In Paul’s letter to the Roman church he urges the recipients to be careful not to conform to the standards of their world but to be transformed by the renewing of their minds. Paul says, this is how God’s will, will be tested and understood. Eugene Peterson pulls out all the stops in his paraphrase of this text but saying, ‘don’t allow yourselves to become so well adjusted to the world around you that you’re dragged down to their level of immaturity and just simply fit in’.
Richard Lawton wrote an article for the Australian Christian online recently which has created some discussion about what it really means to love our enemies. After all this is one of those outrageous teachings we understand as coming from Jesus that many of us aren’t sure what to do with when confronted with a situation where we cannot reconcile a love for someone we are completely at odds with or has done something terrible against us.
It is times like these when someone raises a topic or a popular teaching we have come to know as a follower of Jesus, that a button is pressed within us and something stirs and rises to the surface. Our temperature may rise a little, our heart might start beating a little faster or tears may begin to well up in our eyes and we begin to defend why we simply cannot do what the Gospel teaches us about the outrageous lifestyle of loving our enemies and forgiving those who have devastated us. It is in the quiet places of renewal that we begin to check in with that which rises up within us and have the opportunities to test it against our understanding of God’s will. That simply being… a place of shalom (peace). Jesus’ forgiveness of sins or love and acceptance of the other (who is unacceptable) is what deeply offended people. This is non-conformity at its best.
So where do we find the models of such lives in our modern day where people are forgiven extraordinary debts and the worst of the worst criminal or deviant is loved? We certainly don’t find such leadership displayed in many of our world leaders. Perhaps this is why many who look from the outside in to the Christian way criticize and call us hypocrites, because they know what we are supposed to be doing but we’re not doing it. It is hard to find many people of influence who testify to the Jesus way, who are prepared to put their reputation and ego on the line for such a way of life
Yet it is this way of life that is freeing of everything of this world that would cage us such as anger, revenge, resentment and vengeance. The way of conformity is to retaliate, get even, take matters into our own hands. If you conform to the standards of this world it will surely destroy you. The way of the Gospel (good news) is to let our very being be renewed by letting go of that which consumes us and imprisons us. Don’t conform because you’re able or the expectations or our world allow you to, allow yourself to be transformed by spaces of renewal which move you to such actions as bringing the light of hope into the shadows of a world which so desperately needs it.
Shalom
Mark Riessen
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Life changing spaces
This past two weeks I have been taking you on a journey of listening to life. It’s been about finding the spaces, the stillness and the silence, the spirit within us longs for and taking a journey deep within to find and reconnect with true self.
My desire is not to take you on a touchy feely, feel good journey of narcissistic self satisfaction, in fact my own practices of this are anything but. It is a journey towards the heart of the soul where we discover what we have neglected or hidden away hoping to ignore. In many cases it is the voice/call of God, and/or the yearning of our vocation, that being which is truly who we are.
The challenge is to emerge with a sense of truly engaging that which we have encountered and allowing it to change us and form us into the true sense of who God has called us to be. It is never an easy journey but it is the most rewarding. It is the journey we must take to truly have an impact on the world around us as a disciple of Jesus called to serve and to be in community with the other and one another. Beginning with this regular practise in life is the best thing we have to offer of ourselves in our mission and ministry as people of Christ.
I could not resist sharing this reflection below with you:
‘One must do it (pray) for God’s sake; but one will not get any satisfaction out of it, in the sense of feeling “I am good at prayer. I have an infallible method.” That would be disastrous, since what we want to learn is precisely our own weakness, powerlessness, unworthiness. Nor ought one to expect a sense of the reality of the supernatural of which I speak. And one should wish for no prayer except precisely the prayer that God gives us – probably very distracted and unsatisfactory in every way.
On the other hand the only way to pray is to pray.
And the only way to pray well is to pray much.
If one has no time for this, then one must at least pray regularly. But the less one prays, the worse it goes. And if circumstances do not permit even regularity, then one must put up with the fact that when one does try to pray, one can’t pray – and our prayer will probably consist of telling this to God.
