What happens when we live God’s way? God brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely. —Galatians 5.22-23 (the Message)

In his famous poem, Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front, Wendell Berry writes:

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

Listen to carrion — put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go.

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

We are in the first week of Eastertide.  Betrayal, denial, forsakenness, death, rumors, and conspiracy have passed, proven useless against the life-force of God’s love that brings Jesus back into new life.  Like in Berry’s poem, resurrection flips the expectations on their end, and Jesus’ friends are faced with their freedom to live into a new way of life.  Paul would write decades latter to second wave Jesus followers that they are free to flip the script, to live outside of the former expectations of life, and lean, instead, into new creation, new life.

What does that new life look like for you?  Have you, like Paul, spotted it around you?  What does it taste like, this new fruit from the Spirit?

Come contribute to the introduction of this series on practicing resurrection.  We’ll meet from 5-7pm at Troy and Kelley’s 824 Dill Ave SW, 30310.

Ready for Silence

Madeleine L’Engle

Then hear now the silence
He comes in the silence
in silence he enters
the womb of the bearer
in silence he goes to
the realm of the shadows
redeeming and shriving
in silence he moves from
the grave cloths, the dark tomb
in silence he rises
ascends to the glory
leaving his promise
leaving his comfort
leaving his silence

So come now, Lord Jesus
Come in your silence
breaking our noising
laughter of panic
breaking this earth’s time
breaking us breaking us
quickly Lord Jesus
make no long tarrying

When will you come
and how will you come
and will we be ready
for silence
your silence

Listen! And hear the whispers of uprisings
all about you, springing not from the blood
of desperation, revolt from under the grinding heel
of emperies; grounded instead in eastering
earth and its hovering Spirit. Conspiracies
of roots and bulbs and seeds! And who knows
what under the stones the worms are up to?

—Conspiracies by Walter Bado, S.J.

Last week Jesus shared that the very stones would cry out in announcing the new reign, the dreams of God. But even under that, under the stones, deep beneath what we look at day to day, something is happening.  Like compost, like seeds falling into the ground to die and renew, there is an eastering—a letting go.

God is letting go: Jesus lets go of life; lets go of fellowship within the godhead; and even lets go of his influence over his friends—telling Judas to get on with it.  Jesus’ friends are letting go: the parade crowds are shifting with the political winds letting go of their fickle opinions; Peter, under pressure, will try to let loose of his association with Jesus; Mary will be asked to let go of her son and cling to his best friend John; and Joseph of Arimathea lets go of his family burial plot.

The death associated with Good Friday is a tremendous letting go.  And so when Jesus resurrected and his women followers, his mother, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Salome see him, they rush to cling to him again.  They want to believe that he is there to stay, that he will be a fixture for the rest of their lives, that he will never change.  But he had changed.  And he knew that they could be freed from that need to cling.  After all, he had let go of everything and had proven that death is no foe for life-force!  He tells them to let go, and to go ahead and meet the others.

This freedom is the force of revolution, of intentional life, of forgiveness, and community transforming love!  The resurrection of Jesus like a seed falling in the ground to die, becomes the epicenter for a new, larger world.

Come to an Easter Sunrise service in our community 6:30-7:30am (yes the sunrises early this time of year).  There will be doughnuts and coffee.  We will read scripture, pray, and sing.  Our gathering will be on the grassy knoll at Atlanta Metropolitan College, inside the pedestrian entrance directly across from Clair Dr SW.

“He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster“. —Friedrich Nietzsche

“Much violence is based on the illusion that life is a property to be defended and not to be shared.”—Henri Nouwen

“Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community of humans and myself from the community of sinners.” — Miroslav Volf

This last week in the book of Judges takes the cake.  Our entire series on “Neighboring in Chaotic Spaces” has been exposing the poison that revenge and disintegration is to a community.  Along the way we’ve also seen the power that reconciliation and healthy integration can bring to community.

Chapters 19-21 tells an outlandish story of an abusive husband who takes revenge upon outsiders who visit abuse on his concubine.  And in epic Brave-heart or Godfather proportions, he dismembers her dead body into 12 pieces and sends it with couriers to the tribes and clans across the country. This act incites rage that begets a  civil war until more than 65,000 soldiers die in three days, not to mention the genocide of all the women and children of one entire tribe.  The effects of dis-integration disintegrate the nation’s identity, and they try to make reparations, which only serve to perpetuate the violence on another tribe and another nationality.

