MAY I HAVE A WORD WITH YOU?

Dear All of Us,

It's better than having  

God on the phone.

God's at the front door

and wants to come on into

     the roominess 

     of our living

      and share 

   a word with us.

With God as with us

     a word is 

  our innerness 

    expressed

  our innerness

     shared

  A word is an 

  articulation

       of 

 who we are, 

 how we are

 our mystery 

  manifest

 A word is a 

   giving 

  of that,

a giving of 

ourselves.

A word is 

an invitation 

for connection 

that can be a 

Holy Communion.

That's what God wants

          to be 

          to do 

        with us.

Our whole life speaks

       response

God has been speaking 

       his word 

   from the get go.

"In the beginning was the Word,

 and the Word was with God, 

 and the Word was God.

 He was in the beginning with God." 

      What a great good start

      A God Good Start

      We have God's "Word" on it.

      It's so One.

  

God speaks creative.  

"All things came into being 

 through him, and without him 

 not one thing came into being.

             WOW 

        Everything is 

        God Spoken

      is heart crafted 

        into being

    at the Word of God

            energies

            spaces and places

            ants and Alps

            cherry blossoms

            seascapes

            babies

            air to breath

            friends

            elements for supper.

       

        What liveliness

             In fact

"What came into being in him

was life, and the life was 

the light of all peoples." 

           Lite Life

           Brilliant

           So lively

           Life giving

     God sure has a lot 

            to say

     God's Innerness

          Worded

 And is it ever personal:

"And the Word became flesh

 and lived among us...

the glory of a father's only son, 

full of grace and truth."

    The Innerness of God

           In Person

          Among Us

   Full of grace and truth

The Fullness of Good and Reality

     Closer than intimate

     God uttered human.

      God is at the door 

                of

            Always

      wants to come in

             asks

May I have a Word with you?

May I Word You Divine?

Our response is

       Our Life Worded

 May God's Word

 and ours be

      Word Wedded

A HOLY COMMUNION

        in all ways, 

         forever

           ONE

         ******

The Scriptures above are from 

          The Prologue

                 to 

          John's Gospel.

          PONDER PRAYER

    We turn off Media Mania.

    We tame Monkey Mind.

             Calmed still, 

    we breath in quiet freshness,

    we exhale scattering shatterings.

We hear 

The Word 

sounding God

in all of creation.

We "listen" to 

       a Spring bud

       a Soulful Sea

       a form flung Picasso

       a gentle breeze

       a warm toned sunrise

       a child's chatter

       a loaf of homemade bread

       a comfortable pair of shoes

       a farmer's market

       a good novel

       a friend's caring

       a field of wheat

       the wisdom of an elder

       the plea of the needful

       the sounds of silence

       the scriptures sacred

       the plenty of a supermarket

       the joyous brook babble

       the Spirit's "still small voice"

       the writings of Shakespeare

       the potatoes frying

       the buzz at the baseball park

       the comedian's zing 

God Words lavishness 

in dialects unending.

God listens to us join in.

             A 

     Divine Dialogue

We have his Word on it.

        ******

Please see ASKING below.

  A word of warm welcome 

      to all our visitors

             here at

        frankly speaking 

   spirituality for the street

johnfrankshares.blogspot.com

             BEST DELIVERY

                  Email

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          Before mid-day

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              ******

              ASKING

         Not For Profits 

       are forever pitching

     for more than pennies.

               Well, 

       frankly speaking 

            sure is a 

     Not At All For Profit 

    that hopefully profits 

      our spiritual lives

              AND

          this is not 

      a pitch for pennies.

 This is a pitch for partners 

       here each week.

             SOOO

         Please share 

      frankly speaking

with two others this week.

Come on now, we can do it!

   Our active sharing of

     frankly speaking 

       with others 

     is the only way

   to invite new folks 

       in with us.

      If any of us 

     feel awkward

    about sharing,

        try this:

    "Here's a copy of

    frankly speaking

spirituality for the street.

   Please give it a try.

Sometimes it's a touch

    on the long side.

 Sometimes it's a bit 

   on the short side. 

