Tag Archives: the other

Daily Riches: Expanding Your Bandwidth of Kindness (Richard Beck, Misoslav Volf)

Posted on by under hospitality, Insiders and Outsiders, Loving Well, neighbors & neighborhoods, Spiritual Disciplines, the ordinary


“The strangeness of strangers makes hospitality hard. As we’ve watched cable news and our social-media feeds, we’ve all witnessed our failures in extending hospitality to strangers, our unwillingness to welcome people into our nation, neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, churches, homes, and hearts. The refugee family stopped at our borders. The homeless person sleeping on our streets. . . . And far too often, Christians have been the worst offenders, the very first to greet strangers with Keep Out signs. . . . Like the goats in Matthew 25, we refuse to welcome Jesus in disguise. . . . But hearts aren’t easily changed. You can’t change hearts with pep talks, protests, podcasts, Facebook rants, tweets, or a really good sermon. Hearts require spiritual formation through habits and practices that directly address the social and psychological dynamics at work . . . . Hospitality  demands  more  than  good  will and  good  intentions.  Emotions,  including  social emotions, are not easily changed. You can’t fix depression by telling someone, “Cheer up!” You can’t get someone to become less angry just by admonishing, “Calm down” or less anxious by saying, “Don’t worry, be happy!” . . . If you find some people irritating, annoying, or revolting, a demand that you should feel differently isn’t practical. . . . There are two big missing pieces in our efforts to welcome the stranger God. The first missing piece is that hospitality, before it can be anything else, begins as the emotional battle to widen the circle of our affections. Theologian Miroslav Volf calls this “the will to embrace.” [And a] second missing piece: that hospitality begins as a spiritual discipline, as a habit-forming practice aimed at expanding the bandwidth of our kindness and compassion. . . . When we think of ‘spiritual disciplines,’ we think of practices like prayer, silence, solitude, Bible reading, Sabbath, and fasting. . . . Through spiritual disciplines, we seek a deeper intimacy with God, . . . an encounter with the sacred and divine. While these spiritual disciplines move us toward God, they routinely fail to move us toward each other. This is the genius of the Little Way, lost spiritual discipline [of Thérèse of Lisieux,] a habit-forming practice that moves us  toward  each  other  so  that  our  affections for each other expand and widen. The Little Way is a spiritual  discipline  of  hospitality  and  welcome. . . . a habit-forming discipline that enables us to en-counter the God who comes to us in disguise . . . in coworkers, neighbors, refugees, the homeless, and the people in the line with us at the grocery store.” Richard Beck


Moving From Head to Heart


*How often are you frightened, annoyed, or repulsed by strange people?
*Have others sometimes judged you for seeming strange?
*What new habit could you begin to practice that could begin to break down your aversion to those who seem strange? . . . to train you in kindness and compassion?


Abba, expand my bandwidth for kindness when it’s hard.


For More: Stranger God: Meeting Jesus in Disguise by Richard Beck

________________

Thanks for reading my blog! Please extend my reach by reposting on your social media platforms. If you like these topics and this approach, you’ll like my book Wisdom From the Margins.

Daily Riches: Naming–The Root of Empathy and Intimacy (Maria Popova, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and Bob Dylan)

Posted on by under Insiders and Outsiders, Loving Well, the image of God and human dignity

“Words are simply the signs of things. But many people treat things as though they were the signs and illustrations of words.” Aldous Huxley

.

“To name a thing is to acknowledge its existence as separate from everything else that has a name; to confer upon it the dignity of autonomy while at the same time affirming its belonging with the rest of the namable world; to transform its strangeness into familiarity, which is the root of empathy. To name is to pay attention; to name is to love. Parents name their babies as a first nonbiological marker of individuality amid the human lot; lovers give each other private nicknames that sanctify their intimacy; it is only when we began naming domesticated animals that they stopped being animals and became pets. . . . And yet names are words, and words have a way of obscuring or warping the true meanings of their objects. ‘Words belong to each other,’ Virginia Woolf observed . . . and so they are more accountable to other words than to the often unnamable essences of the things they signify. . . . Naming is an act of redemption and a special form of paying attention, which [Robin Wall] Kimmerer captures beautifully:

Having words for these forms [of various mosses] makes the differences between them so much more obvious. With words at your disposal, you can see more clearly. Finding the words is another step in learning to see. . . . Having words also creates an intimacy with the plant that speaks of careful observation. . . . In indigenous ways of knowing, all beings are recognized as non-human persons, and all have their own names. It is a sign of respect to call a being by its name, and a sign of disrespect to ignore it. Words and names are the ways we humans build relationships . . . . Intimate connection allows recognition in an all-too-often anonymous world. . . . Intimacy gives us a different way of seeing.'” Maria Popova

“Whatever the man called each living creature,
that was its name.”
Genesis 2:19b NIV

“He saw an animal that liked to snort.
Horns on his head and they weren’t too short.
It looked like there wasn’t nothin’ that he couldn’t pull.
‘Ah, think I’ll call it a bull.”
Bob Dylan, “Man Gave Names To All the Animals”

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Have you realized the predictable difference between “what something is” and “what it is to you”?
  • Can you see how much power exists in naming? . . . both for great good and for great harm?
  • Can you see how finding the right words can help you “see more clearly?” . . . love more readily?

