PORTALS

     

Hi There !

       So, if we all piled into a great big room and stripped naked, you know what we'd find,

       after more than a few good laughs that is?  We'd see that we are all the same

       ( no, I didn't fail Anatomy 101 ). But, and do pardon the pun, we really are all the same!

       Sure, there are all sorts of body types and condition and color tones,

       and there are gender and genital variations for sure. But if that is all we see,

       we need to strip more and look deeper. There are all sorts of personality types,

       competencies, and personal histories. But we need to strip even more

       and look ever deeper, discarding every psychological contrivance, cloak and cover.

        Ah! Now there we are, bare and all the same! Our deepest selves crave, ache, pulsate

        for perfect love.  That's the same and deepest truth for us all. We so want to meet,

        merge and meld.  There at our deepest, we desire to pour ourselves

        into the other and be filled by the one who is and is no longer the other. For sure,

        it's physical, but even more surely it is emotional, intellectual, psychological, soulful

        to the point beyond any point.  It's mystical.

        The good news is that there really is perfect love. " God is love " ( 1 John 4:8 ).

        Whatever is ultimate, that fires up being, is love. Of course  all this means that love is God.

        Find some love and you've found God to one degree or other.

        The hard fact, though, is that none of us have completely connected

        with The Fullness of Love that is God.

        So how do we put all this together? Well we don't and can't. It's just the state

        of our evolution to this existential moment. Hopefully, more to come!!

        But, how about now? What's our status report? Well, if we are eight years old

        and have a best friend, we think we're there.

        But that only last a while and the ache is still there, too.

        We could be a young person romantically and sexually tossing and turning

        with our first love. As good as that is, it eventually burns off

        and the ache presents even stronger.  There's marriage for most, affairs for many.

        For some there is meditation and prayer, seeking a perfect spiritual love.

        But always and for all, the ache for more, better, perfect love.

        By the time we are old it occurs to some of us that it all works  differently,

        that love presents, penetrates, draws in all of who we are, opens wide  and takes

        all of us all the way in, and that in a way  we didn't expect.

        ( Pretty sexy, ugh?  Actually I'm just a piker. Check The Song of Songs

        and the mystics for the really good stuff!! )   Here's the deal.

        Paradoxically, the fuller comes through the partial.

        It engages us and draws us into itself through portals of the partial.

        The tone introduces the symphony and draws us into its majesty.

        Color and form catch our eye and bear us into the magnificence of the painting.

        Please let me share a little story about this paradox from my own life.

        I was first semester graduate student far from home. The academics

        were more than worthy. Not so the social. My social " circle "

        was lower than a pregnant ant. Truth to tell, my social " circle "

        was a great big " circular zero."  It was December, dark and dreary, and so was I.

        More out of desperation than desire I headed out to a shopping mall,

        not usually one of my preferred destinations.  At least there would be

        lights and buzz. Well, I didn't find a perfect lover just sitting there in the food court

        waiting for me. It went the other way round. Enlivening love came to me through

        a little portal and drew me into a moment of unitive ecstasy. I was just making busy

        at a clothing  counter. A woman joins in a few feet away.  I look down and there is

        her little son, four- ish, cascades of blond locks, pure complected, radiant eyed.

        He looked up at me and let loose the purest, warmest, most accepting

        and inviting smile in all of creation. Love presented through the portal of

        a little boy's to die for smile. In less than half a second I was drawn

        into utter goodness, merged with pure love. Through the partial came the fuller.

        Pretty wonderful!! It was like noticing a ray of light and being drawn into the sun.

      If we stop demanding full and perfect love right now and always, and are sensitive

      to portals of the partial as they open to us and open us, we will be drawn into oneness

      with fuller and fuller love. It might happen with a little boy's pure smile, a lover's caress,

      taking in a Shakespearean play, working out a mathematical formula,

      trying an innovative science experiment, quiet prayer, giving a dinner party,

      spending at day at the shore, making a spiritual retreat, going for a horse back ride,

      harvesting a crop, being in communion through the Eucharist,

      and wondrous portals without end.

     Richard Rohr puts it a bit differently and better. 

   

                                                   " Contemplation

                                              is the end of loneliness

                                                   because it erases

                                             the separation between

                                                   seer and seen."

