The Christmas Star: A Sweet Monument In the Night To Follow

A body may train, but a soul fasts. The time of abstinence from slack or food takes us on a journey where time takes on a paradox. Everything seems like Dali’s Still Life, Fast Moving. (Nature Morte Vivante) . You may have a ton of things to do but the brain is slack-jawed. It won’t get up and move. I think it must have been like this, this mood, amongst those on the way to Jerusalem on that night long ago. The perfect moment for Eternity to step into Time. A slack-jawed brain time. It wasn’t thinking about a million miles a minute, it was too numb from the journey and all the travails along the way. It was forced to rest and whatever place of rest, the more the mess, would do. It had discovered that things could, and would wait and all would turn out all right in the end. It was primed to see a miracle. And so a bright star would not be a momentary distraction but a sweet monument of peace in the night to follow without concern for anything else. I’m ready. Are you? Let’s drop our burdens and go there together!

Merry Christmas to you and yours! Till next time.

God bless you.  M. S. Reed, 2009, Dilseacht, le gra go deo | Share on FriendFeed

A Christmas Year In Spirit: A Serious Gladness and A Straight-Through Joy

“When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?” – G. K. Chesterton

As we approach this Christmas, there seem to be feelings of ambivalence  even sadness in the air rather than sugarplums dancing: many of us still don’t have jobs or jobs that pay what we may need to make our bills, the economists are not predicting any pull out soon, and the swine flu pandemic has hit the parents of the children who have died very hard.  The talk from many over the Internet is either sprinkled with excitement about Christmas shopping and activities that hardly seem affected by the recession or the thoughts of others  foretell of “lesser” homemade gifts for loved ones coupled with an unwritten underlying wistfulness for more in their “Christmas Accounts” at the bank.   Over all, one could say there is  a subdued tone this Christmas: even the playing of Christmas carols is infrequent through Social Media though  YouTube has an abundant selection

If we feel more serious than glad this Christmas, it is quite all right as there is still a serious gladness to be had and we may find that we feel even better for having had it. It is remarkably the same serious gladness that Chesterton speaks to when he gently reminds us of this mood in the quote above.  To have legs for socks is, indeed, a reason for celebrating( though not one we may willingly concede in the face of lost treats.) But such forthright reminders and disappointments lead us over the bridge to the real hope we have been given, a reason for celebrating more… especially when that hope is felt during seriously hard times.  That same seriousness of mood greeted the birth of our Lord whose gift to mankind we celebrate during this season.

For Joseph and Mary, like many of us,  it was not an easy time.  Mary faced the hardship of possible divorce from an initially disbelieving Joseph, though she was given support through her cousin Elizabeth and her husband, Zechariah.  Both Joseph and Mary had to forgo concentrating on fixing up there home for the coming child because they were compelled to pay taxes to Caesar.  The journey to Bethlehem was not an easy one: the terrain and length of the trip  made it necessary to pack water and food was scarce.  Once they arrived, as scripture tells us: “..there was no room at the Inn”.  And yet there was a Christmas light, a star, and there were Christmas carols when the heavenly host broke out in song.  The Christmas gift, of course, lay in a manger for shepherds who wore no special Christmas clothes to come and see.

Like those shepherds who left their flocks so long ago, we too are invited to leave our burdens behind just for a moment to come and see that gift, to experience that serious gladness that leads to a straight-through joy more satisfying than any modern “Christmas” delight we may miss this year. For we know, we now living in these days, what that child grew up to be: Our precious Lord and Savior, Jesus. And we echo Mary’s song of Joy:

My soul doth magnify the Lord.

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid;

for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.

Because he that is mighty,

hath done great things to me;

and holy is his name.

And his mercy is from generation unto generations,

to them that fear him.

He hath shewed might in his arm:

he hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.

He hath put down the mighty from their seat,

and hath exalted the humble.

He hath filled the hungry with good things;

and the rich he hath sent empty away.

He hath received Israel his servant,

being mindful of his mercy:

As he spoke to our fathers,

to Abraham and to his seed for ever.

The Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55)

Merry Christmas to you and yours! Till next time.

God bless you.  M. S. Reed, 2009, Dilseacht, le gra go deo | Share on FriendFeed

The Flag of the World: “In” The World But Not “Of” It

I had found this hole in the world: the fact that one must somehow find a way of loving the world without trusting it; somehow one must love the world without being worldly. – G. K. Chesterton, The Flag of the World, Orthodoxy

How do you and I do that?  How do we be “in” the world but not “of” it?  Jesus tells us that we will be “hated” just as He was.  (John 15:17-19) Are we ready to be “in” the world but not “of” it to the degree that we are willing to be thought of in the same way as some do Him?  With hatred?   “God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son that we might have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)  That is the paradox: the precise application of love, the willing endurance of hate for that love.    Are we willing?  If we are, how do we go about it?

