BEFORE WE GET STARTED
Here's to a
HAPPY NEW YEAR
Our first time together
in this new year
will take longer than usual
to get from start to finish.
Every once in a while
that happens.
May this be a
worthwhile happening.
May it be worth
the extra stretch.
May it set us on a
God Course
for
The New Year
It might help to
Pray Ponder
smaller portions
each day this week.
As this new year
awakens
may we
more really,
more deeply,
hear and live a
YES
as God Call us
to a
Wonderous
Wake Up
******
Dear All of Us,
Getting up - Waking up.
For some they go together.
For others there is
a definite time lag.
In our family
some wake up talking,
some really don't want
to talk until after lunch.
For sure, it requires
patience
and
accommodation.
In our human family
it's pretty much the same.
As people and as peoples
we wake up,
we come to
consciousness,
in different ways and
to different degrees.
It requires
patience
and
accommodation.
Scientists tell us that
if we scale time
in terms of a
twenty-four-hour day,
from The Big Bang
to just now,
we people showed up
at 11:59 PM,
nanoseconds
before midnight.
We just got here.
We are just beginning
to wake up,
to catch on to
Reality,
to become
conscious
of
What Really
Is
There is a huge difference
in how that goes for us,
individually and collectively,
goes well or not so well.
Some are catching on.
Some are fogged out.
Some are on the go.
Some haven't even
opened their eyes yet.
Some are cranky.
Some are gracious
and loving.
Some are hard
and hurting.
Some are free
and playful.
Yes, it takes
a truck load of
patience
and
accommodation.
That does and
doesn't happen.
We see it in
the spread of
the people and
peoples we are
over time and
from place to place.
We see it in our doing,
or not doing,
then and here,
in our history and
our moment now -
Wondrously Real
and
Terribly Unreal
Examples
and
Contrast:
- Jesus,
- Hitler,
- the development
of farming,
- today's synthetic foods
and water supply
laced with PFAS
("forever chemicals"),
- the gift of modern media,
- malicious misinformation,
- Quakers,
- White Nationalists,
- the development
of democracies,
- dictators and
demagogues.
- In the United States
from the beginning
we legitimated
the racial rape
that is slavery,
killed way over
half a million
of our own over it
- a not at all civil war -
maimed multitudes more,
and are now
twitching in tension
over the horror
neither fully admitted
nor close to resolved.
As a people
we have yet
to wake up to and
face this hideous
social/moral nightmare.
- There was a
glorious expansion
of learning and art
during the Middle Ages
and Renaissance.
- current culture wars.
Yes, it seems
we are just starting
to wake up to
Reality
and that "we"
doesn't yet mean
all of us.
So, the need for
a spirituality of
patience
and
accommodation
with ourselves
and others.
It means right
where we are
and as we are,
in the most immediate
and practical of ways
to awaken to
Reality
exercising patience
and accommodate
as others do or
don't do the same.
May we get beyond
just a devotional nod to
God's Wake Up Calls
so clearly voices for us
in our scriptures.
Let's hear all and full.
Let's awaken to them
a little at a time
and ever more fully.
Let's Pray Pause
over each line.
How is it to be
heard and lived
in our here and now?
What does it reveal
about being conscious,
being awake
to
Reality
to
The Limitless
Expanse
That Is God
THE WAKE UP CALL
- "Do unto others as
you would have them
do unto you."
Matthew 7:12
Accepting that other
is us another way
- "Love God, neighbor
as self"
Matthew 22:37-40
and do it with
all you've got,
flat out, full torque -
be a red hot lover!
- "...if you are
lukewarm,
I will spit you out
of my mouth..."
Revelation 3:16
Seems that ultimately
we are "all in" or...
"To be or not to be.
That is the question."
Yah, you got
a point there, Will!
- Be child-like
in wonder and
simplicity
" ...the kingdom
of heaven
belongs to
such as these."
Matthew 19: 14
- Live the gifts
we are and have.
Make room and respect
the gifts of others.
Be united as
The Body of Christ:
"There are
different kinds
of gifts,
but the same Spirit...
Now to each one
the manifestation
of the Spirit
is given for
the common good...
Now the body
is not made up of
one part but of many..."
l Corinthians 12:1-31
Honor, get excited
about our
part and place
in the
Symmetry of Unity
- "God is love."
l John 8:4
Live that love -
radical real
personally,
collectively,
practically.
- "Love is patient, kind,
does not envy,
does not boast,
is not proud, rude,
self-seeking,
is not easily angered,
keeps no record
of wrongs,
does not delight
in evil,
but rejoices
with the truth,
it always protects, trusts,
hopes, perseveres,
never fails..."
l Corinthians 13: 4-8
Worth getting out of bed for!
A great criteria
for
School Board
to
Presidency
for
family life
to
neighborhood rapport
and that worldwide.
- Dress in
wrap around goodness:
"Therefore as God's
chosen people,
holy and dearly loved,
cloth yourselves with
compassion, kindness,
humility, gentleness,
and patience.
Bear with each other
and forgive
whatever grievance
you may have
against one another.
Forgive as
the Lord forgave you.
And over all
these virtues
put on love,
which binds them
together in perfect unity."
Colossians 3:12- 14
Now that's really living
and
being dressed
for the occasion!
During his teen and
young adult years
my Uncle Charles had
the hardest
of hard times
getting up.
His brothers and friends
would have to throw
cold water on him
or roll him
onto the floor
to get him up.
Awake came later.
May God have
better luck with us!!
"The hour has come
for you to wake up
from your slumber,
because our salvation
is nearer now than when
we first believed."
Romans 13:11
A HAPPY
NEW NOW
******
For those of us
who have time
and wish
to delve deeper
over the next week into
Waking To Wonder
please see
FURERANCE
below
WELCOME
to
frankly speaking
spirituality for the street
johnfrankshares.blogspot.com
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******
History will be rewritten
- better and prior to that,
we will actually have
a future to write about -
if our time becomes
A
GREAT AWAKENING
******
FURTHERANCE
Let's get beyond
devotional reading
of the scriptures above.
Let's Pray Ponder over
their wake-up call,
do so radical real
- How can each invite,
each line, even word,
wake us up and
come alive in us,
as persons and
as a people?
Let's see it and say it
and live it - actually,
practically, personally
and as a people.
Let's feel deeply
the truth that
others are us
in different ways -
even more deeply,
that others and
each of us are
God Sprung
and
God Centered
in all kinds of
delightfully
different ways -
wake up to
Sacred Oneness
Uniquely Diversified.
- "Do unto others..."
who are
God Splendidly Present.
What does it mean
to be "kind" to "kin,"
others closer to us than
tribe, type, or temperament?
Honestly and practically,
what about the church's
Wake Up Call?
******
Be well.
See you next week.
Again
HAPPY NEW NOW
Love to all.
John Frank
******