  So let's " see" with our eyes and ears, our touch and taste, our very spirits. The contemplative

  does that, "sees " all the way into what is, to the core that is Love, and starts with all those 

  portals of the partial that invite into fuller and fuller love, the love we so crave. So,  really get 

  into taking that hot shower, savor your chicken cacciatore ( now you know my favorite, but feel 

  to free to insert  your particular favorite right here _______________ ), really cuddle that baby,

  give music a clear channel, take a chance on a new relationship, run real, working for social and

  ecological justice, soak in wisdom reading, stop texting and give full attention to family and

  friends, go to a museum, and if you have the bucks, head for Tuscany. In short, and I I am,

  except here!!, let's truly be open to the portals of the partial.

  They usher us into fuller and fuller love.

  This week we celebrate The Fullness of Love as it aborned  in the Babe of Bethlehem.

  He grew to be the one whom many of us know as Emmanuel , God With Us,

  Love With Us. In Him we see, feel, experience Full Love personalized

  in the most human of ways. Following the story line of the nativity, I expect

  the wise men and the shepherds just saw a little baby for starters.  That was their portal.

  They opened to it and were drawn into a whole lot more.  As we go encounter our portals,

  I hope I will do that, too. I hope you will as well. I recommend it.

  I've never been to Bethlehem, but I did meet a beautiful Christ Child in a mall out in St. Louis!!

  And it was Love at first sight!!

                                                Thanks so much for considering all this.

                                                          Merry Christmas!!

                                                             John Frank

  

" BRIGHT ON "

Hi There !

So, it's that time of year.

The nights are early and long.

A lot of darkness in December.

That could depress and deaden.

Around here, and across our dear land, not so.

Folks aren't settling for any hibernation of spirit.

My neighborhood is a good example.

Driving into this development of townhouses in December darkness is actually a delight.

The place is like one great big, bright, beautiful Christmas tree.

House after house variously, imaginatively strung with all sorts of Christmas lights

being beautiful bright together in December darkness.



As mentioned here three blogs back,

for all our various religions/no religions/spiritualities,

Thanksgiving is our national

                                        Holy Communion.

In the same manner and spirit,

December is our national

                                         Festival Of Light.


We find a way - all sorts of ways - to be bright in the dark for each other.

Paradoxically, for all our disconnectedness, it's so social.

Example.

Most of us here in my development don't know each other, or connect at all.

Yet we come together to "enlighten" each other in our shared space with this

                                     
                                        Festival Of Light.


Out here on the street of everyday living

we also deal in a very real and telling way with light and dark

as we make our way spiritually.

In our own particular ways, we all are in the dark.

In our own particular ways, we all are enlightened.

So, let's string our "lights"  for each other

and then take a ride through our spiritual neighborhood and

 be brightened, indeed, "enlightened" by our neighbors -

Jews, Muslims, Christians, free thinkers, nons, atheists -

however they shine.

In the dark we can give a light and get a light.

No matter how deep dark it gets, that sure makes for a spiritual

                                 
                                     Festival Of Light.




Thanks for allowing me  to shine "this little light of mine" here each week.

Every good wish and blessing to those of us celebraing Hanukka, Diwali,

Kwanzaa, Lunar New Year, Zoroastrian Solstice,

their Festival of Lights.

Our weekly gathering here continues to be blessed with new participants.

We welcome into our sharing those new to us from Sri Lanka and The Netherlands.

"Bright On" one and all.

Holding each and everyone in

God's Dear Love,

   John Frank

SEASONED

                                               


                                             This week's offering is rather full.

                                              That's because it both addresses

                                              the context and conditioning

                                              of our individual spiritual lives

                                              and also that of our current shared one.

                                              It would be best to work through

                                              the material prayerfully and slowly

                                              over a period of days.




Hi There !

So, how do you do with change?

Like it?

Hate it?

Just go with it?

Resist it?


Paradoxically,

react as we will,

change is a constant.

Change runs

from fresh sheets every Friday to a new job,

from growing up in the Bronx

and moving to Bardstown Kentucky,

from unawareness to enlightenment,

from birth to death.


Where I live on the east coast of the U.S.,

autumn this year was an unusually warm and extended season

that just plain took its sweet time

shedding leaves and changing into the denuded and cold atmosphere of late fall,

but change it finally did.



Perhaps the change of seasons can show us

a thing or three about life/soul change.

       
                                                         We live in place.


