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Posts Tagged ‘Spiritual’

Good News

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on December 13, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Good morning,

Sunday’s Advent daily meditation from our church could have been written for every family. I thought it would be good to share. Advent, is the time between Thanksgiving and before Christmas that we put away the things of darkness in our lives and put on the “whole armor of light” in anticipation of the birth of Christ, the “Light of the world“. It is a time of reflection, repentance and renewal.

In this season of anticipation and thankfulness, let us each remember with gratitude those precious ones who brought so much joy and love into our lives. They are still with us now, but in a different way. Like “tracks in the snow, the lantern showing the path or a door set open for us”, they still love us, help us and are waiting for us. They are there; just around the bend, where the snowy tracks end, in the warm lantern light, behind that open door. Let us each look with continuing anticipation to that time when we will be in that light with them.

Peace,
Z gardener

Advent Reflections from St. Andrew’s Cathedral
December 8
By Jody Burnett
Good news.
But if you ask me what it is, I know not.
It is a track of feet in the snow.
It is a lantern showing a path.
It is a door set open.-G.K. Chesterton

Over the past few days, I’ve heard from several of my friends and clergy colleagues in other parts of the country about how their churches this year will be offering “Blue Christmas” services, which are designed especially for people for whom the holiday season is particularly difficult. Some have suffered the recent loss of a family member or dear friend, and for the bereaved, an empty seat at the Christmas table – the absence of a cherished name on the family gift exchange list – can often amplify the feelings of pain and grief which take years, a lifetime even, to run their course. Others might find themselves alone – estranged or cut off for various reasons from someone in their family or from an entire community – and for them, the conspicuous lack of yuletide cards and invitations to festive gatherings can often lead to further isolation and more profound angst. And for most anyone, I would venture to guess – though not all of us feel so keenly vulnerable at such times – there are still things that stand in the way of us recognizing and accepting the pure gift of joy and wonder that is ours to claim this season. There are difficult memories or awkward dynamics or unresolved issues that can diminish the enthusiasm and sheer delight that we once knew, and that we may now see only in children as they first wake on Christmas morn. And yet, even in the midst of anxiety, sadness, and remorse, even if we or those we know have grown old and tired with sullenness or sorrow, the promise of Emmanuel – the assurance of God being right there with us through it all – might still help us to find hope in our hearts. And the belief that God, through Christ, can indeed make all things new might still cause us to see fresh possibilities for reconciliation and redemption in our lives and in this world. There is good news, indeed, during this holy time and season; there is a track of feet in the snow; there is a lantern showing us a path. God is calling us back to the rich, full, abundant life we all desire and deserve. I pray that we may all find the grace and confidence we need to continue moving in that direction.

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On Perfection

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on December 11, 2013| Leave a Comment »

 
The command Be ye perfect is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command. 
 
He said (in the Bible) that we were “gods” and He is going to make good His words. If we let Him—for we can prevent Him, if we choose—He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, a dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness. 
 
The process will be long and in parts very painful; but that is what we are in for. Nothing less. He meant what He said.
 
Living this truth is not beyond any of us, unless it is beyond our willingness to “let” God make us into this wonderful creature he created us to become. Only we can can stop this process, and only we can allow it through the exercise of our own will to do God’s will. To take the longer path, to endure the pain of needed lessons, to walk and not grow weary of the journey. Whatever we need is available when our will directs our decision to accept and become our destiny. Then, we are assured our birthright as children of God and as gods. Then, we will exist in the garden called Eden.
 
Letting perfection,
Z gardener

 

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On The Evil Of Christian Disunity

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on December 6, 2013| 2 Comments »

 
You ask me in effect why I am not a Roman Catholic. If it comes to that, why am I not—and why are you not—a Presbyterian, a Quaker, a Mohammedan, a Hindu, or a Confucianist? After how prolonged and sympathetic study and on what grounds have we rejected these religions? I think those who press a man to desert the religion in which he has been bred and in which he believes he has found the means of Grace ought to produce positive reasons for the change—not demand from him reasons against all other religions. It would have to be all, wouldn’t it?
 
