hook. He can’t. They have to “get it”. He can’t let them retreat
into their fear and selfishness. Nor will He let us. He gives this command:<span style="color: red;"> Love each other as I have love you. Greater love has no one
than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.</span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is the call to community. He knew they would need one
another. He knew they had to take up the basin and the towel of humility and
wash one another’s feet. He knew they would have to love one another to the
extent that they would even lay down their lives for their friends. It is no
different for us today…no different.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue;">It is no different when the Lord calls you to love your
sister who persistently blames you for
the family chaos. It is no different when the Lord says, Go again and love that
friend who is unable to love you or receive your love. It is no different when
the Lord says forgive your mother for her inability to love you well. It is no
different when the Lord says Let the past be the past. Let what was die.
Release the captive. Cancel all debts. The command to lay down your life is no
easier now than at the time Christ spoke it. He knows that. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jesus was telling the disciples that <b><i>they were to choose to release
their firm grasp on</i></b> <b><i>their own lives and on how they thought
their lives should be.</i></b> Christ calls these men to be like-minded with
Him. He calls them His friends. He is going to lay His life down for them. He
chose them, He revealed everything He learned from the Father to them. He
appointed them to bear fruit. He has been their connection to the Father to
whom they may go and ask for that which is in line with all that Christ is. He
is paving the way for them to take up His role in the world and understanding
this command was vital. So, He says it AGAIN:<span style="color: red;"> Love each
other. </span> The key to this command being obeyed is found
in Christ. <b><u>It is Christ that makes
this possible.</u></b> <b><i><span style="color: red;">I have loved you</span></i><span style="color: red;">.</span></b><span style="color: red;"> NOW, remain in my love.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText2">
<br /></div>
Zibahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09567716256604769311noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732814829542226261.post-25073610470460380732013-01-30T10:26:00.003-05:002013-01-30T10:27:51.051-05:00Preparation for Receiving Ashes<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b>Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are
covered. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b>Psalm 32:1<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Silence is not golden. But, without the inspiration of the
Spirit to confess our sins, we think it is. We think that if we cover ourselves
with silence and hide in our fear driven lack of understanding that we won’t be
seen as a sinner. Instinctively, we take on the mindset of Adam and Eve and
think we can protect ourselves through silence and denial. But, that’s not how
it works. The psalmist discovered this.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“When I kept silent, my bones wasted away…my strength was
sapped.” Be it conscious or unconscious, a deliberate act or an uncontrolled
reaction, a crooked choice or a simple misdirection, sin is a fact of our
lives. We are all sinners. We have all fallen short. (Romans 3:3). Denial of
this reality does not make it cease to be true. Placing our hands over our eyes
in God’s presence does not mean we cease to be sinners. Sin is radical and
pervasive and in the end it buries us. It is a fact. “The wages of sin is
death.” (Romans 6:23)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But, heaven has come down. Christ has come and stood in our
stead. He took on the sins of the world. He bore the consequences and he went
to that grave of all graves carrying all sin. After He made amends for us he was raised to new life and opened the door for us to freedom through his resurrection.
We, on this side of His resurrection, know to an even greater depth what the
psalmist discovered. There is a cure for the sin sick soul. Forgiveness and the
love that inspires it are more pervasive than sin. When God covers our sins
they cease to be. We, who acknowledge Christ as God’s antidote for our deceit,
can know the blessing of His forgiveness.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
During the Lenten season we are encouraged as the psalmist
did to acknowledge who we are as sinners. The psalmist learned from experience
that sin that is not confessed buries you, but, sin acknowledged leads us into
the reality of God’s merciful forgiveness that makes a new life possible. We,
on this side of the resurrection know by faith that God has covered us with the
life of His Son. We can now respond in faith to who Christ is and boldly
approach His throne of grace. We are blessed by divinely inspired faith and its
response of discipline. Our new life has been made possible by Christ’s
sacrifice. Confession is our act of faith and trust. In confessing we
acknowledge that we need a Savior who can bring us out of our small dark grave
of sin and into the light of life. As we practice our God given freedom to
confess and acknowledge our sin we also are declaring the work of God in Christ
as complete. Confession is God’s means for us to discover the blessings of His
love for us.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Heaven came down and glory filled my soul. When at the
cross the Savior made me whole. My sins were washed away and my night was
turned to day.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Thank you, Father, for sending your Son to bring me out, to
cover my sins, and set me free.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Zibahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09567716256604769311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732814829542226261.post-8236251995782315062013-01-09T10:45:00.000-05:002013-01-09T10:45:32.446-05:00Word by WordI received a CD from my son for Christmas on which I have heard Anne Lamontt speak about writing. It is entitled "Word by Word" and she speaks in her humorous, penetrating and honest way about the writers need to "just do it" and do it truthfully one word at a time. She calls all who attempt to put words together and hope it makes sense to do so from the foundation of truth. A wonderful statement that she made was, "When you start to speak the truth, miracles begin to happen."<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The key is getting started. Typing the first word comes after setting aside the time and turning toward the task. Typing the first word is like putting on the gardening gloves. Here is another Lamontt image, that of writing being like gardening. I am not much of a gardener, but I understand the analogy. You put on the gloves and you begin, one task at a time ... weed, prune, mulch, water, feed, dig up, plant anew, wait. Writing like any true creative process requires much attention and patience and trust and abandonment and what you hope for is that what is true finds a voice.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I told my husband just this morning, that I write so seldom because it requires so much discipline. Then, I rambled on to compare writing to praying and then to my efforts to rehabilitate my strength, flexibility, and endurance after breaking my foot almost 6 months ago. All of these I want to do and in doing so I know I will express the truth that is within me. But, it is asks of me. One would think after circling through life for all these years that it would become easier to just "do it" and answer the call. But, it is like having your third baby without drugs. You know how hard it is going to be. You know the blissful ideology bubble burst the first time around. The only reason you continue is because you remember your joy will be off the charts ... eventually. And you can't not have that baby anyway. It is what you do. It is who you are ... a creator, a giver of new birth, a speaker of truth, a light on a hill.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I can't not write, even though the effort requires much from me ... looking, exploring, paying attention, practicing, trusting, forgiving, starting, stopping, circling. I can't not rehabilitate my foot and end up not running or biking just because it takes so much time and patience and disciple. . I can't not pray, even though it feels like all the above. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So, word by word, step by step, pedal stroke by pedal stroke, and prayer by prayer. </div>
Zibahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09567716256604769311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732814829542226261.post-90884670535858764892012-12-12T09:49:00.000-05:002012-12-15T09:30:05.990-05:00Is My Love Not Enough? <br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";">God is not a man, that He
should lie,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";">nor a son of man, that He
should change His mind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";">Does He speak and then not
act?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";">Does He promise and not
fulfill?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Numbers
23:18-19<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";">“Ann, Is <b>my</b> love not enough? Do you think <b>you</b> <i>must
</i>do something to complete it?” This was the Lord’s question to me many years
ago as I prayed frantically, in my crazy Mama way, for my son who had withdrawn
from college in the midst of a battle with depression, chronic pain, and abuse
of prescription drugs. A couple of years later my daughter withdrew from school
with the same enemy of depression chasing her home. Our years have been laced
with “trouble”, to use Jesus’ own word. We have known sorrow, distress,
disunity, loss, change and other forms of “trouble”. “Trouble” in this life is
a given. This life is messy. There are things that happen, like the Shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., that are incomprehensibly awful that we are tempted to think God isn't paying attention. We are in between Christ’s two comings. But we are
invited to live within the Promise Christ made: “In this world you will have
trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";">Many have walked
with me through my trouble. In turned I have been honored to walk with several loved
ones through a variety of “trouble” … divorce, unemployment, fear regarding prodigal
children, struggles regarding sexual identity, all kinds of sickness (both physical and mental), and through the dying of loved ones. More
than half of my extended family, including myself, have known depression
intimately. Over the last two and a half
years my Father, my brother-in-law, my Mother-in-law, and my brother lived
years with cancer, yet each died. And just recently, my brother’s wife found
out she has breast cancer and will have a double mastectomy after Christmas. These
are valleys shadowed by death. Perhaps they are somewhat like yours. In each, I have heard
the Lord’s question repeated: “Is MY love not enough?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";">IS God’s love
enough to ultimately transform, redeem, renew, heal, complete and bring meaning
to what seems so senseless and incomprehensible? Is his love enough for the parents of those children shot? His question to me is repeated
over and over. Everyday He challenges us to see Him standing in the midst of all the “trouble”,
especially when it seems He has instead hidden Himself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";">Brendan
Manning, author of <u>The Lion and the Lamb</u>, offers this perspective on
suffering:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";">"There
is an intimate bond between the sufferings of Christ and the conflict and
suffering in each Christian life. The daily dying of the Christian is a
prolongation of Christ's own life. ... Our daily dying (in all its forms)… is
our personal participation in the fellowship of His sufferings.<br />
<br />
The redemptive value of Jesus' suffering lay not in the suffering itself but in
the love that inspired it." (for in itself suffering has no value)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Calisto MT', serif; font-size: 11pt;">I do not
believe that</span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Calisto MT', serif;"> </span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Calisto MT', serif; font-size: 11pt;">brokenness, loss, </span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Calisto MT', serif; font-size: 11pt;">depression, cancer, or any other
imperfection of the human situation, in body or soul, that brings suffering, is
God’s will. In fact, I believe Christ came in all heavenly authority to declare
he is victorious over all forms of suffering, even suffering unto death. His
miracles of healing, restoring sight, casting out demons, making the deaf hear,
cleansing the lepers, making the lame walk, and raising the dead speak to HIS
authority and HIS will to unify, redeem, bring life out of death, and make
right all that is wrong.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Calisto MT', serif; font-size: 11pt;">In this
life, there is much I don’t understand and may never be able to grasp. But, I
have grown in my conviction that Christ’s love is indeed enough. I don’t always
feel it but, I choose to believe Christ enters into our suffering. As He
entered the lion’s den with Daniel, God enters into the places in our lives where
we are powerless. He is in the furnace, walking in the fire with each of us. When
we are not capable of perceiving His presence with our physical senses, it is
nonetheless a fact that He is there. It may be that the complete healing to our
physical bodies or the total recovery of our finances or the renewal of our
marriage or the healing of our grief or the salvation of our children and much more
that we long for will come in our day and it just as likely may not.
Nonetheless, His love IS enough and as those in the furnace did in the book of
Daniel, we can choose to step out and declare, “We do not need to defend
ourselves…. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able
to save us from it…But, even if He does not…” (and these are my words)... His
love is enough.</span><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";">One of my most
favorite Bible verses comes from the 6<sup>th</sup> chapter of Deuteronomy:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";">"We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Before our eyes the Lord sent signs and wonders - great and terrible - on Egypt and Pharaoh and his whole household. <b>But he brought us out from there to bring us in and give us the land he promised".</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";">That which is
promised is embodied in Christ and in His love that is enough. He is our
Promise. And we are His people, moving in and through this place in between His
two comings. We are within the Promise, which is Christ Himself, and we move toward
the Promised Land. We are held by the Promise and we hold the Promise within
us. We are being moved through this wilderness, spending our time living to die
to what was, trying to let the past be the past so that the promise that is
within us might be released through the decay of the old life and our new life
will released to grow up out of the humus. He brings us out. He brings us in.
He sets us free. His love is enough to do this.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";">But, in this
place, in this life in which we have “trouble”, we must wait actively for the
culmination and the complete realization of Christ’s promise. We ache. We moan.
We groan. We cry. We wail. We scream. We lament. We weep. We present our sorrow
as an offering. We choose to believe. We practice our faith. We rejoice. We
worship. It is what we do as God’s people inspired by the Promise to move toward
the Promise. When we left our “Egypt” the moment we first chose to take up our
own cross and follow Christ, the Promise went before us and even now He leads
us, teaches us, and forms us through our wanderings. There is purpose in this
life of wilderness wandering. It is where we die to what was. It is our cocoon
of transformation. It is where fear and unbelief give way to courage and faith.
It is where we are brought out, set free to move forward. It is where the cloud
of unknowing is spun about us and the crucible of the love of the Almighty
forms the new out of the old. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";">There is
meaning in the suffering, the losses, the changes, the pain of brokenness, and
the silence pressed upon us by that which is too huge to bear. Some days, I can
see a glimpse of that truth, as if there is a break in the clouds and the Promised
Land is in view… as if the air is clear and the vista uncluttered. On those
days, my faith seems alive, but, this is not always true. In fact, more often
you will hear me question the plan of God that takes me along this circuitous
path that seems to simply take me through my past over and over again. It is
not unusual for me to cry out “God, why did you bring me here just to have me die?”
But, some days, I hear His words, “I have brought you out….to bring you in … to
try you and test you …to see what is in your heart.” There is meaning. The Way,
the Truth, and the Life define my existence. There is a future. There is a
destination. There is the promise…Christ in us the hope of glory…the good news
of life after death. And the journey, the wandering, the pain, the brokenness,
the loss, the change, and the sorrow are all captured and saturated by His love
that is enough.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";">Through the
life of Christ, through the living Word, the sword of the Spirit piercing our
hearts, the Promise Himself becomes the destination of our faith. And the
journey that seems to go nowhere at times is defined. Though it cannot always be
seen or felt and we may cry out in fear and loneliness along the way, we can remember
and contemplate Christ’s question and challenge to believe: “Is my love not
enough?” We are invited into his perfect love. The challenge is to welcome Him,
invite Him to come in and take up His abode within us. The challenge is to get
up each day and declare with our mouths it is true, HIS love is enough. Christ
IS a participant in our sufferings. We become participants in His sufferings. We
become one. In this relationship, we join with Christ in His creative work of
transformation…the work of life-death-life.
