connection

Lent Day 19: I give up Disconnection

March 7, 2021 — Leave a comment

The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

Isaiah 58:11-12

I give up curating a community that makes me feel comfortable. I give up curating a community that makes me feel unchallenged and right. I give up curating a community of relationships that cater to my needs. I give up writing people off because of my initial reactions and hurt. I give up unforgiveness because it makes my life less complicated. I ask for a grace and understanding that springs from an immense love for all humanity. I ask for an undying hope in humanity. I ask for new eyes to see those who have hurt me as those who are hurting or have been hurt. I ask to be refreshed and renewed so that I will be a well-watered garden for all to find rest and joy.

Breaking down the Wall

January 28, 2021 — Leave a comment

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

Ephesians 2:14-18

What is the dividing wall of hostility made of? The law with its commands and regulations. Where is the hostility destroyed? On the cross. The dividing wall of hostility isn’t just between us and God; it is here amongst humans. Jesus’ demonstration of love on the cross bridges the gap between us and God, and it should also reconnect us humans. Because of Jesus we have one Spirit. We are linked. We are interdependent. We no longer need to identify ourselves by our specific commands and regulations that separate rather than stabilize. Instead we are marked by this same sacrificial love, whether we actively believe it or not. Jesus’ love is for everyone, near and far, aware or yet to believe. For those of us who claim Jesus, we should be the best examples of the unity and reconciliation. We should not seek to separate what has already been brought together. We should not reemphasize commands and regulations when, we, of all people know that it is now the Spirit that we live with.

Can anyone spot you in the crowd if you weren’t allowed to blatantly identify as someone who believes in Jesus’ powerful reconciliation and love? Can people sense your truest belief that humanity is one? Can people see your active and tangible work to break down the wall of hostility and build others up in love and unity? Asking for a friend.

Living by Flesh

January 25, 2021 — Leave a comment

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.

Ephesians 2:1-2

Building on Ephesians 1, we have to keep in mind God’s purpose: unity of heaven and Earth, unity of Jesus and the church, unity of head and body. This sense of connection and alignment must be the guide for parts of the Bible that mention words like flesh and body. The trap is to create a separation — flesh is bad and mind is good — a binary way of understanding that is engrained in humanity. With this in mind, I can see the above passage with more softness and compassion.

Zooming in on…to follow the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air…gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. To follow the ways of this world is to not live from a place of connection and unity where we tend to forget our purpose and how redemption. To follow the ruler of the kingdom of the air is to live creating fleeting results. And the mention of flesh here is a flesh that is again, disconnected with that divine hope and reality. That flesh and its desires and thoughts do not lead to unity and connection.

This passage is not to neglect our flesh and its desires. This reductive way of understanding God’s word has created so much harm. This is how shame and stigma have over and over again penetrate the church. This is why overarching rules and structures created from fear, white supremacy and patriarchy have been upheld, while faithful moment to moment living where each human has their agency is tossed aside. God does not want us to neglect our flesh and its desires. He gave us flesh, a living and breathing part of us, as an extension of the divine on earth and as a landscape to demonstrate unity and connection. It is how we use the flesh and why and for what reasons. This is where its gratification can do more harm than health. All of us chose this way of living once upon a time, and some of us now, simply have the awareness that there is another way.

Choosing Love

January 4, 2021 — 1 Comment

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

1 Corinthians 13:1-3

Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.

James Baldwin

We can have the power and purpose to impact people and the world, but without love, the barrier between humans remains and the connection that enables change cannot be formed. Love is what breaks down our defenses and armors so that we can actually be close enough to each other to see and know each other. Love translates our unique actions into the unique language our recipients can understand. Love removes fear so that play, innocence and leaps of faith can exist. Love removes the fear of not being enough, the fear of being seen and potentially rejected, the fear of doing it wrong, (as if there’s actually something such as doing it right), the fear that that where we are right now is off. Where you are right now reveals the insecurities, the heartaches and challenges that are building up your mask. With that awareness, you can have agency to choose love instead.

Choose love? That’s choosing your unchangeable worth and uniqueness ordained by God above all else. Choosing love is to see yourself the way God sees you — divine, done on purpose and delightful. Out of this knowing and love, we then break these manmade prisons that keep us separate and weary of each other. In this freedom, we then communicate, prophesy, perform miracles, give generously and endure all waves. Only when we recognize our own freedom and live into it can we seek to free others. That is our greatest calling: to usher others into their wholeness and freedom. To point people back to their Garden of Eden.

If you continue on in 1 Corinthians, you will find what love is. When you are not living in those — patience, kindness, opposite of envy, humility, and so forth — you are not in love. Will you dare to ask yourself why you are not living in and out of love? What mindset of comparison are you in? What unhealthy narratives are you imprisoned by? Where are you not believing God’s divine touch and making of you? Press in. Press through. You will find love right there.

CBG: Scarlet Letter

June 12, 2020 — Leave a comment

So [Jesus] came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman from Samaria came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water I give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come here.’ The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one who now have is not your husband. What would you have is true.

John 4:5-18

The woman comes to draw water at the well at the sixth hour, which is noon. She comes at this time because no one else comes at this time. She won’t have any awkward and uncomfortable run-in’s. She can’t talk to the Jews because she’s a Samaritan, and that’s the way of the land. She can avoid judgmental eyes and whispers she can deduce are about her. She might not want to talk to her own people because they know her past and her present. Her practice of drawing water at this hour and then her response to Jesus’ ask demonstrate a desire to hide and squelch connection.

The Samaritan woman must have felt like Hester from The Scarlet Letter. In this Jewish land where she is a Samaritan, she is a minority that well-acquainted with the racial and ethnic tensions. In this encounter with Jesus, her systems and cultures are questioned, her story and beliefs are revealed and her work of bridging communities began.

These sound bite phrases are frequently used and may lose their potency. So for today, this is the language I’ve chosen to find resonance.

  1. This Samaritan woman was given the opportunity and permission to converse about the systems she has been living in. She was invited into a conversation about attitudes and cultures that have been passed down from generations, without being shamed for having these thoughts.
  2. This woman was given space to share her story, her questions and her hopes. Even though Jesus knew all the answers, he never comes at her with an arrogance or impatience. Because part of healing one’s shame and trauma is to feel, hear and experience one’s identity in the safety of another who is gently and non-judgmentally holding it.
  3. This woman was so inspired and uplifted that she ran back to her community, forgot the task that she was doing and entered the path she was always called to. She ran back and told others and in that bridged even more relationships between Samaritans and Jews. She shared her revelation because it was a gift for all.

While the spaces and life we live may not be marked overtly by the presence of Jesus, may we enter hard conversations with this openness and honesty, even if there are high risks. May we educate ourselves on our history, our trauma, our wrongs and our hopes. May we share gifts and grace with all because grace begets grace and grace opens hearts to the love of God.

Prayer: God may every day feel like an encounter with the curious, kind and radical Jesus at the well. May that spur me onto community building words and acts.

Where do we see our desire to hide and squelch connection?