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I love being a professor. I get to work with wonderful students every day. At my college, we take students who have finished High School. That’s it, finished High School. You see we have open enrollment. We are the place that gives everyone a chance.

I see such potential and intelligence in my students, often when they cannot see it themselves. Many grow up in poverty or near poverty and have not had a great deal of educational support at home. It is not because those with students don’t have good parents, it is just that parents who work at minimum wage or low paying jobs all day, are tired when they get home and they don’t have the benefits of large libraries at home or the energy to continue the educational process at home.

I grew up in a home like that, we didn’t have a lot of money and my parents worked every day, not getting home until 6 pm. My good fortune was to have a brother 8 years older who loved to read, so I read his books. And a creative mother who knew I could get my beloved Hardy Boys books at used book stores. But, I was one of my students in so many ways. Then, God smiled on me by providing a coach, a high school counselor and a Dean of Admissions at Baylor University, all of whom took a chance on me, seeing in me what I could not see in myself.

So I do this with my students when they are new or struggling. I have them take a deep breath and then let it out. Then I ask them to show me air. They look at me as if I am crazy (which might not be too far off the mark on any given day) and I say to them. Just because you cannot see it does not mean that it does not exist. I go on to tell them that I can see things in them (which I can) that they cannot yet see in themselves. I encourage them to believe my vision until they gain their own.

I learned this approach because it is how God deals with me and with you I am willing to bet. God has seen things in me that I have taken years to arrive at, but God has not been wrong. You know this is true don’t you? Of course you do, we call it Grace. Unmerited favor, the Love of God. Join me in giving this same gift to all we meet. Let’s see the potential that God sees in each and every person.

TMM

Though it is technically still winter, in this part of the world it is time to begin to plant things. I love evergreens and always have, though I am not sure why. I think it is because they stand through everything, still maintaining their green integrity. So, in the past few days, several of my favorite evergreens got transplanted from the old house to the new one. Winter is the time to do that because the trees have not started their spring growth.

In addition to evergreens, red bud trees, blueberry bushes and several others are getting planted. It is a form of worship and prayer for me, to plant and tend the lawn and the gardens. I agree with Brother Lawrence, the things that are most common for me to do can be the best prayers. Terry Hershey is an author and blogger who has written much about the garden and how it not only relates to spiritual life but is the spiritual life.

For me, it is prayer. For me, my teaching college students is prayer. I am sharing the love and the gifts given to me by the Creator. In those moments, when I am “creating”, I feel deeply related to God. I think that is because I have no real control over what will happen next. I plant or transplant trees and bushes, I water them, I care for them, but in the end it is up to the tree or shrub to grow. The same is true for my college students, I create the lessons, I have the discussions, but at the end of the day, whether they learn or not is not up to me.

I believe I am acting out my very relationship with God. In our times together, I know I am loved, I know that doing things my own way won’t work and that love supersedes all things. But in the end, I am never forced to love my enemies or my God. That part is up to me and it is a daily choice. Water the garden, weed the garden, feed the garden – these are what we are doing at church, in worship, in the Eucharist, and in community together. We are God’s garden on earth and we have all that we need to grow.

TMM

When things don’t go like we planned, there is always plan B. I know you have been there, as have I. In the middle of what I thought was the perfect plan of action, things go awry. When things don’t go as planned we need a new plan! Of course, no one ever talks about Plan C or D or…well you get the idea.

Why do we abandon our plans when they don’t work? I know we need to succeed but the first question to ask is, did I stay with the plan long enough? Do a few defeats mean the plan is not good? The second question is, was it the right plan for this situation? Perhaps the situation changed and made the plan non-functional. Whatever it is, we always talk about having a Plan B, but do we?

If you are like me, when you plan something you just have to be successful. It can lead to forcing a plan to work that was never going to and we do that because we cannot tolerate failure. If we don’t have a plan we wander along at the mercy of whatever happens. Or do we? Is it possible that in spiritual things we should let go of our plans and just follow? Perhaps that is what taking up our crosses daily means. We are not going to have things all planned out our way. We will have faith enough to follow what we see to be and know to be God’s way.

