Tag Archives: loving well

Daily Riches: The Revolution of Tenderness (Pope Francis, Pete Scazzero and Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Posted on by under Ego Issues, Humility, Loving Well, Social Justice

“The great Jewish theologian Martin Buber described the most healthy or mature relationship possible between two human beings as an ‘I-Thou’ relationship. In such a relationship, I recognize that I am made in the image of God, and so is every other person. This makes them a ‘thou’ to me. They have dignity and worth, and are to be treated with respect. I affirm them as being a unique and separate human being apart from me. In most of our human relationships, however, we treat people as objects – as an ‘it’. In an ‘I-It’ relationship, I treat you as a means to an end – as I might a toothbrush or a car …as if [you] were subhuman. …The priest and the Levite [in Jesus’ story in Luke 10] did not make the connection that emotional maturity (loving well) and loving God are inseparable. They missed the ‘thou’ lying on the side of the road and simply passed him by.” Pete Scazzero

“The Gospel tells us constantly to run the risk of a face-to-face encounter with others, with their physical presence which challenges us, with their pain and their pleas, with their joy which infects us in our close and continuous interaction. True faith in the incarnate Son of God is inseparable from self-giving, from membership in the community, from service, from reconciliation with others. The Son of God, by becoming flesh, summoned us to the revolution of tenderness.” Pope Francis

“We as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin …the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” Martin Luther King

“no one can tame the tongue. …Sometimes it praises our Lord and Father,
and sometimes it curses those who have been made in the image of God.
…Surely, my brothers and sisters, this is not right!”
James 3:8-10

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you see loving God and loving others as “inseparable?”
  • Do you sometimes realize that you have degraded someone’s status to that of a mere object?
  • How could a “revolution of tenderness” undercut racism, materialism and militarism?

Abba, help me treat those made in your image with the dignity they deserve.

For More: Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Pete Scazzero

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: The Unfriendliness That’s Killing Your Church (James Emery White)

Posted on by under Awareness, Community & the Church, hospitality, Insiders and Outsiders, Loving Well, The Love of God

“The Technical Assistance Research Program study for the White House Office of Consumer Affairs found that 96 percent of unhappy customers never complain about rude or unfriendly treatment, but 90 percent of those unhappy customers will not return to the place where that unfriendliness was manifest. Further, each one of those unhappy customers will tell nine other people about the lack of friendliness and courteousness, and 13 percent will tell more than twenty other people.  …Now, we all know that every church thinks it’s friendly. I’ve never met a church yet where the people said, “Yeah, we’re mean and proud of it!” No! Every church thinks it’s friendly. But what that means is …they are friendly to each other …to people they know …to people they like …to people who are like them. That’s not friendliness; that’s a clique or, at best, a club. To prove the point, another recent LifeWay Research survey found that while three out of every four churchgoers say they have significant relationships with people at their church, they admit they don’t make an effort with new people. In fact, only one in every six even try. That’s not very friendly. …If you are going to reach the nones [the religiously unaffiliated], they are going to come to you as a none. That means they will come as couples living together, as gay couples, pregnant outside of marriage, addicted, skeptical. Is that going to raise an eyebrow? Or is it taken in stride in a way that makes the person feel instantly at ease? At Meck [the author’s church], it’s just another day of normal.”

“I was a stranger,
and you invited Me in.”
Jesus in Matthew 25:35

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Stand back and watch people interacting before and after the worship service. Are people being ignored by others? …gathering in familiar cliques? …”stranded” – standing alone in silence, during the time of greeting?
  • Do you make a point of regularly speaking to people you haven’t met?
  • When you attend church are you looking for opportunities to show the love of Jesus to others – or just for your friends?
  • Have you been included – or even worse, in the “inner circle” – too long to remember what it’s like to “break into” a new church?

Abba, use me, and all your people, to embrace others with your love.