As to beginning afresh, or where you left off, I don’t think you have any choice. You simply have to begin wherever you find yourself. Make any acts you want to make and feel ought to make, but do not force yourself into feelings of any kind.
You say very naturally that you do not know what to do if you have a quarter of an hour alone. Yet I suspect the only thing to do is to shut out everything and just give yourself to God and beg for God’s mercy and offer God all your distractions.’
From The Spiritual Letters of Dom John Chapman OSB
Shalom
Mark
My desire is not to take you on a touchy feely, feel good journey of narcissistic self satisfaction, in fact my own practices of this are anything but. It is a journey towards the heart of the soul where we discover what we have neglected or hidden away hoping to ignore. In many cases it is the voice/call of God, and/or the yearning of our vocation, that being which is truly who we are.
The challenge is to emerge with a sense of truly engaging that which we have encountered and allowing it to change us and form us into the true sense of who God has called us to be. It is never an easy journey but it is the most rewarding. It is the journey we must take to truly have an impact on the world around us as a disciple of Jesus called to serve and to be in community with the other and one another. Beginning with this regular practise in life is the best thing we have to offer of ourselves in our mission and ministry as people of Christ.
I could not resist sharing this reflection below with you:
‘One must do it (pray) for God’s sake; but one will not get any satisfaction out of it, in the sense of feeling “I am good at prayer. I have an infallible method.” That would be disastrous, since what we want to learn is precisely our own weakness, powerlessness, unworthiness. Nor ought one to expect a sense of the reality of the supernatural of which I speak. And one should wish for no prayer except precisely the prayer that God gives us – probably very distracted and unsatisfactory in every way.
On the other hand the only way to pray is to pray.
And the only way to pray well is to pray much.
If one has no time for this, then one must at least pray regularly. But the less one prays, the worse it goes. And if circumstances do not permit even regularity, then one must put up with the fact that when one does try to pray, one can’t pray – and our prayer will probably consist of telling this to God.
As to beginning afresh, or where you left off, I don’t think you have any choice. You simply have to begin wherever you find yourself. Make any acts you want to make and feel ought to make, but do not force yourself into feelings of any kind.
You say very naturally that you do not know what to do if you have a quarter of an hour alone. Yet I suspect the only thing to do is to shut out everything and just give yourself to God and beg for God’s mercy and offer God all your distractions.’
From The Spiritual Letters of Dom John Chapman OSB
Shalom
Mark
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Riding the wave
Last week I reacquainted myself with the surf down south for the first time this season. It was a perfect day with a good sized solid swell and offshore breeze. I suited up and went down onto the beach. The shoreline was covered with large rock that the wave would eventually come crashing into. There was a narrow sandy channel where if you timed the waves right you could paddle out to the break safely.
Once I was out there sitting on my board among the other surfers the waves suddenly looked a lot bigger than they did from the car park. I could see a set brewing on the horizon and as it approached I began surveying the situation in my mind. There was no escape I was sitting between the rocks and the waves and when it’s your first surf in a while a healthy dose of anxiety creeps up inside you. The anxiety begins to step up a couple of notches when you see the expressions on the other surfers faces change and suddenly they slip from sitting to lying on their board and paddling like crazy for the waves at the back.
As the waves got closer I could see them lining up one after the other with the crest of the wave feathering in the wind. The waves loomed closer and closer and I found I was faced with two choices. Follow part of the crowd that was scrambling like crazy to get behind the waves before they broke or brave it like few others and face the inevitable. I managed to clear the first but knew that the ones behind were bigger and would break sooner. I caught the third wave of the set fro the ride of my life.
As I cut across the face of the wave the wall began to build and build as it edged closer to the shore. I knew I wasn’t going to make the section so two more choices faced me, turn out in front and risk riding the whitewash being smashed into the rocks, or duck in under the wave closing in on me. Either way I was going to get pounded.