In churches we are often taught that Jesus was plan B. If we were not such terrible sinners, people of utter depravity (as my Presbyterian friends might say) then Jesus would not have had to suffer and die. Do you really believe a loving God needed a blood sacrifice or a sacrifice at all to love us? How have we gotten this so wrong? Jesus was Plan A, always and forever. He made that clear over and over again. “In the beginning was the Word…..” (John 1:1) God loved us (ALL of us) so much that he sent his only Son…. Don’t those words sound familiar?

It was never plan B! We are God’s plan A and always have been because we are created in love and by Love. If God didn’t always love us then that means God has not always been love. That is simply not possible. Today, let’s embrace and become plan A for everyone we meet. Let’s do it God’s way and love.

TMM

In every war movie, or so it seems, there comes a moment when it is understood or stated: “It’s either us or them”. I have heard coaches say it as well: “Somebody has to win, so why not us”? We are defining exactly who the enemy is, whether they are a real threat to our lives or to our winning streak. And, this is okay for sports and more especially if lives are on the line.

There is a difference though and that is that we humans seem to find it easy to identify “them” and turn them into an enemy. Whether it is someone who disagrees with us or someone we just don’t like or simply someone who is different from us. Our own social policies do it all of the time, when we demand that the poor or homeless or jobless somehow need to earn assistance or merit it. It is just so easy to find an enemy, even where one does not exist.

The comic character Pogo actually explained it correctly: We have met the enemy and he is us. In this one sentence, Pogo sums up the truth for all of us. We hate in others what we actually hate in ourselves. That is why Christ said to love others “as you love yourself”. God knows, Christ knew, we hate ourselves. We don’t tell others, but we do not like who we are. That is because we have a picture of who we should be and we know we don’t achieve it or deserve it to happen for us.

Church, quite often, reinforces this notion that we are not good enough. Come on, how many times have you heard that you just “need to get right with God”. My friends, we have always been right with God! We have always been wonderful creations that please God. A man named Jesus came, gave up every bit of actually being God, and taught us what real life, as God’s children, should look like.

This is why he said to love your enemy, because our first enemy is us! If you learn to love you, as the Creator of all loves you, suddenly you will have a harder time finding the enemy, finding any enemies. Come on, you know it gets old being afraid and angry. Let’s love ALL of our enemies, starting with ourselves.

TMM

I love lights. At Christmas I try to put lights all over the outside of the house and on the tree inside. I just love the lights. When it is not Christmas, I have solar lights along the fences, driveway, swings in the yard. Again, I just love coming home and pulling in with all of those lights welcoming me home.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not afraid of the dark. I enjoy early mornings, before even the first hint of sunrise, to let the dark blanket me and the world. Darkness is part of this world and not to be feared. But I love lights and I think you probably do too. Can there be too much light? Oh yes, just come to Texas in July and you will find too much light.

What about in our lives? Can there be too much light there? I think not. I have stood at the corner where Thomas Merton stood and saw everyone glowing with light. He saw a world in which everyone recognized the light within themselves and in others. What would that world be like to live in? You know, a world in which we honored the Light of the World in every living thing.

Christ said, “I am the light of the world”. As I have thought about this and read about it, it has dawned on me that Christ was and is light for the entire world. The word “entire” matters. Merton saw it, Jesus saw it, and I want to see it: the Light of the World in each and every living thing. If we will look for the Light, we will see it. And, if we recognize the Light, we will be it!

TMM

As a professor, I actually teach courses about diversity and difference. In these classes, I guide students through the various areas that make us different, like gender, race, religion and much more. The courses are about helping students to understand and appreciate those things that make us different.

As Christians, I believe we should be the experts on diversity and differences. After all, Jesus was a darker skinned guy who came from poverty and from a group (the Jews) that were disliked by so many. To make it worse, he spent time with lepers, the sick, the disabled, the mentally ill, and even sinners. If you consider the words above, in one man we have covered all that I teach in a diversity and difference class.