                                            Seasons are the atmosphere of place.



Seasons change life in its particular place.

That is certainly so with  Soul Seasons.


                                                       
                                                     
                                                        SOUL SEASONS

                                          
                                     
                                          Soul Spring delights with a freeing

                                          into spacious fields of budding promise.


                                         Soul Summer sweats and labors,

                                         growing to abundance and  fruitfulness.


                                         Soul Autumn harvests and shares

                                         ripened richness.


                                         Soul Winter diminishes what was

                                         and waits for what will be

                                         with a new Spring.

Atmospheres of  our soul place.



                                                     LIFE SEASONS

                                                                              SOUL LIFE


                                Please take some time here and allow for ease of reflection.

                                It would be best to move from top to bottom,

                                then across from side to side

                                Doing so, what is your Soul Season just now?

                                How are you with that?



                   Spring    - warm  - start       - birth          - child  - dependence

                   Summer - hot      - grow      - work         - adult   - strength  

                   Autumn - cool    - mature    - diminish   - elder   - limits

                   Winter   - cold    - complete - death        - sage   - dependence

                                                                                                  ( and Depends!!)



Our spiritual lives certainly are seasoned

with all sorts of change.

At times we are awash in consolation and euphoria.

Then there are those seasons when everything is arid

and nothing feels good.


Jesus share that holiness ( wholeness )

means being profoundly in love,

love of God, neighbor and self.

A trinity of oneness.

In our changing spiritual seasons,

we at times over/under do

one or more dimensions/spheres of this "triunity."

That throws us into a season of unbalanced climate change.



John Wesley sees three seasons of spiritual growth and change:

                             Prevenient Grace  - prepares us for God

                             Justifying Grace   - sets us right with God

                             Sanctifying Grace - unites us with God.


The description of three seasons of spiritual change and growth

 by church fathers/mothers and theologians

goes all the way back to Pseudo Dionysius ( c. 550A.D. ).

They are typically named:

                               The Purgative Way    

                                                        - freeing from sin

                               The Illuminative Way

                                                         - enlightenment by grace and contemplation

                                The Unitive Way

                                                          - mystical oneness with God.



                                                        SEASONED CHANGE

                         

                           Again and more, lets take time and allow for ease of reflection.

                           What time, what Soul Season, is it just now for each of us,

                           and for our cultural l context,

                           and how goes that ?




                                                There is a time for everything,

                                       a season for every activity under the heavens:

                                                 a time to be born

                                                                     and a time to die

                                                 a time to plant

                                                                     and a time to uproot

                                                 a time to kill

                                                                     and a time to heal

                                                a time to tear down

                                                                     and a time to build

                                                a time to weep

                                                                     and a time to laugh

                                                a time to mourn

                                                                     and a time to dance

                                                a time to scatter stones

                                                                     and a time to gather them

                                                a time to embrace

                                                                     and a time to refrain from embracing

                                                a time to search

                                                                     and a time to give up

                                                a time to keep

                                                                     and a time to throw away

                                                a time to tear

                                                                    and a time to mend

                                                a time to be silent

                                                                    and a time to speak

                                                a time to love

                                                                    and a time to hate

                                                 a time for war

                                                                    and a time for peace.

                                                                                                  Ecclesiastes 3:1-8



Yes, "The times they are a-changing."

"There's a time for everything,

a season for every activity under the heavens."

The sheets get changed,

and so do jobs, addresses, awareness,

indeed, life itself gets changed.

Our Soul Sojourn

across the years

threads through 

many seasons of change.



Here's a prayer that we all may be

        WELL SEASONED.

It's a joy to welcome new folks from Germany to our little sharing here each week.

Thanks to those who sent along their responses to last week's request.

See you all  next week.

Holding each and all in

God's Dear Love,

     John Frank


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                                                      POSTSCRIPT


In just about everything we can get rather theoretical and removed from the actuality of

how it really is out here on the street of for real, everyday living.

We can collect  baseball cards and never go to a baseball game.

That is certainly true of spirituality.

It can become an indoor sport rather than a sweaty, lived experience.

What follows here is an effort to apply and actualize what was treated above about

                                             LIFE SEASONS

                                                                   SOUL LIFE

to what's going on with us right now, right here in our place this season..

Let's give it a go.


