Prayer

"The value of consistent, fervent prayer is not that He will eventually hear us, but that we will eventually hear Him." ~William McGill

"God punishes us mildly by ignoring our half-hearted or selfish prayers and severely by answering them." ~Richard J. Needham

"When we pray to God we must be seeking nothing that He hasn't already given us - nothing at all." ~Saint Francis of Assisi

"Prayer may not always change things for you, but it most definitely can change you for things." ~Samuel M. Shoemaker

"We have to pray with our eyes on the bigness of God, not on the bigness of our difficulties." ~Oswald Chambers

"God speaks in the silence of the heart. Listening deeply is the beginning of prayer." ~Mother Teresa

"Pray for what you need, believe you have received it, and it is yours." ~Bible - Mark 11:24 (NIV)

"Prayer does not ever change God, but it changes him who prays." ~Søren Kierkegaard


"Grow flowers of gratitude in the rich, fertile soil of prayer." ~Verbena Woods

Prayer is a funny thing and is so often both grossly misunderstood and sadly misused. It isn't the same thing as hoping to win the lottery (such a weak, pathetic position), and it is both foolish and futile to weakly wish that God would fix our situations or other people for us (or even fix us, for that matter, for fixing is not what's really needed), while actually not believing in either Him or ourselves, as if He were some magical, whimsical, most likely wacky wizard, and we are like Dorothy, Toto, the scarecrow, the tin man, or the cowardly lion. Talk about disempowered, disingenuous, disinherited.

He doesn't tend to engage us when we are so clueless as to who He is and who we are as His beloved children. Prayer is God's beautiful invitation to us (an access method, so to speak) into preparedness for deep interaction with Him, to help us more fully see and recognize Who we are coming into dialogue with and what He has already done for us, for all time, and that He stands ready to help us receive Him in real and true and wonderful ways. Prayer, if fully engaged in earnest, re-forms us into ready receivers and distributors of His gifts and His grace and His power.

In fact, prayer is a like a home supply transformer in an electric power delivery system that allows for the safe and effective "download" of His awesome, unlimited power into ready and practical use in our lives and in our homes, knowing that there is already more of His ready power than we could ever need or effectively use (because full access would totally obliterate us), and it is us who must change to acquire and utilize it in our human lives.



Weak prayer makes God small, mean, and fickle in our minds, and us weak and pathetic. Faithful prayer makes us His, glad, and sure in our hearts, and Him His Huge Magnanimous, Magnificent, Marvelous Self - the Ultimate and Totally Reliable Power Plant of the entire universe, made accessible and totally available at a human and personal level.

Community Life

"If you have come to help me (or be helped by me), you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together to be free."

-- Aboriginal Activists Group, Queensland, 1970, often attributed to Lila Watson, who has said she was "not comfortable being credited for something that had been born of a collective process" - the attribution here is the one she accepts.

"We don't accomplish anything in this world alone ... and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one's life and all the weavings of individual threads from one to another that creates something."

-- Sandra Day O'Connor

"So long as we receive and eat our daily bread together as equals, we shall have sufficient, even for the least. Not until one person desires to secure his own bread, hoarding it for himself, does hunger and poverty ensue, and it isn't solvable by condescending handouts."

-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in Life Together

"We are all longing to go home to a place we feel we've never been — a place half-remembered and half-envisioned, that we can only catch glimpses of from time to time. Community. Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats. Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own unique access to (His) power. Community means strength that joins our strength, to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of acceptance and healing. A circle of true and lasting friends. Someplace where we can be free and learn to take the light of freedom out into the rest of our lives."

-- Starhawk

"It takes true community to really know an individual. Christians commonly say that they want to 'get to know Jesus better.' But you will never be able to do that by yourself. You must be deeply involved (as an equal) in community life, with strong relationships of accountability, love, and reciprocal service and teaching, and you must struggle through conflict and hardship together, learning new things about yourself, as well as new distinctions about what it is to be a human being, and along the way gather a few useful new communication and relational tools, and, most importantly, learn to stay no matter what, and only if you are actually a part of such committed community life - seeking to resemble, serve, and love Jesus, inviting his loving spirit into every conversation -will you ever be in a position to lay your whole newly discovered self down and let him live for and through you."

-- Timothy Keller, in The Prodigal God

I love the work I get to do one on one, connecting deeply with another person in a place of love, openness, and truth, but my life is more expansively created and I am made most whole in community life, for I am so much more than the me I experience through the single lens of my own consciousness, or the me that gets reflected back to me by one relationship that I can sometimes manipulate and control (or at least suffer the illusion that I can), but in the space where I can't fully see myself from all the angles, through certain other lenses I'm not even aware of, the place of simple being observed by many, here is a creative space that is so much more than my own invention, where we all are co-creators of each other, and when God is in the center of that, invited in to cleanse and purify, what gets created is beautiful beyond description.

Who are the poor we are to serve?