Race, poverty, religion and ethnicity summed in the life of one person. This is the Christ that changed my life, perhaps yours too. A simple man who suffered greatly under the ruling class (rich folks today) and under the politicians of his day. This notion matters: we are called to become Christ. And, this is what makes us so uncomfortable, that we must be diverse in our own heart, must hear the cries of the oppressed, the lonely, the forgotten and yes, even the hated.

Then again, diversity and difference is what makes this world so beautiful. How boring it would be for all of us to look, think, act, and be the same. I think churches have missed this with the idea of salvation and following Christ. The idea is that we are all supposed to become a particular sort of person, one who follows the rules, confesses sin and witnesses to the lost. Nowhere in there is it easy to find your unique self.

God does not call us to be someone else. God calls us to be…..well, us! I matter and so do you, just as you and I are. We don’t have to get “better” or be “better”. Christ ate with the sinners, like us. We are each unique and represent a unique face of God on this earth. The secret is to learn how to be who you are and follow God’s callings according to who you are.

This is why the New Testament talks about some are hands, some are feet, some are eyes. Can you now see why diversity for us as Christians is so important? We live and love in a diverse world. No one of us can reach all people. Today, let’s decide to take who we are, our personal version of who Christ is in the world, and reach out to a diverse and different world. Reach out to someone you never have reached out to before. I am not saying go “witness” to them. Instead, reach out by praying for them and being a witness to them.

TMM

I have always been an athlete. Even now, my martial arts still give me that chance to be athletic. When I was a kid, my brother was my example, my hero. He was 8 years older, so he had me out playing baseball when I was 3. No really, we have pictures of this. Now, that doesn’t mean that my brother was always kind and helpful. No, when he had grown tired of me during our “street football” days, he would say go long, I would run out for the pass…….and he went in the house!

Now that is cold-blooded isn’t it? I should have known better, it wasn’t the first time, but I trusted him. And, to be fair, I was an 8 years younger pest a good deal of the time. All in all, I knew and know he loved me deeply and I have missed him daily for 15 years. That is not the point, missing my brother. The real point is, who do we trust enough to go long for?

God calls us to “go long” every day. The example of doing so is Jesus. And like I did for my brother, Jesus went long out of love and trust. Love for us and trust in his Father. The Abbey I am a part of even uses a derivative of this when they describe the monastery as a place to “go deep”. The monks there go deep every day.

So, the question before us is who do we trust enough to go deep or go long for? We are called to “go long” for the least of His children. When was the last time you went long? Did you do it for the hungry, the naked, the widow, the prisoner, the thirsty? The path Christ showed us in those years on earth is a narrow one because it is not easy to go long for those we do not think deserve it or have not earned it.

Let’s be who we are called to be. Let’s go long for every child of God, Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, poor, hurting, hungry, every single one, let’s go long. I promise God will not walk off and go in the house. Christ is going long with us. God will throw to us.

TMM

Years ago, you would often hear at church, “put feet to your prayers”. That sounds simple enough, but what does it mean? Back in the day, the issue was, God doesn’t need our help. It was sort of derided, this idea of putting feet to your prayers. Prayer was often seen as a process of petitioning God and then getting out of God’s way. It could be very confusing, but worse, made praying more of an exercise in hopeful futility.

What I was never taught was that we are God’s prayer. If you read the Psalms or the Prophets, you see sweeping statements of God’s justice for all, freeing prisoners, feeding the hungry, helping the homeless. But when did God ever actually do that? And when does God ever actually do that today? And that is when it finally struck me, putting feet to our prayers is us living in this world as God’s daily prayer.

It is our acts of justice, freeing the prisoners, feeding the hungry, housing the homeless and so much more that God needs in the world. How we ever got to a point where we don’t have to take responsibility for this world is beyond me. The idea that God knows what we need before we ask now makes sense. We pray to be aware of what God already knows. It is us, living the prayers of God that put our feet to these needs and do what we know is the right thing.

