presence

Lent Day 28: I give up Worst Case Scenarios

March 16, 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.

Isaiah 58:11

I give up living in the worst case scenario. Well, what do worst case scenarios reveal to me? That even if that did happen, I would still be fine? That I’ve put my identity and worth in the most trivial of things? I give up preemptively preparing for a crisis. I can trust that I am capable, that I am adaptive, that I will not be alone in handling anything that goes wrong. We have gone through a pandemic haven’t we? Breathe. Be in this moment. Who is leading? Can I feel spring?

God’s pleasurable will

January 18, 2021 — Leave a comment

With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment — to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.

Ephesians 1:8-10

God’s will is to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. This happens in Christ and when the times reach their fulfillment. The need to bring things into unity means that presently there is a separation. The notion that there has been mystery in God’s will shows that there is a time of not knowing and a time of knowing. To tell us that times will reach their fulfillment means we are currently unfinished and in progress.

What is the wisdom of knowing what is God’s plan and intentions, in the present in-progress moment? How does unity and fulfillment under Christ affect how we live today?

No matter how grim today feels, the end is good. That is hope. How can hope loosen your grip on things you are difficult and you don’t have control over? No matter how unfinished and stuck this moment feels, we are living into a pleasurable unified fulfilled future. How can you see this moment still as a foreshadow of what is to come? On the days of extreme loneliness and separation, know that God’s heart is unity and pleasure. Is there any space to let the latter break through?

However, knowing in our minds doesn’t always translate into knowing in our bodies and souls. How can we digest knowledge and wisdom into a holistic understanding in our body? Our bodies are pretty intelligent. If you have a moment now, take a breath, close your eyes and mediate on a time when you felt integrity and play in your body. When things seemed possible. When you were curious and full of wonder? When your body was quicker and braver than the doubtful and loud voice in your head?

Where were you? Who were you with? What were you doing? Where is that feeling and sensation in your body?

Sit in that. Swim in that. You have access to this as well. Your body knows the mystery of what God is talking about already. Live from this.

Divine Embodiment

January 13, 2021 — Leave a comment

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

Ephesians 1:3

There exists simultaneously this physical realm and the heavenly realms. Those moments when you are stunned and stopped by a beautiful sunset overlooking the seemingly unmoving waters feels like an intersection. That moment when you bump into the most unexpected person at the most ordinary of places and know deep in your heart that was meant to be: that’s a moment. That moment when a third space is created when you and another are so present it feels as if you are one is an intersection. These fully present divine moments have even happened on Zoom for me!

According to this version, in our heavenly realms, we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ. We have a oneness. We have an abundance. We have all the traits listed in 1 Corinthians 13 regarding love: patience, kindness, forgiveness and all the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5: gentleness, self-control, faithfulness…and so forth. These are all ours. They are already our reality. But when our worldly/physical realm becomes the only thing occupying our mind and body, we lose access to all our spiritual blessings. We are dragged down by the circumstances of the present moment and pulled in all directions unsure of where our feet need to be rooted. The opposite can also be true. We can be so preoccupied with the heavenly realms that we lose touch with where God has placed us right now on earth. We can know these spiritual blessings yet they will have no potency in the present moment.

The task is to know both so well, to live in that intersection. How can I hold the present moment and my surroundings lightly, while allowing the peace and love that is divine and mine penetrate through me and into me? How can I be that porous with the divine world in this physical world? How can I find the divine in the profane and the physical in the sacred? Jesus was the perfect embodiment of divine humanity. How can we live that out?

CBG: Gentleness

May 27, 2020 — Leave a comment

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch our your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.”

John 21:15-19

Imagine if Jesus from the gitgo told Peter he was going to be crucified. Ouch.

It might have felt like that the crucifixion was part of Peter’s punishment for denying Jesus. That would have crushed Peter. There might not have been restoration. Always hanging on Peter’s head might be his once-upon-a-time major transgression.

However, Jesus is not cruel. He doesn’t make us grovel at his feet until he thinks we deserve forgiveness. He forgives. He knows we are fallible humans. He knows and he loves, and so he is perfect with his language and the timing of it.

Jesus layers. Jesus says as much as Peter can handle. He spends time so that we don’t just hear the truth, but we experience the speaker of the truth. If Peter hadn’t been prodded several times, he might not have added to his last response, Lord you know everything, and to that, Jesus prophesied Peter’s future.

Gentleness recognizes that every person is one step from either shutting down or opening up, and acts in a way that encourages the latter. Gentleness is not subject to time. Gentleness treats its subjects as treasures. Gentleness holds the present as the goal. Gentleness is a posture of meeting and honoring the fragile humanity in another.

Prayer: God I pray for a gentle posture when that is the most powerful way to connect to another human being. God I pray for salve in my words and kindness in my actions. God I pray for a felt strength in my gentleness.

Character: Where has your impatience or your control in timing led to unfruitful acts?

Grace: In what ways is God prodding you to be gentler with yourself?

CBG: Good Friday

April 10, 2020 — 1 Comment

And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Then Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away because of me this night. For it is written, “I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.” Peter answered him, “Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away.” Jesus said to him, “Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” Peter said to him, “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you!” And all the disciples said the same.

Matthew 26:30-35

Prayer: You knew. You knew and you still chose to sing. You knew what was to come and still you were patient. You knew we were going to betray you and still you were kind. You knew the pain and sorrow and heartbreak of this world and still you chose to enter into it, know it so you can know us. You knew that you would be rejected. You knew you were going to be wronged, humiliated, misunderstood, forgotten, abandoned, killed. You carried your own death and our death on your back as each step was unbearably hard. You knew. I wish all I had in my heart was 100 percent faith and gratitude. I wish I had the level of patience, love and kindness that you showed me. I wish I wouldn’t hurt when I’m hurt. I wish I wouldn’t reject when I felt scared. I wish I wouldn’t deny your love and presence when I feel like it doesn’t even matter. Yet you still went and you forgive and you hold me still, and love me still. You know me. And I lay before you all the parts of me that you want to nail on the cross. Quiet my need for you to speak loudly. Grow my faith that you are right here, in me, saying, “I know. I know. And I’m with you to the end.”

Creative: Nail to the cross the thing(s) causing you fear and resentment.

Brave: “Sit” with someone in despair without fixing them.

Generous: Is there a relationship needing forgiveness? Can you give it?

CBG: #20

April 9, 2020 — Leave a comment

“I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God.”

Genesis 45:4-8

One summer night when I was in college, I drove 12 hours through the night from Annapolis, Maryland to Martha’s Vineyard to surprise my boyfriend. He was vacationing with his family and had mentioned several times in our phone calls that he wanted me to join them. It was a long drive through torrential rain. Thankfully very few cars were on the road and there is coffee, though shitty still coffee, at gas stations. When I finally arrived the next afternoon in MV, my boyfriend said he couldn’t come pick me up from the dock because he was playing golf with a mutual friend of ours. I. Lost. It. Imagine the whitest happiest place on earth and smack in the middle of that joy is a sobbing Asian girl. I did not give a f*ck who heard me, who saw me and where I was. I was so angry and hurt.

Today while I was journalling that memory rushed into my mind. It often does when I need an example of how I had a shit boyfriend. As I was reminiscing on that time, it hit me that I had crashed my boyfriend’s summer vacation. I had crashed his family’s — a family that did not allow us to sleep in the same room whenever I stayed over at their house — long standing vacation. I sprung all of me — dramatic, expectant, pouty — onto his quiet calm vacation. Um. Oh. Ooops. A revelation a decade later isn’t too late, right?

Are we drowning in our side of a story because we are hurt and we have expectations? Are we unable to see the other perspective because one, we can’t, like Joseph pre-famine or two, because we don’t want to see our culpability? It is easier to put on the armor and view life through our hurt and our needs. I am not saying to be a door mat and never consider your own perspective. What I am encouraging myself and you to do is expand the story. Expand the plot so that you’re not the only main character. No good story revolves around one player, and your beautiful tapestry of a narrative involves everyone, their hurts and their needs as well.

Prayer: God show me the balance between perspective and presence.

Creative: Where are you wrestling between mind & heart, rationale & gut? Let them have a conversation.

Brave: What’s one thing you can say no to that you’re afraid to turn away?

Generous: Tell someone their testimony of redemption means a lot to you.