Wait for it...

I don't have the right personality for Good Friday, for the Crucifixion: I'd like to skip ahead to the resurrection vision of one of the kids in our Sunday school, who drew a picture of the Easter Bunny outside the tomb: everlasting life and a basketful of chocolates. Now you're talking.

In Jesus' real life, the resurrection came two days later, but in our real lives, it can be weeks, years, and you never know for sure when it will come.

I don't have the right personality for the human condition, either. But I believe in the resurrection - In Jesus' and in ours. The trees so stark and gray last month, suddenly went up as if in flame, but instead, in blossoms and leaves - poof! Like someone opening an umbrella. It's hard to find similar dramatic evidence of rebirth and hope in our daily lives.


-Anne Lamott

A.J. Muste Bio Excerpt

At the end of his life, Muste took a leadership role in the movement against the Viet Nam War. Fellow peace activist Andrea Ayvazian tells of Muste standing outside the White House every night during the Viet Nam War, holding a candle, regardless of whether it was raining or not.

One evening, a reporter approached him, and asked if he really thought that by standing outside the White House holding a candle night after night, he would change the policies of the country.

Muste replied: "Oh, you've got it all wrong. I'm not doing this to change the country. I do it so the country won't change me."

Today and every day...

"We are Easter people, living in a Good Friday world" - Barbara Johnson

GOOD Friday

"We celebrated Good Friday... It's a sad day, of loss and cruelty, and all you have to go on is faith that the light shines in the darkness, and nothing, not death, not disease, not even the government, can overcome it.

I hate that you cannot prove the beliefs of my faith. If I were God, I'd have the answers at the end of the workbook, so you could check as you went along, to see if you're on the right track. But nooooooooo. Darkness is our context, and Easter's context: without it you couldn't see the light. Hope is not about proving anything. It's about choosing to believe this one thing, that love is bigger than any grim, bleak shit anyone can throw at us"

-Anne Lamott

Prepare the homilist

"As you go forth in your preparation, you will spend much time preparing homilies. But even more important is the preparation of the homilist. That means, we are called to preach who we are and what we are.

We preach what we know...and what we know is that God loves us, and that is the message with which we must begin our ministry. God loves us for who we are, not because we are worthy, not because we earn it, not because of what we do. God has made a covenant with us, that he will love us no matter what.

-Bishop Thomas Curry, of Santa Barbara


via the dE-acon

Seven Churches

Seven Churches

Unless you become like these...

"Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

And he was a smart guy...

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."
Albert Einstein

In memoriam...

Mourn. Grieve. Let your soul ache the pain it feels.

But this is the chief thing: Be not perturbed.
There is a season for all things - the coming in and the going away.
And in a little time each one of us will be no-one and
no-where, blended back into the mystery.

As he once was, we still are.
As he is now, so we will be, all too soon.
Fear not. We have been there before.
It’s OK. It is the way of all things.
The coin of in-the-meantime is all we have to spend.
What will you do until your time comes?
What is, after all, really important?
What will you leave behind in the hearts and minds of others?

Because we don’t know when we will die,
we think of life as an inexhaustible well.
Yet everything happens only a certain number of times,
and a very small number, really.
How many more times will you remember a certain
afternoon of your childhood?
Perhaps four or five times more.
Perhaps not even that.
How many more times will you watch the full moon rise?
Perhaps twenty. It all seems limitless. But it’s not.

Don’t miss the good times.
Notice and hold on to the lovely things.
Don’t miss the chance to leave a memory behind you as
one who loved this sweet life,
and one who loved others.
Remember to be kind.

And always believe that love is stronger than death.
Live in peace, trying always to do unto others as you
would have others do unto you.

Amen.

Watch me

"Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses." -Paul VI (1975)

All in!

"We live in a society that measures "maturity" by how well we have mastered the art of moderation. But our God is not moderate. In fact, he is wildly immoderate... both in what he gives us... and in what he asks of us..."

Two posts were returned to me....

... just at the right time.


"God does not abandon us...his love comes to us where we are, with our misery and our weakness, to offer us a new possibility of goodness."
Pope Benedict - Letter to Romans on Education



“Blessed are you when you when they insult you.”You do more good than you know. You are the ones in the trenches. You are the ones who love despite the odds. Please do not be discouraged. Be true to God and to yourself and may He bless you abundantly in return for the sacrificial love you show Him." - Fr. Valencheck

Let's get it on....

“When you are cleaning the bathroom and mowing the yard, you are making love. When your are taking care of your sick loved one, you are making love. When you are paying the bills, you are making love. When you are planning for the future and challenging each other, you are making love. What you do in the bedroom is celebrating.”

—Jesse Manibusan

O Priest...

O Priest, who are you? You are not yourself because you are God. You are not of yourself because you are the servant and minister of Christ. You are not your own because you are the spouse of the Church. You are not yourself because you are the mediator between God and man. You are not from yourself because you are nothing.

What then are you? Nothing and everything. O Priest! Take care lest what was said to Christ on the cross be said to you: ‘He saved others, himself he cannot save!’” -St. Norbert

... and you better have an answer

Tell me, what is it you plan to do, With your one wild and precious life? --Mary Oliver

Ha!

"When someone asks you 'think about what Jesus would do', remember that a valid option is to freak out and turn over tables" -- Unknown

Wisdom Borrowed

I used to live in the desert.

The barrenness was so jarring I would intentionally schedule my flights into Phoenix at night. The bird’s eye view of all that dirt and dryness made my heart ache. I missed the comfort of lush foliage, trees with leaves, fields of tall grass.

It took me a good 6 months before I saw any beauty there. Before I started to appreciate the strength of all that exists there.

In the desert, everything has a purpose. Nothing is wasted.

The sparseness eliminates distraction. Allows you to focus.

This kind of simplicity is what Lent is about.

We let go of a few comforts and maybe rediscover our own purpose.

via The Windshield Rosary

Not History, but Mystory

This is the goal of reading the Bible: not to learn about ancient Israelites or early Christians, not even to know what God said or Jesus did, but to embrace our own identity as the People of God. If we find our place in the great story of salvation history and can live that out with integrity in salvation present, then we have understood the Bible correctly.

-Alice Camille
"Listening to God's Word"