Beautiful Butterfly

Why live? Why get up each day and press on?

Sometimes we need to be reminded that life has purpose... life has a reason... life is worth living...

Sitting in my front room and feeling a little low and dejected, I was confronted by a story of a kid who rocked my world with his toughness, resolve, passion and zest...

Known as the "Butterfly Child," Jonathan Pitre reminded me why we say yes to the daily struggles of life. Because through our turmoil, tension and struggle we come to realize the joy of what it means to be alive... we come to realize the beauty of love and the power of our dreams.

Life wants to beat us down, but if our strength is from beyond this world, then we, like Jonathan, can look at life and respond, "Great things do not come easily. But they do come when you try with your full heart, when you're willing and open to embrace life, when you take things one day at a time and use what you've got."

And so what do we have? We have the ability to live life to its fullest if we are willing to focus on the light rather than the darkness. Jesus came to bring us into the light - we only need to choose the light.

All of us have struggles, all of us have pain. Take a moment and watch the story of Jonathan so that his strength, his resolve, his passion for life might motivate you to step out of your darkness so as to see the light Jesus has prepared for you. Step out of your cocoon and take flight you beautiful butterfly...

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:14045517

#espn60 #butterflychild #EB

Reform the devastation

Thanksgiving is here and Christmas looms. So what are we celebrating?

A quick look around the globe presents the tremendous tension that hovers over us: to give thanks and celebrate while destruction and death overwhelm the lives of so many. Planes brought down, scandals in our high schools, shootings in communities and freeways. Devastation all around seems to dampen the delight of divine beauty.

In light of this present reality many are wondering how it is that we can move into the holidays with hearts filled with good tidings and cheer? Where is our hope?

The complexity of the answer to where is our hope is found in the simplicity of what was done some 2000 years ago for the whole of humanity. A baby was born so that as a man He might hang on a tree. 

One birth. One death. One tree. Three nails. History witnessed hope.

Hope is wrapped in the truth of Immanuel - God with us. The only way to engage the happenings of life while seeking to celebrate the reality of life is found in the One who came to reorient our perspective. Christ came so that we might have hope, and in His coming He gave us the way to respond to the darkness of life.

We can only celebrate the truth of Christmas if we are willing to give thanks for the ability to step into the devastation and give of ourselves. To give until it hurts.

We give until it hurts because of what was done on our behalf. Yes, for us the giving did not stop at "until it hurts." The giving was done "to the point of death."

God’s self-giving in Christ is the epitome of His love and should become the essence of our thanksgiving. These days where we find our perspective constricted by the devastation of living our hearts must become saturated in the eternal vision of divine joy. We must look to the cross so as to see the beautiful joy that erupted through the birth of a baby.

Through His revelation, invitation and reconciliation we can step into the performance of a lifetime and live out the truth and reality of “God with us” so as to reveal the way of reformation of today's devastation. Through Christ's self-giving performance we are given the way to live out the truth of "we with God." It is a way that sees the truth of our "we with God" performance exploding on the stage of life through acts of kindness and love, acts of self-giving towards the “other” that not only overcome, but transform the postsuburban mentality that seeks to elevate self over the “other.”

Christ's Eucharistic performance (His self-giving) must become the root and foundation of the Church's being so as to become the motivation for her living. Hope will remain deferred if the Church remains destitute and deficient in her response to the world's devastation. But if we embrace the Spirit so as to grab hold of the heart of Christ, we can then become the hope that will reform the devastation into the divine image of heaven's glory.

Waters of thankfulness

Have you ever stopped to think where your focus is? Do you see self before you see Savior? Is the image of your creation self or Savior?

Many might balk at the aforementioned questions, but reality is, if one does not know who they are, they can never know what they have or where they are going.  For if we don't know who we are, then the reflection we will see in the water will not be the One who is the Almighty, but the one who is me. 

As we enter into the season of thanksgiving, a knowledge of who we are is crucial if we ever want to jump into the waters of thankfulness. Thankfulness is a state of the heart, and thus, it is rooted in who we are. Engaging who we are in light of who Jesus is calls for a heart that is passionately pursuing God. That is, when we seek the light of Christ so that His will might increase as my will decreases we find the truth of life. But so much of faith today witnesses not the increase of Jesus, but His decrease.

The decrease in Jesus has led to the decrease in thankfulness. For true thankfulness comes when the center of our hearts is occupied not by self, but by Savior. That is, we cannot find contentment, peace or joy if our focus in life is the increase of self. Only when we find ourselves seeking to live out the truth of decreasing will we find our joy, our peace, our contentment, our thankfulness increasing.

