All the Saints

From: galleryhip.com

Today is All Saints Day, one of the sweetest festivals of the church. It is when we remember our place among all those of faith who have come before and those destined to come after. The line is long, the crowd very dense and they are all so, well, so great. They have done so much, suffered so much. Many still do. How can we measure up to that? What kind of place in heaven can we find compared to them?

Mechthild of Magdeburg (1208-1282) expressed it well:

To the extent we desire that God be praised, recognize that we have been given, and properly carry out God's will, we are like the prophets and the holy fathers who through great virtue overcame themselves in God.

To the extent that we learn wisdom and through it change other people and stand true to God in all trials we resemble the holy apostles who went out of themselves even unto death.

To the extent that we are patient in all distress and in the measure that we hold fast to our Christian faith, even in the face of death, we resemble the holy martyrs, who have marked out for us through the shedding of their blood the true path to heaven.

To the extent that we bear resolutely the difficulties of Holy Christianity, both those of the living and those of the dead, we are like the holy confessors, who remained watchful in great toil and heard confessions with sympathy.

To the extent that we remain unconquered in battle and preserve our maidenly honor we are like the holy virgins, who have not lost true victory.

To the extent that we have deep sorrow and to the extent that we perform many kinds of holy penance we are like those holy widows who, after sinning, attained such great honor.

To the extent that we have all the virtues about us we are like God and all His saints, who have followed God with complete devotion.*

We are not asked to be saintly in the context of someone else's life. We are asked to become saints within the life God has given to us. The opportunity for martyrdom that put another man or woman in a den of lions or in front of an assault rifle may never come to us. We may never encounter the victims of a earthquake or a deadly virus or desperate hunger. We may never meet a people unreached by the gospel.

But we can be saints within the circumstances God has marked out for us to the extent that we yearn for righteousness with the same fervor as those who have done these things. We can love with the same compassion. We can work with the same zeal. We can rejoice with them in the same holy God.

All Saints Day. My day. Your day.

*From The Flowing Light of the Godhead

The Prince of Peace, but First, the Sword

The Star of Bethlehem shines over the stable. 
Joy to the World. The Prince of Peace is born.
Hmm...Are you sure?
What did the angel first say to the shepherds before he said anything else?
Be not afraid.
The Savior has come, and He will bring peace but first, He will make you afraid.
Christ was born as a child, but when His time came to speak, His words did not all console:

I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.--Matthew 10:34

Christ's peace is Himself--both the peace and the sword.
We will have peace, but first we will have turmoil, resentment, death, and repentance.
Easy peace is delusion. Ease and comfort is the world's peace, not Christ's.

Christ's peace does not come naturally.
To get at Christ's peace, I have to tear down the delusion of my fallen humanity, and it will hurt.
I have to know the sword before I can sit in the Son.
It's like those nesting dolls...

I must be dismantled all the way down to the center, all the way down to the source of the star that shone so brilliantly they could see it in the daytime. I have to find, in my own center, the brilliance of Christ.
That's where the star of Bethlehem originates. In the heat of a star far hotter than the sun.
In the flame of God.
The flame that purifies.

I Made This...

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God made us.
He made us good and clean and in perfect, uninterrupted communion with Himself.
He made us like Himself, with a desire to create.
And, with all that beauty and heritage of glory, what did we make?

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good, and pleasing to the eye, and desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.--Genesis 3:6

We made a whole new human being, one who had not existed before.
We made a sinner.

Since then, our entire journey in this life is making our way back again, abandoning what we made and finding what we left behind, what God made.
No wonder it's so hard.
No wonder it feels like I'm ripping off parts of me and discarding them reluctantly along the way.
No wonder it feels like I'm leaving unprotected flesh exposed, stinging all the while with the pain of it.
It feels that way because that's exactly what's happening.

What mankind has built through long centuries, what every voice other than God's tells me is right, what Satan lays on at every opportunity--this is the person God did not make.
My first creation.

But God is still in me. I know He is. Somewhere.
I still bear His Spirit--and the woman He made in Eden, before she asked,
Did God really say....?--(Genesis 3:3)
--before she reached out her hand for that bitter fruit.

