a meditation by Richard Rohr

Tonite when I would be writing this post...I'm chatting with a friend on facebook. Knew him in highschool. Probably Jr High too. We were never close but he reached out to me on facebook. He seems to need to connect. So we are doing so.

I was blessed this evening by the most beautiful email meditation from Richard Rohr. Thought provoking and revolutionary and, did I mention, beautiful?

It is below...

Question of the Day:Whom do I expel or exclude in my life?
The absolute religious genius of Jesus is that he ignores all debt codes, purity codes, religious quarantines, and the endless searching for sinners. He refuses to divide the world into the pure and the impure, much to the chagrin of almost everybody—then and now. Unlike most churches, he is not into “sin management.” He is into transformation.
Jesus is shockingly not upset with sinners! He is only upset with people who do not think they are sinners. In most of history, religion thought its mission was to somehow expel sin and evil. As if it could. After Jesus we find out that the real sin lies in the very act of expelling. Jesus knew there is no place to expel it to. It only hides underground.
Either we carry and transform the evil of human history as our own problem, or we increase its power by hating and punishing it “over there.” It will eventually come back to bite us. Jesus taught us how to hold, absorb, and transform the human situation, not to deny it, punish it, or project it elsewhere. He then dramatically illustrated this pattern on the cross, and it became resurrection!

Prayers for people in Haiti

Today I was listening to "The World" on PRI and heard a journalist who is in Haiti talking about the people there and how folks were doing. More relief is getting to folks...finally helicopters are being used to bring water, food, supplies to the people. And haitians are hearing on the radio that help is coming that people care.

Anyway this woman said that President Clinton had remarked that he thought that in many ways the level of crime and violence is down in Haiti since the earthquake. The reporter said that yes, there were pockets of unrest, some crime and looting but for the most part people were really rising to the occasion, helping one another.

So here's the thought that came to me: Many, many, many, God only knows how many, people are holding the Haitians, and everyone there helping, in their prayers. And you know what? It's helping!!! Before this quake happened who was thinking about the people of Haiti? Many folks were, but probably many more were not, myself included.

This is why prayer is so important...it works!! But not as in God hears the loudest prayers and intervenes from whence those loudest prayers come. I think that somehow our prayers help people sense that Indwelling Presence of God. And how can that sensing of that Presence not strengthen people and even harmonize them with one another?

Anyway I heard that reporter say that and tears came to my eyes and I cheered, "You go people of Haiti!! You keep on!! We are pulling for you!! You are not alone!!"

So we must continue to hold them for as long as it takes.

Amen.

"From chaos and emptiness,From loneliness and lifelessness,Come, Creator, Come.

From darkness and shapelessness, From abyss and awfulness,Come, Creator, Come.

From fearfulness and hopelessness,From weakness and dreadfulness,Come, Creator, Come."

David Adam, Tides and Seasons



I was thinking about what I would say tonite...not feeling very grateful or blessed at all. Filled instead with anger and disappointment and brokenheartedness. You see I don't want to step into the place of really baring my soul to my counselor because I don't want to let go of the idea that somehow he could someday be my friend or more, even though I know these are just desperate and probably displaced longings. But what am I going to do, drive the hour drive one time a week and pay what I pay, and really can't afford, to simply chat about spirituality and existential angst? I'm not getting any younger here. It's time to release the grip on the fantasy of that "good enough" love and figure out how to be there for myself. So, understandably, I wasn't feeling so grateful with what I see as my choices.



Then on my way here I stopped by my gmail (which is being really screwy and frustrating as of late) and quite by accident opened the email that contained the above prayer. It is absolutely perfect for how I'm feeling this evening and as I read the prayer and realized how perfectly it fit and how timely it was I was reminded of the dear friend who sent it to me and to many others whom she has included on a prayer list.



Then I went to a lot of trouble, fussing with my screwed up gmail, to send her a reply of thanks and appreciation for all she is to me. I am blessed with her and with my church family, the motley assortment of flawed and beautiful humans that they are.



The world is chock full of us flawed and beautiful folk. Thank God many of them are in Haiti and other places of great need, doing their best to help those victims of disasters natural and not, and many, they themselves the victims, helping, blessing one another.



So now I am not feeling totally grateful but at least have, keeping my sadness company, the knowledge of my belonging with this friend and with this community of faith that is mine...



And so I pray for our broken world full of flawed, broken and beautiful life...

"From chaos and emptiness,From loneliness and lifelessness,Come, Creator, Come.
From darkness and shapelessness, From abyss and awfulness,Come, Creator, Come.
From fearfulness and hopelessness,From weakness and dreadfulness,Come, Creator, Come."
David Adam, Tides and Seasons



May we be granted the grace of awakening to our Truest natures, the grace to bless each other and our world with transformation of the fearfulness, hopelessness and brokenness into something whole and life-affirming...It is our calling I think.

Day 15

I missed yesterday. I'm not going to make it up and that's not going to ruin this exercise

Today I feel grateful that after three years in attendance at my church, that there are LOTs of people whom I want to come to my birthday bash!! It's an interesting community, one I'm glad that I'm a part of and feel a sense of belonging to. BELONGING...not that's a blessing indeed!!

I feel blessed also that, for now at least, I have a person to go talk to whose job is to listen to me, to give me the benefit of the doubt, to try to understand and care about me as I work to slog thru these challenging times.

One last blessing that I and my family live inside a well built home, especially on this blustery nite.

Day 14

I feel blessed by the knowledge that help is reaching Haiti, blessed by how many people have the people of Haiti on their minds and are wanting to, and doing, something.

Here's hoping and praying that the momentum increases and has staying power...I've heard "experts" mention sentiments similar to my own that maybe this horrible leveling of a country that has already been struggling against ridiculous odds will end up being some sort of a bottom from which they can only come up, with the real support of many people in many nations throughout the world.

On a more personal level...When I finish here I will go and sit in meditation for at least 10 minutes, scout's honor!!

Other blessings, of a more personal nature, although I'm sure many would agree with me on these: Fridays, three day weekends and mothers who are "there when you need them", even when "when you need them" is when you're "all growed up".

I am vicariously appreciating the blessing of support a mother of a friend of mine is providing for that friend who just had surgery this evening to repair a badly torn rotator cuff. Bless that Mama. She's a good one.

One more blessing, of a most personal nature: good friends who travel more than an hour to spend your 50th birthday with you. I have the promise of this blessing and am feeling blessed by it already.

Day 13 Part 2

I exercised for 10 minutes and meditated for 10 minutes. It took pulling myself kicking and screaming but nonetheless I did it.

Day 13--Help is Arriving

Help is arriving in Haiti. People are being found dead and others are being extricated alive. As the people wait for the supplies and expertise to reach them they are helping one another. Other Haitians are being opportunistic, many are grabbing for what they can get to survive. Help is coming though. I pray that the politics and egos be left behind as much as possible, that the aid workers from the different countries work together, that as everyone in Haiti struggling to come out on the other side of this tragedy continues to move through this time that people find themselves "cocooned in moments of grace"(quoting my dear friend) and that those moments give them the strength to continue....

I'm blessed with food and warm shelter and family and friends safe and basically healthy.
And as I write I know that any of that could change at any moment....and I'm just so grateful for the many, many moments of these blessings I and mine have had. I pray for many, many, many more for me and mine.

For the people of Haiti I pray again, as I did last nite, that out of this rubble that so much of Haitian life has been reduced to, that little seedlings of hope and enough will soon begin to slowly sprout and grow stronger and stronger with the help and support, like sunshine and rain, of enough others in our human family.

God bless our Haitian brothers and sisters and all who are lending their aid.