John the Baptist’s response to Jesus is one that many in his day as well as ours today, find unintelligible—namely, abounding joy and thankfulness over himself getting smaller and Jesus getting bigger.

“The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3.29-30).

Talk about perspective. John does not try to climb to the stars, seize heaven’s throne or take matters into his own hands; he receives everything he has, including his station in life, from God. And unlike many today, John’s Messiah complex was not about self but about living for the Messiah. And in his decrease, John’s joy was complete.

To decrease is not a popular concept because it calls for us to let go of our control in life. It calls for us to give ourselves wholly to the way from above as opposed to the ways of the earth. And make no mistake about it, Satan will strike against our attempts to decrease. He will find what you are good at and make it your god. If you are good at finances, leadership, communication, athletics, music, academics, you name it, Satan will use your strengths so as to strangle out any thoughts of decrease. Daily he pushes us toward a mentality of increase so that eventually our lives seek to live out the truth of my will as opposed to Thy Will.

Only when we embrace the Spirit can the truth of our lives become, “He must increase but I must decrease.” And in our decrease we come to witness the beautiful truth of increase. We come to an increasingly greater understanding of the love that has been shed for our sake. Yes, in Christ and through the Spirit our hearts are filled with heaven’s joy creating an uprising in thankfulness that can do nothing but overflow into loving the other just as we have been loved.

Seeing Empty as Full

Georges Rouault (French, 1871-1958)
Christ among the poor

One of the most beautiful yet challenging chapters of the Bible is Philippians 2—why? because it illumines the aspects of humility and servanthood. The idea of emptying ourselves so that we might be filled up is an interesting concept, but such a reality sits in opposition to today's culture.
Think about it, to empty yourself in today's world is to surrender. That is, to let go of your rights or deserved rights is equivalent to surrendering because instead of "demanding what is yours" you are placing the sake of the other first. And let's be honest, surrender is not a popular issue or philosophy; in a society that says win at all costs, surrender (or to empty yourself) in order to gain or be elevated, is an extreme paradox.

Here is the deal: the church will always have a foundational belief and being that is counter-culture but this must never be to the eradication of culture. That is, the church will often times be in opposition to the ways of society but the church must not discount or discard the voice of society. Dialogue is essential for the sake of the world hearing the "Good News" of Jesus Christ.

The reality is this:

• society does not understand how surrender can bring about glory, victory and elevation
• society does not understand how Jesus could have the audacity to call His followers to die so that they might live
• society does not understand how Jesus can say that in order to be first we must be last

Jesus goes against everything we have been taught about who a King is supposed to be, or a ruler, or a person of power and prestige. Jesus comes and takes all our concepts, turns them inside out so as to turn them right side up. In his letter to the Philippians Paul urges his readers to be humble and to follow the example of Christ, who, although He was “in the very nature of God,” became human and underwent death on the cross. God therefore exalted Him to the highest place (2.1-11). This leads to a further exhortation to his readers to serve God faithfully (2.12-18). In this beautiful hymn (Phil 2.1-11) Paul explains the truth of Christ, that He "emptied Himself, taking the form of a Bond-servant and being made in the likeness of men (v7). Here Paul draws directly from the book of Isaiah, specifically Isa 52.13-53-6. Isaiah writes, "Behold My servant will prosper, He will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted" (52.13). And then Isaiah goes on to illumine the reason for this exaltation. This is what it says of the Bible's crucified King:

He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him (53.2)
He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him (53.3)
Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted (53.4)
But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed (53.5)
All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him (53.6)

We express the heart of humility in the same way Christ Jesus did, when we promote peace and unity among the church as well as the world. We are the church when we look out and stand up for the good of others, not our own selfish interests; when we live out this reality, we demonstrate and actualize the heart and mind of Christ, which is the truth and realization of humility (Philippians 2.1-4).

Jesus’ teaching on servanthood and suffering was not intended to merely inspire good behavior. Jesus wanted to impart (to give a part or share; to communicate the knowledge of; to make known) the spirit of servanthood, the sense of personal commitment and identity that He expressed when He said, “I am among you as He who serves” (Luke 22.27). Christ is calling us to “empty” ourselves of our selfish ambitions and self-centered acts. What a paradox that stretches our mind’s eye, to think that as we become “empty” of self and dependent on God, the Holy Spirit will use us mightily, but this is the life we are called to live faithfully and obediently.