Chesterton was trying to work out the same problem as you and I, to find and understand this foundational of all paradoxes in which we presently live:

And then there followed an experience impossible to describe.  It was as if I had been blundering about since my birth with two huge unmanageable machines, of different shapes and without apparent connection – the world and the Christian tradition. (John 17:15-19)

I had found this hole in the world: the fact that one must somehow find a way of loving the world without trusting it; somehow one must love the world without being worldly.  I found this projecting feature of Christian theology like a sort of hard spike, the dogmatic insistence that God was personal and had made the world separate from Himself.  The spike of dogma fitted exactly into the hole in the world – it had evidently been meant to go there – and then a strange thing began to happen. When once these two parts of the two machines had come together, one after another, all the other parts fitted and fell in with an eerie exactitude.  I could hear bolt after bolt over all the machinery falling into its place with a kind of click of relief.  Having got one part right, all the other parts were repeating that rectitude, as clock after clock strikes noon.  Instinct after instinct was answered by doctrine after doctrine. Or to vary the metaphor, I was like one who had advanced into a hostile country to take one high fortress.  And when that fort had fallen, the whole country surrendered and turned solid behind me.  The whole land lit up, as it were, back to the first fields of my childhood.

Resolving this problem of being “in” the world but not “of” it is a battle.  It is a battle of the heart and spirit against our own flesh and the experiences we have had and may continue to have.  It is against an enemy who will use those experiences to distract us from a victory each one of us could have.  It is those experiences that distract us and keep us from the real war going on between the  country of our heart against the world’s way of living. Yet the world is still there to love like a family, albeit one with many problems.

Chesterton draws us back to the family metaphor when leaving us some advice on how best to be “in” this world but not “of” it:

The world is not a lodging house in Brighton, which we are to leave because it is miserable.  It is the fortress of our family with the flag flying on the turret, and the more miserable it is the less we should leave it. The point is not that this world is too sad to love or too glad not to love; the point is that, when you do love a thing, its gladness is a reason for loving it and its sadness a reason for loving it more.

Jesus showed us the way to love the world AND to conquer it: by following Him and keeping busy by preaching the Good News wherever God has placed us, doing good to the poor, loving and caring for our families and those in need.

That’s the way to plant the flag of the world.

Till next time.

God bless you.  M. S. Reed, 2009, Dilseacht, le gra go deo | Share on FriendFeed

The Ethics of Elfland: On Remembering Who We Are

“Every man has forgotten who he is. One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self more distant than any star. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God; but thou shalt not know thyself. We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that, for certain dead levels of our life, we forget that we have forgotten. All that we can call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that, for one awful instant, we remember that we forget….Here I am only trying to describe the enormous emotions that cannot be described. And the strongest emotion was that life was as precious as it was puzzling. It was an ecstasy because it was an adventure; it was an adventure because it was an opportunity. The goodness of the fairy tale was not affected by the fact that there might be more dragons than princesses*; it was good to be in a fairy tale.” (1)

A lovely modern day example of what Chesterton was discussing in The Ethics of Elfland about being able to see the power of the Divine (Augustine) in fairy tales as well as to remind us of what Chesterton calls our attention to here:” remembering who we are” is that of a story in Mary Poppins Comes Back. It is a delightful account written from the infant twins point of view who are able to still speak the language of the Starling bird, the trees, the Sun, and the wind. And the only adult who can hear them and understand their language is, of course, Mary Poppins. It illustrates exactly what Chesterton wants us to remember in relation to God: we are His children still; in need of wonder and gratitude like that of children who do know what it is like to “exult in monotony”.

Till next time.

God bless you.  M. S. Reed, 2009, Dilseacht, le gra go deo | Share on FriendFeed

_______________________________________________________________________________________

*[Author's Note: something that the poet Rilke acknowledges in his famous line from "Letters to a Young Poet:"Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act,..."]

(1) G. K. Chesterton, The Ethics of Elfland, Orthodoxy, Edited, Craig M. Bibler, 2002 (Annotated Edition)

On Why Love Is A Promise That God Expects Us To Keep…And How He Knows That We Can

Have you heard that ” Love is a promise, not a feeling”? Hard to believe when the world about you is filled with songs that say the opposite these days. “Whatever feels right at the moment” is what you hear most often. But when does a broken heart ever “feel” right? When does a “broken” conscience ever let you sleep really peacefully without having to do something distracting to make it go away? Entertainment, addictions, even the approval of the those around you who aren’t really looking through what you’re doing will not eventually make up for what’s missing: real love. The kind of love that only God has made us to want and need in order to feel whole. This love is deep and abiding, encompassing the real passion that its poor substitute tries to get along without in this world. It is relentless in its pursuit of our heart and all the distractions and the false relationships we heap up between us and it show that we cannot get along without it. It won’t let us go in spite of our bad behavior. Why?

