Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year,
         a day of repentance and new beginnings.

         You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.
                  —Micah 7.19

Love, I confess,
I am a hoarder,
surrounded, bound, packed by stuff
I don’t need,
fears and habits,
attachments and accessories.
They only diminish my space.

I come to throw them away
into you, O Divine receiver
who carries them off,
who buries them in the depths of your sea.
Here, O Graceful One,
is my accumulation.

Ah, the delight of throwing,
the wonder and gratitude
that the more I release,
the lighter my load,
and yours!
 

   —September 10, 2018

         A Gentile woman, of Syrophoenician origin, begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
                        —Mark 7.26-30

Jesus starts out in a typical unthinking racist mode, shaped as he is by his culture— and the woman opens his eyes. It changes him. What Jesus models is not having it all figured out, but willingness to grow and change.

I’ve been a pastor for 38 years and I feel I’m just starting. It’s not just self-improvement. It’s allowing myself to be re-shaped by a Wisdom greater than me, a Grace born of mystery and given in love. It’s being taught by losses, mistakes and people who don’t know as much as I do. It’s being wiling to see things for the first time. It’s being wiling to find myself in the wrong, without judgment, and turn in a new direction.

I think of how many conversations I enter already an expert, knowing what I want to hear and say, not ready to be caught up or taught something new, not really approaching the other as a person, but as a collection of facts I already know. How much of myself do I feel pressure to have already figured out instead of discovering as the mystery of myself unfolds?

I watch my four-month old granddaughter Maggie. I can’t imagine how much she’s learning—not just information, not even just skills, but how to live. I am too, if I would follow Jesus. Maybe that’s another dimension of what it means to “enter the Realm of God as a child.” I’m not very good at it. I still think I know a lot. I’m still a beginner at becoming a beginner.

God, help me shed my smooth expertise. Give me wisdom to not know. Give me courage to be wrong, to ask, to look bad, to see for the first time, to discover the way and to turn, to turn, and take it. Help me to become a beginner.

 

   —September 7, 2018

Beloved,
all that stands between me and you is my mind
with its insatiable demands, intrusive prodding,
not satisfied to be with you, but wanting proof,
the right feeling, the glib understanding.

The earth does not chat with the oak tree.
My roots do not say what they see
far in the depths of you,
my soul in the empty space you’ve made for me,
my body floating in the lake of your presence.

My mind is only in the way
since I am already here
held in the womb of your darkness,
borne in the arms of your silence.
I am already here.

   —September 6, 2018

         They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech;
         and they begged him to lay his hand on him. 
         He took him aside in private, away from the crowd,
         and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. 
         Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him,
         “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” 
                        —Mark 7.32-34

Be opened, ears
that I may hear
what the Beloved is whispering to me.

Be opened, lips
that I may sing
of the grace I behold.

Be opened, heart,
to the mystery that unfolds,
the love that abounds.

Be opened, friend,
to me, and who I am,
and who you may be.

Be opened. mind,
to all that exceeds
what you already know.

Be opened, soul,
to this world
and its grace.

Be opened, self,
to be healed,
to be changed.

Be opened, heavens,
to receive us,
to commune here with us.

Let this be today’s prayer:
Ephphatha!
Be opened!
 

   —September 5, 2018

         Please, I beg you, cast the demon out of my daughter.
                  It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.
         Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.
                  For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.
                           —Mark 7.26-29

Jesus lives in an exceptionalist culture,
believing “we” are better than others.
Blind to that betrayal of our oneness,
deaf to its lack of compassion,
he calls the woman a dog—a racial slur.

The wise woman counters.
She takes the insult, owns it, and re-imagines it.
Defends her dignity, her daughter.
Comes back at him as a peer, a rabbi arguing texts.
Invites him into a new awareness, a new place.

He is bested and he knows it.
He has been changed, and he appreciates it.
She has opened his eyes.
He suddenly sees her not as a “type,” a Gentile,
but as a person.

He goes on from there
to heal a deaf man, crying, “Be opened.”
You wonder who he’s talking to.

         ●

God, give me courage to me see my bias,
and confront my racism.
Give me grace to see others a persons, not objects.
Give me faith to grow,
trusting wisdom is not superior knowledge
but radical openness,
in the spirit of Jesus, who changed.

―September 4, 2018

 

 

God bless those who labor,
who with their bodies make this world a better place.
Bless those who labor too long, too young, or too hard,
who bear the danger, dirt and drudgery we won’t,
who pick our fruit and weave our shirts,
harvest chocolate, package shrimp,
and cleanse our cities of our waste.
Bless those who are exploited, enslaved or abused.
Bless them; satisfy them; give them rest.
Give us gratitude for all who labor for our sake.
And bless the labors of our hands and hearts,
the labors of our words and votes and dollars,
that by our labors and your grace
we too may make this world a better place.
Amen.

___________________
Weather Report

Not what you asked for,
since the rain that spoils the parade
helps the farmer.

―September 3, 2018

Beloved,
Beloving,
may I be a vessel of your love today.
I am flawed and inadequate,
but you have chosen to bear your love
into the world through me.
No matter my shame or fear,
no matter the resistance of others,
let your love shine in me.
To all, the intimate and the stranger,
ally and enemy, welcoming and bristly,
let me convey your love,
for their sake (which is your sake),
not my own.
Not my own skinny passion,
but your deep, life-giving love
flows through me each moment.
May I fill to overflowing
with you
for the sake of the world.
Amen.

―August 31, 2018

 

 

Look with your two eyes and see
what is before you.
Observe as you would a beautiful blossom
this person speaking to you.

Now close your eyes and see
with the eyes of your heart
their silent words, their soul,
their light shining.

Now close those eyes and see
with your third eye
everything in them, yourself in them,
God, waiting, becoming.
 

   —August 30, 2018
 

         Whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile…
         It is what comes out of a person that defiles.
                        —Mark 7.18, 20

A beautiful stone, a gem of great value,
is treated with contempt and thrown into the mud.
Has anything changed?

The marvelous colors are still there,
the opalescent beauty,
marbled with light.

Though mud be thrown at you
you will not become mud.
What is holy remains, undefiled.

Take your soul to the river,
wash yourself in the tender love of the Divine
and marvel at your colors.

Bear yourself with the confidence of the gemstone.
Some may see mud,
but you know, you know.
 

   —August 29, 2018

There’s a little kid
in your head’s back seat whining,
“Are we there yet?”

The answer is,
“No, we’re here.”

Running, counting the miles
and quarters of miles,
in a long meeting, watching the clock,
calculating how much remains,
halfway there, almost done—
isn’t where you are, but where you aren’t.
You’re not a fraction of there.
You’re wholly here.

Uncomfortable haul
or lovely walk by the seashore
doesn’t matter.
Let it go. Ignore the little kid.
Be here.

This step. Now this one.
Infinity unfolds.
 

   —August 28, 2018