And this is not just for our own benefit. As we are transformed, as the
old dies and gives way to the new, we are able to become conduits through which
this love will flow, impacting the lives of those He chooses for us to love.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";">This all
sounds quite “spiritual”, doesn’t it? And of course it is. But, we are not
completely “there” in this life, are we? This is not Heaven. More often than
not I have been guilty of retreating into my longings for the Promised Land. I
want to be there, in the perfected, and not here in the process. Often my
longings insulate me from participating in my present life. At times, this has
been necessary, but in the long term such a choice only keeps me from the joy
along the way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";">When our
children were small we found great fun in reading books outloud. One of our
favorite books was <u>Ramona the Pest</u>, by Beverly Cleary. At one point
Ramona hears her kindergarten teacher request that they “wait for the present”.
Ramona hears the word “present” and plants herself in her desk, determined she
will wait , staying put, sitting still as long as she must to get the present.
She waits and waits…through recess, through lunch. Finally, the teacher is
determined to try to understand why Ramona won’t leave her desk. As it becomes
clear that Ramona has misunderstood what the teacher meant by “present”, she
recognizes she has missed a day of life waiting for what was always there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";">We wait for
the “present” because we cannot fully believe that the journey through our life
in Christ, in His presence, is in fact just as great a gift as the destination.
The story of Moses and His relationship with God throughout the wilderness
journey toward the promise land shows us what should be, what can be. Moses was
not satisfied for God to be outside the camp. He reasons with God, “How will
the other nations know that you are with Your people…that we are your
people?” So God comes to the tent of meeting
and the Word says that Moses “spoke to God like a man speaks to another man”.
The “present” was God’s “presence”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";">It is in living
daily in His presence that redemption and renewal become reality as our minds
are transformed. It is in speaking with Christ along the way that our hearts
begin to burn with understanding as He reveals what is true. It is in the
fellowship of His sufferings that we come to know that His love is indeed
enough. It is enough to lead us through. It is enough to gather us, to
strengthen our feeble hands, to steady ours knees that give way. His love
speaks into our fearful hearts:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";">“Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";">He will come with
vengeance; <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";">with divine retribution He
will come to save you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";">A highway will be there…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";">The redeemed will walk
there…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";">the ransomed of the Lord
will return.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";">They will enter Zion with
singing;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";">everlasting joy will crown
their heads.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";">Gladness and joy will over
take them, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";">and sorrow and sighing will
flee away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">from
Isaiah 35<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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The chorus from Michael Card’s song, <u>The Promise,</u>
says it so well:</div>
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<span style="color: #474747; font-size: 11.5pt;">The Promise was
love and the Promise was life<br />
The Promise meant light to the world<br />
Living proof Jehovah saves<br />
For the name of the Promise was Jesus<br />
The Faithful One saw time was full<br />
And the ancient pledge was honored<br />
So God the Son, the Incarnate One<br />
His final Word, His own Son<br />
Was born in Bethlehem<br />
But came into our hearts to live<br />
What more could God have given<br />
Tell me what more did He have to give<br />
What more could God have given<br />
Tell me what more did He have to give<br />
At last the proof Jehovah saves<br />
For the name of the Promise was Jesus<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif";"> Listen here:<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyX-uriW3qk">The Promise. Michael Card</a></span></div>
Zibahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09567716256604769311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732814829542226261.post-79896064778808410532012-11-08T10:46:00.000-05:002012-11-08T11:13:30.889-05:00Death Shall Be No More"This too shall pass." "Life is long". These are mantras my husband spoke often during a stretch when what we felt was the opposite...that we would never pass through the valley. Instead, our sense was we would all die there, having become victims of the power of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unmaker">the Unmaker</a>.<br />
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A friend mentioned she was going to do a workshop on "balance", when she felt anything but balanced. The impact of circumstances surrounding a critical surgery for a loved one shoved her into a place without normal control. Being forced into the role of a being a much needed caregiver without natural resources shoved the weight far to one side.<br />
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"They will heal", was the remark made to me when I shared of the death of a marriage between two young people and their horrible sense that neither would ever feel alive again.<br />
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I think of John Donne's poem, <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/105/72.html">Death Be Not Proud</a>, especially the last line: "<span style="background-color: white; color: #000020;">And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die." </span><br />
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<span style="color: #000020;">For years I have cycled through experiences such as all these in which Death seemed to have the final say. Each time I have woken up days or weeks or months or years later to light and life seeping through the cracks in my coffin. Each time I have been lifted up and placed on a rock and felt strength in my weakness. But, it is remarkable how each new Life-Death-Life experience feels so unique and as powerful as the last. Each time Death comes boastfully and arrogantly crashing into my domain, claiming he has the final say, I feel the same dreadfully horrible feelings. Each time I have to desperately call on my allies to help me put on my armor and take my stand against his artillery barrage. Each time, I feel I am learning about the Way, the Truth, and the Life as though I didn't already know Him.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #000020;">My latest confrontation with Death has come from several directions almost at once. I found the only thing I really could do was climb in my foxhole in my full armor and </span><span style="color: #000020;">camouflage myself with the truths of the One who has finished the battle. I read and wrote and prayed and declared and proclaimed and reviewed and remembered. I came and I saw, I celebrated and rejoiced. I sought peace and pursued it. In my mind, I made level paths. In my heart I practiced trusting, and took my stand and waited. I interceded, pleaded, and beseeched. I confessed, repented and submitted. I cried and wailed and grieved. To what end? That what has already been assured to us by Christ and in Christ will become clear again. Death shall be no more. This is my focus as I am hunkered down in my state of surrender: That we will pass through this valley of the shadow of death, fearing no evil, His rod and staff comforting us. Though now, in this stage in the cycle, we have trouble, on the other side, Death in all his forms will have died. There will be no more separation, brokenness, divorce, division, blindness, deafness, cancer, or any other unmaking of any kind. We will have passed from death into Life. </span><br />
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<br />Zibahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09567716256604769311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732814829542226261.post-72228977762731282982012-10-06T11:21:00.000-04:002012-10-06T11:21:40.502-04:00A Snake in Our MidstWhat do you do when things feel out of control or you believe you are powerless or too weak to make any difference in a given situation? What is your response when you have been given a burden to carry or a responsibility to fulfill but feel you have no instructions or resources that will equip you? How do you react when the reality is you are in over your head?<br />
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In the same week, I heard two of my most favorite people say, "I don't know what to do. I am paralyzed."<br />
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About the same time, I had a dream about being in charge of a large group of middle-schoolers. I was told I was to take them on a hike, but I had no instructions about where, no plan, no map. I didn't even know their names. They took off as a scattered, chaotic, frenzied, and seemingly uncontrollable mass. In their midst, I saw a large snake weaving in and out of the group. Anxious about their safety, I spent the rest of the dream trying to find a telephone so I could call 911. My cellphone in my pocket was dirty and useless (let's interpret that). As it turned out the snake was not a threat. I just assumed it was. And the dream ended in a rather anticlimactic way.<br />
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We each have our "normal" way of responding to crises, weighty responsibilities, losses, and fearful situations. I tend toward isolation and almost manic efforts to make it all make sense. I close myself off with my journal, pen, highlighters, bible, hymnal, and youtube. I listen to music, I read, and I write and copy readings onto page after page after page. Then I reread, highlight, and search for meaning and direction. Rarely, have I ever been disappointed. It works for me. It is time intensive but eventually assumptions of danger and fear of not knowing the way always give way to some conviction that I am, and the ones I intercede for, are spiritually secure in Christ and the way to go will be revealed one step at the time. That's my way of allowing Christ in and His way of transforming me over and over. What is yours?<br />
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My husband wrote these worship notes for this Sunday's bulletin and he shared them with me after he heard me listening to a great song by Stuart Townend: Christ in Me. See, I have been of late in my place of isolation and Stuart Townend has had a lot to say. It was a song that kept coming to mind and so I kept listening and praying it. We will sing this song on Sunday. And, I will likely add these notes to my journal. They go like this:<br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;">“Be holy in all that you do, for it is written, ‘Be holy, for I the Lord am holy.’”</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;">Peter is quoting Leviticus (where this thought appears numerous times) when he includes this command in 1:16.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;">How do we begin to understand it?</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;">As a (hopefully) good Trinitarian, I offer three thoughts: (1) Begin by reversing the phrase – “I the Lord am holy.”</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;">It is fundamental to His “otherness”, at the core of “My ways are not your ways.…”</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;">He is; we aren’t.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;">It is this staggering difference that we affirm as we sing “Holy, Holy, Holy…early in the morning our songs shall rise to thee.”</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;">But He calls us to holiness?</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;">How?</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;">(2) Read Leviticus.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;">It is certainly one of the least-examined portions of Scripture, so full of page after page of “do this but certainly don’t do that”.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;">What that book tells me is that God has not asked us to simply be nice or use good manners; such is not the path to holiness.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;">Leviticus is a great example of God pointing us in the right direction, providing instruction in fleshed-out Godliness.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;">Instead of waiting for “inner holiness” to shape our external behaviors, we can adopt “behavioral holiness”.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;">It is akin to a phrase my wife has used: in challenging times, she chooses to practice believing.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;">But as good as that is, the external only takes you so far.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;">Aren’t we supposed to act out of hearts transformed, overflowing with gratitude, with (as Peter puts it) “reverent fear”?</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;">So, (3) God provides the means to move towards holiness: “O Spirit of God, come down, let mercy and grace abound; my passionate prayer shall be, Christ in me.”</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;">As we come to the Table, we take Him in, we “feed upon Him by faith with thanksgiving,” the “Lamb without blemish or defect”, “Christ in you, the hope of glory”.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: justify;">And we sing our prayer of aspiration:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt;">Spirit of beauty and holiness, come refine with fire from above,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt;">‘Til I am cast in Your righteousness and I love the things that You love.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNy3NKSFLwA">Listen to Stuart Townend's prayerful song here</a></span></div>
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Zibahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09567716256604769311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732814829542226261.post-30975800124824957432012-10-02T11:11:00.000-04:002012-10-02T11:11:04.444-04:00The Mystery of Healing BrokennessSometimes things pile up on themselves. Several events, too monumental to process quickly or orderly...each needing months or years to be heal or restored, but happening nearly simultaneously, result in a sense of being weighed down and almost paralyzed. The response of my psyche is a mixture of intense reactive self preservation and manic movement toward renewal and a deep deep weariness that makes everything seem to be moving in slow motion through a fog. I suspect it is instinctive and normal and not to be ridiculed but instead accepted and learned from.<br />
<br />
I have a sense of being washed out. My broken foot that will take months to heal; a cavernous, emptied space in my psyche left by my brother's death after 18 months of brain surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, gamma knife procedures, and countless MRIs; and then a flood of emotion coursing through my heart as three very close to me find themselves in a place of brokenness have all worn away my defenses and left me vulnerable and fragile.<br />
<br />
Normally my dreams serve as a wake up call, revealing what I may not have been able to see and thus giving me direction and a focus that help me find my way. But, the dreams I have had lately are more confirmations of what has been all too obvious. First came several dreams in which my brother was still alive, yet still dying. I would wake feeling the grief afresh of losing him and having lost him. Then, I dreamed I had a washed out place on a tooth and was told I needed a "specialist" to fix it. And just the other night I dreamed the walls of my bedroom had been damaged by a torrential downpour. The drywall was saturated and would all need to be replaced and half the floor had been splintered beyond repair and would need to be replaced as well..<br />
<br />
Fortunately, and for this I am grateful, I have been inspired, energized, and moved to seek the "Specialist". I seek solace in my God who first sought after me. I know that healing will come as I spend time within His counseling chamber. I listen, I pour out my soul's content. I confess. I plead. I claim, declare, and pronounce what I hear to be true. I practice believing and so put to the side for a time the doubts and discouragements. I look at the object lessons I am given.<br />
<br />
I have been seeing and contemplating the lesson my broken foot has to teach me regarding the process of healing brokenness. When I first broke my foot, I didn't understand how bad it was. I was led to believe by the emergicare physician that it was not such a big deal. But, when I saw the specialist, the truth began to be revealed. Even looking at the Xray and being told it was a bad break and would need to be immobilized didn't convinced me entirely. At the time, I thought of it only as a blessing in disguise that would allow me a month to spend with my brother. Returning for another Xray after my brother's funeral opened my eyes and my understanding: The break was more like a crushing blow causing a huge gap that would need to be filled in with new bone. Growing new bone is a miracle that can not be rushed. You have to submit to the process.<br />
<br />
My foot was put in a cast. No movement, no weight bearing for 6 weeks. Then came a walking boot, but walking would be limited by the pain still present. Then there was the issue of the pain and stiffness that was caused by the immobilization. That hard cast that was put there to protect the bone and give it a chance to begin healing caused muscle atrophy, slowed blood flow, and shortened, weakened, and hardened connective tissue. There is always a ripple affect of brokenness. Brokenness is never simple and often things seem to get worse before they begin to get better. After 8 weeks, there seemed to be little to no healing visible by the Xray. But the doctor believes there is a strong matrix of callous forming and on that framework calcium will be deposited and bone formed to fill in the space. There is a hope of new growth/new bone/new union...a new foundation on which to stand.<br />
<br />
As I have answered His kind invitation and spent time with God, my Specialist, the doctor of my soul, I have been reminded of His ways, His creating out of nothing, rebuilding what has been crushed, restoring what has been washed away, renewing what has ruined. I know the reality that it is His heart's desire and His will that the brokenness we now endure be filled in with His very Self. In understanding him, even if only in part, there is hope. For He is our Hope. And hope will allow me to believe. And believing will make sense of what cannot be seen. In the end He will fill in the gap. His end is nothing short of reconciliation in which the two broken ends are joined in Him.<br />
<br />
I believe. Please help my unbelief.<br />
<br />Zibahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09567716256604769311noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732814829542226261.post-22635937731258499632012-09-05T10:51:00.000-04:002012-09-06T09:12:24.488-04:00Sabbatical's Broken Ending and New BeginningIt has been a summer I will never forget. I know it is not possible to convey in words the what, the where, the impact of 3 very different and very transforming and remarkably intertwined experiences: a month long sabbatical, my brother's last summer, and a broken foot. I need to try for the sake of the process and with hopes that the result is reflective in the slightest way of creation and making and not destruction and dismantling.<br />
<br />
At the end of June my husband and I packed our 1998 Ford Explorer to the max with kayaks, bikes, and hiking and fishing gear and left for a month long sabbatical to Mount Desert Island, Maine. We had both been granted a generous and much appreciated gift of a month off by our employers. Over the last few years, we had buried 2 parents, 2 uncles, and one brother. We were both weary and needed to find rest. But, we left with hesitation. My brother Ricky's life with brain cancer was showing signs of turning toward the finish line. A new tumor (his third) had shown up on his June MRI. After Gamma Knife "surgery" for this new tumor, Ricky decided he would not continue with chemotherapy. He had found that the side affects made him question why he was living. When he announced his decision we could read the looks on the doctor's and nurse's faces. Clearly they knew the tumors could only be slowed, never defeated. Without chemo the tumors would have more freedom to grow with abandon. <br />