For More: The Rise of the Nones by James Emery White

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: The Duty and Dance of Listening (M. Scott Peck, Paul Tillich, Henry David Thoreau, Robert C. Murphy)

Posted on by under Loving Listening, Loving Well, The Sacrament of the Present Moment
“The first duty of love is to listen.” Paul Tillich

“An essential part of true listening is the discipline of bracketing, the temporary giving up or setting aside of one’s own prejudices, frames of reference and desires so as to experience as far as possible the speaker’s world from the inside, step in inside his or her shoes. This unification of speaker and listener is actually and extension and enlargement of ourselves, and new knowledge is always gained from this. Moreover, since true listening involves bracketing, a setting aside of the self, it also temporarily involves a total acceptance of the other. Sensing this acceptance, the speaker will feel less and less vulnerable and more and more inclined to open up the inner recesses of his or her mind to the listener. As this happens, speaker and listener begin to appreciate each other more and more, and the duet dance of love is begun again. … true listening no matter how brief, requires tremendous effort. First of all it requires total concentration. You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time.  …If you are not willing to put aside everything, including your own worries and preoccupation’s for such a time, then you are not willing to truly listen.”  M. Scott Peck

“To be listened to is, generally speaking, a nearly unique experience for most people. It is enormously stimulating. It is small wonder that people who have been demanding all their lives to be heard so often fall speechless when confronted with one who gravely agrees to lend an ear.” Robert C. Murphy

“The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.” Henry David Thoreau

“To answer before listening —
 that is folly and shame.”
 Proverbs 18:13

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Are you striving to be that person who truly listens?
  • Do you normally “answer before listening” or “listen before answering?” What does your answer say about you?
  • To find one who listens is “nearly a unique experience for most people.” Can you love and bless others with your listening?

Abba, my impatience, agenda and self-importance all cause me to fail at my duty to love by listening. Please help me to be that person others await and so desperately need.

For More: The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: Take the Trouble to See … And Then Love (Anthony de Mello, Pete Scazzero)

Posted on by under Awareness, Change Yourself First, Jesus the Savior, Loving Listening, Loving Well, The Love of God, truth and illusion

“Love springs from awareness. It is only inasmuch as you see persons as they really are here and now and not as they are in your memory or your desire or in your imagination or projection that you can truly love them; otherwise it is not the people that you love but the idea that you have formed of them. Therefore, the first act of love is to see this person…. And this involves the enormous discipline of dropping your desires, your prejudices, your memories, your projections, your selective way of looking…. When you set out to serve someone whom you have not taken the trouble to see, are you meeting that person’s need or your own? So the first ingredient of love is to really see the other. The second ingredient is equally important: to see yourself, to ruthlessly flash the light of awareness on your motives, your emotions, your needs, your dishonesty, your self-seeking, your tendency to control and manipulate. This means calling things by their names, no matter how painful the discovery and the consequences. If you achieve this kind of awareness of the other and yourself, you will know what love is.” Anthony de Mello

One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to have dinner with him, so Jesus went to his home and sat down to eat. When a certain immoral woman from that city heard he was eating there, she brought a beautiful alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume. Then she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping. Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him. She’s a sinner!’” Luke 7:35-39

Moving From Head to Heart

“Simon the Pharisee did not really see the sinful woman as a human being loved by God. He saw a sinner, an interruption, a person without a right to be at the dinner table. Jesus saw her differently.” Pete Scazzero

  • Think about it, how would you have seen her?
  • What can you do to gain more “awareness of the other and yourself?”

Abba, open my eyes to reality as you know it.

