Reflections & Looking forward...
I felt UNPREPARED for Christmas (and to be honest I was) but...how could we EVER actually be ready for the CREATOR -- the I AM who I AM & I WILL BE who I WILL BE; YHWH, to put on flesh (like clothes) & be so humble to be born to a young brown (newly married) woman (girl) -- to be frail, to need a mother, humanity, disciples, a betrayer, to need food, to be baptized, to cry, to know sorrow -- pain -- rejection...How can we ever really get this? And if we think we do...well then why the hell do our lives look the way that they do? Why do our churches look/sound the way that they do? Why does our world look (hurt, cry, murder, lie, live in fear) the way it does?
I was unprepared for Christmas.
I was distracted from the only thing; the only historical event; the only reality that matters; literally the only life-giving truth that exists.
In many ways I also am unprepared for the New Year as well.
And yet, and yet GOD is sufficient (see 2 Corinthians 12:9). I scroll FB and notice a link. I read it and note the mention of a poem. I recognize the author so I click to read.
POEM: The Avowal by Denise Leverton
So would I learn to attain
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,
that all-surrendering grace.
I read that and am reminded it is not about me (never has been but I can forget). I’m not ready, never really have been for the overwhelming greatness - abundance - extravagance - grace - gift - LOVE of GOD. I’ve never been ready for GOD. And yet, and yet GOD is who I am deigned for - GOD is who I respond to, who I long for...it is my longing for GOD that makes the reality of the imperfection -- the BROKENNESS -- I (& by “I”, I mean “we”) live in...hurt so deeply. And I do hurt deeply, we hurt deeply. If we have eyes to see, we are bleeding...
I will celebrate the coming of the New Year (just like I did Christmas) in a country where I am a foreigner. I am the stranger in the midst. I will greet it hours before my friends and family living in the States will see it. This year has been a year like no other. I am humbled (& challenged too) by what GOD has allowed in this life I live. There have been so many gifts, to live for me has been gift...And Job, the theologian, the encourager, the sufferer, the Biblical character himself offers much; after losing children, property, and gaining sores all over his body, in response to the advise to curse GOD & die, he has the strength (?), the ability (?), the wisdom (?), to say, “Shall we receive good from GOD, and shall we not receive evil?” (Job 2:10b, ESV)
I will welcome a New Year, 2016. And the reality is this year (2015) has surprised me in ways I seriously could not have asked or imagined...(check out Eph. 3:20...or the whole book) and yet although I don’t know just quite how GOD will do it I believe this beautiful text out of Isaiah,
“Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold I AM doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” (Isaiah 43:18-19, ESV)
GOD created (the world) and called it good -- called us -- humanity -- very good. And GOD trusted us with that goodness -- trusted and expected us to be competent loving stewards of that goodness -- of creation. Today we live in brokenness. Often we see darkness instead of light. We find it hard to see beauty. BUT we were designed in the “Imago Dei” that is we were designed to bear the divine image of the Triune GOD
(GOD (in heaven)/ JESUS (on earth)/ HOLY SPIRIT (in us)).
The breath of GOD has been breathed into us. The brokenness that we live in does not change the original design, it mars the image but does not destroy it. The image, it is there in ALL (not just some) of us...
We have hours left in 2015. I’ve never been much for resolutions. But maybe I ( & we, & the Church, & the world) could make a statement, could push back a little on the text (of life), could name & claim some substantial life-giving things that require the power of the Holy Spirit living in us to realize:
Can we name some of the new things like:
LIFE: a reality that shows evidence that #BLACKLIVESMATTER ?
LIFE: that guns would no longer claim so many lives in the world (the US alone has about 30,000 annually) ?
LIFE: that suicide would NOT be a viable option or solution (for anything) ?
LIFE: that more (global) money might be spent on infrastructure development as compared with relief aid ? That more (global) money might be spent on education rather than war and military budgets ?
LIFE: that we not only (globally) would open borders, but would be interested in addressing the various causes of all refugee crisis ?
LIFE: can we affirm life & love. To seek to hear & understand. To encourage & teach. To see each other with eyes of love & compassion. To see each other????
Dare we be STILL enough to recognize the privileges we enjoy are privileges (not rights) & the whole world does not enjoy them???
Dare we be SILENT enough to hear the rumblings of the empty stomachs of global hunger (when globally 1/3 of food produced is wasted?), and the wailings of those who lost loved ones to war and violence???
Dare we be bold or humble enough to listen to another and to possibly learn from an ‘other’???
Can these be some of the things, the things the I AM can do? Things for us to perceive in 2016? For as the scripture reads, “I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” and we know indeed we live in the wilderness & we walk through the desert...and as much as I’m not quite ready...I want the promise and I do remember that the only thing that ever changed this world was a love willing to strip naked and stretch arms wide in an embrace of the world who rejected it. It was the love of Jesus, clothed in flesh -- GOD among us. Christ chose love & it changed all of history. To love will cost everything & it offers freedom. It is not easy to choose love everyday, BUT it seems the cost of not loving is too steep. To not love is to reckon this is the best that it can be -- broken and filled with death. NO, for me, I know I wasn’t designed that way, I know it in the very core of my being & what I want is to see more fully the beauty in you (the other!) - in me - in this world...because when & as I do I see more of GOD.
This year, this New Year (2016) -- may we see more of GOD. AMEN.