Empty in order to be filled...how are you doing today with this? How can the Church transform society - by becoming greater servants and lovers of the other. How can you, how can I, how can we become more of a servant today and tomorrow? As Jesus reminds us, "When you did it to the least of these you did it to Me" (Matt 25.40). Come Lord Jesus Come!

Scandal of the Cross

Following Christ, which has become possible through his self-surrender, will not consist in doing some right thing but in fundamentally surrendering everything, and surrendering it to the God who has totally emptied himself, so that he can use [that right thing] for the world, according to his own purposes.

The life of Christ is the center of our participation. Theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar writes "The scandal of the cross cannot be removed by further theoretical discussion but only by praxis, which is twofold: it is a decisive step into the future, beyond the baneful barriers set up by doctrine, and it is also a return to Christianity’s authentic and original meaning: God shows his truth to us through acting.” As the apostle Paul tells us, we should "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;  for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Philippians 2.12-13).

The world is God’s theater of glory; it is the place for humanity’s performance in Christ through the Spirit. Faithfulness to the performance of God recognizes that Christianity is praxis. It tells us how we should act not simply what we should believe.

Let’s Dance

A lot has been going on these days...The drama of life is like a disco ball shining down upon us - the reflection of the light can be both blinding as well as beautiful. You just never know what disco you will step into?

An event that promotes health ends with an explosion, death and chaos. A fire at a warehouse ends in the destruction of a city. Water is good, but too much produces flooding. Think about it, this week's dance has been one of explosions, cities locked down, towns flooded, airports shutdown, lives lost, confusion, questions, chaos...

What does it all mean? How are we to respond? To the Boston Bombing, to the Texas explosion, to the Watertown turmoil, to life? In all that is happening, I have to admit that my first reaction is not one of mercy.

I find it hard to show mercy when I feel as though I have been wronged, don't you? What does it mean to be merciful, to enact justice?

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said it like this:

You remember one day a man came to Jesus and he raised some significant questions. Finally he got around to the question, "Who is my neighbor?" This could easily have been a very abstract question left in midair. But Jesus immediately pulled that question out of midair and placed it on a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho. He talked about a certain man who fell among thieves. Three men passed; two of them on the other side. And finally another man came and helped the injured man on the ground. He is known as the Good Samaritan. Jesus says in substance that this is a great man. He was great because he could project the "I" into the "thou." He was great because he could surround the length of life with the breadth of life . . . . May it not be that the problem in the world today is that individuals as well as nations have been overly concerned with the length of their individual lives and concerns, devoid of the breadth? But there is still something to remind us that we are interdependent, that we are all somehow caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. Therefore whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. As long as there is poverty in the world I can never be rich, even if I have a million dollars. As long as diseases are rampant and millions of people in this world cannot expect to live more than twenty-eight or thirty years, I can never be totally healthy even if I just got a good checkup at May clinic. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the way our world is made. No individual or nation can stand out boasting of being independent. We are interdependent.

Mercy, justice, and hope are brought about by and through our faith-filled actions. See for Dr. King, peace, hope, and justice on earth are in themselves evidence of the eternal peace which Christ on the cross establishes between God and man. For the Christian, therefore, a plea for justice and peace is a plea to God himself. Only when the church becomes a witness to God’s performance, in Christ through the Spirit, does it point beyond itself and into the communion of love, thereby becoming active participants in the building of the Kingdom of God. Christian love is rooted in the overflowing love of the Father, Son, and Spirit, who have poured out their divine love into the hearts of the body of Christ. It is only in this love that the church finds the ability to pour itself out into the lives of the ‘other,’ bearing witness to Christ so to bear witness to life, thereby letting justice "roll down like a river, and righteousness, like a never-ending stream." The pouring out of love and self for the sake of the other is the dance of Jesus' disco. No better time to step into Jesus' dance of insane love! Let's dance! Amen Jesus!

The Sounds of Silence

Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

The weekend begins with the brutal, tragic, and paradoxically beautiful death of Jesus Christ. And then there is silence...

It is almost as if time stands still - everyone staring at the limp, beaten and broken body on the Cross. And then they watched as the body is taken down, placed in a tomb and then left alone.

Everyone, followers of Jesus, haters of Jesus, could do nothing but wait. And so they did: wait, wonder, hope. Is He the Christ, the Messiah? or is He nothing more than a false promise, a dream breaker, hope wrecker?

Today should be a day of contemplation for the Christian church. Today should be a day of wonder for the world at large. Who is this man called Jesus? And what does He want with me?

