Thursday, June 11, 2020
NO LONGER - NOT YET
Dear All of Us,
An older woman had stopped going to synagogue.
The rabbi went to visit.
They sat quietly in front of the fireplace.
The rabbi picked up the tongs.
He took a glowing coal from the fire,
set it on the brick hearth.
The small coal slowly lost its glow, blackened, and died out.
After more quiet, the older woman said,
"I understand. I'll come back to synagogue."
Community is essential in our spiritual lives.
Separated from the intensity of a spiritual community,
like that coal separated from the fire,
our spirit loses its glow, blackens and dies out.
Community is essential in our spiritual lives.
The Pan Problem has separated us
from our spiritual communities
in a lot of painful ways.
We need each other up close and personal.
It's rough trying to have a bonfire
with individual logs spread all over the field.
This separation is a hardship for sure.
Things are No Longer as they were
and they are Not Yet what they will be.
We are like the crews that were stuck
on board cruise ships, not allowed into port.
It was No Longer what it was months ago
and it was Not Yet what they so long for.
In our own way we are adrift nowhere.
What are we to do?
We need to do what the followers of Jesus
have done over the centuries -
find the best possible way to be together.
That has taken many, many forms
moving from No Longer toward Not Yet
in the Just Now.
Separated from Jesus after his death,
the first followers were confused and frightened.
They hid out, stuck together, prayed
and waited for the promised Spirit.
Inspirited at Pentecost, they hit the streets
inviting everyone in on the life.
The early Christian communities
were not socially preferred
to painfully persecuted.
They formed themselves into
small, close knit,
caring and sharing
Home Churches.
The Roman Christians were hunted
and thrown to the lions.
They went under ground -
The Catacomb Church.
They rose above limit.
John Wesley was concerned.
The Church of England
was a stiff, arrogant dark shadow
of a spiritual community
during the Industrial Revolution.
John Wesley went into the slums
and mining towns of England.
He gathered the dirty poor into small groups
for spiritual support and shared life.
In Communist prison camps
Christians didn't have
church buildings or programs.
They had each other.
They sacrificed and cared for one another
and other prisoners as well.
They lived beautifully as The Body of Christ
in rags and suffering.
Their togetherness was a Holy Communion
in attitude and action.
The poor and marginalizes of South America
found themselves spiritually starved,
Gospel denied, in a church owned by
the state and it's wealthy elites.
They formed Base Communities.
Gathering in small, close, caring local groups,
they applied and lived
the Gospel personally and socially.
It was Liberation Theology
for sure, for self, for society.
For all of these it was/is community
No Longer as it was
and Not Yet what it would be.
So it is for us.
We, too, are seeking
the best possible ways
we can to share the intensity,
the fire of the Spirit,
to be in community as
The Body of Christ during this
No Longer and Not Yet of our Just Now:
Tonight about ten of us from
our local and closed church
are connecting through ZOOM
for a Happy Hour -
sharing spirits and Spirit.
A Men's Spirituality Group
does Soul Share by ZOOM.
For others it is Bible Study,
Prayer Groups,
Small Bubble Groups gather for
faith sharing, fellowship and a meal,
in person once a week.
Some are families. Others are singles.
(it is a select and committed quarantine)
A core of five each call two
isolated members of their closed church
each day. That amounts to
seventy "communions" a week.
They share conversation,
trouble shoot and resource.
"Old pastors never die.
They just do spiritual direction"-
these days by phone/facetime.
This "old pastor" is
so privileged twice a day -
it's a really good connection for both us -
(and it keeps me off the street
and out of the lounge chair!!).
Some stream a Eucharistic Service
and place a white napkin
in front of the screen.
They have a little piece of bread
and a small glass of wine there
and share in Holy Communion.
Jesus used what was available
for communion at The Last Supper.
They use what's available
in our No Longer and Not Yet.
The issue isn't physical distance,
polity or transmission.
It's Holy Communion.
A good connect here is
The National Cathedral in Washington DC.
They live streamed the Eucharist
at 11:15 A.M., east coast USA time,
Sunday mornings as does
St. John's Abbey, Collegeville MN,
at 10:30 CDT.
Using a variety of media,
mentors meet with youth weekly
as they prepare for Confirmation.
Prayerfully we discern
our means and others' needs,
funding those needs,
being in supportive community.
Here in DC "Charlie's Place"
is a vibrant group gathered
to feed and assist the homeless.
Check out (perhaps with a check)
such groups where you live.
Consider forming a group
of parents and
2020 high school graduates
as they try to figure
their way forward toward college.
Perhaps you could ask
an educator from your community
to facilitate and gather online.
A group from the church
could use media to discuss
and be proactive
in addressing social
and environmental issues.