I can find that woman again, the one God made, because He wants me to.
...put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.--Ephesians 3:24

The new me...really the old me after all.

Got Hunger?

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How many times have we heard it?
"I'm starving. When do we eat?"
More than we can count.
And we've said it ourselves, plenty of times.
"I'm hungry."
Like it's something bad.

Actually, God likes hunger, and wants us hungry.
He does.

But I don't. I prefer satisfaction. I like the easy, comfy feeling of being full.
But, there's a problem with that.
When I'm not hungry, I'm not looking for anything other than what I've already got.
I'm complacent.

Hunger, on the other hand, is uncomfortable.
It makes me feel weak and incomplete.
And I don't like that.

In God's book, however, weakness and discomfort can be good things because they mean we know we need Him.
When I am full, I need nothing and no one.
Hunger, however, is a tool, a gift our bodies bring so that, rather than satisfying ourselves, we can find our satisfaction in God.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled--Matthew 5:6

Next time you have a meal, push away from the table before you're full.
See what it feels like to remain constantly unsatisfied.
See how long it takes before you look around for more.
And then...look to God.
Stay hungry, my friend.

Credit: besttextposts.tumblr.com

Bless You? Are You Sure?

photo: mccgd.org

There seems to be a disagreement regarding blessings.
God wants to bless His children--we know that. But how, exactly, does He do it?
We think we know what some blessings look like--good health, wealth, food, safety, family, friends, love, faith. All good gifts from Him.
But, it's funny.
He seems to look at blessings in another way.

Blessed are the poor in spirit...
Blessed are those who mourn...
Blessed are the meek...
Blessed are those who hunger and search for righteousness...
Blessed are the merciful...--Matthew 5:4-7

Those kinds of blessings don't look as pleasant. In fact, are they blessings at all?
Well, He thinks they are and when I think about it, I think I know why.
These blessings are more about God than about me.
These bless the spirit, not the flesh.
These bring me closer to God and, as such, require strength. They don't bring ease.
These blessings are not God reaching down and scooping up more transformed dirt and giving it to me as bits of His own creation.
These blessings are God reaching down and giving me, giving all of us, bits of Himself.

You've GOT to be Kidding

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Teenagers.
Don't you hate it when they pout?
After all, what does pouting really say?
"You've got to be kidding."
"This isn't even close to good enough."
"What about ME?"

Teenagers. Go figure.
They are world class pouters.
And I, of course, being older and wiser, am not.

And, then I got out of bed.
"Oh, man...the cat threw up again."
"Who left their wet towels on the floor?"
"Turn on the air, will you? It's really hot out there."
"I don't want cereal for breakfast. Can't we have french toast?"

Complaints. Whines. And yes, pouting.
Nothing is good enough.
And, just like a pouting teenager insults what I have given her, I insult what God has given me.
Yes, the cat threw up, but she also calms and cuddles.
Yes, someone left wet towels on the floor, but the floor is tiled and nothing is harmed.
Yes, it's 90 degrees today, but it's not 30 below and it's not snowing again.
Yes, cereal isn't the most exciting breakfast, but it's easy and nutritious and doesn't burden anyone.

Turn back, my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has been good to you; He has kept my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling. I will walk in the presence of the Lord in the land of the living.--Psalm 116:8-9
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you, it is the gift of God.--Ephesians 2:9

What God gives me is GOOD--not because it makes me happy, but because it comes from Him.
Thinking it is anything else simply becomes pouting.

Learning from a Prostitute

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One of the tests of sanity is whether we know right from wrong. And most of us do.
Of course, knowing right doesn't always translate into doing right, but it could.  It's simple, after all. Just ask yourself one question:
Do  feel like I need to hide this?