Because real love is a promise, not a feeling. God created us to express love that way. Expressing anything less, no matter what temporary heights you reach, robs everyone, including yourself. You see, God, made us to be highly motivated to want the promise much more than just the feeling alone. It is the only way to make the whole thing last and get every last best drop of those precious feelings to be had from it! It is the only way to feel safe in our relationships and with ourselves. Break the promise and every thing thereafter is set up to fall short and be suspect from even the tiniest dread of betrayal. That tiny speck of untrustworthiness has the power to wreck the desperate unity sought after in all that tries to follow. And no amount of “lifestyle compatibility” will change that. Such a choice overlooks the whole focus of achievement that true marriage is about: to reconcile the two into one. It also overlooks the betrayal of one’s own flesh which has already been united with another in a way beyond what can be explained in mere language.  Running from a promise to keep searching for or to try to sustain “being in love”, while boasted by some, is never really proven to happen.

What happens is a looking for someone who will let us get “our way”, hypes us up with high emotions based on physical attraction first and we settle for calling that “love”.   But is this real love?  “No emotion, any more than a wave, can long retain its form”, said Henry Ward Beecher.   Real love, as God reminds and show us, “does not look for its own interests.” (1 Cor. 13).  It is a rock steady thing, “more stern and splendid than mere kindness” (1).  And with that thought, it emphatically puts to rest our often soul pursuit, especially in this country, of our own “happiness”, a happiness that in truth is really more about satisfying our own pleasure and not the spiritual needs of another.  Sadly, it is rare these days to marry because someone needs taken care of (book of Ruth) out of love.  Books, movies, TV, the culture around us keep telling us “its all about emotional chemistry first” and then maybe a conditional commitment which often is forsaken on the flimsiest pretext of “not being in love” anymore.  So is “falling in love” a bad thing then?

As C. S. Lewis reassures us: “Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling… Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go… But, of course, ceasing to be “in love” need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense — love as distinct from “being in love” — is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriage) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God… “Being in love” first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.” (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)

When we give our promise in marriage, it is not something our body takes lightly either. Chemical transactions in both the brain and the body are taking place when we give a promise and leaving signatures throughout as evidence. These remain like markers long after what appears to be broken. Because these markers are not merely ignited by feeling, they are reinforced by promise down to the very DNA of our flesh. We may try to run away from what is internal, try to replace it, but the traces remain and call to us. The Holy Spirit of God who is invested in and wants us to have His best also calls to this internal to remind us of that promise as well. He knows what the result will be if we disobey it and Him. (Hebrews 13:4. Malachi 2:16)

So we are given such strength to keep that promise by a Maker who knows that we can…even under the most trying of circumstances (Hosea). God demonstrated that it was possible to love even the adulterous nation of Israel and by such love to lead them back to restoration of their covenant marriage.

As the brother of leading Christian apologist, Ravi Zacharias, explained to him on the eve of his own marriage: “Write this down and don’t ever forget it. If you will to love someone, you can.”

Till next time.

God bless you.  M. S. Reed, 2009, Dilseacht, le gra go deo | Share on FriendFeed

Locked in the Room

When I was a little girl, my grandmother took up being a Girl Scout leader and she had in her possession of camp equipment, a special flashlight. It was an odd looking thing because it wasn’t like the other flashlights I had seen as a child: it had two lamps on it, one that pointed out straight across and one that tilted down to the ground. I asked Grandma what that was for and she explained that at night it was especially hard to see. You needed to see in two directions at once. The straight beam was to guide you down the path you were walking, the tilted beam was so you wouldn’t stumble on underbrush as you walked. I couldn’t get over how smart a thing that was. Whenever we went camping, I took Grandma’s hand when we went anywhere in the dark because I knew she could see where we were going better than anyone. Thanks to that special flashlight with the two lamps.

In recent days we have been greeted by news of pandemic and of more economic collapse. Everyone has a view and each seems to have a valid piece of evidence to support it. In the face of an obvious truth to us, we can be faced at a turning towards something that seems to obscure and darken out everything we know we have seen. Our experience must be right even at the expense and invalidation of another’s experience. It is like being locked in a dark room with no windows and a large table in the center. And on that table is a large puzzle, a broad and intricate picture of seemingly thousands of disparate pieces connected together by irregular yet fluid bondings. We have no way of seeing that, no way of seeing anything except for the tiny area enlightened by the thin beam of a penlight we hold. We are locked in with our passions, so wonderful when creating things or experiencing delight, but our worst enemy when trying to see the whole truth. We move the penlight and see another area, but never the complete picture at any time. That is the sad state we are in when it comes to knowing the truth on our own. We are locked in the room with only one view at a time, “…prisioners”, as G. K. Chesterton would say,” of one idea.”