<br />
So, understandably, I was questioning our decision to go to Maine. Should we be so far away? But, we all agreed I could fly and be home in less than a day if it seemed the thing to do. So off we went on our adventure with smartphone apps making the distance seem manageable.<br />
<br />
After three days, visiting family along the way, we successfully traversed the 1000 miles up the east coast and celebrated our arrival with a lobster roll from Thurston's Lobster Pound, just a mile and a half down the road from our rented cottage in the back of Bass Harbor. For the next 3 weeks, we would rise with the sun most days before 5am and set out before 7:30 for the day's mostly scripted activity. I biked, hiked, and kayaked over a total of 200 miles and was never disappointed. We took ferry rides to explore off shore islands and Dave fished almost every body of water on the island. The strenuous physical activity rewarded by breathtaking vistas was balm for our weary souls. I'd return after each excursion to our cottage, eat some lunch, and climb in the hammock with one of many books and read until sleep took over. I was tasting heaven. But, deep in the center of myself, I sensed that I was being readied for something, rather than recovering from something. I was pushing hard and training my body and mind and soul for what was to come.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG8LS-unFQq8aJ1qC68yeOqLuR3z4MC5fg0Bi2SdnHOr8InX8FPEA8z7ZeDEbvPyS07Sk16ypgkUao99ycaOq73nKfgVbeLAYk8waf9OWGOLf3eJYzJbg2HSbTwSpqp4aQQ6IrxNJ7da_u/s1600/12+-+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG8LS-unFQq8aJ1qC68yeOqLuR3z4MC5fg0Bi2SdnHOr8InX8FPEA8z7ZeDEbvPyS07Sk16ypgkUao99ycaOq73nKfgVbeLAYk8waf9OWGOLf3eJYzJbg2HSbTwSpqp4aQQ6IrxNJ7da_u/s1600/12+-+1.jpg" /></a></div>
All the while, our heaven in Maine was laced with the reality of my brother's life growing closer to its end. We would text daily and send pictures and songs and readings. His ability to focus was diminished by the new tumor growth and his short term memory loss, declining strength, and failing eyesight were making his world shrink. Daily walks and long loved activities had already been curtailed by the smothering side affects of chemotherapy and Avastin infusions. With the clear signs that the treatments were no longer holding back the advance of the disease, Ricky's twin sons flew from California early in July to stay for the rest of the summer. We were told that Rick might live until Christmas, but I don't think any of us really believed that would be the case.<br />
<br />
The last portion of our Sabbatical was spent backtracking the 1000 miles, stopping in Boston and Annapolis along the way to see more family and ending at the family lake house on Lake Norman in North Carolina. We had a couple wonderful days there with our daughter and the grandchildren.<br />
<br />
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Our lake house, passed on to my sister, my brother, and myself after our father's death in 2010 is only 45 minutes from my brother's house. My sisters and I, with our spouses drove down together for dinner one night. It had been a month since I had seen Ricky. It was as if there was a constant air raid alarm going off outside as we all tried to live out the evening as normally as possible. The next day Ricky's wife Deborah came by herself to the lake and floated with us and we cried and cried. We were looking directly into the beginning of his last days and ours with him..<br />
<br />
A couple of days later, I went with Ricky for his appointment with his oncologist. The wait was long. I sensed what was coming next. Ricky did not. He assumed he would see the doctor and then move on for his scheduled Avastin infusion. But, that was not to be. Blood work and other indicators forced the doctor to speak the dreadful news, "Rick, you are no longer thriving with the treatments." All of a sudden, I felt like we were on a fast moving train. No more stop gaps. Hospice and palliative care were called. A different kind of hope was going to be needed. <br />
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That same day, I drove back to the lake to pack once again for the final leg of our home bound stretch of our sabbatical. I was rattled and numbed after such a long day. I was not looking forward to leaving, going back to work, and being limited as to the amount of time I would have to spend with Ricky. That changed in a moment. After a brief downpour, I went to load the bikes on the roof of the car. One step onto the doorway of the car with wet shoes and next thing I knew I had fallen and pulled my bike down hard onto my foot. X-rays the next day showed it was broken. Strangely, we all felt it was a blessing. I was freed from working and freed to being with my brother for the next month. Just a few days later marked the last real conversation Ricky and I had...one I would have missed had I not had a broken foot. I climbed on their king sized bed where he spent most of every day and we spent the afternoon exchanging abbreviated thoughts of the hope of the resurrection,
eternal life, heaven, and family as we shared memories, pictures and music. <br />
<br />
Every day for the next three weeks took each of us to a new place. The train was picking up speed. We could see the end rushing closer and closer. Anytime a group of people are put together and forced to face life and death there is a unimaginable bonding that takes place. My sisters and our spouses, our nephews, our niece joined our hearts and souls with Ricky's wife Deborah as she spearheaded his most intimate and thorough care. We gave our best to one another and to Ricky. Most of the time we felt weak and flawed but nonetheless we gave our all. Those weeks were not glamorous by any means. Dying can never be glamorized. But the love that we felt was in some way redeeming. And we knew Ricky's life had been redeemed. We knew he would pass through the Valley of the Shadow of Death and receive a new body. And we knew we would be left here without him. When Ricky opened his eyes after 4 days in a coma we knew it was time. We laid our hands on him and encouraged him on his way.<br />
<br />
He took his last breath on August 19th and began his ultimate Sabbatical.<br />
<br />
<br />
You may read of his last days here in the last journal entry on his Caringbridge page: <a href="http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/rickwitherington/journal">http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/rickwitherington/journal</a><br />
<br />
Rick's obituary gives you a glimpse of his life:<br />
<a href="http://obits.dignitymemorial.com/dignity-memorial/obituary.aspx?n=Rick-Witherington&lc=2734&pid=159352882&mid=5213028">http://obits.dignitymemorial.com/dignity-memorial/obituary.aspx?n=Rick-Witherington&lc=2734&pid=159352882&mid=5213028</a><br />
<br />
Following are the words written by my husband and read at Rick's Memorial service on August 25, 2012:<br />
<br />
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">He was always
Ricky to his sisters, and Uncle Ricky to our kids – a beloved uncle, certainly
the tallest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m sure that the nieces
and nephews would have felt the same affection towards him, but it helped that
it was Uncle Ricky who built that 73-foot-tall diving platform that you cousins
used for many years at the lake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
easy casualness of the label, “Ricky”, seemed so much more “him” than his given
name of Moffatt Patrick Witherington, Junior.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Moffatt Patrick Witherington, Junior. Adam, I think he was about the age
you are now when the two of you wore Burger King crowns for a combined birthday
party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He loved his sisters; and Deborah
and Sibel, my goodness, what a gift each of you were to him – and what a gift
he was to you. What can I say, the man loved being surrounded by his
women!</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">As everyone knows,
Rick’s three sisters adored him as they did their dad – the two were so very
much alike in look and demeanor, full of gentleness and a perpetually sweet
disposition. My son Mark & I joined Rick & his dad to form a pair
of father&son “teams” for dozens of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>rounds of golf over the last 20 years (all of
them making liberal use of the Grandaddy Rules); 20 years, and the dozens of
rounds, now feel like nowhere nearly enough. I have been enriched
immensely by both of those really good gentle-men, the M.P. Witheringtons Sr.
& Jr.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><br />
Throughout his life, he was quietly interested in a pursuit of what could be
called “spiritual understanding”, in that he appropriately viewed life as more
than “just” life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He did not “just” see
things around him, he tended to marvel at them, looking for and seeing truth
and beauty that went deeper than the surface.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This pursuit included lots of letter-writing (some of you will remember
that ancient form of communication) – letter-writing with family and friends
that went beyond the nuts & bolts of daily life, along with a good amount
of reading and inquiry, from examining various faith traditions to reading
about supernovas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As if in his
“wandering” he was looking for…something. Like his sisters, he grew up in the
Presbyterian church, but it would be a stretch to say that the church grew in
him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wasn’t ever abrasive or caustic
about it (was he ever abrasive or caustic?), not what one might call
“rebellious”, but definitely “on the outside”, looking in but not joining
in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when he heard of his cancer 18
months ago, a door was opened, and God’s goodness was seen and experienced, as
if the rest of him awoke to seeds that had been planted long ago, what his soul
already knew.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He became a simple participant
in the life of faith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Much of this was
due to the “faith wrapped in skin” ministry of selfless saints both in
Charlotte and in Durham, where he came for a good deal of his medical
care. He embraced the offer to be anointed and prayed over. Members
of my congregation in Durham were seemingly everywhere, in the guise of
hospital volunteers and medical staff and meal providers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he prayed, in a simple, and, in keeping
with his character, gentle, manner.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">I don’t think
it’s demeaning to say that his faith was small; in fact, that puts him smack in
the middle of Matthew 13, where Jesus says that all that is required is faith
the size of a mustard seed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In God’s
economy, such a miniscule “investment” yields a return of immeasurable size,
because the small size and strength of our faith is overwhelmed by the grace of
the Lord and by His great faithfulness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>St. Paul was knocked to the ground when he met the Lord; Rick’s
experience bore no resemblance to Paul’s, but they met the same Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We surrounded Rick’s bed Sunday evening and
sang hymns for 90 minutes as he slowly faded, songs about mercy, soul-healing,
and hope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Years earlier, I would not
have expected it, but for Rick on Sunday it was so obviously right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And in the next moment, he met face to face
the One who had known him and pursued him all of his days.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><br />
The day before Rick died, there was a wedding at my church in Durham, during
which we sang “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” – and all I could think of
was my great big brother-in-law, the pleasant wanderer, who had been sought and
found by the Lord, finally coming to say, in the words of the hymn, “Here’s my
heart, take and seal it”. The hymn uses the word “Ebenezer” to refer to a
point of “arrival”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rick’s Ebenezer was
the end of his life: by God’s grace, he had come to see that he was loved by
the One who made him. There’s a line in Psalm 34, “Taste and see that the
Lord is good” – Rick tasted that truth, and saw that he was loved by God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mercy had been poured on him, through a
relationship – and, according to many passages in Scripture, a “coming home” or
“awakening” moment includes a celebration (which seems most appropriate: make
no mistake about it, the Witherington clan LOVES to party).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mercy, relationship, and a celebration – that
sounds like a good definition of what Scripture calls “grace”.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">A prominent
theme of Scripture is of God’s desire – His habit – to transform people such
that they – we – experience restoration and renewal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Listen to these words from Isaiah 61, words
which Jesus would fulfill, words of hope and healing for Rick in his last weeks,
for Deborah and the family, for all of us: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">“The Spirit of
the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to
the poor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He has sent me to bind up the
brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives [and didn’t we long for
Rick to be freed from the disabled captivity of his final days?], and release
from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s good
favor…, to comfort all who mourn, to provide for those who grieve – to bestow
on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of
mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then they will be called oaks of
righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Now, we have
glioblastomas and chemotherapy and death and the pain of separation; but, from
the book of Revelation, we are promised this:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">“The Lord will
wipe every tear from their eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There
will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of
things will have passed away.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">In
each passage, the old has been replaced with the new, the damaged with the
strong, tears transformed into gladness, brokenness turned into wholeness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Death itself has been declared “no more” through
Christ’s resurrection – as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15: <span class="text"><sup> </sup></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span class="text"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">“Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the
firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a
man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.</span></span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"> <span class="text">For as in Adam all die, so in Christ
all will be made alive…When the perishable has been clothed with the
imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written
will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”</span></span></div>
<div class="line" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="text"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Where, O
death, is your victory?</span></span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="line" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="text"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where, O
death, is your sting?”</span></span></div>
<div class="line" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="text"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the
law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus
Christ. </span></span></div>
<div class="line" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">God’s promise to
us, through Christ’s resurrection, is that the ultimate defeat – death – is
turned on its head, transformed into victory, fully and completely and
permanently. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">At the very end
of the book of Job, after that long-suffering man had had an encounter with
God, he says, “I had heard of You with my ears, but now I have seen You with my
eyes.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so has Rick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The One he heard of he has now met; he has
been made whole, and strong, and new.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His
death has been swallowed up in Christ’s victory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the party’s already started. Thanks be to
God.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
I will miss him everday.<br />
<br />
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He was my brother<br />
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<br />Zibahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09567716256604769311noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732814829542226261.post-54918009773970099742012-05-23T11:27:00.000-04:002012-05-23T11:27:01.601-04:00Fearful FaithHow do you co-habitate with fear? How, as a person of faith, do you allow fear to be a real part of your being? How do you respond to the command, "Do not fear", when you feel fear in some form on a daily basis.<br />
<br />
I spoke with a friend who talked to me of his fear that maybe he made a mistake in his job choice? Wondering out loud, he said he was questioning if he had the "goods". He rubbed his cheeks hard and described the weariness he felt.<br />
<br />
In a small group in which I participated for several weeks this past spring, I listened to several strong, deeply committed women share their stories of fear and faith. Some fears had been conquered, but most fears remained present on a daily basis...fear of not being taken care of, fear of not being able to start a family, fear of being consumed by an alcoholic family member, fear of the pain of a debilitating illness, fear of abandonment in it's many forms. Fear was a common denominator. But, so was faith.<br />
<br />
Our community recently saw an outpouring of discussion and debate and anger and hurt regarding an amendment to our state constitution that defines the only legal marriage as one that involves one man and one woman. Fear was stirred and emotions were played out on both sides. Cries against and for revealed how strongly fears influence behavior. Fears of the threat of apostasy and impurity battled alongside fears of injustice and bigotry and hatred. Both sides declared with conviction that faith was their strong ally.<br />
<br />
Wikipedia encapsulates the essence of fear that you can read here: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear</a> . I'll not venture to reword what has already been written concisely and rather well. But, with the subject floating around in my mind, life, and in my community for months now, I thought I should open the door and invite discussion.<br />
<br />
I googled: "How many times does scripture say, 'Do not fear.' ?" I did a search on my smartphone Bible app and got "pages" of scripture references. Loudly and clearly the commandment is stated. Hundreds of times we are exhorted to NOT fear, yet we all know we keep failing. Failure tends to breed denial because who wants to confess they are afraid. We usually end up in an even deeper pit because the residual affects of shame and guilt or anger and bitterness are added to the mix. I heard my small group friends' voices and their tears communicate their unspoken thoughts, "I shouldn't be afraid, if I am a Christian." <br />
<br />
Fear and Faith ... two big "F" words. In this life of waiting for Christ to return, receiving the antidote for the first and the source of the second are part of God's completed, consummated promise. We can believe this: the antidote for fear and the source of faith can be asked for, searched for, and discovered when we walk through the door into his Kingdom .... over and over again, coming around on a daily basis as we receive our daily bread. Like the children of Israel in the years between their deliverance from slavery in Egypt and their final entrance into the Promised land, we circle and we practice faith as it is given to us. God gives and we choose to receive and He teaches and we hope to learn. We forget and we remember. And we deny and then accept the love of God as He made the ultimate blood sacrifice through His only Son. And so, He can command us, "Do not fear." From His perspective, it is finished. The price has been paid for our release. The keys have turned in the prison cell door. From our perspective .... it depends. It is simple and it is not. <br />