Sometimes it's a bit 

spacious, even spacey.

     Other times 

 it's pointedly practical.

        Anyway,

    I find it a plus.

     Who knows, 

   you might too.

       If not, 

it's a sure fire cure 

    for insomnia."

  HEY, THANKS!!

 Looking forward 

 to being 

  together here 

     next week 

 (and welcoming

  your referrals).

    Love to all,

    John Frank

     ******

      

       

  

           

          

      

   

 THE WORD

It's spoken in person

SHOW UP

Dear All of Us,

So much of religion and spirituality

is a great big fat waste of time.

They get us busy seeking a God 

who is already here -

within and without, 

but we're not.

We're out and about 

chasing around trying to find God 

as we think God ought to be

in ways we want/expect

God to be and prefer 

God to be present.

We're looking for God 

blindfolded by our 

predetermined notions of 

who, how and where 

God should be.

     "WE INTERUPT THIS BLOG 

      FOR FAST BREAKING NEWS."

  

        A moment ago my wife 

        came into the study here

        as I was typing this blog. 

        I stopped typing.

        She asked me 

        to rub cream 

        on her back.

        That's God 

               Showing Up 

               God's way

               and that

      in a most touching way!!

     

At their true best 

religion and spirituality

are simply accepting that 

            God    

        Shows Up

as God is and in God's ways

in our place and time.

We embrace the presence.

God takes it from there.

Paula D'Arcy gets it and gives it:

     "God comes disguised 

            as our life."

That's the holy how and where 

of real religion and spirituality.

So God and we 

    Show Up

    together

  "Presenced"

      ONE

        in

our God given

time and place, 

our God given 

gifts and graces.

We connect 

as God presents

in our everyday life.

  

                   SOME

PRACTICAL PRESENCE POINTS

We stop what we're doing

to rub cream on 

our spouse's back,

playing the piano,

gardening,

working,

raising a family,

mentoring,

meditating,

telling funny stories,

advocating,

showering

   - yep, we take our shower 

     with/in God,

donating,

cooking a super stew,

sunbathing,

having the left out in for dinner,

soaking in sacred writings,

living a modest lifestyle,

actively making our

faith community truly so, 

slowing to sense God

in spring flowers,

playing with kids,

being patient with our 

disappointments, hurts,

aches and pains,

stopping to still 

so the Spirit within

can love on us

wrapping us 

Intimate One,

fasting from frivolities,

tuning out media madness,

tunning  into 

       God Reality

       God Actuality

Practical Place Presence 

            of

          God

    However God 

     Shows Up

God's already here 

in our now,

within and without.

Happy are those who 

      SHOW UP

       ******

       How great it is 

       that each week 

       new folks show up 

       and join in here at

        frankly speaking

   spirituality for the street

johnfrankshares.blogspot.com

                WELCOME

         BEST DELIVERY

              Email

          Every Friday

            Sign Up

  top right online posting

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     current online posting

     ONELINE  POSTING

      Each Wednesday

      By mid-morning

      USA East Coast time.

             People    

           Show Up

              here

   because you invite them.

         Thank You!!

     Have a great week.

         Love to all,

        John Frank

          ******

KNOW

Dear All of us,

You know,

we know a lot more 

than we understand. 

We know with the soul.

We understand with the brain. 

Knowing is deep in 

Soul Center Union,

mystical oneness.

Understanding is conceptual,

rational grasp, to "know"

in common parlance.

There's a mix 

in the crossover zone.

Seems soul opens 

to the vastness of what is

and just keeps going -

no end in sight or in fact.

The brain is a powerful

receptor/computer

with a limited bandwidth.

We go far, but to limit.

Put another way,

we can experience 

way more than 

we can understand.

Lovers understand a lot 

about each other.

They experience miles more.

What we understand 

we put into prose.

What we experience

        deep in

doesn't fit into prose.

The best we can do

is use poetry, 

art, music, ritual 

         as

pointers to perfection.

To understand is delightful.

To know is divine.

For the people 

of Jesus' 

time and place

to "know" another

was not factual

or cognitive recognition.