More: Begin the Journey with the Daily Office by Pete Scazzero

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: Moving Upstream for Social Change (Oscar Romero, Saul Alinsky, and Janey Skinner)

Posted on by under awe and wonder, Being and Doing, Contemplation and Activism, Loving Well, Social Justice

“Imagine a large river with a high waterfall. At the bottom of this waterfall hundreds of people are working frantically trying to save those who have fallen into the river and have fallen down the waterfall, many of them drowning. As the people along the shore are trying to rescue as many as possible one individual looks up and sees a seemingly never-ending stream of people falling down the waterfall and begins to run upstream. One of other rescuers hollers, ‘Where are you going? There are so many people that need help here.’ To which the man replied, ‘I’m going upstream to find out why so many people are falling into the river.’ Saul Alinsky

“[Other] rescuers notice that while there are too many babies coming floating down the river to save them all, the chubby ones float pretty well, so they focus on pulling out the skinny ones. One of the rescuers jumps in and starts teaching the babies in the river how to swim.” Janey Skinner

“… if we really want an effective end to violence we must remove the violence that lies at the root of all violence: structural violence, social injustice, exclusion of citizens from the management of the country, repression. All this is what constitutes the primal cause, from which the rest flows naturally.” Oscar Romero

“Take away from Me the noise of your songs;
I will not even listen to the sound of your harps.
But let justice roll down like waters
And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
Amos 5:23,24

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Are you good at worship (“songs and harps”) and weak on seeing to “justice?” How about your church?
  • Have you ventured into the river to try to help it’s victims?
  • Have you ventured upstream to try to try to discover the cause of the crisis?
  • Is all your time and energy invested in “pulling out the skinny ones” and “teaching babies how to swim?”

Abba, make my religion one of doing not only of thinking and believing. Make my attempts to help others wise ones, not only sincere and determined ones.

For More: Welcoming Justice by Charles Marsh and John Perkins

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow and share my blog. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: God’s Gift and Our Need of Diversity In the Church (Debbie Thomas)

Posted on by under awe and wonder, Community & the Church, Insiders and Outsiders, Loving Well

“In the New Testament Pentecost story Luke tells, the Holy Spirit descended on 120 believers in Jerusalem on the fiftieth day after Jesus’ resurrection. The Spirit empowered them to testify to God’s great deeds, emboldened the apostle Peter to preach to a bewildered crowd of Jewish skeptics, and drew three thousand converts in one day. For Christians, Pentecost marks the birthday story of the Church. And what a fantastical birthday story it is, full of details to challenge the imagination. Tongues of fire. Rushing winds. Accusations of drunkenness. Mass baptism. One could spend years unpacking these details. But here’s the one I find most riveting: ‘All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.’  ‘At this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.’ Christians often speak of Pentecost as the reversal of Babel, the Old Testament story in which God divided and scattered human communities by multiplying our languages. But in fact, Pentecost didn’t reverse Babel; it perfected and blessed it. When the Holy Spirit came, he didn’t restore humanity to a common language; he declared all languages holy and equally worthy of God’s stories …he wove multilingualism into the very fabric of the Church. …Languages carry the full weight of their respective cultures, histories, psychologies, and spiritualities. To speak one language as opposed to another is to orient oneself differently in the world – to see differently, hear differently, process and punctuate reality differently. …If this is true, then what does it mean that the Holy Spirit empowered the first Christians to speak in an unmatched diversity of languages? Was God saying, in effect, that his Church, from its very inception, needed to honor the boundless variety and creativity of human voices?  That he was calling it to proclaim the great deeds of God in every tongue – not merely because multiculturalism is progressive and fashionable, or because the church is a ‘politically correct’ institution – but because God’s deeds themselves demand such diverse tellings? Could it be that there is no single language on earth that can capture the deeds of God? Here’s another detail I love about Pentecost: when the disciples and their friends began to speak in foreign languages, the crowds gathered outside their meeting place understood them. And this – the fact of their comprehension – was what confused them. They were not confused by the message itself; the message came through with perfect clarity in their respective languages. What the crowds found baffling was that God would condescend to speak to them in their own mother-tongues. That he would welcome them so intimately, with words and expressions hearkening back to their birthplaces, their childhoods, their beloved cities, countries, and cultures of origin. As if to say, ‘This Spirit-drenched place, this fledgling church, this new Body of Christ, is yours. You don’t have to feel like outsiders here; we speak your language, too. Come in. Come in and feel at home.’ …I wonder what it would be like if the Church allowed the Holy Spirit to transform it into a place of deep and implicit belonging – not for the few, but for everyone. I wonder how our ministries would need to change so that the crowds listening outside our doors would hear ‘Welcome!’ in languages they comprehend.” Debbie Thomas

“with your blood you purchased for God
persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.”
Revelation 5:9

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Is there sufficient diversity in your church?
  • Do you make a point to reach out to “different” people with God’s love?
  • How can you be part of God’s “welcome” to outsiders?

