Psalm 48

Year B - Pentecost +6 or Energy to Witness ⁶

July 5, 2015

Psalm 48

Let’s play with three words/phrases.

Verse   3 — defense, refuge, (power)

Verse   9 — mercy, steadfast love (power)

Verse 14 — completed, forever and ever (power)

Living from these positions gives the kind of non-violent presence/force/power (satyagraha) needed to deal with realities of resistance. This is particularly important in places where we are too well known or known well enough to be dismissed.

It is time to check your memory of Pentecost and to do a quick check regarding your sense of these six words/phrases. If you have sufficient, rejoice. If you are still in the closet, wind and fire can still find you. Either way, awareness of your sense of defense, mercy, completion, refuge steadfast love, and forever will lead you a next step today or enhance your anticipation to be ready to act tomorrow. Either way, be a satyagraha to be reckoned with.

2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10

Year B - Pentecost +6 or Energy to Witness ⁶

July 5, 2015

2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10

The first appeal to David is as a tribal member (bone and flesh) and practical effectiveness (you’ve been leading). In this paradigm we don’t just have “servant leaders” but “servant rulers”.

At Hebron it was not G*D and Samuel doing the anointing to shepherding a larger flock but it was the tribal leaders (presumably doing G*D’s work?) that finally disclosed their support of David—something they were not able to do for fear of Saul. In some way this parallels people finally, and safely, disclosing their support of same-sex marriages or disapproval of an out-dated flag—after a period of fear of religious and cultural literalists (today’s Sauls).

Do note that David did not get full pension credit for his work life. At the Hebron “G*D Outlet” the pension was based on full-years completed. As a result David’s seven years and six months only count for seven years. Even so has management nickel and dimed labor to this day.

Attend to what happens when a City of Peace is named for a person or people (City of David). It becomes a focus of division, ruination, and captivity. What seems so close (David) displaces perennial work (Peace). Even before David’s death, intrique sets in. It is not enough to cover life over with pious sayings such as, “the Lord, the God of hosts, was with David.” Such perspective unconsciously and/or unwittingly lead to—When David falls, this Lord is diminished.

Mark 6:1-13

Year B - Pentecost +6 or Energy to Witness ⁶

July 5, 2015

Mark 6:1-13

Isn’t it the truth that we usually have more trouble from and disappointment in our allies than our enemies. Ever has it been the case. Allies who claim their truth needs to be our truth are the cause of fightings and fears within any movement. Our greatest battles are with ourselves and our allies. Read again Letter from a Birmingham Jail.

What is needed in a movement is an appreciation of the variety of skills, gifts, and strategies needed to be successful. There is no one way forward. We travel on many paths at the same time, evolutionarily leaving some behind and investing more heavily in others. But without each way having value, we are the poorer to leave change to authorized channels, even unorthodox authorities.

Here a strand of a larger movement in an occupied land (religiously as well as militarily, politically, and economically) known as the Jesus Way moves into outlying and foreign territories. The instructions about going out two by two and their provisions opens an interesting conversation about a contrast between Jesus and the Cynics. You can read more about this in chapter 5 of Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography by John Dominic Crossan.

Those sent out were to rely upon the generosity of a new community, not their individual moral strength and wisdom. They were to proclaim a baptismal message that takes a village to complete and heal both individuals and communities.

A significant task always before us is identifying who the actual allies are that can be counted on and leveraging that to deeper resolve (lived repentance) and revelation of this through healing (not necessarily curing).

And so a little post-Pentecost test: What conversation about mystery and wonder are you taking part in across the usual boundaries and intersections? If we are just preaching to a choir or demanding accepted responses to deep questions always moving on from last a last response, we are already losing our Pentecostal Power. Remember, Be Glad, and Move Outward.

2 Corinthians 8:7-15

Year B - Pentecost +5 or Energy to Witness ⁵

June 28, 2015

2 Corinthians 8:7-15

Externally, the American economic system (only one of many with no presumption of privileged position) needs to hear again verse 15, “No one is to have too little; no one too much” and once again deal with its tendency toward gildedness and a growing gap between peoples/classes.

Internally, we hear about followers of Jesus who excel in so much, so fruitful, so ripe for harvesting, so full of healing for the nations. If only they could start with themselves! To partner with G*D, as did Jesus, means being generous with that which has filled and satisfied. 

This generosity is not just overflow. This generosity is to begin an emptying process. Having been empty, having been full, we can return to emptiness for the first time, intentionally, trustingly, eagerly. Now generosity can avoid the trap of measuring itself against others. What we have and what we don’t have, both reveal our G*D Partnership. We can’t help ourselves connecting so tightly our love of G*D and love of Neighb*r that an observer could ever tell the difference.

“Fair balance” means neither “fair” nor “balance”.  This phrase goes well beyond measurement. It goes all the way to mutual generosity. Blessings on not responding, “Fine”, the next time you are asked how you are. Rather try, “Generous”, and see what it does to your encounter.

Psalm 130

Year B - Pentecost +5 or Energy to Witness ⁵

June 28, 2015

Psalm 130

I trust you have connected with this psalm is four human ways:

• Jairus - on behalf of another
• Woman - on behalf of one’s self
• Daughter - in silence, unknown, inarticulate
• Yourself - (your cry hear)

The first 6 verses are the specific needs and connections we have to live our life more fully—in community, health, awareness, and any other quality of fullness. For those in the Wesleyan tradition, it is helpful to remember key words here—depths, cry, there is forgiveness, watch for the morning, steadfast love, redeem—as we hear John Wesley report he heard a choir singing this psalm just hours before he felt his “heart strangely warmed” at Aldersgate.

The last 2 verses are universalized from the individual to the community. Of particular note is a note from The Jewish Study Bible, “Sinners or their descendants normally need to be punished (see Exod. 34.7), but here God redeems, that is forgives, so no one is punished. As in many psalms, the personal becomes the communal.” Likewise, The New Community Bible describes this psalm: “It is a deep-throated cry for forgiveness and survival.”

A reason for attending to the literal in scripture is for words such as this to be carried along and available to individuals in a particular time of need that goes beyond hope. We also need to attend to the metaphoric in scripture to know that limiting the communal to an extension of our personal desires and experience is far too small a way to live—each of our lives is a shard of our community and an entry point of the energy of conversion and anchoring of a preferred future in a wobbly present.