I pray daily and often. I know I need it and it helps me to remember why I am who I am. This will sound crazy or egotistical, please accept it as it is intended: a suggestion. I am God’s living prayer to the world around me. The Spirit affirms what I know should be justice and what I know I should do. Prayer simply makes me aware, tunes me in to the needs and hurts and pains all around me. It is not about me or being special, it is about being aware and about seeing the face of Jesus in the face of every person I see, in every beautiful flower, shrub or tree.

Friends, God is everywhere. Jesus came to put a face on the presence of God. Let’s become living prayers, lets seek to see God’s face everywhere and in everyone. Becoming prayer will take a lifetime but remember, the journey begins with but one step.

TMM

Recently, I gave a short interview on my faith journey at my church. It was wonderful to talk to fellow church members and the thought that something I say or have done could help others on the journey, well that is humbling. During that interview, once it was discovered that I am a contemplative, the inevitable question arises “what is a contemplative”?

I have been asked this many times and I have spent a great deal of time contemplating a good answer. Perhaps I have found one that works for my fellow spiritual pilgrims. Let’s start with the definition of contemplation from the Merriam Webster dictionary:

a : concentration on spiritual things as a form of private devotion

b: a state of mystical awareness of God’s being

So a Christian contemplative is someone who concentrates on spiritual things as a form of private devotion and is mystically aware of God’s being. And now, let me add in these words from Hebrews 11:1 (The Voice translation): Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. The assurance of things hoped for is concentration on the spiritual things that God has promised. The conviction of unseen things is the mystical awareness of God. In this one verse, the substance of Christian contemplation comes to life.

I am going to use this as the best explanation of contemplative Christianity. Closely examine what contemplation is: concentrating on spiritual things (private devotion) and being mystically aware of who God is (and by extension) who we are in God. I would recommend you join me for a few minutes in being contemplative and concentrate on the spiritual mystery of the greatness of God and our being fully his good creation.

TMM

When I was a kid, every afternoon after school, I would turn on the black and white television and watch cartoons. Popeye the Sailor Man was always the lead cartoon. I know, I am old and the cartoon is corny, but go with me on this one. If you ate your spinach, you could be “strong to the finich“. I have no idea if the cartoon actually got kids to eat spinach, but we loved to watch the cartoon.

Popeye also had a saying, “I yam what I yam and dats all what I yam.” I think without us knowing it, Popeye was doing more than being a spokesman for spinach. I believe that buried in the cartoon was a statement on self-esteem and ego. I mean, think about it, I yam what I yam is recognizing that we don’t have to play games, we can just be who we are. The next phrase, and dats all what I am, sums up all we will ever need to know – we are complete as we are.

I have spent years telling clients and students, know who you are and whose you are. Popeye most certainly knew who he was and that being himself was good enough. I wish I could say that starting in my childhood I knew who I was and I bet, if you are honest with yourself, on any given day you might not be so sure of who you are. It’s okay, we are all but humans, trying to find our way.

Jesus was such a person, the perfect one to embody both who he was and Whose he was and he came to us all to show us who we are and whose we are. We are the embodiment of the Living Christ, we are heirs with Him. When we say, I yam what I yam….we are making a statement that we are the Divine Creation in whom God is pleased. Start there, I am pleasing to God as I am? How can that be? I have not followed the rules and I have not always been a good person. God, are you sure about this?

The answer to the above question is that God has always been absolutely sure that Divine love comes with no strings attached from the moment of the first creation, when God said, “It is good.” It is hard for us to get our mind around our inheritance and that there are no strings attached to it, we did not earn it, it is just about who we are in God.

Oh, and that last part, “and dats all what I yam”. We are complete, just like we are and have all that we need to be the best us we can be. Next time you think of Popeye (and you know you want to look him up on YouTube right now) just remember, you are the Christian “Popeye” and you are a beautiful creationg. And that is all any of us will ever need.

TMM