Abba, use our many voices in the telling of your deeds.

For More: “Against Christianese” by Debbie Thomas

In today’s post I broke my own rule of “400 words” or less. This was just to important and beautiful not to share. Thanks for reading. – Bill

Daily Riches: God’s Work in Your Loved Ones (Dallas Willard and Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

Posted on by under Change Yourself First, Detachment and Attachment, Embracing Losses and Limits, Jesus the Savior, Learning Your Proper Place, Loving Well, Prayer, Waiting on God

“What is the wisdom of the snake? It is to be watchful and observant until the time is right to act. It is timeliness. One rarely sees a snake chasing its prey or thrashing about in an effort to impress it. But when it acts, it acts quickly and decisively. And as for the dove, it does not contrive. It is incapable of intrigue. Guile is totally beyond it. There is nothing indirect about this gentle creature. It is in this sense ‘harmless.’  … These are qualities we must have to walk in the kingdom with others, instead of trying to drive them to change their ways and attitudes and even who they are. …As long as I am condemning my friends or relatives, or pushing my ‘pearls’ on them, I am their problem. They have to respond to me, and that usually leads to their ‘judging’ me right back…. But once I back away, maintaining a sensitive and nonmanipulative presence, I am no longer their problem. As I listen, they do not have to protect themselves from me, and they begin to open up. I may quickly begin to appear to them as a possible ally and resource. Now they begin to sense their problem to be the situation they have created, or possibly themselves. Because I am no longer trying to drive them, genuine communication, real sharing of hearts, becomes an attractive possibility. The healing dynamic of the request comes naturally into play. …It is a natural extension of this dynamic when we turn to ask God to work in their lives and hearts to bring about changes. These changes will certainly involve more than any conscious choice they could make or we could desire.” Dallas Willard

“Christ stands between me and others [and] … as only Christ can speak to me in such a way that I may be saved, so others, too, can be saved only by Christ himself. This means that I must release the other person from every attempt of mine to regulate, coerce, and dominate him with my love…. Thus this spiritual love will speak to Christ about a brother more than to a brother about Christ. It knows that the most direct way to others is always through prayer to Christ….” Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“be as shrewd as snakes
and as harmless as doves.”
Matthew 10:16

 Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Is your love for others characterized by nagging and coercion?
  • Do you really know what is best for them? …what God has for them?
  • Is “fixing” others a distraction from “fixing” yourself?

Abba, in my love, help me honor others, and your work in them.

For More: Presence and Recovery by Anneke Campbell

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I hope you’ll follow “Daily Riches.” Thanks!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: A World of People Equidistance From the Heart of God (Daniel Clendenin)

Posted on by under Loving Well, Nationalism and Patriotism, Social Justice, The Poor and Disenfranchised