                                              **********************


                                       
                     

Right now those of us who live in the U.S.A.

are suffering a season of sadness, indeed,

a season  of  social and individual threat.

It is compounded and doubly dangerous

because so many of us just do not see it,

even will not see it.

There are tragic parallels in other lands.



For all the blessings of our dear country,

we  here in the U.S.A.

are captive to a season of national

                                                 
                                                    SOUL SICKNESS:


blatant disregard for truth, incivility, abandonment of a dedication to the common good,

rampant materialism, excessive self centeredness, ever expanding militarism,

soul sucking consumerism, inequality, media distraction and distortion, addictions, racism,

deep and seething anger, ecological and environmental degradation,

and a many headed monster of violence.

All are plunging us into peril.

We have suffered four  mass murder in two months.

Sexual harassment and abuse abound

and are being "outed' daily..

Our best scientist say and prove that we are destroying the earth and its environment.

We tolerate college students abusing and killing neophytes.

Huge athletic industries make millions upon million in body violence that literally destroys brains.

We are living our spirituality here on the street of everyday living,

and it has become a difficult, dangerous, mean street.

Given  worldwide interconnectedness,

our self destructive drive collides  with people on streets other than ours.

It's getting to be quite a pile up, a demolition derby.

This is not the time to be quiet about it.



This whole peril is because of a

                                         
                            LACK OF LOVE.


That's not some sort of a soft, wimpy platitude.

At issue is a foundational sink hole.

As we saw  above,

Jesus shares that holiness

( wholeness, as in holding a person or a world together )

means being profoundly in love,

love of God, neighbor, self.

Reality is  Love.

Love is Reality

It's the fundamentum of existence,

the bedrock of our being,

the energy of the universe

and whatever is beyond that.

It's the core of everything from

 molecules to Mozart,

psyche to sunshine.

And that core, that Love, is divine.


"God is love."
      
                   ( 1 John 4:8 ).

To be real,

to be healthy,

is

      to

       "BE"

                 in

                     Love,

                              to

                               "BE"

                                       in

                                          God.

Will we ?

             Will we get

                             "REAL"?

                                         Really in Love?

"To (BE) or not to (BE)

( profoundly, delightfully, unequivocally in Love, in God ),

that is the question" for sure.

It's not primarily a matter of politics, government, finance or social ordering.

It is a matter of foundational Reality.

Will you and I get real, and profoundly love God, neighbor and self.?

It means getting off the couch of

               "as is and usual,"

and get going to

             "as can be and needs to BE."

Will we actually move on from religion to what religion should encourage,

to letting God love us to life?

Profound, personal, actual "Spirit-inter-course."

That's where it starts,

and without it there is no start

to redirecting our drive to  disintegration.

So, how about it?

Will we accept and embrace a season of refreshment and renewal?

That will mean a lot of change in the atmosphere of our place here and now.

Will we actually, personally, and collectively let God love us through

                                The Purgative Way

                                The Illuminative Way

                                The Unitive Way?

Will we allow ourselves to be radically loved and thus radically changed?

 Will we let go of any kind of cautious, tentative, play it safe and be comfortable spirituality?

Will we let ourselves be completely absorbed into the Sun of Love ?

If you do, and I do, and many of us do,

then social ordering and shared life

will be refreshed, redeemed and renewed as we are

into a new season/atmosphere of goodness (Godness)

out here on the street of everyday living.

This seasonal change is nothing less than a radicalization to

                                    Right and Real

                                    Foundational Love

                                          God.

No matter how you do with change,

change is happening.

Currently we  are being changed into a terribly sick and sinful way as a people,

plagued by a season of

                                     Soul Sickness.

Will we accept a change literally for the better?

As in all human love, this change means letting go of how we are

and letting The Lover God

have every bit and all of who we are.

It means surrendering self interest and  control.

It means having the socks loved off us.

It means being divinized.



                              To borrow from  Gandhi,

               Be changed and be the change that will change.


That requires a seasonal change for starters.


Thank you for staying with all this!!

Holding one and all in

         God's Dear Love,

              John Frank

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QUESTION

Hi There !

So, there I was at the "Y" with my Sauna Buddies.

We were happily baking away at two hundred degrees Fahrenheit, freely sharing stories and opinions.

Each and all starkly, if not stunningly, appointed and appareled as on the day of our birth.

Enter a "newbie," a young Latino American.

