Dear All of Us,
"Make yourself right at home."
Lovely sentiment.
Terribly difficult just now.
Where we live and how we live
have really been hammered this past year.
Big Time! Bad Time!
And there are more hammers
in the toolbox of next.
Homeland and home sweet home soured.
Our home game a win wished,
but sadly a strike out instead.
A murderous pandemic,
a nation that couldn't/wouldn't take hold of it,
just about everything politicized to a peril,
states of mind and peoples not at all united,
governance on life support,
anger in the air everywhere polluting the peace,
country and culture at war within,
finances flipping ever more to the ten percent
and slamming the ninety percent
to the floor yet again and maliciously more.
Many-most stretched to snap.
Yep, hammered! Things not at all
RIGHT
AT HOME
In one way and too many,
everyone has been evicted
from an at-homeness desired and lost.
What to do?
How be with all this?
We can kick and scream,
drop into depressions
of spirit and society,
wait it out in a quarantine of numbing now
that just won't quickly flow away.
Or we can see things as they are
and adjust to new habitats of
meaning, manner, mode.
Whatever our reaction and response,
our spiritual living will be effected,
and that in a pervasive, telling way.
Yes, in a lot of ways
we really are homeless,
at least to what was
and what is wanted.
We are forced to relocate,
if not physically,
attitudinally,
spiritually for sure,
and in many unfamiliar
and less than easy ways.
Six feet apart and more than
six degrees of separation.
All this raises
THE
SOUL QUESTION
critical and yet
often long avoided:
Where and how
can we really be
RIGHT
about being
AT HOME
in a solid spiritual way,
no matter the travail
of our "Nows" and "Here's"?
Where are we located
in this right now and here with
our values,
our life style,
our focus,
our preoccupations
and possessions,
what we are taking
and what we are giving?
How really, how radically
in the best sense of it,
are we living out
The Sermon On The Mount
and making our real home in the
Kingdom Come and Coming,
even in the midst of
PanProblems
and
Empire's Lies To Life?
What's our real
location and address?
Our PanProblems
can motivate us
to make sure
that we have
a home base rock real,
one that gives surety,
a foundation firm,
no matter the trouble and turbulence,
one that stabilizes and strengthens.
It means to
simply,
actually,
practically,
for real
be
RIGHT AT HOME
IN
JESUS THE CHRIST
"the way, the truth, and the life" (1)
so truly so that
"I live now not I, but Christ lives in me." (2)
That takes us to a place and way
of being really "right at home"
no matter the travail and trouble about us:
"Live in me.
Make your home in me
just as I do in you...
I've loved you
the way my Father has loved me.
Make yourself at home in my love..." (3)
RIGHT AT HOME
Yes, Yes. Yes!
Your Home Mate
John Frank
******
(1) John 14:6 (2) Galatians 2:20
(3) John 15:4, 9 The Message
******
If you wish, here are some
prompts and supports
to personalize and socialize
what we have shared above.
PRAY AND PONDER
In a time and a place and a way
of calm and quiet
we invite The Spirit
to breeze through us,
to blow out the fetid air of fear
and of stifling self centeredness,
to flow us clear and clean.
We ponder.
We pray.
Where am I really "right at home"
in my everyday-everyway living?
What's the context and consistency
of my consciousness?
What constructs fashion
and fix my habitation,
my fears and hopes,
my surety and fallibility,
my flaws and forte,
my clarity and my confusion,
my sense of things,
my vice and virtue,
my freedom and growth,
my deepest intimacy,
where /how am I rock solid
and/or sand soft?
On what foundation
and of what construction
is the house and home
of my living?
How real and reliable?
How open for expansiveness
in grace and creativity
and how safe in storm?
How about all this with a view
to our shared home
as a people on a planet
- us here -
So let's sense the wisdom
of our childhood.
Three little pigs in peril.
One constructed a home of sticks.
One constructed a home of straw.
One constructed a home of brick.
The big bad wolf huffed and puffed
and blew down the homes of sticks and straw.
He also consumed pork roast for dinner.