Besides the Holocaust, our world has experienced many other genocides – “a million or more Armenians under the Turks … two million Cambodians under the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot; Kurds under Saddam Hussein; Muslims, Croats, and ethnic Albanians under the Serbs; thirty million Chinese under Mao; tens of millions under Soviet atheism; nearly a million ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus by extremist Hutus in Rwanda; and in Darfur the Fur, Zaghawa, and Massaleit peoples by Sudan’s government. The deadliest war of our generation has also been the most under-reported conflict – the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Since the start of conflicts there in 1996, five million people have perished out of a population of fifty million – a staggering 10% of the population. Over half of those deaths occurred since the war ended in July 2003. …In his book Worse Than War; Genocide, Eliminationism, and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity (2009), Daniel Goldhagen describes how 127–175 million people have been ‘eliminated’ in the last century. These people came from all regions of the world, and from all social, economic and political groups. The vast majority of them were killed in their own countries, by their fellow citizens, by willing and non-coerced murderers, and almost never with any substantial dissent. By Goldhagen’s count, ‘mass murder has deeply scarred countries home to 4.4 billion people, two-thirds of the world’s population.’ Civilian deaths and injuries outnumber military ones by a factor of nine to one. …[In Acts 3] Peter says that God is the ‘author’ of all life. He concludes his sermon by proclaiming that in Jesus ‘all peoples on earth will be blessed’ by God. This echoes the global promise first made to Abraham four thousand years ago in Genesis 12:3. This story of Jesus, says Peter, anticipates the ‘restoration of all things.’ We can say with unqualified confidence that God knows and loves every name of every person in every nation. Christians are thus geographic, cultural, national and ethnic egalitarians; for us there’s no geo-political center of the world, only a constellation of peoples equidistant from the heart of God. Proclaiming that God lavishly loves all the world, each person, and every place, the gospel doesn’t privilege any nation as exceptional. No one should think they are forgotten, and no one can claim special favor. …from a specifically Christian point of view, America is no more ‘exceptional’ in God’s eyes than any other country. While allowing for a natural and wholesome love, even pride, in your own country (‘there’s no place like home’), this geo-political egalitarianism subverts the claim of absolute allegiance to any one nation. The claims of the gospel are absolute and unconditional; the claims of the nation and state are relative and conditional. This Christian global vision requires me to care as much about every country and its people as I do my own. Christians grieve the deaths of Iraqis and Congolese as much as Americans. That implies that our politics become reoriented, non-aligned, and unpredictable by normal canons.” Daniel Clendenin

“[God] said to Abraham,
‘Through your offspring
all peoples on earth
will be blessed.'”
Acts 3:25

Moving From the Head to the Heart
  • Do you think of your nation as being especially “favored” by God? If so, what would that imply? What wouldn’t that imply?
  • Has nationalism prevented you from seeing all other people as “equidistant from the heart of God?”
  • Has you faith caused your politics be “reoriented, non-aligned, and unpredictable by normal canons?”

Abba, lead us out of illusion and into reality.

For More: Worse Than War by Daniel Goldhagen

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Thanks for following and sharing “Daily Riches.” – Bill (Psalm 90:14

Daily Riches: The Complicated Work of Compassion (Pema Chödrön)

Posted on by under Awareness, Change Yourself First, Loving Well, Patience with Yourself

“Compassionate action involves working with ourselves as much as working with others. …To relate with others compassionately is a challenge. Really communicating to the heart and being there for someone else … means not shutting down on that person, which means, first of all, not shutting down on ourselves … allowing ourselves to feel what we feel and not pushing it away …accepting every aspect of ourselves, even the parts we don’t like. To do this requires openness…. Only in an open, nonjudgmental space can we acknowledge what we are feeling. Only in an open space where we’re not all caught up in our own version of reality can we see and hear and feel who others really are, which allows us to be with them and communicate with them properly. Recently I was talking with an old man who has been living on the streets for the last four years. Nobody ever looks at him. No one ever talks to him. Maybe somebody gives him a little money, but nobody ever looks in his face and asks him how he’s doing. The feeling that he doesn’t exist for other people, the sense of loneliness and isolation, is intense. He reminded me that the essence of compassionate speech or compassionate action is to be there for people, without pulling back in horror or fear or anger. …if we are people who want to help others … something we soon notice is that the person we set out to help may trigger unresolved issues in us. …We find ourselves hating those people or scared of them or feeling like we just can’t handle them. …Sooner or later, all our own unresolved issues will come up; we’ll be confronted with ourselves. …But that, in a nutshell, is how it works. If we find ourselves unworkable and give up on ourselves, then we’ll find others unworkable and give up on them. What we hate in ourselves, we’ll hate in others. To the degree that we have compassion for ourselves, we will also have compassion for others. Having compassion starts and ends with having compassion for all those unwanted parts of ourselves, all those imperfections that we don’t even want to look at.”