He sat next to where I was.

There was an ease and pleasantness about him.

Conversation was spontaneous and wide ranging.

No politics, though.

It was plenty hot enough in there already!!

Turns out Miguel is a new  pastor.

Those "Birthday Suits" don't give even a hint of occupation.

In the course of things it came up that I had recently retired after fifty years of ministry as a pastor.

Later, showers and dressing completed, Miguel came over to my locker and asked:

"What advice can you give me to be a good pastor?"

I was taken aback by the simplicity and humility so obvious in Miguel and his question.

With no chance of forethought, I found myself pointing to my heart,

saying what came right from there.

I told Miguel it all starts all the way in at center self.

Get it right there at the center, and things will truly be "all right" from there on out.

Sadly, too many church leaders don't do that.

They are frenetically maneuvering, manipulating and marketing,

trying to get takers for their product.

No good, no God, comes from that.

Inauthentic from the get go.

Rather, go through the ordeal and liberation of accepting God to be who God is,

your core and Center.

That will change you and everything you do.

You will be "Centered"  and energized  in The Source.

Only the transformed can transform.

Only the transformed can transform!!!

Give yourself to God, work generously, and God will do wonders through you

that no PR person, Church Growth Guru, or ecclesial executive could ever cook up.

Miguel smiled, said "Si, Amen !," we shook and off we went.

He's going to be the kind of pastor we so need today.



Well, we're not in a sauna here, but we certainly do share away here every week.

Hopefully with something of the simplicity and humility of Miguel,

I have a question for you.

                                        What is the single most important

                                                   SOUL SECRET

                                         that frees and fires you spiritually

                                                    so far in life?

I ask for two reasons.


The first is for you.

Go as deep and honest as you can.

How are you doing with what's there?


The second is for me.

Please share your gift with me as I tried to share mine with Miguel.

It will light the way spiritually for me out here on the street of my everyday living.


I would so appreciate it if you would email your sharing to me at:

johnfrankshares@gmail.com


This week marks the first anniversary of "frankly speaking."

Thanks for your good company.

Also, we are blessed to have folks from Slovenia and South Korea now part of our gathering here,

blessed indeed.


See you next week.

Holding each and all in

  God's Dear Love,

        John Frank


PS

  For folks recently joining in, a new posting goes up each week on Friday mornings.

"AHA"

Hi There!

So, when was the last time you had a for real

"Aha" moment?

I mean a "biggie,"  a major leaguer?

You know, all of a sudden it's just there.

You "get it."

In fact, it gets you!

No stress or fuss about it.

The lights go high intensity.

You see the way forward like it's high noon  on a crystal clear day

from the highest peak in the Alps.



When something like that happens in our spiritual life,

out here on the street  of everyday living,

it's a major moment and mover.

It sure was for Buddha, Francis of Assisi, John Wesley,

and numerous other spiritual beacons.

Their "Aha" moments mightily moved them.

They in turn have been moving countless others

spiritually forward through the centuries.


So, too, the great spiritual light and writer Thomas Merton ( 1915-1968 ).

Early on he retreated to a monastery to get away from

the contamination of the world's institutionalized evil.

In the process, though, he got quite disconnected, iced out, from

a warm, loving connection with God present in all of humanity.

He lived the illusion of a separate and superior holiness

in the isolation of his Kentucky cloister.

After years of not leaving the seclusion of the monastery,

he had to travel to Louisville to see a see a medical specialist.

It turned out to be an "outing" in more than a few ways.

At the corner of Fourth and Walnut it happened.

In the middle of a crowd of shoppers out on the street,

he experienced an "Aha" moment that radically changed his life.

It just happened, unbidden and powerfully clear.

He saw deeply into that crowd and fell in love.

He "got it."

Here's how he recounts the epiphany of connecting love.

           In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut,

           in the center of the shopping district,

           I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization

           that I loved all these people,

           that they were mine and I theirs,

           that we could not be alien to one another

           even though we were total strangers.

           It was like waking from a dream of separateness,

           of spurious self-isolation in a special world,

           the world of renunciation and supposed holiness.

           The whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream...

           This sense of liberation from an illusory difference

           was such a relief and such a joy to me

           that I almost laughed out loud...

           I have the immense joy of being (hu)man,

           a member of a race in which God...

           became incarnate.