For all the vigor of his velocity
as he huffed and puffed,
the home of brick held
and it held that wise little piggy
safe and secure.
Ill winds buffet us in the best of times.
These times don't come within
a country mile of best.
PanProblems and Empire
with their ill winds bang against
the structure of soul and society.
Any habits and habitations
of stick or straw
fall apart and fly away,
leaving us naked and homeless.
Are there any sticks and straws
in the structure of my living?
How about sticks and straw in
our shared habitation
as a national and world wide people?
What are they - in detail and candidly so?
Am I willing to make a move
to a new and solid home, to be
"Right At Home"
as offered by Jesus The Christ?
Am I willing to share
with others habitation in the
Kingdom Come
as we open to the
Kingdom Coming,
and that in the midst of Empire
and its terrifying tornedo of evil?
Does that really draw me?
Does it frighten me?
What can I/we do to better locate
as a society - specifically -
where we are and as we are?
Will I labor for a reconstruction of church,
mosque, synagogue, religious grouping?
Will I team up with all sorts of us
for a reconstruction
of our social system,
for justice, compassion, equity?
Will I invest me, my time, concern,
effort and money for these?
Will I have and use less
so others have enough?
Yes, lots of childhood wisdom
from which to draw.
And oh what "beyond wisdom" from Jesus!!
This is how he wraps up
The Sermon On The Mount.
Matthew 5:1 - 7:28
Let's clear the airwaves
and hear it again for the first time:
Everyone who hears these words of mine
and acts on them will be like a wise man
who built his house on rock.
The rain fell, the floods came,
and the winds blew and beat on that house,
but it did not fall,
because it had been founded on rock.
And everyone who hears these words of mine
and does not act on them will be like
a foolish man who built his house on sand.
The rain fell, and the floods came,
and the winds blew and beat against that house ,
and it fell -
and great was its fall!"
Matthew 7:24- 27
There's a torrent of rains, floods,
winds battering where and how we live.
What's the foundation of how I live -
specially spelled out in a cogent, clear
one line statement of its essence?
It is critical to see and say it.
What are we counting on to hold up
in the storms of self and society
and to support glorious,
creative Kingdom Living?
Going over The Sermon On The Mount,
what do I hear Jesus say and The Spirit
speak to my soul right Here in my Now
and those of our society?
This is good for weeks of
pondering and praying.
If I hear Jesus aright,
what am I being and doing about it?
There's a couple more weeks of
pondering and praying - at least!!
Have I gotten out of head
and into heart with Jesus
and Kingdom living?
Have/How do I kick into gear
and practically put into action
the words of Jesus?
( "act on them" )
How much do I really want to be
RIGHT AT HOME
in and with Jesus and all those
homesteading in
The Kingdom Here So Far
and opening up to the limitless, unending
Kingdom To Come?
Jesus wants me to live with him.
Jesus wants to live with me.
Where am I with that - with HIM - with us?
How am I about moving in
with all sorts of others in this
Jesus habitation -
others really "other"??
In what ways can I invite many more
to move into this Home built on rock?
It's a place of love and justice lived.
Am I "all in" or sort of, or soon, or..?
How much am I really
RIGHT
At Home
Hey! This sure will keep us off the streets
for a while and it sure will send us out
to the streets in sharing and service.
******
This holyday week there were
exceptional numbers
of first time visitors joining in with us,
especially from Russia, Portugal,
Bulgaria, Germany, Romania,
and of course the USA.
Please make yourselves
"right at home"
here at
"frankly speaking"
spirituality for the street
- posted by mid-day Thursday
east coast USA time
johnfrankshares.blogspot.com
- email delivery Fridays
sign up above right
- past postings at
Blog Archive
right column
******
All the best in the new year
and pray that we all are
really and rightly and truly
RIGHT AT HOME
in
2021
and make it that way for those
other "others."
******
PLEASE
Special prayer for those of us here in the USA.
We are entering a week of potential violence
to principle, people and the peace.
May peace prevail.
Thank You!!
******