Our Lord prayed that we all might be one ‘as He and His Father are one’ [John 17:21]. But He and His Father are not one in virtue of both accepting a (third) monarchical sovereign.
 
That unity of rule, or even of credenda [things to be believed], does not necessarily produce unity of charity is apparent from the history of every Church, every religious order, and every parish.
 
Schism is a very great evil. But if reunion is ever to come, it will in my opinion come from increasing charity. And this, under pressure from the increasing strength and hostility of unbelief, is perhaps beginning: we no longer, thank God, speak of one another as we did over 100 years ago. A single act of even such limited co-operation as is now possible does more towards ultimate reunion than any amount of discussion.
 
The historical causes of the ‘Reformation’ that actually occurred were (1.) The cruelties and commercialism of the Papacy (2.) The lust and greed of Henry VIII. (3.) The exploitation of both by politicians. (4.) The fatal insouciance (indifference) of the mere rabble on both sides. The spiritual drive behind the Reformation that ought to have occurred was a deep re-experience of the Pauline experience.
 
Memo: a great many of my closest friends are your co- religionists, some of them priests. If I am to embark on a disputation—which could not be a short one, I would much sooner do it with them than by correspondence.
 
We can do much more to heal the schism by our prayers than by a controversy. It is a daily subject of mine.
 
Mere acts of individual charity or prayer have more power to heal and reunify than all the theological controversies and theoretical debates in history combined. Such individual acts are the locus of God’s presence in the world for good. When these acts become daily subjects of ours, we are discharging God’s will for us, for our best good and the best good of all those lives we touch. This is how God creates the Eden in which we created to abide forever with him and each other.
 
In prayer and action for communion,
Z gardener

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On Developing Church Participation For Evil Ends

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on December 4, 2013| Leave a Comment »

On Developing Church Participation For Evil Ends
 
Author’s Note: The speaker in this piece is Screwtape, a C.S. Lewis character who is one of the Devil’s minions. He is instructing another demon (Wormwood) on how to trick believers by leading them into unacceptable practices.
 
“Surely you know that if a man can’t be cured of churchgoing, the next best thing is to send him all over the neighborhood looking for the church that ‘suits’ him until he becomes a taster or connoisseur of churches.
 
The reasons are obvious. In the first place the parochial organization should always be attacked, because, being a unity of place and not of likings (preferences), it brings people of different classes and psychology together in the kind of unity the Enemy (Jesus) desires. 
 
The congregational principle, on the other hand, makes each church into a kind of club, and finally, if all goes well, into a coterie or faction. In the second place, the search for a ‘suitable’ church makes the man a critic where the Enemy wants him to be a pupil. What He wants of the layman in church is an attitude which may, indeed, be critical in the sense of rejecting what is false or unhelpful, but which is wholly uncritical in the sense that it does not appraise—does not waste time in thinking about what it rejects, but lays itself open in uncommenting, humble receptivity to any nourishment that is going. (You see how groveling, how unspiritual, how irredeemably vulgar He is!) 
 
This attitude, especially during sermons, creates the condition (most hostile to our whole policy) in which platitudes can become really audible to a human soul. There is hardly any sermon, or any book, which may not be dangerous to us if it is received in this temper.”
 
Is this not the same technique used to justify sectarian violence between religious sects. It seems to work just fine for the Devil in these circumstances that rationalize the terrorism, murder, hate and fear that kills the innocents while it imperils regional and world peace.
 
This attitude is no less dangerous to us in our daily lives and worship. When we choose criticism over humble acceptance and judgement over teach-ability, we fall for the Devils’s tricks. And the price we pay can ruin our lives.
 
Today, let us seek unity, peace and communion with our brothers and sisters as well as our faith. Then we can see the truth through the lies and deceptions of the adversary and its tricks.
 
