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Over all these years, I have just assumed that parables were stories to contemplate, to figure out, or to open our minds. Parables are those stories that make important spiritual points. They also leave a great deal of room to interpret them within our own lives and generations. That is the thing about all of those parables of Jesus, they were very complex stories with layers of meaning.

But, what if all of those stories, all of those parables were intended to point us the the “great parable”, the life of Christ? The scriptures say that he told these parables to all who would listen, “those who have ears to hear”, but that he explained them to his disciples. Perhaps that is what we are called to do, to listen to the life of Christ and live out that parable, that life that represents what all Christians are called to do.

I have a picture or these words painted on a building in New Orleans, “live a great story”. There was a movie about the life of Christ called “The Greatest Story Ever Told”. I believe that is what we are called to do as Christ followers, live out the “greatest story ever told” daily. That is the greatest parable, the life of Christ.

Think of this, each of us is called to live that “great story” in our own way but always with the rule of love as the guide. There were so many layers to Christ and His life, so too there are many layers to our own lives. Like any good parable, the life of Christ was full of many layers of meaning. From his birth, in a stable with no fanfare at all to his death that ultimately filled the world with a fanfare for all. That is the greatest “Parable” ever told. That is what we are called to do, to live out his “great story”.

TMM

In the middle of a pandemic, where I cannot see my students, cannot go to my church, and rarely leave home, I have been finding myself on autopilot. You know, like those things in airplanes where the plane flies itself. I was unaware that those are now so good, they can land the plane with little help from the pilots. That is a level of trust that is supreme.

In these days of restriction to home, it is easy to get on autopilot, to just go through each day, since they are all the same, without thinking much about what we do. We get up, take medicine, make coffee, check messages, read, and then……well that is the issue really, there may or may not be an “and then”. For me, this is a time to know grace, that thing that the Divine gives us moment by moment. Autopilot living makes it hard to remember what and why you do things, you just do them from rote memory and without much thought.

I wonder how many of us are guilty of living “autopilot” lives. You know, we just trust the routine, do it without thinking, and just keep moving forward. Now, don’t get me wrong, routines are important, like going to work, going to church, and taking care of chores. These are healthy and necessary. What I mean is those times when we derive our meaning from that routine, from what we are doing instead of who we are as people. Do we spend time with our families just following the routine? Do we spend time with our spouse just following the routine? Do we go and worship because it is on the list to do? Is our life with the Sacred just a routine? Are we even aware of the Other in our lives?

I think this is why retirement is so hard on so many people. They have taken their self worth from the routines, the motions they are going through, the jobs they have and never stopped and said, “hey, wait, I am me. I am not a job, not a routine, not an activity”. Retirement is hard when you have taken all of your self worth from what you do and not who you are. God does not call us to do, God calls us “to be”.

I think these days of isolation and pandemic are ones we can put to good use. It is a time where being introspective is important and when we just might find that we matter because we are God’s good creations and that is the only reason. We matter because we are loved by the Creator of the Universe. That unconditional love, that is God’s inescapable Grace.

TMM

It has been many months of absence from writing here and that is mostly due to the pandemic that has been going on for almost a year. I must confess that a good deal of life has gone on and I have not written about it here. I never want to be political here but I must also acknowledge that as a contemplative Christian, I must be involved.

We have lived through very difficult times over the past year. Many have been ill and far too many have died. Our political world in America has been in disarray for a good while as well. I hear people often say, “how did we end up this way”? I have had the same answer for a number of years and that is this, the Church let this happen.

Here is what I mean, the Church universal in this country (and many others) did not speak up, did not take a stand, did not speak to the church members in ways that would make a difference. The current president is not the illness, he is a symptom of what our country is and has been for a good while. Do we believe that anger, hate and fear are new? No, they are with us always. What we as the church did was to allow such things to lead us as God’s people.

Recall that Eve “ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil”. We never really talk about that tree do we? How can God not want us to know good from evil? The picture here is not that Adam and Eve would never “eat of that tree” but that they were not mature enough to do so. Once our eyes are open to that knowledge, we become accountable. When we choose to disregard that accountability, we choose to go our own way, to live life our way.

This is what “take up your cross daily” means: we have to choose each day, sometimes moment by moment if we will choose our way (ego) or God’s way to see life and live it. That is the meaning of the knowledge of good and evil….that ability to make that choice to do things God’s way or according to our own way. As “young people” Adam and Eve were not ready for, had not lived enough life to make good choices, to make selfless choices like doing things God’s way.

And now, here we are as Christian (Muslim, Jewish) people who have chosen not to “know” what is going on, to not be involved. We abdicated living the very life Christ came to show us. We must hold ourselves accountable first, then the Church, and then those who are in office. We put them there and we are responsible.

I cannot leave things all negative, that is not me and not good Christian mysticism because, you see, God is good and so are the people created by that good God. I believe that we must see the God that is in every person. My daughter is a pastor and she ends each children’s sermon with this prayer:

“I see the love of God in you, The light of Christ comes shining through, and I am blessed to be with you, O Holy Child of God.”

Perhaps each of us should make this our life song.

TMM

As a child, I watched a tv show called, “The Beverly Hillbillies”. It was a comedy where the hillbilly family hits oil on their land and moves to Beverly Hills, California. It was fun to watch and Granny looked and acted a good bit like my own mother. The theme song had this line in it, “Take your shoes off, sit a spell”. It was (and is) a wonderful notion, to just slip off your shoes, relax and feel like family.

Even today, here in the South, you might just hear that phrase. It is a sign of welcome and hospitality to the visitor. Now, the origin is probably practical, as in “don’t track the mud in”, and represents that the visitor may come inside and stay longer. Or is it deeper than that? The origin is in the Old Testament where God tells people to take off their shoes, they stand on Holy ground. It is a moment of faith, a moment of deep respect and of trust. You are not likely to feel the need to run away when you are barefooted.

Perhaps, there is even more to it. Let’s think about the phrase to “take your shoes off and sit a spell”. It is a sign to the visitor that they can conduct their business inside the house, not on the porch, outside in the weather. Taking one’s shoes off is an act of great trust on the visitor’s part. It is a symbol of mutual trust and welcome and relationship. It might also be that we don’t track the “mud” of the world into that place of mutual trust and holiness.

You see, dear ones, this is actually about our relationship with God and how we should be in that relationship with God. Every moment should be “Holy Ground” for us. Every moment we are in a trusting relationship with the One who loves us most deeply. But, it means we have to slip our shoes off; that we have to commit to staying awhile; and, that we have to feel at home in the Holy Ground of God’s great and very personal love.

So, today, find a quiet place, slip your shoes off and sit a spell with the One who loves you above all else. You are then on Holy Ground.

TMM

I was reading the Lenten book by Jill Duffield. Today, she was talking about “thirty pieces of silver” and that Judas got paid for his betrayal. How many sermons, movies, Sunday School lessons have been taught about Judas betraying Jesus for those pieces of silver? It seems logical and it fits with our modern society and its materialism.

So, I started with the idea that she is right, we get enticed by things, money, having the most and we betray our spiritual lives. Then I thought more like a therapist. The thirty pieces of silver seemed to be the justification, not the reason. Judas sold Jesus out long before he got the money. Think about it, Judas had followed Jesus, seen the good and purity that was the man Jesus. I cannot believe that the High Priest just dangled a bag of money out there for Judas to give all of that up.

Then, it dawned on me, the betrayal was an attempt on Judas’ part to fill a gap in himself, an emptiness. Isn’t that what we all do once we get beyond the necessities? In our culture, things are not the answer, they are the demonstration that we have filled up all of the gaps in our lives, that we are whole! I am rich, I am fulfilled. I have a Mercedes, I am successful.

Then, I got to Lent. During Lent, we give up something to remind us of Christ’s sacrifice and to participate in the simplicity of such a life sacrificed. To repent from things we ought not to be doing. But, are we missing the point. Do we ever examine the gap that whatever we give up has been filling? If you give up chocolate, repent from it, you have shown restraint and self-control and given up something meaningful to you but have you looked at the gap chocolate fills in your life?

I think we have been missing the point of giving up things for Lent. We choose representative things and give them up but Lent is a time for self-reflection. Repentance means to turn and go another way, to change our mind. So, Lent is taking a new direction for me, to do a personal “gap analysis” and to see that the things I need to give up are performing a function and that as a contemplative, I should be finding ways to close those gaps. Come to think of it, isn’t that the point of a faith community?

TMM

It is a guy joke when someone says they are coming for you, the answer is always, “you better pack a lunch because you are going to be here awhile”. Yeah, corny, macho and definitely what a guy would say. It does remind me though, of earlier times when my mom would pack a lunch for me to go off to school.

My earliest memory of this was way back when I was about 4, living in Utah. My mother would “pack a lunch” for me in one of my father’s old metal lunch boxes and send me out to play in the yard. I would be out there all day (or so it seemed) playing games and being a boy. I have no memory of what was in that lunch box just that she did that for me.

Reading a Lenten book by Jill Duffield, I was suddenly struck by her example of our daily bread when she talked about making those lunches for her kids to take to school. Is that not what Communion is? the Lord’s Supper? Is that not, in his final act for us all, Christ’s way of packing our lunch for us? Think about it, sustenance for the journey of the day. That brings me a very warm and peaceful feeling. The Creator of all has packed me (and you) a lunch that will take us all the way back home.

Then I started thinking even more, what did I do with my lunch when I went to school? Well sometimes, I just didn’t eat it, other times I might have traded it. I know my mother’s hope was that I would share with a kid who didn’t have enough lunch or any lunch at all. Is that not what the Heavenly Mother does for us? God packs us a lunch, sends off for our day and hopes that we will share our lunch with one who is hungry.

Dear ones, that is the point of the Eucharist, Communion, Lord’s Supper, it is not only food for the journey it is a lunch we are to be giving away to those who have no lunch. And, no worries, we know where to go to get another lunch, packed with the Love of the Universe. Share your lunch today!

TMM

My grandfather, John Fitzgibbon, was proud of being Irish. His joke was that the family name meant “son of a tailless monkey”. We laugh about it but the actual truth is that this is how Irish people were depicted in the 1800s. From that Irish heritage, however, is an understanding of what the Celtic Christians referred to as “the thin places”. These were always places where God and people met, where one or the other broke through into experience.

In his book, The Heart of Christianity, Marcus Borg made the important point that worship is intended to create a “thin place”, a deep sense of the Sacred. I like this idea, that worship is about opening a place, a portal if you will, through which the Light of Grace can shine upon us and we can bask in that deep and abiding love.

I never really thought of it that way, but it fits. And, it does not have to be in a church. For Thomas Merton, it was a street corner in downtown Louisville, Kentucky. For me, it has been a few places, one a very beautiful valley, north of the town of Cong, in Ireland, on a misty day. Here is my point, where is your thin place? Where has it been?

What is more, here are two challenges: make where you worship a thin place and become a thin place for others. I am asked often why I garden, landscape, build decks and love flowers. I have subconsciously known this answer: I am creating a thin place for me, my family and anyone who wants to come to visit. I tell people who come to work on the house or who are neighbors that they are welcome to come and sit on the deck, they don’t need permission, just come on. I also tell them if I see them there, I will know they needed a moment, a thin place where they have to be nothing but present.

TMM

Back in the day……I love saying that only because my college students say it often like they are old. At 18 to 22, they have no real back in the day. Back in the day, now almost 50 years ago, the Doobie Brothers had a song, “Listen to the music”. The lyrics aren’t fancy but the tune and the idea are catchy. They serve to remind me that a joyful heart makes a difference.

Recently, the writer, Terry Hershey discussed the whole idea of listening for the music, the music that is life itself if you allow yourself the silence to listen closely. All of life is rhythm. Thomas Merton said, “You fool, it is life that makes you dance, have you forgotten?” Merton could hear the music. All of life vibrates, that much is clear. It is even discussed that we vibrate at the rate that is the note “C”. Apparently, casinos know this and tune the bells and tones to that note in the casino.

But maybe the Doobie Brothers were on to something. Maybe we should be listening to the music. Maybe that flow of music is life itself. Okay, not necessarily their song but the music of Life itself. That note of “C” that we are all vibrating at, together……this very moment. I believe Merton was right, it is the music of life that makes us dance. It is the very vibration of life that moves us, keeps us flowing. I should use this phrase here: does that resonate with you?

I confess to not having listened more closely to hear the song of life. The world around me, around all of us, distracts us from hearing that gentle song, keeps us from vibrating at that common frequency within us all. That frequency that is Life itself. I think I will go now, sit on the deck and listen to the Lifesong the birds are singing and perhaps dance a step or two to the song within me, on that frequency we call God.\

TMM

What does abundance mean? The dictionary says an ample quantity is an abundance. I have often wondered if we truly understand that word? We have turned that word into a description of wealth and material goods. Used in this way it becomes a rather elitist word that most cannot relate to, but what if that meaning is of our creation and not the true meaning?

If one takes the word as the representation of wealth and material success, then the words of Jesus: “I have come so they have life and that life in abundance”, are problematic for most of us. We do not have overflowing things in life. Instead, we strain, struggle and stress to just make enough and/or have enough to live. This definition of abundance makes that life and that promise impossible to embrace or even imagine.

What if we were to take that basic meaning as the important one: abundance is an ample quantity? Now does Jesus’ words make sense? Do they take on a meaning all of us can relate to? I think the answer becomes yes. If the abundant life is having enough, an ample amount to live on, then Jesus’ promise is good for all.

You might be asking, what about the poor? What about the sick? If you are like me, those questions immediately come to mind and they would be leading us in the wrong direction. Jesus always spoke about life in the Spirit, in God. If we take that as a spiritual promise, then it is absolutely true. Perhaps a better way for us to say it is that life in God will always provide us with enough.

There is another piece to this that we truly never talk about. I have read these verses for so many years as Jesus giving us this great life and we don’t have to do a thing for it. Many churches preach that we cannot be good enough or do enough to deserve it, it just is. What if that is not true? What if that promise is that abundant life is always and forever available to us but we have to take it and use it? We must stop being passive in our spiritual life. God’s promise is to always be there, to be available and to make an abundant life available, but if we just sit here, if we wait for God to do all of the work, we will never know abundance.

The African American theologian, Howard Thurman describes the life of evergreens above the tree line and describes those trees as “using to the full every resource in me and about me” to have life. Now, that is the meaning of abundance, when we chose to use all that is available to us to live! What would our lives be like with that attitude? I will use all that God has provided to the fullest. That is a statement of believing in abundance.

TMM

When I was a child and it was cold, I was told to “wrap up” before you go outside. The word “wrap” is used less to identify a coat or sweater or shawl than it once was but it is perfectly descriptive. Put something around yourself to protect against the cold is wise advice.

These days a wrap is an order at a restaurant or fast food place. A turkey wrap is tasty (especially with cheese) but it just doesn’t mean the same as the wrap mom told me to put on. Having grown up in South Texas, the days I had to put a wrap on were rather few in number so that coat or sweater lasted a long time.

This got me to thinking when we are told to wrap up, we are trying to keep something out, the cold or rain maybe. But, Christmas and birthday presents come wrapped. A nice Irish chocolate bar comes wrapped. In these cases, the wrapper is to keep something in place and/or keep it out of sight. There are those patriotic sorts that “wrap themselves in the flag” and that carries a rather political tone.

What about Christians? Do Christians come wrapped? Do they need to be unwrapped? And if they do, how do you unwrap one? Sounds silly doesn’t it, but truly it is the journey of us all, first to learn that we do indeed come wrapped. That wrapping is the God of the universe, the Creator God, whose deep and abiding love is our wrapping. And most of us, I dare say all of us, take the wrap off as soon as we can and immediately forget that we ever had it on!

Our ego, our desire to go our own way, is that nature that tells us to take the wrapping off, we don’t need it anymore, we are just fine the way we are. Then, if we are paying attention, a day, perhaps a moment comes when we realize we want that wrap, we sort of remember how it felt to have the Wrap of God’s love around us and we want it back. Then we spend a lifetime trying to keep it on and remember where we put it in the first place.

Know this dear one, that Wrap of Love can never be taken off! We do indeed forget we have it on and where it came from, but it never comes off, the Eternal God would never let us come unwrapped. Today, take a moment to feel wrapped up in the love that never ceases.

TMM