2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27

Year B - Pentecost +5 or Energy to Witness ⁵

June 28, 2015

2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27

Verses 19 and 25 reverse their order but act as a commentary contrasting mighty ones, courageous to the core, with their fate—perished/vanity.

When we look around today it is difficult to identify courage. Without courage to contras with, vanity is even more ephemeral than usual. There is not even smoke to mark a funeral.

Saul and Jonathan are noted in the last line as “weapons of war”. It is not surprising that they fall if that is the way in which they are remembered. As we might all have said, “Live by war; die by war”.

Consider what will be lamented at your death. Who and what will be addressed? Will you be remembered as a weapon of war for not resisting it? Will you be remembered as a forgiver whose presence heals? If it will be some mixture of these, what proportion will be noted?

For now, try writing what you suspect would be found in a Song of the Bow, should the Book of Jashar ever be found. Would it also be a lament, like this one? Is it this one with just the names changed? Would it be a victory song? What does a bow mean? The same as a broken bow?

Do be aware that any attempt you make will say much more about you than you might want known. Nonetheless, be courageous—write anyway.

Mark 5:21-43

Year B - Pentecost +5 or Energy to Witness ⁵

June 28, 2015

Mark 5:21-43

How many times are we to forgive? 70 x 7!

How many times did Jairus have to beg? 70 x7?

Persistence in doing good and looking for good is a positive value. It raises a question about what we are dogged about in seeing changed. Our culture says, “Three strikes and you’re out!” We are famous for wanting instant success.

What follows (fringe touching and hand holding) roll on from an insistence that something be done—and now! Sometimes our persistence needs to be several generations long as the resistance is that great. Don’t forget to mentor a next generation of persisters (resisters) so they can build on what you are continuing from the prophets of old or restarting in a new situation.

Blessings on all importuning widows and distraught fathers and fierce friends.

Psalm 9:9-20

Year B - Pentecost +4 or Energy to Witness ⁴

June 21, 2015

Psalm 9:9-20

Nations, Churches, and Other Institutions have “sunk in the pit that they made”. The very traps they employed to achieve their power and positions have come back to bite and trap them for the world moves on and they have so tied themselves to a last war or a last creed that they cannot see a “new thing” that delivers their usual clientele, giving immunity to the same call to mindless patriotism or blind faith.

If only nations and churches and other institutions had kept verse 10 pasted to their mirrors so every time they basked in their own glory they would see, “For the needy shall not always be forgotten, nor the hope of the poor perish forever.” Yes, if only but so far it has never been.

And so a next time of storm and fear is blowing around and ordinary stones from a river (not cornerstones or capstones/keystones) will remind us that we are human, not cogs in a theoretical economic system that projects losers or imagined theological system that projects sinners.

Karma rises as humans affirm their humanness, their G*Dliness.

1 Samuel 17:(1a, 4-11, 19-23), 32-49

Year B - Pentecost +4 or Energy to Witness ⁴

June 21, 2015

1 Samuel 17:(1a, 4-11, 19-23), 32-49

A recent conference reported that 50% of seminarians are not intending to enter the vocation of pastor in an established church. They are interested in developing their theological skills but not being bound by the current limitations of tradition, power, and authority that have encrusted institutional life.

This sounds very much like young David recognizing that he could not move inside the armor of the king (priest). His life experience was more appropriate to the present situation than the accepted boundaries within which one can be an agile leader. This takes more than being adaptive. David is evidencing leadership that is far enough outside the box that the box makes no difference whether it is there or not.

And so we bring out our internal balance to weigh our options. On one side are 5 smooth stones and an experienced slinger of stones who is fleet of foot. On the other side is an armored giant with a shield carrier, sword, spear, and javelin.

The balance says weight wins.

So, shall we self-censor ourselves and passively receive our comeuppance? We know that along with weight, institution and fear also appear to be winners against a small bit of experienced truth.

I draw your attention to loveprevailsumc.com and loveprevailsumc on Facebook. A small band of 7 people with poster board and markers (even less than 5 stones) who are willing to run toward United Methodist Bishops and Connectional Table and have, in showing up, made a difference as they challenge a giant institution invested in lying about the nature of LGBTQ lives, calling them “incompatible with Christian teaching”, and denying the grace and gifts of ordained ministry to LGBTQ United Methodists.

You may want to visit with them and support them as they are now running toward an even bigger giant of a quadrennial General Conference with insufficient votes. We will have to see how this encounter will ensue. It will go better with your joining them—#showup.

Mark 4:35-41

Year B - Pentecost +4 or Energy to Witness ⁴

June 21, 2015

Mark 4:35-41

Leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was [exhausted?].

Other boats were with him. [A convoy?]

A great windstorm arose and waves beat into the boat, swamping it. But Jesus was in the stern, asleep.

[How do you imagine the other boats were fairing? Also swamped with fear?]

Cries [from all the boats?] woke Jesus: “We’re perishing; don’t you care?”

He awoke to say, “Peace. Be still.” And their fears were calmed and they saw the wind and themselves for what they were [Vanity. Illusory. Windy (not the breath of creation windy or Pentecost windy).]

As regularly as storms arise, so we avoid deep questions such as, “Why am I afraid?”

See us sidestep this hard question with an easier question of authority, “Who calmed the wind [and agitates us with a question of trust]?”

Still the church asks questions about authority—externals, rites, and rules. These cover up our fear rather than bring us Peace. Quiet.

Still the church asks Jesus to “Stand By Me” rather than “Sleep and Dream In Our Boat”. We are all going down in one storm or another, even Jesus. Imagine the storm in the Pentecost room we so easily forget about from a few short weeks ago. To sing, “Stand By ME” keeps folks in the room. Joining Jesus in Dreamtime sends folks out into the mystery of one another’s lives. May you have the Peace, the Quiet, the Dream of repairing/healing external and internal storms. A hearty tikkun olam to you and all in the midst of whatever is currently blowing a fear that divides us from ours self and others.

2 Corinthians 5:6-17

Year B - Pentecost +3 or Energy to Witness ³

June 14, 2015

2 Corinthians 5:6-17

How would you make a parable out of this appeal to greed here of moving from Tent City to Heavenly Dwelling?

If you can do this, preach it. If you can’t, forget it.

Best I can do is to end up with what was seen as a dingy tent (original sin) is now seen as a beautiful tent (original blessing). I’m still working on what is in-between “Someone lived in a tent” and “what a beautiful tent it is”.