<br />
How is God's story of truth being written into your life? How is your character changing as the chapters unfold. Can you allow yourself to flip to the last pages and know how the story ends. Can you see how knowing the end can impact on your reading of the middle of the story? <br />
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Responses are encouraged.Zibahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09567716256604769311noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732814829542226261.post-92077165133643604932012-05-15T10:03:00.000-04:002012-05-15T10:03:58.942-04:00Waiting for Enough<h4 style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">“To wait open-endedly is an enormously radical attitude toward life. So
is to trust that something will happen to us that is far beyond our
imaginings. So, too, is giving up control over our future and letting
God define our life, trusting that God molds us according to God’s love
and not according to our fear. The spiritual life is a life in which we
wait, actively present to the moment, trusting that new things will
happen to us, new things that are far beyond our own imagination,
fantasy, or prediction. That, indeed, is a very radical stance toward
life in a world preoccupied with control.” -Henri Nouwen</span></b></h4>
I am not sure how I got to this place...a place not quite like what
Nouwen speaks of (as I am still stubbornly a glass half empty sort of
person) but coming closer. Maybe it has just been the aging and wearing
out process that has allowed me to relax my grip on fear and therefore
the desire to be in control. Maybe it has been the unpreventable losses and endings and the
reality of death's place within all creation that has me giving up my
impulsive, instinctive management acts. I think it is all of that. And it
is something that has grown out of hearing over and over and over again, declaring with my mouth that it true, and in small ways, by grace, living as though it is true that God is enough. The assurance is seeping in and slowly saturating me
with increased confidence in the Control that is not mine.<br />
<br />
Just recently, I had the joy of spending 3 days with a friend I have had for 20 years. We don't see each other very often as we live way too many miles apart. But I flew to Florida and we sat on her lanai for almost the entire time, getting up for food when we thought about it, venturing out to take the dogs to the dog park, but mostly we just talked and remembered. We shared stories of things we once tried to manage...marriages, children, jobs, circumstances. We reflected on how hard it has been to be mothers of adult children who wander(ed) in the shadows and how not being able to keep them safe and lead them by the hand forced us to wait and pray and turn and practice faith. We shared stories of trying to trust when a child is in rehab for the second time or admitted to the psychiatric floor or called up before a judge for drug violations. We talked about the grief of broken relationships and pain suffered from stones of judgment thrown. And then we moved on to talk about God's love and our discovery of it through the years as He waited with and for us all along the way. And we talked about God's love being enough...enough for us and all those we love.We discovered this love through the firm hand of our God's discipline that forced lessons of yielding and waiting, more so than the satisfaction of our wants and needs, ought-to's and should-have-been's.<br />
<br />
Neither surrender or waiting are natural characteristics for most of us.
My sense is we are born wanting and demanding our needs be met. When
someone else fails to satisfy we instinctively set out on our own to
find what we think we have to have. We think we can and should, in our
own strength, go in and "conquer the land". We think that is what we are
about ... that that is our destiny. But, God's desire is that we wait.
Wait every moment, in every moment, in every situation, for He is a
work. It is what He does. He so loves the world. <br />
<br />
We have been molded according to God's creative love. We are defined by God's creative love. The tools in His hands to form us and shape us have often been used with force and caused pain and yet at other times they have brought great comfort and release. Now with the perspective of 20 years my friend and I can bear testimony to a vision of the end result of this love. New things have happened and will happen. Things beyond our imaginations, for who would have imagined divorce and drug abuse and mental health challenges would be a part of our lives. Who would have fantasized that cancer and death would would have brought us closer to God's love. Our lives are caught up in the mystery of surrender and waiting for the our God who is enough to finish what He has begun. His love is enough. He is enough. <br />
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<br />Zibahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09567716256604769311noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732814829542226261.post-17326540013491772482012-05-11T10:13:00.000-04:002012-05-11T10:34:06.808-04:00A Second Try to EmergeMaybe I just need to write .. not wait for enough time to get it worded just so .. believing that writing something even if incomplete is better than writing nothing.<br />
<br />
I thought I had emerged from my cocoon in February but found I had just taken a peak outside only to retreat again. I drew my invisibility cloak about me and moved slowly and contemplatively through the Lenten season and on into spring. I was a bit slowed by a mood shift that brought along a physical and mental sluggishness and by 3 mammograms and a breast biopsy (negative). I also found myself unexpectedly stirred to do some serious sifting of my soul of the remnants of unforgiveness left over from a relationship I thought I sufficiently buried for good.<br />
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Ash Wednesday's journal entry is highlighted in my journal: "Prayer is the forerunner of mercy. Prayer is the preface to blessing. Repent. Prepare. Produce fruit. You have stayed here long enough. Break camp. Advance. I have given you the land. Go in and take possession. Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged. Never will I leave you. Never will I forsake you." God's love is enough. But, breaking camp from a spot one has found familiar and in a strange way, comfortable and taking the first steps to move out can be a slow process.Fortunately, my God is patient and long suffering and is not one to abandon or forsake me just because I am a slow learner.<br />
<br />
Today I read on Elisabeth Corcoran's blog of her description of "enough-ness" (http://elisabethcorcoran.blogspot.com/2012/05/enough-ness.htm) and was stirred me to consider that my retreat back into my cocoon has served to allow this truth of God's love as enough to seep into the cracks and crevices of my being where "what was" had hidden and grown foul. <br />
<br />
In the quiet protective confines of solitude, transformation has a chance to move beyond prayer to the reality of new life. It is there that instruction and teaching and counsel grow into convincing conviction and stir acts of faith and love and hope. I heard the instruction to remember, observe, and be careful not to forget who God is. I was taught not to judge and counseled to forgive. I asked, I sought, and I knocked and I was given what I needed and found what I was looking for and the door was opened. I am prayerfully pressing on and stripping off the residual layers of what was and allowing God's love that is enough to cloak me in satisfaction. Today's journal entry is highlighted by God's words from Jeremiah 31: "I have loved you with an everlasting love. I will build you up again. You will be rebuilt. I will bring you from. I will lead you. I am your Father. I will turn your mourning into gladness....give you comfort instead of sorrow....satisfy you with abundance. I will refresh and satisfy."<br />
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I BELIEVE His love is enough.Zibahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09567716256604769311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732814829542226261.post-21260178470697747832012-02-25T10:02:00.000-05:002012-02-25T10:02:39.095-05:00March Madness, Extreme Pruning, and TransmutationIt was 75 degrees yesterday. Just a handful of days ago we had a little blast of winter and went to bed with a coating of wet snow on the ground and a 2 hour delay of schools for the next morning. In the South, the end of February through the month of March can bring such swings of weather madness. Days like yesterday are like an alarm going off alerting us to get ready. Spring is coming. March madness is just a few weeks out. The Durham Bulls will be back in town in about 6 weeks. And it is time to start thinking about cleaning off the screened porch and preparing the garden for new growth. It is time for preparation...cleaning up, pruning, reflecting, remembering, professing, and confessing as we are looking for the coming of all things new after winter's sleep.<br />
<br />
I took out the pruners and began a radical work on a bush out of control by our side porch stairs. We had been talking for months about the need to prune back this bush. It had been allowed to grow to the point that it altered one's direction along the short sidewalk from the driveway to the house. It was so huge we felt we needed to ask how and when to prune so it that it had the best chance of recovering with new growth. A gardener from Duke Gardens who had planted several additions to our yard said wait until February and cut it back to about one third it's height. And so it has been done. Will this bush survive?<br />
<br />
Lent is a time of such preparations. Sometimes our lives need such radical pruning. Preparing the way for new life requires a conscious decision to prune away the old. It can be rather scary unless we have assured knowledge that there is indeed the promise that after such a radical act there will be something new.<br />
<br />
I stepped forward to "receive my ashes", but, just before, my friend and mentor Gloria speaks to me. She declares with confidence like that of a prophet, "Your sins have been transmuted. Christ not only died for the remission of your sins, but he transmutes them. Your sins are not just forgiven, they are transmuted. They will be completely changed and will be as if they never happened." I turned with the glory of this truth all over me and received the mark on my forehead. The pastor spoke these words,"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust", a phrase from the Anglican burial
service, used sometimes to denote total finality. It is based on
scriptural texts such as "Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt
return" (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Genesis" title="Book of Genesis">Genesis</a> 3:19). Even though I die, I shall then live.<br />
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So, a few days into this Lenten season, as I turn my face toward Jerusalem and follow Christ, I am trying to hear and reflect on what radical preparations I am asked to make. I have heard the call to confession. Confession for me has become a glorious thing over the years. I have learned and grown to trust in the value of acknowledging, revealing, uncovering, declaring, and announcing. The more I confess, the more I live in the freedom Christ bought for me. Confessing has become more about speaking truths out loud than about my focus on my sins. There are truths about my sins and I declare those but, at the same time, I confess loudly and declare fervently who Christ is and that the blood he shed to the point of death is sufficient to radically transmute my sin, transform my body, and transfer my very life from darkness into light. Into the increasing light I walk. <br />
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<br />Zibahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09567716256604769311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732814829542226261.post-6796667461046331372012-02-22T08:11:00.002-05:002012-02-22T08:11:24.076-05:00Pancakes to AshesI ate my pancakes (2 big blueberry ones) yesterday for Fat Tuesday, the last day of Mardi Gras (which, according to tradition began with Epiphany). I am a fringe observer of the Church Liturgical Calendar, but over the last few years I have been trying to allow the Lectionary readings and the cycles of celebrations to lead me through the year with some order. Today is Ash Wednesday which marks the beginning of a 40-day liturgical period of prayer and fasting we call Lent and will culminate with the glorious celebration of Christ's resurrection on Easter morning.<br />
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There's always talk about what one is going to fast from or give up for Lent .... usually it is something like chocolate or alcohol or something that seems to have a grip on one's life. It is a good discipline and when paired with prayer and mindful submission to Christ can take us a step forward. I am grateful for the season of Lent and the focus that prayer and fasting encourages. But, I am most grateful that I know what comes next: Easter.<br />
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I cannot imagine fasting and praying without the knowledge the it will be for a time and that though the journey toward Jerusalem, following Christ through to the crucifixion, is completely devastating, nonetheless, that will not be the end. We know that He endured the cross, despised the shame, and was raised again to new life....the first born from the dead. <br />
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So, what will I give up today and for the next 40 days (not counting Sundays)? I may give up my precious red wine. That would be hard. But, I am contemplating that a fast from discouragement, even fear in the face of all forms of death might be a more true fast. I found myself caught up reading the book of Joel just recently and hyper focused on the absolutely complete devastation that the locusts caused. Yet, I was also reminded that death is the portal to new life.<br />
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I am going to get "my ashes" tonight and will begin my conscious journey through Lent. Hopefully my small effort to surrender my grip on my fear of death in all its shapes and forms will allow me to be freed to participate in the truest forms of fasting.<br />
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<div class="heading passage-class-0">
<h3>
Isaiah 58 </h3>
<div class="txt-sm">
New International Version (NIV)</div>
</div>
<h4>
Isaiah 58</h4>
<h5 class="passage-header">
True Fasting</h5>
<sup class="versenum" id="en-NIV-18788">1</sup> “Shout it aloud, do not hold back. <br /> Raise your voice like a trumpet. <br />Declare to my people their rebellion <br /> and to the descendants of Jacob their sins. <br /><sup class="versenum" id="en-NIV-18789">2</sup> For day after day they seek me out; <br /> they seem eager to know my ways, <br />as if they were a nation that does what is right <br /> and has not forsaken the commands of its God. <br />They ask me for just decisions <br /> and seem eager for God to come near them. <br /><sup class="versenum" id="en-NIV-18790">3</sup> ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, <br /> ‘and you have not seen it? <br />Why have we humbled ourselves, <br /> and you have not noticed?’ “Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please <br /> and exploit all your workers. <br /><sup class="versenum" id="en-NIV-18791">4</sup> Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, <br /> and in striking each other with wicked fists. <br />You cannot fast as you do today <br /> and expect your voice to be heard on high. <br /><sup class="versenum" id="en-NIV-18792">5</sup> Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, <br /> only a day for people to humble themselves? <br />Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed <br /> and for lying in sackcloth and ashes? <br />Is that what you call a fast, <br /> a day acceptable to the LORD? <br />
<sup class="versenum" id="en-NIV-18793">6</sup> “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: <br />to loose the chains of injustice <br /> and untie the cords of the yoke, <br />to set the oppressed free <br /> and break every yoke? <br /><sup class="versenum" id="en-NIV-18794">7</sup> Is it not to share your food with the hungry <br /> and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— <br />when you see the naked, to clothe them, <br /> and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? <br /><sup class="versenum" id="en-NIV-18795">8</sup> Then your light will break forth like the dawn, <br /> and your healing will quickly appear; <br />then your righteousness<sup class="footnote" value="[<a href="#fen-NIV-18795a" title="See footnote a">a</a>]">[<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+58&version=NIV#fen-NIV-18795a" title="See footnote a">a</a>]</sup> will go before you, <br /> and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. <br /><sup class="versenum" id="en-NIV-18796">9</sup> Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; <br /> you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. <br />
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression, <br /> with the pointing finger and malicious talk, <br /><sup class="versenum" id="en-NIV-18797">10</sup> and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry <br /> and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, <br />then your light will rise in the darkness, <br /> and your night will become like the noonday. <br /><sup class="versenum" id="en-NIV-18798">11</sup> The LORD will guide you always; <br /> he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land <br /> and will strengthen your frame. <br />You will be like a well-watered garden, <br /> like a spring whose waters never fail. <br /><sup class="versenum" id="en-NIV-18799">12</sup> Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins <br /> and will raise up the age-old foundations; <br />you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, <br /> Restorer of Streets with Dwellings. <br />
<sup class="versenum" id="en-NIV-18800">13</sup> “If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath <br /> and from doing as you please on my holy day, <br />if you call the Sabbath a delight <br /> and the LORD’s holy day honorable, <br />and if you honor it by not going your own way <br /> and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, <br /><sup class="versenum" id="en-NIV-18801">14</sup> then you will find your joy in the LORD, <br /> and I will cause you to ride in triumph on the heights of the land <br /> and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.” <br /> For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.Zibahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09567716256604769311noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732814829542226261.post-23789120448927966952012-02-17T22:20:00.000-05:002012-02-19T11:33:16.675-05:00There is a Time for EverythingIt has been more than 9 months since my last post. Long enough to conceive, gestate, and deliver a baby. I'd like to say to say that that is what I have been doing, at least in a spiritual sense. I sense the time for labor and delivery is coming.<br />
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To use another image, the last 9 months have been spent in a cocoon of sorts. I felt tightly bound and there was little movement. My protective case was tough and my experience of all that surrounded me was muffled and diffused. Thinking about this image and the image of gestation is somewhat comforting to me now and allows me to experience some hopefulness that the long months without a voice and confined to a small and limiting space emotionally and spiritually will yield newness.<br />
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I entered my cocoon out of necessity back in March of 2011. I needed the protection. I needed a safe place, a place where newness would have a chance to incubate. I was spent, used up, exhausted. I needed to limit my energy so as to focus my energy. The previous 2 years had been depleting. (Little did I know what was to come.)<br />