I chose the latter…boom! After a couple of seconds I popped up on the other side of the wave in calm waters and braced to duck the next couple of waves of the set. I saw that no-one had escaped the brutal pounding of the surf during that set. While some like me had braved it and taken the plunge on one wave, others who tried to avoid it ended up taking a beating from every wave of the set and they were left weak, coughing and spluttering, heading for that narrow opening to shore.
Sometimes things loom up in our lives and line up like waves on the horizon. Often every instinct within us tells us we must avoid getting pounded at all costs, yet they’re there on the horizon and we’re sitting in the water and we know eventually we’re going to have to face whatever it is we are trying to avoid. We always have choices, do we go with the crowd or do we listen to the voice within that says with reason, ‘you must deal with this eventually’?
Eventually the wave catches up and our character is tested as to how we will ride this wave or are we still scrambling to avoid it. You will come face to face with it eventually, it’s either take you unwillingly or you’ll be prepared for the ride. It’s amazing the confidence we can get out of facing that which causes anxiety within us and popping out the other end still in tact. The looming wave on the horizon will inevitably hit the shore. When you’re sitting between it and the shore the question is, what are you going to do with it?
Shalom
Mark
Once I was out there sitting on my board among the other surfers the waves suddenly looked a lot bigger than they did from the car park. I could see a set brewing on the horizon and as it approached I began surveying the situation in my mind. There was no escape I was sitting between the rocks and the waves and when it’s your first surf in a while a healthy dose of anxiety creeps up inside you. The anxiety begins to step up a couple of notches when you see the expressions on the other surfers faces change and suddenly they slip from sitting to lying on their board and paddling like crazy for the waves at the back.
As the waves got closer I could see them lining up one after the other with the crest of the wave feathering in the wind. The waves loomed closer and closer and I found I was faced with two choices. Follow part of the crowd that was scrambling like crazy to get behind the waves before they broke or brave it like few others and face the inevitable. I managed to clear the first but knew that the ones behind were bigger and would break sooner. I caught the third wave of the set fro the ride of my life.
As I cut across the face of the wave the wall began to build and build as it edged closer to the shore. I knew I wasn’t going to make the section so two more choices faced me, turn out in front and risk riding the whitewash being smashed into the rocks, or duck in under the wave closing in on me. Either way I was going to get pounded.
I chose the latter…boom! After a couple of seconds I popped up on the other side of the wave in calm waters and braced to duck the next couple of waves of the set. I saw that no-one had escaped the brutal pounding of the surf during that set. While some like me had braved it and taken the plunge on one wave, others who tried to avoid it ended up taking a beating from every wave of the set and they were left weak, coughing and spluttering, heading for that narrow opening to shore.
Sometimes things loom up in our lives and line up like waves on the horizon. Often every instinct within us tells us we must avoid getting pounded at all costs, yet they’re there on the horizon and we’re sitting in the water and we know eventually we’re going to have to face whatever it is we are trying to avoid. We always have choices, do we go with the crowd or do we listen to the voice within that says with reason, ‘you must deal with this eventually’?
Eventually the wave catches up and our character is tested as to how we will ride this wave or are we still scrambling to avoid it. You will come face to face with it eventually, it’s either take you unwillingly or you’ll be prepared for the ride. It’s amazing the confidence we can get out of facing that which causes anxiety within us and popping out the other end still in tact. The looming wave on the horizon will inevitably hit the shore. When you’re sitting between it and the shore the question is, what are you going to do with it?
Shalom
Mark
Friday, September 28, 2007
Stilling the soul
The weather report wasn’t joking when a gale force wind warning was issued for coastal areas on Friday.
I had been watching the swell charts on the coastal watch website all week as a massive swell was building off the coast, looking for a surfing opportunity. Having already had a taste of this swell on my day off this week I had been anticipating Friday morning when the swell was at its peak. I had built up these images in my mind of the perfect big waves I might encounter.
I had it all planned out. I was going to get up early Friday morning and hit the surf at dawn before coming into the office. Reality hit when I arrived at the cliffs overlooking Southport. The massive squalling 2-3metre swell was completely wind blown and unforgiving. As I stood there the gusts of wind literally knocked me off my feet. Once I was sitting back in my car I knew this was getting ridiculous when the car was violently rocking back and forth with the force of the wind and the rain was coming at me sideways.