Maybe the in-between would have something about sharing and building and living together suggested by this image:

Psalm 20

Year B - Pentecost +3 or Energy to Witness ³

June 14, 2015

Psalm 20

It would be nice if the promised answers from heaven were clear victories. Well, maybe. Even this psalm is a bit uncertain as there is a repeated refrain of “May G*D ... do thus and so.” “May” language acknowledges that there may also be a “may not” possibility or probability.

As it is, responses from the Universe are mysteriously parabolic.

Until “May” has come to pass, do your part to help G*D do another part and your Neighb*r do yet another. When this all works together it enhances any actual doing to move beyond power and violence as first responses to problems.

May next May find us celebrating being a bit further along than this past May.

1 Samuel 15:34-16:13

Year B - Pentecost +3 or Energy to Witness ³

June 14, 2015

1 Samuel 15:34-16:13

Imagine that—a best laid plan of G*D’s came to naught. G*D warned folks that a structural fix to a non-problem (we want a king because every other kid on the block has a king) wasn’t in their best interest and then promptly caved (make that, decided to let folks experience the consequences of their wants getting in the way of their decision-making).

Instead of helping folks out of their addiction to having a king to blame for their lack of engagement and trust, G*D sets up another king and even constructs a back story to get Samuel past the palace guards to be in position to anoint David of the beautiful eyes.

This sort of personal engagement with sneaky plots worthy of a spy handler and whispering in ears about personnel matters, is not going to prove much other than G*D needs to delegate more to those with the appropriate skills for HR work. Something proves wrong about both the job description of king and the interview questions to sort through candidates.

And hasn’t that been the case all along the way, G*D has been too close to G*D’s own image—not able to engage realistically with G*D’s alter ego. Later, an attempt to triangle Jesus and Spirit into things doesn't turn out any better.

Rather than look upon this as factual history, can you see it as an extended parable? Those who can hear it, will, and the rest will continue to look to structural fixes.

Mark 4:26-34

Year B - Pentecost +3 or Energy to Witness ³

June 14, 2015

Mark 4:26-34

Gotta love the pedagogy of Jesus. The first part of this chapter has Jesus publicly relating a parable of a sower. Then, in private the disciples ask what it “means”. So Jesus goes through it, point by point. The best part though is not this teaching to a test, wooden dissection of imagery, but a flurry of parables of which a few are recorded.

Imagine Jesus flooding the disciples, and anyone who would listen, with parables. It becomes a case of sink or swim. This immersion process will have folks talking parables with one another and result in even dreaming in parable.

Jesus “did not speak to them except in parable.” So where has our recent temptation to literalism come from? To have all the answers explained to a select few in private is contrary to Jesus’ Way, even if the Bible tells me so (“...but Jesus explained everything in private to his disciples”).

Parables level the playing field. Horse and rider are thrown, a murderer frees a whole people. Who can control such a Pentecostal fire that has us communicating deeper than language? 

Imagine if we were able to hear some more of the “He also saids” today. How would we relate differently through parabolic responses rather than with definitive answers? Well, listen. A parable is a far off hymn hailing a new creation. Start humming now so you have a melody to put new words to.

2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1

Year B - Pentecost +2 or Energy to Witness ²

June 7, 2015

2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1

We believe; we speak. All fine and dandy if we are in a relationship with another or others wherein they also believe and speak.

When it comes down to a post-Constantinian Church enraptured by literalism, this model doesn’t fare well because it has lost its communal fairness. Now those who hew most loudly and literally are privileged.

Now it is the church, not the individual that needs to listen as its outer nature is wasting away. Unfortunately with institutions the wearing away of the outer is indicative of a wasting away of the inner as well. This can also be paralleled with nation states (a conglomeration of institutions). Here so much goes into defense, even against its own citizens, that there is nothing left for the general welfare of its citizens, the strength of the nation.

At best the wasting away, the blaspheming, might call forth a renewal of a remnant that can look beyond the self-inflictions of the present, learn, and begin applying what they have learned to both surviving the crash and building from the ashes.

Now, how to turn our current story into a parable that might reach more who are able to be part of remnant and not be lost in the confusion of a time of great waste. This parable will also help folks hold together through a time of rebuilding, to stay focused. (Unfortunately parables don’t work well when ears are captured by one form of greed or another, protecting an economic system becomes more important than protecting people and a green commons.) And so we run through this cycle again, though hopefully better each time.

Psalm 138

Year B - Pentecost +2 or Energy to Witness ²

June 7, 2015

Psalm 138

What is our god/idol? Wanting to be well-liked? Thought well of? Putting too much in the hands of one I give charge of my life? King or named God who gives us what we want and steadfastly looks out for us so we don’t have to consider what it means to be in partnership with G*D.

Yea, though I walk through a dark time
I fear not for I am bubble-wrapped
protected in sparrow-holding hands
comforted in purposeful love I can understand

And yet, this Psalm ends with an unease, an anxiousness. Our appeal to not be forsaken acknowledges that possibility even as our praise has been working overtime. No amount of praise will keep this existential reality hidden forever.

It is time to wrestle again with what it means to be highly regarding of the lowly (verse 6).

1 Samuel 8:4-11, (12-15), 16-20, (11:14-15)

Year B - Pentecost +2 or Energy to Witness ²

June 7, 2015

1 Samuel 8:4-11, (12-15), 16-20, (11:14-15)

Listen to the people even as you warn them that what you are hearing from them is not in their best interest.

This is a difficult dynamic to try to pull off—honoring folks who are out to harm themselves and others through a short-term decision that forgets about all we know about human realities. If you put someone in charge, they will gladly receive that and make you much less glad in another moment as they take advantage of being in charge. Somehow it goes to their head while bypassing their heart.

Who among our leaders has not disappointed. Even the ones that I have held in high esteem tried to pull some tricks to benefit themselves first.

Indeed it is difficult to hang in there with folks who start as hopeful reformers only to be the very ones who will be glad to throw us under the bus or send us to the moon. Their calculus always seems to end up that it is better that one group or another die.

What is a priest to do? Go back in a time-machine to see if they can grow better kids that people will see are as concerned about them as is Samuel? Well, that’s not going to work. So people are given over to reap the predictable consequences of of idealized decisions. This may be the saddest moment in Samuel’s life.