Psalm 119:105 says: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.” When I read that for the first time it sunk into me how God is trying to protect us. Like Grandma’s special flashlight we can see things that others can’t only when we look at them with God’s help. He “lights” up the whole dark room, this earth, so we can see what is going on about us in a new way. We may not always understand now how every piece interlocks on the table, the courses of other lives as they intertwine and touch, but we can see that there is a larger picture than at first we thought. That is God’s light through Christ, the Word, and that word has power to light our way in two directions at once. As C. S. Lewis tells us: “I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun rises, not only because I can see it but because by it I can see everything else.”

Do you and I really see what is going on around us? Someone makes a comment on a forum that has a truth in it, but is it the whole picture? That’s the critical thinking that we need to consider and God is the best critical thinker of us all: He is the only One who has the total picture of what’s happening and why. And he is the one who can set each of us free from being locked in the room and the “prisoner of one idea”. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+4:16-21

What are you doing? Why are you going this way?

Recently, ChristianityToday  featured an interview with Slate’s Editor, David Plotz who decided three years ago on a whim to read the Bible after attending a BarMitzvah.   He was “bored“, he states in his interview with ChristianityToday.  So as ChristianityToday states: “..he allows readers to see the Bible anew through the eyes of someone who set out to read it merely because it’s so compelling.”  I set out to read ChristianityToday’s interview not out of boredom but in puzzlement with his purpose.

I appreciate the legitimate questions in Mr. Plotz’s comments, but as I read what he was saying, my mind started formulating a couple of questions for him myself, the way you do when you see someone who is driving just fine but making a wrong turn down a one way street: what are you doing? Why are you going this way?

There were many things that seemed amiss in his observations but a couple of statements stood out to me and made me think where and why did you you reach that conclusion? “In Joshua, we see the slaughter of innocent people. Why isn’t that the subject of discussion rather than the celebration of the conquest of the land?” and “Anyone who can make you look differently at something you love—that’s of great value.”

My first question, inquired from a perspective of knowing the end of the matter rather than just its beginning, is why does Mr. Plotz believe Joshua is slaughtering “innocent” people? If I was watching a movie about people defending themselves in a conflagration and I came in on the middle of it, I might be inclined by the success of their efforts to believe they might be the “bad guys”.  Who is “innocent” then depends upon perspective.  With God, innocence depends upon Him.  Secondly, his statement of accepting “…anyone’s perspective as being of value if they made you look differently at something you love” made me wonder.  I wondered if Mr. Plotz would  truly  appreciate someone making  a loved one look differently at him? The expected response to that logic coupled with his question about Joshua above, I think, tells us that something is being missed when reading the Bible on your own (or in an institution), if these are the conclusions you reach.

Interestingly, Mr. Plotz points to the answer he is seeking in each of those statements. Let’s take the last first and that will pave the way for answering the first.

I agree when he says:”Anyone who can make you look differently at something you love—that’s of great value.” The “anyone” here in reading the Bible is God. And I would challenge anyone if they would allow God to do that for them. God is trying to make us look at things differently. God’s plan to respond to the choice of fallen man was to look about the earth and see anyone who had a heart that was complete towards him, meaning that they understood the whole package deal: love does all those things it claims in 1 Corinthians 13 including not ..”rejoicing in evil but rejoicing with the truth.”

God had a situation: man decided to choose a course of separation from God. What would the consequences of that choice be? A lot of nice people making informed decisions about themselves and their neighbors if left alone? Or would it mean the “messiness” Mr. Plotz refers to when discussing the Old Testament. I think for Mr. Plotz and for some others, the way things were “cleaned up” and the time it took to do that are what truly are in question for them.

If you walk into a room full of people who all want a job with only one opportunity for that job, guess what? Only one person will be able to get it. Now if you walk into a room full of people who are not even interested in the job you have to offer, except for one person off there in the corner, who are you going to be giving the job to? That is essentially what you have starting off the Old Testament with Abraham and why the nation of Israel was favored and guarded by God to whom the “room”, our planet earth belongs to. Abraham (and his decendents) is the “job applicant” for the position of being the example to the rest of the world, the way God is going to start the training for Salvation and on the way, the “cleaning up of the mess”. There’s a lot of stuff to learn: its not easy. It’s a hard life because it goes against everybody’s natural inclinations. It’s stuff that takes generations to “get”. And yes, they are promised that they will get the “promised land” if they keep their agreement with God and obey.