Kathleen Norris tells a story about a monk named Ephrem who, when tempted by a prostitute, asks her to follow him to a crowded place then, once among the throng out in the open, gives her permission to do what she wants with him. He knows that her business is never done in the light, though, and she leaves him unmolested.*

We can put our own temptations to a similar test. Is what we are thinking a thought we can speak out in a crowd? Is what we want to do an act we can perform in public with perfect comfort?
The same reasoning applies to us as it does to the prostitute in Norris' story.
If we feel like we have to hide something, it's probably wrong.

When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night, your hand was heavy on me...then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity.  I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the Lord," and you forgave the guilt of my sin.--Psalm 32: 3-5

Hiding does not work. The only free soul is the one who has nothing to hide.
If I cannot be transparent before men, I cannot live righteously before God.

*Kathleen Norris, The Cloister Walk, p. 278

The Fool Who Follows Him...

Take a close look. I thought this was clever at first. The Last Supper, but rather than Christ and His disciples, well-known scientists-- Galileo Galilei, Marie Curie, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Isaac Newton, Louis Pasteur, Stephen Hawking, Albert Einstein, Carl Sagan, Thomas Edison, Aristotle, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins and Charles Darwin.

Harmless.  Even funny. But then I saw.

Not the heresy of it, although there is that component.  
It's the danger of it. Not because it's a joke, but because it isn't.

My former amusement dies to a choke, a strangle. I can't laugh at this because I live with it every day, as does every single smart person God made.
Suddenly, I get scared. Really scared.

This is the problem:
Smart people get used to being right.
They do. 
They get used to it because they often are, or sound like it. They know the right arguments, the pertinent facts, the scientific proofs. Most of them don't mean to lie or to deceive. Smart people are sincerely trying to help others understand. They are teachers, doctors, researchers, philosophers, scientists....and pastors. They are the best of us, aren't they? We go to them when we want to learn, want to improve, want to get well. 

But they have a problem. Us.
Because we believe smart people so completely, we have given them permission to believe themselves. 
We have given them license to ignore their own capacity for self-deception.
We ignore, and let thus let them ignore, their own humanity.

Oh sure, we all say no one is perfect, that we're all only human, and screw up, but then don't universally apply what we acknowledge to be universal frailty.
We permit some people to be more perfect than others.
We permit some people to be like God.

And that is what this picture is really about. 

Look again. 
Each of these men and women used their intelligence to figure out something important, and I am grateful for that. 
But some one of them also believed, and seemed to have convinced some of us, that their ability to figure stuff out makes them so special as to discount their own vast capacity for being wrong.
And this makes the smartest of us also the most dangerous. 
Listen to them, but don't trust them.

It is easy to deceive a really smart person when the deception involves their own perfection. 
They will believe in their own rightness almost every time.
After all, they're smart, aren't they?

The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways, but the folly of fools is deception.--Proverbs 14:8

How Good People Lie

The Bible says that Abraham was righteous, but describes how he lied about his wife.  It says Moses was righteous, too, then relates that he killed a man and ran away.  Then it says that the Pharisees, who revered and followed God's law to the letter, were not righteous, but vile, stinking, empty tombs.  What?

No one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law--rather through the law we become conscious of sin...Righteousness from God comes through faith...--Romans 3:20-22

Over and over, God's Word tells us that only faith justifies, only faith saves.  But that is not enough for us.  We want to DO something.  And doing good is healthy and pleasing to God...until the doing takes on more importance than the believing. 

The tipping point comes when we equate doing good with being good, when we believe that our ability to follow the rules makes us right in God's eyes.  This is where the Pharisees went wrong, and so do we.

The Jews had their law, but we have ours, too.  Every time we say or hear "But he's a good person!" to justify salvation, we witness a lie.  No one who tries to follow good behavior into God's lap of forgiveness will reach his goal.  Neither Pharisaical law nor a pretty, shined up life lead to heaven.

God does not change.  He does not flinch.  He saved by faith then, and saves by faith now.  Moses and Abraham believed, and were made righteous.  We believe, and He does the same for us.

And because believing includes recognizing God's supremacy and perfection, faith leads to repentance, and all the pieces come together.  The very last--the last--is the doing. 

We can't change a faithless, but proper, life into a saved one any more than a broken vase can be made into a perfectly new one.  We can only present our broken pieces to the Lord of all by faith, and let Him do what we cannot.