           As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me,

           now that I realize what we all are.

           And if only everybody could realize this!

           But it cannot be explained.

           There is no way of telling people that

           they all are walking around shining like the sun...

           Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts,

           the depths of their hearts

           where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach,

           the core of their reality,

           the person that each one is in God's eyes.

          If only they could all see themselves as they really are.

          If only we could see each other that way all the time.

          There would be no more war,

          no more hared,

          no more cruelty,

          no more greed.
               
                                     Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander



May  the clarity and intensity  of Merton's "Aha" moment

light a way forward for us

out here on the street of our everyday living.

May it help us navigate all the racial strife,  religious/ethic tensions and conflicts,

political and ideological harshness, violence that litters these streets and isolate us

from God present in  all the people out here.

May it thaw isolation and divide,

warm to union.

Hopefully it will be a spark that ignites our own "Aha" moment and motion.



The Meditation Marker that follows has a continuation of the Merton piece.



I'm  surely delighted that all of us are connected and sharing here each week.

Have a great seven days ahead!

Until next week.

Holding each and all in

God's Dear Love,

      John Frank


*******************************************************************************


                                                 MEDITATION MARKER


                                                  At the center of our being

                                                  is a point of nothingness

                                                  which is untouched

                                                  by sin and by illusion,

                                                  a point of pure truth,

                                                  a point or spark

                                                  which belongs entirely to God,

                                                  which is never at our disposal,

                                                  from which God disposes of our lives,

                                                  which is inaccessible

                                                  to the fantasies of our own mind

                                                  or the brutalities of our own will.

                                                  This little point of nothingness

                                                   and of absolute poverty

                                                   is the pure glory of God in us...

                                                   It is like a pure diamond,

                                                   blazing with the invisible light of heaven.

                                                   It is in everybody,

                                                   and if we could see it

                                                   we would see these billions of points of light

                                                   coming together in the face and blaze of a sun

                                                   that would make all the darkness

                                                   and cruelty of life

                                                   vanish completely.

                                                                 Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

                                                                  Doubleday:1966, pages 140 - 142

                 

                                     



                                 














   



       

HOLY COMING INTO UNION

Hi There !

So, how far out of your way would you go for a really good meal?

Next door, next town, across state lines?

Well, AAA projects that this coming week 48.7 million of us here in the states

will go way out of our way, travel long distances, for a really good meal -

Thanksgiving dinner with family and friends.



And a really good meal it is, probably the best of the year,

with all the traditional delights: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce,

salads, vegetables and pies galore,

and all of it  complimented by a rich variety of family favorites.

My father always asked for pearl onions in cream sauce.

I like mashed and buttered rutabaga.

The table overflows.

So do the stories, anecdotes, reminiscences, teasing, laughing.

Life and love are liberally shared gathered around the Thanksgiving table.

Definitely a meal worth going way out of our way for.

( Yes, Miss Caton, - my sixth grade teacher -

I know we're not suppose to end a sentence with a preposition ) .



Actually, Thanksgiving is our

National Holy Communion.

It's a real Eucharist.

In Greek, " eucharistia " means thanksgiving,

and the fourth Thursday of November is rooted in  just that.



Immigrants to these shores 

( there were no travel bans on white, English speaking immigrants at the time )

were  thankful that they had survived their "Passover"

from religious intolerance and persecution in England

to a promised land of faith freedom here.

They shared a meal of thanks with the original Americans,

who had helped them survive the harshness of resettlement.

Both groups had to go way out of their way to accept each other

and then share that first Thanksgiving meal.

There was a wide diversity to traverse culturally, ethnically, and religiously.

The Puritans had to accept rough, non-Christian "primitives."

The native Americans stretched.

They did not require the "foreigners" to abandon their English language,

their distinctive garb (the of hajab of the day ), nor their rather stern version of Christianity.

They had aided the new arrivals in their "resettlement" - no quotas by the way -

and now joined in to share a meal of thanks.

It was indeed a Holy Coming Into Union.



In many ways our Thanksgiving these days is not only rooted in the experience of Passover and

that of the First Americans and Puritans, it is also a participation in the Holy Communion

Jesus shared at his last Passover with his close in spiritual family.

They, too, had gone way out of their way for this really good meal,

traveling all the way to Jerusalem and putting themselves in harm's way in the process.