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My father was diagnosed with gallbladder cancer in January, 2009. Soon we began our family journey through the land of chemo, radiation, and intimate visits with my Daddy to see his wonderful oncologist and her compassionate technicians. At the same time this journey began, the store I had worked at for 10 years and managed for 5 of those years, closed and I was moved to another store 45 minutes away. Life took a another turn. I felt I was in a perpetual state of loss or preparing to lose. When that store closed just months after I arrived, I was sent to manage a third store, I felt the roller coaster had picked up speed and I was just hanging on. <br />
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The summer and fall of 2009 brought a bit of a reprieve. Daddy had finished his treatments and was feeling better and gaining back his strength. I spent every other weekend with him and my step-mother. Those were sweet and simple times of just being together, sharing meals, watching movies, and sitting on the deck. I drove up one day to find him out mowing the grass. My husband, brother, and son joined him for a couple of rounds of golf. That wonderful foursome gave extended life to "Grandaddy's rules of golf". Those days were filled with simple gifts.<br />
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I felt pretty good myself and got in a lot time on my road bike and competed in a couple of triathlons during the summer and a metric Century ride in the fall. But, as we approached Christmas we all knew the cancer was back and it was confirmed in January. The next months were hard. The winter was cold and dark and the knowledge that my Daddy's life was ebbing was my constant companion, though a silent one. We watched a lot of basketball and a lot of movies. We sat at the table and prayed and ate. Routine was a blessing.<br />
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Just prior to Easter of 2010, Daddy died. My sisters and I spent more than a week with our step-mother moving as one unit with the rest of the family through those first days without him. We buried Daddy under the Cherry trees that were in full bloom and 45 family members gathered at our lake house to celebrate his life and ours.<br />
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The work of grieving through that spring and summer and on into early autumn took a toll on my body as a heavy layer of lethargy descended on me physically, mentally, and emotionally. Just moving through each day and taking care of the basics left me depleted. The grieving was complicated by a challenge in my workplace that burst the bubble of naive ideology concerning my job. To realize one's situation is really not at all perfect, but instead tainted by weakness, poor communication, pride, arrogance, and lack of compassion was disheartening. I just wanted to quit and go mow grass for a living. I wanted to avoid the messiness of the pressure I was feeling. I wanted to not feel disappointed. <br />
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With the birth of my grand daughter in the fall of 2010, a gathering of all my children and grandchildren in one place, and the hope of a revitalization of a longtime friendship in the fall of 2010, I could feel a shift. The heaviness was not so heavy. I slowly began to rise up out of the miry clay. I once again felt some creative energy. I thought, "Okay, maybe life is worth living, not just enduring". We as a family had a wonderful work weekend at our lakehouse and then another gathering for Thanksgiving with many "grands" to play with the old Fisher Price toys brought down from the attic. My store recorded its best Christmas season on record. My staff infused life into my weary soul. I had almost forgotten the summer's sorrow. I felt the beginnings of rebirth. But, it was just a short time of R and R. 2011 would prove to be another ride on the roller coaster.<br />
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In the middle of what had been a record cold and seemingly darker than normal winter, my brother was diagnosed with a grade 4 glioblastoma multiforme brain tumor. Within a week he was in the operating room at Duke Medical Center and we all found our places in the waiting room again. The surgery was a "success" according to his brilliant surgeon, but we had all begun our homework and discovered a tumor of this sort has many unseen and resistant characteristics. Treatment would involve a radical change in my brother's life ... and ours. My husband and I opened up our house for the rest of the winter and into the early Spring as my brother and his wife "moved in" as part of our household while Rick received radiation and Chemo more than half of each week. We burned alot of firewood and logged many hours of communal laptop, ipad, and iphone lab work while eating meal after meal dropped off by loving friends from our church family. We were practicing what we had learned through Daddy's cancer treatments ... to lean on one another and anyone that was willing to draw near.<br />
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Miles away in Boston, my brother-in-law was living his last days of life with colon cancer and in Annapolis my mother-in-law's life began waning as her body could not produce red blood cells as a result of being plagued by myelodisplastic syndrome. My husband began making the trip to Annapolis from Durham and back every other week. He spent a lot of time talking with his brother who desired to die well. We got in a rhythm of waiting and watching. We knew we likely were not going to have either of these with us by the end of the year. Right in the middle of our waiting, the favorite Uncle in the family died suddenly. In March Bill Stuntz died. In September, Our Mumu died just before our son Mark got married in Grand Rapids.The weekend following that fabulous, yet exhausting wedding, we were in Annapolis with 40+ family members to remember and celebrate Mumu's life. She was indeed the hub of the Stuntz clan.<br />
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After a spring and summer of longing to carry a lighter load and needing to create some boundaries, I chose to give up my Store Manager role. A new manager came in and I backed up into the assistants role. It was a timely and necessary move for me. Even though the choice was a good one, I was quickly reminded that anytime you give up something you have had for a long time and hand it to someone else you have to grieve. Change is always a form of dying to what was and allowing for the new to grow out of that. I didn't anticipate it would be difficult for me and yet it has been, but even more so for my staff. I have taken up the mantra, "Change is good. THIS change is good." And it is and it will be. <br />
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In October, 2011 after several "clean" MRI's my brother's glioblastoma tumor cells showed up again in an inoperable location deep in the center of his brain. After much soul searching and consideration of options they came back to Duke Medical Center and back to our house for a week Gamma Knife Radiosurgery sessions. Then they went home to wait. It takes 2 months before you can know the results of this type of procedure. The results they received in December were excellent but we know these tumor cells have a way of mutating and adapting, growing resistant to the drugs and traveling unseen to other areas in the brain. So, Rick was not allowed to go home and recoup. He went home with the chemotherapy regiment of 3 weeks on and one week off and every 2 weeks receiving an infusion of Avastin, a drug so powerful and so hard on the body that they save it for when all the other options fail. Another MRI will be administered next week. Another step....another chapter, in his forever altered life.<br />
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We have been blessed and bathed in grace these last years. With the gift of hindsight, you can recognize things you can't see along the way or when you are in your safe cocoon. We have received much and given up much. We have rejoiced and we have grieved. We are learning the lessons that only waiting can teach. We are learning about hope. We have known life and death. And even as I emerge from my cocoon and face this "next life" of many life-death-life cycles within my one, I long for the day when we will all be done with the troubles of the world. <br />
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<br />Zibahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09567716256604769311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732814829542226261.post-73893646778113170962011-03-06T18:32:00.000-05:002011-03-06T18:32:32.145-05:00Our Matter Matters<span id="internal-source-marker_0.9234687888548435" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
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<tr style="height: 0px;"><td style="border: 1px dotted rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 7px; vertical-align: top;"><h3><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Word Became Flesh</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></h3></td></tr>
<tr style="height: 0px;"><td style="border: 1px dotted rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 7px; vertical-align: top;"><h3><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">John 1:1-2</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></h3><h3><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning.</span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/versions/New-International-Version-NIV-Bible/"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;"> New International Version, ©2011</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (NIV)</span></h3></td></tr>
<tr style="height: 0px;"><td style="border: 1px dotted rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 7px; vertical-align: top;"><h5><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">John 1:14</span></h5><h5><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.</span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/versions/New-International-Version-NIV-Bible/"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;"> New International Version, ©2011</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (NIV)</span></h5></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">lyrics to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Final Word </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">/ Michael Card</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 9pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(from </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Joy In The Journey</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (1994))</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You and me we use so very many clumsy words.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The noise of what we often say is not worth being heard.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When the Father’s Wisdom wanted to communicate His love,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">He spoke it in one final perfect Word.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 9pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">listen here</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><a href="http://www.lyricsg.com/62991/lyrics/michaelcard/thefinalword.html"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.lyricsg.com/62991/lyrics/michaelcard/thefinalword.html</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Read the passages. Listen to Michael Card sing of the incarnation and then contemplate with me the value our God places on the life of a human being. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">If God did not see “flesh” … skin, muscle, tendons, bone, nerves, heart, lungs, brain … as that which is infinitely valuable, then He would not have sent His Son to become such a one as us. And surely the body is much much more than a temporary dwelling place for the soul while passing through on the way to eternity. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In looking back to Genesis 1, we read, starting with verse 26 :</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” ….31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">These passages and Michael Card’s song came to mind at the end of the day in which my brother went through a 4-5 hour procedure called Leukapheresis in which they took his blood out of his body and removed white blood cells and then put the blood back. The plan is that a vaccine specific for him will be made from his white blood cells that will be used to aid his body in fighting the regrowth of the glioblastoma tumor in his brain.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(Gen 1:1-2) In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">the Spirit of God was hovering </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">over the waters.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I have a deep conviction that God is hovering over his creation still and specifically over my brother. I find wonder mixed with my anxiety and fear and heaviness as we as a family walk together and alongside Rick on this journey. I sense a creative force moving against the “Unmaker”. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Unmaker</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> is the main antagonist in</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Scott_Card"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Orson Scott Card</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">'s</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_history_%28fiction%29"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">alternate history</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">/</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">fantasy</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> series</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tales_of_Alvin_Maker"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">The Tales of Alvin Maker</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. Never directly confronted, it is a supernatural force that breaks apart matter and aims to destroy and consume everything and everyone.) </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unmaker"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unmaker</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Even though I see this tumor and it’s submicroscopic army of cells as the primary weapon of destruction in this battle with the Unmaker, I know that the God of creation has already won the war. When we are not distracted completely by this intense skirmish we see God Himself walking in our midst. He is declaring that the life of Rick Witherington is of infinite value to Him. He is pouring out His love. He is shaping and forming and making new with the tools of prayer and food and lodging and science and hope and faith. In considering God’s economy, we are learning that He desires to dispense Himself into us, to dwell in us richly. We are His created people and He has chosen to make us His corporate expression in the universe for eternity. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">All things destructive to life...even Glioblastoma Multiforme tumors .. have been ultimately, eternally defeated. But, for now as we continue in this place and this time … in between the two comings of Christ … where we continue to “work out our salvation” and we join together to declare what we believe:</span><br />
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial Narrow; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I believe in one God, the Father Almighty,</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial Narrow; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible;</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial Narrow; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God,</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial Narrow; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">begotten of his Father before all worlds,</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial Narrow; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God,</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial Narrow; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father;</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial Narrow; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">by whom all things were made;</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial Narrow; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven,</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial Narrow; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary,</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial Narrow; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">and was made man;</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial Narrow; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate;</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial Narrow; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">he suffered and was buried; and the third day he rose again</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial Narrow; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven,</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial Narrow; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">and sitteth on the right hand of the Father;</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial Narrow; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">and he shall come again, with glory, to judge both the quick and the dead;</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial Narrow; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">whose kingdom shall have no end.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial Narrow; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And I believe in the Holy Ghost the Lord, and Giver of Life,</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial Narrow; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">who proceedeth from the Father [and the Son];</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial Narrow; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified;</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial Narrow; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">who spake by the Prophets.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial Narrow; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And I believe one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church;</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial Narrow; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins;</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial Narrow; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">and I look for the resurrection of the dead,</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial Narrow; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">and the life of the world to come. AMEN.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial Narrow; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Nicene Creed</span></div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial Narrow; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span>Zibahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09567716256604769311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732814829542226261.post-30220012041531957582011-02-28T21:25:00.000-05:002011-02-28T21:25:15.193-05:00The Next Step<span id="internal-source-marker_0.45023843556918575" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Since my brother Rick's diagnosis of a</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glioblastoma_multiforme"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Glioblastoma Mutiforme</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> just a few weeks ago, followed very quickly by surgery, then some time to begin recovery, yet at the same time traveling for consultations with radiologists and oncologists, we have all felt like we have been on a wild roller coaster. None of us will ever be the same. Something of this magnitude bears down on the host and all those he loves and who love him. I cannot begin to imagine what it is like for him.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Today they signed consent papers, giving Duke Medical Center the right to shoot beams of radiation into his brain. They made a mask that he will wear that will immobilize his head during treatments. They did an MRI to map out their strategy of attack. Next week they will begin a methodical attack on any hidden tumor cells that remain. Each weekday for more than six weeks he will put on the mask and place his brilliant brain into the hands of the team of doctor, nurses, technicians, and the very sophisticated machinery found at the Preston Robert Tisch Tumor Center. The Tumor Center's mantra is</span><a href="http://www.cancer.duke.edu/btc/"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">"There is Hope"</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> . We are all wearing bracelets and hats and shirts bearing the name of the Tumor Center. We have formed a team for a fundraising 5K. We want to hope. We are practicing.