Merry Christmas

My prayer for you, a benediction

May your gifts this Christmas remind you of the gift of Christ. May your generosity remind you of the generosity of the Father. May your relationships with others remind you of the fellowship of the Spirit. May you know the joy of the angels, the eagerness of the shepherds and the peace of the Christ child. May the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always; and may you and yours have a very Merry Christmas.

(Adapted from a Church of England Advent blessing)

The Invitation

Come...

Come to me...

Come away with me...

Can you hear the invitation?

God calls to us. The heavens are His handiwork showing forth His brilliance and power. The birds sing His praises. The mountains and the seas demonstrate His awesome strength. Creation is a canvas upon which He masterfully paints His attributes, wooing us to Himself.

Every day it pours forth speech. Night after night it whisperingly reminds us of the glory, beauty, creativity, and love of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The eternally existent Triune God invites us to join with Him. They beckon us to come, sit at Their feet and learn from Them. We, like Mary, can choose the one needful thing. To sit with Them and listen—to commune with Them.

All too often, I hear other voices—pressing, strident voices—demanding my time and attention. The needs are so great! The pain and despair so loud! All too easily, my head turns away from my Master, my Lover, and I busy myself with the work. The needs are real and there is SO much work to be done. I hurry and scurry to get it all done; frustrated with those who don’t share my sense of urgency.

Paul heard the voices. He saw the needs. He worked hard for the Gospel. He also knew what it was to walk with the Spirit. It is through Paul’s example and letters that we learn most about the Holy Spirit. Paul was compelled by the love of God and filled and controlled by the Spirit. There were times when the Spirit led Paul away from ministry opportunities. Paul followed the Spirit into the desert.

Jesus too heard the voices. He knew the pressure of work and the expectations of men. Jesus showed us how to live in the midst of this. Very early in the morning, when it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where He prayed. He often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.

Jesus could do nothing apart from the Father. The Son of God, emptied Himself and took on the very nature of a servant, was born, lived, and died, as one of us. He made a way—through His life, death, and resurrection—for us boldly approach the throne of grace. He showed us how a human life can be lived in union with the Father, and the Holy Spirit gives us all that we need for life and godliness.

This day, let us choose to heed the call. Let us answer the invitation of our Lover. Let us say, “I am my beloved’s and He is mine!” Let us join with Mary, and sit at the feet of our Jesus. Let us join with Paul and let the Spirit fill and control us, leading us wherever He will. Let us join with Jesus, and withdraw to a quiet place to spend time with the Father.

It's All About Relationship

We are inherently relational creatures. We were made for relationship. We are not independent or anonymous. We have identity and individuality, but these are the precursors for relationship. They allow us to be ourselves and to offer ourselves to others. We have personality that distinguishes us from those around us but we are not designed to be isolated from people and things around us. We must be connected, interrelated or we perish. 

This relational core to who we are is grounded in the root of our being. We were created in the image of God and God exists in eternal relationship within the three persons who make up the Godhead. We were created to enter into and relate to The Three-in-One God and this ability to relate is knit into our very being. We were literally created to relate. 

We were also created to be connected to other people. We do not come into being alone, but are born into relationship with those around us. Some of us were born into nurturing families and others into dangerous and destructive families, but we cannot survive our infancy without someone taking an interest in us and sustaining our lives. We literally can not live without community. 

As we grow up we learn to operate independently from those around us. We no longer need to be spoon-fed and diaper changed, but in this normal and healthy process of individuation and growing independence, we can begin to believe the lie that we don't need anyone else. Especially now, in an age of relative wealth and incredible technological innovation, we can live more isolated than ever. We stay continually connected with the world through our screens and keyboards, while actually living more isolated from real relationships.

We were created to connect. It is now and has always been about relationship. We were made in Their image. The image of the Trinitarian God. The Relational Community God of the scriptures. We cannot learn how to relate to God while remaining distant, isolated, or stunted in our interpersonal relationships. We must learn how to trust and to live in community with one another, or we are kidding ourselves about living with God. He has created us for community. 

It's all about relationship. It always has been. 

Words and Meaning

I like words.

I like the way they capture ideas and convey imagination. I have always been fascinated with words and communication. Communication is such a mystery. How is it that the thoughts and intentions of a human soul can find expression in words, spoken and written, and be transmitted to another soul? It amazes me not that there are misunderstandings, but rather that there is any real understanding at all. With the wild diversity in humanity, I am surprised that any real communication, real understanding, ever happens.

I am also intrigued by the way that words can fail us. Words alone, on the screen or the printed page for example, are stripped of their intonation and delivery. They say that only 5 percent of verbal communication is the actual words spoken. The other 95% is the simultaneous non-verbal communication. With the written word, we are left without the visual cues and cultural modifiers that make the intent more transparent. Written words are more open to interpretation and misinterpretation. This raises serious issues for writers as well as those of us who value the written word, or Word.

As a word lover, I have another issue that has been bothering me lately. Words can also take on different meaning over time. Words or phrases can mean one thing to us at a particular time in our lives, and can mean something entirely different to us in a different context. For example, the word "submission". For some this word brings a shudder and dark overtones of subjugation and coercion, for others it might take on sweet overtones of love and proper humility. The way that we read and experience a word varies wildly based on our own experiences of life and the memories we associate with the word.

One word that has taken on particular importance for me is "relationship". I have come to understand that we are inherently relational beings, and this is am important aspect of the image of God in us. God is inherently relational. It is impossible to talk about the Triune God without implicitly acknowledging the relationship at the center of the Godhead. God is three and one. These three personalities are now and have always been in relationship with one another. He created us in Their image. 

In John we are told that the Word became flesh. One of the three eternally existent personalities that make up the Godhead took on human flesh and lived a human life. The Word, the idea behind all ideas, emptied Himself of His divine power and humbled Himself. This is a profound mystery. But this mystery makes the possiblity of a real relationship with God possible. God understands humanity because He has literally walked a mile in our shoes. He bridged the divide between us. His commitment to broaden the circle of relationship beyond the Trinity, to invite us in to the eternal kind of life, went to this unthinkable extent. 

We still struggle with words to describe this reality, even those of us who have tasted and seen that God is good. T.S. Elliot said that words, "crack and sometimes break, under the burden, under the tension, slip, slide, perish, decay with imprecision." But there is a meaning that is deeper than the words. A Word that is deeper than the meanings.