Getting Satisfaction

Sooner or later, everything turns into a God-problem.  My most recent self-examination arose from dissatisfaction with a car repair.  A car repair.  Normally, cars and theology do not immediately connect, but this time, the situation made me wonder.

It was clear that the repair shop serviced us poorly.  I was not a satisfied customer.  How, then, should I reply?  Should I complain?  Should I explain in detail?  Should I never go back?  Should I ignore it and smile?  None of these easy answers seemed adequate, and then I knew why.


In deciding what to do about the car, I didn't think about God. 

"What would Jesus do?" would not suffice this time.  Jesus, after all, is not an ancient, distant onlooker.  He stands beside me every moment, witnessing every act, hearing every thought.

Eventually, I got it.
The repair should not rise as my first concern.  I must act first in satisfying Jesus, my witness, my silent partner.

God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient, so do not be partners with them, for you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.  Live as children of the light.  Find out what pleases the Lord.--Ephesians 5:6-8, 10

I do not respond to the repairman so much as to my Lord.  Frankly, the repairman doesn't care all that much.  But God cares very much.

I not only live with sinners; I am one.  And because we sinners constantly rub up against one another, we have problems.  My job is not to try to make the problems go away or even to always try to solve them.  My job is, however, to always respond to them within the context of godliness.

My car may eventually be made right.  Or it may not.  But if I respond correctly to God, I have pleased my Lord, and that, in the end, satisfies me.

Watching Our Steps

Look out! You're going to trip!  If you're not careful, you'll fall! 

Stumbling hurts. It can give you a scraped knee or get a fat lip.  Falling, however...well, falling means big trouble.  Falling can mean destruction.

But stumbling, common to us all, does not, because God catches those who delight Him.
If the Lord delights in a man's way, He makes his steps firm.  Though he stumble, he will not fall for the Lord upholds him with His hand.--Psalm 37:23-24
A righteous man may have many troubles, but the Lords delivers him from them all.--Psalm 34:19
The Lord watches over the way of the righteous.--Psalm 1:6

We can't behave well enough, we can't walk carefully enough, to stay completely out of trouble.  We will slip, and often.  But our God, because we delight Him, because He has made us righteous, will keep us safe.


Our job, then, is to delight in Him, to acknowledge His saving grace, to know that His cross made us righteous. 

When we delight God in righteousness, we become eligible for God's mercy.  Then He can bring all of His mighty power to make sure that, although we slip, we will not fall.  He watches our steps.

Do I Look Fat in this Dress? Or...The Garments of Praise, Part 1

In drifting through television channels the other day, my husband landed for a moment on a commercial for Bridezilla, the reality show that showcases brides at their worst. "Now who would marry one of those women?" he wondered and indeed, they looked very un-bridelike. Not only did none of them blush or stammer about their waiting grooms, but none of them seemed at home in their extravagant dresses, either. They wore them, but like a mannikin might. The dresses were meant to accentuate a beauty they never had.

In the beginning, You made us naked. Adam and Eve didn't care about wearing anything at all. They didn't need clothes. Not only did Eden's perfect climate make them unnecessary, their intimate relationship with You made them irrelevant. You made the first man from dirt, but he walked before You without awareness of it. All that changed pretty quick. Sin forced men right back into the dust. In his horror of what he had done, man donned for the first time his apparel of shame: dust and ashes.

You did not let us wear those clothes forever, however. You called us to more. When You call us to faith, You hold up for us a robe of righteousness, a garment of praise, the clothes in which we become fit to do good works in Your name, the clothes of mercy, the crown and jewels of renewal.

So, how does all this help when I choose what to wear? It helps by remembering that You gave me a body that You knew I would have to dress every day, and that my real clothes are not the ones that hang in my closet, but they are the ones I wear when I stand before You.

I delight greatly in the Lord. My soul rejoices in my God. For He has clothed me in the garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest and as a bride adorns herself with jewels.--Isaiah 61:10

Part 2: What that means when I face my closet