This Sunday is also Palm Sunday, when Jesus would enter Jerusalem like a king on a colt, and yet he knew somehow the week would lead to pain and destruction.  What vengeful, silo-ed people wanted out of power and authority would only lead to deeper violence.  After his great parade, Luke says how looked back on the masses and wept saying,

“If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side. They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.

Come Sunday and contribute to a discussion on the reading of Judges 19-21.

We’ll be meeting from 5-7pm at Troy and Kelley’s 824 Dill Ave SW 30310.

“When it came close to the time… Jesus gathered up his courage and steeled himself for the journey to Jerusalem.”

Luke 9:51 (The Bible)
“There is a threshold, it seems, where either the spirit cracks or some steel enters the soul.” Graeme Barrett

Recall a time in your life when you reached that threshold and how you responded.

Day 32: 14 April 2011
14.04.2011

“As (Jesus) approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it.”

Luke 19:41 (NIV Bible)

Make yourself a small “holding cross” (use wood, nails, twigs, card, or wire etc). Hold it in your hand as you read or watch today’s news. Carry it in your bag or pocket today. What do you see happening in your city that Jesus would weep over? How might he want you to respond?b

Last week we focused on Judges 14 and 15. Kari offered up a statement that still swims around my head as I’m typing this up. Samson couldn’t find satisfaction. As strong as he was, we read in the end of ch. 15 that Samson cried out to God for water because Samson was dehydrated. God honored his need for sustenance. This week we are focusing on Judges 16, which will conclude Samson’s narrative

Some questions I would like for you to ponder with me as we read Judges 16 in preparation for our conversation on Sunday evening:

1. What was Samson seeking to be satisfied?
2. Why all the secrecy with Delilah? (I know we talked about this last week, but I feel that it is a question to keep on our minds as we take part in the narrative telling)
3. Where is God in this?
4. What does Samson’s story testify to?
5. Did Delilah love Samson?
6. Why did Samson entrust his most precious secret to Delilah?
7. What are some questions you would like to bring into the conversation

What I hope to come out of this sunday’s conversation is to use Judges 16, not as a focal point, but as a diving board for being in conversation with one another as we share what the scriptures bring for us, both what is affirming and what causes us to struggle/ wrestle with the Samson’s story- to share those insights as gifts to one another as we seek to continue as a community on a journey.

Together we make the conversation and together we grow and learn.

grace and peace,

Josey

“What we desire is not a class struggle but a class encounter, in which the rich save the poor and the poor save the rich.”   Mother Theresa.

What do you think she meant by this?

What might it mean for the way you live?

Disciplines for the Journey
Henri J. M. Nouwen

Are there any disciplines to keep us moving from dividing power to uniting power, from destructive power to healing power, from paralyzing power to enabling power? Let me suggest three disciplines that can help us look from above with the eyes of God:

The first discipline is to focus continually on the poor in this world. We must keep asking ourselves: Where are the men, women and children who are waiting for us to reach out to them? Poverty in all its forms–physical, intellectual and emotional–is not decreasing. On the contrary, the poor are everywhere around us. As the powers of darkness show their hideous intentions with increasing crudeness, the weeping of the poor becomes louder and their misery more visible. We have to keep listening. We have to keep looking.
The second discipline is to trust that God will truly care for the poor that are given to us. We will have the financial, emotional and physical support we need, when we need it, and to the degree that we need it. I am convinced that there is a large body of people ready to help with money, time and talent. But that body will remain invisible unless we dare to take new risks. If we want to have all our bases covered before we act, nothing exciting will happen. But if we dare to take a few crazy risks because God asks us to do so, many doors, which we didn’t even know existed, will be opened for us.
The third discipline is the hardest one. It is the discipline of being surprised, not by suffering, but by joy…. There is suffering ahead of us, immense suffering, a suffering that will continue to tempt us to think that we have chosen the wrong road and that others were more shrewd than we. But don’t be surprised by pain. Be surprised by joy. Be surprised by the little flower that shows its beauty in the midst of a barren desert. And be surprised by the immense healing power that keeps bursting forth like a spring of fresh water from the depth of our pain.
With an eye focused on the poor, a heart trusting that we will get what we need, and a spirit always surprised by joy, we will be truly powerful. We will walk through this valley of darkness performing miracles because it is God’s power that will go out from us wherever we go and whomever we meet.

Source: Power, Powerlessness and Power

Read more and add your thoughts at inward/outward

This message is a daily service of inward/outward.
Was this message forwarded to you? Click here to sign up.
No longer interested in receiving these readings?
Click here to unsubscribe.

Having trouble unsubscribing?
Email Church of the Saviour Office:
churchofthesaviour.office@gmail.com