Space for Life and Love

For decades I have watched a mallard couple, dabbling in the reeds in a small swampy drainage channel near where I catch the train.

You may say "mallards don't live for decades!"

And you would be right. But there has always been a mated pair here. As soon as the ice is gone, and before the snow has fled, they appear, probing at the roots of the fragmities, swimming right up against each other, quacking gently.

Always two, the little, still stream is too small for three; always together, side by side, with eyes for each other, danger, and food.

There is a lot of beauty in their couple-hood, their seeking out of this spot, their inhabiting it and making it their home.

And there is something more to the fact that it has been a home to many duck-couples before them.

Here there is a niche, a special place where two birds rest and love and live together. Just enough for two small lovers to live, and feed, and make their home.

A space has been provided, and life has filled it.

May we also find blessed space in and for our lives, and keep it filled with life and love.

To Those Discussing Salvation

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

The text above is from the beginning to John, chapter 1. It speaks about Jesus as the effective Word of God - a part, facet, personality or form of God.

It speaks of God's creation of all things through this personalty, and of how through this personality comes the Light of Man.

Many came before we named The Word as Jesus, many who were blessed, beloved, and saved. Many also have come since and are still to come who don't know The Word as Jesus, but love the light and with whom God dwells.

Judgement is God's alone, and God will choose whom God will save. But I can tell you it will be more about faith than formulas, more about love than learning, and more about deeds than dogma.

So I say: stop chattering amongst yourselves about who is in or out, and roll up your sleeves, and put on your apron. Those who hunger and thirst have arrived, and it is ours to get busy to serve them.

A Vale of Sorrows?

The Christian Faith, The Bible, CS Lewis, and many other respected authorities seem to tell us that what we do today is just a prelude to the world to come.

CS Lewis speaks of this life as being like school, a period when we are learning and training. The Apostle Paul tells us how we cannot begin to know the wonders that are in store for the faithful, and John's Revelation speaks of the new City of God which the faithful will reside in.

I also believe that this is not the end, and that we are called to an eternal life of participation in the ongoing creation of God.

But the idea of this world as a prelude, an entryway, of this phase in history as just the portal to something larger concerns me, because I worry that it encourages us not to take it seriously. I worry that people will say 'this is too much for this age, and I will leave this for the next generation', or even the next world, to solve.

We are where we are, and if we cannot fix the world, perhaps we can find ways to make our corners of it places of blessing. I believe this is one of the calls of Christianity, to make our little corners places of blessing.

If we must live on the stoop of eternity, on the doorstep of the new age, in the entryway of the House of God, let us make our little spot as welcoming, as blessed as we can. This may be the morning of the new day, but there is much to do in the morning, even before the sun is up-no matter how dark it is.

This entryway is where we live and work today. Let's not treat it and each other with disrespect because we hope to be invited inside, to a better place with more exclusive company tomorrow.

So let's get to work. There is a lot to do here in the entryway. There are new arrivals, (many of them wounded, lost and hungry) to make welcome, food to serve, and water to bring to the thirsty. Roll up your sleeves, and put an apron on - the morning has broken, and God's house is open for the business of Life.

Five Tasks

Share truth

Create peace

Give space

Make time

Be good



Share truth, because truth is the coin of wisdom, the river that life swims in, and the raw material of civilization.

Create peace, because noise, enimity, and war are poison to thought, care, and life

Give space, because space is the dwelling place of dignity and honor, and food for the spirit.

Make time, because within moments of time are found infinities that can be turned powerfully to the service of light.

Be good, because in being good, you instantiate God.

Don't cause trouble.

Don't lay upon others,
What you woldn't want to lift yourself.

Don't act like a wolf,
And then blame the sheep for being weak.

Don't rely on the law,
To dictate your morality.
(Hell already has plenty of lawyers)

Do unto others as you would have done to you.

And ask how people like to be treated,
Because not everyone is the same.

It isn't clever to be mean,
And sometimes it's mean to be clever.

