Thursday, November 26, 2009

Lord of the Rings

It's Thanksgiving weekend, and my little retreat moments have been found (so far) in re-watching Lord of the Rings. Tonight my family watched The Two Towers. I was struck, once again, by the character of Sam. For some reason, he's my favorite. Maybe it's because he is so unassuming, so loyal, so unaffected by those striving around him to be brave and strong and heroic. All I know is that there is something heroic about him just being Sam, a little hobbit tossed into an epic story--or maybe a little hobbit who made it an epic story.

Scene from the movie--

Frodo: I can't do this, Sam.

Sam: I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.

Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?

Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Henri nouwen quotes:

"As long as we continue to live as if we are what we do, what we have, and what other people think about us, we will remain filled with judgments, opinions, evaluations, and condemnations. We will remain addicted to putting people and things in their "right" place."
— Henri J.M. Nouwen

"Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure."
— Henri J.M. Nouwen

"Becoming the beloved is pulling the truth revealed to me from above down into the ordinariness of what I am, in fact, thinking of, talking about and doing from hour to hour."
— Henri J.M. Nouwen

"You are the heir to the Kingdom. Prosperity is your birth right and you hold the key to more abundance in every area of your life then you can possibly imagine."
— Henri J.M. Nouwen

"Dear God,
I am so afraid to open my clenched fists!
Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to?
Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands?
Please help me to gradually open my hands
and to discover that I am not what I own,
but what you want to give me.
And what you want to give me is love,
unconditional, everlasting love.
Amen."
— Henri J.M. Nouwen

"The leaders of the future will be those who dare to claim their irrelevance in the contemporary world as a divine vocation..."
— Henri J.M. Nouwen

solitude begins with a time and a place for God, and God alone. If we really believe not only that God exists but also that God is actively present in our lives-- healing, teaching and guiding-- we need to set aside a time and space to give God our undivided attention. (Matt 6:6)"
— Henri J.M. Nouwen

Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it."
— Henri J.M. Nouwen

"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares."
— Henri J.M. Nouwen (The Road to Daybreak: A Spiritual Journey)

Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasinly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family."
— Henri J.M. Nouwen

Henri Nouwen said it well:

There is a false form of honesty that suggests that nothing should remain hidden and that everything should be said, expressed and communicated. This honesty can be very harmful, and if it does not harm, it at least makes the relationship flat, superficial, empty and often very boring. When we try to shake off our loneliness by creating a milieu without limiting boundaries, we may become entangled in a stagnating closeness. It is our vocation to prevent the harmful exposure of our inner sanctuary, not only for our own protection but also as a service to our fellow human being with whom we want to enter in a creative communion. Just as words lose their power when they are not born out of silence, so openness loses its meaning when there is no ability to be closed. Our world is full of empty chatter, easy confessions, hollow talk, senseless compliments, poor praise, and boring confidentialities. Not a few magazines become wealthy by suggesting that they are able to furnish us with the most secret and intimate details of the lives of people we always wanted to know more about. In fact, they present us with the most boring trivialities and the most supercilious idiosyncrasies of people whose lives are already flattened out by morbid exhibitionism.

the only choice now:

is that i can't turn back.

I never understood why people used the word wrecked to describe an effect of extravagant love. now i do.

the minute i saw you running down that lane, i wanted to run the other way. i was angry that you cared that much. i was angry that you wanted me back. i don't deserve that kind of love. you met me there on that road, God. you met me there after i broke your heart a zillion times. you met me there after i let bitterness creep in and woundedness whisper lies to me about your character. you met me there even after i denied your friendship..and i've known you my whole life. i betrayed you.

Abba, i don't get it. this love. but i understand how wrecked is sometimes the only description to adequately convey what happens under the weight of your love. it sounds almost violent. but it is violent.

God, i'm wrecked. i have no choice. i must follow you.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Thin Place

“Thin places,” the Celts call this space,
Both seen and unseen,
Where the door between the world
And the next is cracked open for a moment
And the light is not all on the other side.
God shaped space. Holy.

-poet Sharlande Sledge

I have this growing interest in studying what the ancient Celtics referred to as thin places. For them, this phrase meant "that heaven and earth are only three feet apart, but in the thin places that distance is even smaller. A thin place is where the veil that separates heaven and earth is lifted and one is able to receive a glimpse of the glory of God."

