It is like no other thing in life to me. Tragedy just strikes. It is like a blow from a fist that you did not see coming. At first, you are stunned. You know something just happened. You know you didn't see it coming. You're trying to process it. What just happened? Then the pain starts. Ouch...that really hurts...no, that REALLY hurts. There's nothing you could have done to prevent it, there's no time for regrets. There's just that pain.
That's what death of a friend is like. That's what death is like at all when you are experiencing it as one who is left behind.
On Friday morning Angel Cuevas Hernandez passed away from us. We can no longer touch the soul that was his, we can no longer make him laugh, or wonder what will Angel do next. We just know that he has drifted away...quietly and almost peacefully.
But it still hits the rest of us like a punch in the face. I love you Angel...I miss you Angel. I feel so much pain at your passing.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Jesus didn't get the memo...
Jesus once said, "Do you think I have come to bring peace on this earth?" Well, duh...of course. unless this is a trick question...as most of them are. I'm going to say, yes. Yes, you did come to bring peace on the earth. All that beating spears into plowshares, loving your neighbor, good Samaritan stuff... Did Jesus not get the memo?
"No, I have come to bring division." Ahh crap...it was a trick question.
I read this and I am confused. Aren't you? After all what is the point of the message of reconciliation to God through Christ? What is the message of love that Jesus brought. Didn't all the miracles, all the healings, all of the stuff about seeing the father by seeing him...didn't all that intend to bring about the "kingdom on earth?" And isn't the kingdom on earth all green pastures, country songs, and lemonade on a warm afternoon? Peace, right?
It seems like it should be so, but just for one moment, try to step out and respond to what you think is the voice of God. For just one moment try to stand up and say...I think God is calling me to do ____________. Now, the crap starts flying...trust me. Following the way of Christ inevitably puts us in contradiction to 99.9% of the rest of the world. But it doesn't entitle us to scream at the world, to belittle the world, or to shove our ideas down the throats of the world. Our calling is to simply walk down the new path and follow the way of Christ. Sometimes, this quiet and humble way can put us in the way of of some pretty powerful forces. Sometimes, our path takes us into on-coming traffic. At that point, there is division...there is conflict...there is not "peace" in the external, feel good, not going to bother no-body kind of way. In fact, sometimes just following the path puts us in a place of such contradiction that others might feel threatened, judged, and alienated by us. I'm not saying we intend to do those things...but it happens.
Example...an entire wealthy family in the Atlanta area decides that they have too much, their lifestyle is too wasteful, they have to make a change. They don't ask anyone else to do it. They don't say the world of McMansions and car payments, and credit cards, and perpetual shopping sprees is bad...they just say, "we're going to try another way." They decided cut all their expenses in half and use the savings to do some really stupid things. Things like put wells in remote villages in Africa, build schools, and teach people how to make things that will lift their families out of poverty.
They didn't go around to their neighbors, family, and friends and tell them how selfish and wrong they were. They just decided that they had to do this. It was their calling, it was their responsibility. The reaction they got from their friends and from their family members outside the home was surprising...or maybe not. Many friends felt judged, even though they weren't judged. Many friends cut off communication with them or wouldn't visit them in their new, smaller, and "dangerous" neighborhood home. Many family thought they were crazy and felt like they couldn't maintain a relationship with them.
I have not come to bring peace... I don't think Jesus is really saying he sets out to bring division in the same sense that we understand these thing in our secular world. I think he is saying that we are called by Him to follow Him, and that His path for us is different. Yes, it is divided from the path of 99.9% of the rest of the world. If we choose to follow that path, it does not make us special, it does not entitle us to anything above anyone else. All it means is that we have chosen a different way. We are not on the same road...we are on the road to follow Christ. Peace will come... It will be in our hearts. It will be a peaceful and satisfied mind. It will be a peaceful soul. Why peace in the midst of confusion and division? It will come because Christ shows us that what the world cares about the most, is the stuff that matters the least. Through Christ we will know true love. We will know honest relationships. We will know that the things of this world will continue to pass away, and that as long as we continue to seek satisfaction in them, we will be hungry and thirsty. We will know that when we drink of the true cup and eat the true bread, we will never again hunger, and never again thirst.
