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Tag: kingdom of God

Arm Yourselves with Love Alone

ARM YOURSELVES WITH LOVE ALONE

No,  we will not all survive this. Some lives have already been lost.  Many more are at risk of losing health care, being “disappeared”, met with violence, or starvation. These risks are already at play.   No, not everyone will be okay.  That is a baseline we may have to accept.   

Practicing some level of acceptance allows us to concentrate our power and creativity on resisting what we refuse to accept, the places where we must have courage to change what we can.  

¡Resistance is never futile! Those who can only imagine creating a world by force will always be conquered eventually, sometime hoisted by their own petard, but they will always crumble.  The more tyrannical and ignorant the despot, the harder they fall.  The less they know of love the quicker they become dust. 

But the virtue and resilience of those who know to endure with integrity, even if it costs them their life, will sow the seeds of a beautiful future, a beloved community where character, insight, and wisdom matter. 

There have been peaceful, thriving communities throughout history that have furthered the evolution of the human race as God has desired and empowered us to do.  

We cannot guarantee what will happen to our own fate when tiny men driven by fear and inadequacy seize power.  

We can trust what their fate will be.

And we can shape the fate of the world to come. 

For no tyrant will determine history.  No coward controls our fate as the human race.

There is no greater power than love.  

There is no greater power than love. 

And those who rely on any other power to make their mark on history 

Will be forgotten and eclipsed by the courageous and powerful love we carry in our bodies at all times.  

In my tradition, the resurrection tells us no one can override God’s judgment and no one can kill God. God is love, and so no one can kill the love within you. Even if your body disappears.  

Don’t poison yourself with the power of violence they fetishize, the violence on which their hopes rely.   Instead, arm yourselves with love alone, start now, and you will be crafting the future of the human race.

Only love remains. Remains.  

From Resisting Arrest.  

. Douglas Harrison 

Being Moved

Monkeys and Their Grapes

Mark Chapter 8, a sermon for the Outpatient Monks Birthday

by Dr. Tony Baker

Welcome again, everyone. My name is Tony. I am a theology professor here at SSW, and am now beginning my third decade as Doug Harrison’s friend. This is the part of worship service in which a short sermon or homily helps us get from the readings we’ve just heard to the bread and wine that Fr. Eric is about to invite to receive. A sermon, in the oldest traditions of Christianity, is a bridge from Word to Table. I’ll try to build us a stable bridge without taking too much of your afternoon up with engineering.

Apparently, it bothers capuchin monkeys to see a partner receive lesser rewards than themselves. See, the creatures have a sweet tooth and prefer grapes to carrots. Studies demonstrate that if one is given a grape and then sees another getting a carrot, the first will be bothered by this and often bothered enough to give the other his or her grape. What’s more, it seems that this is not just a momentary sense of fairness, but is tied to an awareness of long-term commitment to one another: that one who is eating a carrot will one day be the one with the grape, and I will one day have the carrot. These monkeys imagine a community with a future, and then they shape the kind of economy they want to govern it: one in which members look out for one another’s needs…

Tohu-Bohu

An Incensed Pacifist and the story of the Chickens

Another guest post today from Tarah Van De Wiele, an amazing theologian and Biblical scholar living as an ex-pat in England.  You can read more about her and her adventures and her adventures living outside the U.S. at ever popular blog: 2 People, 2 Dogs & 10 Bags.

 I am a pacifist. But historically I am an incensed one.

This is why it has finally become dire that I expend the energy built up inside me from the endless culture wars that inform our language, plague our dinner tables, and crawl across the TV screen like some bug you can’t seem to swat away. Are you pro or anti? Red or blue? Straight or gay? Black or white? Male or female? Enough. Al. Ready.

Chickens
Chickens (Photo credit: Allie’s.Dad)

The latest culture war sparked by a certain chicken restaurant completely caught me off guard. I spent an entire day stalking the web for pictures of people fighting in the war. After a few hours I managed to succumb to the purest form of rage available to an incensed pacifist, and began to brainstorm what smart but highly insulting sign I would distribute, what post I would send viral, what boycott I would demand. And the only question by 4 in the afternoon was not if I should curse but HOW MUCH.

And then the chickens showed up.

Uncategorized

Loaves, Fishes, and Brisket at Flipside: Fear doesn’t have to drive our friendships or our economics.