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Today was hard for Rick. The reality of what comes next became a little clearer and a day in the cloistered Tumor Center drained him of precious energy. This part of the journey will likely lack the height and depth of these last few weeks. The crowds that met us along the road to Duke have gone back to their routines and their families. They will check in and they will bring food and they will pray when they think of Rick but they are not required to stay. And even we, his "blood kin" siblings, his children, and his adoring wife cannot go into the inner place he must go and yield with a faith that he cannot manufacture. But, we will be there and we will be the</span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+12%3A1-3&version=NIV"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">cloud of witnesses</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, we will stand in the gap. Rick will be surrounded.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">My sister and I have been trying each day to send out a short email to family members to encourage us all to remain prayerfully focused. It was my turn today and I boldly looked at the the mystery of Hope. I had been up in the middle of the night and picked up a book left behind from one of the previous visits to my house by my brother. I read the first few chapters of</span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Hope-People-Prevail-Illness/dp/0375506381"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">The Anatomy of Hope</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> in which the author, Jerome Groopman, Md. tells of the first years of his training as a physician when he struggled to find a way to learn from and with his patients ways to incorporate and encourage hope in the face of serious illness. Today, I wanted to share something profound with my family about Hope, but words would not come. The challenge to come to intimately know Hope is before me. I cannot say what Hope looks like or feels like or what actions will be stirred by Hope in the days and weeks and months and years to come. Surely, Hope is greater than my heart. So, I posted a few images of the word itself and added a video of Stuart Townend singing</span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyMWBx6vvJo&feature=BF&list=MLGxdCwVVULXd-pbUfl3BVdYUKh7rgKv8Y&index=2"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">There is a Hope</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">THERE IS A HOPE</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">by Stuart Townend and Mark Edwards</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Copyright (c) 2007 Thankyou Music.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There is a hope that burns within my heart,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">That gives me strength for ev'ry passing day;</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">a glimpse of glory now revealed in meager part,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Yet drives all doubt away:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I stand in Christ, with sins forgiv'n;</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">and Christ in me, the hope of heav'n!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">My highest calling and my deepest joy,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">to make His will my home.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There is a hope that lifts my weary head,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A consolation strong against despair,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">That when the world has plunged me in its deepest pit,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I find the Savior there!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Through present sufferings, future's fear,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">He whispers, "Courage!" in my ear.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For I am safe in everlasting arms,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And they will lead me home.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There is a hope that stands the test of time,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">That lifts my eyes beyond the beckoning grave,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">To see the matchless beauty of a day divine</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When I behold His face!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When sufferings cease and sorrows die,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">and every longing satisfied,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">then joy unspeakable</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">will flood my soul,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For I am truly home.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We will choose to believe in Hope even though we may not feel it or see it. </span>Zibahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09567716256604769311noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732814829542226261.post-53569791662772954732011-02-12T22:39:00.000-05:002011-02-12T22:39:53.299-05:00When the Enemy Invades<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span id="internal-source-marker_0.7509148322864504" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">My brother was discharged from Duke University Medical Center today. Just 2 days ago, Dr. Allan Friedman </span><a href="http://www.cancer.duke.edu/btc/modules/facultystaff1/index.php?id=2"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.cancer.duke.edu/btc/modules/facultystaff1/index.php?id=2</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> , world renown neurosurgeon at the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center, removed a robin’s egg sized primary glioblastoma from his right temporal lobe. Rick’s life, his life with his wife Deborah and our lives as his sisters, children, nieces, nephews, and friends will hereafter be changed. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We as a family are familiar with the roller coaster ride on which cancer takes you. We all walked with our father through 15 months of cancer diagnosis, chemotherapy and radiation. We each found our way through. We found ourselves shifting priorities and trimming out what was not so important to make room for time to be together. That was the best thing we did in those months. And the blessings, though mixed with sorrow were constant.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And now, surprising us, is another invasion by this enemy. Just a couple of weeks ago my brother, Rick had 3 small seizures within an 8 hour period. Urged by he wife and 3 sisters he reluctantly went to his primary physician. Next came the MRI that revealed the “bad boy” tumor behind his right eye. The radiologist was not encouraging at all. The news went out to family and my husband and I got a good friend on the inside at Duke Medical Center to help open the door for an appointment with Dr. Friedman. Two days after his appointment the tumor was removed. After less than 24 hours in ICU and another night in a regular room, he is now sitting in my livingroom by the fireplace. Another couple of days hanging close by Duke and then he will return home to Charlotte.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Onward. </span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfluVZNf0CQ2faOJ6D9Z8fXLZgYEWCNW6HarpofZH_W7wwWKoF3k3I8Ym6NWa3zGIrW1IUjzpnmD6JBDyxc-PBRrmQ6Nf45GS1n_sCwlbTtiaNMUkMbTOq13UYVmX0cW3xEZnfJ5x78FOl/s1600/Rick+and+the+girls.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfluVZNf0CQ2faOJ6D9Z8fXLZgYEWCNW6HarpofZH_W7wwWKoF3k3I8Ym6NWa3zGIrW1IUjzpnmD6JBDyxc-PBRrmQ6Nf45GS1n_sCwlbTtiaNMUkMbTOq13UYVmX0cW3xEZnfJ5x78FOl/s320/Rick+and+the+girls.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The night before surgery the siblings pose for a picture. Rick has our father's prayer shawl around his shoulders. the "markers" on Rick's head will help guide the surgeon to the tumor.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Zibahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09567716256604769311noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732814829542226261.post-86398151882727460802011-01-24T19:59:00.003-05:002011-01-25T09:23:09.761-05:00<div id="internal-source-marker_0.16018474700569896" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Kingdom of Heaven is within you</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Kingdom of Heaven has come</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Kingdom of Heaven is near</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div><h2 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Kingdom of Heaven is like:</span></h2><h2 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">a mustard seed…the smallest, yet…the largest</span></h2><h2 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">a merchant looking for fine pearls</span></h2><h2 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">yeast worked all through</span></h2><h2 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">a treasure hidden in a field...found…all sold to have</span></h2><h2 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">a net let down…caught all kinds of fish</span></h2><h2 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">a king who canceled the debt</span></h2><h2 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></h2><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Seek first the Kingdom</span></h3><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Kingdom of God does not come with careful observation</span></h3><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">My Kingdom is not of this world</span></h3><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Kingdom of God is not a matter of eating or drinking</span></h3><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit</span></h3><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></h3><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></h3><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Kingdom of heaven comes and it has already come. This Kingdom is not of this world. It is otherly…radically different yet in the midst of and bearing resemblance to what is already. Christ the King came and turned all upside down and rightside up. He came to redeem and set free and restore and make new. He came to break down walls that divide and unite the forces that are opposed. In the Kingdom of God, “the infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child will put his hand into the viper’s nest .” The Kingdom of God is the Kingdom where Spirit and Truth reign.</span></h3><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></h3><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As often as possible, I escape to our lake house to sit on the porch. The view has not really changed in the 40+ years since my parents first bought the lot on Lake Norman, yet everything has changed. I sat there once again recently and followed the paths of two hawks as they allowed the thermals to lift them effortlessly in the air. I long to find myself so attuned to the Kingdom within and without that I can, like those hawks, move upward without self’s lone struggle. Later, I sat with my siblings and we talked about our families and our memories of the years spent coming to the Lake. We felt the net about us…the net of love…the net of devotion…the net of life. The Life God created for us to live is the will of the King and His Kingdom.</span></h3><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></h3><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Time is not restrictive. The King has come and continues to come, and will come… mysteriously, penetrating, altering, growing something new and precious out of what was shut up tight, buried deep, and insignificantly small. It has been from the beginning yet begins now, in each moment, it has been and shall be…forevermore. In the Kingdom, what was is no more, forgiven, the debt canceled, and we rise up on the thermals of the ruling force of the Creator.</span></h3><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></h3><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We sat at the dining room table talking. I had that strong sense that the Kingdom had broken into our lives. All I could think of was how BIG it felt. I’d experienced this before. I knew it would not be easy to permit this invasion into my life, yet at the same time I knew I would be a fool not to. I knew that it was like a treasure found and worthy of the sacrifice required to obtain it. The Kingdom is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. I was focusing on the pearls. I was not thinking, at the time, that pearls are only found by raking the muck at the bottom of the ocean and prying open that which is tightly shut up. Little did I know what would be asked of me.</span></h3><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></h3><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We ask with Christ for the Kingdom to come…for the will of God to be done. Instinctively we know that that is what we were created for. The Kingdom is the power of God in the life of His Son through the gift of the Spirit. We ask, we plead for this Kingdom to come, to be our Kingdom. Then the Spirit blows, unseen, yet felt and experienced, stirring up that which had been unmoved. The Kingdom penetrates like yeast and changes the mix. The Kingdom is hidden in a field and requires a great sacrifice to obtain. It is not what we imagined. It is different yet demands our souls. How do we enter? How do we see and hear and live in the Kingdom while at the same time living in this place that is so demanding of our senses and minds and bodies.</span></h3><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></h3><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We enter the world already disabled by the “issue” of sin. Though sin’s power has been broken by the King Himself, the impact of sin continues to hinder. This is the reality of the world where the wheat and the tares grow up in the same field, where the good fish and the bad fish swim in the same waters. What we hear in the teachings of Christ is that the Kingdom is like a net and is let down and catches “all kinds of fish”. The Kingdom of King Jesus is BIG, encompassing all. How then do we learn to enter in and dwell under the rule of this King that rode on a donkey and ate His last meal hidden with a few friends in an upper room? How do we submit to the rule of a King who seems foolish, even crazy, to the masses and confuses his intimate disciples with His words about dying? How do we overcome our own desires to be the ruler of ourselves and instead sell all we have to obtain a treasure that is buried within and can only be discovered by following a King through death?</span></h3><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></h3><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (Matt. 5:3)</span></h3><h3><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“In this strange calculous of grace, recognizing and admitting our poverty is the prerequisite for entering the Kingdom of God. We are trained throughout our lives to hide the awareness of our own inadequacy from ourselves and others. To enter the Kingdom, we must come out of hiding, and admit before God and others who we are. We are resourceless. Our poverty is absolute and abject. We can neither turn to our material successes and assets, our personal accomplishments and virtue, or to our spiritual piety.” </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-Di Anna Paulk</span></h3><h3><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></h3><h3><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Kingdom of heaven drew me in and penetrated my life like yeast worked into dough. The King called me to submit to His Lordship more than 30 years ago. His net dropped down and captured me. The treasure called me to sell all. I had no idea what I was in for. I had no idea what His Kingdom would be like. I was enraptured by the love I felt. All I wanted was to be with Him and His people. I sang the Lord’s Prayer, lustily, at the top of my lungs in response to the call that pried my fingers off my own heart and called me up out of my seat. I held hands with others called out of their own kingdoms and with whom I now stood in Gaither Chapel on the side of the mountain in Montreat, NC. If I had known enough to see through that state of spiritual bliss that He would take me seriously and take my life and ruthlessly begin to expose my state of poverty and transform and transfigure me, I might have declined the invitation.</span></h3><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Entering the Kingdom was like conceiving and bearing children. As a potential parent I was possessed by this great desire to be a part of creation. I entered in on a huge wave of instinct and desire without having a clue as to what cost would be required of me to birth a new life and bring it up in the fear and admonition of the Lord. To enter the Kingdom is to allow the King to replace your rule. The King enters your life and you give your all to Him. A new life is born. You are filled with joy, enraptured by the newness, the light of the new day. The old dies. Nothing will ever be quite the same again.</span></h3><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></h3><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I stood in the sanctuary of a chapel in Valle Crucis, NC with tears running down my face and confusion and fear filling my soul, when I heard the Lord speak quietly to me, “This will take you deeper.” I did not want to go deeper. I wanted to stop hurting. But, now, several years later, I can see a little clearer. I have, through the pain, given birth to new life out of the death of the old. Through it all, the net of the Kingdom has remained about us and the will of the Father is being done. The pain is fading in my memory as poverty is leading me through a doorway to blessedness.</span></h3><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></h3><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In the years since the conceiving and bearing of that spiritual “child”, I have experienced much more than I thought I would. I have had the old rooted out of my soul. My desperate state of poverty was exposed and I have experienced the radical transforming power of the cross. I have been challenged to trust in a King not of this world and whose ways are beyond my ability to search out. I have been pushed out of my old ways of thinking and have stepped into a kingdom in which Truth and Righteousness are a Person and I must choose each day to trust. I must choose to believe in the One greater than this created body. I must choose to trust in a King that forgives my anger and heals the wounds from years past. I must choose to trust that His Word and His rule are good. I must choose to believe that His love is enough… Enough to define this life…enough to give meaning to the suffering….enough to bridge the impasses between man and woman, parent and child, friend and friend, light and darkness, heaven and earth.</span></h3><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></h3><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It is the goal of this life in the Kingdom that called to me first in Gaither Chapel in Montreat, through the years on the porch over looking Lake Norman, and years later in the chapel in Valle Crucis. It is the Kingdom that calls us to come out of our hiding places to admit to the King and to others who we really are…To be real, to be honest, to confess, to respond. It is only in responding to the call and allowing ourselves to confess the reality of our poverty that we can know the safety of the net of the kingdom.</span></h3><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></h3><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The net that fell about my good friend and me at her dining room table is the same net that surrounds my children and my extended family and the family of God that draws alongside. More than not, this Kingdom that we ask to come is not what we may have thought it would be like. But, it is in the Kingdom that we come to understand the King and give up our fears and find our longings satisfied. It is in the Kingdom that we begin to live as the ones created by the living Word. Truly, the Kingdom is worth the sacrifice we make to enter in. And it is in the submission to the King’s radical rule that life as it is in heaven is possible on earth.</span></h3><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></h3><h3 style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done…on earth as it is in heaven.”