Little Child

In this morning's gospel reading ( Mt. 18) Jesus answers his disciples that those who become as a little child are the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.  I don't know that the need to become "great" motivates me as much as it once did. But the chance to share deeply in the life of the kingdom; Jesus' sharing of life with His Father in the Spirit, haunts me in the deepest of ways. Maybe the desire for greatness is a young man's desire?  My older desires (I'm in my 50's) are those of simplicity, individuation, wonder, kindness and goodness for those I love (and all really). 

I'm excited that the journey Jesus proposes is one towards becoming "like" a child. It is interesting that He seems to suggest that our aim is to be what we were before we started trying so hard to become. That greatness (whatever that means) might be that we just stop trying to become something and just be who He has always wanted and loved.  To do more playing, laughing and crying?    Could it really be this simple?  

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What Do You Want?

What do you want?  

They had just heard a piece of the most revolutionary news that had ever been uttered.  Of course it was veiled in language that may seem obscure to you and me; "Behold the Lamb of God". But it so altered the focus of Andrew and his companion that they followed him. 

So, Jesus turns to them and asks, "What do you want". I can't help but think that they didn't have a clue of what to say until the words of "uh, where are you staying" broke the silence.   They went with him and spent the day.  

I don't know what they talked about but Andrew made it his first course of business to find his brother; you may have heard of him, Peter, and brought him to Jesus. 

Again, I don't know what they talked about or even if they realized what they were looking for but I know what they wanted.  The same thing I want, Jesus and all He is.  I want to be baptized in Him; saturated with Him, hearing with His ears His Father's voice, receiving that voice with His will, bringing that love to a universe that is starving due to the scandalous rumor that God had become Man in this one. That their fortunes were now forever bound with this Him.  

What do you want?

Belonging

I was sitting in the coffee shop with my Dad

Drinking a cup of coffee, waiting to pick up my children

And I realized how good it is to belong to people

He gave the best years, all of them, 

For my Mom and me and my sisters and brothers

To care for us because we belonged to Him

There is a bond between us; a union of life

Part of my soul is inside of him

And part of his soul lives inside of me

I can’t explain it, but that is how it is

We belong to one another

The same is with my dear one.

We’ve been sharing love and joy and pain

Laughter and tears;

Children and grandchildren now

For more than 25 years

Part of each of us lives inside the other

I’d like to explain this to my children

But I’m not sure they would understand it

It might sound more like restriction than

Realizing part of one’s true self

Is to belong to another

But maybe when I am eighty

And we’re sitting at the coffee shop or somewhere else

They will see what I see now

How good it is to belong.

Maybe they’ll see it sooner than me.

An Old Soul

I want to be an old soul

And a child

An ocean and a brook

A mountain and a stone

I want my feet planted like roots

Deep in the bowels of the earth 

To be one and apart

I want my soul like a bird

Alight with every sight and sound

And breeze and scent on the wind

To know your thoughts 

Without knowing

To move like a river without will

As free as a child who skips

To the music in her mind

As steadfast as a tree 

Which grows in all weather.

Rememberers

The world needs rememberers

To tell us once again

Of stories some time ago

So that we can send our roots down deep

In the past we do not know

Of fishing and cooking and games once played

Of first steps early taken

Of crops and struggles and fears and pain

And making it through somehow

By remembering those who came before

Whose labours and laughter had served them well

That we might remember them now

We all need rememberers 

That we might finally know

From where we've come

And who we are 

And the way that we should go.

The Silence

I seek for what is found in silence

The face I recognize 

Who sets my mind at ease

Who drifts through my thoughts

Separating the wheat from the chaff

I dwell upon the quiet

For it is not the absence of noise

But the presence

The presence of he who knows and is known

Who speaks without uttering a sound

I rest within the stillness

For there I find

I find myself waiting for me

Waiting to show me and

To speak my name

Dan Wills (2013)

What's The Problem?

I was sitting with a friend; enjoying a smoke of my favorite pipe tobacco, and the topic of atonement came up. Specifically we were talking about what occurred throughout the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

It appears that the cross takes absolute preeminence in the fundamentalist's understanding of atonement and eclipses  the 33 years of Jesus' life in the redemptive process. However, as a recovering fundamentalist myself, I see the cross as a part of the whole rather than the single efficacious act. 

In one view humanity has a legal problem; they are guilty sinners in God the Father's courtroom and someone innocent (I.e. Jesus) must suffer the punishment and take away God's wrath. (I realize this a simplistic view, but it basically represents the idea).   Hence Christ'a death on the cross accomplishes that If a person acknowledges by faith and accepts that they have a legal sin problem and that Jesus has paid the price. 

In my view there is no legal problem at all, but an organic problem. 

You see, from before the creation of the universe God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) have existed in a relationship of supreme love, joy & acceptance.  Their desire was that persons like them (not other gods, but beings made in their image) would be included, drawn into their life and enjoy supreme love, joy and acceptance in them.  Which is the reason we are alive!

However, even after mankind's creation, it was necessary that one from within their circle of life would become human; united with creation, and transform humanity from being "only creation" to a new creation united with God in Christ. 

Therefore, when the Eternal Son; in whom all things were created and in whom all things have their being, becomes man He joins himself; indeed He joins the entire Trinity to humanity.  To quote the early church father Irenaeus, 

“Therefore, as I have already said, He caused man (human nature) to cleave to and to become, one with God. For unless man had overcome the enemy of man, the enemy would not have been legitimately vanquished. And again: unless it had been God who had freely given salvation, we could never have possessed it securely. And unless man had been joined to God, he could never have become a partaker of incorruptibility. For it was incumbent upon the Mediator between God and men, by His relationship to both, to bring both to friendship and concord, and present man to God, while He revealed God to man. For, in what way could we be partaken of the adoption of sons, unless we had received from Him through the Son that fellowship which refers to Himself, unless His Word, having been made flesh, had entered into communion with us? Wherefore also He passed through every stage of life, restoring to all communion with God” (III, XVIII, 7).  and again

"He became what we are that we might become what He is in Himself"

Therefore our issue has never been to appease God or resolve a legal problem, but, to be transformed into a person capable of living in God's love!

Look around you. Isn't that how real life and relationships work?  Just because you solve a legal problem doesn't mean you are at one with the person you had the problem.  Think about your children. What is it you truly want in your relationship and how do you accomplish it?  What I want for my children is a true at-one-ness; the ability for them to "know" my love and care for them. I want them to experience my sense of pride and "liking" of them as a person.  What I want is to be able to take my heart and put it in their chest so they can feel for themselves what I feel for them. I want to take my mind and put it in their head so they can "know" about themselves what I know about them.   I know I'm explaining this badly but I hope you get the picture. 

This was exactly the goal of the triune God in the creation and atonement of humanity; that we would know Him as He is and know ourselves as He knows us.  And, this is exactly the what Christ is doing in His creation, incarnation, death, resurrection, giving of His Spirit and His containing ministry as the Incarnate Son. That through His union (truly organic & spiritual union) with us He would "take what is Hjs and make it known to us".  And what is His.....His relationship with His Father in the Spirit. 

The author also owns and operates an online web store at PipeLighters.net