True wisdom is simple, kind, and fair.
It doesn't make trouble out of trifles,
It doesn't take offense,
It strives to help and support.

Be generous, broad-shouldered, and thick skinnned... ...If God is willing to forgive everyone's sins, certainly
you can forgive some yourself.

A Happy Mantra

Into the sweetest of souls, dark thoughts can come bubbling up, like blebs of oil from a forgotten shipwreck, rising in a clear tropical lagoon.

Sometimes it is easy to become focused on them. I think we recognise darkness when we see it, and we tend to know when thoughts are leading us astray, or when the thoughts are evil themselves.

For those who find themselves buffeted by negative messages about their worth, about other people's unworthiness, about appearance, all those negative messages that we find so common inside and out, I say, learn the lesson of the lagoon. Smother the negativity with love and life. Instead of focusing on the hateful, the denigrating, or the dark, express the light.

Find a happy mantra, or two to repeat and share.

I suggest 'Love' or 'Love as we wish to be Loved'.

It'll wash the dark away.

All my love to you.

-the bug chewer

Signs of Life

I came across a perfectly circular 1.5" hole in the still-partly-frozen ground the other day. It looked like small cookie-cutter had made it, but I knew the author of this particular void, and it wasn't a child running around wreaking lawn-havoc with a bit of baking equipment. No, the author of this strangely symmetrical divot is small, brown, and has spent much of the last month in hibernation, tail curled over it's nose.

A chipmunk.

There is something to be said for being able to lie low, and sleep through the tough seasons. Unfortunately, we humans cannot. We must tough, or fight it out. And when the seasonal warfare wanes and the sun returns it's warmth to us, we are glad to greet again these, our fair-weather friends.

Life is good, and we must all approach it as best we can.

Prodigality

The other day I watched 'Nanny McPhee' with my family. -We generally don't get to movies while they are in the theatre, due to the business of our lives. So apologies for getting to this video long after most have seen it. At any rate, 'Nanny McPhee' seems an appropriate topic on the Sunday the lectionary blesses us with 'the prodigal son'. In 'Nanny' the children are much more particularly heinous, and less amusing than in 'Mary Poppins' to the extent that no nannys will come to help their father anymore.

At this point Nanny McPhee arrives, bearing an impressive collection of warts, a snaggletooth, and a bulbous nose.

As the children learn each of the lessons on the way to being good family members, the nanny loses one of her uglifying features, until finally, at the end of the story, with the children fully remediated, Nanny McPhee is a beautiful older woman.

What is up with this transformation? Perhaps, living in relationship, with all of its strictures, looks pretty ugly from the outside, much like returning to beg forgivess from one's father after spending all your inheiritance might. But from the other side of that transition -from the in-side of that relationship, there is much beauty.

May we find forgiveness, and find it in our hearts to provide forgiveness to those who repent and seek forgiveness from us. And may we find beauty in love, where true beauty resides.

Spring is Coming!

It was a draining and busy week.
But today dawned sunny and calm, if cold.

Making my way across the parking lot to go to work, I was impressed with all the birdsong that the Sun was inspiring.

Then I heard a call that jarred me out of my routine, a red-winged blackbird. The red-wingers are common birds, which overwinter as far north as New Jersey and Pennsylvania, -but this one was doing the male territorial cry, which I haven't heard this winter. Looking about, I spied him atop a telephone pole, singing gustily against the blue sky.

It may be cold, he says, but
Spring is Coming.

How appropriate and encouraging to end this cold week in the Lent-thening of days with a sign of the spring to come.

Blessed Be!

Everyday Heroism

I lie down,
I go to sleep
I snore near all the night

And when I get up the next day
My hair is quite a sight

And if I'm lucky
I go to work
I lunch and earn and then

I pack things up
I drag back home
And start over again

And every day
And every night
And over every meal

I thank the Lord
Who makes it right
And knows just how I feel.