Now there’s the rub: who does this “promised land” belong to in the first place? Well, from God’s everlastingly “fresh perspective” it belongs to Him…not us or them. And He tells us it is within His prerogative  to give it to whom He wishes. Mr. Plotz, I realize might take exception to that when it comes to the “slaughter of those innocent people”. But if Mr. Plotz has done his history, he will agree that the character of these people was not in any way innocent…and neither was the character of the nation of Israel (as we later see in a number of episodes of scripture where God is being just as just in dealing with His own people of the time. Especially when He allows Babylon to raze the temple in Jerusalem to the ground in Jeremiah’s time for His chosen nation’s  cruelty and selfishness to each other and their disobedience to Him.)

That’s the ‘bright sadness’ of the lessons taught throughout the Old Testament: God is telling His creation to obey Him by being just and kind and loving with each other and He will provide for them and protect them.  Don’t and the consequences you know are a result of treating each other that way will happen. Not to mention that He will ultimately take action if those consequences aren’t enough to get their attention. He has a love for those who are suffering and doing right and He keeps His word.

Yes, what happens in the Old Testament is appalling : How could we as human beings do that to each other? How can we do it to ourselves now?  Are we any better? What does history show us?  History has proven that in countries who were ruled by atheistic regimes, the number of those murdered by those regimes staggered the statistics of any previous war dead.

Yet those very same scriptures, filled with bloodshed, do not leave us without hope. Every time one reads them with an honest consideration of our own responsibility in the matter, we see that it is not hate, but love for the human race that is in those pages. We see the truth.  It’s the “fresh perspective” of God, the paradox of a just and merciful Father who helps us see that. Because if we are honest, we stop looking at how wrong we think God is, and start looking at what we really are: seeing the depths of selfishness inside us, of the evil we are capable of without Him and what it would lead to if He didn’t show us some discipline in love to get our attention. And getting our attention is hard at best. As one early Christian wrote: “Repentance is a striking of the soul into vigorous awareness.”(1) Yet He is a “God of tender mercies”.   The only way to see that is to see through ourselves.

Yes, we may think times like these are better. Some of us may even think that God has gotten a lot better since those days of the old Testament. But there is where the “fresher perspective” of God draws us back to reality and reminds us of who we are. That the change in circumstances and treatment is not so much due to us but rather to Him and His satisfaction in the outworking of His plan for us. It is not nor ever will be due to how much better we are in understanding the Bible with our much touted fresh insight.

Recently, ChristianityToday  featured an interview with Slate’s Editor, David Plotz.   Mr. Plotz began a series called “Blogging the Bible” which eventually was turned into a book, Good Book, which is available at ChristianBook.com and other book retailers.

(1) St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent

Security and Despair and the Good News Out of Nazareth

When this current economic crisis began to reveal itself, I observed the comments as they rolled in from both Twitter and FriendFeed: they revealed something about us.  What was that? First, that many of us still think that what happens to us is isolated and has no effect on others.  Many of us were too involved in the decision of whether to support the bailout or not to concern ourselves as to the outcome upon the world financial markets.  Second, these comments and actions revealed something else which all of us are afraid to admit: The state of having to depend on someone else is dreadful to all of us.  What if they don’t come through in the way we want them to? That’s it, isn’t it? We want what we want.  And for many of us that means the other fellow loses his or her job, but not me.  The other fellow goes without but not me.  Yet this economic crisis is somewhat of an equalizer: All the world is being affected.  The fallout may go on for a long time.  And yet there will be some of us who will go on just as we have before: able to get what we want when we want.  We will get to keep things under control while we watch others flounder around us.  So what does this really reveal about each of us? It is this: How do you and I learn to deal with learning to live with insecurity?  Because even if we have what we have now, there is always tomorrow and we may lose it.  Everyone of us knows this deep down and it is times like these that remind us of that reality.  Still, when times seem to favor the security the politicians promise us (and appear to deliver to a larger segment of us), we tend to forget reality: We were never promised “settled happiness and security” (Lewis) by God in this world. History has never told us anything different.  We witness the truth of that everyday, even if far removed and only acknowledged through an article in a magazine about world events or the evening news. In her book, Smoke on the Mountian, Joy Davidman states the following: “Christ never offered us security.  He left that to the politicians – Caiaphas probably offered lots of it.  Christ told us to expect poverty, humiliation, persecution, and pain, and to know ourselves blessed through accepting them.  The good news out of Nazareth was never reassuring news by this world’s standards…For a long time we have been trying to make the best of both worlds, to accept Chrisitianity as an ideal and materialism as a practice, and in consequence we have reached a spiritual bankruptcy…Worldliness, we might  well admit, doesn’t seem to be working so well.  Perhaps it is time to revive otherworldliness?  Perhaps Christ was not only a lefty idealist counseling an impractical perfection, but also the Son of God?  And perhaps not only the Son of God but a practical counselor who knew what He was talking about when He talked of Heaven?  Perhaps it not enough to worship Him, flatter Him, give His preachers money, and decorate His alter-perhaps we ought also to obey Him.” (1) That is the crux of the matter: obedience and trust.  It is not the bad decisions of a few bankers at the top that need worry us (although there is that). It is the decisions we have made about God that these circumstances reveal about us that should concern us.  It is time to look at how we think and how we live and how we treat each other in good times and bad that, in His love for us, God is reminding us of with the present times.  And here is the test to show where you and I stand: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.  Thy kingdom come.  Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.  For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, now and ever and unto ages of ages.  Amen. That’s the key out of despair: Our daily bread. We were never promised any more than that. That’s the “good news out of Nazareth”: not the physical first, but the spiritual. It is through that door that we gain entrance to real security, not the other way around.  It is not food that makes us secure, but a person.  So, right now, right this very moment, whether in your office or at home, let the fears you harbor about security and any despair you may have or be hiding over this current economic crisis come out.  Admit your anger.  Let the light of day shine on them and get rid of your burden.   Admit them not to the empty air, nor to your family nor your boss nor your friends on Twitter or FriendFeed or even over lunch…. Tell your fears to the only One who is capable of helping either one of us to have real security in good times and in bad: God.  It is in complete dependence on Him that our real security is found.  Then ask Him to help you and I to overcome the tendency we all have to put our trust in the things of this world.  Let us live with relative practicality as to the world but absolute trust in Him from now on (1 Timothy 6:17-19, 7-10).  Know that it is by God’s good grace that we have what we need.  Ask Him to help both you and I to accept the blessings of the real life which is only found in Christ. Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. – John 14:6 Let your conduct be without covetousness, and be content with such things that you have, for he has said, ‘I will never  leave you, nor forsake you,’ so that we may boldly say, ‘The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do to me.  Hebrews 13: 5-6 Till next time. God bless you.  M. S. Reed, 2008, Dilseacht, le gra go deo | Share on FriendFeed (1) Is Your Lord Large Enough- How C. S. Lewis Expands Our View of God, Peter J. Schakel, 2008 ©ForthWrite, M.S.Reed, 2008