I read on a website something a guy wrote on thin places. It really made me long for this in my life--to walk in a way where heaven and earth are constantly in meeting. (http://www.explorefaith.org/mystery/mysteryThinPlaces.html)

"It is no wonder that thin places are most often associated with wild landscapes. A thin place requires us to step from one world to another and that often means traveling to a place where we have less control and where the unpredictable becomes the means of discovery. Rugged seacoast like the Cliffs of St. David’s, windswept Islands like Iona, and rocky mountain peaks like Croagh Patrick were thin places in ancient times and still call out to pilgrims today. These sanctuaries of creation help us as John O’donohue writes, 'to anchor our longing in the ancient longing of Nature.'

...in a thin place there is an immediacy of experience where words of faith become words of life. In this hallowed space and time heaven and earth for a moment are one. I wanted to sing the song of an anonymous 9th century Welsh poet:

Almighty Creator, it is you who have made the land and the sea…
All your wonders, O true Lord!
The Father created the world by a miracle;
It is difficult to express its measure.
Letters cannot contain it, letters cannot contain it.
We return from thin places refreshed and renewed. We are graced with a new awareness of the thin places in all of life. Having seen the glimpses of glory in those sacred landscapes, we begin to see glimpses all around us. Soon the birds outside our window sing of the mystery we might have passed over in our busyness. Suddenly we see the holiness of places like Bowden Springs and we understand the awe and wonder of the Welsh minister Thomas Jones who exclaimed:

Our Lord is great, and great His praise
From just this one small part of earth,
Then what of the image of His greatness
Which comes from the whole of His fine work?
…What of the greatness and pure loveliness,
Of God Himself?"

I have an obsession...

with bikes.

Obviously.

project for class3

 
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project for class 2

 
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Project for class

 
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Sunday, November 8, 2009

i remember You

"So I remember You where the Jordan River begins..."
[psalm 42:6]

I walk around with this secret desire for everyone to promise me that they won't dislike me,ignore me,hurt me, break my heart. And I need that promise from them before I will trust them with any part of my heart. That's a lot of pressure to put on broken humanity--especially when I'm just as prone to inflicting pain on another.

So today I am taking that secret and pulling it into the light. Those relationships that fell apart--the friendships that didn't last--I'm giving you the band-aid I used to try to keep that from happening again.

Thank You for showing me this, Jesus. Thank You for loving me enough to uncover painful places in my heart that I've kept from Your balm of Gilead.

Thank You that wholeness is my portion. And that You are the One I can count on--You are that faithful friend.

Teach me to walk in Your ways.

Amen.

Holiness

Jesus, I wanna know what you look like...
there's nothing compared to the joy of the cross...
that place of being born.

"Got a mountain up ahead and a few I've left behind
So do you
The older you are, the more mountains you've left behind
And if you're like me
you've ran up to the top of those mountains sometimes so fast
that when you got to the top,
you were bored.
You looked back on that mountain and it defined
the little in your life
Cause a life isn't in the top of the moutain
Life's on the sides of the mountain
So you go over a few mountains in life.
Some of them you go over too fast and they define little
And you leave a few behind
But then you start to realize that if my present is the place that my future will define--
the sides of the mountain is what the top of the mountain defines
Then I want to slow things down
I want to take a little time
So help me Jesus
Help me do it Jesus." (Jason Upton)

"Allow God to write your story--that's what it means to be holy...God's intention for your life is for you to be holy--he wants you to pray and worship like He created you to worship...He wants you to eventually get to the place where you allow Him to write His story. If we never allow God to write our story, we're constantly trying to live somebody else's. That's what movements do. They push us to live somebody else's story. You weren't created to live somebody else's story...my story hasn't been written yet. It's BEING written. So is yours. So we can't know where we're going cause there's nobody else like you. So we reaise our hands and surrender to You Jesus and say we wanna follow You Jesus..." (Upton)

http://www.jasonupton.net/vision/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=181:holy-message&catid=43:messages&Itemid=58

Monday, November 2, 2009

"pazzo d'amore, ebro d'amore"

"crazed with love, drunk with love"

This morning I'm listening to the song Liquid Love by Janna Adams.

"one touch/and i turn into liquid love/my heart to the flower and I'm undone/so close/i can't tell where i end and You begin/if only this could be the way I live./I want to love You/like nobody's ever loved you before/falling in love is/a bittersweet ache that becomes beautiful/You come and kiss away the fears inside my heart/i realize how many there are/oh stay/and not just cause i need You to survive/but simply cause i want You in my life/i wanna love You/like nobody's ever loved You before/falling in love is/a bittersweet ache that becomes beautiful/i wanna be wherever You are/i wanna be wherever You are/i wanna be wherever You are."

This is the cry of my heart--Not a competition to love You the "best". More like knowing that only one of me will ever walk the earth, and I have a chance to love You with ever breath I take, in the way that You created me to love You. Each person has a chance to love You with all of their heart, soul, and strength.

Just some thoughts this morning.