What shal we do with bones that live?

These lessons for the fifth Sunday in Lent are perhaps my favorite combinations of scripture  http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/lections.php?year=A&season=Lent. That which we thought done and over is renewed and brought back to life in new and life giving ways. Not just brought back to life--but brought back to life with purpose and health.

     I have often had a dream about a relationship that was broken many years ago. I wasn't my best self and neither was the other person.  There is a part of me that desperately wants to reconcile and make it right. Yet, when we have done all that we know to do to make things right, we put it in God's hands and dream of a day of peace.

      Regrets bring nothing to our spiritual or psychological life. We don't get 'redo's' in order to make things right. If reconciliation, healing and reuniting are possible, then it is not the same relationship, body or person after God has touched us. One of my favorite musicians/theologians  is Carrie Newcomer. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4jTiVB9IE5w. It is a story about what happened after Lazarus was raised from the dead. People feared him and he struggles to find the meaning in the life after death was no longer.

     I've learned a lot about healing in my life. All healing changes us and brings a responsibility to look at life differently after the healing. Broken relationships are never the same-even if they have been reconciled. They body isn't the same even if a cancer is gone or an organ repaired. We are not the same people after experiencing the threat of disappearance from friends, family or earthly life. Yet, how we accept the offer of looking at life differently is up to us. Receiving or offering forgiveness, either one, can give us a whole new view on conflict, the importance of family or the burden of regret or revenge. Physical healing can change how we view the beginning and ending of each day and the importance of 'the present' and 'the presence.'

      Ezekie37:3 He said to me, "Mortal, can these bones live?" I answered, "O Lord GOD, you know."l 37:1-14

37:1 The hand of the LORD came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.

We are sat down in the middle of many bones and the question is not only 'can these bones live' but also 'what shall we do with the new creature after it is restored. 

Expectation is different that anxiety

Expectation is different than anxiety. 

I have a very anxious dog.  She is on alert for anything that might affect her life, her people or her world.  The least little animal that runs across our yard, the icemaker dropping a load of ice, the doorbell (O Lord, the doorbell!) will send her into full panic mode.  As she has become older the better the reaction to these things have become, but the more worry has set in with her.  While she is sitting with me in front of a warm fire, calm music and cuddly blankets she will look at me with worried eyes and begin to whine until I tell her she is okay and give her a pet.  What I have come to learn about my dog is that she if fully and totally concerned about her own well being.  Her protection of me is really about her protection of herself.  If I am not here there is no one with thumbs to get the food out of the bag. 

This is a liturgical season of expectation.  Looking forward to something new and different, meaningful and full of life.  It is entirely different than my anxiety that gets in my way of accepting the gift of expectation.  When we are in the state of expectation we are hopeful and waiting to see what God has in store for the world around us.  When we are anxious we are all about ourselves.  Our concern is about how we will survive, what will people think of us, how are we performing, what must I do to get a better life and who must I influence. 

I am not a stranger to anxiety attacks and we have all had them at some point in our lives.  They can take us off guard, creeping up on us as the worry and anxiety seem to double with the speed of an aggressive cancer.  I have treated my anxiety with therapy, meditation, physical exercise which has been enormously helpful and growth producing.  However what has helped the most is discovering the root of the anxiety which is an over concern for the self.

I am aware that Jesus talks to a lot of people with anxiety. The young man asks Jesus: ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’  The parent concerned about a sick child, a leper that has been ousted from the community and the Pharisee concerned with sustaining a lifestyle.  While Jesus addresses the anxiety by calming the fears, healing the sick and reuniting the outcast, Jesus often turns the situation into an example, a parable or a lesson by looking at the larger world around us and changing the anxiety into expectation. 

What I find helps treat my anxiety the most is by getting out of my own self preservation and, instead, thinking about the greater need around me.  I have been so impressed by parishioners who have recently lost a job asking me what they might do with their ‘flexible schedule’ while they are looking for employment.  In my own volunteer endeavors I have witnessed those who have been diagnosed with serious illness volunteering while they are being medically treated.  It is not ignoring the needs of the self, but rather, allowing the healing to turn into expectation.  A loss of a job means new opportunities, a serious illness means expectation of healing. 

When we can turn our anxiety into expectation of the new thing God might be doing in our life, we become open to a presence and a life well lived. 