It is important to remember that I am both the consecrated "healer" and the capitulated "in need of healing," and from that deep, holy place, true connection with others becomes more than a heart's desire, it becomes tangible reality. And I don't have to be the "good one" (which, as a motivation, usually has me be not so good), or the direct cause of anything, while everything good takes place all around me. My sacrifice (for my benefit) can be like the wick in the candle that lights a room full of candles, but God is the eternal flame, looking for me to spread Him to other wicks as I burn down. Some candles are small and simple; some are rather large and ornate. Both hold or hide from the flame exactly the same.


Who Are the Poor? (Henri Nouwen Society)

The poor are the center of the Church. But who are the poor? At first we might think of people who are not like us: people who live in slums, people who go to soup kitchens, people who sleep on the streets, people in prisons, mental hospitals, and nursing homes, people with no food or hope or water in the far reaches of the planet. But the poor can be very close. They can be in our own families, churches, or workplaces. Even closer, the poor can be ourselves, who feel unloved, rejected, ignored, or abused. It is precisely when we see and experience poverty in any place or in any way - whether far away, close by, or in our own hearts - that we need to become the Church; that is, to hold hands as brothers and sisters, confess our own brokenness and need, forgive one another, heal one another's wounds, and gather around the table of Jesus for the breaking of the bread. Thus, as the poor we recognize Jesus, who became poor for us.


Becoming the Church of the Poor (Henri Nouwen Society)

When we claim our own poverty and connect our poverty with the poverty of our brothers and sisters, we become the Church of the poor, which is the Church of Jesus. Solidarity is essential for the Church of the poor. Both pain and joy must be shared. As one body we will experience deeply one another's agonies as well as one another's ecstasies. As Paul says: "If one part is hurt, all the parts share its pain. And if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy" (1 Corinthians 12:26). Often we might prefer not to be part of the body because it makes us feel the pain of others so intensely. Every time we love others deeply we feel their pain deeply. However, joy is hidden in the pain. When we share the pain we also will share the joy.


The Poverty of Our Leaders (or, the big, ornate candles) (Henri Nouwen Society)

There is a tendency to think about poverty, suffering, and pain as realities that happen primarily or even exclusively at the bottom rung of our Church ladder. We seldom think of our leaders as poor or starving. Still, there is great poverty, deep loneliness, painful isolation, real depression, and much emotional suffering at the top of our Church as well. We need the courage to acknowledge the suffering of the leaders of our Church - its ministers, pastors, priests, bishops, and popes - and include them in this "fellowship of the weak." When we are not distracted by the power, wealth, success, and outward appearance of those who offer leadership, we will soon discover their powerlessness, poverty, and failures and feel free to reach out to them with the same compassion we want to give to those at the bottom. In God's eyes there is no distance between bottom and top. There shouldn't be in our eyes either.



So remember, as you go to "light" another or many other candles, in the offer of your guidance, help, or support, whether in your neighborhood or on the other side of the world, the "light" that you are willing to carry is not your own, but is borrowed from the Eternal One, and it requires your complete and sacrificial burning in the sharing.

"'Give us this day our daily bread' is probably the most perfectly constructed and useful sentence ever set down in the English language."

-- P.J. Wingate


From a dear friend, on this subject of daily bread:


Jim:

This made me think of you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2oi6y292kE&feature=related

Jason



Proverbs 30:7-9 (New International Version)

7 "Two things I ask of you, O LORD;
do not refuse me before I die:

8 Keep falsehood and lies far from me;
give me neither poverty nor riches,
but give me only my daily bread.

9 Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
and say, 'Who is the LORD ?'
Or I may become poor and steal,
and so dishonor the name of my God.

"The first call which every Christian experiences is the call to abandon attachment to this world. Earthly possessions (and even human relationships) dazzle our eyes and delude us into thinking that they can provide security and freedom from anxiety. Yet all the time they are often the very source of our anxiety. What He so gracefully promises and so mercifully provides is daily bread. And it is the joyful banquet of a surrendered life. And from that simple table, all good things become possible."

-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in The Cost of Discipleship

We are called to an abundant life - not to produce it for ourselves (which defies our pride and performance anxiety), for it already exists and awaits us, but to receive, enjoy, and fully appreciate it. But to do so there are some simple rules to follow, and they are: 1) to remember Who the Source of that abundance is, 2) to put that relationship focus above all else, 3) to listen and obey at all times, and 4) to help, love, and share our abundance with others, vs. hoarding it for ourselves. This requires belief and faith, which includes action aligned with our belief. It's a real toughie for most.

We would rather battle things out for ourselves (than receive for free), whether with enemies (real or imaginary) or with those who we claim to love (even within ourselves). In fact, we just love playing tug of war with ourselves.

Cause for excitement

"When the proverbial 'sh## hits the fan' among us, I get really excited about what's 'already happening' in His response."

-- Yours Truly

"Out-of-control troublemakers are our greatest blessing, because they force us to re-evaluate who and Whose we are."