It was experiential,

profoundly personal,

soul symbiotic,

intimate,

getting lost 

in each other.

To know is to love.

It spans a spectrum 

all the way from

profound friendship 

to making love.

Think of Mary's phraseology:

"How can this be 

as I do not know man."

    Our spiritual life is 

a beautiful, complimentary, 

          merger of 

understanding and knowing.

We start with understanding,

"knowing" as commonly taken.

           AND THEN

    We have to "unknow" 

         to know God

    in mystical intimacy. 

  

     "Your question takes me 

      into the very darkness 

      and cloud of unknowing 

      that I want you to enter.

        We can know 

      so many things.

      Through God's grace,

      our minds can explore, 

      understand,

      and reflect on creation 

      and even on God's own works, 

      but we can't think 

      our way to God. 

      That's why I am 

      willing to abandon 

      everything I know, 

      to love the one thing 

      I cannot think. 

      God can be loved, 

      but not thought."

       The Cloud of Unknowing

          Medieval Mystic

Lower case "know" cedes to

uppercase 

                 Know

        Divine Lovemaking

              Oneness

Theology, meditation, scripture,

ritual, religious practices are

           About God

   We go to our stop point.

     That understanding,

"knowing" in the everyday sense, 

     invites, encourages,

       lights the way

 to the unknowing needed

         to know 

          unto

      the union of

      Divine Love 

So, we strip notion naked,

           turn off 

      the "head"-lights 

             and 

      "OH MY GOD"

          ******

                Well Come

            It is well 

            we all come 

            together 

            each week 

              here at

       frankly speaking

   spirituality for the street

johnfrankshares.blogspot.com

       BEST DELIVERY

            Email

         Each Friday

           Sign Up

           Top right

        online posting

   LAST FIVE POSTINGS

      Scroll down below

      current posting

     ONLINE POSTING

     Each Wednesday

        By mid-day

    East Coast USA time

        THANKS 

   much to the many

       who share

   frankly speaking

      with others.

Let's understand 

all we can.

Then bypass the head,

open our heart

and let God 

love the socks off us!!

We'll be divinely

"In the know."

See you next week.

    Love to all.

    John Frank

     ******

 

LOCAL

Dear All of Us,

Seems that God is 

      Cosmic 

        and 

 Infinitely Beyond.

Don't and can't know 

a whole lot about that.

It's quite clear, tough,

that God wants to be 

          Local

Creation, Incarnation,

The Kin-Domain of God -

variation and verification

of God's local residency

in our here and now.

That we can and need to know.

Tip O'Neil used to say

"All politics is local."

So is spirituality.

It's very much 

a here and now

opening to a 

then and there -

 Continuum 

     and 

Consequence

How we are 

here and now 

is the beginning 

     of our 

then and there

    forever.

Our spiritual life is a 

marvelous flow of

  co-occurring, 

 complimentary 

    currents:

     Prayer

      and 

   Practical 

 Lived Love. 

 This week 

 we focus 

 on the latter.

    Jesus 

Talks The Test

lays it out,

describes the

tipping point 

we commonly 

reference as 

  The Final 

 Judgement.

 Jesus details 

 the questions 

        on 

The Final Exam,

        the

       truth 

       and 

  consequence 

     of our 

  Life Course

 which eventuates 

      as our

   All Forever.

        Jesus 

     pivots to 

  parable poetry -

the sheep on the right 

   and all right

the goats on the left 

   and left out.

The criteria:

whatever we 

do/don't do

to people on 

the bottom 

of the pile 

is what we 

do/don't do

     to 

   God

The bottom 

of the pile is 

where God is.

The bottom 

of the pile

is where 

we connect

with God.

Successful life 

is being with 

the unsuccessful.

There we care 

and share.

There we live 

The Love That Is God.

There we meet 

and merge 

with God

as we meet 

and merge with

the left outs,

the damaged,

the deprived,

the needy,

the vulnerable,

the deformed,

the abandoned.

There we meet 

and merge 

with God 

as we

  - feed the hungry,

  - quench thirst,

  - welcome strangers,

  - cloth the naked,

  - care for the sick,

  - visit the imprisoned.