The Sex of God

It isn't so much
That God's a He or She
Or some kind of it

It's not like God has arms or legs
Or a tush on which to sit

But sometimes it is lovely
To use 'He', 'Him' or 'Father'
To call God 'Mom' is also comfy
To use 'She' or 'Her'.

Let's not affirm one gender naming,
Rejecting all of the rest.
Because although our God is sexy
With one gender (S)He is not blessed

And in our pan-gendered thinking
Please include Satan too,
And not for good affirm just girls.
While for bad just boys will do.

So let's sometimes call God 'Father'
And sometimes call Her 'Mom'
Let's try not to get bothered
Like someone dropped a bomb

I really like your gender
And I hope you'll honor mine
If we can be respectful
I'm sure we'll do just fine.

Posted early for Saturday

May God Bless Us in our Myriads

Some tiny birds, finches, I believe, have been taking advantage of the shelter of an overhang at the house.

They secrete themselves in a small gutter shaped section of aluminum that folds inward underneath the overhang.

They bed down in this inhospitible location, in spite of cold temperatures and blowing wind that must make this metallic roost less than ideal, and peek out with tiny bright eyes to see if us humans seem to be presenting any danger as we come and go.

We are suprised to find them there, suprised at how to these small lives, this cold hard niche seems welcoming, and we worry about the weather and its impact upon them. And we make efforts to ease what must be their fleeting and precarious lives.

And I am minded of how small and uncertain all life is, and how dependent, and how frail we all are.

May God bless us in our myriads, and help us to care for each other.

What's to Do?

This morning I was awakened by a dream that had my spouse admitting to me that she was addicted to Methamphetamine.

Please note that my dreams are usually not dark or sad, and nothing could be further from the realm of liklihood, but a very scary prospect.

I think the dream was inspired by the State of New Jersey* trying to shut down a local homeless shelter's addiction counseling program for not having the proper licenses.

The dream expressed my dispair at what I saw as the likely loss of my favorite person to this desructive drug through a song, which was in the dream sung by 'Squeeze' that went somthing like this:

Who is to blame when it falls
apart
I'm not complaining 'bout my broken heart

What's to do about this play's new part

You took my love
And now you go away

That's all I remember, but if you know 'Squeeze' you might be able to imagine them singing it.

The fragment that was left singing in my ears as I woke up was "what's to do?".

I was dismayed to hear yesterday morning that the State was interfering with the Mission's program. I can't imagine that the State has a comparable program that serves the people the mission works with. It is one thing to hit bottom, but to add addiction to it... -It is almost unimaginable to me. I have worked in homeless shelters, and know what a tough road these people have in front of them.

I heard about this yesterday morning, and totally forgot about it in the midst of a busy day, until my dream reminded me.

I am not sure yet what's to do, but maybe sharing this dream is one step.

Maybe you, Dear Reader can help answer this question too.

I'll post links to the story if I can find it online.

* The actual story is worse: According to The Daily Record a local NIMBY (not in my back yard) group, Stand Up Asbury, from Asbury Park, trying to prevent the Market Street Mission from opening a shelter in their town, brought legal action which has resulted in the drug addiction counseling efforts of the Mission in Asbury Park *and in Morristown* being placed in legal limbo. A real tragedy.

The NIMBY group claims that the shelter will draw more homeless to Asbury Park (there is a problem in the town, and the sources I am looking at indicate there is no overnight shelter there right now), and that the Market Street Mission treats Homosexuality as an addiction too, a potentially hot-button issue for a town with a healthy Gay population. Somehow, with Homelessness, Addiction, and Job training to deal with, I don't think the Mission spends much time evangelizing about sexuality.

I know I said not so long ago that I wasn't going to try and be controversial. However, the blog is called "Signs, Dreams and Visions". And here is a dream, one that ended with a question of "What's to do?". In Isaiah, God asks: "Who will we send, and who will carry our message?"

Will you leave God's question unanswered?

Related links;
Market Street Mission
Market Street Mission on Charity Navigator