-- Yours Truly

I love fireworks, even of the human variety. I love great explosive displays of color, heat, and light. Nothing is more like that than when God steps in to a real and totally unpredictable firestorm of human lunacy to deliver His grace and mercy. We already know how it all turns out, because He has already solved the problem for all time. So, if we have that clarity and right perspective, we are free to get real excited when things go way over-the-top crazy and out of control, when everything seem to be running amuck, and when the totally self-absorbed expressions of human depravity and meanness seem to know no limits, and when clearly no amount or quality of human intervention can change or solve anything. This is truly "the stage being set," and, if we're present and faithful, we can pull out our lounge chairs and watch with joyful expectancy, going oooooooohhhh, aaaaaaaaaaahhhh! at every new miracle.

Well, the days are here, and ##it's really flying all over the place, way more than I can handle (Thank God!), and people are driving over the cliff screaming their battle cries, and I am really excited, and in total awe of the imminent and inevitable! I just can't wait to see the next miraculous display of His endless, outrageous, wondrous creativity!

And sometimes our aligned efforts and intentions appear to help another in the short term, and sometimes they definitely doesn't, but in the end it always works itself out, according to His plan. The following exchange is from the rather difficult movie, "Into the Wild," based on a true story about the futility of running away from our relational lives. Ron was waiting with a light about a yard outside the gates of Chris' hell, but he still couldn't stop him from his self-appointed kamikaze mission of discovery. Sometimes, although it doesn't seem to change things very much for the one, an open, loving heart can crack open and pour itself out and fuel stories and reminders that deliver encouragement and insights for the many.

Ron Franz (brilliantly played by Hal Holbrook): I'm going to miss you when you go.

Christopher McCandless (passionately played by Emile Hirsch): I will miss you too, but you are wrong if you think that the joy of life comes principally from the joy of human relationships. God's place is all around us. It is in everything and in anything we can experience. People just need to change the way they look at things.

Ron Franz: Yeah. I am going to take stock of that. You know I am. I want to tell you something. From bits and pieces of what you have told me about your family, your mother and your dad... And I know you have problems with the church too... But there is some kind of bigger thing that we can all appreciate and it sounds to me you don't mind calling it God. But when you forgive, you love. And when you love, God's light shines through you.

Christopher McCandless: Holy shit (as the sun breaks through the clouds at that precise moment)! (And then later) But what if some people feel like they don’t deserve love? Can't they just walk away quietly into empty spaces, trying to close the gaps of the past.


And as some people I know "walk away" into those dark "empty spaces," trying to close those painful "gaps of the past," I still hold God's flashlight, calling out to them. I'll even sit with them for a while and talk things through, sharing stories and points of view, and I can listen to their hearts for a very long time, for I have walked in their shoes, and I can even be part of God's fireworks, if need be, but I won't chase them down, or try to fix, rescue, or save them. That would be the most dishonoring insult of all.

Spiritual leaders are wherever they show up.

About church and church leadership and their role in serving the Body; it is not always what we want, think, know, fear, expect, or dream up. In the case of spiritual leaders, they show up wherever God chooses for them to, usually in unlikely faces and places. Unlike in "our story," in which we are either the victim (like young Bruce Wayne in the Batman story) or the would-be superhero (like Batman himself) that can't quite get the job done in ridding the world of darkness and bad guys, in "His Story" we are all merely bit players (like Alfred) - sometimes the "leader," sometimes the "led," all the time the humble servant - willing to let His Story victoriously play itself out, effortlessly, instead of forcing and manipulating adherence and attention to our bumbling, castle-in-the-sand-making, silly, sputtering, whiny windmill-chasing melodrama.


Our Spiritual Leaders (Henri Nouwen Society)

The Church as the body of Christ has many faces and places. The Church prays and worships. It speaks words of instruction and healing, cleanses us from our sins, invites us to the table of the Lord, binds us together in a perfect covenant of love, sends us out to minister, anoints us when we are sick or dying, and accompanies us in our search for meaning and our daily need for encouragement and support. All these faces might not come to us from just within certain buildings or from only those we look to as our leaders. But when we live our lives with a simple trust that Jesus comes to us in our Church, we will see the Church's ministry in places and in faces where we least expect it. If we truly love Jesus, Jesus will send us exactly the right people at precisely the right time to give us what we really need most. And these will be our truest spiritual leaders.


The Weakest in the Center (Henri Nouwen Society)

The most honored parts of the body are not the head or the hands which lead and control. The most important parts are the least presentable parts (the hidden, soft, vulnerable innards, so to speak). That's the real mystery of the Church. As a people called out of oppression to freedom, we must recognize that it is the softest and weakest among us - the elderly, the small children, the handicapped, the mentally ill, the hungry and sick, the desperately lost and forlorn - who form the real center. Paul says, "It is the parts of the body which we consider least dignified, that we surround with the greatest dignity" (1 Corinthians 12:23). The Church as the people of God can only truly embody the living Christ among us only when the helpless, hurting, poor, and weak remain its most treasured part. Caring for the helpless, hurting, poor, and weak, not to "change" or "fix" them (for they are what they are), but to serve and suffer with them, therefore, is much more than Christian charity. It is the essence of being the real and true Body of Christ.