Identify a key sad time in your life. Odds are that it is a prior decision that brought about the sadness. Our own way of not seeing this is denial of the wisdom available if we are interested or able to attend in the midst of all the pressures in our lives (this includes the pressures we bring to our own life so we can’t just blame someone or something else). May you find comfort in taking your eye back off of some eternal ideal and putting it back on to ordinary life. Here we can know which way the wind will eventually blow even if we don't act accordingly.

Mark 3:20-35

Year B - Pentecost +2 or Energy to Witness ²

June 7, 2015

Mark 3:20-35

Remember this passage is versed as starting in the middle of a sentence. What happened before the crowd came together again?

Well, Jesus had named 12 “disciples” and they didn’t contain any family members. In that day and age, this is simply crazy. In a time of occupation, what could be stronger than blood. Besides it keeps the Messiah-business profits at home where there are mouths and mothers to feed.

This is the context of the final statement about mothers and brothers being those who attend to G*D’s presence where they are.

Supposedly the conversation was to have gone something like:

Mary: “What’s this I hear about your not sharing with your brothers?”
Jesus: “Mom, is this Cana all over again?”
James: “Yeah, I want to heal people, too.”
Jesus: “Hey, you’ll get your chance. Just cool it for now as this is the best way I can protect y’all from what’s coming from Herod's Foxy News.”
Mary: “Ahh me, something else to ponder in my heart.”
James: “Argh!”
Jesus: “Yep, we are in difficult times. Let’s keep loving one another, anyway. And look; our family is getting larger—there's more love to pass around”

Instead we get an aphoristic Jesus keeping it short and hurrying us along to the next  scene.

Romans 8:12-17

Year B - Pentecost +1 (Trinity) or Energy to Witness ¹ (Live Together)

May 31, 2015

Romans 8:12-17

Pray tell how you go out to tell of the Presence of G*D and value the Presence of Neighb*r if it is not according to the flesh? Right, you don’t. 

“Flesh” qua flesh is just ordinary life. When we get into doctrinaire judgments about flesh—this is good clean flesh and that is bad unclean flesh—we go down the road of disconnecting flesh from spirit as well as flesh from flesh and all manner of growth opportunities are lost.

Our growth takes place at the intersections of life. When we presume love is conditional, every condition is a control that takes us further and further from ourselves and one another. We are placed back in a locked room not of our own choosing.

Being born again from above is not about hating the flesh. It is a recognition that we be open to a reorientation and re-energizing. Together we move on to engage third parties. A trinity of father, son, and holy ghost is pretty ethereal without our flesh entering into to add a fourth stabilizing leg. 

Psalm 113

Year B - Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth or Elizabeth and Mary Meet

May 31, 2015

Psalm 113

This Psalm was chosen to reflect John’s prenatal gymnastics and Elizabeth’s status of mother. There are also echoes of Miriam and Hannah and premonitions of Mary here with matters of class justice.

Of interest today is practice in identifying possibilities of praise while they are so far off that we are either blind to them or fearful we have judgment, not praise, looming on the horizon.

If we can talk about premeditation of mercy, can we do the same with praise. We need to practice so we are always ready to be merciful. We need to practice so we are always ready to praise G*D and Neighb*r and everything not so far included.

A readiness to mercy or praise is never easy to achieve. We need to put down so much of our own privilege to do either, that it seems we are always living in a world mercy deprived and praise insufficiency. If we want to have deep conversations we need to be preemptively merciful and generous with praise. These precursors to community are possible to practice and every attempt to do so makes the next try that much easier.

Do you need to get kicked in your womb or equivalent before you will be thankful? Well, maybe, at first. Then will come a time we become a reminder to others that thanks is basic community building and justice making.

Psalm 29

Year B - Pentecost +1 (Trinity) or Energy to Witness ¹ (Live Together)
May 31, 2015

Psalm 29

Rather than get caught up with a litany of examples of power, note how vibrational this list is. Thunder over water amplifies the thunder. You can feel the movement. When forests are stripped bare we hear the locomotive sound of a tornado bearing down upon us. When Lebanon skips we suspect an earthquake and its aftershocks are shaking things (seismic come from the Greek seismos shock, earthquake, from seiein to shake; probably akin to Avestan thwaēshō fear).

That which has a different vibrational nature scares us. This includes the way cultures and stages of life have vibrational/rhythmic differences.

With vibration comes a shift. We know that which we thought settled is not. This is part of the nature of G*D—an unsettler.

May we be given the power to shake things up. When we come to terms with this we do find a peaceful center but only after we have come through our own being shaken to our core. Finally centers and cores can communicate and be thankful. It will be worth the shaky parts of life to come to a deep heart’s core with a gentle lapping of the waters of the deep simply awaiting a next thunder, wind, and shake.

1 Samuel 2:1-10

Year B - Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth or Elizabeth and Mary Meet

May 31, 2015

1 Samuel 2:1-10

In sports this response by Hannah (and similar statements by nearly every character in the Bible and those in our life) would be penalized as taunting.

Homework: 

1. Is it possible to win G*D’s favor without destroying a Neighb*r? 
2. Do your best to restate this in non-taunting terms.
3. Has your response to 1) above changed as you tried a restatement?
4. Regardless of your first or second response to 1) above, how would you state your engagement with G*D, the current Economy, individuals and groups in need or with a surplus?

Isaiah 6:1-8

Year B - Pentecost +1 (Trinity) or Energy to Witness ¹ (Live Together)

May 31, 2015

Isaiah 6:1-8

An ecstatic vision doesn’t always bring about great joy even if joy is being visioned. Here, Isaiah experiences his disaster. He is about to be undone. Woe! Woe!

Even as this is happening, Isaiah has no idea that it is worse than he thought. He knows he is about to die, so what could be worse.

Well, he is branded and commissioned to go forth to tell the impossible—this vision to a visionless world. There have been new and trendy products at every stage of our development. They take our breath away and our ability to think beyond goodies. Slave or Free, we want that one next step of improving our lot. Who has time for visions when such a practical matter as comfort and power have so captivated our mind and heart?

To be present in a dead world with a living vision is worse than death.

Hopefully this is your lot for this particular “worse than death” turns out to be the kind of purpose that is better than death and better than ordinary living. Our ecstasy is found in our challenges. May you be well challenged.

