Author: Linda Russell

Jesus – The Gift That Keeps on Giving

by Linda Russell, posted in a new Christmas, Do Something, God is LOVE, gratitude, If not us, then who?, Love the Lord your God, Love your neighbor, serving others

Have you ever regifted something your Aunt Ethel gave you for Christmas that you have absolutely no use for, which she probably got last year from her tasteless brother? Come on, you know you have. We probably all have. It’s okay. Regifting is in scripture, you know. John 13:34-35, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” I have a new appreciation for those words this year.

We have been decorating for the last three weeks for Christmas, and we’re not finished. I’m not even sure what Christmas will look like, but my anticipation this year has taken on a deeper meaning. It’s not the expectation of the sweet, non-threatening “baby” Jesus arriving. It’s about the Jesus, who seems to have gotten lost among us, especially this year.

We have all been witnessing our world collapse into chaos: the anger, violence, and hatred brought about by Covid, the Black Lives Matter movement, economic collapse, natural disasters, and the elections. That’s a LOT to deal with in such a short time. And watching the steady stream of sucky news isn’t helping. Some may wonder if Christmas is even worth the hassle, or anticipate more violence, or obsessively shop and decorate just to dull the senses.  But, as I prepare for this season, I have imagined a better scenario.

As one who has fallen away from the “Institutional Church” with all its trappings of dogma and rules and birthday cake for baby Jesus, I seem to be left with the stripped-down version of the meaning of Christmas. Perhaps I can see much better, like the blind man Jesus healed. I’m not sure if Jesus would have “physically” healed his blindness. He certainly could have. But, more importantly, I think of it as compassion revealing itself. I believe the tender touch of Jesus changed that man others rejected and cast aside. Maybe he felt his worth and innate dignity for the first time in his life. If you have ever “experienced” Jesus’ tender touch, you know what I’m talking about. But there’s more, and this is where it gets uncomfortable. Jesus expected him, as he does us, to not cling to that love he was shown, but to reach out to others and share it. It’s not a commodity to horde like the last roll of toilet paper on the shelf; it’s a gift to be given away. I have come to see this Christmas as an opportunity like no other to do just that.

God wants my excitement and anticipation to result in action. He is telling me, all of us really, “That’s great you’re excited. Now go do something about it!” Offer kindness and compassion to those who suffer: The elderly who are alone, millions of children in America that go to bed hungry, the neglected and abused. Check on your neighbor. Offer a smile and kind words to everyone you meet. Quit hating and judging others. Quit whining and complaining about what you don’t have, feel gratitude for what you do have, and then find a way to share it.

When we are called to “give till it hurts”, that’s not referring to outlandish presents under the tree that are often not even appreciated. It’s about offering love back to God and others with all your heart and soul. (Matt. 22:37) That’s how we can more meaningfully celebrate Christ in our midst!

Here’s one of my favorite “Christmas-like” songs. Try not to get it stuck in your head!

Life Does Not Always Suck – Pass it on!

Featured by Linda Russell, posted in "Experiencing" God, coronavirus, Do Something, fear, For such a time as this, hope, Using our gifts

(originally posted 10/06/2020)

Joe Newman is 107 years old. Anita Sampson, who recently celebrated her 100th birthday, is Joe’s fiancée (you read that right). Joe said he has survived two World Wars, the 1918 Flu Pandemic, and the Great Depression. His advice after reflecting on all he has lived through? “Always look on the bright side. Don’t spend time worrying about what’s going to happen since what will happen will happen.”  He says the coronavirus is just another event in his life and believes we should look forward to whatever time we have, be it years, weeks, or just days, and then hope for another one. Maybe work on those wedding plans – or not. (Anita has reportedly demanded a “Promise” ring by Tuesday, or she’s moving back to her own rocker!) But, for now, it’s nap time.

Since there are now so many American Centenarians, there have been several studies regarding these 100+-year-old folks. They all have survived so much. They have lived through misery, hunger, job loss, financial ruin, the loss of loved ones, and every imaginable heartache along the way. But that’s not the whole story. There are also beauty and blessings intermingled with suffering.

The most common and inspiring thread was just as I suspected. During the Depression, people who went beyond simply surviving learned to support and care for each other. They were generous with a few extra dollars, food from their gardens, and emotional support. Many discovered a deep well of strength and optimism that carried them beyond those tough times. They had a shared sense of gratitude, kindness toward others, and even a feeling of being blessed in the midst of unimaginable hardships. They learned acceptance of circumstances you cannot control. And hope – always hope.

Today they will tell you that happiness and fulfillment come from helping others; having a positive and optimistic attitude. Most have a strong faith and a deep commitment and passion for a cause beyond themselves. And now, here we are in the midst of one of our most difficult and challenging times, and our young people are suffering. What can we pass on from the wisdom of what is known as the Greatest Generation and our own life experiences?

I believe those of us who have not simply survived but, against all odds, have thrived during this screwed-up mess called human life are not finished yet. We have a calling, a responsibility actually, to share those experiences with younger generations in these desperate, seemingly hopeless times. We owe it to them. We have a treasure trove of stories I believe they are hungry for.

I’m not close to 100, except for those achy things that are the bane of my existence. But in my seventy-one years, I have learned so much about the ugliness and beauty of the human condition, about reality and resilience. I have experienced joy and sorrow, loss and pain and grief, and epic moments of delight and wonder and unexplainable joy. I hate and love, horde and give generously, fear and throw caution to the wind.

One moment I close in on myself, and another, I can open up with compassion and empathy for the brokenness that surrounds me. I’m a mixed bag of pride and humility. I can be your biggest fan or your most vocal adversary. I can be quiet and reflective or noisy and blow things up. I’m confusing, even to myself! I think that makes me human, albeit a very messy, bewildering human, like everyone else – if everyone else were honest. Anne Lamott says it beautifully, “Everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy, and scared. So there’s no sense wanting to be differently screwed up than you already are.”

(meme generator)

What we are dealing with today: a failing economy, children going to bed hungry, job losses, Covid, wildfires, hurricanes, racial tensions, protests, and violence in the streets is nothing new. But, all at once? Good Lord! Think about all those younger than us that have not lived long enough to feel any sense of hope for their future because they have not had much of a past to draw that hope from, and from the statistics, few of them have faith in God either.

I believe we are in the midst of our collective dark night of the soul, and there’s a double whammy for those younger generations that have not found religion, or even God, to be relevant. They have rejected a religion based on duty and obligation. No thanks.

Religion, as we have come to know it since the first century, has always been top-down and authoritarian. But that is not God’s way. He sent Jesus on a mission to show his steadfast, unwavering love to the lost and broken. I have openly admitted that I have given up on the Institutional Church, but I have not given up on God or my faith, which is couched in awe and wonder at the marvels of all of creation.

Jesus didn’t wander the streets playing whack-a-mole with anyone who didn’t follow the rules, memorize rote prayers, or tithe 10%. When he said, “follow me”, he didn’t mean act virtuous, he meant be virtuous. Be kind and gentle and caring to your brothers and sisters that suffer life’s cruelties. Consider these verses: Jesus touched the blind man (Mark 8:22), he touched the deaf and mute man (Mark 7:33), he touched the leper (Matthew 8:3). The gentle, compassionate, loving touch of Jesus is what we are called to emulate.

I’m not gonna lie, it can be scary! Reaching out will require some risk and could result in ridicule or rejection from others. Hum…isn’t that what Jesus accepted to his death? Do you think for one moment that Jesus or the countless martyrs throughout history went to their deaths for a bargain-basement god? Would you?

Surely God put wisdom and gray hair together for a reason. Like Esther, we were made for such a time as this. People are scared and hurting. We have been there and hopefully have experienced the love and healing power of God. Every life has a story, and those are stories that must be told. If your story begins and ends with you, we all lose a bit of God’s glory.

So, what is your story? How have you overcome hurt and pain? How have you hurt others? How have you prevailed over life’s disappointments? How do you find joy and peace in these trying times? I Peter 3:15 tells us to “always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope.” Are you ready?

People today, especially young people, are living out of fear instead of the abundance of life God has promised each of us. What we fail to understand is that it isn’t God being the mean, authoritarian father that is holding back on us. It’s us holding back. It’s us not believing our story matters. I truly feel this is a remarkable time for us old folks who are still hanging around to get ourselves off our rockers and into the fray. Why should we bother? Do they even want to hear from us? Well, you decide:

Let’s focus on what young adults (ages 18-25) are dealing with in this frightening and uncertain time:

Jeffrey Arnett, a psychologist at Clark University, says, “The pandemic struck students at a particularly vulnerable age.” He explains that this is “a time of life when many different directions remain possible, when little about the future has been decided for certain, when the scope of independent exploration of life’s possibilities is greater for most people than it will be at any other period of the life course.”

So, picture these young people that have likely never before experienced even one of the many crises we’re facing today. They have had their certainties about life jerked out from under them without any warning.

Perhaps there is a glimmer of hope. In one study, young people said they were empowered by forming connections, but they admitted they did not always know how to form them. Psychologists at the University of Manchester have found another factor critical to young adults’ resiliency — the strength of their social bonds able to provide them with the support needed to weather the worst storms. Check this out for inspiration: https://www.nunsandnones.org/

So, as their lives seem to be falling apart, that leaves a huge gap to be filled, a gap between their current reality and hope. And that’s where God can use us to step in if dancing in the midst of tragedy is our specialty. There, of course, is a hurdle to jump first (not that God isn’t the world’s best hurdle jumper!). They don’t think much of religion or God or the pain of Judgment Day…..Ohhhh, don’t get me started on “God’s gonna-take-you-to-the-woodshed on Judgment Day”!  Let’s quickly move on…

A study from National Catholic Reporter asks: “Why are young Catholics going, going, gone?” Since we know it’s not just Catholics that have left their faith, this is very telling for all young adults that feel disenfranchised and left to their own devices to find their way. “Whether it’s feelings of being judged by religious leaders who don’t know or understand them, or being forced by their parents to attend church, or witnessing the sexual abuse scandal and the hypocrisy of church hierarchy, young people are expressing a desire both to break free from organized religion and to be part of a community. As emerging adults continue to navigate a difficult period, it is crucially important that they are able to maintain wellbeing and seek support where needed from those around them.” https://www.ncronline.org/news/parish/study-asks-why-are-young-catholics-going-going-gon

“Belonging before believing” may be the key to all of this! The Institutional Church teaches “rules” necessary to live as a “good” person of faith is expected to. That rigid voice has become old and tiresome, void of meaning and purpose. It cannot address the longing of a soul that knows deep down it belongs to something bigger, something more.

Where do we see in any of Jesus’ teachings to the masses gathered everywhere he went that he stopped mid-sermon for an alter call? “Look, guys, we know you’re hungry after walking for miles and sitting here in the heat for hours. The food trucks won’t be coming any time soon…BUT…we’ve got fish! Come on up and get yourselves saved, and you get some!”

Years ago, when I was a youth minister, one of the most basic truths that I grew to understand about human longing and relationships came from one statement, “I don’t care how much you know until I know how much you care.”

I didn’t have any idea what I was doing when I first got some teens in our church together to start a youth group. Truth be told, I was probably needier than they were, but I sincerely wanted to give them a place to gather, safely question anything about their faith (when Father wasn’t within earshot), serve the community, and have fun. Granted, I suffered the pains of having an A.D.D. brain that called into question my “fly by the seat of your pants” leadership style. More than one parent informed me how unorganized I was – thank you very much. Of course, they were too busy to help.

But here’s the thing: not one of the kids walked away because a meeting was rescheduled due to a bit of forgetfulness by one flighty adult. Not one kid complained when said flighty adult was the only one who thought an icebreaker consisting of sticking life savers on someone’s face was funny. I still think that one’s funny! But, oh well. (Note to self: teenager = insecurity. Got it.) They forgave my every misstep as we all learned together. Why? Because they knew I loved them. That’s it. That’s all that mattered…well…except that I made some badass cookies!

I recall a young pastor we had, new out of seminary. He came to a meeting one night and later complained that there were only ten kids there. So, why did we bother? I didn’t see that one coming and had no reply for him until a few days later. I invited a therapist to come speak to the kids about suicide: how to recognize it and what to do if they suspected a friend was at risk. One of the “just ten kids” at that meeting called me a couple of days later to thank me – like sobbing thanking me – for having her there. He got her phone number afterward and called her because he was contemplating suicide. They began therapy sessions with his mom. I still get teary when I think about that.

We all have life’s most critical and basic questions that need to be answered if we are to live fully the lives we were meant to live. Who am I? Why am I here? What is God’s purpose for me? Are you someone that can help young people answer those questions? You can, you know, just by being present to them, listening to them, and trusting God. Knowing he has already given you all the tools you need to fulfill your own destiny – you can now help them do the same.

God SO Loves – Me for Sure – Everyone Else is Iffy

by Linda Russell, posted in "Christians" who hate, AHA moments, Atonement, End of Religion

(originally posted 9/14/20)

This post was a huge, profound, thought-provoking undertaking for me. That’s why it’s so long. Sorry.

I should begin with this disclaimer: What you are about to read is based on my opinions. I will admit that no religious publication – NOT ONE – has contacted me for a quote or a book deal. But that does not change my convictions which have evolved over years of studying the works of many respected Christian leaders, authors, and theologians like Richard Rohr, John Shelby Spong, John Phillip Newell, Marcus Borg, Diana Butler Bass, and Dr. Seuss, just to name a few. 

Polls abound that document the mass exodus from the Intuitional Church. I’m among those numbers. As I grew spiritually, I realized that, in good conscience, I could not continue to “show up” for participation in a broken, hypocritical church that left me empty and wanting, a church refusing to let go of the remnants of a sinking ship. Going down with that ship are many of its leaders clinging to imagined power, and pew sitters content with the status quo because of the false belief that it rewards adherence to their religious obligations that require nothing of them. Holding out for the rapture, I suppose.

This process has required me to open my heart and mind to possibilities beyond religious orthodoxy or “rules” that often made me uncomfortable in my own skin. I have grown to understand the folly of my long-held beliefs that you are going to hell and I am not, and other ridiculous “truths” of faith. You’re welcome. Now, you may very well be headed for hell, but you need to take that up with God.

So, let’s start here: Do you know how Christianity began or why there are only four gospels in the Bible? Many studies have revealed that there were more than four gospels at the beginning of Christianity, like the Gospel of Thomas. Who decided on the four? Was it God? Or maybe a group of Jesus’ followers started a Jesus Fan Club: #jesusrocks and wanted to develop a list of requirements for membership.

Stephen J. Patterson tells us, “The study of Christian origins during the last fifty years has revealed much more variety than our forebears ever thought possible. How did it happen that the many versions of Christianity that existed in the beginning, were eventually overshadowed by the one version we know as Christianity today?”

What was so important about the Matthew, Mark, Luke & John gospels that the others were discarded? Hint: They are called “synoptic” gospels, which means all four of them rocked the same message the church could offer on a continuous loop to the illiterate masses of the day: Get in line or get snatched by the powers of hell! Your choice.

According to Wilfred Cantwell Smith, religion “systemized ideas about God, religious institutions, and human beings; it categorized, organized, objectified, and divided people into exclusive worlds of right versus wrong, true versus false, ‘us’ versus ‘them”. Smith explains the stark difference between our understanding of religion and religio is that religio describes “a particular way of seeing and feeling the world. The archaic meaning of religio was that awe that men felt in the presence of the uncanny dreadful power of the unknown….it is something within men’s hearts.”

When was the last time “religion” rendered you awestruck? Exactly. Do we even care about any of this in the midst of Covid, the loss of jobs, despair, and the civil unrest we see in the news daily? I believe that’s precisely why we should care (the point of this post).

Anyway, let’s take a peek at just one of the rejected gospels: The Gospel of Thomas. Because why not, right out of the gate, bring up something contrary to everything we Christians have been taught! In it, Jesus’ disciples asked him, “When will the kingdom come?” Jesus said, “It will not come by looking outward….Rather, the kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it.’” In other words, God’s kingdom is not located in heaven, and the only way to “get there” is to believe in the church’s theology of heaven and hell. Thomas is telling us that the kingdom of God is right here, within our very being.

“So, wait, Linda…you’re saying you don’t believe in heaven and hell? Good luck with that on Judgment Day, standing there all exposed, surrounded by your big huge piles of sin and regret! You’ll be singing a different tune then! You’ll be like, ‘Sorry, Lord, I didn’t mean it! How about a redo? You’re good at redo’s, right? I take back every hateful word and thought I ever uttered!!!‘ And God would be like:

Hold on. I never said I didn’t believe in heaven and hell. Actually, that’s one of my core beliefs, right up there with – I know I am a beloved trainwreck, peevish with a little touch of psycho mixed with an occasional love-the-world moment. However, my belief in heaven and hell is in the context of relationships. (More on this later)

Anyway, back to Thomas. Elaine Pagels (Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas) tells us, “The Gospel of Thomas also suggests that Jesus is aware of, and criticizing the views of the Kingdom of God as a time or a place that appear in the other gospels… But the Kingdom of God is within you. It’s hard to describe. But the Kingdom of God is something that you can enter when you attain gnosis, which means knowledge. But it doesn’t mean intellectual knowledge. So this gnosis is self-knowledge. It’s a question of knowing who you really are…knowing yourself at a deep level.”

Alrighty then, so why didn’t Thomas and other gospels make the cut? Is it because the Church wanted to control God and charge admission to heaven?! That is very likely considering what we know about Irenaeus. Irenaeus of Lyon was a second-century bishop and an unapologetic antagonist toward Gnosticism that had crept into “his” church, corrupting “his” people. The following is from an article in Christianity Today: 

“FOUR GOSPELS, NO MORE, NO LESS: Irenaeus’s work went a long way toward establishing the notions of Christian orthodoxy and heresy. He said, “It is not possible gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are.” (He used some nonsensical formula to “prove” it.) Christianity was a religion of beliefs. Those who wandered from those beliefs were punished. Those who refused to accept them, like Jews, were persecuted.

Beginning in the eighteenth century, some scholars of the Bible began to wonder about the biblical gospels themselves. This was the Age of Reason. Did Christianity have anything to offer modern people whose capacity to reason and think critically would not permit them to believe the unbelievable?“

I’m not sure. Even the researchers of “belief” admit that many people won’t tell the truth when surveyed about their faith. But we can still address the fact that there seem to be many “professed” Christians that adhere to the orthodoxy of their particular faith tradition without a second thought.

Gandhi believed, “Christianity became disfigured when it went to the West. It became the religion of kings.”

Do we wonder how God is seen as a distant and punitive judge, not a loving Father? Marcus Borg tells us Jesus was brutally crucified by the powers that be for defying Roman authority. His death was not God’s plan to atone for our sins. What kind of God could we even believe in that would do such a monstrous thing? This is a God who “loves” a special few of us with conditions? Great. Sign me up.