“Praise Yahweh, my soul …
who redeems your life from the pit    
and crowns you with love and compassion….”
Psalm 103:2-4

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you respond with “horror, fear or anger” to a homeless person?
  • Can you admit those feelings and ask God to make for you a “non-judgmental space?”
  • Do you sometimes fail to “see, hear and feel who others really are?”

Abba, help me with compassion.

For More: When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God. – Bill

Daily Riches: You Ain’t Nothin’ Without Love (Larry Norman, Katherine Ann Porter)

Posted on by under Loving Well, Success, True Greatness

“You can be a Righteous Rocker or a Holy Roller
You can be most anything.
You can be a Child of the Son or a Skid Row Bum or
You can be an Earthly King.
But without love, you ain’t nothing, without love.

“You can be a Leon Russell
Or a super muscle
You can be a corporate king.
You can be a wealthy man from Texas
Or a witch with heavy hexes,
But without love, you ain’t nothing, without love.

“You  can be a brilliant surgeon
Or a sweet young virgin
Or a harlot out to sell.
You could learn to play the blues
Or be Howard Hughes
Or the Scarlet Pimpernel.
Or you could be a French provincial midwife
Or go from door to door with a death-knife,
But without love you ain’t nothing, without love. [selah]

“You can be a woman feeler
Or a baby stealer,
You can drink your life away.
You  can be a holy prophet
Get a blessing off it,
You can fast for fifty days.
You can shake hands with the devil
Or give your life to God on the level,
But without love you ain’t nothing, without love.
Without love you ain’t nothing, without love.”

Larry Norman, “Righteous Rocker” (#1 & 3)

“Love must be learned and learned again and again; there is no end to it. Hate needs no instruction, but waits only to be provoked.”  Katherine Anne Porter

“A new command I give you: Love one another.
As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
Jesus in John 13:34

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Isn’t it amazing, the bad things we settle for (like in the song), preferring them to giving and receiving love?
  • Isn’t it amazing, the good things we rely upon, thinking they will compensate for our not investing ourselves in love?
  • Love might seem like the easiest thing – but no, that’s hate. In reality love is hard. It must “be learned and learned again and again: there is no end to it.” (to the learning) What are you doing to improve at loving?

Abba, love my enemies? I don’t even love my friends as I should. I don’t even love my family as I should. Father, as your love seeks me, as you draw near, as I draw near to you, may I learn again and again to love.

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: Practicing the Presence … Vertical and Horizontal (J. I. Packer, Pete Scazzero, Jean Vanier)

Posted on by under Contemplation and Activism, Contemplative Prayer, Emotions and Spirituality, Loving Well

“We only honor God as we honor his image in the other person by practical love to that person, whoever he or she may be: rich or poor, strong or weak, red or yellow, black or white, conventional or wild, respectable or rough, significant or unimportant in the community. To put it the other way round, honoring and loving God means refusing one’s natural inclination to withhold love and honor from people whom one finds awkward, repellent, and inconvenient.” J. I. Packer

“As emotionally mature Christian adults, we recognize that loving well is the essence of true spirituality. This requires that we experience connection with God, with ourselves, and with other people. God invites us to practice his presence in our daily lives. At the same time, he invites us to ‘practice the presence of people,’ within an awareness of his presence, in our daily relationships. Sadly, the two are rarely brought together. Jesus’ profound, contemplative prayer life with his Father resulted in a contemplative presence with people. Love is ‘to reveal the beauty of another person to themselves,’ wrote Jean Vanier. Jesus did that with each person he met. We see this in his interaction with the woman suffering from a twelve-year bleeding problem (Mark 5). This ability to really listen and pay attention to people was at the very heart of Jesus’ mission, and it could not help but move him to compassion. In the same way, out of our contemplative time with God, we too are invited to be prayerfully present to people, revealing their beauty to them.” Pete Scazzero

“… the one who does not love his brother
whom he has seen,
cannot love God
whom he has not seen.”
1 John 4:20

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Do you find that you are naturally included “to withhold love and honor from people whom you find awkward, repellent, and inconvenient?” Yeah, me too.
  • Loving well requires being “present” to God and people, yet “sadly, the two are rarely brought together.” Do you work at both?
  • Do you see loving well in this way as the “essence of true spirituality?” Have you perhaps put something else first?