Luke 1:39-56

Year B - Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth or Elizabeth and Mary Meet

May 31, 2015

Luke 1:39-56

At the beginning of her pregnancy Mary is said to have traveled from Nazareth to Judea to see Elizabeth. This is roughly the same distance she will travel to Bethlehem at the end of her pregnancy. A young woman journeying alone in that culture seems very strange. Might Joseph have gone along to gather wisdom from Elizabeth that would show up in his dreams?

We are talking 3 days to week to make this trek of ±70 miles. A number of factors, including rain turning travel to mud, make this an indeterminate journey. Regardless of the travel time is the vision it took to even start on such a walk. Word may have just arrived regarding Elizabeth’s remarkable pregnancy. Something in that probably caught Mary’s ear. Turn your speculator on to imagine the possibilities.

Having made the trip and stayed for a considerable length of time, Mary would be returning home between her first and second trimesters. WebMD talks about the ending of morning sickness and fatigue but picking up backache, bleeding gums, breast enlargement, congestion and nosebleeds, frequent urination, headache, heartburn, constipation, hemorrhoids, varicose veins, and weight gain. Neither going nor returning seems all that pleasant (and we haven’t even gotten to going such a distance close to term).

Such a journey could bring connections to mind in addition to Mary’s expectation about a meeting with Elizabeth. Perhaps Mary’s namesake Miriam or a generic alter-ego like Hannah would find themselves entering her thoughts and beginning to shape later phrases.

At any rate, Mary traveled—even as far as Egypt. Every journey brings its perspective that reorients our engagement with life. Is it time for you to take a journey to sort out what is going on with you and how you will more deeply engage the reality of your situation? Aloha. Bon voyage. Nesi'a tova. Traveling mercies.

John 3:1-17

Year B - Pentecost +1 (Trinity or Energy to Witness ¹ (Live Together)

May 31, 2015

John 3:1-17

We gather in the dark to tell scary stories to one another. We even go so far as to shine a flashlight from below our chin to distort our features. This goes on until who can tell what another really looks like. It goes even further until we don’t know what we look like.

How can anyone know whether they are coming or going from a previous stage of life? How do we make sense of the swirling experiences of life? If we can’t tell for sure about “now”, how will we ever know about “when”? Is there anything upon which we can find agreement as a starting point?

Wombs, winds, and expectations are all common experiences in life. Even so the line between what they denote and connote is dashed and very gray. We try living linear lives in a shifting universe and find only dismay. We are so easily blown off course and can only predict the worst scenarios without ever seeing predictable blessings.

We are so used to stopping with verse 16 and eternal life or verse 17 and salvation that we don’t go to the send of this section (verse 21) where we stop telling stories to one another and begin testing actions to see how they actually turn out. Here, in a land beyond speculation of where there be dragons, we find basic creativity and creation—what we do in partnership with one another and G*D. Stopping anywhere short of doing what we do “in G*D”, with one another and G*D, is to always set up a limiting and privileged judgment that creates winners and losers rather than a wholly-owned partnership.

Read to the end even though the temptation is to stop with the popular entertainment of simply saying “John 3:16” as though it answered something and wasn’t a rhetorical strategy to get your way.

Deep Sighs

Year B - Pentecost or Energy to Witness

May 24, 2015

     deep sighs 

the caustic nature of society
in which we reside
is concentrating

the greater the danger
the more we barricade
the more connections decline

no — not a new story
we lock one another away
to do a fetal position rock

for whatever un-reason
life returns — for a while
reconnecting severed connections

until we again forget
dreaming together
and dream alone

a lone dream is nightmarish
no one to wake us
dry isolation

bone separated from bone
out of breath
all fall down

a wind and a fire
join in conflagration
unstoppable

all is ash
until a rain
a new-green shoot

describe it
to all about
until we see together

a mercy unexpected
one size fits all
ahh, sigh, mmmm

Romans 8:22-27

Year B - Pentecost or Energy to Witness

May 24, 2015

Romans 8:22-27

Wind and Fire—apt descriptions of labor and of hope. 

I’d say more, but I’m tired. Are you able to pick up my labor and say something about these that might clarify a hope for a life based on responding to real-life situations and not giving in to fear?

Either way, Thanks.

Psalm 104:24-34, 35b

Year B - Pentecost or Energy to Witness

May 24, 2015

Psalm 104:24-34, 35b

Due seasons are easy when they come around regularly. Due seasons are not so easy when we are under duress or they have a multi-generational cycling. We can see ships shrink into the horizon and later expand. This we can understand. Leviathans that happen out of sight of land are more difficult to track.

We all enjoy the season of being filled with good things. We attribute it to all manner of experiences turned into ritual on the off-chance that it will keep the good times rolling.

We hate and despise it when nothing seems to go right. Here, too, we make up explanations and blame for what has gone wrong. We will hang on to our theories even after they are disproved for who can ever disprove a negative. We will keep putting money on our model ever thinking it will work this time, “Baby needs a new pair of shoes”.

With these long wave seasons we are pushed to evaluate where we are and what can be done about it. This psalm suggests that praise is the answer to all things, just like, later, Jesus will become the standard answer for all questions. Today the response that best fits is, “Nothing will make a difference.”

May this meditation be pleasing for I want the good season to return and last forever. Whoops, “meditation” here is really a medication for having fallen out of partnership with space and time.

Ezekiel 37:1-14

Year B - Pentecost or Energy to Witness

May 24, 2015

Ezekiel 37:1-14

When the day of Pentecost had come

the hand of the Lord came upon me

and suddenly from heaven there came a sound

like the rush of a violent wind

and I found myself in the middle of a valley filled with dry bones,

a room locked and filled with fear.

Can these bones live?

Can this fear abate?

Only G*D knows.

Only speaking to strangers will avail.

Such stories go on and on.

How will it turn out this time?

Dancing skeletons?

New community?

Open your maw,

receive mercy,

rise.

Acts 2:1-21

Year B - Pentecost or Energy to Witness

May 24, 2015

Acts 2:1-21

Jesus has a saying about new wine—it needs new wine skins. Those who used the “new wine” excuse to dismiss a new way of living with one another acknowledge the need for a structural reorganization that does more than keep an institution rolling along. There wasn’t a new institution yet, much less an old one.

This “new wine” is a powerful image that can be used to break open an institution that has lost its newness in the accretion of traditions bogging it down. At a meeting earlier this week I heard exciting news that the demonstrated from a business model that the United Methodist Church will be selling its assets by 2050 if there is not a turn-around started by 2030.