This God, this distant up in the sky God, looks down on us with obvious frustration and shakes his head, “No, I’m not coming down there. You people are messed up! Besides, I’m in that high-risk category for Covid, you know, with my age and all. But, I’m rootin’ for ya’!”

What does “belief” mean anyway? If I say I’m a Believer, does that require anything of me? Not really. That’s a huge stretch from its original meaning. Borg explains, “To believe in God does not mean believing that a set of statements about God are true, but to belove God. For a majority of American Protestants and some Catholics (believing in the rules) is what saves us. Or is it beloving God as known in Jesus that saves us by transforming us?” If being transformed has some inherent, unrelenting appeal to you, it can get really dangerous because beloving God comes with a caveat: It requires change at the deepest level of our being.

John Phillip Newell has observed, “The walls of Christianity are collapsing. It had become isolated from the other great religions of the world, ossified in its dogmas, paralyzed in the trappings of infallibility. What is the new thing trying to emerge from deep within us and from deep within the collective soul of Christianity?”

Is Christianity as a set of rules and infallible truths dying? That seems to be so, even though many church leaders appear to happily whistle past the graveyard regardless of the deafening echo of emptying churches and the statistics that can’t be denied.

Bede Griffiths calls our current state the “fossilization of Western Christianity”, leaving a vast expanse of emptiness in its place. We are a country that is broken, a people struggling for meaning. A truth that has become more and more apparent during these trying times. So many people feel lost and afraid with no sense of hope for our future. We are barraged daily with violence and hate from all sides.

But, dear ones, take a deep breath! This is not the end of the story because God does have the last word. He does have the power to heal our individual and collective brokenness if we would just allow him into our hearts. That’s where our faith ethos can bring forth and empower the essence of our very being and create change.

It seems we are now on the precipice of a conversion experience like we have never seen before. The time for change is now, but we must know what that change looks like. We have to be able to name “Truth”. It is not the “truth” that we have been spoon-fed by the church, but the “Truth” of an omnipotent, loving, merciful, compassionate God who longs for us to recognize our belovedness as his blessed and broken sons and daughters.

God longs for us to recognize Jesus as his beacon of light guiding our way in the darkness. And he longs for us to rejoice in the certainty that all are welcome at his table of plenty. All. Of. Us. No matter if we are of the same faith, a different faith, or no faith at all. This is not a private club. God wants you to know who and Whose you are. He wants you to claim your birthright and help others do the same.

We have wasted far too much time scratching around in the dirt, eking out a mundane existence when we were meant to soar, thrive, and be the light of Christ to a hurting world which is the essence of our very existence.

Diana Butler Bass quotes David Korten from his book, The Great Turning, “The Great Turning is an awakening – a movement to reorient human culture toward connectedness, economic quality, democracy, creation, and spirituality. The Great Turning awakens us to becoming ‘fully human’”.

Bass says, “The Great Turning is less of a turn toward something completely new and unknown; it is more of a Great Returning to an ancient understanding, of finding a forgotten path of wonder and awe through the wilderness of human chaos and change.” She believes that “many people in the West have been reaching toward religio – only they call it ‘spirituality’.

Is it reasonable to assume that those who have left the church have done so because it leaves them empty of purpose and void of a fulfillment they know intuitively as their deepest longing? I can only speak to that question within the context of my own story.

By the Church’s definition, I would have been labeled a heathen most of my life until my wretched soul was “saved” at the time of my baptism into the Catholic Church forty years ago. But, upon closer inspection, my heathenness was merely whitewashed for appearance’s sake, with pictures, and the celebratory luncheon that followed. You could say I was probably more heathenly after rising up for those baptismal waters, all full of my newfound piety.  

John Eldredge tells us, “Christianity is not an invitation to become a moral person….when transformation comes, it is always the aftereffect of something else, something at the level of our hearts. Christianity begins with an invitation to desire.”

Paul Coutinho, SJ – excerpts from his book, How Big Is Your God? “The Eastern understanding of truth is an experience. In the East, experience that affects life is true. Truth is that which touches one’s heart and changes one’s life. In the Yahwistic tradition, God never forgets we are weak, imperfect and sinful. This God is intimate. If you don’t experience the Divine inside you, you won’t find God anywhere. Each one of us is an unrepeatable revelation of the One from whom all things have come.”

Gandhi said that “if Christians had actually done what Jesus taught us to do – namely, love our enemy – the world would long ago have been transformed. He challenged us to turn our creed back into deed.”

Luke 10:27 in The Message, “He said, “That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence—and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself.” How powerful and scary is that? What would it mean to our world now if we loved like that!? That is what God has deeply, fervently longed for since the beginning of humanity. But we have mostly failed him except for a few shining lights in the darkness, a few God moments, which is the Divine trying to get our attention in an otherwise ordinary existence. God hides in plain sight. He is ever present to us in myriad ways, but we’re too afraid or busy or indifferent to notice.

Remember when the churches were closed because of Covid, and we got to go to “church” in our pajamas? Well, guess what? In Genesis 28:16, Jacob is all tucked in bed when he has this revelation, an AHA moment if you will, “Surely the Lord was in this place, and I did not know it.” Today’s translation might be something like: “Holy Moly, Batman! God is everywhere! Not just in the church building at 9:00 on Sunday morning!” If that fact didn’t just cause you a bit of trembling and a whole lot of angst, you might need to get your pulse checked.

During this critical juncture in our history, you may feel overwhelmed and frightened. You may have bought into the belief that we are beyond hope. But, that is a lie. There have been countless positive and hopeful examples of those who refuse to give up on themselves and others the world has rejected.

Those who can rightly see God, who lives and moves and has his being in our midst, will lead the way to a “rebooting,” if you will, a movement back to God’s creation story of love. The indifference to God, injustice toward our fellowman and the environment are in-our-face truths that have played out on T.V. and social media for months now. How can we go back to business as usual?

Heaven and hell can be best understood right here in this place of uncertainty and ambiguity. It’s time to choose. We have created and are living our own heaven or hell right here. They are both manifest in our relationships, first with God and then with each other. If we push God away, that is our hell. If we choose God over all the worldly lies and temptations, that is our heaven.

We are in a very exciting place where we have an opportunity to be a part of the change God longs for. It’s time, and we are uniquely prepared, whether we know it or not, to step into the void, to reimagine, and then participate in God’s plan of renewal for a broken world. We are called to love and serve, to be Christ to others. Now is our time. Let’s do this!

“Let us not become weary in doing good” Galatians 6:9

And, lastly, what you have been waiting for with bated breath. Here’s my life in two phases.

My life before God’s intervention:

But, then God grabbed onto the worst of me until I gave up my stubborn will. Just in the nick of time, I might add!

Never Forget Girl – You ARE a Warrior!

by Linda Russell, posted in God's plan, Joan of Arc, serving others, Using our gifts, Warriors, Women serving God

“There’s no heavier burden than a great potential!”- Charlie Brown.

I want to dedicate this blog post to my granddaughters, great-granddaughters, and all the little girls out there (or big girls getting a late start – like me!). Girls who may not yet be aware of their great warriorness. In particular, those who may not have someone in their lives to instill in them a belief in their magnificence, brilliance, and untapped potential. I often wonder what a difference someone like that may have made in my life as I was growing up.

Certainly, I have grown immensely over the past twenty+ years. I have gained the strength and courage to recognize and face down many of the lies I believed for so long about my insignificance. Mostly, it was an uphill battle that I often felt I fought alone. Of course, in hindsight, I know I was not alone. I could not have overcome what I have without God’s strength, tenderness, and guidance, which enabled my heart and soul to begin healing and grow into the life I never believed I was worthy of.

“Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process

is the bravest thing that we will ever do” Brene Brown

A review of my life may seem to a casual observer that I wasted a lot of time. Yes, I may have wandered in the desert for fifty years. But, these last twenty years of working to fulfill a life of meaning and purpose tell me that everything in God’s plan is just as it should be. Even amid the “fruitfulness,” there will always be messiness and missteps, mostly of our own doing. I seem to step in it, clean myself up, move on, forget, and step in it again. But, hey, it is said that you’re okay if you fall as long as you fall forward. 

So, now that I am higher on that mountain than I have ever imagined, I would love to reach back to encourage and help lift little girls and young women whom God has given me a heart for. I want you to know that you are a warrior, a superhero, and a gift meant to be shared with those who suffer.

I have often written about Esther, you know the “made for such a time as this” Esther? But let’s look at another courageous young woman, Joan of Arc.

Here’s a short biography of her young life from the St. Joan Center Website:

“From her earliest of years Joan was known for her obedience to her parents, religious fervor, goodness, unselfish generosity and kindness toward her neighbors. Simonin Munier, one of Joan’s childhood friends, tells how Joan had nursed him back to health when he was sick. Some of her playmates teased her for being ‘too pious.’ Others remembered how she would give up her bed to the homeless stranger who came to her father’s door asking for shelter.

Joan was ‘like all the others’ in her village until her thirteenth year. “When I was about thirteen, I received revelation from Our Lord by a voice which told me to be good and attend church often and that God would help me.” She stated that her ‘Voices’ were Saint Michael the Archangel, Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret. At first her ‘Voices’ came to her two or three times a week but as the time for her mission drew near (five years later), they visited her daily telling her to ‘Go into France’ to raise the siege of Orleans, conduct the Dauphin Charles to Reims for his crowning and to drive the English from the land.”

That simple peasant girl stood her ground against English kings and a motley crew of bishops in the Catholic Church. It was a good-ole-boys club in which she was not welcome (little seems to have changed, huh?!). One bishop declared that she should be sent home and given a good spanking. How dare she think anyone would believe angels spoke to her? The audacity of her leading men into battle! They would have none of it. She was arrested and put on trial by a bunch of weak men who got their underwear all bunched up because she had the strength and courage none of them could come close to. She was too much for their fragile egos. They had to make an example of her lest other women got some crazy notion they were meant for more than servitude. So, they conspired to condemn her for heresy, witchcraft, and violating divine law for dressing like a man (huh?). They were hell-bent on proving it was Satan, not angels, that spoke to her and led her astray. By conspiring and lying, they eventually got what they wanted. She was put on trial, condemned, and burned at the stake for good measure. Needless to say, they hated her and everything she stood for. There is even controversy concerning her canonization in 1920 as being more politically than faith-motivated.

Now, don’t start imagining that you would end up like Joan if you followed God’s calling and reconsider what being a warrior asks of you, “No thanks. I’ll just hang out here.

(shutterstock)

Remember in Luke’s gospel when Jesus was hanging on the cross, and those cocky rulers sneered at him? “You supposedly saved others; why don’t you save yourself? Ha!” Well, Joan, like Jesus, had the courage all her life to listen and obey God’s call. All the while not really knowing what that would entail. On the surface, you might conclude that the way it ended for both Joan and Jesus would not make a powerful recruitment tool. They both felt abandoned by God at a critical point in their lives. But God did not abandon them. We know how Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection have sustained Christians throughout thousands of years, so we can rest assured that God fulfilled his purpose in Jesus even when he was silent.

As for Joan, I read a fascinating unpublished novel by Virginia Frohlick, The Lost Chronicles, The Story Of Joan of Arc. Frohlick, by profession, is a registered nurse and writes extensively about the wounds sustained by Joan during battle. She detailed (to ad nauseam, really) four of those wounds and said each of them alone would have been fatal. All this is to say that God truly was with Joan and guided her from the moment of her calling at the age of thirteen until her death.

(If you are totally bored with life during Covid you can access Frohlick’s work here: http://www.stjoan-center.com/novelapp/joaap02.html)

                                   Our granddaughter’s warriorness on display!

Okay, now that we have established that God is totally enamored with you, your brilliance, and your eagerness to answer the battle cry that is your destiny…

Now what?

Good question. I don’t know. Sorry. I have no idea what God has planned for you. 1 Corinthians 2:9 tells us, “But just as it is written, “Things that no eye has seen, or ear heard, or mind imagined,are the things God has prepared for those who love him.”

However, what I can share with you is a bit of my own journey full of twists and turns and doubts and, yes, awesomeness, because that’s really all I know for sure. I was made to believe that I was nothing special; that anyone who made something of themselves possessed gifts or talents or even some magical powers that I did not have. When you feel so beaten down you begin to believe the lies. It’s hard enough to drag yourself out of bed in the morning without having to perform like it matters. So, then you begin to tell yourself that everyone but you got “the gift”. You got a lump of coal.

It gets us off the hook. We have a valid excuse for sitting back and accepting that we will never amount to anything because, well, we were not blessed with those God-given talents we see in everyone else. Oh well.

I tried to stop comparing myself to all those people I grew to envy, but in truth I continually found myself deficient in so many areas of my life. Then, ever so slowly, the changes began. God knows how to deal with each of us. He knows some, like Paul, can get whacked off a horse, rub his lumps, and instantly convert to Man of the Year. Others, like me, need a gentler, more gradual tap, followed by a soft landing. I suppose that’s why it took so long.

If you had approached me before my transition to a semi-caring human and asked, “Hey, Linda, you wanna go out in the world and serve lost, dying, broken humanity?” My immediate response would be, “Hahahahahaha. NO!” Do you think God had any idea that would be my response? Of course, he did. So, he waited. And waited. And waited. He seems to be really good at that. Then, like the masses at Walmart on Black Friday, when the door of my heart opened ever so slightly, he quickly stuck his foot in the door. (Right! I know. God doesn’t have feet. Just work with me here, okay?)

To spare you the long version of the past twenty years I’ll just give you the bullet points, remembering what one of my professors in graduate school seemed to only ask me, “What’s your point, Linda?”

(And, yes, these are bullet points for an A.D.D. brain, so cut me some slack.) Anyway:

  • My first AHA moment came when I worked for Youth in Need. I had an “I’m the boss” attitude until a twelve-year-old boy taught me what loving kindness looked like. I was basically a house mom and he came there hating the world. He would start a fight with other kids at the slightest provocation. He was a challenging child to deal with. One evening, he stole something from another resident and got very angry with me for confronting him when I found it under his bed. I told him I was going to the office to call our therapist, and he spit on me. Now, I was angry. I mumbled things under my breath I will not repeat here. When I called the therapist, I knew he was listening at the door. I explained what had happened, and she asked me if I felt threatened. At that moment, something inside me changed. It was Easter Sunday. The day we remember Jesus’ story reflects God’s promise. A promise made to me despite all my sins and brokenness. A promise that was made to this child I was about to have removed and sent to Juvenile Detention. I told her “no” I did not feel threatened, and we hung up. He fell into the room when I opened the door and started yelling at me to go ahead and call the police. He didn’t care! I told him I was not going to call the police. If he would calm down, shower, and go to bed, it was over. He got up, attitude still on display, and out of somewhere deep inside of me, I said, “And, Justin, if you need a hug, I have one for you.” He shoved the chair and “yeah, right!” ushered out of his mouth as he slammed the door and left. I repeated his “yeah right” a few times as I completed an Incident Report. What was I thinking? As I walked up the steps, Justin came out of the bathroom. He looked at me with a different demeanor now and asked, “Can I have that hug now?” I’m not sure how long I hugged that child or how long we both cried. I wondered if anyone in his young life had ever hugged love into his fragile heart. And there was God on full display, hugging love into both our hearts on Easter Sunday!
  • A few years later, there was the moment God’s clear voice told me to write a book, followed by my hysterical laughter, which I’m sure he did not find amusing. Anyway, I shook it off and went on about my business. A few months later, I went to community college and wrote a paper for an English class. When my teacher returned it to me, he said, “Linda, this is really good. You should see about getting it published.” Wait…WHAT?! So, I started writing my life story. Right! Like anyone would care. But I persevered, finished it, self-published it after many rejections, and even got a little award from a Writing Guild no one had ever heard of. The books were piled up in my basement, and Oprah never called, so my hopes of becoming famous were shattered. Fine!
  • In 2006, I was given the opportunity to attend graduate school with full tuition paid by a grant. God didn’t have to wait long for that rolling, side-splitting laughter from someone who barely finished high school! I prayed about it, and after a deeply mystical experience, not really, I just said, “What the hell! What have I got to lose?!” There are no words to describe how those three years challenged every fiber of my being. Then, beyond anyone’s expectations, except God’s, I graduated with a degree in Pastoral Studies. Then came the job search. You’d be right if you think I had a hard time getting any Priest to welcome me into the good-ole-boys-secret-hand-shake club. Of course, I whined to God…again…about why he had me on what surely was a wild goose chase to nowhere. “I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME!” No answer. Fine!
  • Fast forward to 2014. Tired of sitting at home and listening to my own belly-aching, I decided to just volunteer somewhere. After all, I was already beyond the age of retirement, so why not? Remembering our beautiful experience with Hospice when my dad was dying, I started working with them. During that time, I learned a lot about the dying process. We are not simple observers from a distance for those who are taking their final journey. Hospice care involves participating in what I can only describe as a profound sense of empathetic being-with, participating in a deepening movement through an almost palpable process. It was truly holy ground, and I always felt sitting vigil with the dying was a privilege that blessed me beyond words. I left there when my beloved mother-in-law, Catherine, went into hospice care as we sat vigil with her on her final journey. Then I waited…more calmly this time.
  • Next, I stepped a bit deeper into my fear and vulnerability by working with the homeless for St. Vincent de Paul, which ended up being one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. But, if you had told me I would be hugging and loving on two ex-cons at a dumpy motel they were staying in, I would have straight up denied the possibility. But there I was. There were many encounters like that. I didn’t tell my Supervisor about most of them because I didn’t think his heart could take it. Like the day I got the call from another agency, “Hey, you want to come help this girl who’s hiding from her mob boyfriend?” Here’s me, “Sure, why not?!” Sadly, our homeless program ended when our funding ran out. We then had to refer people to other agencies, and I did not feel the other programs were a good fit for me, so I stepped aside to discern what God had up his sleeve next. As of this writing, I’m still waiting, but I’m pretty sure God has removed his earplugs because I’m more patient now. You’re welcome, Lord!

I just shared with you a capsule version of my last twenty years. When I think about how I have grown and matured in faith, how others have taught me to live with ambiguity and uncertainty and be okay with it, I am stupefied! To say to someone in their brokenness, “I don’t know why this happened to you, but I care” – and then really care and be vulnerable to their pain is all God asks of us.

Learning to love and serve with God’s heart didn’t come naturally for someone who never had it modeled for them. Each step has built upon another to bring me to this place. It may not have seemed to make sense at the time. I may have spent too much time trying to repackage God’s perfect plan to fit my expectations, fixating on my own plans. But, at the end of the day, I know I am exactly where God wants me, and I know he does not waste time.