Abba, most of all, let me love.

For More: Christianity the True Humanism by J. I. Packer

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

 

 

Daily Riches: How the Poor Bless Us (Bob McCahill, Thomas Merton, Eduardo Galeano)

Posted on by under Learning Your Proper Place, Loving Well, The Poor and Disenfranchised, The Upside-Down Kingdom

“The mask that each man wears may well be a disguise not only for that man’s inner self but for God, wandering as a pilgrim and exile in His own creation.” Merton

“It seems to me that the poor evangelize us by giving us various types of good example. They instruct us in patience by their patience under adversity. They edify us by their uncomplaining struggles. They inspire us by undergoing suffering without becoming bitter. They encourage us to face our own problems more bravely by grappling with the pain in their lives. They teach us about the simplicity with which one can live a human life. They offer us a good model for prayer life by their dependence on God: that is, in times of great need they look to God before all else. They do not appeal to God secondly or lastly after other possibilities have failed them. When we witness their efforts to survive with dignity amidst the hardships they constantly encounter, they help us to put into perspective our own overblown problems. Through the struggling poor we begin to understand how good God is to us and how stingy we are with our thanksgiving to God. If we think about them deeply enough, they put us to shame, for, though they are oppressed, they can still laugh and sing.” Bob McCahill

“I don’t believe in charity; I believe in solidarity. Charity is vertical, so it’s humiliating. It goes from top to bottom. Solidarity is horizontal. It respects the other and learns from the other. I have a lot to learn from other people.”  Eduardo Galeano

“You say, ‘I am rich;
I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’
But you do not realize
that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.”
Revelation 3:17

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Have poor people helped you to realize how poor you are? how good God is to you? how “stingy” you are with your thanksgiving to God? What else?
  • Do you think of ministry to the poor in terms of “solidarity?” What would that mean?
  • Jesus wandered as a poor man, in disguise among his own creation. Does remembering that help you to love those who are poor?

Abba, use your poor to show me the way, to bless me as I attempt to bless them.

For More: A Dialogue of Life by Bob McCahill

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: Start Somewhere (Toby Mac, Katherine Anne Porter and Heidi Baker)

Posted on by under Forgiveness, Loving Well, The Love of God

“Last night, everything was movin’ so fast

I could barely keep track
of my offenses or your defenses.
In hindsight, I woulda, coulda, shoulda not gone there
But left without a word to spare.
Was it your offenses or my defensiveness?

That’s got me thinkin’ that we’re never gonna get it right.
I wanna straighten this before the sun goes down tonight.
If I could only fight the bitterness I feel inside.
This thing is eatin’ me alive.

Well I’m right here
And you’re right there
And God knows we’ve got to start somewhere.
‘Cause I’m messed up
And you’re broken
And those shots we fired are still smokin’.

I’m tossin’ and turnin’ on the things I’d undo.
As I wrestle with the painful truth
my sleep escapes me as guilt berates me.
Exhausted, the memories are drawing so near
I can see it like a world premiere.
When did my objective lose all objectiveness?

I said some things that I regret
And if I could, I’d take ’em back.
If I could turn my words around
You wouldn’t hear a sound.

But here I am, and there you are,
The space between us is not so far.
I’m reaching out my hand in love,
Before the fading sun,
forgive me for what I’ve done.
“Start Somewhere”,  Toby Mac

“Love must be learned and learned again and again.
Hate needs no instruction, but waits only to be provoked.”
Katherine Anne Porter

“Ministry is simply about loving the person in front of you.
It’s about stopping for the one
and being the very fragrance of Jesus to a lost and dying world.”
Heidi Baker

.
“… love covers over a multitude of sins.”
1 Peter 4:8

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you find love something that must be “learned and learned again and again” – either in marriage and/or in your relationship with God? If so, why?
  • Do you have a sense of being “messed up and broken?” Of relational regret? Of needing forgiveness?
  • There’s no telling about your spouse, but God is definitely waiting for you to drop your defensiveness, to “start somewhere”, to “reach out your hand in love.” Can you do that now?