This would be even more exciting news if it wasn’t about a turn-around but new wine that moves it into yet uncharted water. A turn-around is exacting what the speaker warned us about and then fell back into. It would be even more exciting news if the speaker didn’t have a Plan to provide a structural fix that they warned us wouldn’t work.

We are such a bunch of contradictions and inconsistencies. All this good news that new wine is the way to go gets bollixed up with our plans and plottings to get our way. It is difficult for us to turn our prophetic word, visions and dreams applied to the current day, into action. But there is no reason to let difficulty sway us from living what we now know to be life-giving and to test it against the suspect wisdom of our day that has gotten us into such a tenuous place.

So here we go, speaking what we know to the best of our ability.

John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15

Year B - Pentecost or Energy to Witness

May 24, 2015

John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15

When “the” Advocate comes you are to be an Advocate (witness/testifier). As part of loveprevailsumc.com our advocacy for LGBTQ people within a discriminating church is expressed with 3 “D” words: Disrupt, Divest, Disclose(t).

These are words that may have made Pentecost a reality strong enough to move into a world beyond their closed system.

These words connect with the work of this Advocate to “prove the world wrong” about sin and righteousness and judgment.

Institutional sin that shapes individual sin needs disrupting.

Privileged righteousness claims resources and divestment is a healing modality in a sick setting.

Easy judgment, blind to the complexities of life, needs disclosure of its effect of closeting people.

In each case “truth” is tested by disruption and divestment from business as usual and disclosing of uncomfortable realities.

Pentecost is not just about a positive witness to new life but a confronting of old life and lies. Without doing both we have not really moved us much forward beyond your particular biases.

protection

Year B - Easter 7 or Assurance ⁷
May 17, 2015

protection

so many schemers — so few resources
so many paths to prosperity — so little common wealth
so many anonymous commenters — so small the thoughts

delighted those who see abundance
rejoicing those who experience community
happily blessed those engaged in creativity

re-view an oasis
with ripened fruit
in desert-ed space

see yourself
choosing refreshing
hospitality anyway

storms blow up threatening every refugee
storms named after every variant of vice
storms denied by what shelter is given

gazelle or hyena
a food chain continues
without privileging one

denounced wicked
claimed righteous
re-view

a scent of something remembered

Year B - Ascension or Our Turn to Witness
May 14, 2015

a scent of something remembered

book 1
its all true
everyone's hopes
all down the line
are focused in my life
even if they never foresaw me
what I have done goes beyond imagining
and now you are witnesses
waiting for a moment
to act powerfully
blessings to you
so long

book 2
where did 40 days go so quickly
who was taking notes
well would you have
only one question was asked
and not answered
so why takes notes
in a cloud of promises of power
and future witnessing
after certification
off he goes Elijah style
stupefying would be Elishas
forgetting they were the return
already returned and at work
wearing an invisible mantle

1 John 5:9-13

Year B - Easter 7 or Assurance ⁷

May 17, 2015

1 John 5:9-13

A distinction between “human testimony” and “the testimony of God” is tremendously difficult to make as the only G*D testimony we have is mediated through human language. Even a wonderfully profound personal experience of G*D is fraught or freighted with cultural overlays and personal desire.

Here we have the circular: those who believe have belief in their heart. The flip side of this heightens the power and control found in circular arguments: Those who do not believe have made God a liar. When we then tie eternal damnation into the picture, this becomes a very strong reason to be part of the believers, even going so far as to force baptize whole communities and giving the church the power of capital punishment which, ironically, was the martyrdom that raised Jesus’ sacrifice to the heavens.

1 John is lovely in many places, but here, particularly in an Easter season, rings false with its limitation on grace and requirement that all faith is mature faith. Don’t drink this kool-aid.

Ephesians 1:15-23

Year B - Ascension or Our Turn to Witness

May 14, 2015

Ephesians 1:15-23

Even before there was a church to canonize, there were “saints”. A wondering appears about whether that term was more inclusive than we realize—an equivalent of Neighb*r? Michael J. Gorman, writing in The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible doesn’t go this far but hints in that direction, “Within the Christian tradition, there has sometimes developed both an elitism and a privatism in the use of terms like saint and holiness. The NT supports neither of these.”

If we reserve this terms for believers, even a whole community of believers, is there sufficient elitism to suspect that we have missed a larger import. Instead of a halo to represent a saint, might they simply have an asterisk floating above them to remind themselves and others that all they see here is not all there is.

What might happen if we spoke of everyone having the capability of being saintly rather than speaking of some degree of holiness as accomplished? Go ahead, speculate. Is there enough there to begin acting on it? If so, it is time to act. If not, good luck in staying within the saint-authorizing body and not testing yourself in the real world. This phrasing is not meant to be accusatory, but a bit challenging—like the challenge to not look at the sky but Neighb*r’s lives.

Psalm 1

Year B - Easter 7 or Assurance ⁷

May 17, 2015

Psalm 1

Have you taken your ratio of wheat to weed lately? How are you doing? Up to speed with your love and forgiveness? Behind on your confession and repentance?

It is this sort of question that can lead to mistakenly thinking that there is some ratio that is perfect—a Golden Ratio from art and architecture now claimed by theology. If you are at this beauty spot all is well and you are in like Flynn. Miss the mark and you fail judgment and fall all the way to perishing forever.

All the meditation in the world doesn’t make it without some fruit being born. A question needs to be raised here about whether that fruit is praise (now and always) or love of Neighb*r (now and now again). Is that fruit a personal prospering in land of drought and limitations or is it a communal giving away because of abundance.

Wrestling with life is seldom as simple and straightforward as this happy Psalm. To be blessed leads to many an unblessed place.

Psalm 47 or Psalm 93

Year B - Ascension or Our Turn to Witness

May 14, 2015

Psalm 47 or Psalm 93

These Psalms make it sound as if lifting up is noisy. Here shouts and trumpets and thundering waves give rhythm to praise music. They beat out a pulse for the rest of the praise. Elijah had his whirlwind so Jesus must have something even grander.

But we do need to be a bit careful. What is praise being given for if not for pride and privilege of place. Others are subdued and placed under our control. Our heritage is better than any other. Holiness rules and regulations are set.

