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WEDNESDAY THOUGHT 3/30/11

SMILE.  GOD LOVES YOU

 No deep, ponderous Bible verse today, though I do guarantee that this one will make you grin, maybe even laugh out loud. 

When I was a child and did something especially cute or stupid (take your pick), my mother would often smile and shake her head.  Then she would take my face in her hands, kiss me and, laughing, sing loud in her off-key voice:  “I don’t know why I love you like I do.  I don’t know why.  I just do.” 

Well, I woke up at three this morning with that song running through my head, and all I could think was that God was singing this love song to me.  I laughed and actually sang it aloud in the dark, thinking of God and my mother, and then settled back down to sweet sleep. 

My point:  God does love us; though I don’t know why, He just does. – jri

All day long you’re asking me what I see in you
All day long I’m answering but what good does it do?
I have nothing to explain
I just love you, love you, and I’ll tell you once again

I don’t know why I love you like I do
I don’t know why, I just do
I don’t know why you thrill me like you do
I don’t know why, you just do

You never seem to want my romancing
The only time you hold me is when we’re dancing

I don’t know why I love you like I do
I don’t know why, I just do

You never seem to want my romancing
The only time you hold me is when we’re dancing

I don’t know why I love you like I do
I don’t know why, I just do

                 —  Tony Bennett

 Want to smile today?  Better yet, want to make someone else smile?  Sing this song to someone who you love.  But first just sing it to yourself, a love song from God.  Have a joy-filled, blessed day, knowing the Lord gets the biggest kick out of you.       

TUESDAY THOUGHT 3/29/11

But What Have You Done for Me Lately, God? 

I got whiney on Sunday, like an eight-year old without enough sleep.  First, an upcoming travel schedule was screwed up, and I was feeling unappreciated by the client.  Plus, I had totally rearranged my day’s schedule to do a telephone interview for an article, only to be stood up by the subject.  Finally, I was doubting my public speaking efforts, wondering if I was really any good at all.  No big things, I know, but, still, I whined and told God I was fed up.  Waah!  Waah!  Waah! 

Well, just for the record, on Monday the client recognized its error and fixed the travel schedule.  The interview subject’s assistant called and apologized, explaining that she had mistakenly marked down the wrong week.  And I received a nice trophy for best speaker in the evening, and I was up against some great speakers.  

My point:  I sometimes marvel at my little faith.  As soon as things don’t go my way, I begin to whine and doubt.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:  “Ah, if I only had faith, I could do anything.”  Thank God that God understands that I am a clay-footed yahoo … and loves me anyway. – jri 

I guess having faith doesn’t always mean … well, having faith.  I know God.  We don’t always get along, but I believe IN Him and, like Abraham, I also usually believe Him … much of the time.  So, sometimes, when I catch my lack of faith, I just have to shrug and smile.  If I ever get to perfect, I’ll let you know.  Have a joy-filled, faith-filled day.  God bless.         

MONDAY THOUGHT 3/28/11

The Question of Evil

This is one of those issues I’ve pondered for years, mostly because if God did not create evil, then who did create it? Etc. Etc.  Etc.   

So, maybe it’s kind of like this:  Dad buys me a car because he loves me.  His intent is to please me.  Used right, this is great.  I get to have fun, drive all over creation, enjoy my freedom.  However, if I go out, get drunk and kill someone in a head-on crash, well, that was my decision, a gross misuse of the gift, and not something Dad did.  I turned his gift of love into evil.  My stupid choice.

My point:  I do not have a totally clear understanding of good vs. evil, but I’m kind of getting the hang of it.  I think that’s because more than the topic of evil, this deals with our glorious, wondrous free will to choose … and so many of us make poor choices.  – jri

 “I have the right!”  Every day I see how we use our free will to make some of the dumbest choices, as if we have a gift for choosing the door with the monster behind it.  I recognized some time ago that God chose me.  Why?  I don’t know, but He did.  Then the tough part came along:  Using my free will, I chose Him also.  Pretty cool.  God bless, and may your day be filled with peace and joy … and good, positive choices.  

FRIDAY THOUGHT 3/25/11

THE ANNUNCIATION

Today is the feast of The Annunciation, when the Angel Gabriel invited Mary to become the mother of Christ.  The virgin pregnancy is one miracle of this event.  The total acceptance of God’s will by this young woman has been described by some as even more profound.  