Prayer: At Home

A Place To Pray: How To Create a Prayer Closet in Your Home

---

C. S. Lewis' 'Prayer Closet' in the film, Shadowlands

“That’s not why I pray, Harry.  I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray be…, I pray because the…the need flows from me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God, but it changes me.” – C. S. Lewis, Shadowlands

Our Purpose and Preparation for Praying

C. S. Lewis confesses the observation above about prayer to his friend and minister at Oxford in the Sir Richard Attenborough film, Shadowlands.  He is confronted with his wife, Joy’s, metastasized bone cancer, very advanced.  And as he draws closer to God for support, he realizes an astounding thing: The closer we draw to God the more we need Him, that God uses each and every situation we experience in the physical world to woo and pursue us in order to experience this surpassing intimacy with Him.  He is shaping us, as a Master Potter does with clay, into Sons of God. (Romans 8:14) The power through love we are to experience then makes what we receive now as followers of Christ but a shadow.  With that end in mind, we peer through the glass darkly and dimly realize that self-denial and sacrifice – discipline now – are the path to the reality of His future and fully-realized gift to us.  We learn from Him that instant gratification and prideful arrogance that masquerade as the power of earthly godship in the lives of others is but a sad and destructive substitute for our yearning.  Now we are not ready, but then we will be to receive such a gift.  As we persist in praying and He hears our requests and grants them (when we ask according to His will and purpose for us), we see the shape of our future reality more clearly with each prayer’s passing.  As we confess our sins and are shown the path to real repentance, our burdens are lifted through active forgivness: we can leave the humanly unchangeable at the alter of God, we are transformed to go back and make right with others and ourselves what we can by His empowering Holy Spirit.  We are comforted even as our faith is tested and our selfish wills are conformed to His.  Then our faith in Him, faith that also leaves room for doubt (or it would not be faith), grows stronger.  As C. S. Lewis discovers: we are changed by prayer.

A Place To Pray

When describing how to pray, Jesus talks about a prayer closet. (Matthew 6:5,6)  I would like to emphasize that it is a necessary thing for all Christians to set aside some space in their homes that is dedicated and sacred to God, a place to pray where you can go and “shut the door” upon the world and be with your heavenly Father alone.  This area can be as simple as a small table in the living room or an area set aside in a clothes closet.

In many Eastern Orthodox homes a small table is set aside, covered with some white linen and adorned with a cross and some candles with an icon of Jesus.  Usually, this area is blessed by the priest of their church along with the rest of the house.  In other homes of Protestant denomination, some convert a small area in a clothes closet or similar enclosed space and dedicate it to the Lord.  If able, we go to church on Sunday and other smaller gatherings throughout the week and usually someone else, the Priest or Minister is leading those prayers, but you and I are admonished to “pray without ceasing” so we are responsible for all other times.  We need, then, a place to pray at home, to offer thanksgiving and praise and seek our Lord for strength “…to bear the fatigue of the coming day with all that it shall bring….and to obtain “..forgiveness of sins which we have committed this day in thought, word, and deed.”  Then, also, to pray for the church, our rulers, our towns and cities,* our country, the world, our pastors and priests, our families and friends, the old, the young, the unborn, the needy, the orphans, the widows, the sick and afflicted, those in sorrow and distress, the imprisoned and persecuted, those in military service, travelers, and those in missions.