Being taught,
Z gardener

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On Worship

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on December 3, 2013| Leave a Comment »

On Worship
 
He demands our worship, our obedience, our prostration. Do we suppose that they can do Him any good, or fear, like the chorus in Milton, that human irreverence can bring about “His glory’s diminution”? A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word “darkness” on the walls of his cell. 
 
But God wills our good, and our good is to love Him (with that responsive love proper to creatures) and to love Him we must know Him: and if we know Him, we shall in fact fall on our faces. If we do not, that only shows that what we are trying to love is not yet God—though it may be the nearest approximation to God which our thought and fantasy can attain.
 
Worship is our response to God’s call. How we respond will be based on how well we know God. To know God, we must seek him each day and search for him in every thing we experience. When we truly find and know God, we must submit to God’s will and guidance. 
 
So, it is knowledge put into action that constitutes true worship. And true worship will yield a humility that causes us to fall to our knees and on our faces out of awe, respect and overwhelming love for God. Until that point of humility and awe, we may be on the right path, but have yet to arrive at the full knowledge of the true God of love.
 
In humility,
Z gardener

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On the difference between wordless prayer and the practice of the presence of God.

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on November 27, 2013| Leave a Comment »

 
No, by wordless prayer I didn’t mean the practice of the Presence of God. I meant the same mental act as in verbal prayer only without the words. The Practice of the Presence is a much higher activity. I don’t think it matters much whether an absolutely uninterrupted recollection of God’s presence for a whole lifetime is possible or not. A much more frequent and prolonged recollection than we have yet reached certainly is possible. Isn’t that enough to work on? A child learning to walk doesn’t need to know whether it will ever be able to walk 40 miles in a day: the important thing is that it can walk to-morrow a little further and more steadily than it did to-day.
 
I don’t think we are likely to give too much love and care to those we love. We might put in active care in the form of assistance when it would be better for them to act on their own: i.e., we might be busybodies. Or we might have too much ‘care’ for them in the sense of anxiety. But we never love anyone too much: the trouble is always that we love God, or perhaps some other created being, too little.
 
As to the ‘state of the world’ if we have time to hope and fear about it, we certainly have time to pray. I agree it is very hard to keep one’s eyes on God amid all the daily claims and problems. I think it wise, if possible, to move one’s main prayers from the last-thing-at-night position to some earlier time: give them a better chance to infiltrate one’s other thoughts.
 
It seems clear we could hardly go wrong with any of these efforts to commune with God. That which also seems clear is that we can’t love too much or care too much. We must be watchful however that our efforts are not misdirected by personal motives that are not loving and caring or those that are more about us than the person to whom we are directing our love and concern.
 
So, bothers and sisters, pray freely, often and in every form. And be sure that all our concerns be for the right thing, done the right way and being done for the right reasons. One can not go wrong if they are going right. This writer’s prayer is that God guide each of us to that righteousness and to the garden in which it abides.
 
Abiding in prayer,
Z gardener

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On Life In The New Creation

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on November 25, 2013| Leave a Comment »

 
 
The letter and spirit of scripture, and of all Christianity, forbid us to suppose that life in the New Creation will be a sexual life; and this reduces our imagination to the withering alternative either of bodies which are hardly recognizable as human bodies at all or else of a perpetual fast. 
 
As regards the fast, I think our present outlook might be like that of a small boy who, on being told that the sexual act was the highest bodily pleasure should immediately ask whether you ate chocolates at the same time. On receiving the answer ‘No,’ he might regard absence of chocolates as the chief characteristic of sexuality. 
 
In vain would you tell him that the reason why lovers in their carnal raptures don’t bother about chocolates is that they have something better to think of. The boy knows chocolate: he does not know the positive thing that excludes it. We are in the same position. 
 
We know the sexual life; we do not know, except in glimpses, the other thing which, in Heaven, will leave no room for it. Hence where fullness awaits us we anticipate fasting. In denying that sexual life, as we now under- stand it, makes any part of the final beatitude, it is not of course necessary to suppose that the distinction of sexes will disappear. What is no longer needed for biological purposes may be expected to survive for splendor. 
 
