3 posts tagged “life”
Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?
John the Baptist asked this question of his cousin Jesus. It was an important question to John, because he was at the moment a prisoner of King Herod. He was waiting to see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel and his liberty.
Go back and report to John what you see and hear: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.
Jesus preached the same message as John, but with an important twist. Oh yes, Jesus called for repentance, just like John, but He also preached that salvation was possible for all, even sinners, tax collectors, and their loathsome Roman overlords.
Jesus surely cared about his cousin John and wanted to free him from King Herod's prison, but He did not intervene to do that. Oh sure, He could have, but Jesus did not work that way. His kingdom was not of this world. His kingdom would come by invitation and response, not by His own divine power and might.
Take for example Jesus' encounter with the rich young ruler. Remember how He said the man lacked one thing? He told the man, Go, sell all you have, give it to the poor, and follow Me. Sadly, the man, who was actually a pretty good guy otherwise, could not do that. So the man walked away, unable to part with his riches and to enjoy being the 13th disciple of Jesus.
Did Jesus then run after the man and let him keep his materialistic god? No, he did not. He just let him go. He simply let him make his own decision. He respected his free will. Jesus did not really care about the man's money, but he did care about the man. He knew that the man's riches had a hold on him and he offered him a once in a life time opportunity to have true liberty!
I like the term being a non-anxious presence. To me it means what Jesus did here, addressing an issue but also showing he cared about the man. He cared enough to offer him a place in His own troupe of disciples. How sad that this man missed his opportunity for real liberation.
There are many who are weak and poor and need rescuing, but this man was not one of them. He was bound in a prison of his own making. He was possessed by his possessions.
How about you, my friend? Are you generously opening your hand to the poor at this Advent Christmas season and throughout the year? Are you still thinking that you can take it with you? Or, are you dedicating all that you are and all that you have to the Master who still invites you to follow Him today?
Jesus is waiting for you to make your choice.
Do it today.
I will lift my eyes to you,
to you whose throne is in heaven.
-Psalm 123:1 (NIV)
___
There's a short poem I remember:
Two men looked out through prison bars.
One saw mud, the other saw stars.
My grandmother had a plaque in her home:
Keep Looking Up
That's still good advice.
Lift up your eyes to God.
See the swirling stars in the heavens.
Keep looking up.
Life is often about making choices.
We can look down at the mud.
Or we can lift up our eyes toward God
and see the swirling stars He has made.
I took a course in Life Planning.
One day we asked: What is an pessimist and an optimist?
I remember the optimist's definition of a pessimist:
A pessimist is a person with potential!
Look at your life today.
Look at the lives of others.
Look at our world.
Lift up your eyes
and see potential.
Ask God to show you what can happen
if you keep looking up today.
In 1983 Jaroslav J. Vajda wrote this beautiful line,
which we sometimes sing in our churches:
God of the sparrow
God of the whale
God of the swirling stars
How does the creature say Awe?
How does the creature say Praise?
Friend, ask yourself:
What will my day look like
if I keep looking up today?
Lift up your eyes to God in heaven!
See the swirling stars He made.
Keep looking up.
Caesurae, caesurae!
That's the breaks, literary-ily.
I've had a lot of breaks in life.
Fourth born out of six sibs (my brother and I, in the "center"), raised in a comfy suburb of the Baltimore area, two loving parents, good moral and religious training at home and church, educational opportunties galore, met the "woman of my dreams" (hyperbole allowed here in matters of the heart), blessed with three "arrows in my quiver" (although right now those arrows are out of my quiver, but that's okay!), and answered a Calling that has brought me great joy and fulfillment, some tears along the way, but even more laughs!
I've had a few pauses, too.
That's good, because we all need our Sabbath times, for rest, recreation, and renewal. In answering this Call, I am in a professional career, a way of life, actually, which allows plenty of time to reflect, re-tool, and re-invigorate. And that's a good thing, always, I've found. I thank God for the pauses which come, or which I invite into my life on this earth.
And along the way, yes, there have been interruptions, a-plenty.
Thank God for them! We work, we plan, then life happens, all its interruptions ... and God laughs. I know God is a good laugher, because, when I look in the mirror, I'm sure God has an over-the-top sense of humor.
Take Jesus, for instance. When he asked the Pharisees for a coin, to answer their question about paying taxes, they gave him one, a Roman coin. But the joke was on them, wasn't it, for having it? I mean, it does have a Graven Image on it, right? And nowhere does Holy Writ record that he gave it back, either (heh-heh).
Life's interruptions are occasions to laugh at ourselves and our human condition, knowing that it's gonna be alright ... because we know "the Rest of the Story." That Stone was rolled away, after all .. so there's no stone, no interruption, that God and I can't handle, together. I know this much is true! Yea, verily.
Life is full of breaks, pauses, and interruptions.
Caesurae, caesurae!
Long live such moments. We know they're here, and they're still coming. It's the stuff life is made of, eh?
caesura \sih-ZHUR-uh; -ZUR-\, noun;
plural caesuras or caesurae \sih-ZHUR-ee; -ZUR-ee\:
1. A break or pause in a line of verse, usually occurring in the middle of a line, and indicated in scanning by a double vertical line
2. Any break, pause, or interruption.
Caesura comes from Latin caesura, "a cutting off, a division, a stop," from the past participle of caedere, "to cut."