What Do I Need?

First, a space, somewhere you know you can set up a small table or even a makeshift of a shelf and two pedestals to support it.  Make sure it is high enough to meet your chest for the alter area and wide enough to be able to hold a Cross, a prayer journal, some candles and matches, your Bible, and any family pictures and spiritual remembrances that are important reminders of occasions that the Lord has done something special for you or your family.  I have 12 stones set below a frame of the forty-sixth Psalm to remind me of a day the Lord made a promise to me in prayer as I made a commitment to Him. What you have may be different.  Always make a point from now on to create reminders of the special moments in your life and family when the Lord has provided for you and rescued you.  Then teach your family to hand these stories down from generation to generation to preserve a rich tradition of faith in your heavenly Father that links you and your family with the servants of God listed in the Bible.

Next, create an atmosphere of holiness as you pray.  Find some appropriate worship music to play in the background from a source you can easily hear as you’re praying but not disturb your concentration.  You may have some on CD or tape.  Or you may find something appropriate on Internet Radio.  Whatever you decide, make sure that it is conducive to reflective prayer and worshipful of our heavenly Father.

How Do I Pray?

Have you ever wanted to pray and found you just could not find the words?  Perhaps you are a little shy.  I know from experience that when praying and fasting for a person or a situation, I sometimes have run out of words, though I knew I needed to persist in prayer.  Of course, it is easy to ask for the Holy Spirit to step in and help you “with groanings unuttered.”  And there are sometimes when this approach is absolutely necessary.  But keep in mind that our prayer life and our intimacy grows with God when we exert the effort just as it does in our human relationships.

There are many prayers that your church often prints in their church bulletin that you can use.  Some churches, like the Eastern Orthodox church have brochures such as the “Prayers in Times of Need” which have a small worship service printed out for you to use as a guide in your morning and evening devotionals.  Some, including myself, do as Dr. Ravi Zacharias suggests and read a spiritual essay before their daily Bible reading and then set time aside with the Lord to pray before their day starts.  This engages the mind and the spirit and allows God Himself to more readily direct your prayers so that “..if you ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” The book of Psalms is a ready made list of prayers that touches on every problem and joy experienced in the human condition.  Those can be prayed with your name or the loved one inserted verbally to our Lord.

Along with my Bible reading, I have a number of Christian prayer cards, ranging on prayer needs such as repentance, struggle over sin, prayers that birth revival for city and country, biblical virtues to pray for your children, powerful prayers for your husband (or wife), and prayers for prodigals.  These can be obtained as gifts or by visiting the web site.

How Prayer Changes Us

Prayer, especially persistent prayer, changes us by testing our character and closing the gaps.  Our faith increases as we become less dependent on ourselves for manufacturing a less than satisfactory outcome to our problems.  Our trust, also, becomes unshakable in the process of surrendering ourselves to His Will.  It is not an easy process, indeed, it is far more challenging to pray in our instant gratification world than ever it was in the past.  But prayer is the only way to our becoming closer to our heavenly Father.  And He is the only one who can help us through the things of this earthly experience that are beyond our human endurance and control.  Don’t ever give up or listen to naysayers, even in impossible circumstances.  Be as diligent as Elijah and go back and “look seven times” to see if God has answered your prayers (1 Kings 18:43, 44).  Show Jesus upon His return that you really do have the faith He will be looking for.

Till next time.
God bless you.  Dilseacht, le gra go deo

---

©ForthWrite, M.S.Reed, 2008

* Currently, Faith, Hope, and Love International is promoting a 40-day prayer for the city of Indianapolis.  Please join us in prayer and help support Faith, Hope, and Love Week, 2008

Reconciliation: Raising Godly Children

Gentlemen, Start Your Engines…

---

“We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.”– 1 Corinthians 5:20

None of us are born reconciled to God. Those who do not know God are divided from God because they have no relationship with Him. In the case of the children of those who do have a relationship with God, it is not as simple as bringing them along to church. Frankly, there is some crucial spiritual flight-training we are responsible to our children for to help them become reconciled to God and this essay is going to discuss why that is so and what needs doing.

I recently received a gentle but frank observation from a friend who acknowledged a spiritual complacency is more often the state these days within the home that professes being Christian. “We are divided in so many ways,” he said. And while this comment was inclusive of many different “gaps” needing our attention such as multiculturalism, collaboration, Bible-reading, and the general peace, it worked its way back to the common thread of reconciliation.

