Thursday, November 7, 2019
MAKING CHANGE
Dear All of Us,
Cashiers have to be good at making change.
Their jobs depend on it.
We have to be good at making change.
Our lives depend on it.
The economy of living
means making all kinds of change,
under all kinds of circumstances,
all kinds of ways,
all the time.
The bookends of life itself involve vast change -
from womb to world,
from world to the next world.
In between we change everything from
diapers to tires,
jobs to relationships,
locations to waste lines.
Negotiate a change well and we prosper.
Botch a change and we pay for it.
Our spiritual living is woven into the warp and woof
of daily life and its incessant change.
Resist it, ignore it, mishandle it
and it's more hell than heaven.
It's freedom and fullness missed.
Go with change and we grow.
It's like breathing.
We breath in and then we breath out.
Those changes are live giving.
Sitting in a chair they are easy.
Running a marathon they are strenuous.
Praying in an accustomed manner and mode is easy for a while.
Things change when that kind of praying becomes arid and empty.
The change to an all together new form of prayer is hard.
That kind of change means passing through a prayer desert
to a new oasis of communion.
We either change with the change,
or we become orphans to prayer.
"God is love", and spiritual living is our love life.
We live the love of God, neighbor and self.
It has all sorts of modes and manners and they all change.
Loving God as a six year old is one thing.
Loving God
as a conflicted pubescent,
as a partner and parent,
as one experiencing a mid-life drift,
as a mellow fellow of seventy five,
means change upon change.
Our sense of God changes.
Our response to God changes.
Our union with God changes in kind and depth.
So, too, loving neighbor and self.
As we awake to the mystery that we all are
we accept ourselves and others
in ever changing and expanding degrees of love.
The conservative Baptist liberates to cherish a Moslem neighbor.
The liberal Methodist cherishes the anti-gay without agreeing on gayness.
In the very best sense of it,
our spiritual living is
having a change of heart
again and again.
We see, sense and love
God, neighbor and self
in ever changing fullness.
Our spiritual living is
the adventure of discovering
the way and wonder of
MAKING CHANGE.
As always,
so good to be with you.
In God's Dear Love,
John Frank
*****
PS:
Want to share this.
Comes from an African American Looker Room Buddy at the "Y"
this morning. Asking him how he was he roared out:
" Too blest to be stressed. "
Neat!!!
Welcome to all of our first time visitors this week.
Great to have your company.
"frankly speaking"
spirituality for the street
is posted online each Thursday evening
east coast USA time
johnfrankshares.blogspot.com
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See you next week !!
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