Well so much for that! Don’t you hate it when you build up expectations in your mind about how things could be or ought to be? It’s even worse when you’re met head on with an uncontrollable, uncontainable storm that leaves you feeling powerless and defeated.
I find moments like these to be deeply spiritual moments and I’m not talking about those warm fuzzy feelings with God, I’m talking about those Psalm 88 feelings. You know, the kind of lament that wonders ‘what on earth is happening here? Is this real? Where are you God?’ The wind is so strong, the ocean is unforgiving and things are blowing in at you sideways and there is no way you can even find your centre let along find God in it all.
The writer of Matthew's Gospel inserts a story about a storm immediately following an explanation about the cost of following Jesus. This story doesn’t exist so much because early Christians decided to retell a story about a bunch of fishermen in a boat with Jesus during a storm. The language alone in many English translations tells us there is much more to this than a story about a storm. The story teller uses dramatic language like ‘without warning’, ‘ferocious storm’, being ‘overcome’, ‘we are perishing’! It communicates the language of the cries of the soul when we are unexpectedly overcome with the challenges life throws at us from left field.
One thing we can often overlook or not realize in the chaos of it all is that in our story as in the Gospel story, Jesus is present in the storm. The knowledge that God is present is comforting for some but not enough for others. It is the words uttered by Jesus in the midst of the storm in Mark’s Gospel that offers us the greatest hope in the midst of the storm, “Quiet! Be still!”
May you find time for the stilling of your soul.
Shalom Mark
I had been watching the swell charts on the coastal watch website all week as a massive swell was building off the coast, looking for a surfing opportunity. Having already had a taste of this swell on my day off this week I had been anticipating Friday morning when the swell was at its peak. I had built up these images in my mind of the perfect big waves I might encounter.
I had it all planned out. I was going to get up early Friday morning and hit the surf at dawn before coming into the office. Reality hit when I arrived at the cliffs overlooking Southport. The massive squalling 2-3metre swell was completely wind blown and unforgiving. As I stood there the gusts of wind literally knocked me off my feet. Once I was sitting back in my car I knew this was getting ridiculous when the car was violently rocking back and forth with the force of the wind and the rain was coming at me sideways.
Well so much for that! Don’t you hate it when you build up expectations in your mind about how things could be or ought to be? It’s even worse when you’re met head on with an uncontrollable, uncontainable storm that leaves you feeling powerless and defeated.
I find moments like these to be deeply spiritual moments and I’m not talking about those warm fuzzy feelings with God, I’m talking about those Psalm 88 feelings. You know, the kind of lament that wonders ‘what on earth is happening here? Is this real? Where are you God?’ The wind is so strong, the ocean is unforgiving and things are blowing in at you sideways and there is no way you can even find your centre let along find God in it all.
The writer of Matthew's Gospel inserts a story about a storm immediately following an explanation about the cost of following Jesus. This story doesn’t exist so much because early Christians decided to retell a story about a bunch of fishermen in a boat with Jesus during a storm. The language alone in many English translations tells us there is much more to this than a story about a storm. The story teller uses dramatic language like ‘without warning’, ‘ferocious storm’, being ‘overcome’, ‘we are perishing’! It communicates the language of the cries of the soul when we are unexpectedly overcome with the challenges life throws at us from left field.
One thing we can often overlook or not realize in the chaos of it all is that in our story as in the Gospel story, Jesus is present in the storm. The knowledge that God is present is comforting for some but not enough for others. It is the words uttered by Jesus in the midst of the storm in Mark’s Gospel that offers us the greatest hope in the midst of the storm, “Quiet! Be still!”
May you find time for the stilling of your soul.