</span></h3><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span>Zibahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09567716256604769311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732814829542226261.post-81928455685635031672010-12-26T09:09:00.000-05:002010-12-26T09:09:56.379-05:00Infant Holy, Infant Lowly<div style="background-color: white;"><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">John 1:14 NIV</span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"> </span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Hebrews 4:12-13 NIV</span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt;">Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Colossians 3:16 ASV</span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-weight: bold;">Infant holy, infant lowly,</span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-weight: bold;">For His bed a cattle stall;</span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-weight: bold;">Oxen lowing, little knowing</span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-weight: bold;">Christ, the babe, is Lord of all.</span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-weight: bold;">Swift are winging, angels singing,</span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-weight: bold;">Noels ringing, tidings bringing:</span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-weight: bold;">Christ the babe is Lord of all.</span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-weight: bold;">Flocks were sleeping, shepherds keeping</span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-weight: bold;">Vigil till the morning new</span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-weight: bold;">Saw the glory, heard the story,</span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-weight: bold;">Tidings of a gospel true.</span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-weight: bold;">Thus rejoicing, free from sorrow,</span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-weight: bold;">Praises voicing greet the morrow:</span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-weight: bold;">Christ the babe was born for you.</span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The baby, totally dependent, helpless to care for himself, at the mercy of poverty and homelessness was also the Word of God made flesh. I find this incomprehensible and at the same time this mystery penetrates me and stirs great hope and possibility. The fact that God chose to send His only begotten Son to take on flesh and live like us and with us and as one of us declares the infinitely great value He gives to humanity. The Word, the Logos, the creative force that formed the heavens and the earth and holds all things together, chose to yield himself to complete powerlessness. Christ the babe was born for you and me.</span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">I work retail. In the month of December we will see more than 20% of the year’s sales. A third of those sales will be made in one week. We call it retail madness. And every year I struggle to balance the work I have been given to do and my desire to “let the Word of Christ” be born in me anew. I look for the Word to pierce the madness with truth and light. I am reminded everyday that Christ came into a world in conflict. I see daily the battle for supremacy between greed, hording and all expressions of insidious pride and hope and grace and generosity. It is into darkness, poverty, loneliness, and all stalls of imprisonment that the baby was born. </span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">This year has been somewhat of a different one for me. In part, it is because my immediate family has agreed to give no gifts except a commitment to spend a weekend together in January. We have rented a house in my husband’s hometown and we will gather together from Ohio, D.C, and North Carolina and give one another the gifts of time and space. We will see extended family. We will remember and we will look forward. For me, this plan has been a blessing of freedom, both realized and anticipated. </span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">This year is also different as it is the first Christmas season without my father. I dreamed not too long ago that my step-mother told me he was not dead, but taking a nap. So, I went to find him. I entered a long hallway that was brilliant white and with many doors lining both sides. I didn’t know which room was his. I woke with a sweet yet mournful feeling as though he were present yet absent at the same time. The taste of that dreamed stayed with me for days. </span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">My father taught me as much in his dying as through his living. He held life gently and so encouraged me to seek to learn to live the same way. Since his death, I have found myself practicing disciplined acts of relinquishment. And in doing so through this season of advent I was reminded that preparation for Christ’s coming must involve laying down and putting off. I must fling off all that hinders. I must lay myself bare of all self’s want of power and control. I have imagined a ritual of stripping off all my clothes and throwing them in the fire and then putting on new garments of wool and linen.</span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">To be born anew with and in the Infant Holy requires a surrender of all rights and privileges, power and authority, ought-to’s and should-be’s in exchange for the blessed state of the Infant Lowly. All of self is to be uncovered and laid bare and simple. We cannot cling to or horde what we deem necessary or most valuable. We must fling open the doors to our stored up and protected self. Then, the Word can dwell in us richly. He has come to penetrate our very beings, even to the divide of soul and spirit. He has come to dwell amongst us, with us, between us, and within us. Let him in.</span></div><div style="color: black; direction: ltr; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0pt;"><br />
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</div></div>Zibahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09567716256604769311noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732814829542226261.post-58726307077137531712010-12-07T08:58:00.000-05:002010-12-07T08:58:58.265-05:00Notes On What To Do While Waiting<span id="internal-source-marker_0.8440930636891179" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">My soul waits .. hopes</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">With you is forgiveness .. unfailing love.. redemption</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">from Psalm130</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I await my Savior who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform my lowly body so that it will be like his.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-from Philippians 3</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">How long, O Lord, must I call for help? There is strife and conflict.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Look and be amazed.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The revelation awaits an appointed time..it speaks of the end ..though it lingers wait for it.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">O Lord, I have heard. I stand in awe. Renew in our day .. in our time make known. Remember mercy. Decay crept into my bones. Yet, I will wait. Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines .. the olive crop fails ..the fields produce no food ..there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls..Yet, I will rejoice. I will be joyful in God my Savior. The sovereign Lord is my strength.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-from Habakkuk</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Even so, Lord, quickly come to your final harvest home.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Gather all your people in, free from sorrow, free from sin,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">there forever purified in your presence to abide.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Come with all your angels, come, raise the glorious harvest home.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">- from the hymn </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Come, Ye Thankful People Come,</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> vs 4</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Sing. Tell. Glory in His name. Rejoice. Look to the Lord. Seek. Remember. Proclaim. Declare. Ascribe. Bring an offering. Worship. Tremble. Give Thanks. Cry out, “Save us.”</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You are thirsty.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You have no money.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Come, buy without money.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Listen.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Eat what is good.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Seek the Lord.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Call on Him.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Forsake your wicked ways and thoughts.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Turn. I will have mercy. I will pardon.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For, my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">My thoughts are higher than yours.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">My word will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire...joy and peace.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-from Isaiah 55</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Simeon waited.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Anna fasted and worshiped and prayed</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-from John</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Prepare the way for the Lord. Make straight paths for Him.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Every valley shall be filled in. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Every mountain and hill will be made low.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The crooked roads shall become straight.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The rough roads shall become smooth.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">All mankind will see God’s salvation.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-from Isaiah</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Share with him who has none.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Act justly, fairly.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Do not accuse falsely.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Jesus saw them following and asked,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“What you you want? .. Come and you will see.”</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-from the gospels</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Get ready to cross over.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I will give...as I promised.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I will be with you. I will never leave you nor forsake you.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Be strong and courageous.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Be careful to obey.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Meditate on the word.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Do not be terrified or discouraged.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For the Lord your God will be with you.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Get ready.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Go in and take possession of the land I am giving you.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-from Joshua 1</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Listen. Give ear. Come. Hear me.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">That your soul may live.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I will make a covenant with you...promised faithful love.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Seek the Lord.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Call on him.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Forsake your wicked ways and thoughts.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Turn to the lord.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-from Isaiah</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Be anxious for nothing. Pray. Be thankful. Rejoice.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Think on whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praise worthy.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-from Philippians 4</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Believe. Live by the truth and come into the light.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Depend on God.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Glorify God.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Worship God.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Your righteousness must be “otherly”</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Blessed are </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> the poor in spirit, mournful, meek, hungry, thirsty, merciful,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> pure in heart, and peacemakers ,...</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Be salt and light … </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Be reconciled to one another .. forgiving radically ..</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Let it go.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-from the gospels</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There must be acceptance and knowledge that sorrow fully accepted brings its own gifts. For there is an alchemy in sorrow. It can be transmutted into wisdom, which, if it does not bring joy, can yet bring happiness.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-Pearl S. Buck</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In the hunt for solace we discover who we are and such a discovery can lead us to the revelation of inner peace.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-Chris deVinck</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Love your enemies. Pray for them.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Your Father knows what you need.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-Jesus</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Forgiveness is the mark of the Father on and through His children.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Forgiveness is a blessing...the act of mercy and grace. Receive it. Give it.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Behold, I will create new heavens and new earth.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Weeping and crying will be no more.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-Isaiah 65</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Release the captive. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Extend grace.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Do something ridiculous that you know God wants you to do.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The law of the Spirit of life set me free.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">God sent His son to be a sin offering.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So, I live, setting my mind on what the spirit desires .. Life and Peace.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The creation awaits in eager expectation .. subjected to frustration in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into glorious freedom of the children of God. We groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption and redemption of our bodies.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I hope for what I do not yet have. In this hope I am saved.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In all things God works for good.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I am more than a conqueror.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’ll never be separated from God’s love.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-from Romans</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
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<h4><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Psalm 130</span></h4><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A song of ascents.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> 1 Out of the depths I cry to you, LORD;</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> 2 Lord, hear my voice.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Let your ears be attentive</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> to my cry for mercy.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> 3 If you, LORD, kept a record of sins,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Lord, who could stand?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">4 But with you there is forgiveness,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> so that we can, with reverence, serve you.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> 5<b> I wait for the LORD, my whole being waits,</b></span><b><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></b><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">and in his word I put my hope.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">6 I wait for the Lord</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> more than watchmen wait for the morning,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> more than watchmen wait for the morning.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> 7 Israel, put your hope in the LORD,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> for with the LORD is unfailing love</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> and with him is full redemption.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">8 He himself will redeem Israel</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> from all their sins.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span>Zibahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09567716256604769311noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732814829542226261.post-52363170489502977552010-11-30T11:30:00.000-05:002010-11-30T11:30:41.673-05:00Baptism and the brain<span id="internal-source-marker_0.13042298611401604" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">From Wikipedia we find these references to baptism:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Baptism</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_%28semiotics%29"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">signifies</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: mediumblue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[</span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/bible?passage=Romans%204:11-12;&version=ESV;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Romans 4:11-12</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: mediumblue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">]</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: mediumblue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[</span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/bible?passage=Colossians%202:11-12;&version=ESV;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Colossians 2:11-12</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: mediumblue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">]</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptism#cite_note-110"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">[111]</span></a><br />