This time of year I hear a lot of anxiety around the giving and receiving of gifts.  The gift that is most meaningful is that which is both personal and loving.  Some of the best gifts I have ever received have been hand made with love and knowledge of what I like and who I am.  I could tell that the gift began with the thought: what might make her delight in this relationship we have together. 

So is the gift that we are given by God.  It is a gift that multiplies the love that we have been given and begs to be shared around our world.  Threat of death brings an expectation of life. 

In the cool mornings of late fall and winter, I build a fire in the wood stove before I say my prayers. As I go through the morning prayer the room begins to warm, the light of the fire begins to shed light in the room. I think of how many of us are at prayer at the very same time I am at prayer. Our prayers are like the wood that is set ablaze. It warms the world around us and sheds light. Our prayers warm us in order that our hearts may not be hardened by the minor and major tragedies of the world. Our prayers set our soul on fire in order that we might carry the light of Christ into our little corner of the world.

I have heard people tell me they don't attend church because they 'don't get anything out of it.' I don't believe that attending church, synagogue or mosque has anything to do with getting something out of it as much as it does with creating something within us.
       Sitting in the presence of Holy community (not Holy people, but Holy Community) can change us and form us. Even when that community seems foreign, different or even challenging, the community gathered is better than its parts. I get upset with The Church, the slowness to respond, the disregard for people who don't agree or the inevitable favoritism that is part of every human system. But, I know that Holy Community is somehow part of the need of my soul's health. This community nourishes me in a way that helps me be grounded and prayerful. I am part of something that causes me to extend grace and receive grace.

Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you?  James 3

It seems to me that we love to point the finger at those who we believe are 'the problem.' Families believe if they could just 'fix' the problem child, the alcoholic father, the depressed mother -then they would have the perfect family. Churches seem to think if they could get rid of their rector, the over powering personality, the whining dependent parishioner--then the church could grow and thrive. Whether it is family, church or work environment--we become fixated on a person, problem or other area beyond our control and, that fixation (not the object of our fixation) which prevents us from moving forward. 

The problem is not that which is outside of our control but, inside and within our control. Eventually, we must come to realize that salvation is working with ourselves and what is within our control. When others have complained to me about the 'bully' in their system, I tell them that there is always a 'bully in training!' The illness and health of family, church, work environment or social club depends upon it. 

Leadership

I've been thinking about leadership. Often we confuse visionary and prophet with leader. The best leaders I have known are people who bring out the ideas, dreams and thoughts of the people they lead--and then help them bring those things to reality! The leader must be a little visionary and a little prophet but with a laser focus on bringing their people to the place and land that they have dreamed of together.
      Leaders that seemed doomed to failure are those that become inspired from something outside of their community and then try to get everyone one their train. It fails because it has never come from within the core of the community.
Good morning from 'The Ark'

On Suffering

But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God; * I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever.
Yesterday I read an interesting article written by Puco Iyer entitled 'The Value of Suffering.' In this article he recounted a trip he took with the Dali Llama shortly after the tsunami hit Japan. The Dali Llama visited thousands of suffering and traumatized people. The crowds would ask him what they should do. He would tell them to persevere, to help one another and to do the best they could with what they had. Iyer explains: for Buddhists like himself, he pointed out, inexplicable pains are the result of karma, sometimes incurred in previous lives, and for those who believe in God, everything is divinely ordained. Yet, given his belief that he couldn't have prevented what happened he was deeply affected by the suffering and as he, at one point, left the crowds Iyer noticed he was weeping. Ordained? But still  transformed by the suffering.
The Latin roots for suffering are the same roots as the word passion. In today's reading from Mark 15 we hear of the suffering and burial of Christ. In the church we call this 'The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ.' Theologians have discussed and agonized over whether the suffering of the Christ was 'ordained' or whether it was a series of bad choices that could have turned out differently at any one turn of these events. Truthfully, we will never know in this lifetime. What I do know is that we, like millions of others, have been affected, transformed and changed by the death, suffering, burial and Resurrection of this man. What it means is that in the midst of any of our suffering there is hope for new life and a possibility that our suffering may have meaning and purpose.
i don't believe that suffering, disaster and trauma are pre-ordained. Yet, at the same time suffering is a part of our existence. from little things to devasting traumas we have little control over events that break our heart and shake our soul. Yet, we do have control over what is brought forth from the suffering, lonliness and abandoment of the suffering we share. Our choice, nay, our calling is to look into the deep dark chasm of the sometimes frightening realities of life and through faith in God see the message of hope and new life.