Abba, in your love, cover my many sins, and may I be quick to love others in that same way.

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For More: The Necessary Enemy by Katherine Anne Porter

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: Love Begins With Not Judging Others (Henri Nouwen, Ram Dass, Thomas Merton and Jean Vanier) *

Posted on by under Change Yourself First, Humility, Loving Well

“When you go out into the woods and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight ….And you look at the tree and you allow it. …You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree. The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying ‘You’re too this, or I’m too this.’ That judging mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.” Ram Dass20131018_164446

“We spend an enormous amount of energy making up our minds about other people. Not a day goes by without somebody doing or saying something that evokes in us the need to form an opinion about him or her. We hear a lot, see a lot, and know a lot. The feeling that we have to sort it all out in our minds and make judgments about it can be quite oppressive. The desert fathers said that judging others is a heavy burden, while being judged by others is a light one. Once we can let go of our need to judge others, we will experience an immense inner freedom. Once we are free from judging, we will be also free for mercy.” Henri Nouwen

“The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image.” Thomas Merton

“To love someone is … to reveal to them their beauty and value, to say, ‘You’re beautiful. You’re important.'” Jean Vanier

“Or how can you say to your brother, Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’
when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye?” – Jesus

Moving From Head to Heart

  • God’s job is to judge, and ours is to love. Can you leave the judging to God? could that free you to love? free you “for mercy?”
  • Can you start by letting others be “perfectly themselves?” If not, why not?
  • How effective are you at revealing to others that they’re “beautiful … important?”

Abba, help me love well by appreciating instead of evaluating.

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

 

Daily Riches: Vulnerability and Love (Jean Vanier, Pamela Cushing and Ernest Becker) *

Posted on by under Embracing Losses and Limits, Humility, Loving Well, The Poor and Disenfranchised

“The gem of inspiration at the heart of L’Arche [a model community for people with developmental disabilities] is that mutual relationships with those who are vulnerable open us up to the discovery of our common humanity. In this way, [Jean Vanier] names human imperfection as a gift, and an opportunity. Imperfection and weakness can draw people closer together, for instance in solidarity around someone who has been hurt and needs help.

Vulnerability can move others to give more of themselves, or to open up and reveal their own shortcomings. Strength and mastery can be impressive, yet they tend to divide people in competition and the regular disappointment of not measuring up. “I am struck by how sharing our weakness and difficulties is more nourishing to others than sharing our qualities and successes. …The weak teach the strong to accept and integrate the weakness and brokenness of their own lives.” Pamela Cushing quoting Jean Vanier

“Sharing life with marginalized people galvanized Vanier’s understanding that to serve others well requires us to move beyond charity and tolerance. He recognized the hubris that grows when a helper imagines himself as somehow superior or separate from those he serves. He learned how much better help feels to the person in need when animated by a sense of solidarity and common humanity than help driven merely by a sense of duty.” Cushing

 “In everything I did, I showed you
that by this kind of hard work
we must help the weak,
 remembering the words
the Lord Jesus himself said:
 ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ”
the Apostle Paul in Acts 20:35

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Imagine, “human weakness and imperfection” as a gift – an opportunity. Can you welcome your own weaknesses and imperfections as gifts or opportunities?
  • Can you see how loving solidarity with, and care for, the poor can help you avoid the pitfall of hubris? to remind you that you are just a “homo sapien, standard vintage?” (Ernest Becker)
  • Out of your shared weakness, you can “nourish” others. Will you do that?

Abba, help me move beyond charity and tolerance in my love for Others who seem more needy than me.

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For More:  Community and Growth by Jean Vanier

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)