Each instance is turned around by Jesus, so why would we think some ascension follows a pattern that must be noisy. Moses went so silently no one knows where he is buried. The grave Jesus was in is doubly silent—both a grave and empty.

For now understand that Ascension is as quiet as Pentecost will be noisy. This is time to reflect and be library quiet that we might plumb the depths of what in the world a resurrection leading to a leaving is about and where that leaves us.

Where the old spiritual Steal Away to Jesus sings about thundering trumpet sounds and a trumpet as sharp as lightning, someone might rewrite it for a Ascension song. Here’s a seed to start such a rewrite:

     Refrain:

          Steal away, steal away, steal away O Jesus!

          Steal away, steal away home,

          We got awhile to stay here.

Acts 1:15-17, 21-26

Year B - Easter 7 or Assurance ⁷

May 17, 2015

Acts 1:15-17, 21-26

A significant tension in every religious experience:

• Is this the start of something?
• Is this the culmination of something?

In the moment Scripture is opened to new interpretation—understanding. We can now see that something had been germinating there—in the dark. Under an ordinary sky—a new bloom. Where we had no way of fitting a new piece into an old puzzle—new room. Scripture has become a lens through which we see new possibilities.

As such a moment moves with us it becomes enfolded into a new darkness within Scripture that traps us in a prior interpretation and doctrine becomes knowing. Its claim upon us moves from bloom to sustenance and we feed on it even after it has been propped up with poisonous fertilizer and processes of genetic modification for an economy’s sake. From a hopeful bloom we see it emblazoned on a thousand shields and banners going forth to war to take all color out of the sky. There is not and cannot be any shade of gray for all has been decided and the greatest of mysteries has become mundane. Finally Scripture is not a lens but an eye-patch.

Is Matthias a needed piece to open an Indiana Jones quest one door deeper but insignificant in and of itself? Is Matthias a cypher standing for your name and mine inviting us to take Scripture yet another step beyond a previous blooming? I hope the latter. Keep wriggling. Your presence will be plenty enough surprising whenever a next blooming occurs.

Acts 1:1-11

Year B - Ascension or Our Turn to Witness

May 14, 2015

Acts 1:1-11

“Is this the time when you will restore the kingdom?”

Every season we desire to put our eggs in the basket of a person or a party that will restore a greatness that never was. Our blindness to the bloody tooth and claw of every generation, every power structure, keeps us raising a lantern and asking our greedy question. Jesus was asked this question, John was asked this question, and Herod and Ananias were asked this question. We show our intentional ignorance by repeating one variation or another of this old desire of being on top.

For fun you can go to lists of political slogans [Political Slogans or Presidential Campaign Slogans]. It can be just as revealing to listen for the “humble” slogans of those seeking religious power.

Slogans are always masks. Ascension is also a mask that is looking for control and if we are only looking for Jesus to return that is a great comfort to those currently in power and counter-productive to any spirit that would poke its head up, the slightest to look at the current state of affairs and say, “Be Clean”, “Rise and walk”, “She’s not dead”, “Love one another”.

A three-voiced summary:

• Is this the time when you will restore the kingdom?
• Wrong question. I’m outta here.
• This Jesus will be present when you restore any dignity.

Luke 24:44-53

Year B - Ascension or Our Turn to Witness

May 14, 2015

Luke 24:44-53

It takes power to raise folks from the dead. The power we have to do that with one another is contained in the phrase “repentance and forgiveness” of sins.

It is too easy to have that devolve into “their” repentance and “my” forgiveness”. Broken apart in this fashion we lose the power generated by their interrelationship—my repentance triggers my forgiveness and forgiving energizes further repentance. The work here is almost Buddhist regarding suffering and a way to rise through it. So it might be humbly suggested that power here is the release of power or non-attachment to power. When we get too far away from this sort of mystery we find ourselves unable to do anything but turn this report into magic.

Here is a theological thought experiment: Does your blessing cause a withdrawal of yourself from that which is being blessed and draw you closer to a next stage and state of being?

If this turns out to have an attractiveness about it, does it change what might be meant by worshipping Jesus? Might it go so far as, “And they blessed one another, and, returned joyfully to Jerusalem, the source of power and death, to continually bless as their way of being in the cosmos, this beautiful world becoming ever more so"?

John 17:6-19

Year B - Easter 7 or Assurance ⁷

May 17, 2015

John 17:6-19

Hopefully the final proof of Wrestling Year C is on its way to be reviewed before being OKing it for publication. This seems like a time to get back to first drafts of comments.

Exegetes have the joy of cross-referencing and checking sources when declarations are made. Then comes the fun of working with what is found. In some ways we are investigative reporters. Unfortunately such reporters usually find their articles unpublished or creatively edited when what they turned up doesn’t fit with the publisher’s viewpoint. In a church setting, the personnel committee acts as a mediating editor who can threaten dismissal if the story isn’t rewritten to the current guidelines.

How does the model of “protection” work when folks who have been followers (Jesus’ own) become non-followers (Nones)? Were they or weren’t they Jesus’ own? Are they still?

What does it means to claim Jesus didn’t hold anything back and gave everything forward that he had been given? Everything but the authority to ask on our own for the gift and responsibility to receive the consequences of being a full-partner with G*D?

What can be done about circular causality that politicians and preachers employ?

Can we report this translation of verses 15–19 by Richard W. Swanson in Provoking the Gospel of John and expect to have it published in the congregation?

I do not ask
   that you lift them out of the beautiful world,
   but that you guard them against worthlessness.
Out of the beautiful world they are not
   exactly as I am not out of the beautiful world.
Make them holy in the truth;
   your ordered utterance is truth.
Exactly as you sent me into the beautiful world,
   so also I sent them into the beautiful world.
For I made myself holy
   in order that they should be
      (even they)
   holy in truth.

Can our readers understand “evil” as causing “worthlessness” in our Neighb*r? That Jesus “made” himself “holy” and this ability has been given to us as Jesus’ partners? And we are to be “holy in truth” not “holy in power within an exclusive community”? 

What will you report from this passage?

Mark 16:1-8

Easter or Assured – Year B
5 April 2015
Mark 16:1-8

It has been awhile since I have posted a comment here. My time has been preoccupied with getting my next book of lectionary comments out: Wrestling Year C: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience.

Here is a comment for the Mark gospel option from Wrestling Year B.