Members of spiritual communities
have sacrificed social distancing
and possibly their health.
They come together
to peacefully protest both police
and systemic racial injustice.
Hopefully they we find ways
to band together for
the long, hard work ahead
to secure racial justice
and societal unity.
Ginger Gaines-Cirelli,
pastor of Foundry
United Methodist Church
here in DC put it well:
"The building is closed.
The Church is open"
There are ever so many ways
to be and do spiritual community
in these really difficult times.
We can't have what is
No longer nor what is Not Yet.
We can be and have community
in what is our Right Now.
Christians have done it
over the millennia.
It's essential to our spiritual lives
that we be and do such.
We don't want to
lose our glow, darken, die out.
We need others and they need us.
WE'VE A FIRE TO BE
John Frank
******
The story of the older lady
and the rabbi is adapted from
VISION 2000 Praying Scripture
in a Contemporary Way
by Mark Link.
Thanks to my friend Michael Byler
for the referral.
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Here's a grateful
SHOUT OUT
to all who invited many, many others
to our little community here last week.
A warm welcome to all new to
frankly speaking
spirituality for the street
- it is posted each Thursday evening
or sooner, east coast USA time
(johnfrankshares.blogspot.com)
- it is available by automatic
email delivery each Friday -
sign up above right
- past postings are at Blog Archive
bottom right column
******
BURN BRIGHT
TOGETHER
Thursday, June 4, 2020
REVOLUTION
Dear All of Us,
Murphy's Law holds that things won't.
Murphy's Law holds that:
"Anything that can go wrong will go wrong."
Murphy's Law is sometimes sadly right about wrong.
Murphy's Law holds right now as we lose hold two fold.
We just couldn't - wouldn't - take hold of a deadly virus.
So:
- 100,000 plus (sadly a minus) dead
with a disproportionate number of Black American deaths
- mismanagement and missteps
- avoiding the virus by avoiding people
- not able to kill the virus,
but deadening frustration and aloneness for people
- the virus had (and has) a clear plan of attack- we didn't ( and ??? )
- deadly delay and distress
- medical help without sufficient supplies
- economic depression
- reactive filling the field of contact for further contagion
- a nation split on a unified approach
- the polarization/politicization of a plague
We lost hold.
A sadly sick officer of law looses hold of himself and the law,
murdering a man before the nation and world.
It released a volcano of white hot reaction at the murder
of a black man by a white police man yet again and so often.
The volcano widens, opening a societal eruption
at four hundred years of sinful, inhuman racism.
People of all color tones are red hot reactive to it and to each other.
It reveals the searing separation of us as a people,
and how from our get go as a nation we have never gotten a hold on our very
Declaration of Independence
"We hold these Truths to be self-evident,
that all Men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness..."
(Thomas Jefferson)
Jefferson and the men who penned
how we are constituted as a people, violated what they declared.
They got on the wrong side of ethics and law taking the nation with him.
Jefferson "owned", enslaved, one hundred human beings until his death.
He and other founding fathers founded us on a flaw.
It's weakening us to failure and fall.
We lost hold.
Millennium Tower was the tallest and most expensive residential structure
in San Francisco. It opened in 2009. Since then it has sunk eighteen inches
and tilted fourteen inches. Unaddressed, the building will fall. It will take
one hundred million dollars to right and secure the corrupted foundation.
It's the only way to get a hold on the problem. Costly but essential.
By comparison that's about where we are as a nation.
We are on the verge of a collapse, our footing giving way
to the peril of plague,
and the increasing possibility of a civil war.
A Pew Poll less than a year ago found that
one third of Americans expect a civil war in the next five years.
Of all the things that could go wrong, that's THE WRONGEST.
It will topple the structure of our shared life.
Rather than fall to a plague or a civil war,
we need another American Revolution,
not a revolutionary war, but a revolution
that will right wrong and open to good.
It's got to be foundational.
That will be costly in honesty, humility, conversion, hope and nothing short of
actual, experiential immersion in
The Love Who Is God.
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The only kind of revolution that will save us is a spiritual one.
It means going to the heart of who and how we are as people and as a people.
It means seeing Reality As It Is and not trying to form or fashion our own.
Reality is another name for God.
It means letting God show us who and how we and all creation are in
All REALITY
Thinker/Mystic John Duns Scotus invites us to find ourselves,
see ourselves, and all else that is, at the center of
ALL REALITY
GOD
God is Being Itself, God is what is,
and we all have our "being" in that Being. (Acts 17:28)
Every person and thing is a unique participant and presence of God.
So, to see in ALL REALITY is to see another person as a presence of God.