So, now what?

 “God gives food to every bird, but he doesn’t throw it into the nest.”

An ancient Hindu saying

 

Angela Duckworth did a lot of research for her book, Grit. She says:

“Often we believe that people who excel have some innate gift that no one else has. But it seems it isn’t so much ability or talent as zeal and hard work. Without effort your talent is nothing more than your unmet potential. Without effort, your skill is nothing more than what you could have done but didn’t. Enthusiasm is common, endurance is rare.”

Duckworth names four psychological assets necessary for success in any worthwhile endeavor and addresses critical aspects of growing into our God-given purpose:

They are:

  • Interest: Discovery
  • Development: Daily discipline.
  • Purpose: Conviction that your work matters. A lifetime of deepening.
  • Hope (needed in every stage) keeps you going when things are difficult, even when you have doubts.

I can relate to all of these aspects that have continually reinforced God’s plan for my life, but I would add one more: Trust. If we cling to our fears, we will stay stuck in our emptiness. You must own your story, not wait for someone else to write the chapters.

Through that still small voice, in my most broken moments, God spoke into the depth of my heart, “No matter where you are at this moment, no matter what heartache or pain you may have suffered, you are now and always have been, enough because you belong to me. You can trust me.”

Granted, I did not run into God’s arms with wild abandon. It was more like a slow crawl and a lot of back-sliding. I wanted to test him because trust was not one of my strong suits. But the more I submitted to him and experienced the changes in my heart, the more I was hooked. I just knew this was different; my life was different. I began to breathe in a love I had never known before. It was incredible, and I couldn’t get enough of that sense of God’s immense love for me even when I mess up, which I still do. I must remind myself daily that being worthy and imperfect are both aspects of our humanity. They are not contradictory.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” – Jeremiah 29:11

So, dear ones, it’s up to you to pray and listen for God’s whack or still small voice, whichever one works. Pay attention to your desires that speak to God’s desires. What are you passionate about? What breaks your heart? What gives you joy?

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive”

Howard Thurman

And just in time for this post USA TODAY published their list of 100 “Women of the Century” you can check it out here: https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/life/women-of-the-century/2020/08/13/19th-amendment-women-succeed-grit-rita-moreno-billie-jean-king/3331178001/

The author of the article, Nicole Carroll, tells us:

“They didn’t succeed despite adversity, but often because of it. They didn’t just blaze a trail. They hammered one with their voices, their ideas and their grit. They did it at massive protests and in church basements, on big stages and in dusty fields. They stood on the shoulders of ancestors and pulled along those behind them.

The lessons of the women who brought us this far show that from the darkest moments, we find our greatest resolve. So many women who’ve achieved have first been hurt. Trauma can shame and shatter. But, they will tell you, it can also guide.

How do women keep pushing forward in the next 100 years? The same way they always have. They’ll imagine. They’ll create. They’ll fight. With grit and with sacrifice. With not enough sleep and not enough help. With bright days of self-confidence and desperate nights of self-doubt. With courage.”

So, here are a few thought-provoking questions for you. I pray you will hear the voice of God speaking to your heart, and you will respond with a huge, “Here I am, Lord! Send me” (Isaiah 6:8). And then, dear one fasten your seat-belt for the adventure of your life!

  • How are you unique?
  • Do you know what your gifts are?
  • Who do you admire and why? (Often, what we admire in others is what we would like to develop in ourselves).
  • Do you like helping others?
  • Do you consider yourself a leader?
  • What makes you happy – sad?
  • Has someone else told you you are good at something?

 

God’s Full Refund Offer

by Linda Russell, posted in "Experiencing" God, fear, forgiveness, grace, Intimacy, Our Imperfection, relationships are hard, surrender, the glory of God, you are enough

You can return any gift from God, no questions asked

istockphoto.com/portfolio/SIphotography?mediatype=photography

It seems like such a stretch – no – an impossibility, for us to accept what God desires from us and for us.  Not a list of commands we can tick off like the rich guy in Matthew (19:16), not a quick rote prayer on our way to more important things, not a list of complaints we keep bringing to him until they are heard and remedied.

And so, here we are, stuck in our miserable small lives, blaming our unhappiness on God or some inept human and demanding the universe be reordered in our favor! 

We seem oblivious to life’s special moments with friends and loved ones, majestic sunsets, breathtaking rainbows, and, most of all, a magnificent life full of richness and purpose.  All planned out for us by a God who doesn’t do ordinary and never did.

Afraid of intimacy

Do you ever think about why we stay stuck there?  I believe we are afraid of intimacy.  Deny it, poo-poo it, thumb your nose at it, but think about it.  Keeping ourselves at arm’s length from a relationship with God and others requires nothing from us.  Intimacy is too scary.  But surprisingly, it too makes no demands.  By its nature, it cannot demand.

Intimacy is the love relationship modeled for us by the Father and his beloved Son through the work of the Spirit.  It is self-emptying and gratuitous.  It seeks the best for others over our own wants and needs.  It is life-giving, and it is what God longs for with every one of us.  He beacons us into a relationship with him, and he will court, swoon, and get all mushy over us until we let go of our fears.  

Afraid of vulnerability

But intimacy requires trust and vulnerability; we’re terrified of being vulnerable and exposing our weaknesses.  Yeah, I tried that once.  No thanks.  

If we could realize that vulnerability is not a character flaw to be conquered.  It is integral to our relationship with God and is meant to be transforming.  It means accepting and loving who we truly are, sins and all.  It is birthed in the grace of God, not shame.

We continually believe that we’re not good enough, not perfect enough, not “holy” enough. Who told us that? I can think of several people, beginning with my parents, especially my mother. Unfortunately, countless more people have been eager to reinforce that lie over the years. When you think about it, it’s amazing that we allow other broken people to define us and determine our worth. Then point to them when we try to prove to God that we are not worthy of love.

Truth be told, it’s the ego that holds us back, which is a paradox, actually. The ego is our sacred cow. And yet, we live this meager, paltry, desolate life tethered to our fears while pumping up our false selves for display to anyone who threatens our fragile sense of self.  

I wasted so many years trying to defend myself against the lies and blamed God for all my misery. In my lowest moments, I accused Him of not caring, “If you loved me, where were you when I needed you?! What was I supposed to think when You were silent while my mother abused me?”  More silence. “Yeah, I thought so.” Then, proving my point, I could go off and do what I pleased. You’re on your own, Linda.  

I’m pretty sure God was silent in those moments because he knew I was a hot mess, that my heart was too closed off to hear him. I wasn’t interested in healing. I just wanted him to bring down fire and brimstone on everyone else.

Fear denies us a loving, generous, merciful, forgiving, extraordinary relationship with God, and in turn, with others. Instead, we settle for crumbs. We live in defiance of our truth because it seems impossible to believe God would really “desire” our broken, self-centered, imperfect selves. What Glennon Doyle calls “this crappy version of ourselves”. Instead of embracing it, we give up trying because it’s just too hard to be the flawless human we’ve been led to believe God requires. We’re certain that we are a disappointment to him. That he’s tallying up all our transgressions. It’s really annoying.

Fear has a source that God continually warns us about. I love this quote from John Eldridge:

Our capacity to love is innate

When we don’t believe in our blessedness, we begin to doubt and fear.  So, how do we get beyond that?  How do we learn to embrace; to love what God sees in us?  Perhaps we should start with this truth: Even if your parents failed to love you well, it’s okay.  You are okay because you already possessed an innate capacity to love and be loved before God formed you in your mother’s womb.  

Our mothers, no matter if they love us well or totally suck at nurturing, are not the creators of our essence.  That distinction is God’s alone.  Got that?  Let that soak in.

And the journey begins

I was able to begin my long road to change when I came face-to-face with this God who seems to forget our offenses even when we can’t.  Not a change that signifies accomplishment but change that begins with me embracing my messiness, brokenness, and imperfections.

One of my most powerful moments of growth came when I realized that my mother, my mean, abusive mother, was loved by God.  But, sadly, she was never able to grasp her truth.  When I was younger, I hated her and told her so.  I believe she lived and died, never knowing the person God longed for her to accept and embrace as his beloved daughter.  

What I wouldn’t give to have her back.  What I wouldn’t give to offer her the forgiveness and love that I now know.  But when she was alive, I was too lost and broken myself.  God knows that, and he has been relentlessly pursuingmy heart so that I could forgive myself and offer his love to others.  

I honestly feel that the moment I could forgive my mom, even though it was long after she died, that our spirits connected, and that mysterious, mystical love of God transcended all our barriers and healed our hearts.  I could deeply sense it even though I couldn’t explain it.  But, of course, as soon as you try to “explain” mystery, it is no longer mystery.

God’s love resides in the depth of our hearts

When we allow ourselves to open our hearts to God, the magic begins.  Suddenly, our worldly longings don’t seem so significant.  We stop demanding anything from anyone, ourselves included.  If we can get just a tiny taste of the peace and indescribable joy God will bring to our lives when just sitting in his presence becomes everything, it is equivalent to heaven because it is heaven.

Jesus said to all with ears to hear, which has never been many, “For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you” (my emphasis).  Luke 17:21.  You don’t have to strive for it or wait until you “get to heaven, to experience it

Wake up!

Saint Irenaeus said, “The glory of God is man fully alive”.  Conversely, the joy of Satan is man sound asleep.  Are we even aware that there is a battle raging in our hearts that is continuous and unrelenting?  Jesus warned about it, but we’re not listening because we don’t think it applies to us.  

How much of Scripture do you believe is meant for us today; is intended to be a guidepost for how we should live and move and have our being?  And how much do we toss away as irrelevant?  That, my friends, is Satan at his most cunning.  Like that pesky snake in the garden, “Oh, come on, you don’t really believe all that stuff do you?!  God wants you to have a fun-filled life with no worries! Party on, munchkins”.

Jesus warned his followers then and warns us now, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they (you and me included) may have life and have it to the full”.  John 10:10. Do you feel like you’re living your fullest life possible?  Or does it feel like one hurdle after another to overcome so many barriers, heartaches, and detours that wear you down?

God’s Challenge

“Try me out for thirty days.  When you arise in the morning, come talk to me first.  Read some Scripture, tell me what’s on your mind, what breaks your heart.  You may already be doing that, but I would ask you to go deeper because this is where it gets real.  Give me ten or fifteen quiet minutes without expecting anything.  Then, if you don’t feel something stirring within you (by the way, that would be me), I will give you your miserable life back!  What do you say?” – God

I see you there, thinking, “Yeah, been there, done that, and got lost in a maze of “rules and regulations” along the way.  But I’m busy, and this is complicated.  Can you just give me the bullet points?”

I think we have the notion that God doesn’t understand our obsession with bullet points in our hurried life.  Look how we are drawn to articles that provide 5 Easy Steps to _________ (fill in the blank).  Four would be even better.  Just get to the point!  

Actually, he did.  Perhaps he made it too easy, and we can’t wrap our minds around something so simple.  Ready?

1 Easy Step to permanent peace and joy:

  • “Be still and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10 – Any questions?

I’m Right and You’re Wrong –DAMN IT!

by Linda Russell, posted in Covid & BLM, Covid-19, God is LOVE, If not us, then who?, Love your neighbor, serving others, the greatest of these is love

We are in the midst of a battle. Anger and violence are played out in the media daily. It’s deafening, and activists are on both sides of the conflict. Both have dug in their heels and refuse to budge. How many times have we seen in-your-face confrontations?

Fight cloud

So, the question then becomes: How many of those times have we seen adversaries turn into allies who decided to work together with the determination to change things for the greater good of our country? How many?

We’re seeing a win-lose struggle, and when there is a winner, that necessarily means there is a loser.  So, what’s the answer? How do we get beyond this impasse that is adding so much suffering to an already disintegrating situation?  How about this novel idea? How about if we just go home and work on our own issues first (and if you don’t think you have any…well…that’s an issue)?  Crazy huh?

No matter what I believe, no matter how passionate I am about changing the world,

I am really the only person I have the power to change.

I would like to share with you my course correction after years of being a selfish, stubborn, know-it-all believer in the power of God to send all heathens to hell if they didn’t straighten up! I was sure that was my assigned duty here on earth, and I was really good at it! My buddy Paul and I both got knocked on our butts – in a loving way, of course. God knew I was used to getting knocked on my butt and would come out fighting!  So, after he got my attention, he gently went after my heart instead. Sneaky.

I want to touch on three areas in the past fourteen years that have profoundly impacted my life. What’s impressive is that I have no bruises to prove it, but that’s because hatred, not Love, bruises.

The changes I am referring to are my faith, politics, and my self-centeredness vs. other-centeredness:

MY FAITH: – back in the day, I could quote many scripture verses proving that anyone I disagreed with was destined for hell. Have a nice trip! I could justify my superior attitude and what was clearly my god-given responsibility to save lost souls. That is until I got to graduate school in 2006.

It did not take long to see the error of my ways and the folly of my “beliefs”. But, and here’s the point I want to make in all of this, the professors I was so blessed to know in that three years were powerful influences in my life. And yet, not one of them shook an angry fist at me to announce that I was an idiot, which they could have. I saw something in them that helped me to see, really see, the error in my thinking. They were loving, compassionate, grace-filled teachers of God’s unconditional love for all of his creation. They taught me, not just through studies like reading the works of Thomas Aquinas (geeeezzzz, that was painful!), but more importantly, through their own example and lives. It wasn’t because of a need to be right or to make demands, but because they simply loved. I wanted to be like them. I wanted to grow in a faith like theirs that imitated Christ. They helped change my attitude about so many things. But, at the end of the day, all they had the power to do was encourage my willingness to change from the inside out. It was really up to me.

MY POLITICS: What I learned about myself at Aquinas carried over to a more nuanced understanding of the part I play just in voting. Before this, I was a one-party voter. Admittedly, it was much easier back then. Walk into the polling place, pull the lever for my party of choice, get my “I Voted” sticker, and go home. Never mind that I usually didn’t know who or what I was pulling that lever for. It didn’t matter, though. I was confident in the knowledge that I did my duty. I think today, many people like me now know how critical it is to be informed and choose for everyone in this country, especially those who have been kicked to the curb and feel they have no voice. And, again, my movement away from “don’t really care” did not come about by brute force. What woke me up to my responsibility and privilege to do my part for the sake of others came from an enlarged heart space, not someone yelling in my face.

Self-centeredness that morphs into other-centeredness – giving instead of taking. Seeing, really seeing, the worth, dignity, and humanity of those the world rejects. And not only seeing them but loving what we see because if you look close enough, you will see Christ. And I just can’t get enough of that.

I would challenge you to just sit for a moment and think of recent stories you have seen on TV or the Internet that either enraged you or spoke into the depth of your heart so powerfully that you cried.  Then ask yourself, which of those scenarios comes from God and which is motivated by an ego-driven, self-serving purpose?

I was recently involved in a conversation with someone who is very passionate about their beliefs concerning what we are experiencing. This person wanted to battle until the other person caved and cried uncle.  But, hey, both stood their ground. In the aftermath of that train wreck, I commented that everyone who disagrees with you is not your adversary. When you view every discussion with someone who feels differently as an opportunity to bully them into your way of thinking, the conversation shuts down, and you both lose.  Then I get the equivalent of a Bible-lashing in Matthew 21:12-13 to remind me that Jesus got angry and threw s*#t.

Okay, first of all, many “stories” in scripture are meant to offer a teaching. Does that scripture verse mean that Jesus was this angry bird who couldn’t control his temper? We could take this to a discussion of “righteous” anger, but that’s not the point. Do you think that table-tossing anger changed ANYONE? We don’t know, of course, but I’m guessing not.

How many of Jesus’ acts and teachings call us to love? How many people followed him despite the danger, especially women, because he offered what their hearts longed for. He came and eventually died for it, and so many others after him were martyred for. So it must be a big deal!

What was one of the last things Jesus said to his disciples? Come on, you know: “Okay, no more Mr. Nice Guy! I’m outta here now, so it’s up to you to carry on. Go on out there and beat everyone who refuses to follow me into compliance. Got it?”

Hmmm.  Yep, sign me up!

We know, of course, that Jesus was very passionate. However, he showed us that passion is not the end of the story. When that passion is turned into service to others, everyone wins, and God does his happy dance!

Why You Care Matters – BUT – How You Care Matters More

by Linda Russell, posted in Consider trials pure joy!, Covid & BLM, Do Something, God's plan, If not us, then who?, Our Imperfection, serving others, the greatest of these is love, transformation, Trusting God, Using our gifts

I recently read Alan Cohen’s quote, “Please show me is one of the most powerful prayers you can speak.”

I bulked at that, or more accurately, painful memories and an ego ever on high alert, bulked, “It’s not that simple! Life is not that simple!” That comes from a place long ago when I learned not to trust anyone but myself (how scary is that?!).

As a child, I needed to trust my mother, so I could learn to trust the world around me. But she proved to be untrustworthy, which, in turn, meant the world was also untrustworthy. The world loves those who don’t know who to trust and empowers the ego to guide itself right off every unmarked cliff until we begin to doubt ourselves.

My ego-driven mind wanted every aspect of my life to be certain and laid out clearly. I believed the Spirit I dealt with didn’t care much about its guidance in my life, “You’re on your own, kid. Good luck!” Old memories, combined with my return again and again to my default settings, dredged up my monumental failures to prove I was right – hoping that Spirit-guy would finally see that I had good reason to question everything.

Two events that always come to mind are: (1) writing a book and (2) attending graduate school. Both were significant and frightening decisions that did not turn out the way I had planned. It then seemed that the outcome of these events was confirmation that Spirit-guy could not be trusted either. And just to remind him, we had a little review:

 1) One day, out of nowhere, you clearly told me to “write a book”. That was you – right? Admittedly, after laughing hysterically, I finally did believe you and wrote the damn thing. That led to me imagining myself becoming a famous and sought-after author. But that’s not what happened, is it? No!

2) Then how about this? When offered the unbelievable opportunity to attend graduate school, after much consternation, I acquiesced. Even though I fully believed I would be discovered as a fraud and be tossed out on the street. When I finally realized I might actually accomplish such a crazy endeavor (which took nearly the entire three years I was there), I began to imagine myself becoming a beloved Pastoral Associate—fulfilling my need to be somebody special. But, that’s right, that’s not what happened either. Are you still with me, Spirit-guy?

When I read, “You can avoid painful errors and trials by letting the Spirit guide you”, my “failures” seem to confirm that that did not apply to me. But in a rare moment, I sat quietly and prayed. The response came quickly. I suppose because it has been the same obsessive struggle I have had for years, and you were probably peeved, weren’t you?!

Spirit (eye roll here), “Sit down and take a deep breath, Linda. Ready? Here we go for the bizzilionth time.”

1)  Yes, I did prompt you to write a book and attend graduate school. And, no, it did not catapult you into fame, fortune or recognition. No associate position in the church or loads of book sales. But it did develop into your blog, which has touched lives. How many? It really doesn’t matter because that’s not the point. The experience has changed your life in ways you never could have imagined beforehand – right?

Can you not see how much your faith grew and flourished when you cared for the dying as a Hospice volunteer? Then, working with the homeless, you showed them love, when they only knew rejection. No award, book contract, or flurry of accolades will come close to invoking those tears of love and compassion you reveal every time you reach out to those who suffer.

Maybe a review of Luke 15:4-6 is in order here. You know – when Jesus dropped everything and went after ONE (you!) lost sheep. ONE! And then he danced and sang all the way back to camp like he had hit the lottery!!

2) Admit it, Linda, it took these experiences and many others to strip away enough of your brokenness (not all, but enough for now) to open you to the love of God that had been gathering dust in your heart for a very long time. And, yes, I’m still going to be there, as always, to offer you some pearls of wisdom, even if you pretend not to notice me – the elephant in the room!

Anyway, those are the things you would probably never have considered being capable of before God wrested your shallow ‘faith’ from you and replaced it with a love for others.

Purpose can never be driven by the world’s definition of success. So, stop already putting expectations on the outcome!

Now, come on, we have lots of work to do, and you aren’t getting any younger, you know. Just sayin’.

Can you relate? Have you experienced your own come-to-Jesus moment, but you’re not sure what that means for you?

When Jesus said, “follow me,” it was a radical call, not an invitation to tea. It wasn’t the Jesus version of Simon says, “Touch your toes. Wiggle your nose. Bend your knees. Pat your head. Here’s your prize.”

You realize, don’t you, that Jesus never said, “Go to church”. Never. Church is where we often hear the Word of God, rejoice for a millisecond, and then go home to cut the grass. Following Christ means living the Word; it means being Christ to others. He told us, “I have suffered the hatred of those in power to serve those at the bottom – the forgotten and rejected. If you follow me, you will do even more and, yes, you will suffer for your efforts as well.” Our response to that call should be a resounding, “Yes”! But, it’s often, “I’ll get back to you.”

Remember that all the disciples ran for cover when Jesus was taken away. When they saw the empty tomb in unison, they proclaimed, “Bummer, this is not how we imagined it turning out.” (Does this sound familiar?) So, when Jesus showed up unannounced at their pity party, he was surely in the same place Spirit-guy has been with me so often, “Okay guys, let’s try this again. First of all, let’s get this out of the way – none of you will be sitting on any throne no matter what aspirations your mother has (Matt. 20:20-21). You’ll be sitting in the muck and mire with the least among you and, get this – you’re going to love it there because that’s what you were created for, selfless love and compassionate care for the lost and hurting.”

Today, we have been inundated by images and news concerning Covid-19, our broken economy, hunger and homelessness, and the BLM protests that have shed an uncomfortable light on the inequities in this country.

People are suffering and dying every day because they have been victims of Covid, hatred, or both. How are you affected by these realities? What do you think of when you witness this most profound moment in our history? Do you turn off the TV and retreat to your safe place? Do you pray or send a check to a food bank? – I’m not discounting those things. Both are needed for sure. But, is there a tugging on your heart to act on that reality?

This is a time of reckoning for all of us who consider ourselves decent human beings. Never mind any label you may attach to that: Christian, Jew, Atheist, none of the above, whatever – just decent human beings who know deep down we are called to lift our “caring” to a whole new level.

I love the expression: “Bidden or not bidden, God is still present”. God still lives and moves and has his being in the very depth of your heart, whether you believe in him or not. And even if you don’t, he just hangs out there, hoping you will one day acknowledge him and, in turn, recognize who and Whose you are. He’s like the heart whisperer, “I love you, you are mine, and your life matters.”

If I ever sound like I have totally got my act together, don’t think for a moment that it’s true. We are all a work in progress. We have all sinned and fallen short (Romans 3:23). I’m just thankful that God’s love and grace know no bounds. Our weaknesses don’t anger him, and our fears won’t push him away. On the contrary, he is merciful, forgiving, empowering, and likely has a wicked sense of humor! Oh yeah, and he has never been untrustworthy. Not once.

So, let’s do this. Yes, sitting quietly is important to discern how and where you are called to serve. But then, like Jeremiah, get off your butt and get over yourself because God will give you all you need to do what he calls you to do. That’s a promise we can all trust.

I will end with this wisdom from Anthony DeMello, SJ:

Once upon a time, a disciple asked the elder, “Holy One, is there anything I can do to make myself Enlightened?”

“As little as you can do to make the sun rise in the morning.”

“Then of what use,” the disciple asked, “are all the spiritual exercises?”

“To make sure,” the elder said, “that you are not asleep when the sun begins to rise.”

Love or Hate – A Moment-by-Moment Choice

by Linda Russell, posted in "Christians" who hate, Boldness in adversity, Follow Me

2020 – a year no one will forget!

We have been inundated for months with “facts” about the virus and the protests. The hatred that seems to be growing daily on every side, no matter what the argument is about, is deafening. That can be frightening…but…we must remember that fear is the ultimate goal of extremists. Fear can have the power to darken and obliterate the very meaning and purpose of our existence if we allow it to.

As I read and try to understand the depth of so many issues we are facing now, there is one that I feel is critical for our future, our children’s future, and America’s future, and it is so basic it should not even be in question – but it is: If I call myself a Believer (it doesn’t matter of what tradition) in the God of all creation, then loving my neighbor is not optional and there should be no place for hatred in my heart.

How about this for a reality check: 1 John 4:20 should thump us all on our hard heads, “If anyone boasts ‘I love God’ and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, HE IS A LIAR (emphasis mine and most likely God’s too). If he won’t love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can’t see?” (The Message). If we continue to pull away from that ONE TRUTH to create our own, we will have lost our way, and, God help us, our children will suffer the consequences.

We will all be called to account for how we choose to live in this world, and it’s pretty likely that for most of us, myself included, it ain’t gonna be pretty. We are messy, selfish, demanding, unforgiving, broken humans – full of ourselves and pumped with ego, with the tiniest bit of empty space for God to squeeze into. Somehow he does. Somehow he continues to love us in spite of ourselves. And somehow, miraculously, he pats me on the head with the greatest of love, mercy, grace, and compassion and says, “Linda, you screwed up again, but I forgive you and long for you to do the same. I love you and long for you to do the same. Like Jesus, you were created to take my light into the darkness. There should be no room for hate in your heart.”

Love is more powerful than hate if we truly believe what we profess! And, that, my friends, is the TRUTH.

You don’t have to believe that Jesus was the Son of God. Maybe you see him as a stand-out Prophet, a great role model, or the most you can muster is a wink and a nod to “Buddy Jesus”.

Buddy Jesus
(By The movie dogma, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17362087)

We know enough about Jesus’ life to know he didn’t stand behind a bullhorn and threaten hell and damnation for anyone who didn’t do what God expected them to. He led by example. He could have jumped on the bandwagon of the powerful leaders of his day and would probably have had a pretty cushy life, retired with a great pension, and lived into old age. But, that scenario wasn’t going to play out because his love and compassion for those who suffered guided his every thought and action, as it should ours. Are we afraid to ask ourselves, “What would Jesus do?” when confronted with a moment that challenges our moral fortitude because, deep down, we already know the answer? Ponder that one for a while.

We may not be marched up to a hanging tree, but, we surely should speak and live as fully as we are called to, no matter the consequences. You do realize God is counting on us to do just that, right? I will leave you with these words from Archibald MacLeish’s sermon on Job.

MacLeish asks why God allowed Satan to tear Job’s life apart. He says, “Because God believes it will be demonstrated that Job loves and fears God because He is God and not because Job is prosperous…that Job will still love God and fear Him in adversity, in the worst of misfortunes, in spite of everything. God stakes His supremacy as God upon man’s fortitude and love….Where the nature of man is in question, God has need of man. Only Job can prove that Job is capable of the love of God, not as quid pro quo but for love’s sake, for God’s sake, in spite of everything – in spite even of injustice, even God’s injustice. Only man can prove that man loves God. Man depends on God for all things: God depends on man for one. Without man’s love, God does not exist as God…love is the one thing no one, not even God Himself, can command. It is a free gift, or it is nothing. And it is most itself, most free, when it is offered in spite of suffering, of injustice, and of death. It is in man’s love that God exists and triumphs, in man’s love that life is beautiful, in man’s love that the world’s injustice is resolved. To hold together in one thought those terrible opposites of good and evil which struggle in the world is to be capable of life, and only love will hold them so.”

There…NOW GO!

What if Good Friday was Cancelled?

by Linda Russell, posted in Easter, Good Friday, Holy Saturday
good friday cancelled

What if Good Friday was canceled like all other “big events”? The need to manage crowd control during this time would take priority.

Well, then, Holy Saturday would be canceled too. Even if you spent that day alone in your Upper Room, there would be nothing to wait for.

And then, of course, no need for Easter.

BUT WAIT…

This could be our most profound Holy Week ever! Okay, maybe not “ever” – the original one would trump it.

But, we have an opportunity to make this EPIC for our lifetime if we’re paying attention!

Good Friday:

Throughout Jesus’ Passion, God remained eerily silent. Jesus was mocked by those who were certain he was an impostor. “If you are the Son of God, why doesn’t he save you? Why don’t you just come down from that cross?” (Matt. 27:40)

Yet, when “it was finished,” God’s heart exploded with the reality of his beloved Son’s death. The torn curtain, the earthquake, the rocks splitting! The eruption of Love’s broken heart slumped over on the cross was humankind’s ultimate rejection of God’s ultimate Love. What Jesus’ death revealed most profoundly was that God and Jesus’ mutual self-giving was completely gratuitous. “Surely He was the Son of God.” (Matt. 27-54)

And for us today? Good Friday seems to be happening every day since the pandemic began. I don’t know about you but I wake up every morning, open the shades, and look out the window expecting the world to be different. But, the news tells us it’s not. (Call it our very own Groundhog Day).

I think the significance of this Good Friday for us is that, as bad as it is, we know this too will pass, and God will use this tragedy for his good if we will just trust him and cooperate with his plan. We have been blessed with the opportunity of a do-over if we are so inclined to take it on.

Holy Saturday…and we wait. Truth be told, we spend most of our lives waiting for something. Our lives seem to be suspended between the really bad days and a sprinkling of a few really good days, that life presents to us like an endless loop of obsessive rumination, good or bad.

Fear and despair abound in today’s world. How is it possible to find hope or trust in anything, let alone a God who seems distant from human suffering?

Maybe we don’t know how many lives will be lost, what the economic outcome will be, how long it will be before life returns to “normal”, and even how differently we might view our “normal”. But, we do know Easter is coming! HALLELUJAH AND AMEN!

Image by Raquel Candia from Pixabay

Easter Sunday – Our celebration of the Risen Christ will surely be much different than we have ever experienced before. What I am hoping and praying for is that we honestly access our new reality in light of how we live our precious lives going forward. God’s will is made clear through his Son, “Love as I have loved and forgive as I have forgiven, no matter the cost.”  And we dare not cling to ignorance when the Truth stands before us.

How will we celebrate the Risen Christ in the midst of the fear and despair in today’s world? Holy week is always a reminder that we are called to live differently. But, when people in need see our backs turned from them, they see God’s back as well. It may seem too scary to accept that we are to be God’s compassion, his touch, and his mercy. So, we cry out to him to, “do something” forgetting that we are to be his hands and feet. We stand on Holy Ground when our compassionate care embraces another’s suffering.

This is the point where we must ask ourselves, “Does faith in Jesus orient my life?” If God is present and active in Jesus, is the same true about me? And if so, does that not call for an immediate response? God’s Love can release our human potential beyond our imagining, but not without our “yes”.

Jesus’ question, “Who do you say I am?” will be answered by our falling on our knees in awe and adoration, yes. But it cannot stop there. Jesus never said, “Worship me”. He said, “follow me.” As a Christian, I answer his question every time I give of myself for the sake of another, or, conversely, care more for myself than my neighbor. If I say to Christ, “you are the living God,” that truth must be manifest in and through the way I live my life, or it is a lie.

I am sure the next question Jesus will confront me with is, “Do you love me?” How will my life answer that question?

he-has-risen

 

INDEED!

2020 Vision

by Linda Russell, posted in Covid-19, fear, For such a time as this, God's plan, Jesus' Passion

The Lord gives us eyes to see, really see, IF (big if) we are willing, open, and present to him.

For too long, we have cast God aside for our own wants and desires, striving for ambitions and material obsessions. Things we thought we couldn’t live without may have hindered our ability to survive what is surely coming.

As I write this, the coronavirus is rearing its ugly head in every area of our lives, but I would like to focus here on one area – churches are closed all over the country.

Oh no…

This can’t be…

It’s Lent…

What will we do?

God must be beside Himself knowing we aren’t sitting in pews praying.

Or is he?

That depends on how we live our new reality, which runs the full spectrum from those who are frightened and immovable to many who seem indifferent.

Yes, these already are, and will continue to be, trying times as we suffer the physical, emotional, spiritual, and economic impact unlike anything we have ever known.

But, hold on…don’t leave me for a stiff drink yet! I have GOOD NEWS. Really!

Here we are, experiencing one of the worst disasters we have ever known in the holiest season of Lent. We have no idea what the outcome of the virus will be, but we do know how the Passion of Christ plays out.  So, let me ask you a question: what has your celebration of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus meant to you up until now? (To make this work, you have to be brutally honest. Okay?)

Many faiths observe various practices during Lent. The Catholic Church has requirements and suggestions for observing this season. Over the years, some of those “requirements” have become “suggestions”.  For instance, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are obligatory days of fasting and abstinence unless you’re old like me. Daily Mass, prayer, Scripture readings, traditional Lenten Devotions, sharing our abundance with the poor, and throwing in a confession somewhere are all strongly recommended.

Oh yeah, and then there’s that pesky self-denial summed up in the Christian concept of “mortification,” which in no way should be misconstrued as self-flagellation, an extreme practice of physical self-punishment that somehow, since medieval times, has been thought to imitate Christ’s suffering. Don’t do that!

Mortification actually means “cause death to our self-will,” which is what Jesus meant when he said to his disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mat 16:24). When we surrender our self-will we are imitating Christ. Jesus prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42).

So, let’s take an honest look at our individual observances of Lent, shall we? Then we’ll break down the three phases of The Passion in the context of today’s reality. I’ll go first.

  • I used to love fish fry’s when I was still a beer drinker and less concerned about recycled hydrogenated oil – YUCK!
  • I used to go to confession until, on two separate occasions, two different priests each said something totally inappropriate. I never went back.
  • I regularly do Intermittent Fasting for my health, but my “spiritual” fasting practices are pathetic…okay, non-existent.
  • Going to Mass always felt like a requirement to have my card punched once a week. Sort of like getting that sticker, “I voted” or “I Gave Blood”.

When I outgrew the fear instilled in me by the powers-that-e within the Church, I grew into a different person, a better person, hopefully. I quit “volunteering” to impress others and started to actually care about my suffering brothers and sisters. Which, in turn, led me to my life’s purpose.

I gave up my ambition of being the “Catholic Woman of the Year” or Saint Linda and began seeking God’s purpose for me. But, of course, I had no idea what that purpose was. He seemed a bit wiser than I always imagined myself to be.

Fear of going to hell when I dropped dead got me to church most Sundays. It would be like sitting in that confessional, spewing out mediocre sins to get my ticket to heaven.

Then I discovered this definition of hell: “Hell begins on the day when God grants us a clear vision of all that we might have achieved, of all the gifts which we have wasted, of all that we might have done which we did not do.” Gian Carlo Menotti…OUCH!

Okay, guys, I’m standing here with my sins uncovered. It’s your turn. Don’t worry no one’s going to call you out. You don’t have to expose yourself to judgment like I just did. Just take a quiet moment to think about it and then we’ll move on. Go ahead I’ll wait right here.

Okay, so, Pope Francis offered some powerful words to consider this Lent, “Jesus’ Pasch is not a past event; rather, through the power of the Holy Spirit it is ever present, enabling us to see and touch with faith the flesh of Christ in those who suffer.”  

And there it is.

God has been making this call to us since Jesus walked the earth; the call to get off our backsides and care for the poor and suffering among us. He was here in the flesh to show us how that should be done. And how do we respond today? There are many who heed that call, some just half-halfheartedly drop coins in a beggar’s hat”, while some simply aren’t listening. Not much has changed in two thousand-some-odd years I suppose.

Now, let’s consider the three phases of Jesus’ Passion: His life, death, and resurrection, in light of our call to imitate him.

  • His life: Of his thirty-three years here (give or take a few), on the surface, it appears that only the last three were spent fulfilling his purpose. Three years. That’s it. I’m seventy-one and hate to admit that I have probably wasted at least sixty of it. But, Jesus wasn’t wasting his life. He was growing into his purpose.

When I look back on my life: all the mistakes and missteps, the hurt inflicted on me and by me, the selfishness and rejection, there would have been no way for me to be all God created me to be because I didn’t even know who that was. But, I do now! I don’t know how much time I have left here. But it doesn’t matter because time has no meaning for God, so it shouldn’t for us either. Each day is a new opportunity to bring Christ to our suffering brothers and sisters. And it isn’t just a privilege; it’s a responsibility we all have.

  • His death: Jesus knew that his constant presence was a threat to the status quo. He knew that every choice he made to expose the rich and powerful of his day would risk his very life. That became more and more clear as he pushed against the power that held sway over the most vulnerable and lost. He didn’t hold back from calling them out with choice words to describe them even though it surely sealed his fate: Hypocrites, brood of vipers, prideful, whitewashed tombs, legalists disguising an inner corruption. “They preach, but do not practice” (Matt. 23:3). His death was inevitable.

Most of us will not be called to sacrifice our lives, but we are all called to die to our self-will so that we can be used by God in whatever way he has already predetermined. That might just mean having the courage to step into what will likely be uncomfortable, probably risky, even scary. And expect it to be a wild adventure because God doesn’t do ordinary! (You know that, right?)

  • His resurrection: When Jesus died everyone believed they would be returning to their ordinary, mundane lives. Alrighty then, that was a wild and crazy ride! We could liken it to that special vacation we always dreamed about and finally got to experience. The difference is that we probably have pictures to reminisce over; they got nothing, not even a stinkin’ T-shirt for heaven’s sake.

Anyway, when Mary and the girls got to the tomb they were met with, “Surprise! He isn’t here!!” And when he showed up at the disciple’s pity party later, they were all overwhelmed with fear. Then suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, they discovered within themselves a determination and fervor that would send them out sharing the Love of Christ with anyone with ears to hear. With the exception of John, they were martyred for their willingness to go when God said “GO!”

And for us? Resurrection, I believe, does not mean a new birth, but a “rebirth”. It means returning to our original holiness. God created us with Love, for Love. But, we have somehow lost our way. Saying “yes” to God means saying “yes” to our true selves and “no” to the lies we have believed about our unworthiness.

Jesus’ Passion was a seeming disaster turned to triumph. The conventional thinking of our time is that we can’t handle tragedy and suffering; that we will fall apart and resort to some sort of primal survival instinct. Though I suppose as we watch people claw each other to death for toilet paper some could make the case for that belief. But, I choose to look instead at the myriad examples of people who have shown love and compassion, and hope in disasters. Countless studies have borne witness to the fact that most people are altruistic, not barbaric. And out of the ashes of disaster comes the gift of the blessedness and fullness of our humanity. Yes, you and I are our brother’s keeper! It’s in our DNA

This, my dear friends can be a turning point in what we believe about ourselves and our neighbor; of what we are capable of in the face of fear and uncertainty if we trust in the divinity of our very souls where God resides and where we live and move and have our being. What you believe right now will determine how you act. So, it’s time to believe and act like you and everyone around you; friend or stranger, are beloved and precious children of God.

In our new coronavirus reality, we need to do away with “practicing” our faith and get to the business of “doing” faith. And how better to begin than to be kicked out of our comfortable pews, locked out of the church, and sent on a new meaningful, mystical, and mighty mission?!

GO ON NOW! And fear not. Remember the immortal words of Esther when Mordecai told her that her people were going to perish if she didn’t do something. Then he said to her, “And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”  And what was Esther’s reply without hesitation? “I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.” (Esther 4:14 – 5:16)

As I write these words I fully understand that none of us have any idea how this will turn out. But, I do know this – God does not cause such tragedy (so get that idea out of your head), but he will use it for good!

God is our steady strength. He will not abandon us. He hears our prayers and tells us: “Don’t be afraid!”

I love this quote by Rebecca Solnit, “Disaster could be called a crash course in Buddhist principles of compassion for all beings, of non-attachment, of abandoning the illusion of one’s sense of separateness, of being fully present, and of fearlessness…in the face of uncertainty.”

My prayer is that we will take on that mantel of courage and faith now, whatever that looks like, wherever we are.

So, hang in there, pray, wash your hands, and take care of your neighbor!

lord bless and keep you

You are NOT Going to Heaven

by Linda Russell, posted in "Experiencing" God, AHA moments, fear, God's plan, surrender, Using our gifts, Where are heaven and hell?

Oops. Did you just spit your coffee on that new white shirt? Sorry. My bad.

While you’re cleaning up there and before I go any further, I think a disclaimer may be in order. Everything I say about God, aside from my own personal experience, is my humble opinion and has no basis in fact. What did you pay for that opinion? Nothing. So, what is it worth? That’s right. Nothing.

So let’s continue.

There are many different beliefs and opinions concerning heaven and hell. But, there is only one fact: no matter what someone tells you or what “proof” they provide, no one knows. No different than a recent conversation I had with a friend who collects clowns. She thinks they’re delightful and enchanting. However, I actually believe some satanic force created them to kill us in our sleep. So, who’s right? (I’m pretty sure I am, but I have no proof of that either.)

So, if your bubble just burst or your halo deflated, I apologize. But this is kind of important stuff to consider because if heaven and hell aren’t an actual piece of real estate, then maybe your reason for being nice, or not, to the jerk next door needs to be reevaluated. And, spoiler alert, this will not be easy or fun.

This is not heaven!

(Shutterstock)

And this is not hell!

(Shutterstock)

Diana Butler Bass speaks of this idea of heaven and hell as “vertical faith”. She says, “Sacred traditions replete with metaphors of God in the elements were replaced by modern theological arguments – about facts and religious texts, correct doctrine, creation versus science, the need to prove God’s existence, how to be saved, and which church offers the right way to heaven. These are the questions of vertical faith.”

So, when it is said that we make our own heaven and hell right here, where we live and move and have our being, what exactly does that mean? This is the tough part I referred to earlier because our Western brains can’t seem to grasp anything mysterious or inexplicable. Therefore, everything in existence has to be named and categorized or it gets cast aside as irrelevant.

We are very good at compartmentalizing everything in our lives. Nice people who are low-maintenance get to be a part of our club. Unpredictable, moody, or disagreeable people don’t get to join. We only converse with those who agree with us and avoid or argue with those who don’t. We even compartmentalize life and death. We separate the two with the certainty that there is no connection. Mufasa would not approve! He explained to Simba, “when we die our bodies become the grass. Then the antelope eat the grass.”

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You may be too young to recall the days when wakes were held at home in a family parlor where life and death were celebrated as a continuum. That all changed with the advent of the funeral parlor. Funeral parlors sprung up so “professionals” could manage the uncomfortable aspects of death and turn bodies into pasty replicas of loved ones. Frankly, I think funeral parlors came into existence when some guy got tired of his mother-in-law hanging around in a box in his living room for a week (before the invention of formaldehyde!). But I can’t prove that either.

We keep everything in our lives separated into neat, tidy piles that we can easily manage, like peas and applesauce on our dinner plate (yuck, don’t want those to touch each other). So it’s no surprise that we stick God in heaven, so he’s separated from us by time and space.

The thought of God being right here in our midst, looking for any soft entry into our walled-up hearts is just too much to fathom. But, let’s stop for one minute, let down our guard, and imagine how different, how rich, and full our lives would be if we could comprehend that reality.

How about this uplifting thought about hell: Gian Carlo Menotti tells us, “Hell begins on the day when God grants us a clear vision of all that we might have achieved, of all the gifts which we have wasted, of all that we might have done which we did not do.”  

Wait, if hell is here now, and we begin to understand our true purpose, then we have a chance to correct our pathetic, despicable, pitiful selves before we drop dead. That is Good News, right?!

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So, what does all this mean? Again, I can only speak from my own experience. For most of my life, I ignored God and when I did acknowledge him it was usually in a display of anger directed at him. I too believed he was distant and could care less about me – a heathen.  

If God is known as “Father” then it would stand to reason that I would view him just as I viewed my own father. In which case, he would be distant and aloof. He would be sitting on his sofa eating ice cream and mindlessly watching TV, while the world fell in around him. Or if my mother was any indication of who God was: a controlling, punishing, and unforgiving “parent”, it’s no wonder I ran like hell in the other direction. Who needs that? Either way, he would not get a “Father of the Year” award from me and there would be no Hallmark card created for him.

We seem to like the notion that God is way up there while we’re way down here We might be relieved to think he’s not watching while we try to run our own lives. “Don’t need you, God. I’ve got this!” We’re probably hoping he’s much too busy with other more important things to pay any attention to us and our antics.

In many traditional faiths, God sits in his heaven and doles out rewards and punishments to each of us according to our merits or sinfulness. Think of Job in his most distressing time and how his friends wagged their accusing fingers at him, certain that he had sinned in some terrible way to have been the recipient of God’s wrath. “It’s pretty obvious Buddy. You screwed up big time! Now, you need to fess up before God gets his second wind!”

So, what changed for me? It certainly wasn’t that God changed his ways after he read a book annominously sent to him, “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. No, I had changed. I opened myself to a relationship with him that allowed me to experience who God really was, not who I imagined him to be. Knowing about God and experiencing him is the critical difference necessary to live as fully as we are called to live, and to trust what lies ahead.

God tells us in Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the“plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” We can choose to believe what we have long been told about a God whose wrath is to be feared, or we can choose to experience the God of immeasurable love and compassion.

Oh, if we could just grasp the reality of heaven and hell perhaps we would live our lives differently so that Menotti’s words would not be the end of our story.

Listen to these prophetic words of Father Richard Rohr: “When hell became falsely read as a geographical place, it stopped its decisive and descriptive function, and instead became the largely useless threats of exasperated church parents. We made (heaven and hell) into physical places instead of descriptions of states of mind and heart and calls to decisions in this world (emphasis mine). We pushed the whole thing off into the future, and took it out of the now.  Jesus clearly says the kingdom of heaven is among us (Luke 17:21) or “at hand” (Matthew 3:2, 4:17). One wonders why we made it into a reward system for later, or as Brian McLaren calls it, “an evacuation plan for the next world.” Maybe it was easier to obey laws and practice rituals.”

I love the Gospel of Thomas. Yes, there really was one, but he didn’t make the cut. Neither did Mary Magdalene but don’t get me started on that one! Thomas writes, “Jesus said, “Seekers shall not stop until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. After being disturbed, they will be astonished” (my emphasis).”Now, hold that thought a minute.

The scripture verse we are most familiar with is similar but clearly less challenging, it is Matthew 7:7, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”  Our shallow, non-threatening translation? Just ask and you’ll get whatever your little heart desires. This reads like a Christmas wish list: Apple AirPods? Done. Captain Marvel Legacy Hero Smartwatch? It’s yours. Chanel’s Quilted Tote bag? Because Lindsay Lohan!? Whatever. Here you go.

Okay back to Thomas. I’m guessing that his gospel was rejected by the “editors” of scripture because they were afraid they could not control us if we discovered who God really is and the power that truth gives us. Of course, I wasn’t there, so I’ll admit I’m really just pushing hot air, but I think the verse is useful for making my assertions.

Thomas tells us that we are to be seeking God and when we find him in our very hearts, it’s all over. What being “disturbed” and “astonished” means to me is that this only happens when we are in relationship with God.

Micah (6:6-9) tells us what God wants from us. In verses 6-7, these two stupid rich guys were trying to gather up all the best they had to appease God and buy their way into heaven. Somebody even threw in a firstborn child for good measure. But God rejects their attempts to buy his favor.

God: “Nope, I don’t want your stuff, I want you.” Micha lays it out succinctly, “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

That last verse is the very core of who we are called to be as children of God: And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Does that sound like the demanding, controlling, cruel, never to be pleased God you learned about in Sunday School when you were six and then couldn’t sleep for weeks because you had nightmares about him finding out that it was you who dunked your sister’s doll in the toilet?!

I fully believe that we are living our heaven and hell right here on earth, in our day-in and day-out lives. Each time we make choices to love and serve others, or conversely, serve ourselves. Each time we seek out those God calls us to bring his love to, or we take care of number one. Each time our hearts break over the pain and suffering that permeates our world and then do something about it or turn our backs and cling to our fear of what it might require of us. With every choice we make to love or hate we choose our own heaven or hell right here.

Now, how does that translate to what eternity looks like for us when we take our last breath?

Wait for it….

Wait for it…

I have no idea.

But I will tell you this: I live daily as a sinner/saint. Don’t laugh, my mother-in-law thought I was a saint once for about five minutes (I screwed that up the first time I opened my mouth!). In my seventy-four years, I have known anger, pain, and bitterness. I have been hurt and I have hurt others. At one point I attempted suicide because the idea of living another moment was too unbearable (clearly I sucked at that too – thank God).

I have come to realize that I have been blessed to live the indescribable joy of a rich and full life, even in the messy parts, especially then. A life that encourages giving, serving, forgiveness, and caring for others. That calls us to be in relationship with God and everyone around us – to be Christ to a broken world.

We humans are complicated but it’s okay. I now know that I can show up for life unkempt, messy, disordered, and at times unpleasant because I am a beloved sinner. I know I serve a God of mercy and unconditional love so I am not afraid to humble myself before him and I am not afraid of what lies beyond this life.

And as for you, my friend, if you’re reading this you are still breathing, and if you’re still breathing it’s not too late. Even if you feel like your life is empty and you’re a total failure – you’re wrong! How do I know that without even meeting you? Because you were created in God’s image and he said as much when he first laid eyes on you as a tiny thought in his imagination, “Yep, I did good, real good! You’re a work of art, even if I do say so myself!”

(I have to throw this in because I’m still laughing) My all-time favorite book is “Holy Rascals”, by Rami Shapiro. I have read it so many times it’s falling apart. It is ridiculously poignant and hysterically funny! He says that we are all children of God. Every last one of us. That includes Saint Mother Theresa right alongside Jeffrey Dahmer. The only difference, he says, is “if Jeffrey Dahmer invites you to dinner, you should decline!”

You always have another chance to get life right, to erase regrets, heal broken relationships, seek forgiveness, serve others, and be all you were created and gifted to be! God is your biggest cheerleader (don’t try to visualize that!). And, dear ones, this is not something you want to put off till Monday, like that diet!

I will leave you with this quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson “You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.”

May God bless and keep you. May God’s face shine upon you and give you peace.

Love,

Linda

Passion, Purpose and Poopyheads

by Linda Russell, posted in "Experiencing" God, Do you love Me?, God's plan, If not us, then who?, Lukewarm Christian, Using our gifts

Life sometimes seems like a “Comedy of Errors” from our first breath. You probably expected something very different while you were being formed in that cozy little B&B. You’re all comfy in there, aren’t you? Floating around getting all your needs met. It’s pretty sweet.

Except for those damn hiccups and people poking at you and trying to converse with you right in the middle of your nap. But then the party’s over. Without any warning, whoosh outcha’ go there little feller. You get flipped on your head and slapped silly by a stranger with a mask (that’s not scary!). All the while, you’re thinking this is not what the brochures promised!

I have fourteen grandkids and, at last count, fifteen great-grandkids. I am always awe-struck at the sight of babies. They show up all fresh and new, a clean slate. Well, they do have all that slimy stuff all over them, true, but it washes off.

And then life happens.

Good grief, life can be a shitstorm some days, can’t it? It really wasn’t meant to be that way, you know. Long before we set one teeny foot into this world, God had our life all figured out. He gave us a big hug and a heart bursting with love. Our purpose was to use the gifts he gave each of us to share that love. Then, finally, after all the work of creating us in his image (remember that for later), he kicked back, patted himself on the back, and proclaimed to himself, “Nice work!”.

Then, it all went sideways.

Maybe a parent failed us, or a friend betrayed us. A cheating spouse or a devastating illness caught us off guard. Then, throw in our own missteps and sinfulness. All of which helped to build a wall around our fragile hearts that God can’t even penetrate. That wall is fortified by a culture that worships independence, self-sufficiency, and self-promotion. As a result, we lose our way and move further from God. The world does not offer us choices that are meant to fulfill our lives. We simply learn how to climb into the least leaky boat.

If we dare step back, take a deep breath, and pay attention, the emptiness is almost palatable. But how did we end up here if it wasn’t meant to be that way? Well, somewhere along the way, we forgot who and Whose we were.

Being indoctrinated into “religion” only made it worse. Jesus’ whole purpose was to remind us of God’s love, the desire of God for relationship with us, and the longing of God for us to share that love with a broken world. But, we got lost in the “rules” and fell asleep. 

Oh sure, sometimes we get some crazy notion that we are here for a reason. So, we start beating our chest, determined to face our fears, stand down the bullies in our lives, and our own shadow. But it doesn’t seem to last long. We fizzle out for many reasons: Confusion, fear, lack of trust in ourselves, that stupid poopyhead that keeps showing up uninvited to the party, or that zombie apocalypse in our heads (you know that’s not real, right?)!

Well, crap!

But hey, if it’s any consolation, think about the hand-picked bunch of misfits Jesus had to deal with! Allow me to paint a picture for you. Better still, stick yourself in this moment. You’re Simon Peter at the Last Supper. Now don’t get all gender-specific about it; just indulge me, okay?

Anyway, everyone’s enjoying fellowship and a great meal. You start to take an extra helping of mashed potatoes with a big slab of butter. Yum. Then,  just as you’re about to dig in, Jesus turns to you and asks a question that seems to come out of nowhere, “Simon Peter, do you love me?”

You: “What?! Seriously? Of course I love you,” you say as you go back to stuffing your face (by the way, you should cut back on those carbs).

Jesus: “Feed my sheep.”

You nod.

But you barely get that spoonful of lusciousness to your mouth when Jesus asks again, “Simon Peter, do you love me?”

You’re flabbergasted, and your potatoes are getting cold. “Yes, Lord, I do. I swear (oops)!”

“Where is this coming from?” you mumble under your breath.

Jesus, unrelenting, “Feed my lambs.”

You scratch your head but get lost in – drum roll please – dessert. OMG! Your favorite, apple pie ala mode! You grab the server before she gets away and ask for an extra scoop of ice cream. You start to dig in, and….yep…

There he goes again, “Simon Peter, tell me again. Are you sure you love me?” Now, in all fairness, it’s understandable why Jesus keeps asking you that since you did run and hide when it all got too scary for you. But you’re about to lose it anyway, “Why do you keep asking me that same question? Yes, yes, yes, I love you.”

Then, without responding, Jesus stands up, walks to the window, and pulls back the curtain. “Simon Peter, come here.”

“Oh man,” you groan. Great, now your ice cream is going to melt. Everyone else is finished, and the server comes to clear the table, “Don’t take this,” you say, “I’ll be right back”! You walk to the window.

Jesus, “Simon Peter, look outside. What do you see?”

At this point, you get a little snarky: “I see trees of green, red roses too; I see them bloom for me and you, and I think to myself, what a wonderful world.”

Jesus, “Oh, for heaven’s sake! You don’t see that mother crying as she holds her starving child? Don’t you see the beggar everyone is ignoring? You don’t see the broken humanity right outside this window?”

You swallow hard because you sense your moment of reckoning is here.

Jesus, “Three times I called you to feed my sheep, and three times you chose to feed yourself instead. You give lip service to my call to care for those who hunger and, in the same breath, claim to love me.”

Hopefully, this is where you pass on the dessert and get your sorry self out there doing what really matters like you were supposed to all along. But how do you do that? That, my friend, is a  good question. It was supposed to have been answered by your Kindergarten teacher when you were learning “This little light of mine”. Unless, of course, you were a public school kid like me. Okay, then, maybe you began to learn it in Sunday school – unless you were a heathen like me. Then, there’s the possibility your dear granny sat you on her knee (before knee surgery) and taught you all about Jesus’ love – unless your granny was a heathen too.

I think we were set up too when the Church decided to take control by creating lots of rules to keep us in line. It worked for a while, actually a very long while. But then, people tired of “rules” that couldn’t fill the void. Years of studies by Pew Research can attest to that fact, even if the Churches have decided to ignore it. The studies show the number of people fleeing from churches, particularly millennials, is growing.

Even older folks are just showing up to get their cards punched. They shake the Pastor’s hand and lie about how good his sermon was (if they stay that long), then grab a bulletin to prove they were there. Done for another week or two, or maybe till Easter. 

Then, as if that isn’t enough, we have the “stories” in the Bible. I know we could debate all day long about whether or not the “stories” are factual or myths. I know how I see them. You’ll have to decide for yourself.

Let’s look at just two I have a real problem with: Adam and his accomplice wife, Eve. We’re told that Adam and Eve set us up for failure. No sense in trying to be good. That’s a lesson in futility because, well, we can’t be “good”. It’s called “Original Sin”. It’s like a hereditary disease. We all have it, and there’s no cure for it. (Believe me, if the pharmaceutical companies could come up with a pill for it, they would have long ago!)

“I’ve got you now, you wretched little creature!” (Not sure how the Scripture verse that says we were made in God’s image reconciles with that, but there it is.) Like the Elf-on-the-Shelf, he watches our every move, just waiting for us to screw up. I mean, really. He was lurking around in the garden while they tried to hide, but he caught em’.

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GOD: “I can see you, Adam.”

ADAM: “No, you can’t.”

GOD: “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I can.”

Then, there’s that whole burning bush thing. Do you think for one minute that wasn’t a setup for Moses? “Come on out God. We know you’re hiding there, waiting to pounce on our slightest indiscretion. That’s sneaky.” Sorry, I just can’t believe in that kind of god.

Somewhere along life’s journey, we are supposed to grow into the person we were created to be. But, we got snookered by the lies. Unfortunately, change isn’t going to happen on its own.

And don’t think for a moment that it’s just you. People who seem to have everything are hungry for that something “more”. Deep within every one of us is a longing for purpose. But, we can spend a lifetime whacking away at it in our foolish efforts to figure it out.

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I think our world today has successfully sucked the life out of anyone who believes for one minute that we are here for more than accumulating fake friends on FB, making lots of money, having the newest iPhone, or investing in the latest miracle weight loss cure. And for what?

Get up. Do life. Go to bed. Repeat.

The fact remains, we have all been given a purpose in this life, the passion to fulfill it, and lots of poopyheads along the way intent on screwing it all up! The truth of our essence has been stifled, stuffed away, and rendered irrelevant, along with God and all that matters for humankind.

I believe “religion” has become something God never intended. For so long, if we stuck with it, we learned to stay within our comfortable unquestioned faith because to do otherwise was just too daunting. So religion became empty and void of meaning. And when young people came along who were not afraid to ask the hard questions and were not content with the canned answers the Church offered, they left in droves, and they’re still leaving.

“So what is my purpose?” – you ask. Why am I here? Good question. Our struggle is embedded in worldly pursuits that ultimately bring us to a dead-end. We want life on our terms. We don’t want to struggle, we don’t want to suffer, and we damn sure don’t want to encounter anyone else’s suffering. We have enough to deal with trying to stand out in this dog-eat-dog world. The point is that none of it offers fulfillment that lasts. Striving for more, paradoxically, leaves us emptier and hungrier.

Consider this: What would you be willing to die for if someone approached you and demanded everything you have accumulated and cling to, or they will kill you right where you stand? Any of it? Or would you quickly, without hesitating, hand over all the “things” you value? I’m guessing you would. I would!

Martin Luther King said, “If a man has not found something worth dying for, he is not fit to live.” Ouch! So, the question then becomes, what is worth dying for? I have a one-word answer. Ready? Love.

There it is.

I don’t know about you, but my most profound moments of clarity are when I do a life review at funerals. If funerals don’t cause us to evaluate our existence, I don’t know what will. We may still be standing at the grave site when the questions surface: Do I matter? Have I value? What is my legacy? Will anyone care when I’m gone? Do I really have a purpose? What have I done to make the world a better place? Will I have to eat that crappy potato salad at the luncheon again? (Oh, sorry, I digress)

We too want absolute certitude that what we are after is real. Faith is a calculated risk, but we don’t like risk even if there is a high degree of probability. It’s too iffy. No thanks.

A shaky questioning faith might be less cut and dry than mindlessly following a set of rules. It may be more uncontrollable and mysterious than you have ever experienced, but that will bring you into the presence of Love and your true worth as his beloved.

You may not have been told this, but you’re allowed to wrestle with God, to question the reason for the suffering and heartache in the world. You can tackle the very struggles and heartache within yourself that you have never thought you could bring to him—God’s tough. Trust me. He can take it.

I got so angry with him during a very difficult time in my life I cried and shook my finger at him, “God, if you love me so much, where were you when my mother was abusing me?!” I ranted on and on about all the suffering he allowed in my life. And what I got back from him was not a lightning strike which I was prepared for, but a gentle, loving response that unsettled the core of my being. “Linda, I did not abandon you during that time. I suffered along with you. My heart ached for you. I have lovingly, sorrowfully held your tears. But the choices people make are beyond my control. I’m truly sorry. But, you, my dearest daughter, have also sinned and fallen short. Even then, never have I stopped loving you. I’m just waiting for you to trust me and start loving me. Then, your healing will start, and you will be able to forgive those who hurt you.”

No church “rules” or dogmas will ever bring us into that deep-abiding relationship with him. It is what we call “experiencing” God. Until we can let go of our need to “know” that God is real, we will never allow ourselves to open our hearts to experience him.  It’s that simple and that critical.

That is Good News!

William O’Malley nailed it when he said, “Genuine religion begins – not as it did for most of us, with indoctrination and imposing worship but with a personally captivating experience, a “sense” of the numinous, a presence larger than the capacities of this world to produce.”

Frederick Buechner once wrote, “The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you.”

YOU MATTER!

That is what John Eldredge tells us, “If we could believe that about our lives, and come to know that is true, everything would change. We would be much more able to interpret the events unfolding around us. We would discover the task that is ours alone to fulfill. We would find our courage. The hour is late, and you are needed. So much hangs in the balance. Where is your heart?”

Alrighty then, I’m done, and if I didn’t lose you long ago, I would like to offer you one last thing to contemplate: Which of these two scenarios would most likely bring you right to the heart of this very critical moment of truth, the most profound question of our existence?

(1) All your years growing up, you were drug to “church”. Parents started it: “Get up, clean up, sit quietly, don’t touch your brother, and act like this isn’t the most boring thing in your life! Then you’ll get donuts.” Then teachers of “religion” stepped in: “Memorize all the sins that will send you straight to hell: Miss one Mass – straight to hell. Think those dirty thoughts – straight to hell.” In short order “that little light of yours” has been snuffed out!

Or….

(2) You encounter Someone (guess who) doing things that draw you to him: Feeding the hungry, comforting the dying, kissing the leper, dining with prostitutes and beggars. He is so sincere and passionate about what he is doing that something incredible reaches deep down into the core of your being, and you can’t shake it. You are awe-struck, probably for the first time in your life, and you want to emulate him. You want to follow him. You want to sit at his feet and learn from him.

Comfortable Christianity is an Oxymoron

Featured by Linda Russell, posted in Easter, God in the ordinary, hungry for hope, Love your neighbor, Lukewarm Christian, Resurrection

(Originally posted April 2018)

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The tomb was empty.  He was gone.  Mary cried out in anguish, “What have they done with him?” The response was not comforting to her:

Some mysterious guy with no name: “He’s not here”.

Mary with no filters: “Wait…What?  That’s not how this is supposed to go!”

It wasn’t what the other disciples wanted to hear either.  So when she told them, they didn’t believe her. Why would they?  She was just a woman and probably hormonal at that! Anyway, they thought the script was already written.  It was a done deal, and they were now scrambling to adjust their lives accordingly.

As Christians, we should be able to relate to them, except for one HUGE difference.  We relive that scenario year after year.  We are supposed to know how the story plays out. There should be no surprises. But by the way we act many of us seem to have amnesia.

Bumping into Jesus

How often are we oblivious to Jesus while walking our own Emmaus trail?  Whining and complaining about how unfair life is, acting like we don’t even feel him breathing down our necks.

After the Resurrection, Jesus revealed himself in the most unlikely places: Behind locked doors, within those tough relationships, at a fish fry on the beach, in the faces of the broken and downtrodden.  He’s there.

In many ways, the poor and homeless among us feel they are also staring into an empty tomb.  “Wait, if you’re not dead – where were you, Jesus, when I lost my job and my home?  Where were you when my child died and my husband left because my pain was too much to bear?  Where are you now as I struggle to feed my family?”

Often, in working with the homeless, when the need seems almost overwhelming, I experience a God moment that reminds me heis, and always has been, in our midst, changing lives and bringing hope to the hopeless.

I will share one beautiful story with you.  Since last September, I have worked with a woman who, through no fault of her own, lost her job, then her home.  When I met her, she was living in her car and felt hopeless.  She would search for available jobs on her phone but had no place to take a shower and “look presentable” to go on an interview.  We were able to provide her with a motel room and food.  She soon got another job as an Assistant Manager of a shoe store, moved into an apartment, and now has the stability we strive for in this work.

But wait, there’s more!  Experiencing the blessings of God, she now gives back.  Last week, I witnessed that once-homeless woman give another homeless woman brand-new shoes and coats for her kids. Is that not the epitome of being Christ to others just as we are called to be?

Can we try this again?

So, here we are again in the midst of an Easter season meant to draw us into a deeper relationship with God and, in turn, with our brothers and sisters.  Not just the ones that are low-maintenance and easy to love.

It is a time we are called to prayer and sacrifice to help us remember and then act on (we always forget that part) God’s scandalous, extravagant, outrageous love by sharing it with others.

On Easter Sunday, we sing and celebrate our faith’s most important Feast Day.  “Alleluia!  The Lord is risen!  The Lord is risen indeed!  Alleluia!” What should that mean to us?  After the glorious Resurrection of our Lord – what then?  Yes, we get to eat chocolate again, but beyond that…

This is where our transformation should begin

Sister Joan Chittister tells us, “The real proof of the Resurrection lies not in the transformation of Jesus alone but in the transformation awaiting us who accept it.”

Transformation can be powerful if we are willing to seek God in new places outside the comfort of our assigned pew on Sunday.

Transformation happens when Jesus takes up residence within our often stubborn hearts and calls us to love and serve those he most loves: The outcast, the poor, and those the world rejects.

God is good ALL THE TIME!  And he’s hiding in plain sight.  Go see for yourself.

Unconditional Love: Learning to Love Through God’s Grace

by Linda Russell, posted in fruits of the Spirit, Uncategorized

LOVE

I Said I Loved You, But I Lied

Often the words, ‘I love you” are just that – words.  If I am married I feel obligated to tell my spouse. If I have children or parents, I should tell them, at least sometimes, maybe Christmas is enough, or Christmas and birthdays. Maybe I could just send a card or an email or text.

Can I beat my child or abuse my spouse out of “love”, for their own good? Many of us carry scars of past pain and hurt that play out in our lives today. I swore I would never be like my mother – does that sound familiar?

I recall one time in my life when my mother told me she loved me. It was in this context, “Now you know I love you or I wouldn’t ask you this question, are you on birth control?” I never heard her say it before or after, and I was twenty-two at the time.

Any time love is attached to something; when it is conditional, it is worldly; shallow, and indifferent. No one said loving others would be easy. If that were the case, Jesus would have either not come at all or would have lived to a ripe old age. He showed us how to love. God’s immense grace can help us love those that we find humanly impossible to even like – even ourselves sometimes.

Now here’s the key: I can learn to love only when I have accepted God’s love myself. Scripture says we love because he first loved us. I can’t give something I don’t have to give. I had nothing to give most of my life because it was only recently that I have grown to accept God’s love for me.

Know the Difference

Worldly love wears the sheepskin of an “if it feels good” mentality over the wolf that devours childhood innocence, destroys relationships, makes compassion a burden, and muddies the pure waters of selfless love that was created by God.

The love God created, “…suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely; does not rejoice in iniquity; but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:4-8)

God loves unconditionally. May you too know the depth of that love.

JOY

“Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth; break forth in song, rejoice, and sing praises.” (Psalm 98:4)

My response from my former life would have been something like this: “News flash, dufus, joy is the noise made by fools who don’t have a clue what is going on in the world. Have you missed the constant killing of innocent people? Wildfires, tornados, and floods?  Have you been in a coma or what? Am I finished, or are you still stupid!?”

All right, fair enough (no need to call me names). I actually do know about the horrors that have visited this world since the beginning of time. I also know about a man who suffered an indescribable death at the hands of those who wrongly accused him of a crime. He was beaten, tortured, spit on, mocked, and made to carry his own cross to a hilltop. Then he was nailed to that cross as many watched him slowly suffocate and die.

I know about men and women who followed him because they believed in him even though they knew they would suffer their own trials and the same fate: jail, stoning, torture, and death. Do you think for one moment they would have signed up for that if they were following a fool? There is a common thread in all of their writings and teachings: joy – sheer unadulterated joy in all their circumstances. Why? Good question. Here’s the answer….

They knew that the only way to bring nonbelievers to Christ was to live joyfully because no idiot would follow someone who spewed bad news on a regular basis. Cynicism is the devil’s tool to keep unbelievers away from Salvation’s door.

We are called to go and make disciples. How would that be possible if our minds and hearts are focused on ourselves and our misery, and not on Christ? Suffering has a purpose, and when you discover that truth for yourself, as I did after so many years, you will have arrived at a place where you can shout for joy and share the Good News with others. But if you live according to the flesh and have your mind set on things of the flesh, you will be a “clanging cymbal” (1Cor. 13:1) to those around you who will see Christianity as a joke. Why would any nonbeliever come to Christ if Christians are as miserable as they are?

Joy Is…The oasis of laughter in the desert of loneliness. It is a caring touch coming through the locked door of a broken heart. It is peering through tear-stained eyes into an empty tomb. Pain and suffering are temporary. Joy is eternal.

PEACE

  “Do you want to be made well?”

Can you imagine a doctor asking a sick patient that question?  “So, from all of our tests, it looks like you are gravely ill. Do you want to be made well?” Is this a trick question? Was it when Jesus asked it of the man who had an infirmity for thirty-eight years? (John 5:5-6)  No, and Jesus was serious when he asked me the same question, was I tired of shallow attempts and continual backsliding?

If I wanted true peace in my life, I would have to let go of the anger and lashing out. I would have to recognize the part I played in my misery, and I would have to release the people who were on the receiving end of all the pain and hurt that was bottled up inside of me. In public I was the picture of calm and peace; in private my life was out-of-control. It is important to understand that anger is not the underlying emotion; it is the outward expression of unmet needs.

The Antithesis of Peace

The Israelites were a perfect picture of what peace and contentment are not. Moses got them out of Egypt where they were being persecuted. Do you think they were singing, “Free at last, free at last” as they were escaping the brutality they experienced at the hands of the Egyptians? Or possibly praising God? No way.

They whined and complained about everything – and when they did, God responded. No water? God sent it.  No food? God sent it. Egyptians closing in all around them and God does that little parting of the sea. But they continued to bellyache. Moses was beside himself trying to keep them happy. How embarrassing it must have been for him to continually have to take their complaints to God. “Um…excuse me, Lord, I’m sorry to bother you again…”

I look back and wonder how difficult it must have been for others to live with my bellyaching and complaining. I wonder if some heads were shaking and eyes were rolling in silence. Did I turn some people away from God because there was no peace in my life? 

Yet, peace and contentment are not out of our reach. Granted it is not easy. You would think there would be nothing pleasant about the journey God brought me through as he was revealing my sins and healing my pain. When in actuality, I am blessed for all of those experiences that brought me closer to God and showed me a peace I could never have realized any other way.

One of Jesus’ final acts was to offer his disciples peace, and they were going to need it! “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you.”  The world has never been at peace, and what passes for peace one moment changes the next.

Have you known someone in your life that just radiates peace?  Someone, that you seem to gravitate towards, not really knowing why?  You can be pretty sure that person is walking in the Spirit. And if you are wise, you will do everything, short of stalking them, to be in their company, to glimpse through them the very nature and essence of God, which is the very essence of peace. And then claim it for yourself.

PATIENCE

Today patience is a dinosaur, and if perseverance doesn’t come in a pill form, we aren’t interested. I want it now! I don’t want to feel it, I don’t want to deal with it. Give me another credit card, a pill, or a bus ticket out of here. A display of patience we might tolerate would be something like a gentle nudging to wait your turn; wait for your elderly grandmother to catch up; wait in traffic; wait for a phone call, and so on.  Just a small interruption in our daily routine.

But for such a small interruption, haven’t we seen people handle it as though it were a major life-altering event? A sales clerk puts you on hold. When she returns you blast her with, “It’s about time. I’ve been holding for 20 minutes!” Have you really? Most likely it was about 3 minutes, tops. Think of the times you have been impatient with someone. Was it really a major setback for you? Really?

Wanna know the original meaning of the word? It was likened to the suffering of Christ. It literally means to suffer and endure. If that is true then how much more would we react to the events in our lives that call for patience? How much more would be required to be in a relationship with someone who is unbearable or endure intolerable circumstances? But that is exactly what God requires when he calls us to patience; to suffer and bear the burdens of life.

We excuse ourselves when we fail to be Christ-like to others and yet we expect God to be all-loving, all-forgiving, and all-patient with us. “Well, God’s a bigger man than I am.”  So, you’re comfortable with that excuse are you?

Here, go ahead, water this one down:

“And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practicing such things, and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God?  Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering (patience)?” (Romans 2:3-6)

There you go. You can spin it, dance around it, ignore it, whatever – but you will not escape it. Truth is truth no matter how much we disagree with it because it doesn’t suit us.

But hold on, I have some good news for you. God doesn’t demand anything from us that he will not give us the power, his power, to achieve. So why is God so patient with us? God longs for us to trust in him. He longs to shower us with blessings and guide us through all the obstacles this world presents to us.

When I first began my walk with God I often found it very difficult to accept that he could be so patient. That wasn’t what I was used to, and I continually failed him.  I found it hard to turn to him because I was sure of what would be waiting for me when I went to him: The disapproval, the cursing, the spanking, the reminder that I was “bad”. But that was my experience with my mother.

Over the years, I had erected a wall that would keep others away from my heart. I didn’t trust anyone. Little by little I tested God’s assurances and found him to be loving and trustworthy. Whenever I hesitated I simply reminded myself of all the times he was faithful to his Word. That didn’t mean it was easy to change or to stand before him when I had sinned. But it did mean that I could trust him. His love was steadfast.

Am I a Stumbling Block to Others?

Patience is not a weakness or an excuse to sit back and proclaim that we are waiting on God. Persistence is the activity of patience; to be diligently at the work of changing for the sake of others; to be ever in prayer for the grace and strength of God to endure our struggles with other people and circumstances, knowing that they are in our lives for a reason.

KINDNESS & GENTLENESS

“Will you look at the way she struts around in that disgraceful outfit!”

“You idiot! Get out of my way!”

“I will never forgive you for that!”

What are the prejudices and injustices we perpetrate on others because of our pride, pious attitudes, and our forgetfulness of just how imperfect we are? I don’t like looking at so much of my ignorance in such a small space, but I have a story to share!  I call it…“The blessings we miss.”

Several years ago, I went to a funeral service for a dear friend’s father (I will call her Judy and him Bill). I knew the story. I knew enough that I even distanced myself from him when he was at Judy’s house.

Bill and his wife were long divorced, and his relationship with his daughters was strained at best. Some of them wanted nothing to do with him. Although Judy seemed to deal with it well, I knew he had hurt her, and that was cause enough for me to dislike him. Why should I bother?  It wasn’t like it mattered. But sadly, I would discover on the day of his funeral, that I was the one who was the loser. I missed a blessing.

After the funeral, everyone was invited to a luncheon. I couldn’t stay long so Judy and I decided to meet the next morning. As I was leaving the cafeteria, I found myself going against a stream of people. Who were they that they even stayed for the luncheon? Didn’t they have better things to do?

The next morning Judy and I met. I asked how the luncheon went. Tears began to flow down her face as she related one story after another. It seems she opened the floodgates when she thanked everyone for coming and encouraged anyone who was willing, to share stories about her dad. Well, they did. One stranger after another. The stories seemed endless of his concern for them and their problems. He was a good listener. He cared.

Wait a minute. If he cared so much, why was his relationship with his daughters so bad? If he cared so much why didn’t we know that? There is an explanation, and it is a huge part of the human condition. If we thought about it we could all probably call to mind at least one person in our lives right now whom we have distanced ourselves from because of struggles in our relationship. That person may be as close as our living room couch.

It hurts, and we are determined to stay focused on that hurt as long as it takes to make that person suffer. But, you know what? That person is a child of God just like we are. That person is broken just like we are.

Am I better, more perfect, without fault? No. The sooner I realize that the sooner I can get beyond the hurt. If I never do that, then one day, perhaps it will be me standing at the funeral. It will be me hearing stories from strangers about this person I never knew because I would not allow him to be anything other than the person who abused me as a child, who cheated on me, who stole something valuable from me, probably so long ago I quit trying to recall the source of my pain. But I haven’t quit hating him, or her, for it. How many times do we miss a blessing because we refuse to forgive?

“Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind” Brad Meltzer

GOODNESS

“Everyone feels benevolent if nothing happens to be annoying him at the moment.” C. S. Lewis

What is your definition of “good”?

  • One who hides behind the mask of “goodness”?
  • One who gets the “Saint of the Year” award.

And while we’re at it, let’s think about where we fit in this mix. I think I fell into the first category most of the time.

I learned a few tricks from my mother who was the master of masking. She was from the old school of, “what would the neighbors think?” When you walked out the door, you left the dark family secrets behind and played the game in public. She got caught one time though. I was a teenager, and our family went to the home of a man who was a youth minister and loved to engage people in conversations about family dynamics. He was very straightforward. He looked at my mother and me and asked, “Do you have a good relationship?” My mother’s rapid-fire response was, “yes”, and mine was, “no” as I walked away. It didn’t have a life-changing effect on our relationship, but I savored the moment.

Oh, the games we play; the lies we tell. But the real tragedy, I believe, is that we really believe we are faultless, even though our sins tell a different story. Goodness really doesn’t seem to be on the same scale as holiness, does it?  I think I could rationalize myself into the category of good, but I would have a tough time comparing myself to Mother Theresa, although I tried once…

I have to tell you this story. This is really pathetic and I shouldn’t, but here it goes. Many years ago, I went to a banquet. It was an annual event honoring the “Person of the Year”. As the evening began, first with dinner, then speeches, I secretly (this is really bad!) wondered if I was the nominee. Then came the time for the award. I was hoping I didn’t have spinach in my teeth or a run in my stocking (yes, we wore those!). The anticipation was building! The President of the organization stepped up to the podium and began speaking about the honoree. But, as she revealed, bit by bit, the litany of selfless acts and humility of this person, she was, at the same time, revealing my pride and arrogance. And the reality of it slapped me a good one! I really don’t recall all that she said, but I half-expect Mother Theresa to walk up and take the award, then thumb her nose at me on the way back to her seat. And I would have deserved it! God can humble us in the most profound ways.

How easy it is for us to consider ourselves good people, just because we exist. Maybe in the eyes of the world, it will do, but not if we call ourselves Christians.

As Christians, most of us really want to do good, but we are constantly in a battle. That battle is described in Galatians 5:17, “The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary one against the other so that you cannot do the things that you would.” True goodness is virtue that comes from God alone.

Galatians 6:9 says, “Don’t grow weary doing good.” People who are superficially good do grow weary because the game is a lot of work. Our true character is who we are when no one is looking. David Morsey once said, “The occasional good deed of the unbeliever no more reflects the Spirit of Christ than the occasional bad deed of the believer reflects the spirit of Satan.”

So the litmus test for goodness is how you treat that nosy neighbor, that crotchety checker at the grocery store…that you encounter when you are tired and grumpy yourself. How about that mother-in-law of yours or the boss who is a direct descendant of Attila the Hun?

Now comes the proverbial question, “Why should I?”  And the answer is?  Being good, especially to our enemies, can bring far greater rewards than treating them the way they deserve to be treated. Our returning good for evil may just bring that person to repentance. We are not talking about random acts here; we are talking about a daily, purposeful, and guided life of goodness. And if you still need convincing go back to the Cross for a reminder of what loving your enemy looks like. Now, go love that jerk  (oops…child of God).

FAITHFULNESS

 “Examine yourselves to see if you are in the faith; test yourselves.” (2 Cor. 13:5)

God’s faithfulness is steadfast, but what about ours? I will not tell you that I possess all wisdom and have vast theological knowledge because I don’t. So why would you care what I have to say about this subject of faithfulness? I can only relate to you what has brought me to a place where I know faithfulness means far more than I was ever willing to admit. That didn’t happen as a result of one miraculous event. No burning bush, no parting of the sea, no Lazarus-like miracle. Just a journey–a very long journey, to a patient and loving God.

Ray C. Stedman wrote an article about America’s Spiritual Decline”, “Pollster George Gallup has described America as richly religious but ethically impoverished. While religion is highly popular in America, it is to a large extent superficial; it does not change people’s lives to the degree one would expect from their level of professed faith. In ethical behavior, there is very little difference between the churched and the unchurched.”

How do we rationalize our indifference to the horror of what took place at Calvary?  Could it be that we trivialize Jesus’ suffering to make our meager sacrifices appear to be significant and our sins acceptable? Thus Jesus becomes a warm fuzzy, and we are off the hook.

“Take up your cross and follow Me.” (Mark 8:34) Oh boy, here we go. This is where we disconnect.

We know the kind of men the apostles were before Jesus died. They were a bunch of misfits. They couldn’t understand his teachings, and they argued for a coveted spot next to him when he ruled. They doubted, they questioned. They fell asleep when he asked them to pray with him, and they ran away when he was taken to be hanged. They may have scattered, but even from a distance, they all knew what was happening. They knew he was being tortured and crucified, and they knew they screwed up big time!

Just think of a time when you did something that you regretted. We all have. You replay everything you did over and over again. You know there is no way to justify it, and the shame is too much to bear. You will never be able to face your spouse, your parents, your boss, again. You can’t do it over, and you can’t change it.

A Second Chance

Now here they are in the Upper Room after Jesus is buried, eleven men lost in confusion and grappling with their weakness; their denial. We only think of Judas betraying Christ, but they were all guilty of betraying the One they once said they would follow to their deaths. But alas, he walks right through the wall of that room and stands in their presence.

Can you imagine the look on their faces?  The look of dread and fear is all over them. They’re gonna get it now. But what are his first words? “Peace to you.” (Luke 24:36)  There standing before them what they could no longer question, a God who truly loved them. When Jesus said, “Anyone who wants to take up his cross and follow Me, anyone who wants to suffer the same fate as Me, step forward.”  They did. All of them. There would be no turning back now, no running, no denying. The cock could crow till the cows came home and not one would falter, not this time. Why? What was different?

They had time to contemplate his incredible act of submission to the will of God. They were firsthand witnesses to the immensity of God’s love for them, and for a moment they were afraid they would never have another chance to make it right.

Now, most of us are not called to martyrdom. We are called though, to die to our own selfish, self-centered ways.  We are called to be different, to suffer if need be, as our suffering is the most powerful witness we can give to the reality of the risen Christ and to a faithfulness that accepts anything that comes our way in his name. We must stop asking, “Why me Lord” and accept our trials with a faith and trust that God is right there with us to turn our sorrows into joy.

SELF-CONTROL

Everything that Satan is behind—those worldly things that we call pleasure are really his skillfully disguised handiwork. That piece of chocolate cake that you couldn’t resist, the neighbor’s wife you couldn’t resist, the new outfit you couldn’t resist? What about those tiny indiscretions? What happens is that each time we justify the smallest sin, we become insensitive to the fact that it actually is sin.

Does Jesus speak to us about such things?  You bet He does. Here are just a few scripture verses, though there are many that speak to the issue:

1 John 2:15, “Do not love the world or the things in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world.”

For all those who have been deceived into believing that there is such an excusable thing as a “tiny indiscretion”, those are the lies of Satan and the lies I lived most of my life that kept me out of relationship with God.

While we are on the subject, we would do well to look at all areas that we excuse but God does not:

“Gossip isn’t murder”…unless you consider you are killing the dignity of that person you are talking about.

“Flirting isn’t adultery”…When you flirt you are not only tempting yourself, you are tempting the other person. It is dishonest and misleading. There is a very fine line between flirting and adultery. You just don’t want to go there.

“Everyone tells a little lie sometimes. Everyone cheats, it isn’t hurting anyone. Everyone steals something, usually something small that no one would miss; it’s not like you’re robbing a bank.” The bottom line is that all three of these acts are about deceit.

How do we get so confused as Christians when we can call evil “good”? I believe that we are confounded by what we see all around us. We have been lulled into a belief that there is nothing wrong with what we are doing. What has happened to our consciences? What has changed from the time when these sins we engage in daily would have been shocking in the past?

Leo Tolstoy, in his essay, The Lion and the Honeycomb, Why Do Men Stupefy Themselves? explains: “What people most want is not that their consciousness should work correctly; it is that their actions should appear to them to be just.” Clearly, it is easy for us to justify tiny sins.

Now let’s say you have determined that right this moment you are going to live the life God has called you to. You don’t care what your friends say or what other people think; you are turning over a new leaf. You ask him to forgive you, and you are on your way to sainthood, right? Not so fast. We make God promises that we can’t keep, and we’re convinced it’s because we are weak. Then we hate ourselves and are sure God hates us too. We have no control, no willpower, and no clue. It may seem I have just rained on your parade but bear with me for a moment.

Is your heart in a place where you don’t want to hear those awful words (after your bags are packed and you thought you had your ticket “Home”), of Matthew 7:21-23? “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven…and I will then declare to them; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.”

Well then, consider these words when you step on that path:

If you have run the gamut as I have, you would have amassed some serious battle scars trying to change and failing repeatedly. You will have thrown up your hands, thrown out the white flag of defeat, and thrown faith to the wind as you settled back into the life you recognize as comfortable. You have found it easier to live the life you are familiar with.

Holiness is for saints, I guess it wasn’t for me. It looks like the perpetual Monday morning diet doesn’t it? How can God say in 1 John 5:3, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.”? Seriously? They seem awfully burdensome to us, don’t they? Why? Well, it’s really simple. When I tell you, you are going to smack your head and say, “Duh, why didn’t I think of that?”

Self-control is not self-alone! Granted, as Christians, we are called to be disciplined in our lives. Until we can give everything to God; until we can come to a place where we are “seeking the Kingdom of God first” (Matthew 6:33), we will repeatedly fail. Have you smacked yourself yet?

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Following Christ does take a great amount of discipline, and it is only possible through him. To everyone who is battle-scarred; whether those battles of life have only been skirmishes or if they have been “all-out, fight-to-the-death, take-no-prisoners” wars, take heed. This is not a once-and-done deal. We don’t make a one-time – this is it – I surrender – commitment, and then throw ourselves a party.

Living life as a committed follower of Christ, is a day-to-day, sometimes moment-to-moment surrender. If you think all your sinfulness will instantly be eradicated, you’re gonna fall hard, smack your loser head, and go join the circus.

Come back here. Don’t do that. Just fall on your bruised knees, seek forgiveness from a merciful and loving God, and start over. You can do this! God created you and equipped you to do this.

Hungry for LOVE

by Linda Russell, posted in "Christians" who hate, God is LOVE, hungry for hope, If not us, then who?, Love the Lord your God, Love your neighbor, the greatest of these is love

So many Americans pride themselves on what truly is a self-serving and glaring distinction between love of self and love of neighbor. But there is no such distinction if we are open to seeing the deepest truth of our connectedness because we are all created by one God to be in relationship with Him and with each other. Our perceived sense of control and security; our self-imposed separateness from “them” breaks the bond of our very creation and the heart of God.

Still many are too afraid to relinquish the precarious grasp they have on their self-proclaimed and arrogant superiority over others they see as “less”.

What, or who, gives anyone the right to determine who is worthy of love, dignity, compassion, and basic kindness? This country is bloated with anger and violence. We are quickly becoming a culture of hatred.

It is a frightening reality, especially for our children, which makes it even more imperative for us, if we call ourselves believers, to change the tide. To speak out against injustice and speak up for the downtrodden just as Jesus taught us in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:3-10):

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 

Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

In a 2012 speech to students at Georgtown University, Bono, of U2, challenged the almost one thousand students present to see the invisible (as he continues to challenge all of us).

Because when you truly accept that those children in some far off place in the global village have the same value as you in God’s eyes or even in just your eyes, then your life is forever changed, you see something that you can’t un-see.

This song, Invisible, and actually his life, are an incredible witness to that truth. It’s about getting real; about getting beyond self and realizing the connection we have with everyone. It is about the human dignity of every person as a child of God. We are to exclude no one – NO ONE.

Listen to these words:

I’m more than you know/ I’m more than you see here
I’m more than you let me be
I’m more than you know / A body & A Soul
You don’t see me but you will/
I am not invisible / I am Here.

There is no them / only us/ only us
there is no them / only us / only us
There is no them / only you, only me
There is no them.

Meghan Clark, writing in Catholic Moral Theology, commented on the song saying:

The ultimate violation of human dignity is to no longer be counted as a human person. The response must be inclusion and participation. Once I recognize that you have human dignity, that you are a child of God, that you are the image of Christ – I cannot un-see that. 

All of this has hit home for me in a more profound way than ever before (even more so since our time spent in Rwanda) since I have been working with the homeless in St. Charles County. We have the resources to meet their basic human needs as defined by Abraham Maslow in 1943:

Physiological needs are the physical requirements for human survival. Physiological needs are thought to be the most important; they should be met first: Air, water, food, clothing and shelter.

But, as St. Mother Teresa so powerfully states it isn’t enough:

Mother_teresa hunger

 

The Things we do for Love

by Linda Russell, posted in Atonement, God is LOVE, the greatest of these is love

everlasting love

What if you believed, as I do, that Jesus did not die to save us from our wretched sins? What if God sent Jesus to show us an incalculable, immeasurable love without regard to our sinfulness, knowing it would be that very sinfulness that would be the cause of his beloved Son’s death? Would that make a difference in your life?

Imagine my excitement when I recently read the following meditation by Richard Rohr. Finally, one of my heart’s deepest beliefs is put into words I could not express more powerfully:

Love, Not Atonement

The common Christian reading of the Bible is that Jesus “died for our sins”–either to pay a debt to the devil (common in the first millennium) or to pay a debt to God the Father (proposed by Anselm of Canterbury, 1033-1109). Anselm’s infamous Cur Deus Homo has been called “the most unfortunately successful piece of theology ever written.” My hero, Franciscan philosopher and theologian John Duns Scotus (1266-1308), agreed with neither of these understandings. Scotus was not guided by the Temple language of debt, atonement, or blood sacrifice (understandably used in the Gospels and by Paul).  

After Anselm, Christians have paid a huge price for what theologians called “substitutionary atonement theory”–the strange idea that before God could love us God needed and demanded Jesus to be a blood sacrifice to atone for our sin-drenched humanity. With that view, salvation depends upon a problem instead of a divine proclamation about the core nature of reality. As if God could need payment, and even a very violent transaction, to be able to love and accept “his” own children…. 

For Scotus, the incarnation of God and the redemption of the world could never be a mere mop-up exercise in response to human sinfulness, but the proactive work of God from the very beginning. We were “chosen in Christ before the world was made,” as the hymn in Ephesians puts it (1:4). Our sin could not possibly be the motive for the divine incarnation, but only perfect love and divine self-revelation! For Scotus, God never merely reacts, but always supremely and freely acts, and always acts totally out of love. Scotus was very Trinitarian.

 The best way I can summarize how Scotus tried to change the old notion of retributive justice is this: Jesus did not come to change the mind of God about humanity (it did not need changing)! Jesus came to change the mind of humanity about God.

That changes everything. Or at least it should.

John 3:16 tells us, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.” Where does it say, “God was so fed up with us that he sent His only Son to straighten us out and then die to erase our sins”? Because, hello, his death didn’t erase our sins! Think about it. Was everyone suddenly perfect after that? NO! The horrors we have committed against each other through the ages would defy logic if that were true.

So, believing that Jesus died to atone for our sins doesn’t make sense. Does it? At least, it doesn’t to me. I mean, come on, can you see Jesus returning to His Father as they contemplate his thirty-two-year experiment gone bad? “Okay Son let’s try something different. Can’t do the whole wipe the slate clean thing again (Genesis 6:5-10:32), I promised I wouldn’t.”

Now, you could counter with the possibility that the whole “Love” thing didn’t work either. After all, we are still sinning and hating and killing each other. BUT…many of us (I hope that includes me), in spite of ourselves, are really trying to change each day; trying to find our hope in the love and mercy of God; trying to love our neighbor as ourselves. Just like Paul, we often fail, but we know God’s love will prevail in the end.

How often do we read stories of people, from biblical times to the present who have given their lives for others without regard for themselves? All Jesus’ disciples, except for John, died martyrs for their faith. Would they have done that for someone who came to tell them how wretched they were?

If Jesus had come to teach us a lesson I’m imagining him bemoaning his fate for the likes of us. His own disciples were a bunch of misfits. Why didn’t he just shake his head in disgust and walk away? “They’re hopeless losers. I’m outta here”! And yet, we seem to find it easier to believe the Atonement theory. Why? Perhaps it makes God a cruel judge who doles out conditional love which brings Him down to our level and justifies a lukewarm religion we can easily become comfortable with. That kind of God you want to keep at arm’s length because you never know what will set Him off!

If you can’t wrap your head around the inexhaustible love God has for you, perhaps it’s time to quit comparing Him to earthly fathers, even if yours regularly received the “Father of the Year” award. He still has his faults.

My father was not abusive like my mother, but he was an absentee father. He never showed us affection: no hugs, no sense of “gosh, I’m really glad you’re here, glad you’re my daughter.” No expression of love. My great aunt once told me she never remembered either of my parents even holding us. It took me a long time to realize and accept that he couldn’t express love, he just didn’t know how because no one in his life ever did, a reality of his humanness and his parents humanness, and on and on.

The reality of our humanness is why, I believe, God came to earth incarnate – to show us His love in the flesh. This is what it looks like people.”

“Even though we were still sinners” (Romans 5:8).

May we witness anew God’s magnificent LOVE for each and every one of us. My prayer is that we will live fully in the light of that LOVE that has no bounds, knows no limits, and believes in our intrinsic worth – even when we don’t.

Here’s a question to ponder at the foot of the Cross: Could you be so courageous as to give up your life for a friend – or more importantly – the jerk down the street that never liked you and would likely never change after your funeral?

May you know the amazing and unconditional love of God, the peace of Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit like never before!

You are a NEW Creation in Christ

by Linda Russell, posted in God's awesome creation, Healing, Is God Relevant?, Our Imperfection, You are a new creation

(originally posted 8/2/2017)

I have read and reread Kathleen Dowling Singh’s book, The Grace in Aging. She encourages us in our later years to do a life review. She poses this question for us to consider: “What do I need to clear up or let go of to be more peaceful?”

So, I try to sit quietly with God and that question. Now, keep in mind that just sitting quietly has its own challenges for me. All during grade school, a common theme on my report card was, “Linda does not apply herself. Linda disrupts the class. Linda talks too much”. You get the idea.

Anyway…

Sitting quietly in God’s presence is just plain frightening to me. It reminds me of my many visits to the principal’s office, waiting outside his door, anticipating my punishment.

So, yesterday, I was listening to this song. It is a song I love and have heard often, yet this time, it struck a deeper place than ever. Take a listen.

Here is the refrain that kept playing in my head most of the day:

You are more than the choices that you’ve made.

You are more than the sum of your past mistakes.

You are more than the problems you create.

You’ve been remade.

And, because I am so weird, here is the vision I got of how I so often see myself:

mr potato head

But that is NOT what God sees.

As I was rereading my notes in Singh’s book, something else she said struck me, “These foundational views of who we are, what life is like, what the world is like, what other people are like, and how we should be were formed six or seven decades ago. Because these paradigms are so foundational in our psyche, we rarely examine them. They are our unmindful “givens,” the beliefs of our ignorance. We defend our habit patterns and egos, even though they were created in circumstances that no longer exist by children who no longer exist.”

That is powerful stuff! I suppose because I have been the way I am for so long, I’m inclined to believe that, like the color of my hair or the extra fat cells around my middle, it’s just who I am…I cannot change.

How many excuses have I created to hold up the lies I have so long believed: excuses that try to hold it all precariously together?

I have bought into that lie. I have allowed it to run roughshod over my life for too long.

NO! It is NOT who I am. It is who others, in all their own brokenness, have said I am over the years, and I believed it. My parents were both broken in their own ways. Neither could parent well, and their parents couldn’t parent well, and on and on.

I realize now that all those years, God was never brought into the conversation. He was never even mentioned or considered relevant. No one, myself included, ever asked his opinion, “So, what do you think, Lord? Isn’t Linda just the most pitiful mess you have ever seen? You made her; wouldn’t you agree that you screwed up the wiring somehow”?

I think it’s about time I sit silently in God’s presence and dare to ask him the difficult questions that I have not been able to deal with honestly and courageously. And I know where it must begin:

At every moment of every day, God can wipe the slate clean:

images (6)

And start over. “Okay, Linda, let’s try that again, shall we?”

download (1)

He can wipe away the tears, heal the wounds, fix all the broken parts…

download

…and remake me into the person he originally created me to be. He can do that for you too, if you let Him!

download (2)

Surely You Were in This Place

by Linda Russell, posted in "Experiencing" God, AHA moments, fear, God in the ordinary, standing on Holy ground

In 2007, Joshua Bell, a world-renowned violinist, dressed in ordinary street clothes and played his 3.5 million dollar violin at the metro station in Washington D.C.

Watch the reaction…

That’s right. There was no reaction.

Then, he went back. This time announced.

Every time I watch these videos I wonder how often we think of God and how we miss him in our very midst; how often we expect Jesus to just drop down from heaven and announce himself:

I'll be back

Just to be disappointed.

Do we realize he has been here all along?

John Phillip Newell tells us that “at the heart of the physical is the spiritual. Hidden within the mundane is the Divine.”

It is in the ordinary that God reveals himself most profoundly: In our ordinary-everyday-get-up-go-to-work-feed-the-kids-walk-the-dog-clean-the-toilets-go-to-bed life.

We can miss the magnificence of God in a beautiful sunrise – blocked by a computer screen. We miss the profound in the lonely widow sitting next to us in church, or the tears of a neighbor estranged from his family.

We miss it because we are either waiting for more or hoping for less. Less would be easier because the thought of an “almighty, glorious, brilliant, magnificent” God – right here where “we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28)” is just too much for us to believe.

But why?

It’s not like Jesus made some kind of grand entrance the first time. Right? I mean – come on – he showed up in a diaper and smelled a bit like a stable.

It's a Bird It's a plane
(I could not locate the source of this image)

If we are even willing to consider an encounter with God we’re certain it must be in a beyond super-human, out-of-body event. I actually think we prefer to believe that is the only time he exists. We want God to be predictable and keep his distance.

We want to dress up in our finest attitudes and go somewhere else, far away from our messiness, to experience him: Church, Wednesday night prayer meetings from 7:00 – 8:15, annual retreats in the mountains, revivals, and far away mission trips.

But, please God, don’t be snooping around my house when my husband comes home drunk at 1:00 am.

(https://www.clipartguide.com/_pages/0511-1010-0514-1451.html)

Don’t “show up” right in the middle of my nastiness; my jealous rants against my neighbor, or arguments with my teenage son. Also, you really shouldn’t sneak up on me when I’m watching my R-rated T.V. show!

So, we move through our ordinary life – constantly on guard – expending all our time and energy to keep God at a comfortable distance. And what do we get in return? An ordinary, mundane, routine, humdrum, tedious life.

I’ll just hang out here, thanks, waiting to die and get to heaven after barely surviving my ordinary, mundane, routine, humdrum, tedious life.

Delightful.

STOP IT!

We can spend a great deal of energy doing “things” in an effort to “get to” heaven where we will finally find happiness; finally, meet that ever-elusive God. And in the meantime? What about the ‘meantime” that we are wasting; time we will never get back, a time we could, as Martin Buber so beautifully said, “be stringing pearls for heaven”?

What do you think about when you read this scripture verse? Genesis 28:16-17, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it.”

Bidden or not

And how about Luke 17:20-21, “Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, ‘The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.’” (My emphasis)

Ewwww…that’s terrifying, huh?

But, when you refuse to open your heart to that reality, you have no idea what you are missing! For example, I volunteer for a charitable organization. We have a hotline and people call in with many needs: some are homeless, some are so desperate that when you talk to them it’s like looking at a 1,000-piece puzzle with 800 pieces missing. Which is what happened to me last week.

For obvious reasons I can’t give you any details, but I can tell you this, his situation was that 1,000-piece puzzle. When I gathered all the information I could from him and stepped back to review it, I was literally overwhelmed with what he was dealing with, and, of course, he was too. But, I prayed that the Holy Spirit would guide us and bring the people into his life who could help him.

Within three days, all – got that? – ALL the necessary resources he needed were in place! When I told him – we both cried. We were both overwhelmed by the majesty and beauty and tender care of a mighty God who is right in our midst, right in our messiness, right in our suffering, and yes, in the ordinary.

Later that night I sat in prayer and felt God telling me, like Moses, “Remove your sandals, Sister, you are standing on Holy ground!” How often do you think you have stood on Holy ground and didn’t realize it because you were too busy looking up or looking away?

And the Winner is…..

by Linda Russell, posted in "Christians" who hate, God is LOVE, Love your neighbor, the greatest of these is love, Turning others away from God
(Wendy Mass)

“Christians are happier than atheists”. That was the consensus of a CNN article in 2013. Duh, you say. Well…hold onto your halos folks. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride to heaven. Here’s the article if you’re so inclined to read it.

Richard Wade, an advice columnist for the blog Friendly Atheist, wrote in response to another article about the CNN report, “The takeaway for most lay people is ‘Atheists are unhappy people.’ … How do you quantify ‘happiness’? How do you quantify ‘analytical thinking? Even in their acknowledgments about the possible biases in their study, the authors still use absurd and meaningless terms like ‘militant atheist,’” he added. “This study suffers from the same negative stereotypes about atheists that most society has, and it has simply reinforced that prejudice with more muddled thinking.

As I was reading the above article, another one caught my eye, so I pulled it up too. The caption was Gay detective’s mother booted from church.

I wonder how the researchers of the first article would have interpreted over 3300 comments on the second one. You can read them too, but here are just a few from so-called “Christians” My BS meter was going off a lot, but there were some honorable mentions:

  • From Dale, “If God ever does light this planet on fire, I pray that those churches of hate and prejudice should be the first to burn.” (Wow…can you feel the love oozing from our friend Dale here?!)
  • From Starr: “May God treat them the way they have treated this woman.” (Yeah, go get em’ Starr. That’s a sure invite to your church!)
  • Then Minnie Poe asks: “How do you justify I Corinthians 5:11 cause to me that is the same as saying even if it is your own child you are not even to eat a meal with them.” (I love when people “quote” scripture)

Okay, I’m done.

Except for the following comment which I believe tells it all:

  • From Katy: “Religion preaches hatred…glad I comprehended that at a young age and left Catholicism. Now I am a happy Secular!”

Our egos are forever getting in our way and “Christian” egos are scrumptious, lip-smacking fodder for unbelievers. God certainly gave us minds to use. But when the mind is given dominance over the heart, again Rohr says, “The mind starts steering, judging, analyzing, fixing, controlling, and trying to dominate….your endless mental commentary on everything. It really doesn’t matter what you think about things, believe it or not. This is a revolutionary and humiliating breakthrough for most people. What matters is WHAT IS.”

I believe that when the mind controls our every thought, word, and action it is because we do not have the courage to accept our own imperfections. We make our life’s mission to fix, manage, or adjust everyone else because we know for a fact that they are imperfect slobs in need of a Savior.

news flash

Sorry to inform you…none of us have been designated Savior of the world. That position is already taken. The sooner we all realize that the sooner we will stop sending people like Katy running away from God. He’s not pleased with us when we do that, you know. As a matter of fact, the hairs on the back of his neck stand stiff when he sees us acting or speaking like we’ve forgotten we belong to him. Unfortunately, I manage to forget that far too often as some snarky thought or remark manages to slip past my not-so-vigilant-act-like-you-have-the-tiniest-bit-of-Christian-love monitor.

When you are tempted to “set someone straight,” remember that in every circumstance, God calls us to manifest his love at that moment, to that person. Now, look back at the article and comments above and tell me who Christ was for all the people involved? Was it the church that kicked the mother out? The “Christians” who posted mean, insensitive comments?

Do we see God in the actions of the likes of Westboro Baptist Church, which is always in the news because of their hatred toward others? Do we see him in you or me when we judge and speak hatefully to or about others and refuse to accept them?

And let me say this about quoting scripture: That’s fine. But if you find yourself frantically searching with the only purpose of finding that one nugget to smack someone sideways…knock it off! You can cut and paste your beliefs and certainties to try and prove yourself all day long, but what will you have gained for God’s kingdom? Besides, that someone will just cut and paste their own “proof” that they’re right and you’re a moron. And then what?

Words of wisdom from Shane Claiborne, “Something powerful happens when we can connect our faith with the pain of our world…. We’re not throwing out the things we believe, but we’re also focusing on practices that work out those beliefs.  I’m hopeful because people have grown tired of a Christianity that can say what it believes on paper but doesn’t have anything to show with our lives. Ideologies and doctrines aren’t easy things to love. 

“You can show your love to others by not wishing that they should be better Christians.” –Francis of Assisi

And finally, what your mother always told you is still valid today, “If you can’t say something nice, keep your mouth shut!”

Why do I HAVE to Love People I Don’t Even Like?

by Linda Russell, posted in forgiveness, Healing, Love your neighbor, relationships are hard, the greatest of these is love

If I say I love ice cream – which I do – INTENSELY! – it seems very extreme. After all, I’m sure my reaction to my first taste was, “Hum, I like this stuff.” But “liking” ice cream is not pining for it, dreaming about it, or finding every opportunity to indulge in it. That came later – but not much later.

If I just liked it, I wouldn’t ask my husband to hide it from me and then search for it when he’s not here. Which is kinda funny since the only place he can hide it is in the freezer – “Oh, my…there it is!” And, I might add, I grew to delight in the search like it was some kind of hidden treasure. (Matthew 13:46)

Keep in mind that pining, dreaming, and lusting after “things” makes God VERY unhappy. Now we’re getting into the weeds here because we throw the word “love” around so indiscriminately it has lost its true meaning and significance. If I can love ice cream more than my neighbor what does that say about me in light of 1 Corinthians 13:13? Love trumps it all!? Everything. Nothing in all of scripture is more important. People are willing to die for love of God and others (John 15:13), not things.

Loving people can be very difficult. Ice cream is more comforting and doesn’t get on your last nerve. You may be in a relationship with someone you have never liked. Like, I don’t know…that obnoxious cousin Eddie?! How do you get to the love part if you’re stuck there?

eddie vacation

I have been reflecting on that question in light of my own relationships. In particular, my family of origin – more specifically, my relationship with my brother and sister. A little background would be helpful here: My sister is eight years older than me, and my brother is two years older. So, you know what that makes me – that’s right – the “baby.”

me as baby
What’s not to love here?!

Being the baby of the family never really afforded me any special perks. Even so, my siblings treated me like I needed a constant reminder that I was NOT special. When we were left alone, they relentlessly tormented and bullied me. To be fair, I probably was obnoxious. But that didn’t give them license to beat me up and do everything in their power to get me in trouble with our parents.

three stooges

When I was younger, my mother forced my brother to play with me because I had no girlfriends to play with. He and his friends would throw things at me and try to dismember me with a Frisbee. That damn thing hurt, but I never let them see me cry! Sometimes they would just chase me around the yard until I gave up and went inside, only to return the next day for more.

My sister would initiate fun activities for her and my brother and intentionally exclude me. Once, I was so angry with my brother’s unrelenting teasing that I put my fist through the glass of a door he slammed shut on me. Of course, that hurt too, but no tears from this tough kid!

I’m not sure what my parent’s reasoning was the Christmas they gave my brother and me one sled – to share. That ended badly when his friends chased me down the hill on theirs, trying to intimidate me into leaving. I swung mine around just in time to knock out the two front teeth of one of them. YES! It was pretty satisfying, even when my brother ran home to tell my mom, and his friend ran home crying. I knew it would not go well for me, but I didn’t care.

As bad as all that was, what makes it worse is that I do not recall any happy moments to offset our feelings toward each other. Soon after our mother died, I called my sister. She had been drinking at the time and cried, repeatedly saying, “Mom loved you best”! – I was so surprised to hear her say that. My recollection was that our mother never loved anyone.

After our father died, we rarely saw each other. I can’t remember how long the gaps have been between our conversations. If I had to guess, I would say that I speak to them about three times a year. The times we do talk or see each other, we say, “I love you.” Truth be told, we would have been hard-pressed to say we even liked each other. I always believed that too much pain divided us, and lack of forgiveness left open wounds.

Then, recently, I read and reread the story of Joseph and his brothers in Genesis (37:1-50:21). Poor Joseph didn’t have just two siblings to deal with; he had eleven! And most of them hated him because he really was their father’s favorite. They hated him so much they plotted together to kill him. If not for his one brother, Judah, they would have succeeded. But instead, he convinced them to sell Joseph into slavery.

Here’s the part that caused me to think more deeply than ever about my relationship with my brother and sister. Before Joseph was raised to a position of power, he suffered as a slave in Egypt. Years passed before he saw his brothers again. When he did, he wept for love of them. What kind of love is that? It was the time of the seven-year famine, and he controlled the grain bins. His brothers used to laugh at him because he dreamed of greatness. Their fate was now in his hands. Revenge would have been so sweet right then.

How often, when I tell my sister or brother that I love them, do I consider what those words really mean in the context of my Christian faith? What I should believe about love I have failed to live because it’s too demanding, so I give it lip service – as shallow as “loving” ice cream. Because we are supposed to love everyone, even our enemies, we settle for spewing empty words that sound like love in an effort to rid ourselves of guilt. That’s cheap love.

Then, recently, (compelled, I’m sure, by You-Know-Who), my husband and I drove to the house I grew up in and knocked on the door. The lady who bought the house from us years ago still lived there and welcomed us. As I walked through the house, everything looked different. What surprised me was that my past experiences of that time in my life no longer seemed to have a claim on me. They did not dredge up the anger I had felt for so long.

Later, we went to my brothers to visit, and then to my sisters. Again, the experience was different. When we left, and I said, “I love you” to them, I meant it. But, more importantly, I felt it! And I do believe that they love me as best they can. We are all teetering on three-legged stools – wobbling around with missing parts because of the brokenness in our lives.

I can tell you that my heart has changed, but will that translate into my being a more loving sister? Will I call more often, visit more often, pray for them, and think of them lovingly? Will I actually like them? Will they like me?

After Joseph was reunited with his brothers, he gave and gave and gave to them without asking for anything in return…and…as far as we know…he never got so much as a “thank you” or “gee, we’re sorry about that whole pit incident and selling you off to slavery.” After their father died, Joseph’s brothers feared he was hiding anger that would explode into revenge. To their surprise, he was not angry or vengeful. He did tell them, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good….” (Genesis 50:20). God used that experience, just as he uses ours, to turn our pain and hurt into compassion and mercy for others if we allow him to.

As for me, I know that all that has happened in my life has profoundly impacted the person I am today: The good, the bad, and the ugly. If I allow God to work in and through those areas of brokenness, by his grace, love will prevail.

I once heard the expression concerning people we encounter, particularly people we don’t like, “You may be the only Christ that person meets.” It is the responsibility of all Christians; to be Christ to others; to love deeply and unconditionally. We are called to sit in the darkness with those who suffer things we may never know about. To “share your ice cream, Linda. I know you’re hiding it in the freezer!”

me and sister
Yeah, she’s smiling now. I’m bigger and faster than her! It’s a good thing I love you, Sista!