Shalom Mark
Friday, September 07, 2007
The Greatest Love
Have we relinquished our responsibility to uphold the greatest commandment? I’m not talking about any old commandment, I’m talking about the ‘Greatest’! Each of the synoptic Gospels have more than one account of someone asking Jesus the all important question, ‘what is the greatest commandment?’ Whether in whatever context the question is asked, the answer is blatantly untamed and unforgettable. ‘Love God with all your heart, soul and mind & love your neighbour as yourself.’ Jesus dares to suggest that not only is this the greatest command but that it defines all others. If every single thing we did was motivated by the greatest commandment to love God and others, we would be living exactly as God intended in a state of shalom. But the reality shows that we are far from shalom in our world, so what has gone wrong, what’s wrong with living the greatest commandment?
In case you haven’t noticed the APEC Summit is being held in Sydney. The media frenzy seems to surround and follow the leader of the ‘greatest’ nation and hang on his every word. Among many things I continue to hear this reverberating echo of propaganda that perpetuates the fear that has captivated us since 2001. The answers from the greatest leaders of our day is war, tighter security, dominance, more power and more fear. Whatever happened to the greatest commandment as a strategy from our great leaders?
I turn my attention towards a popular singer who by the way seems to have more swing with the general public than any politician. Bono from U2 sings one of his songs with the late Luciano Pavarotti called “Miss Sarajevo”. When introducing the song Bono says, ‘We would like to turn our song into a prayer, and the prayer is, that we don’t become a monster in order to defeat a monster.”
Bono sings the words:
“Is there a time for changing values, is there a time for wearing a blind?
Is there a time for keeping your mouth shut, is this a time for human rights?”
While behind him the words of the UN declaration begin scrolling behind him starting with article 1; ‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a Spirit of love’.
The translation of Pavarotti’s piece in the song reads;
“You say that the river finds the way to the sea, and as the river you'll come to me Beyond the borders and the thirsty lands, you say that as river Love will come And I cannot pray anymore, and I cannot hope in love anymore
And I cannot wait for love anymore”
Have we relinquished our responsibility to love? Have we given up because it’s too hard? The greatest commandment is far from being the greatest in today’s climate. Yet I believe that the love Jesus speaks of can still be the greatest. While there are still millions of people in our world who claim to be followers of Jesus, I would hope that a large percentage would seek to take him seriously at his words and actions. You can by loving one person at a time.
Shalom Mark
"Dance like nobody's watching; love like you've never been hurt; sing like nobody's listening; live like it's heaven on earth." – Mark Twain
In case you haven’t noticed the APEC Summit is being held in Sydney. The media frenzy seems to surround and follow the leader of the ‘greatest’ nation and hang on his every word. Among many things I continue to hear this reverberating echo of propaganda that perpetuates the fear that has captivated us since 2001. The answers from the greatest leaders of our day is war, tighter security, dominance, more power and more fear. Whatever happened to the greatest commandment as a strategy from our great leaders?
I turn my attention towards a popular singer who by the way seems to have more swing with the general public than any politician. Bono from U2 sings one of his songs with the late Luciano Pavarotti called “Miss Sarajevo”. When introducing the song Bono says, ‘We would like to turn our song into a prayer, and the prayer is, that we don’t become a monster in order to defeat a monster.”
Bono sings the words:
“Is there a time for changing values, is there a time for wearing a blind?
Is there a time for keeping your mouth shut, is this a time for human rights?”
While behind him the words of the UN declaration begin scrolling behind him starting with article 1; ‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a Spirit of love’.
The translation of Pavarotti’s piece in the song reads;
“You say that the river finds the way to the sea, and as the river you'll come to me Beyond the borders and the thirsty lands, you say that as river Love will come And I cannot pray anymore, and I cannot hope in love anymore
And I cannot wait for love anymore”
Have we relinquished our responsibility to love? Have we given up because it’s too hard? The greatest commandment is far from being the greatest in today’s climate. Yet I believe that the love Jesus speaks of can still be the greatest. While there are still millions of people in our world who claim to be followers of Jesus, I would hope that a large percentage would seek to take him seriously at his words and actions. You can by loving one person at a time.
Shalom Mark
"Dance like nobody's watching; love like you've never been hurt; sing like nobody's listening; live like it's heaven on earth." – Mark Twain
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