Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Feb. 9 Ash Wednesday
Today has been having lunch with a couple of friends, food bank and getting ready for service. Have had feelings of depression, just a sense of foreboding and feeling so much like the outsider I am. Saw G last night, is in on room, recovering, crying because he will have to live with mother. I have seen him the past ten years go from the street, to recovery, back to the streets, and now near death. He is 35 and he feels his life is almost over with.
Opening article for my newsletter describes my reflections on ash Wednesday:
Lenten Newsletter, 2005
The final hope of human beings is not heaven, but participation in God’s restoration of all things. (Gordon Zerbe)
We are in the season of Lent, and Christians are talking about what they are giving up. One friend gives up chocolate, another 7UP. Recently I was asked, “Since you live a vow of poverty what do you give up for Lent?”
I prefer to redefine “voluntary poverty” as a vow for mutual sustainability. “Mutual Sustainability I define as living a life in which all creation is a gift from God, given to our care to nurture. In working with others we acknowledge that these gifts belong to all of us, therefore we should share those gifts with all. From the Gospel it is a call and challenge for all humans to work toward a new world order where poverty can be over come, and eventually eliminated. The message of God’s reign—centered on the key values of love, justice, peace, and liberation—is the ultimate answer to the predicament of the poor in the world and the deprivation wrought on creation itself by human exploitation. This vision includes the earth itself; nothing is excluded, since inclusive relationships are a precondition of Jesus for the New Reign of God. John O’Donohue says it eloquently:
In the world of creative work, where your gift is engaged, there is no competition. In the world of the soul, the more you have, the more everyone has. The rhythm of the soul is the surprise of endless enrichment.
So for me this Lent I am going to seek to live out this vow of mutual sustainability more fully and to fast in the words of Isaiah 58:
This is the kind of fast I’m after: to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts. What I am interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families. Do this and lights will turn on, and ,and your lives will around at once. Your righteousness will pave your way. The God of glory will secure your passage. Then when you pray, God will answer. You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, “Here I am.” (Isa. 58:4-11, The Message)
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DO ALL THE GOOD YOU CAN, BY ALL THE MEANS YOU CAN, IN ALL THE WAYS YOU CAN, IN ALL THE PLACES YOU CAN, AT ALL THE TIMES YOU CAN, TO ALL THE PEOPLE YOU CAN, AS LONG AS YOU CAN. (John Wesley)
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Sunday, February 06, 2005
Feb. 5, 2005
Mt. 5:13-16
“U are the salt of the earth. .” these past three days have been long. I have been sick, with flu symptoms and staff infection, stayed in bed for two days, went to hospital yesterday, and V, 24 came by, upset over girlfriend, drug use, life in general. Today I have had nothing but stressful encounters: the kid I am payee for wants money for his birthday when I have already gave him his allowance, threw temper tantrum; two others have projected their anger on me, and so it goes. There are times when I wonder why I do this.
The passage today reminds me of why: Jesus came proclaiming God’s reign and died for that proclamation, he put up and still puts up with our tandrums and projections and we who follow him are called to be the “salt” to be strong in our taste—to counter the injustice, to call into question our culture, to be Christ to others. Deo Gratis! Thanks be to God!
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