Sexuality is the instrument both of virginity and of conjugal virtue; neither men nor women will be asked to throw away weapons they have used victoriously. It is the beaten and the fugitives who throw away their swords. The conquerors sheathe theirs and retain them. ‘Trans-sexual’ would be a better word than ‘sexless’ for the heavenly life.
 
Well, this is the first discussion of sexuality in heaven that this scribe has read. It is a very interesting concept that goes to the key questions we all have about the afterlife. Those questions usually center around such questions as, “will I be me, will I know my family and friends or will I have a body/” 
 
My simple answer has been that we will be us, yet there will no longer be the illusion of separation from God or each other. We will be us, and we will know and experience total communion with others, God and the universe. In that scenario, we would be ourselves, we would know our family, etc., we would have bodies and our consciousness. 
 
It will be the end of those things that prevent us from total communion and that imprisons us in the world of limited sensory perception and carnal existence. That is something to which we can all look forward with anticipation and joy. So much so that our lives here below can be lived in the Garden that was created for us until we can transcend the merely physical to be one with God and all creation.
 
Gardening for eternity,
Z gardener

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Divine Abundance

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on October 1, 2013| Leave a Comment »

 
 
When you go down to the seashore, you find what is practically an unlimited supply of sea water at your disposal. There are billions upon billions of gallons there, but the amount that you can carry away will depend upon the vessel with which you have provided yourself. If you take a ten-gallon can, you can get ten gallons, but if you take only a pint pot you can take away only a pint, and if you have nothing bigger than a thimble, you would not be able to take away more than a thimbleful.
 
So it is with divine abundance. The only limit is the limit of our capacity to receive.
 
Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing (Psalm 145:16). 
 
How big is your bucket? It is the same size as your faith and confidence in God. Increase the size of the bucket and increase the blessings that can be carried in it.
 
Growing my bucket,
Z gardener
 

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Never Look Back

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on September 30, 2013| 1 Comment »

Never look back. Always go right ahead. Even if you are quaking, go right ahead. Jesus said the man who puts his hand to the plow and then turns back, is not worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven. He also said:Remember Lot’s wife (Luke 17:32).
 
No matter how unattractive or how dangerous the road ahead may be, it is better than the road back. The road ahead may be veiled from sight – but you must teach yourself to regard the unknown as friendly. Remember that God is always on the road ahead.
 
…cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto thee (Psalm 143:8). 
 
Turn neither to the left nor to the right, but be strong and of a good courage. And you will prosper wherever you go.
 
Forward,
Z gardener

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The Kaffir Didn’t Know It

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on August 27, 2013| Leave a Comment »

 
About the middle of the last century, a traveler was journeying along through what was then a remote part of South Africa. One day while smoking his pipe outside the hut in a native village, he noticed a group of little naked children playing what was evidently a native version of the time honored game of marbles. He watched the game idly for a while, and then something about the rough stones caught his attention. They were quite small pebbles, dull, but – here his pulse began to steeplechase. He spoke to the children’s father, with studied carelessness, and the Kaffir said, “Oh yes, the children like these little stones. They have some more in the hut, “and he brought forth a small basket containing several more.
 
Repressing his excitement, the traveler took out a large plug of tobacco, worth perhaps twenty or thirty cents in our money, and said, “I would like to take the stones home for my children. I will give you this tobacco for them. Are you willing?” The Kaffir laughed and said, “I am robbing you but if you insist, all right,” and the bargain was sealed – which not only enriched the stranger but led in time to the great discovery of the South African diamond fields.
 
The fate of the Kaffir is really the fate of most human beings. Man holds a fabulous treasure in his possession – the power of the Spoken Word – and yet, in most cases, he does not know it.
 
The Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure … to bless all the work of thine hand… (Deuteronomy 28:12).
 
The power of the spoken word is among our greatest powers. It springs from our thoughts, is more powerful than bullets and can be just as deadly. Let our thoughts, words and deeds reflect the love of God so that all our power is used for good.
 
Reflecting love,
Stan

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