"No, I have come to bring division." Ahh crap...it was a trick question.
I read this and I am confused. Aren't you? After all what is the point of the message of reconciliation to God through Christ? What is the message of love that Jesus brought. Didn't all the miracles, all the healings, all of the stuff about seeing the father by seeing him...didn't all that intend to bring about the "kingdom on earth?" And isn't the kingdom on earth all green pastures, country songs, and lemonade on a warm afternoon? Peace, right?
It seems like it should be so, but just for one moment, try to step out and respond to what you think is the voice of God. For just one moment try to stand up and say...I think God is calling me to do ____________. Now, the crap starts flying...trust me. Following the way of Christ inevitably puts us in contradiction to 99.9% of the rest of the world. But it doesn't entitle us to scream at the world, to belittle the world, or to shove our ideas down the throats of the world. Our calling is to simply walk down the new path and follow the way of Christ. Sometimes, this quiet and humble way can put us in the way of of some pretty powerful forces. Sometimes, our path takes us into on-coming traffic. At that point, there is division...there is conflict...there is not "peace" in the external, feel good, not going to bother no-body kind of way. In fact, sometimes just following the path puts us in a place of such contradiction that others might feel threatened, judged, and alienated by us. I'm not saying we intend to do those things...but it happens.
Example...an entire wealthy family in the Atlanta area decides that they have too much, their lifestyle is too wasteful, they have to make a change. They don't ask anyone else to do it. They don't say the world of McMansions and car payments, and credit cards, and perpetual shopping sprees is bad...they just say, "we're going to try another way." They decided cut all their expenses in half and use the savings to do some really stupid things. Things like put wells in remote villages in Africa, build schools, and teach people how to make things that will lift their families out of poverty.
They didn't go around to their neighbors, family, and friends and tell them how selfish and wrong they were. They just decided that they had to do this. It was their calling, it was their responsibility. The reaction they got from their friends and from their family members outside the home was surprising...or maybe not. Many friends felt judged, even though they weren't judged. Many friends cut off communication with them or wouldn't visit them in their new, smaller, and "dangerous" neighborhood home. Many family thought they were crazy and felt like they couldn't maintain a relationship with them.
I have not come to bring peace... I don't think Jesus is really saying he sets out to bring division in the same sense that we understand these thing in our secular world. I think he is saying that we are called by Him to follow Him, and that His path for us is different. Yes, it is divided from the path of 99.9% of the rest of the world. If we choose to follow that path, it does not make us special, it does not entitle us to anything above anyone else. All it means is that we have chosen a different way. We are not on the same road...we are on the road to follow Christ. Peace will come... It will be in our hearts. It will be a peaceful and satisfied mind. It will be a peaceful soul. Why peace in the midst of confusion and division? It will come because Christ shows us that what the world cares about the most, is the stuff that matters the least. Through Christ we will know true love. We will know honest relationships. We will know that the things of this world will continue to pass away, and that as long as we continue to seek satisfaction in them, we will be hungry and thirsty. We will know that when we drink of the true cup and eat the true bread, we will never again hunger, and never again thirst.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Where is my heart?
It is easy to be angry in this world. It is easy to think that what is going on is personally directed at me. It is easy for me to think that I am the center of my world. It is what I have been taught since birth. When I cried, my mommy came to me. When I complained, something changed. When I acted up, I was quickly disciplined. My world responds to me. Therefore, I must be the most important thing in it.
Then I sit quietly for a minute, and I realize that there are a lot of things going on in the world that happen irregardless of me. For a moment I catch a glimpse of how off base my natural thinking and assumed perspective must be. I, the center of my world? The politicos, musicians, customer service representatives, all waiting for my response, my engagement, my opinion, my blessing? It sounds so absurd, but it is exactly the natural state of mind for most of us. The world is reacting to me. The world is waiting for me. The world is designed to screw me. The world is designed to support me.
I even bring this paradigm to my perceptions of God. I filter my readings of the Bible, my beliefs about Christ and what salvation and liberation are to this. I elevate myself to the very center of my universe. But not only my universe. I actually must think that I am the center of my spirituality, as well as my physical world. How lonely a place this leaves me in.