At their Holy Communion meal they shared all the traditional Jewish Passover foods.

In the midst of the meal, Jesus served up a whole new nourishment,

his very self symbolized in bread and wine shared.

He invited a oneness in who he is and how he is,

one with him and with each other.

He offered his very self, his life and love, in the holiest of communions.

He urged those gathered around the table to stay connected, in union, in communion.

Knowing how undone, disjointed and disconnected we can get,

Jesus made possible a continual reconnect of the disconnected,

a way to again and again get the members reunited, " re - membering "

in the body of his unity -

" Do this in remembrance (re membering) of me" -

get together around the table and share what I give you,

my life and love making a oneness of all, and take it from there.


Happily, Thanksgiving isn't restricted to once a year.
.
It  is very much an icon, an invitation, to go way out of our way every day

for a really good meal, a great feast of living together

gathered around the table of everyday experience

and sharing  a Holy Coming Into Union with God and each other.

And going out of our way it takes!

It takes  effort to  move away from our comfortable and accustomed ways so as

to meet, accept, embrace, and share with  people of diverse cultures, ethnicities,

persuasions and religions.


A very practical take home here would be for us all to refocus and recommit

to going out of our way to make room for new/different people at the table of our various gatherings:

our neighborhood,  organizations, work place, recreational venues, religious institutions,

opening to a Holy Coming To Union.


I can vouch for how essential this is.

Recently retired, I moved to a townhouse in another state.

Three months into it, my neighbors on either side have said hello.

That's it.

I don't even know their last names.

We're cheek to jowl in this development of hundreds and hundreds,

literally feet apart, yet.

strangers in a crowd.

Not much better is trying to find a church family.

One pastor sent a form letter of welcome to the church

two months after I  went there  for a Sunday service.

In another church that I have attended  a number of times over the past two months,

the pastor never sent any note of welcome, or reached out in any manner,

but I did receive a pledge card ( request for money )!!! 

I kid you not.

After two request to visit, the pastor told me last Sunday, "Not this week. I'm so busy."

I'll let you in on a little secret.

I will not ask again, nor have I pledged.

Fortunately a few of the parishoners have reached out in welcome, a few!.

As a retired pastor, now on the other side of the altar,

I am getting quite an education on why lots of people don't bother with churches.

Quite frankly, too many are mutual  message parlors for insiders only.

They just do not go out of their way to welcome and share with outsiders,

in their church or beyond their church,

much less be in for Holy Coming Into Union.

I have found a great deal more welcome and "Come Union " at the local YMCA.

For sure, let's be intentional and personal, going out of our way to connect and include all.


.

It's a happiness to welcome  this week new  folks from Nigeria and Cambodia to our

Holy Coming Into Union  right here.

Happy Thanksgiving next Thursday  and every day of the year to one and all.

It's so good to be together here each week.

In God's Dear Love,

     John Frank























 

ON PURPOSE

Hi There !

So, God forbid that on our death bed

the last thing we can say about our life is

"I didn't do it on purpose,"

except God won't forbid it.

But we can, if we refuse to drift through the years without purpose.

Purpose is the

"WHERE TO"

of our life's GPS.

When it's clear, it's definitive of direction and leads to destination.

Without it we basically spin our wheels, burn rubber, waste gas,and get nowhere fast.

Imagine a cab driver asking

"Where to/"

and we don't have an answer.

We also don't have a ride, much less an arrival.

So it is with life.

To get somewhere we've gotta have somewhere to "get."

Rick Warren sold over thirty million copies of his book

Purpose Driven Life,

mapping out life purpose.



Even with all my spin outs and sins over these many years,

I have been blessed since boyhood with a clear sense of purpose.

The Baltimore Catechism got me off to a good start:

                         "God made  me to know Him, love Him, serve Him in this world,

                          and to be happy with Him forever in the world to come."

John Wesley called it personal holiness and social holiness.

Life purpose means oneness with God and service to his people.

My personal sense of purpose presented in those boyhood days and still this morning as

                         Union with God

                         Bring people and God together.

Whenever I go off the rails, that sense of my purpose always puts me back on the tracks.

Over the years my sense of purpose has been my guidance system.



My sense of union with God has lead me to scripture, meditation, prayer,

spiritual reading and direction, a church community, worship and sacraments, and to spiritual retreats.