Abba, break my addition to assumptions and labels for the sake of love.

For More: “Autism From the Inside” by Katherine May

Daily Riches: Jesus’ Shocking Welcome (Christopher L. Heuertz and Christine D. Pohl)

Posted on by under Being the Beloved, God's Grace, hospitality, Insiders and Outsiders, Jesus the Savior, Loving Well, the image of God and human dignity, The Poor and Disenfranchised

“Evangelism, and even the notion of mission itself, has sometimes been reduced to the words we share with another person, telling him or her about Jesus, salvation, or eternal life. Words are important, but they can also be cheap. If we use words and get words in response, sometimes we think we’ve done mission or evangelism. Ministry among poor and vulnerable people reminds us that words are rarely enough—what each of us needs is to know that we are loved by Jesus, beloved of God. Everything else flows from that. In situations of injustice or despair, words alone are particularly insufficient. People need to be loved and valued by others. They need to see what love looks like.When Jesus is called a friend of tax collectors and sinners, the description is not intended as a compliment (Matthew 11:19; Luke 7:34). But it does acknowledge the shocking welcome he embodied in reaching out to those considered unclean and unworthy. He seems to have enjoyed being with them. Causing considerable offense to the religious authorities, Jesus gladly shared meals with these friends and brought them love, hope, and healing. . . . Learning to see the so-called other as a friend increases our sensitivity to the reductionism, commodification, and manipulation that plague some versions of mission and ministry. Human beings who are not Christians are far more than potential converts. In our concern for reaching out with the gospel, we can unwittingly reduce the person to less than the whole being that God formed. . . . We are better able to resist tendencies to reductionism when we are in relationships that affirm each person’s dignity and identity and when we come into those relationships confident that God is already at work in the other person.” Christopher Heuertz and Christine Pohl

“If you give special attention and a good seat to the rich person, but you say to the poor one, ‘You can stand over there, or else sit on the floor’—well, doesn’t this discrimination show that your judgments are guided by evil motives?” James 2:3,4 NLT

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you know that you are “beloved by God?” Is this your starting point for ministry to others?
  • Jesus “seemed to enjoy being with them” (the “unclean and unworthy”). Do you think of Jesus that way?
  • Are some people so “other” to you that there is no chance of you ever knowing or loving them? How can you become more like Jesus?

Abba, let me love in deeds–and without discrimination.

For More: Friendship At the Margins by Christopher Heuertz and Christine Pohl

_________________________________________________

These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and God seeks you. Thanks for your interest! – Bill

Heuertz, Christopher L. and Pohl, Christine D., Friendship at the Margins: Discovering Mutuality in Service and Mission. Downers Grove: IVP, 2010.

 

 

Daily Riches: The Most Revolutionary Man on Earth (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

Posted on by under Awareness, Change Yourself First, Insiders and Outsiders, Loving Well, The Love of God, truth and illusion, Wholeness and Brokenness

“To become free does not mean becoming great in the world, not becoming free from your brother, nor even free from God, but to become free from oneself, one’s lie. It means to become free from thinking only of myself, from being the center of my world, from hate, by which I despise God’s creation. It means to be free to be for the other: the person for others. Only God’s truth can enable me to see the other as he really is. It tears out the twisted image that I have of the other within me and shows him to me in a new light. And insofar as God’s truth does that, it bestows upon me the action, the love, the grace of God. It destroys our lies and creates the truth. It destroys hatred and creates love. God’s truth is God’s love and God’s love makes us free from ourselves for others. To be free means nothing less than to be in love. And to be in love means nothing less than being in the truth of God. The man who loves because he has been made free by God is the most revolutionary man on earth. He challenges all values. He is the explosive material of human society. He is a dangerous man. For he recognizes that the human race is in the depths of falsehood. And he is always ready to let the light of truth fall upon his darkness; and he will do this because of his love. But this disturbance, which such people bring, calls forth hatred from the world. And therefore this knight of truth and love is not the hero that men long for or honor, not one who is without enemies; but one whom they would do away with, outlaw, indeed kill.  The way of God’s truth leads to the cross. From now on, we know that all truth which is true before God must face the cross. The church that follows Christ must go with him to the cross.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“use your freedom to serve one another in love.”
Galatians 5:13
 .