    Matthew 25:31-46

 

    Our Forever 

     hinges on 

our lived responses

  in the just now.

This is more than 

moderately serious.

Over the next few days 

let's take each "location"

   Jesus maps out,

refocusing, recommitting

   our lived responses.

For Jesus they tally 

      Pass/Fail.

This is not easy,

feel good, 

soothing,

self-sculpted 

spirituality.

      It's what is. 

      It's how is.

      How we are 

   is how we will be

        forever.

So, being honest, 

real, practical, and

given our givens, 

what are the 

God Spots

at the bottom of 

life's pile on

and how can 

we respond to

those there:

 

- the hungers: of body, of spirit, 

   for opportunity, justice, notice, 

   inclusion, forgiveness?

 - the thirsts: for acceptance, truth,

   a second or twenty second chance,

   being taken seriously and respected?

 - the strangers seeking welcome:

   those different in tastes, styles,

   temperament, color, ethnicity, religion, 

   lifestyle, sexual composition,

   political persuasion,

   those seeking the immigration many of 

   our families sought and found 

   moments of history ago?

 

- the nakedness: of poverty, 

  of powerlessness, of diluted, 

  even denied, education, medical 

  and childcare, of fair wages,

  the vulnerability of

  of neglect, of abuse?

 - the sickness: of racism, 

   white nationalism,

   religious intolerance, 

   locking libraries,

   phallic fear erecting gun hysteria?

 

 - those imprisoned: by loneliness, 

   depression, addiction, 

   by the need to dominate, 

   to be popular, 

   those locked up in

   fabricating fiction as fact, 

   manipulating media untruthful, 

   those imprisoned in 

   gated communities of prejudice 

   and privilege? 

Put another way:

As best we can,

How and Where 

Live Love Practical,

Being with, 

Carig for: 

- a friend going through a divorce

- self-appointed librarians who 

  selectively want to ban books

  per their persuasion 

- a single parent who can't afford 

  childcare

- the church council blow hard

- a needful elderly parent

- the neighbor with the messy yard

-  supporting agencies that 

  respond to hunger local and global

- a teenager grieving the death 

  of his first romance

- an eighteen-year-old 

  aging out of foster care

- a spouse riding an 

  emotional rocky road

- a friend who really isn't

Our spiritual life is simply

to get on over to 

God's local presence 

and neighborhood, 

to the people and place of need, 

being and doing what we can.

It's not a matter of mounting

huge programs, or of solving 

every need.

It's a matter of doing what 

we can, as we can, where we are.

It means showing up 

for the downed and downing.

It gets us wrapped into God

now and forever.

It's a matter of

      Living Love 

         Local

       ******

    A Great Big

     WELCOME

       to those 

       locating 

       with us 

  for the first time

        here at

   frankly speaking

spirituality for the street

johnfrankshares.blogspot.com

      Hope you will join in

      with us each week.

        BEST DELIVERY

              Email

          Each Friday

            Sign Up

   top right online posting

     LAST FIVE POSTINGS

      Scroll down below 

      the current posting

       ONLINE POSTING

     Wednesday Mornings

     East Coast USA TIME

Here's to a great week as we 

      Go Local In Love

        All the best.

        Love to all

        John Frank

          ******

 

   

                

  The Parable

 "When the Son of Man comes in his glory,

  and all the angels with him, then he will sit 

  on the throne of his glory. All the nations 

  will be gathered before him, and he 

  will separate people from one from another 

  as a shepherd separates the sheep

  from the goats, and he will put the sheep 

  at his right hand and the goats at the left. 

  Then the king will say to those at his right hand, 

  'Come, you that are blessed by my Father, 

   inherit the kingdom prepared for you 

   from the foundation of the world; for

   I was hungry and you gave me food,

   I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink,

   I was a stranger and you welcomed me,

   I was naked and you gave me clothing,

   I was sick and you took care of me,

   I was in prison and you visited me.'

   Then the righteous will ( ask when all this happened)...

   And the king will answer them,

   Truely I tell you, just as you did it 

   to one of the least of these 

   who are members of my family, 

   you did it to me,' "

                Matthew 25: 31-40 

The parable continues, 

recounts the opposites 

and concludes:

"Then he will say to those at his left hand, 

'You that are accursed depart from me 

into the eternal fire prepared 

for the devil and his angels...

      

UPRISING

Dear All of Us,

Hope we all had an

   Up and At'm

      Easter

      a real

   UPRISING

Underneath the 

bunny rabbits,

jelly beans, 

ham/lamb dinners,

       is a 

      Surge

We're coming up 

We're staying up.

We're springing

        Up 

through and free 

   of all life's 

  put-downs

pettiness, pollution,

dreariness to dread,

sin and sickness,

lies to lusts,

isolations,

defilements,

wrong headedness,

hardheartedness,

nature trashing,

war waging,

injustices,

superficialities,

every stinking

deadly entombment.

      PHEW!!

Easter Sunday 

is once a year.

  Our Outing 

  Our Uping

  Our Uprising

     takes 

days, decades

epochs and eras.

        It's   

Right Now Always

It's in the works

and we are vital 

to its working out,

to its freeing all,

to its uplift.

  We are

  UPPED 

 and we 

    UP

The Dynamism  

     is from

    The One 

    who loved 

    all deaths

    to life.

It surges up

through us, 

through our 

thinking, feeling, 

choosing, 

giving, suffering,

acting, reacting,

our consciousness.

   "I live now not I but

    Christ lives in me"

     Galatians 2:20

     The Surge

         is a  

shared experience

in concert with all 

peoples, places, 

     indeed

  All Creation

  It's how we 

   reverence 

   all that is

     Good 

  all that is 

     God

 in this place, 

 in these people, 

 in this pulse of justice,

 in this moment,

    absorbed intimate 

    in love making with 

       Love Itself

     "God is love."  

      (l John 4:8)

The media moguls

and their minions

in public dis-service

report and create

how terrible things are

- dreadful, deadly so.

And they are.

We need to 

know and deal 

with that.

Because of Easter

     we get to 

know and deal with

endless more and better

     divinely so!

Through the

muck and mess,

the degraded and dead,

surges pure goodness

      for us 

   through us

 and all creation

  Resurrection

We're Up and At'm.

To hell with down.

    We're Up

    We're staying Up

    We're Upping

ONE HEAVEN OF AN

      UPRISING

  Alleluia, Alleluia, 

       Alleluia

      ******

What a lift when 

new folks join in 

here at

       frankly speaking

   spirituality for the street

johnfrankshares.blogspot.com

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we have here.

        Thanks!

How great is this:

In Jesus' Uprising 

we get to love through 

every form of death

to endless aliveness.

        WOW

Have a great week.

Love to all,

John Frank

  ******

Oh yes!

As I mention 

every Easter,

if you have 

any left over

orange jelly beans,

I'd sure love 

to have them.

   ******

     

     

UPRISING

CROSSED UP

 

Dear All of Us,

Seven Days

       a

Whole Week

remembering

reflecting

ritualizing

    Our 

Whole Life

capsulized

    in a 

   Week

Difficulty

Death

Rejoicing

Resurrection

  Truely a

Holy Week

For all the

Cross Up

    It's  

    UP 

   

CROSSED UP

I've been 

Crossed Up,

Really Crossed Up.

Thank God, 

and I do!

No, I don't wear 

a cross.

I live a cross.

We all do.

The upward has been 

  sin side slammed

     Creation's 

  ascending thrust

 challenged negative 

    crisscrossed

  but canceled not

  

The sin side slam

  The minus mark

     Embraced

       Loved 

  Plused Positive

 Wrapped In Upward

   Hurts Like Hell

   Chaos Collision

     worked up

Heavenward Headed 

       Heals

   

It all happened on a 

    Friday Good

It all happens every

hard heavenward day

    All Creation

     Crossed 

        Up

Crossed Creation

   Love Lifted

It all happened on a 

 Sunday Sprung

It all happens every

  love lifted day

       UP

       UP

       UP

    CHRIST 

  CROSSED 

       UP

 

RESURRECTION

      ******

Love to All,

John Frank