Truth is, we do not have to remain friends with the darkness. The sound of Saturday's silence is the rumbling of love that explodes from the empty cross of Sunday. This weekend we, the Church, must celebrate the hope of heaven. That is, the Kingdom of heaven is here and the world needs it just as much as we do and did. So what if...

What if today we started living the hope of tomorrow? What if we lived out the hope of heaven (the not yet) in the midst of the reality of earth here and now? I truly believe that as followers of Christ we can be history makers today--do you? Don't let Satan fool you, our human response to what God has done on our behalf makes a real difference to God--He (God) loves the whole of His creation. The God who is for us and with us in Jesus Christ wants us, by the Spirit’s power, to be for and with one another so that together, we the Church can be for the world.

Time for us to step into the sound of Saturday's silence so that the eruption of Sunday's glorious love will explode from our words, our actions, our lives! Time to say hello to the brightness and the beauty of the Cross - our old friend who has left the indelible vision of of heaven today in our mind's eye and on our heart!

The time is now for us to be the sweet melodic sound of redeeming love for a world swept away by silence...

Holy Thursday Batman!

Today, the Thursday before Good Friday and Easter Sunday, is referred to as "Maundy" or "Holy" Thursday. On this day throughout the annals of Church history, you would find that many set apart this day as one of remembrance  Such remembrance would be accounted for through the sacred meal known as communion. On this day Christians recall Jesus' last meal, the Last Supper. 

I wonder today in the midst of all our "worldly" business, how many will stop and even give a thought of one of the most significant evenings in the course of history? This was no ordinary meal as it represented Jesus' life - it represents the Christian life. The Eucharist is not simply a meal, it is an act - an act of sacrifice so as to give life to the other. That is, we are called to give of ourselves (to be willing to break our body and pour out our self)  so that the world might come to know the insane love of Jesus - the life-giving love of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

What's more, on this night, not only did Jesus break bread with his friends, but He gave us the ultimate example of what it means to be a leader...He washed the feet of his disciples. That is right, in the fourth Gospel we read how Jesus elevates His performance through the washing His disciples feet ( John 13.1-17). 

Theologian Karl Barth writes:

How emphatically the latter Gospel emphasizes the fact that the service of Christ is His true power and majesty and therefore the grace by which man receives His life! - the revealed grace of God which was already the secret of the Old Testament, though operative then only in a vertical movement from above. In the New, however, it has really come down into the depths and manifested itself there, becoming itself service in accordance with this end of its way. The action of God which absolutely precedes all human action and therefor all human service is that He has placed Himself wholly and unreservedly in the service of humanity as revealed and effectual in the service of Jesus. 

When reading through the NT continuously we are reminded how God Himself acts and how He is revealed as a Servant and in this way as the Lord, in the person of Him who made Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form of a servant (Phil 2.7). The form of a servant is not a popular concept in today's society. The reality of giving of our selves – Self-sacrifice - is not a popular issue or philosophy in a society that says win at all costs. The Christian reality of sacrifice for the sake of the “other” is the ultimate paradox. How so?

*By placing the "other" before the "self" we actually gain life thereby bringing about glory and victory
*We become first when we are last
*We live when we die - life through death

The question we must ask ourselves as we prepare to celebrate the culmination of the life of Jesus - are we, through the Holy Spirit, participating in His life, His way & His truth or do we expect Him to participate in our way, and truth and life? Are we building a worldly border around our bodies so as not to be broken, or are we willingly being broken and pour out for the sake of the world? Do we expect not only to be seated at the "supper," but to be served? Or are we "stepping" into the life of Christ, joyfully kneeling down on the floor so that we might scrub the foot of the "other?" Amen Jesus!

Locked Inside Your Heart Shaped Box

When you make a decision do you tell everyone by letting off some smoke from the chimney? Sounds silly but as many of us know, this is exactly what happened at the Vatican on the 13th of March 2013. And while most of us do not "literally" puff smoke out of a chimney to indicate the result(s) of our decision(s), we can (and often do), however, give off smoke screens with our actions that indicate our heart's intent. That is, when our actions do not coincide with our words - when our hearts are nothing more than an empty heart shaped box, the actions we blow off for the world are covered in the smoke of artificiality.

What then, is locked inside your heart shaped box? Better yet, who? Who you are determines what you do...Being goes before purpose or action. But this is not how much of the world lives. So often, we allow earthly things, items, people, to determine who we are, and thus, what we do. During this week (called Holy Week for the Church) might we contemplate what it is that we fill our hearts with?

