Dear All of Us,
When we gathered here
a few weeks ago, we had a
good thing going with giving.
Let's give giving more go.
(Yep, I like to play!)
So, here's a little
true life adventure
from my long, long ago.
Grandma and Grandpa
joined us for Sunday dinner.
I was five in that long long ago
of nineteen ought and forty-five.
My Mom had a try at a pint-sized
Rite of Passage for me.
At the end of the meal
I was rather ceremoniously
commissioned to be a Big Boy
and serve desert all by myself.
Alone in the kitchen,
I portioned out the
Hershey's vanilla ice cream
for my grandparents,
Mom and Dad as well as
my four-year-old sister
and rival, Ann.
I carefully brought
the dishes out one at a time.
Lastly, I then came to the table
with my own serving of ice cream,
a portion four time larger
than anybody else's.
There were quiet chuckles
from the grownups and
a howling challenge from
my sister, Ann.
That rite wasn't at all "right."
I didn't pass the passage.
An essential part
and passage of
our spiritual lives
is to learn and live
the liberation of
"Freely you
have been given,
freely give."
Mathew 5:8
Over the years
our spirit maturing
is a passage from
the wrong of a
plugged-up self
to the "right"
of a freed,
wide opened self-giving.
We catch on that
plugged up to giving
plugs up to receiving,
that being given and giving
have a flow through dynamic.
Given is given to give.
Plugging up the outflow
plugs up the inflow.
Conversely, we widen
more and more to a
divine expansiveness
as we give more and more.
More flows into the emptiness
created by the emptying out
of generous portions of giving.
It all starts and is powered by God.
God portions out the given
of our existence,
a sharing in God's very Being.
"So God created
human beings,
making them to be
like himself."
Genesis 1:27
The Good News
Translation
" In him we live
and move
and have
our being."
Acts 17:28
RSV
What a given!
We are invited into
the delightful dynamic
that is God.
"God is love."
1 John 4:8
God Love is a given
that wants to be given.
God counts on us
for the openness
to be given
and to give.
"The Lord is
my portion."
Ps 119:57
We get to portion out
the God Love given us.
What a deal!!
This is living.
This is really living!!
We're enlivened to enliven.
We're loved to love.
We're in on creation and
being created in the deal.
That sometimes takes
a major portion
of being given
and its flow through
to our giving:
- birthing a child over
the twenty some years
or more that takes
- caring for a disabled
or elderly person
- taking a low paying position
for the good of others, e.g.
teaching, pastoring,
social work
- passing up a major promotion
given family needs
- working to right the wrongs
of church, government,
media, corporations
and taking the "hits" for it
(Liz Cheney, Pope Francis)
- living a decidedly modest
and eco-friendly lifestyle
so as to be able to help fund
the needs of the poor
and so doing reverence
earth, water, air
- to put time and energy into
nurturing community -
neighborhood, church, politics -
local to global.
There are as well
many everyday ways
to share generous portions,
giving what we've been given
by giving of
who we are,
what we have,
what we can do:
- being the positive in a
negative work environment
- having an all-alone neighbor
over for dinner
- smiling and thanking the
checkout clerk, bus driver,
letter carrier, librarian
- spotting exhausted parents
for a few hours
- once a week teaching
Sunday School, tutoring, or
being a Big Brother/Sister
- corresponding with
an incarcerated person
- buying a box of
Girl Scout Cookies
even if they don't have
our favorite variety available
- really listening and caring
when another shares
- getting over a slight
in less than ten years
- going to a ball game
with another when
we'd dearly rather
go to a concert
- thanking the cook even if
dinner is many menus
from what we crave
- honestly, simply, lovingly
praying for others.
Big ways, little ways, always
we open wide to being given God,
a God Love to be given.
It's quite a
Rite of Passage
as we ever widen
opening to receive
more fully God Good
and more fully pass
God Good on.
So much God Love then flows
in us and through us
that after there are
no more whiles
it's pure heaven.
So, stop over sometime
and we'll share a generous
Portion
of Hershey's vanilla ice cream.
Happy to be your brother,
and Ann's too!
John Frank
******
A Warm Summer Welcome
To All
first timers,
sometimes,
all the timers.
frankly speaking
spirituality for the street
johnfrankshares.blogspot.com
(click top left frankly speaking)
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******
"The gift you have been given
give as a gift."
1 Peter 4:10
******
See you next week!
******