Since that time, this event has been remembered as an example of perfect and total surrender to – and complete trust it – God’s will.  Humbling and inspiring.  Have a joy-filled, God-focused day.  – jri 

Rather than more of my ramblings, I’ve pasted below another thought for this wondrous day, shared by a friend, Father Joe Mazza: 

THE ANNUNCIATION TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY + March 25

The other monks, recognizing his gifts, asked him to paint a scene on the walls of their cells. He even painted a marvelous depiction of the magi, richly robed, offering their gifts to the Christ Child, in the cell reserved for the Medici prince who visited from time to time. But the scene he painted most often for his brothers was that of the Annunciation to the blessed Virgin. You may see his work, dazzlingly beautiful, in the monastery of San Marco in Florence. His name was Fra Angelico.

The monks chose the subject because they wanted to be reminded, as they woke in the morning, or perhaps when burdened by the rigors of their monastic life, or as they fell asleep at night, that they too had heard God‘s messenger. That like the Virgin Mary, they had known the mystical invitation to be a bearer of the Word. In its compelling way, the call was their lodestar, their compass, their joy, their reason for being. As it was for Mary. As it is for us.
 
God of grace,
grant that Mary’s obedience may inspire us to obey your will
and receive Jesus Christ in our hearts as Lord;
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever. 

(from A New Zealand Prayer Book, page 647)

Pray today

• to know the call of God, and grace to fulfill it
• that all Christians to know the intimacy of God’s favor
• for those who lived the vowed life of religious

WEDNESDAY THOUGHT 3/23/11

THANKS, GOD.  NOW SCRAM!

Do you recall the story about the crippled man who had been waiting beside the pool for 38 years hoping for a cure?  Thirty-eight years!  Then Jesus shows up and heals him instantly.  Good job, Jesus!  However, what about the man’s next move?  Well, Jesus saw him later and told him exactly what he needed to do. 

This story made me think of my stray-dog acquaintance who brags about his illicit sexual escapades, as well as about how God cured him of cancer.  He sees no need to change his gnarly ways. 

My point, or two of them, actually:  First, never give up hope.  God heals us in His subtle but powerful way each and every day, even when we do not see it.  Never give up.  Second, give thanks for your blessings, both seen and unseen.  Do not act like my stray-dog acquaintance, who took the gift of being cured of cancer and then basically told God, “Fine.  Thanks.  Now scram.  I have things to do!” – jri

“But afterward Jesus found him [the crippled man] in the Temple and told him, ‘Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.’” – John 5:14 

I know I tend to spend way too much time focusing on me, me, me!  I have been blessed with wondrous miracles in my life, deliverance from terrible predicaments … many of my own contrivance.  However, too often, I continue to let the pebble in my shoe, the little issue yet to be resolved, overwhelm the joy for the myriad of blessings:  including forgiveness; faith; the simple ability to walk and talk; loving children and grandchildren; accepting friends; a wondrous church and faith community; the opportunity to work; and that’s just a few of many, many blessings.  Have a joyous day, cherish the many blessings with which the Lord has graced you, and be sure to say thanks. 

MONDAY THOUGHT 3/21/11

EYEWITNESS NEWS 

One of the complaints from Judas in the play, “Jesus Christ, Superstar,” was to question why Jesus did all He did in a backwater region at a time before the mass media could have captured His words and image.  Imagine, for example, what He actually said to the Samaritans over the course of two days (see the verse below).  It could have been edited down to the highlights and posted in a two-minute segment on UTube.  I bet it would have gone viral!  And then we’d circulate it with the admonishment, “Are you afraid to forward this to ten friends?” before returning to the important matters of our day. 

Or maybe – and this is my own speculative conclusion – this would have come off as just more bread and circus (which was how the Romans kept the citizenry satisfied).  Imagine the commentators:  “Jesus, looking haggard from his long run in Vegas, did it again, folks.  Walked across the fountain at Caesar’s Palace.  Just a trick, or is this guy the real thing?  After the break, an interview with an eyewitness who claims he saw Jesus talking to a prostitute on a street corner last night.” 

My point:  It seems to me that we got just the right dose of Jesus, just enough to decide for ourselves – or not – that He is who He claimed to be.  Take it on faith.  Video at ten! – jri 

It seems to me that God gives us all that we need.  Sure, we could always complain that we’d believe if….  But that’s a crock.  He gives us enough, which is way more than enough.  Enjoy the blessings He has given you this day.  Be grateful and joyful.  You are blessed.    

THURSDAY THOUGHT 3/17/11

GOING FOR THE LIGHT 

I know people – way too many – who shun the light, who dwell in a self-imposed state of hopelessness, overwhelmed by either their own too-numerous failures or a sense that life has done them wrong.  They wouldn’t know joy if it snuck up and bit them.  Worse, somewhere along the way, they decided that the darkness was best for them, a comfortable, if bleak, known.  They have quit.

Then I think of my mother, who was beset and assailed at every turn of her life.  However, every day I knew her she awoke with an off-key song on her lips and a twinkle in her eyes.  Most of all, when I would feel defeated, she would ferociously admonish me: “Go for the light, Johnny.  Always go for the light.”  

My point:  We cannot always choose our outcomes, but we can always choose our attitudes.  In faith and life, choose joy … no matter what.  And never give up! – jri 

How can we choose joy?  Well, start at the end.  We will all die someday.  That’s a fact:  100 percent mortality.  We don’t know when and we don’t know how, but we will die.  To me, that means every day is  a gift, a blessing, an opportunity.  (No, there are many days I do not see it this way, trust me.)  During each day, all we can do is the best we can, and some days we will fall again and again and again.  That doesn’t matter.  We can choose (and that is sometimes the only thing over which we have control, our ability to choose) to keep getting up, keep trying, and also keep accepting our weaknesses as well as our strengths and successes.  Joy is a choice we can all make.  Choose it today.  God bless. 

WEDNESDAY THOUGHT 3/16/11

CHOOSING GOD 

As we all do, I have made many choices in my life.  Most were influenced by things I’d learned and/or people I admired.  My early Roman Catholic upbringing gave me a peripheral belief.  By mid-high school, my bubbling hormones brought something more interesting (at the time, at least) to the forefront, while college brought scornful intellectual knowledge and atheism.  (The summation argument was:  “How can a loving God allow such suffering, etc.?”)

Today, it’s real simple:  I believe.  That belief is based on two things:  One is decades of a steely-eyed, relentless, honest quest, a quest that never compromised, never accepted a god I needed, but sought a god (or not) who was real.  The second (and this I never saw coming) is, finally, an understanding that I was not (and am not) alone in that quest.  I gradually began to recognize that God – the one-and-only God, as real as the chair in which I am sitting – chose me.  Why?  Who knows?  It doesn’t matter.  So, eventually, just as God chose me, I choose God.  (It took both of to make that deal work.)  And I will add that the quest – the struggle, the joy, the side roads, all of it – was and is well worth the pursuit.

My point:  We are not alone in our search for answers.  God chose us and is with us.  All we have to do is choose Him. – jri 

It has been my experience that non-belief is a fine and honorable place to visit and explore on the road to true understanding.  It is when people make their non-belief into a full-blown belief system, make it a permanent home and build up walls around the rest of the quest, that they become (and pardon the politically incorrect terminology) spiritually retarded.  Their growth stops.  If you are a non-believer, do not be afraid of further inquiry.  Even, this weekend, why not check out a church, even if it means sneaking in anonymously to a house of worship in a different community?  And then look around.  The people may not be as naïve and ignorant and pathetic as you had suspected.  Give it a shot.  Nothing to lose.  Oh, and God bless you on your journey. 

THURSDAY THOUGHT 3/10/11

ANSWERING PRAYERS

Today is my son’s 37^th birthday.  My first-born, Jonathan is one of my great blessings, along with his two sisters and my five amazing grandchildren.  However, there was a period of great turmoil in our family when Jonny and I did not speak for a long time, and when we did, the tone was cold and formal. 

It was a heart breaking time for all of us, a time when we both walked around with open wounds that we tried to ignore.  Talking to an acquaintance, I casually commented, “He’ll come back when he’s ready.”  This acquaintance paused, looked at me and slowly added, “And when you’re ready, too.”

My point:  God answers prayers when we are ready.  He doesn’t just dole out goodies willy-nilly at the drop of a “gimme.”  He waits and prepares us for the blessings.  So, be patient in prayer.  God is always there, and He is always listening. – jri

 And, yes, I am pleased to be able to report that the time came when Jonathan and I were both ready, and today we have a loving, teasing, caring relationship.  Many blessings; so many blessings. So, be joyful because the time between prayer asked and prayer answered is a time of preparation, not a time when we are being ignored or dismissed.  Happy birthday, Son, and thank you for being you.     

MONDAY THOUGHT 3/7/11

BELIEF SYSTEMS 

Like many half-way intelligent, reasonably educated people, I have devoted a  fair amount of my life seeking to understand something called “truth,” attempting to see if various belief systems fit into the puzzle known as life and the world.  

Born into Christianity, I eventually slipped into indifference, then atheism, followed by agnosticism, stoicism, Zen Buddhism, egoism (belief that all answers were contained within me and me alone) and other isms.  All looked just fine at first blush, appeared to come close at times, but never quite right, never the perfect fit that filled the hole in my life and my soul.  Finally, one did fit: a subtle, quiet non-ism called faith in God.  This one keeps making more and more sense all the time.

My point:  It’s called “The Way,” and it is not something that works, but something that simply is.  That Way is Jesus Christ.  – jri 

One of the things I’ve learned over the years is that, while faith and truth are revealed, God does not give these to us all at once; no burning bushes, thank you.  Just as daily exercise builds up the body, prayer and devotions prepare the soul for the gifts God gives us.  I try to spend 15 to 30 minutes a day reading and praying.  Over time, like a trickle charge on a battery, this is all it takes to charge my soul.  Have a joy-filled, patiently faithful day.    

FRIDAY THOUGHT 3/4/11

THURSDAY THOUGHT 3/3/11

TIGER BLOOD AND ADONIS DNA! 

It has been both fascinating and embarrassing to watch actor Charlie Sheen self-destruct in public.  In case you haven’t been following the story, he has been publicly proclaiming himself as special, sort of a super man, even bragging that he has “tiger blood and Adonis DNA!”  He is either psychotic or on seriously dangerous drugs. 

His rantings kind of make me think of how we’re all that way sometimes, often quick to claim the fame for our talents and successes.  I know I’ve done it, strutted and huffed and puffed about this and that … until I actually began to believe it.  Only one problem:  A slip in the shower, a cough that runs deeper than it should, a decision made by someone else – all things that can change our lives in a snap.  

My point:  Adonis DNA or not, we’re not in charge; we’re not in control.  We’re not as strong or as tough as we’d like sometimes to think we are.  Yes, we can make decision ‘til the cows come home, but the outcomes are in God’s hands.  And that’s just fine.  – jri 

Paul speaks of how he has a weakness, a major flaw, that keeps his ego in check.  (Though he does not identify what that flaw is, many have speculated that it might be an illness such as epilepsy, a speech impediment or – and this is a stretch, but it satisfies some folks – latent homosexuality.)  He is actually grateful for this weakness, saying, “For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:10)   I like that idea, if only because I know that when I am on streak of unbridled success, I begin to get cocky, think I’m pretty hot stuff.  It is my flaws that keep me from being a complete jerk.  So, not that we should cherish our flaws, but I guess we should at least appreciate them.  Even they have a place in God’s mighty plan.  Have a blessed, joy-filled, somewhat flawed day!   

WEDNESDAY THOUGHT 3/2/11

THE GREAT DISCONNECT

I was reassured to hear this past weekend of what was called “The Clergy Dream,” or actually nightmare.  Father Joe shared that his recurring dream was approaching the pulpit and not being able to find the correct reading.  Deacon Jerry chimed  in that he had also had this dream.

I say I was reassured because it reminded me that we all have doubts, fears, uncertainties, anxieties.  That’s what I call the Great Disconnect: On one hand, we believe and trust – we KNOW — that God loves us unconditionally, cares for us and watches over us.  Still … way down deep in our bones, we have our doubts.  Otherwise, we would all walk around every day with a bounce in our step and a grin on our face. 

My point:  We are human.  We live in a world of uncertainty, one in which we do not know what tomorrow will bring.  So, even though we may believe … well, again, we’re just human, and we’re not as trusting as we might like to think we are.  I guess my point is that we just need to do the best we can, take the faith we’ve been given and live not just in faith, but also in hope. – jri 

Oh, and don’t be too hard on yourself if you worry now and then (or all the time).  Remember, even Jesus sweated blood in the garden of Gethsemane and seems to have had real fear about the suffering He would face on Good Friday … even though we assume He knew that, once He got through that, He would be resurrected in joyful glory. Still, why not strive to put today, just today, totally and unconditionally in God’s hands; live it worry free in joy, hope and worry-free faith.  Amen!   .