Top Reads of my 45 Year Life....

Hi gang! Thought I would share with you my favorite books, i.e., those texts that have been the most formative in my own personal life. These are the books that I revisit and have re-read regularly over the past decade or so. Ironically, two of them were purchased from "sale racks" which given their incredible content, I can only assume the bookstore owners never read them or they would have instead charged triple! Nonetheless--here they are:

       1. New Seeds of Contemplation (by Thomas Merton) a wonderful, thoughtful read on being a contemplative.

       2. The Impact of God (by Ian Matthews) A very accessible primer on St. John of the Cross--basically his profound ideas for the regular person like you and me. I have never read his actual stuff--I understand it is thick to wade through.

       3. A Clearing Season:Refections for Lent (by Susan Parsons) A gentle approach on Lent...good for those of us who tend tend to live an introspective life...and can overdo it if not careful during lent :)

       4.The Suffering of God (Terrence Frietheim). Highlights all the verses about God's deep love in the Old Testament that "Hellfire" preachers unfortunately seem to have forgotten...I am changed each time I read it.

       5. Gospel of John--my fav gospel. How can you go wrong reading the reflections of the disciple whom "Jesus loved?" Interestingly enough, John's main theme is indeed love. How much God loves us and how much God wants us to love one another. A mystic if there ever was one!

Keep Warm!  :) Pam

Ah....Advent...

Advent is truly my favorite time of year. Although many people experience this season as a rather chaotic swirl of parties, meetings, travel plans, gift wrapping, food prep etc...I am most entranced by the fact that this season celebrates God coming to us. God comes. Why is this so important to me?

I think at various times in my life--I am not sure where I am or where I am going. It brings me immeasurable comfort to know that in these times, God can come to me. God does not always expect me to figure everything out on my own and do all the work by myself. In fact, many times God comes to us--and for me, Advent is the representation of all those times when God comes when I need it the most.

Advent is also about waiting for this coming...I can get all flustered and look for bells,whistles, and fireworks--but often God shows up in things that you might miss if you were not attending to them. One thing about Mary...once she said "Yes" to God it was set in motion and was going to happen. She really couldn't do anything to make it all happen faster or slower--9 months is the general waiting period for pregnancy--but it was going to happen. I think the same is true for us. When we really say "Yes" to God--even if it is inaudible to others and is only whispered in our hearts--God hears, and the plan begins to unfold. It is going to happen.

So, in this waiting time...when God's arrival is immanent, what do we do? We prepare. Just like new parents who begin dreaming of how their lives change (they have NO IDEA really...), they get a room ready, purchase a crib, find clothes, diapers, dishes, bottles, etc...to do all they can to be READY--even though people who are already parents know all this preparation is mostly to give nervous people something to do. Because when the truth is told...could we ever really be ready for such a coming?

We think we know what it is going to look like. The people between the testaments had 400 years to prepare. You would think they would be ready. Or maybe they got tired of waiting. Or maybe they thought God forgot and had moved on. Or maybe they thought they had heard God wrong..or....whatever. Nobody thought a baby born in a stable could be God. THAT couldn't be the plan...and yet, that was EXACTLY the plan. And for those who were listening and watching for it--God let them know that indeed--it was happening before their very eyes.

So to me, Advent is a time of watching, waiting, and preparing--for surely God will come to us.

"Not like that....!"

     Lately, I have been sitting with the fact of how often people (often the religious leaders of the time) didn't like how Jesus did things. In other words, they would basically tell him...."Not like that...!" which really took a lot of nerve given that He is God and all.

    What has particularly spurred on my reflection is a passage from the lectionary from several weeks ago--the story about a crippled woman who was healed by Jesus on the Sabbath (see Luke 15:10-17). Jesus was teaching in the local synagogue--and he noticed a woman in the audience who was "bent over and could not straighten up at all." She had been like that for 18 years. From a somatic perspective, can you imagine, in early Palestine, what being bent over for 18 years would do to your psyche as a woman? I think the woman should be given credit for even showing up for synagogue! She must have been very devout. (I know I have stayed in bed on a given sabbath for lesser reasons. I digress). She was there. Maybe even to see Jesus...we don't know. But we do know, that even though she did not draw attention to herself by crying out to him for healing--HE SAW HER...and called her forward and said, "Woman, you are set free from your infirmity." Then he put his hands on her (gotta love it--that was another "no-no" in that culture!) and it says she "immediately straightened up and praised God."

     Isn't that beautiful? Can you imagine being a witness to this healing? It says earlier in the passage that she had been "crippled by a spirit"--so that she had experienced not only limitations on herself physically--but perhaps spiritually she had been bound as well. And as soon as she was healed--her response? TO PRAISE GOD!

     Now, the very next verse sets up quite a contrast...the synagogue ruler got all bent out of shape (hmmm, wonder where the crippling spirit had come from...) and told the people in essence, "Come get healed on the other six days--not the sabbath." In the vernacular, he was protesting, 'The Kingdom of God is "Not like that!"...it should look like THIS (insert our beliefs and rules about how God 'should' work)...

JESUS WAS FURIOUS! And called the leader out--saying, very politely (-not-):
     "YOU HYPOCRITES!!! You are willing to untie your animals on the sabbath to lead them to water--why in heaven's name would you not let me "untie" this woman who has been bound for 18 years?????"
    Jesus was really steamed. These people had their "spiritual priorities" all wrong! He brings wholeness to a woman who had been suffering for 18 YEARS--and they are all upset how He did it. Yeah. If we want God to do a "new thing" by definition it can't be done in the old way.

      In this passage, Jesus also calls this woman "a daughter of Abraham"...such a tender phrase, really. She is recognized as being included in the covenant when women had so few "places" in that day and age. One of the regular prayers prayed by devout Jewish men of the day in essence, thanked God that they had not been created as women. In another passage (John 8) Jesus has a discussion with the leaders about who are the true children of Abraham...those who live by faith, and do the will of the Father. Back to the synagogue, it says that "His opponents (religious leaders) were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing." I don't think it takes a degree in theology to recognize which response brought joy to God's heart.

So--in what areas of your life is God moving in unconventional ways? It may ruffle some feathers--oh well. What would we rather have? The commendation of God or the praise of other people? We know what they did to Jesus--they persecuted him and crucified him. But that is not the end of the story--He triumphantly rose up from the dead--He invites us to do the same with Him by the power of the Spirit. Thanks be to God.

September 17, 2013 --Feast Day of Hildegard von Bingen  (12 century German Christian mystic).