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Are you aware of sometimes having “a twisted image … of the other”–perhaps based on race, religion or social status?
  • Will you “let the light of truth fall upon your darkness”–to free you to love?
  • How would it make you feel to be described as “the person for others?”
  • Are you free enough of yourself–”from being the center of your world, from hate”–to be that person?

Abba, free me of the lies I tell myself that ensnare me in hatred.

For More: Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Christmas Sermons edited by Edwin Robertson

_________________________________________________

 Thanks for reading and sharing this blog. I appreciate your interest! – Bill

Daily Riches: I Am The Enemy Who Must Be Loved (Carl Jung, Martin Niemöller and Richard Rohr)

Posted on by under Change Yourself First, Contemplation, Contemplation and Activism, Emotions and Spirituality, Forgiveness, God's Grace, Insiders and Outsiders, Loving Well, Mindfulness, Silence

“It took me a long time to learn that God is not the enemy of my enemies. He is not even the enemy of His enemies.” Martin Niemöller

“The acceptance of oneself is the essence of the whole moral problem and the epitome of a whole outlook on life. That I feed the hungry, that I forgive an insult, that I love my enemy in the name of Christ – all these are undoubtedly great virtues. What I do unto the least of my brethren, that I do unto Christ. But what if I should discover that the least among them all, the poorest of all the beggars, the most impudent of all the offenders, the very enemy himself – that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness – that I myself am the enemy who must be loved – what then? As a rule, the Christian’s attitude is reversed; there is no longer any question of love or long-suffering; we say to the brother within us ‘Raca,’ and condemn and rage against ourselves. We hide it from the world; we refuse to admit ever having met this least among the lowly in ourselves.” Carl Jung

“Do not try to settle the dust. …Do not seek a glib, quick answer, but leave all things for a while in the silent space. Do not rush to judgment. That is what it really means that God alone is the judge. …If you start with no, which is critiquing, judging, pigeonholing, analyzing, dismissing, it is very hard to get back to yes. You must learn to start every single encounter with a foundational yes, before you ever dare to move to no. That is the heart of contemplation … a beginner’s mind. It will always be silent before it dares to speak.” Richard Rohr 

“But I say to you, love your enemies”
Jesus in Matthew 5:44

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Knowing the worst about yourself, condemning and raging against it, being unable to forgive it (even though God does) – this is “the essence of the whole moral problem” – for if you can’t love the enemy within, how can you love the enemy from without?
  • Do you understand that God is not the enemy of your enemies? …that the all-too common fear and hatred you feel towards enemies is foreign to God – repugnant to God – prohibited for you?
  • In a world gone mad, are you able to let the dust settle, step back in silence, and contemplate before you judge?

Abba, may I love my “enemies” in this world, just as you do.

For More: Silent Compassion by Richard Rohr

_________________________________________________

If you found this encouraging, challenging or thought-provoking, please share it! And thanks much! – Bill

Daily Riches: The Most Unhappy Man of All (Søren Kierkegaard, Thomas Merton, Brené Brown, Rainer Marie Rilke, Charles deFoucauld, Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

Posted on by under Loving Well, Patience with Yourself, The Love of God

“Love me when I least deserve it, because that’s when I really need it.” Swedish Proverb

“… he who cannot love is the most unhappy man of all.” Søren Kierkegaard

“Strong hate, the hate that takes joy in hating, is strong because it does not believe itself to be unworthy and alone. It feels the support of a justifying God, of an idol of war, an avenging and destroying spirit. From such blood-drinking gods the human race was once liberated, with great toil and terrible sorrow, by the death of a God Who delivered Himself to the Cross and suffered pathological cruelty of His own creatures out of pity for them. In conquering death He opened their eyes to the reality of a love which asks no questions about worthiness, a love which overcomes hatred and destroys death. But men have now come to reject this divine revelation of pardons and they are consequently returning to the old war gods, the gods that insatiably drink blood and eat the flesh of men. It is easier to serve the hate-gods because they thrive on the worship of collective fanaticism. To serve the hate-gods, one has only to be blinded by collective passion. To serve the God of Love one must be free, one must face the terrible responsibility of the decision to love in spite of all unworthiness whether in oneself or in one’s neighbor.” Thomas Merton

“For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks….” Rainer Maria Rilke

“Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing we’ll ever do.” Brené Brown

“One learns to love God by loving men and women.” Charles deFoucauld

“What value has compassion that does not take its object in its arms?” Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“Love is the fulfillment of the law.”
Romans 13:10

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Where do you need to practice a love “which asks no questions about worthiness?” Who do you need to take into your arms in compassion?
  • Is God teaching you to love him as you give yourself to “the most difficult of all tasks” – loving someone else?
  • Are you able to love yourself when you “least deserve it?” Can you extend to yourself the grace you extend to others?
  • Do you see “collective passion/fanaticism” at work in your religion or politics?

