wisdom from Père Henri of Chocolat

"I do not know what the theme of my homily today ought to be. Do I want to talk about the miracle of our Lord's divine transformation? Not really, no. I don't want to talk about His divinity. I'd rather talk about His humanity. I mean, you know, how He lived His life here on earth. His kindness, His tolerance...Listen, here's what I think. I think we can't go 'round measuring our goodness by what we don't do, what we deny ourselves, what we resist, and who we exclude. I think we've got to measure goodness by what we embrace, what we create, and who we include."

Is your doctrine kind?

I don't know who said this, but it pretty much hits the nail on the head ...

"The day your heart is kinder than your doctrine, rest assured it's not your heart that is wrong."

i know this much ... today

So here's a little about my journey of questioning. I've come to know this much: 1) God 2) God loves 3) God loves everyone ... even though I don't see the expression of that played out everywhere ... even though I feel exclusion around me, yes even from people who say they follow Jesus and want to share God's love ... even though at times I feel so far removed from the presence of God that I can barely breathe. Even then I have to believe these three things if nothing else ... because my very existence only rests while in them.

Today that is. Who know where tomorrow will find my myself.

my "progressive" mind

while having a facebook conversation this week, i realized that the things coming out of my brain, through my hands, and onto the computer were really quite liberal (if i wanted to put a label on it), at least progressive. thought i would capture a few lines here.

"let me dare to stretch your thinking a little more. eek. i am quite certain that it is simply a matter of time before gay marriages are honored ... and i am glad about that. i have several dear, god-loving friends who are gay and who have been openly discriminated against. one couple has been together for 26 years! ... much longer than a lot of heterosexual couples i know. they are genuine, loving, caring, kind, compassionate people, good parents, and very dear to god. who am i (are we) to tell them that god WILL NOT honor their union. lots of christians i know are full of greed and self-righteous arrogance. god doesn't look very lovingly on these traits. but we ignore them. somehow (as some believe) the "sin" of homosexuality is bigger than others. i don't understand this. "Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God." NIV. we leave out the drunkards, thieves, slanderers, and swindlers. and perhaps, just perhaps, homosexual "offenders" means something different from homosexual committed couples.?. the couples i know do not "offend" anyone any more than the rest of humanity. another matter the church often turns a blind to is divorce. matthew 5 speaks of divorce quite negatively, yet the church often ignores this.
my point is it seems that homosexuality is often put at the top of the "sin list" and i continue to be amazed by that."

that's all ... just wanted to be able to read back on this later and see where i stand. my sins (and that word has yet to be defined to my satisfaction) are every bit as great as the next guy's or gal's. so are everyone else's. can't we all just spur each other on to be more decent, more loving, more generous, more like jesus.?.

journey thought

I was visiting with a co-worker a day or two ago. She and her husband had just celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary. I shared with her that Barry and I just had our 19th. As we were reminiscing and sharing how grateful we are for our husbands, the inevitible question arose. At least I hear this a lot: Would you do it all again? Of course. And yet ... there are good times and bad times, easy periods and extremely difficult periods, children planned and unplanned ... and the thougts of what would my life (or his life) have been like had we not married ... the list goes on. Eventually (and it really didn't take long!), we decided that yes, we would do it over again.

Then we began to wonder ... perhaps, if indeed we were given the chances and choices to begin our marriages again, could it be a tad bit conditional, sort of like how those elevators are set up in really tall buildings? Some often skip the 13th floor due to superstition, bad feelings, rumors of ghosts, etc. Could we just skip a year or two here and there (my preferred years would be 2 and 8 please, and maybe a couple of months of year 3, with a few weeks in year 12 - you get the idea) and still get to the same destination?

Humorous, yes. But, of course, impossible ... because the years 2 and 8 of our union (pick your own years to fill in here) are important and necessary sight-seeing detours on our journey. Sure, without them we probably would have arrived at the same place ... not nearly as well-versed in relating to each other, nowhere close to being as skilled as we are at being sacrificial and making peace (although I could use some more training in these areas), not having learned how to fully appreciate the scenery along the way ... really as two different people in a different marriage altogether.

So ... yes, I would, in fact, do it over again ... ALL over again.

Submitted by a proud wife, a strong supporter, and a faithful friend to my husband.

Jesus would ride the bus.

a song of peace

I'd like to build the world a home
and furnish it with love,
grow apple trees and honey bees ...
and snow white turtle doves.

I'd like to teach the world to sing
in perfect harmony;
I'd like to hold it in my arms
and keep it company.

I'd like to see the world for once
all standing hand in hand,
and hear them echo through the hills
for peace throughout the land.

That's the song I hear.
Let the world sing today
a song of peace that echoes on
and never goes away.