My response to him was led by a discussion of the questions this issue points to: Why do we have an anti-reconciliation culture? How did we get to this point? There are a thousand minor reasons, but in the larger scenario, the source harkens back to an historical period long before our present day. And as the saying goes: If you don’t know where you’ve been, you’re not going to know where you’re going. So to capsulize…

Early church history, explains a lot. The “Great Schism” put the Church as many know it on a path of a “divorce” culture: separation as a course of solution. Sects formed over every disagreement. Families broke apart. Divorce became ever more prevalent. Now put into practice “first principles” and we can trace that back to our original separation from God. With each new separation new constants got established under the guise of reformations. Sects and denominations continued to form, giving us a “1000 minor truths” as Chesterton observed, (which is why sects and denominations appeal to certain groups and personalities) but each on their own, history demonstrated, were lacking in the fullness of truth. A decrease in spiritual integrity began to work itself into each group as a consequence and the maxim began to work itself out with increasing speed in the Church: the farther away each got from the original body, the spiritual strength degraded commensurately. In short, we have fallen into the present habit of allowing others and trends to teach and inform our young rather than adhering to an unchanging tradition of faith (as Paul speaks to and taught by our early church fathers) in which we were to play that same role in each generation. That is the reconciliation concern of the Church at large. But while that is being worked through, what of where you and I are now? What is our identity?

Our identity in Christ is one of holiness. That is the identity we must return to that was the subject of so much recent controversy. It is that identity that must be handed down to our children by their fathers in the home, and on the road, and in school, and in every other pursuit and activity. How then does this get done? It gets done with a discipline of first things: making reconciling to God the primary purpose of our lives, building and deepening a relationship with Him by getting to really know Him through His Word and handing that down to our children in such a way that it clearly demonstrates that we are delighted with Him and all the things we get from Him only because they come by Him. We need to show our children that given a choice, even if in hardship, we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Regarding this identity of holiness, one thing I am very grateful for now in retrospect, is that I had a great deal of discipline in Bible reading. I was able, as a result, to go through the Bible many times as well as become familiar with several different translations. It formed a life-long habit in me to read the scriptures everyday. When I pray the spiritual armor on me and my family (even though at present some are in ‘the far country’), part of that request is that I am asking for the sword of the spirit. That’s His word. How can I expect it to be sharp and ready to defend my family and me in my defense of God if I don’t “practice” with it? Praying then for these things holds us accountable to ourselves and to God if we have a sound working conscience. Discipling our children then involves a personal study with them weekly, showing them how to pray, teaching them like an eagle shows its young how to fly: they carry their young in the air on their back so they get the feel of current, that it won’t let them fall if they work in harmony with it by wing. This is how God taught the nation of Israel (Deut. 32:11,12) This was how I was taught by my spiritual fathers and mothers, even when I was older. And as the scriptures say: “..it did not depart from me.” Now I did not always make the wisest choices, but when I didn’t, that discipline and God through the Holy Spirit were there to pull me back into our relationship even closer.

Now how do we make this a lot easier, a lot more effective for our children?

Parents have the primary responsibility. As parents, you and I need to understand this is more than making our kids go to church, its about creating relationship with their Heavenly Father. There is a need to understand why He is to be worshiped as well as loved. That is what reconciliation is about. That is our mission: to get our kids reconciled to God first, stating clearly why we are separated from God and our responsibility in the cause of that separation. Then the impact of the love He is mercifully showing us through Christ has fertile ground for the Holy Spirit’s work in them to sink in. Then the other stuff comes. But there is something that needs to be said for which this essay is being written and I will try to be as gentle as I can in saying the following: It is not the primary mission of the youth pastor, or our children’s friends, or even our minister to teach this fundamental truth to our children, to plead with them to be reconciled to God, to train them to serve and worship our Lord and Savior. It is our responsibility. When we are successful (and God will bless our sincere efforts) Church then becomes a meaningful place to express their own love and worship for our God within the Body of Christ in holiness. God is wooing our children each and every day of their lives. He is a constant pursuer for their affections, but in discipline along with love and holiness. (Hosea) That is our example.

The father in the home is the first physical representation of what our Heavenly Father is going to be for and to our children. What kind of picture are you and I demonstrating to our children to match up to who our Heavenly Father is? Does it tell of our gratefulness and appreciation for for who He is and the entire breadth and depth of the scriptures? It’s crucial. It affects our children being reconciled to God.

So I would say if you will pardon my boldness for we especially truly need you fathers (and this is Indiana, after all)…

Gentlemen, start your engines and get it done.

Till next time.

God bless you. M. S. Reed, 2008, Dilseacht, le gra go deo

---

©ForthWrite, M.S.Reed, 2008