In the story of the loaves and fishes, Jesus takes the little bit of food offered to him from a small boy and breaks it, blesses it and gives it to those who had been following him for days who had become hungry.   That small gift ends up feeding several thousand people to the point where there are several baskets full after everyone has eaten.   It is  another one of the miracles a lot of people love to reference to show Jesus’ supernatural powers.   But I spent some time with some friends this weekend that reminded me of another reading of that story.   It is one with less magic but one that might actually be a bigger miracle.

The Burner life

End of the Story: Most of the truths we live by are things we cannot prove. Beauty is just one of them. (Faith for Reasons)

The Creation of Adam
The Creation of Adam (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We live in a moment in history in which truth is only found in this fairly new thing we reinvented called a ‘fact.’    “This is a table,” we say.  It is a fact that the thing I just set my cup on is a “table.”   Ta-da!  End of story…    It is an idea that seems pretty hard to argue with until all of a sudden I take that same table  apart and plan to build a flower bed out of it.   Fairly quickly it becomes lumber.  So it is now not a table after all.   Er… right?  That is the case until I decide without making any changes to the pile, to burn it in a fire.  Without moving an inch, by mere planning in my head,  it becomes fuel.  This pile of wood is fuel for my fire, end of story.   …Or perhpas this is where the importance of ‘story’ just begins. 

Faith for Reasons.

How my relationship with Jesus is, and is not, personal.

When I was young I would go to camp or a youth service where I was told that what I needed was a personal relationship with Jesus.  It made a kind of sense as a lot of things do for children because I was still relying on other people to teach me how to make sense of things. So I agreed, with no regrets.

Buddy Christ
Buddy Christ (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

However, I happen to be the kind of person, and have been since childhood, to throw myself headlong into the task at hand whatever it may be.   So I was bound and determined to have the most personal relationship with Jesus a person could have. This is a dangerous prayer.  The trouble began when I took it so seriously it started to take my life in some surprising if not shocking directions that none of my youth pastors had anticipated.

Faith for Reasons.

“No Wonder the Door Won’t Open, Silly. I am Already Inside.” -Three things about being a misfit in communities of grace that I keep having to re-learn.

Clearly I write from a position of someone who sits near the exit.  I love church, but sometimes I find it exhausting. I love my weirdo burner friends, and sometimes they can be a little harsh on my faith.   I long to be in Christian community, yet, depending on the community, I find myself itching to get out. I am finding that there are hidden moments of grace ready for the taking in all kinds of communities. And when I am willing to exercise a little humility and receive it, I find that that grace goes further than the edges of my life, and often finds its way into the open wild.

The Impossible Will Take A little While.

The Impossible Will Take A Little While.

It is harder than it looks to know how to take Easter. On the one hand it feels like an easy home run, a touchdown, a triumphal entry.   But those were the kinds of thing we were celebrating last week. How then is this week different?   For one thing it amazes how few people  to whom Jesus appeared after the resurrection.

The first to arrive.

One would think he would be taking out billboards all over town that said, “I told you so!”  but he doesn’t.    The first to see Jesus would be the last we would expect.   It was not the disciples, not even his family, but one of the worst outcasts of all of his company: Mary Magdalene.

"Disappointed with God"

“Unless our Hopes Fall to the Ground and Die” — We have some grieving to do, but not for Jesus.

The Gospel of Mark is my favorite.  I especifically  love the eighth chapter.   It is hysterical.  I still find myself being caught off guard and LOL-ing sometimes.
The disciples are dolts.  They have the hardest time learning the most obvious lessons.  Jesus goes and feeds several thousand, gets on a boat with them, and suddenly they are afraid Jesus will be mad because the didn’t pack a lunch.  Zheesh.  In that same chapter Jesus heals this man in a most unusual way and he has to do it twice.  Either Jesus is losing his touch or Mark is writing to try to be be obvious: We don’t see clearly yet.   The first time Jesus touches the blind man he sees part way. ” I see people, like trees walking around.”   I get that.  That makes sense to me.  If he is still half blind, then he is not wrong.  But there is more to be seen and it will be a shocker.   So don’t stop now…

"Disappointed with God"

“How many hands does it take to wash two feet? All of ours”: One of the defining moments of my life.

John’s body was less like mine than anyone else’s in the room.  In that room full of people with some very unique bodies and abilities, that was saying a lot.   Everything in this particular prayer service was going to have a lot to do with what bodies can and cannot do, and how we live with that.  It was this night I found and answered a new question:, “How many bodies it take to wash two feet?”  Answer: All of ours.

"Disappointed with God"