Luke, 12:34 contains the statement from Jesus "Where your treasure is, there your heart be, also." Regardless of all the treasures of this life, I think the most corrupting, the most obvious, and most likely the one at the foundation of it all for us...is the treasure of thinking it is all about me, first and foremost. I can be the grandest fighter for human rights, the greatest general on the battlefield fighting for the cause of freedom, or the nastiest criminal, or the worst human being to walk the planet...and I can still be thinking that it is all about me. I can still be of the perspective that it is all centered around me... My treasure is me.
Now imagine a world where you and I are not the center of it. Where God actually created all these things and we are but a one little part of it. It was not exactly just created for your personal enjoyment. The experience you just had in the drive through at McDonalds was not just because of you and for you. The way you were treated was not just good because you are good, or bad because the world is out to screw you...because the world is composed of human beings just like you, created by God, just like you...who have husbands and kids and worries, and joys, and thoughts about life and death, just like you.
So there's really no difference between me and you and everyone else in this world. Irregardless of socio-economic condition, our race, our religion, or the country of our birth and residence, it doesn't matter...it doesn't make us any better or worse than anyone else. We are all children of God, we are all a part of the same family of God. We are all one. Even the divisions that we emphasize like legal/illegal, rich/poor, black/white/Hispanic /Jew/gentile/Arab/Shiite/Sunni...who cares? The true treasure that our heart should be longing for is a heart that loves everyone. I don't mean the feel good, gushy, mushy love that actually has no action that comes from it. I am talking about the good Samaritan, serving and loving one another with a love that could only come from God kind of Love. The kind of Love that we have to capitalize. The kind of Love that we can't even understand or really describe very well. The kind of Love that continues to amaze us and teach us as it extends us and forces us to do things for people in the name of the God that gives us that Love.
Then I sit quietly for a minute, and I realize that there are a lot of things going on in the world that happen irregardless of me. For a moment I catch a glimpse of how off base my natural thinking and assumed perspective must be. I, the center of my world? The politicos, musicians, customer service representatives, all waiting for my response, my engagement, my opinion, my blessing? It sounds so absurd, but it is exactly the natural state of mind for most of us. The world is reacting to me. The world is waiting for me. The world is designed to screw me. The world is designed to support me.
I even bring this paradigm to my perceptions of God. I filter my readings of the Bible, my beliefs about Christ and what salvation and liberation are to this. I elevate myself to the very center of my universe. But not only my universe. I actually must think that I am the center of my spirituality, as well as my physical world. How lonely a place this leaves me in.
Luke, 12:34 contains the statement from Jesus "Where your treasure is, there your heart be, also." Regardless of all the treasures of this life, I think the most corrupting, the most obvious, and most likely the one at the foundation of it all for us...is the treasure of thinking it is all about me, first and foremost. I can be the grandest fighter for human rights, the greatest general on the battlefield fighting for the cause of freedom, or the nastiest criminal, or the worst human being to walk the planet...and I can still be thinking that it is all about me. I can still be of the perspective that it is all centered around me... My treasure is me.
Now imagine a world where you and I are not the center of it. Where God actually created all these things and we are but a one little part of it. It was not exactly just created for your personal enjoyment. The experience you just had in the drive through at McDonalds was not just because of you and for you. The way you were treated was not just good because you are good, or bad because the world is out to screw you...because the world is composed of human beings just like you, created by God, just like you...who have husbands and kids and worries, and joys, and thoughts about life and death, just like you.
So there's really no difference between me and you and everyone else in this world. Irregardless of socio-economic condition, our race, our religion, or the country of our birth and residence, it doesn't matter...it doesn't make us any better or worse than anyone else. We are all children of God, we are all a part of the same family of God. We are all one. Even the divisions that we emphasize like legal/illegal, rich/poor, black/white/Hispanic /Jew/gentile/Arab/Shiite/Sunni...who cares? The true treasure that our heart should be longing for is a heart that loves everyone. I don't mean the feel good, gushy, mushy love that actually has no action that comes from it. I am talking about the good Samaritan, serving and loving one another with a love that could only come from God kind of Love. The kind of Love that we have to capitalize. The kind of Love that we can't even understand or really describe very well. The kind of Love that continues to amaze us and teach us as it extends us and forces us to do things for people in the name of the God that gives us that Love.
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