<ul><li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortification_%28theology%29"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">death</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> of the old self,</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: mediumblue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[</span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/bible?passage=Romans%206:3-11;&version=ESV;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Romans 6:3-11</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: mediumblue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">]</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">,</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritual_purification"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">cleansing</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> from the</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">guilt</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> and</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_sin"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">corruption</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> of human</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">sin</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">,</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: mediumblue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[</span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/bible?passage=Romans%205:12;&version=ESV;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Romans 5:12</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: mediumblue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">]</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: mediumblue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[</span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/bible?passage=Romans%205:18;&version=ESV;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">5:18</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: mediumblue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">]</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvation"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">salvation</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (being </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">saved</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">) from the</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_retribution"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">wrath of God</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> to come,</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: mediumblue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[</span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/bible?passage=Romans%205:9-10;&version=ESV;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Romans 5:9-10</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: mediumblue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">]</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adoption"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">adoption</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> as "</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_filiation"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">sons of God</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">",</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: mediumblue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[</span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/bible?passage=Galatians%204:4-5;&version=ESV;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Galatians 4:4-5</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: mediumblue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">]</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">identification</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">solidarity</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">) with Jesus Christ himself.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: mediumblue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[</span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/bible?passage=Acts%209:1-6;&version=ESV;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Acts 9:1-6</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: mediumblue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">]</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: mediumblue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[</span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/bible?passage=Colossians%203:3-4;&version=ESV;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Colossians 3:3-4</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: mediumblue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">]</span></li>
</ul><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">From an article by Curt Thompson, M.D., author of </span><a href="http://www.colsoncenterstore.org/product.asp?sku=9781414334158"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Anatomy of the Soul</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">,</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: mediumblue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">we read these words:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Current neuroscience supports the idea that spiritual disciplines line us up to allow God to change us in ways for which we hunger and thirst. As we meditate, pray (especially contemplatively), fast, seek proper solitude, confess, submit, study, and engage in other such disciplines, we create space for change. In this sense, when Paul writes in Romans 12:2 that we are to no longer “be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect,” he’s not kidding. This transformation of which he speaks is not metaphor.</span><br />
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<a href="http://thepoint.breakpoint.org/features-columns/articles/entry/12/15831"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Paul was no neuroscientist, he wrote that which neuroscience would now confirm: that the transformation that God began with the resurrection of Jesus is now being extended and grounded in our very brains. This is where hope resides. This transformation of our minds is no mere abstract concept conjured up by a first century apostle. No, it is God physically at work through His Spirit, doing the very thing Jesus claimed he would do. Real change. Real hope—for our relationships with our friends (and enemies), our spouses, children, neighbors, and the creation. God’s Kingdom come on earth (or, as it were, in our brains) as it is in heaven.</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><a href="http://thepoint.breakpoint.org/features-columns/articles/entry/12/15831"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://thepoint.breakpoint.org/features-columns/articles/entry/12/15831</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I was born into and raised in the community of the Presbyterians. I have spent 30 years as a communing member of 3 different Presbyterian congregations. This foundation and a 16 year visit into the Methodist denomination, have convinced me of my need for divine intervention. When one looks in from the outside at the Presbyterians usually the first 2 associations that come to mind are predestination and infant baptism or in more glorious terms, the sovereignty of God and salvation through grace. But, unlike most born and raised in this denomination, I was not baptized as an infant. Nor was I baptised when I made a profession of faith when I was “born again” in my teen years. I was baptized as a child.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I think I was around 4 years old. I remember the small chapel with green carpet and soft low lighting. I remember it was a cold, wet, and blustery day, maybe a Sunday afternoon. I remember standing to the right of my mother and father as they brought my new sister in their arms and handed her to the minister for baptism.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">From the Presbyterian Book of Church Order we read:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Although our young children do not yet understand these things, they are nevertheless to be baptized. For the promise of the covenant is made to believers and to their seed, as God declared unto Abraham: "And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee." In the new dispensation no less than in the old, the seed of the faithful, born within the church, have, by virtue of their birth, interest in the covenant and right to the seal of it and to the outward privileges of the church. For the covenant of grace is the same in substance under both dispensations, and the grace of God for the consolation of believers is even more fully manifested in the new dispensation. Moreover, our Saviour admitted little children into his presence, embracing and blessing them, and saying, "Of such is the kingdom of God." So the children of the covenant are by baptism distinguished from the world and solemnly received into the visible church. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><a href="http://www.opc.org/BCO/DPW.html#Chapter_IV"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.opc.org/BCO/DPW.html#Chapter_IV</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I remember the sense of mystery and otherliness that saturated the room. My older brother and sister were there and likely an elder to witness the sacrament. But, somehow, I knew it was not about them. It all seemed very important. Likely, I had been sternly instructed that I should stand very still and be quiet. The fact that I had to wear a dress had already pressed heavily upon me the gravity of the event. I was told that the minister would place water on my head. First, my parents placed my baby sister in the arms of the minister. Words were spoken and questions were asked and answered. Then she was given back to them. Next, it was my turn. I don’t recall if the minister asked me any questions. I don’t know that I said anything. But, I remember His hand on my head. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Now, more than 50 years later, I continue to experience the mystery of the covenant forged between me and God through identification with Christ in his death and resurrection. I know now that that moment in the chapel when I was just a child was not so much a turning point, but instead a moment in time in which eternal truth was declared. I know that when I was baptized is not as important as is the fact that I have been and am baptized. And within my union with Christ, I am being transformed. As we read in Curt Thompson’s article, what began with Christ and into which I have been united, there is a very real and new life that was birthed and is being shaped. In active participation in the sacraments and spiritual disciplines and through fellowship within the kingdom of God I am being changed. It is possible, in fact promised, that I will be changed. Though the evidence of my transformation has not been seen in an instantaneous miracle, it has, nonetheless been amazing and miraculous. I know that my Creator is still at work in my mind and body and spirit. I know He will finish what He began.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This morning I reread the story of the taking of the Promised Land by God’s children led by Joshua. My journal entry of notes on Joshua 11 looked like this:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> ….a huge army;</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> …..numerous as the sand;</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> ….all the Kings joined forces together to fight against Israel;</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">THE LORD SAID: DO NOT BE AFRAID OF THEM, because I will hand them over slain.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Later, in chapter 24, I read these words:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“I sent the hornet ahead of you, which drove them out before you—also the two Amorite kings. You did not do it with your own sword and bow. 13 So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant. 14 Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness.”</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I saw yet again, the confluence of the very real Divine Life and the very real Human life. I saw again the impossibility of gaining salvation and victory over sin by human effort alone. I heard the call again to yield to the collision that brings death and then life. I hear again, “Now, Fear the Lord.”</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Over the years, I have come to recognize the power in the discipline of confession, and not just confession of sins, but confessions of faith. I believe it is true that much happens when we declare, shout out, sing and speak praises, proclaim, acknowledge, and ascribe glory to the Lord. After years of reading scripture and listening and hearing the Word of God proclaimed through preaching and teaching, there is now evidence of it’s impact on my mind. I think differently, I speak differently, I feel differently, and I live differently because I am under the influence of a very real covenant relationship with the One who redeemed me. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I confess with my mouth and declare aloud that baptism has engaged all of me to Christ. At the same time that I am one with Him and He with me, it is this covenant relationship that does not allow me to live in isolation or separated by self protection. In fact, I can not. In my baptism I am immersed in the fellowship of all God’s children. I am being transformed. We are being transformed. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When I stand to sing with the congregation something happens. When I join with believers and say the words of the Apostle’s Creed and pray the Lord’s Prayer there is a creative, transforming power that is in us and amongst us. There are times I perceive it physically and emotionally and sometimes I simply choose to believe. When I stood as a witness to my grandson’s baptism and remembered my own, I believed with all of me that God had placed His hand in the water and, through His baptism, continues to work with us as the potter with the clay.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I continue to feel His hand on my head, the cleansing water washing my conscience, the words of acceptance and blessing, and the declaration of my adoption into his family. I believe he lives with me and in me. I believe He moves and has His being even in my brain, in the space between the synapses, in the electrical charges, and in the mix of serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, melatonin and other chemicals. Even at times when it seems I have been left at the mercy of these chemicals and that surely they have joined to form a huge army, numerous as the sand, I hear, “Do not be afraid, because I will hand them over slain.” I remember, I know, I feel, and I live immersed in Him and He is greater than my heart, my mind, and my spirit. Even as I wait and circle in and move through this wilderness, I know the results of His and my sufferings will produce satisfaction. The very real work of transformation will be completed.</span>Zibahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09567716256604769311noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732814829542226261.post-87743504953281435652010-11-10T09:35:00.000-05:002010-11-10T09:35:44.907-05:00Life Out of Death<span id="internal-source-marker_0.3394314445078076" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The light slides across my front yard from a different angle this afternoon and takes on a color that is unique to this time of year. In spite of my grief over the loss of light as we march toward winter, I have to say that what light we do have is beautiful. The movement of the light through the trees half laden with leaves no longer green, stirred the sluggish waters of my soul to declare with my mouth that there is One greater than me. And He is worthy of praise just because He is.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I dug out my running tights and laced up my shoes for what I thought would be an obligatory 30 minute jog down and back on the greenway trail behind my house. I needed exercise, but these days it feels huge to get unstuck from my lethargy long enough to get started out the door. But, today I made it through the door and to the trail. Surprisingly, I kept going past the end of the trail and onto the pipeline right of way that eventually takes me to the river. It was a beautiful afternoon with the rich variety of autumnal colors and smells drawing me on and into conversation with the One who made the seasonal cycles. I had a lot of not so new things on my heart and mind.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I have been reading a book written by Kent Gilges, entitled </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">A Grace Given</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. On the front of the book are these word: “There is a blessing sent from God in every burden of sorrow. There is hope in that, hope even in a dying child.” The author tells the story of his first born daughter, Elie, who as an infant had a tumor growing in the middle of her brain. The story weaves through doctors offices, hope springing out of despair through a promising surgery, a near deadly seizure, a long hospital stay, a pilgrimage to Lourdes, France, and countless encounters between Elie and her parents, grandparents and others impacted by her dying self over her 10 years of life. Gilges says this of his daughter: “More than a handmaiden, Elie herself is the hand of God, the dove that descends. A child purely innocently and utterly dependent is the gateway to divinity. Elie has been a centering point for God in our family.” pg. 192</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I thought about death and dying on my walk/run through the woods along the pipeline. My father died this past spring after living with cancer for a year and a half. That year and a half was bitter sweet and brought my family many blessings out of sorrow. The greatest blessing we gained was time...time to live and breathe and have our being together. My Father was our centering point for God in our family. He knew where he had come from and where he was going. We were blessed to be with him.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The grief I have experienced since his death and made complicated by other losses coinciding has been dressed in the familiar expressions of depression. For most of my life I have felt the vacillating force and moulding weight of depression. Winston Churchill named his depression “the black dog on my back”. Depression, in it’s endless shapes and forms and degrees of power, seems to always want to destroy one’s life. Sometimes the threat is very real. Depression can be dark and mysterious, wild and potentially deadly. But, today, on my walk, the “black dog” just trotted alongside me, almost manageable. I even felt free to think that this force of death has been for me a “gateway to divinity”.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Today’s display of autumnal creativity comes because of death. In the same way that reduced light and increasing cold yields brilliant variations in color as the leaves finish their season of life, I found myself allowing for the truth that there are some beautiful results of the lessening light and the cold passages through my seasons of depression. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I watched a movie last night in which a woman was caught up by a tsunami and the raging waters carried her through the small town. At one point she crashes headfirst into a submerged structure. Her life ebbs away and the waters drag her under. What she “sees” as she is dying cannot be described to others after being resuscitated. Yet, she has been transformed. Her death and encounter with that which is beyond death transfigures her. Others think she is crazy. She is forced into a place that isolates her. In a similar way, depression, in its greatest strength, is like being overwhelmed and dragged down and under with a sense that your life is ebbing away. You feel isolated and alone. You feel blind and powerless, helpless and desperate. You struggle and thrash. Sometimes fear runs rampant and screams at you in many voices at the same time. And then sometimes you crash. The struggle is over. The fighting stops. It is in this passing through to surrender that you see the light and afterwards nothing is quite the same.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Of course life with depression is full of these life/death/life experiences. Sometimes the “dying” lasts for days or months or longer. All the while, you are reminded that the “black dog” can never be tamed completely in this life. But, of course, you have to try. You have to pay attention. Consistent efforts to discipline must be practiced. Medications must be dispensed. You research the best ways to train him. You pay out lots of money for the latest whisperer class. You blame your husband for creating the monster. You blame anyone and everyone and every circumstance. Mostly, you blame yourself. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">But, it is possible the black dog, the powerless child, or the drowning self leads you to a place that otherwise you might never see. You catch a glimpse of life after death...full of faith, hope, and love as everlasting truths. Promises become greater than reality. Then, you know. You have to believe. Not to believe will give power to death. In believing, you begin to see the One who creates beauty through the dying. You know Him when He draws alongside and partners in the suffering. You know He has been that way before. He walks with you amidst the fire. He goes down into the deep water ahead of you. He finds you in your misery. He releases your feet from the snare. He saves you from your shame. He is greater than your body chemistry. He is the Potter, you are the clay. He turns your mourning into dancing. He is the One greater. </span>Zibahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09567716256604769311noreply@blogger.com3