My sense of bringing  people and God together has found  a host of modes and endeavors:

pastoring, teaching, counseling, giving spiritual direction, migrant ministry, youth work,

advocating for social and environmental justice, mentoring clergy, men's ministry,

church and academic administration, gay men's ministry, developing small group ministries,

leading retreats. and now in old age, this blog.



Pablo Picasso paints a marvelous picture of meaning and purpose:

                       " The meaning of life is to find your gift.

                          The purpose of life is to give it away."

So it's a "two-fer." - gift and giving.

In other words, what do we have to give?

What's inside us that needs to get out?

What fire burns within us that will warm others?

What's just too good to keep to ourselves?

What do we have that others need?

What's our enthusiasm ( in Theo ism )?

Purpose is where our gift and other's need come together.


For my mother that was to be a nurse and to have us children.

For Edison it meant to experiment and invent.

For Mother Teresa it meant "mothering" people discarded by society.

For George Washington it was to "father" a nation.

For a quiet man I counsel it is to find simple was to cheer people on.


Purpose is not so much career as it is charism.

Charism is a spiritual gift that takes practical form and energizes it.


All this is simply and compellingly Spirit Said:

                            "The gift you have been given give as a gift."

                                                                        1 Peter 4:10

Mark Twain even gets in on all this:

                            " The two most important days of your life are

                               when are born and the day you find out why."

Helen Keller could see better than most:

                             "Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes happiness.

                              It is not attained through self gratification,

                              but through fidelity to purpose."

Gift to give!


Hopefully on our death bed we'll all be able to say of our life,

                              "I did it on purpose!"

                               as we fade to Fullness.


We welcome to our company new friends from Vietnam and South Africa.

Delighted to be together.

As always, thanks to one and all for your good company.

See you next week.

In God's Dear Love,

      John Frank

FLOW

Hi There!

So, sure enough, the old bromide  has it right.

The only way to successfully navigate existence is to actually

                                                     
              " GO WITH THE FLOW."

Push the river of reality and we get swamped.

But, push the river of reality we do -

 just find it hard to trust that the river knows what it's doing.

Well ( to continue the aquatic  metaphor ),

the river is not an "it," but rather is

The Ultimate, Reality,The Lover's Flow,

and this Lover sure knows how to flow-go.

We certainly do well to allow ourselves to be blended  into that life current.

Rather than try ( and surely fail ) to redirect Reality,

we can trust and jump in as The Lover's Flow happily immerse us

in the adventure of its unfolding.

All and every are included:

                                                         - personal relationships

                                                        - state craft

                                                        - striving for social and environmental justice

                                                        - raising children

                                                        - caring for the needy and the elderly

                                                        - discovering vocational currents

                                                        - farming or sell appliances

                                                        - discerning our next soul flow

                                                        - driving a bus

                                                        - creating new technologies

                                                        - developing new curriculum, or a novel recipe for shish kebab

                                                        - submerged in music.


The "rub " in life happens when

                                                       - governments

                                                       - corporations

                                                       - religions

                                                       - families

                                                       - political parties

                                                       - individuals

play god and try to force life's flow in a direction of their insistence.

That causes a "rub' that can rub out life, lots of it -

 psychic, spiritual, emotional,relational, communal, environmental, all the way to planetary.

Why do we rub reality the wrong way?

Arrogance, stupidity, but more often than not, fear,

lack of trust, lack of faith that there is a

Lover flowing to fullness.

That is what spins us into chaos and peril.


Richard Rohr shares:


                                                         RIVER OF LOVE

                        I believe that faith might be precisely an ability to trust the river,

                        to trust the Flow and the Lover. It is a process that we don't have

                        to change, coerce, or improve, and is revealed in the notion of God as a

                        Trinitarian relationship that "flows" unguarded! We only need to allow

                        the Flow to flow - and through us. That takes immense  confidence

                        in God's goodness, especially when we are hurting. Usually,

                        I can feel myself get panicky. I want to make things right, quickly.

                       I lose my ability to be present, and I go into my head and start obsessing.

                       I am by nature goal-oriented, as many of us are,  trying to push

                       or even create the river - the river that is already flowing through me,

                       and in me (John 7:38-39).


So, here goes.

Let's flow,

Flow Full.


It's so good to be able to share together.

Thanks for your company!

See you next week.

In God's Dear Love,

   John Frank