So, to see in ALL REALITY is to see another person as yourself in another way.
We are ONE in delightfully different ways.
Paradox in ALL REALITY for sure.
Mystery, a Divine Mystery and we are in the midst of it.
The vine and branches.(John 15:5)
Jesus could only count to ONE.
Jesus said whatever we do to others we do to him - ONE and the same.
Jesus said to do unto others as we would have done to us - ONE and the same.
Jesus said to love God, neighbor and self - All three ONE and the same.
ONE and the same in different ways.
Matthew 25:40, Matthew 7:12, Matthew 22:37-38
Only when we are willing to be honest to GOD REAL
can we have LOVE in our living together.
That's because LOVE really is GOD.(I John4:8)
LOVE is union, ONENESS.
Each of us and all of us need to be revolutionized in
THE LOVE WHO IS GOD.
Nothing less than a personal and communal revival of Spirit will do
- as in save us!!
The soul sad/sour will say this is just a whole lot of pie in the sky.
In All Reality it is the prayer promise of the person of Love - Jesus:
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Matthew 6:9-13
As we are converted ever more to LOVE,
we will be more and more in LOVE with all that is.
This will revolutionize our life styles, our "standards" of living,
making them simple, generous and shared.
It will move us from bunkers of self to an open house of community.
We will finally be "home safe."
In our Family of Creation we will be full time enjoying, caring for
seeds to skyscrapers, babies, forests, political mirror opposites,
our spice drawer of flavored life, the Common Good of Us All.
Because another is me a different way, a sibling in the Divine Family,
a personal presence of God toned and talented by God's artistry,
we're going to learn Love together and have a ball doing it.
This Divine Love Resolution means:
- we see difference, not as a threat, but as a pallet of possibilities
- we share, not grab
- we rework how our society works so it works
- we restructure our use of the earth's goods by creating an economy
that makes sure there is enough for all and not too much for a few
- we put to practice that counsel of Pope Leo XIII that every worker have
a living, saving, family wage.
- we all honor the right to life - that of the unborn, the disabled,
the needy, the poor, the limited, those requiring incarceration
not execution, the elderly
- we get excited making sure all get reasonable and decent health care,
and an education that maximizes their gift and passion
- we craft working conditions that are safe, healthy
and respect our Mother Earth.
- we see "affluenza" as a deadly virus
- we mount a military that defends not dominates,
sufficient not obese
- we dearly appreciate the various vocabularies that speak God
- we wean ourselves from selfish fashions, media misuse,
vulgar and violent sports and entertainments
- we value the wisdom of elders
- we team up for everything from healthy politics, social action,
neighborhood gardens, barbeques and tons more togetherness
- we select/elect principled unifying leaders
- we cluster in faith families - spirituality lived
more than stalling at religious statements and practices
- we open the arts to all
- we put away guns and play cards
- we share our stories and fates
- we rework our approach to earth and air, help in their healing
- we... - how about you add a baker's dozen here:
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Murphy's Law doesn't need to be the law of our land and living.
We can revolutionize to love - person to person - so color full and healthy.
Hey, this is going to be good, real good, The Common Good, Good God.
In the Love that we are,
John Frank
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In the coming days as we pray and ponder
a few supports are available below.
******
If you're new here, we're happy here.
A great big Thank You to so many for sharing with others
frankly speaking
spirituality for the street
- we post Thursdays during the day and before dinner
east coast USA time
(johnfrankshares.blogspot.com)
- we offer an automatic email delivery on Fridays
- sign up above
-past postings are available at Blog Archive
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******
PRAY AND PONDER
God is Being Itself
What we see in Franciscan mystics, again and again,
is a joyful and unitive consciousness that intuits and experiences
what Duns Scotus called "the univocity of being."
By this, Duns Scotus meant that we can speak
with one consistent and true voice
about a rock, a tree, an animal, a human, an angel, and God!
They all participate in the one same state of Being to varying degrees,
and Deus est Ens, he often wrote: "God is Being itself."...
May 29, 2020
Richard Rohr
Daily Meditation
Last paragraph
Center for Action and Contemplation
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OUR DAD
Hey/Say Dad,
right there at home on the street of real and right!
Here's to you in love and respect!
We could use some help us get it right and real
here as there.
We count on you for what it takes to get go every day.
So, we've really screwed up,
missed getting it real and right.
Again we're counting on you to give us
what it takes to make things real and right.
We'll not only take it, we'll give it.
Dad, we're counting on you to steer us clear of messing up
and for a good lead
to get things right and real.
As you are and say let it be!
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves- goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me; for that I came.
I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is-
Christ- for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.
Gerard Manley Hopkins
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ON WITH THE REVOLUTION
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