Fellow Monk

A fellow monk I encountered during my travels in SE Asia last month.

Created just now

Now I am revealing new things to you
Things hidden and unknown to you

Created just now, this very moment…

                Isaiah 48:6-7 

As I meditate on these verses and look out the window at the dawn breaking the pink-orange glow of sunrise speaks to me of God creating a new day for me, for us, for the world.  It is being created just now, this very moment.  And yet God knew of it all the time.  He knew of it ages ago and is now, just this moment, revealing it to me. 

I am moved this morning by how God allows me to be a co-creator of this day with him.  My choices, my decisions, my actions help create this day.  I decided to awaken, to be present with God as he offered this day to the world.  I will decide, moment by moment, what I do with this day, this new ancient gift from God.  Will I selfishly clutch this day to my breast hoarding the gift all for myself?  Or will I re-gift God's blessing to others by giving of my time, myself to the ones that I meet along the way?

Behold, the Lord's Slave

While reading the Christmas story in Luke this morning I am once again struck by Mary’s willing, unconditional submission to God’s plans for her.  After only a few moments to comprehend that an angel has just appeared to her and that he has just told her she will conceive and give birth to the Son of the living God Mary simply responds, “Consider me the Lord’s slave”.  Her response to the world shattering news that she, a virgin, will give birth to the Savior of mankind is one of unquestioning obedience.

We tend to overlook the magnitude of Mary’s compliance, reasoning that she has just been told by an angel that she will bear the Son of God.  Who wouldn’t want this honor?  But do we consider the humiliation, the pain, the unknowing she has so readily accepted? 

The meditation Closer to Real by Benedictine Oblate Rachel M. Srubas helps me understand some of the less glamorous aspects of what Mary accepted and helps me to more willingly accept the Lord’s plans for me;

Closer to Real 

Miryam was perhaps fifteen

when her uterus, firm and untried,

conceived you.  Barley flatbread

enriched her blood and fed you

until the light-hungry world received you.

We know nothing of your mother’s labor,

but labor, we do know, is hard. 

Did a stonemason’s calloused hands

wipe blood from your small, startled face?

Did he smooth sweat from Miryam’s forehead,

or hold himself at arm’s length, keeping

the cleanliness codes you would grow up

to break?  Whatever the forgotten details

of your remarkably human emergence,

surely it was all demanding and delicate,

worrisome work, welcoming you —

a needy, naked infant—

keeping you warm and alive. 

When I pity myself

for my own laborious efforts, remind me

to summon the scene of your birth.

Not the crèche of sentimental devotion,

but something closer to real: the pressure

of late pregnancy and long travel, the prospect

of burdensome taxes,

the scent of manure and fear; and then—

the restless work of breastfeeding

under a black sky, huge and unanswering,

            an easterly star alarmingly near.

In Benedict’s little rule for monks he tells us, “The sixth step of humility is that a monk is content with the lowest and most menial treatment, and regards himself as a poor and worthless workman in whatever task he is given…”

We quickly accept the Lord’s offer of salvation, of blessings but are we as quick when we hear His voice calling us to the hard, mundane, unglamorous daily life of following Him? Of serving others?  Of loving our neighbors as ourselves?  Of going to the ends of the earth to make Him known? 

I pray my response to His voice will, like Mary, always quickly be, “Behold, the Lord’s slave”.

Photo of the week-Prayer Retreat

View from my prayer retreat last week on top of a pagoda in SE Asia

Follower or Admirer?

Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.  What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? – Jesus

The difference between an admirer and a follower still remains, no matter where you are.  The admirer never makes any true sacrifices.  He always plays it safe.  Though in words, phrases, songs, he is inexhaustible about how highly he prizes Christ, he renounces nothing, gives up nothing, will not reconstruct his life, will not be what he admires, and will not let his life express what it is he supposedly admires. – Soren Kierkegaard, 19^th century Christian philosopher

As I meditated on these words this morning I was forced to ask if I am really a follower of Jesus or just an admirer.  As Kierkegaard bluntly points out it is so easy to talk and sing of our love and commitment to Jesus but it is quite another thing to be a follower.  Following requires action not just words.  Following requires nothing short of a reconstruction of our lives so that when others look at us they see Christ.

Can it really be called following if we only follow as long as we are going in the direction we wanted to go anyway?  Jesus says we must deny ourselves and take up our cross if we are to be a true follower.  A follower trust that the leader knows best no matter what the short-term view may look like. 

Are you a follower of Christ or just an admirer?

Retelling the Good Samaritan

Seth Godin does a great job of retelling the parable of The Good Samarian in his post The economics of Christmas lights.  In this post Seth puts a new spin on an old story only this time you don't even see who you are helping.
It's important for us all to contribute to our communities and to the world in whole even when we don't know who we are helping.

Monastic wood carving

I found this carved tree stumb while wandering around SE Asia.

Inconvenience or God’s Will?

Our XMA team was in Southeast Asia prayer-riding on 100cc motor scooters and distributing AudiBibles, solar powered MP3 players with oral Bible stories.  We had worked our way up into the mountains of a national park where there were a few scattered villages and, of course, Buddhist monasteries.  As we followed signs (which we couldn’t read because they were in the local language) to what we thought was one last village the dirt road deteriorated into little more than a pig trail.
 

We finally conceded that the trail was just too rough for our little scooters and turned around (maybe those signs were saying ‘Dead end turn around now’).   We were in the proverbial backside of nowhere when my back tire went flat.  Not to worry!  Like a good XMA teamleader I was prepared with a patch kit and pump.  However, it turned out to be a big rip in the tube from the rocky trail and our patch wasn’t going to help.

Nothing to do but try to ride out on the flat tire and look for help.  I stood up on the footpegs, leaned forward over the handlebars to transfer as much weight as possible to the front tire and slowly began the descent back down the trail.  Some men we met on the trail mimed that we should go right when we got to the road to find help.  The first place we stopped had an air pump but no new tube.  He pointed further up the road holding up one finger indicating, we hoped, one kilometer more.

The next place had two really ferocious looking and sounding dogs at the gate and they didn’t like ‘gringos’.  When a man came out to see what was going on I pointed at my flat tire and gave him my best Puss’n Boots sad eyes.  It worked!  He said something to the dogs then opened the gate and motioned for us to come in.  Our new friend called a younger man out to fix the flat then invited us up to the porch for a cold glass of water.  We tried talking but it wasn’t much more than pointing and grunting for both sides. This provided an excellent opportunity for us to give the family an AudiBible and to spend time praying for them.

So, rather than see the flat tire as an irritating inconvenience and a delay in OUR plans we saw it as God showing us His will.  It was His desire that we stop at this house rather than just pray as we rode by.  Please join us in praying that this family and others will come to know Christ through His Word.