People-pleasing

The Trojan Horse

From the "Heavenly Mind" chapter of my manuscript: Peter reminds Christians to help out only if their mind is willing, not by feeling obligated to do so (1 Peter 5:2).  Have you ever noticed that "people-pleasing" can lead to bitterness and resentment?  A free will offering is always preferable to a grudging gift.  What looks like a grand gift (Trojan Horse) may spill out discord and drama from its unrighteous intentions.  May I offer my life today as a gift to my Creator.  Living life this way may not always please other people, as Jesus well knew.

Alone, Yet Not Alone (song) - Joni Eareckson Tada

Always Ready

Etching by Albrecht Durer

What would it take for me to honestly ready myself on a daily basis for the appearance of Christ Jesus, and for the Tribulation?  This weekend I have encountered a modern apocalyptic secular prophet Paul Kingsnorth and his Dark Mountain Manifesto.  It's easy to understand his giving up on the environmental activism which has defined his life for decades.  What is hard to understand is how  he can live without the hope of Easter and the Second Coming.  I'm grateful to be asked by God's grace to pay attention to these issues.  Apocalyptic literature in the Bible is something that I've been avoiding.  Through Paul Kingsnorth's secular literature, I am now embracing the Bible's message of tribulation, destruction, and the New Earth, the victory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Witness

Have you ever experienced the calm presence of another person when you were suffering in body, mind, and spirit? Have you ever provided this kind of witness to someone who needed it?  I remember the visits of a little boy who stood outside and looked through the window of my isolation room when I was hospitalized at age 12.  Danny was a patient on the same floor.   He visited every day and just connected to me through the window with his eyes. Today in thinking about Mary's presence at the crucifixion of her son Jesus, I wonder how she was in her spirit.  I wonder when Jesus could not feel God's presence during his ordeal if he felt the comforting presence of his mother.

Heaven

from the movie "Heaven is for Real"

I love the subplot about the young artist who as a four-year-old saw Jesus in a near death experience; and she continues to paint images of heaven.  There's a lot of convincing mystery in the new movie "Heaven is for Real." Who hasn't had experiences that can't be explained?   Whether the mystery is inside us where Jesus suggests we can find a heavenly home, or whether heaven is a real experience outside of ourselves, or both, we can improve the quality of today just by thinking about it.  That's what this movie did for me; and I'm hoping it might do the same for you.

Children

"And a Little Child Shall Lead Them" by Ken Hesler

To A Child

The greatest poem ever known
Is one all poets have outgrown:
The poetry, innate, untold,
Of being only four years old.

Still young enough to be a part
Of Nature's great impulsive heart,
Born comrade of bird, beast, and tree
And unselfconscious as the bee-

And yet with lovely reason skilled
Each day new paradise to build;
Elate explorer of each sense,
Without dismay, without pretense!

In your unstained transparent eyes
There is no conscience, no surprise:
Life's queer conundrums you accept,
Your strange divinity still kept.

Being, that now absorbs you, all
Harmonious, unit, integral,
Will shred into perplexing bits,-
Oh, contradictions of the wits!

And Life, that sets all things in rhyme,
may make you poet, too, in time-
But there were days, O tender elf,
When you were Poetry itself!

Christopher Morley 

Nonviolence

For the past twelve years I have been studying Nonviolent Communication.  My first workshop was with Miki Kashtan who has recently published a visionary book on this subject--Spinning Threads of Radical Aliveness: Transcending the Legacy of Separation in Our Individual Lives.
It strikes me that Palm Sunday was a lovely and memorable example of nonviolence.  Jesus led his followers into the center of worldly power riding on a young colt or an ass.  His action boldly communicated that he claimed to be a king of peace (Zechariah 9:9). The consequences of this peaceful action were certainly clear to him.  Nonviolence takes a tremendous amount of courage.  Speak truth peacefully today!