Full inclusion for all - Jeanette responds

I have to tell you, your story from "Does God have a Big Toe?" hits a real spot. The mission of the place where I work is committed to full inclusion for all persons regardless of any health concerns. We have fully embraced the "Recovery/Resilience" model for all. We see this model both for our work with those who turn to us for services as well as how we function as employees. It is not a piece of cake. Everyday continues to bring new challenges both from outside and from within. So that compact little piece is going to start showing upin all sorts of places.

Partnering with God and one another

A friend shared this from a book of Bible stories called, Does God have a Big Toe? After God created the world, God said to his first human creatures, “I am tired now, please finish up the world for me.” The humans objected that they were not up to the task. God said you can do it, “but I agree to this. If you keep trying to finish the world, I will be your partner.” The man and the woman asked, “What’s a partner?” and God answers, “A partner is someone you work with on a big thing that neither of you can do alone. If you have a partner, it means that you can never give up, because your partner is depending on you.” I would also add it means you can never go it alone. We need one another in this task of finishing, mending, seeking well-being in our world.

Hurricane Katrina - "Don't push the water"

One year ago today Huricane Katrina was causing havoc in New Orleans. The City and much of the Gulf Coast is still recovering. Hurricanes "push" the water. This phenomenon is called a storm surge. The eye of a hurricane can raise a dome of water fifteen feet high and fifty miles across. This build up of water moves ahead of the hurricane where water pushed by fierce winds can rise up to thirty feet. New Orleans sits below water level. It is no wonder that this was the worst natural catastrophe in the nation's history. We would do well not to emulate a hurricane in our own lives.

The Franciscan Richard Rohr suggests that life is like a flow of water. We are already in it. We do not need to push it. But of course we all do. We can be so goal oriented that we miss the flow of life around us. We conduct business on cell phones not just in the office but in the car and as we walk along the street. We are logged on, plugged in and wound up. Between 1973 and 2000 the average U.S. worker added 200 hours per year on the job. We can be a "hurricane" of activity. Yet if we were to let go even a bit we would discover a flow of life already moving through us. It is the natural movement of the grace of God.

We also try to "push the water" by being in perfect control. I suppose a "storm surge" of control is one way of putting the anxiety of change and chance at arm's length. But it may be that the experience of vulnerability and anxiety have someting to teach us, if we can only say "yes" to the flow of life, the grace of God, that bears us along.

It is instructive to watch Jesus at work. When Jesus is overtired he pauses to rest or withdraws to pray. On one of these occasions he encountered a Samaritan woman and asks her for a drink. What is interesting is that he does not push her but instead receives her story. It is a story of five husbands and a sixth who is not her husband. She herself has been "pushing the water!" Jesus does not surge forcefully back but gently orients her toward light and freedom, toward the flow of grace that is already around her.

Life is not about how high a storm surge we can create. It is not about a hurricane of activity or an all-consuming agenda. It is not about perfect control. It is about giving in to the flow of God's grace, the agenda of God's kingdom that is the mending of creation, then all the rest will be given. Life is part of a much larger stream than anything we can push. We just need to allow it to flow. Our ability to trust this flow of God's grace is what we call "faith."

Prayer is the artisan that shapes us when we are broken

In Pastorius Park a group called "Time for Three" played a piece that was commissioned for the city of Pittsburgh where the decline of the steel industry has caused great loss. The music conveyed this pain as well as healing imaged by two rivers (the Monongahela and the Alleghany) flowing into one (the Ohio). I thought of the steel mill and the cauldron that contains molten metal heated to 3000 degrees. One steel company has used the image of the cauldron for dialogue between union and management. The conversation could become pretty heated and because it was contained or borne by this image of the cauldron it was also creative. It can be poured into a useful shape. One of the ways we bear life when it has become over-heated is through community and contemplation. Hugh of St. Victor (1096-1141) wrote that prayer can be like an artisan that when we become broken and fragmented, melts us down or “liquefies” us. The fire that melts is the fire of divine love and we are poured into the likeness of Christ. To mix the metaphors like "Time for Three" did in their music, the melting and melding is like two rivers flowing into one.

Vermont Journal - II

August 4
Years ago a large pine tree at the edge of a pasture was hit by lightning killing the tree and leaving a sixty foot pole with broken limbs angling hapharzardly toward the sky. This morning we saw an eagle perched atop this dead tree with its wings outstretched "as though in blessing," my wife said.
It happened that the morning's scripture was the Pentecost story from the Acts of the Apostles. All were filled with the Holy Spirit and a tongue of fire rested upon each.
The coincidence of the eagle and the Pentecost story recalled to my mind the 15th century Russian icon, "The Descent of the Holy Spirit." There from the wings of the Spirit, who appears dark like the eagle rather than white, come twelve rays. This is what called the icon to mind. The tips of the feathers from the eagle's outstretched wings seemed to angle down to the earth not unlike those of the Spirit in the icon. In both cases, the feathers point down like rays of divine energy upon all living souls.
The Spirit/eagle is seen above. It is uplifting, blessing, activating in us the divine love and our hunger for that love that our fractured world so needs. The fire of unity rests upon each, under wings of radiant power.

August 6, The Transfiguration
At a little church in Vermont a service in celebration of the Transfiguration began with a procession. The crucifer was an elderly gentleman with an obvious tremor. The heavy cross leaned out to the side. It seemed less to me that he was holding up the cross than he was being upheld by it. Rather than carry the cross, it appeared to carry him. As I watched, I thought, "My God, that's my life." It is the cross that I try to uphold that is actually holding me and carrying me. Our tremors are transfigured to tranquility.

Blessed Jesus, let me fly!

Dean comments:
I was particularly moved by your July 25 entry for many reasons, but especially because I love birds and the wind and the notion that our spirits are like birds that should soar on the wind (Le Vent de l’Espirit,)

I imagine birds must feel joy when they fly. Just think -- these tiny creatures built of little more than feathers and hollow bones and powered by nothing more than a few grains of seed can defy gravity, master the wind and soar toward eternity. Sometimes as I watch them, I feel as if God is saying to me "Are you feeling a little weighed down? Why aren't you flying yet, my friend? What will your life be like when you finally shed the burdens that keep your spirit from joining mine?"

I felt really blessed when earlier in my net-surfing career, I stumbled across Desmond Tutu's 2000 commencement address at Brandeis U. It helped me crystallize my thoughts about my spirit in a way I never could have myself I have turned to its last paragraph time and time again for inspiration. Like so many other good and beautiful things in this world, its sentiments leave me with nothing else to say after I've finished reading except "Praise God!" and "Blessed Jesus, let me fly!".