God of love for the undeserving, work you love in me.

For More: New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton

_________________________________________________

These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and God seeks 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)

Daily Riches: The Mob of Men as a ‘Mob of Kings’ (G. K. Chesterton, Frederick Buechner and Richard Rohr)

Posted on by under Awareness, Change Yourself First, Ego Issues, Insiders and Outsiders, Loving Well

“You shall love your crooked neighbour, with your crooked heart.” W. H. Auden

Saint Francis “… honored all men; that is, he not only loved but respected them all. What gave him extraordinary personal power was this: that from the Pope to the beggar, from the sultan of Syria in his pavilion to the ragged robbers crawling out of the wood, there was never a man who looked into those brown burning eyes without being certain Francis Bernardone was really interested in him, in his own inner individual life from cradle to grave; that he himself was being valued and taken seriously… He treated the whole mob of men as a mob of kings.” G. K. Chesterton

“If we are to love our neighbors,
before doing anything else
we must see our neighbors.
With our imagination as well as our eyes,
that is to say like artists,
we must see not just their faces
but the life behind and within their faces.
Here it is love that is the frame we see them in.”
Frederick Buechner

“The first gaze is seldom compassionate. It is too busy weighing and feeling itself: ‘How will this affect me?’  …This leads us to an implosion, a self-preoccupation that cannot enter into communion with the other or the moment. In other words, we first feel our feelings before we can relate to the situation and emotion of the other. Only after God has taught us how to live ‘undefended’, can we immediately stand with and for the other, and in the present moment. It takes a lot of practice.” Richard Rohr

“When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd [a mob of men],
he had compassion on them,
because they were like sheep without a shepherd.”
Mark 6:34

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Does the fact of your “own crooked heart” inform your loving?
  • Who is “the other” for you?  neighbor? spouse? family member? stranger? competitor? anyone who is not you?
  • Are you aware of the problem of “feeling your feelings” before you relate to the situation of the Other?
  • How can you practice a “first gaze” where “love is the frame” in which you see anyone who is the Other?

Abba, help me learn a compassionate first gaze so that I honor, love and respect others. Disarm me, undefend me, unpreoccupy me with myself.

For More: Saint Francis of Assisi by G. K. Chesterton

_________________________________________________

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: Called Out of Yourself to Love the “Other” (Gary Thomas)

Posted on by under Change Yourself First, Ego Issues, Emotions and Spirituality, hospitality, Insiders and Outsiders, Loving Well, Marriage, Spiritual Formation, The Call to Change, The Love of God

“This man or this woman seems so different from you, I know. That’s why it seems so difficult to love him or her. When you think on one level, she thinks on another. When you’re certain this perspective matters most, he brings in another angle entirely. And you ask yourself, ‘How can I possibly love someone who is so different from me?’ And yet consider, if you can ask this question with integrity, try asking yourself this one: How could you possibly love God? He is spirit, and you are encased in flesh and bones. He is eternal, and you are trapped in time. He is all holy, perfect, sinless, and you – like me – are steeped in sin. It is far less of a leap for a man to love a woman or for a woman to love a man than it is for either of us to love God. But I think it’s more than that. I think marriage is designed to call us out of ourselves and learn to love the ‘different.’ Put together in the closest situation imaginable – living side by side, sleeping in the same room, even, on occasion, sharing our bodies with each other – we are forced to respect and appreciate someone who is so radically different. We need to be called out of ourselves because, in truth, we are incomplete. God made us to find our fulfillment in Him – the Totally Other. Marriage shows us that we are not all there is; it calls us to give way to another, but also to find joy, happiness, and even ecstasy in another. …Christianity involves believing certain things, to be sure, but its herald, its hallmark, its glory is not in merely ascribing to certain intellectual truths. The beauty of Christianity is in learning to love, and few life situations test that so radically as does a marriage.” Gary Thomas

“Above all, love each other deeply.”
1 Peter 4:8

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you find people who are nothing like you hard to take?
  • Can you see marriage as the place where we care called “out of ourselves and learn to love the other?” …even, where we learn to love God, the “Totally Other?”
  • Is learning to love those who are “different” a priority for you? If not, why not, since this is undoubtedly the “hallmark” of Christianity?

Abba, use my marriage to teach me to love those who are not like me.

For More: Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas

_________________________________________________

These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and he seeks 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. Thanks –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

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

_________________________________________________

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.”

%d bloggers like this: