Becoming

Some people do alcohol or drugs to become the person they want to be. I use prayer. If I want to deactivate my worst faults, and be loving, kind, and serene, I find that quiet, meditative prayer seems to work for me. A couple of time outs each day seems to interrupt or keep the craziness away. Sometimes the craziness is so crazy that I ignore prayer. It is best for me that I introduce quiet time into my life earlier rather than wait for later each day.

At times when I am at the beginning of my quiet time, I am anything but quiet. Rather than be still, I seem to feel an intense desire to jump out of my skin. This reveals to me how tense I am, how preoccupied I am with energized thoughts. Stress can hide until I try and be still. I wait with a short prayer, even a word thought quietly two or three times. I don't jump out of my skin. I begin to relax. Maybe there is a spasm or two of tension as it leaves my body. Then I am at rest, or as the bible says, "Be still, and know that I am God."

God's Body

God does not want to have a body. The old time gods wanted bodies but could not have them. They were gods. That is why they like blood sacrifices, so some tribes thought. The gods did not have blood so we gave them some of ours.

But the Abba God of Jesus is satisfied to remain Spirit and invisible, but would like to experience human life through a human body. My body is a gift from God so that I can give it back to God in the way I live. My life can give enjoyment to God if I live it in a loving and giving way. If I am not too sure of how to do this, I have Jesus as an example.

When I have the gift of friendship is is because my friend wants to enjoy life through my uniques gifts and talents and personality. If I am selfish, self-centered, unkind and generally whining, I am a gift for no one. I seem to behave better when I think this way, and worse when I focus only on me.

Statements

When rich people want to make a statement about themselves, they build 18,000 square foot homes with water falls, and gardens. They buy expensive cars. What do poor people do, or young people who don't have a lot of resources? What do they do? Well, they have their bodies. They tattoo them and pierce them. They try and enhance their status, or make some statement about where they belong in some social circle.

Sadly, for some, they think it makes them more, whereas their body from God makes them less. God's creation simply isn't cool. Change something about the skin and become more comfortable in that skin. Anything less is too ordinary. But we are never really ordinary. God is delighted with us as we are without all the additions. We are enough for God. Why are we not enough for ourselves? Maybe we need a second opinion. But don't ask your tattooed friend.

Disguise

There is yet another "Sherlock Holmes" movie current. Sherlock specializes in disguises. He is trying to solve some mystery, and the disguise might help him to get to the solution whereas the normal Sherlock would just get in the way.

I believe that God shows up in disguises. God is trying to help us to know the mystery of ourselves. God knows, but we do not. If God were to show up as just God, we would be overwhelmed by the Presence, and not be able to see much of ourselves, beyond the fear or awe.

We try to get rid of most of God's disguises. God shows up as our moods, or as unexpected events, or as people who are strangers to us. Moods we might try to change. People we might try to ignore. The unexpected simply irritates us. It just might be the Presence saying, " Why not take a look at yourself without judgment or action in each of these situations." Some of our own mystery might then be revealed to us.

Cat Eyes

A black cat sits on a ledge across the driveway from my room. I watch cat. Suddenly cat turns around on the ledge and looks intently into the neighbor's yard. It sees something. I look too. I see nothing. Nothing is moving. How can cat see and I cannot? Cat has better eyes. And cat is looking for something.

My soul has cat eyes. Soul is searching and can see what my body eyes cannot see. I fail to "see" my soul's hunger for God. I only feel a certain dis-ease, unsettledness. My soul sees the presence of God and tries to focus on that presence, while my body goes about doing this and that activity which fails to satisfy the hunger of the soul.

Soul cannot directly speak to me and say, "Look". The language of soul is silence. I am blind until the emptiness of food that does not fill bothers me too much to ignore it any longer. But by then I am a wreck. What a silly way to live. Busy and empty at the same time.

Change

I am here in Boulder again for the Christmas season. I am the only priest among three Boulder parishes. The others all left town. Last year it was the same scenario. I like to spend Christmas in Boulder, but why not think about a change of venue for this time of year? What stands in the way?

Routine. This is what has happened. I have several reasons for wanting to be here, but the one that seems to hold a lot of pull is routine. I think that routine is the enemy of change. To do something different is to do something new, without knowing how the "new" will work out. Routine seems to have the pull of a "guarantee" to it. I know how things will work out. That is why I call it a routine.

So just to make sure that routine does not rule my life too much, I think that I will be someplace else come next Christmas. But one never knows.

New Year

This is the time for resolutions. Well, a resolution is just a decision, a matter of the mind. No action is taken. The will is not engaged. a resolution will take on some flesh when we begin to drop one thing to replace it with our resolution. Or we shift our priorities, but I suspect something is going to be put off of our daily activities if this new resolution is going to be acted upon. No one has free time to just add something. So what are you dropping? you could try and fool yourself and say you are simply adding something and still going to do it all.