     Mary, Mary, and Salome, now representing the discipleship narrative once held by John, James, and Peter, were practical to wait until Sunday dawn to go to a tomb. Tombs are dark enough in daylight and to do so in the dark would add difficulty to difficulty. They were not practical in their uncertainty about being able to get in when they got there. Where was Martha who would have organized this expedition so they would know they could enter when they arrived?     

     Well, it turned out the spirit of Martha had been on duty after all—the door was open and they walked right in.    

     I suppose they might have known that things were already falling apart in their orderly world when the stone had been moved. It doesn’t begin to sink in, though, until they enter to find another transfigured figure who transfixed them with words unimagined—“Jesus ain’t here; he’s on the way to Galilee. Tell those behind you that Jesus has gone on ahead of you” (sort of a John the Baptizer reprise).    

     Well, what now? Our question about the stone sure had a response we weren’t looking for. Now there are too many more questions suddenly swirling within. We can’t even talk to one another yet. 

     When practical and fiercely caring women go quiet, look out—gestation is taking place and birth will come in its own time.    

     What questions are taking root in you? What has surprised you into silence that it might become you? [Note: Remember to read the phrase, “become you” in several ways.] Eventually you will “go ahead” too, so enjoy the growth going on now and the going ahead will be more joyous.

Blessings on all the preparations you have been doing since the surprise of Christmas (Life/Blessed Body) to prepare for a surprise of Easter (Assurance of New Life) by attending to all the large and small surprises between.

2 Kings 2:1-12

Year B - Transfiguration or Mountain Top to Valley

February 15, 2015

2 Kings 2:1-12

Whirlwinds find their reversal in silence [ref. The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible].

The original languages translated into “whirlwind” have been variously translated and so it is difficult to track what is going on here in English translations.

Remember that Elijah, famously of the “still small voice”, now meets G*D in a tempest, a whirlwind. Remember the disciples on the lake in the midst of a storm, a whirlwind, who find that storm stilled, quieted, silenced.

In our lives we bounce back and forth between whirlwind and silence with different folks having different proportions of time in each.

It is a transfiguring experience to become aware of G*D in both, the conversation these can have with one another, and our own preferences. When life is too settled, a whirlwind can be helpful in figuring out what is most important and held to when all about you is going to hell in a handbasket. When life is too topsy-turvy, a blessing to regain perspective is time spent in quiet, silence.

Making friends of brother whirlwind and sister silence bears much good fruit. Both can bear G*D and both can be used as a sign of absence from G*D. Our work is to find which is applicable in the current moment and live from its gift.

Mark 9:2-9

Year B - Transfiguration or Mountain Top to Valley

February 15, 2015

Mark 9:2-9

A promise has been made: “Some here will see the power of the Presence of G*D before they die.” [Mark 9:1]

Now, six days later, some (Peter, James, John, Jesus) ascend a distant high mountain. With the sun in their eyes, Peter, James, and John saw Jesus and two sun dogs (Moses, Elijah) all connected and communing.

Peter piped up to offer to make three Sukkot dwellings for them before remembering there were no branches here and hauling them up would be untold work. This was evidence that Peter had lost his bearings.

Well, the Presence of G*D can do that.

Before things could be properly sorted out, a cloud obscured the sun and sun dogs. The take away was as the shepherd response to the angels, “Let’s check what we are hearing and follow where it leads.”

It leads to enacting the Presence of G*D, not talking about it.

Admittedly there is extra material tossed in here regarding being raised (vs risen) and that being an opportunity to reflect on the Presence of G*D. However, the disciples being the disciples they were, they didn’t wait to talk amongst themselves about what being connected to their heritage of “Law and Prophet” might mean.

What they lost in talking too soon were the “Writings”, the stories that could make sense of Law and Prophet without the danger of literalizing them. So the disciples saw the Presence of G*D, but had yet to learn how to engage it participating in the real world. They were still trapped in a Heaven and Earth paradigm when only one of Paradise could keep the connection and communing going and healing alive.

In just a few days it will be time to shift gears from this great gift of Presence and enter a time when the rule of thumb is—no Paradise for such as you. It may be that this would be a good Lenten gift to give yourself—attend to the Writings during Lent, not the Prophets and, especially, not the Law. See if Lent can stand on its own without Law/Sin.

Mark 1:29-39

Year B - Epiphany 5 or Guiding Gift ⁵
February 8, 2015

Mark 1:29-39

First acts of Jesus after garnering disciples: deal with a “demon” with extra energy and a person with a fever, lacking in energy.

These are transformational events that lead to an expectation of a never-ending supply of demons and diseases. “There are more demons and illnesses in Heaven and Earth, Jesus, than hours in your day.” [Horatio means “timekeeper” and thus this quotation reference.]

Retreat!

While retreating in a desert-ed place, comes a demand to get back to work—curing and healing.

Advance!

No, I am going to continue my vocation, not my work. This vocation is journey oriented, not location specific. So, let’s practice: Staves? (check) Sandals? (check) Daily bread? (check) Advance! (check) Shine in each dark corner we visit. (well, okay)

John 1:43-51

Year B - Epiphany 2 or Guiding Gift ²
January 18, 2015

John 1:43-51

Six Acts:

1) “I have identified meaning for my time.”

If you want to couch this in traditional religious terms there are plenty of hooks on which to place the authority of your meaning. If you want to be wider-ranging or more inclusive than any particular from the past, that is also available to you.

2) “I see no good coming from that direction.”

No matter what you identify there will soon be a resistance to it by those you are engaging for your meaning is not automatically seen by them as including their meaning. All too often they have experienced people talking this way who want to subsume them under an alien authority. Whatever you raise as a point of meaning will have a “Nazareth” component to someone else.

3) “Come and see.”

Finally we can but invite folks to walk with us. Some will journey for a bit toward our viewing place and leave before arriving. Some will make it all the way to see what we saw and still not see it. Some will get there and see even further wherein we will be the ones seeing some “Nazareth” in their extension that is too much for us.

4) “Here is one not bound by skepticism.”

When this affirmation comes to us our life-story and questions are honored. Our limitations are acknowledged. Our gifts and blessings are affirmed. We can be.

5) “Are you sure?”

Knowing our ability to deceive runs bone deep as we try to justify our self and sneak in to some paradise by the skin of our teeth, this sense of having and being a blessing is more than we can take in.

6) “You are on a Blessing Way.”

This is a next step on a longer journey of mutual provocation to become more human. Welcome.