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled" (Mat 5.6). To hunger and thirst for righteousness means to reorient the typical human perspective. To hunger and thirst for righteousness means that we must think beyond ourselves - it means that we are to think of the other. And this my friend is simply not what we are accustomed of doing...

Think of today's news, commercials, t.v. shows, marketing schemes...We are constantly told that life is about me. It is perfectly acceptable and even expected to hunger and thirst for self-promotion which ultimately is self-preservation. A message that calls for people to look out for the other is a counter-culture message - the antithesis of today's me-for-me mentality.

Only through and from the Father Son and Holy Spirit is meaning determined, and as theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar writes, through the Absolute, "we find not only the ultimate meaning of reality as such, but also, beyond that, the ideality that provides the meaning, or determines 'what ought to be,' which is the ultimate measure of the truth of reality." In opposition or rather in contradistinction to the autonomous story, the cosmic drama of the Godhead illumines the interaction of the protagonist—Christ—with the creature through the direction of the Holy Spirit. Such interaction plays out through the multiple scenes—intersecting narratives—of the characters upon the stage of creation thereby allowing the realization not only of what our performances are, but what they are to become.

Our current frame of reference of individualism that transforms relationalism into a consumerist transition must give way to an interpersonal view of life and its freedom as revealed through the salvific performance of Christ so as to engage the structures of evil head-on. In place of the evidence that demands the verdict that Jesus is Lord, what is required today is the verdict Jesus is Lord demanding evidence in our lives that He is Lord—as exemplified in the witness of St Francis of Assisi or Dr. John M. Perkins. The values of the Christian faith must be those that reflect the values of God’s heart or else they are nothing but an empty heart shaped box:

    She eyes me like a Pisces when I am weak
    I've been locked inside your Heart Shaped box, for weeks
    I've been drawn into your magnet tar pit trap
    I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black


 
    Hey!
    Wait!
    I've got a new complaint
    Forever in debt to your priceless advice
    hey
    wait
    I've got a new complaint
    Forever in debt to your priceless advice

So what is locked inside your heart shaped box?

What's So Funny about Peace, Love & Understanding

Elvis Costello asks, "What's so funny about peace, love, and understanding?" How do we answer such a question? Seems like today all three are quite comical. Peace - laughable. Love - yeah who really knows what it means to love. Understanding - only if you take my truth to be the ultimate foundation of understanding.

What really do peace, love and understanding mean? And who even cares whether or not we have peace or if we understand one another, let alone love each other? The one people that should care...the Church.

What if the Christian church stepped into God's radical, insane love? Maybe the world would come to recognize the profound need for peace, love, and understanding. And in doing so, the world just might be a better place to live.

Now in Farlowesque performance, what if I push the envelop just a little further...What if I throw in the reality of hell? That is, any comprehension of love, peace and understanding should seek to incorporate the realities of heaven and hell - if a Christian answer is to be rendered.

Now you might be asking, "What does a discussion about truth, love, peace, understanding, have to do with hell or heaven for that matter?" In some ways I think everything. I think any discussion that deals with love, with peace, with understanding, must, from a Christian standpoint, delve into the realms of heaven and hell as both represent the reality of eternity. And then we must ask, where are heaven and hell? Who will see heaven and who will see hell? Might it be true that in the end, God's love wins and and all will be saved?

In talking about hell I am reminded of the play No Exit, written by Jean-Paul Sartre with its depiction of hell as three self-consumed individuals locked up in a room with no escape, and whose eyelids cannot shut. As one of these three damned souls from the play exclaims, "hell is other people."

Today in a very real sense, heaven and hell are heart issues. Heaven abounds in hearts bent on loving God and loving the other. Hell resides in hearts and lives that are turned inward, consumed in self-love as opposed to being drenched in Savior love. The predominance of our self-love mindset today makes it very difficult to see how diabolical this orientation is, and blinds us from seeing that by turning inward we close ourselves off from making our exit and entering into true freedom.

It is a self-centered heart's orientation that continues to attempt to step beyond the performance of Christ, or simply say ‘no’ to His invitation. But this does not have to be the last word or society's final act. Through the church's incorporation into Christ’s reconciliatory performance we not only encounter our salvation, but through the leading of the Spirit, can bring this hope to the ends of the earth, thereby assisting in the mass exit of hell. We can, through a performance drenched in love, bring peace and understanding by giving people heaven now. I guess then, the answer to Costello's question is "What are you doing to close the gates of hell?" And in closing these gates we elevate the truth and reality of love, peace and understanding - nothing funny about that!