Merton's "Unreal City"

Oh stop the world!   Have you seen the commercial where life comes at you fast?  I felt that way today.  So many major issues internationally, nationally, and local, that affect us all.  No, I don't want to talk about it here. I do want to share something so profound by Thomas Merton.  When you get a chance, read his writings. Although he died in 1968 this particular piece, titled "Unreal City,"  is so appropriate now.

"We are living in the greatest revolution in history- a huge spontaneous upheaval of the entire human race: not the revolution planned and carried out by any particular party, race, or nation, but a deep elemental boiling over of all the inner contradictions that have ever been in man, a revelation of the chaotic forces inside everybody.  This is not something we have chosen, nor is something we are freed to avoid.

This revolution is a profound spiritual crisis of the whole world, manifested largely in desperation, cynicism, violence, conflict, self-contradiction, ambivalence, fear and hope, doubt and belief, creation and destructiveness, progress and regression, obsessive attachments to images, idols, slogans, programs that only dull the general anguish for a moment until it bursts out everywhere in a still more acute and terrifying form.  We do not know if we are building a fabulously wonderful world or destroying all that we have ever had, all that we have achieved!  All the inner force of man is boiling and bursting out, the good together with the evil, the good poisoned by evil and fighting it, the evil pretending to be good and revealing itself in the most dreadful crimes, justified and rationalized by the purest and most innocent intentions."

'Nuff said. type to you later.

What Do You Believe?

I applaud the workers in Wisconsin and Ohio for fighting for what they believe. I applaud the Egyptians who were willing to risk it all.   Scripture is full of instances where people stood up, got out, and fought for what they believed to be truth.  The questions become, "What do you believe?"  "What are you standing on?"  It is a contradictory term, "believers"  because too many have no clue what they believe, and then many more will not stand firm in their belief.  Why?  I had to say it.  It really is time to stand on what we believe.  Hmmm.  I am clear that God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of love, power and a sound mind.   Let's use what we have been given.  type to you later.

You Can't Do It

“No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money" (Matt. 6-24 NIV).


There it is - you can't do it.  Oh but we try to serve both most days.  You don't think so?  Check self out.  How many times do you place money- how you make it, where it comes from, what you will do with it, what will happen when you don't have it- how many times is it placed in top priority?  Yeah, scary isn't it.  Ahhh since Jesus opens this up for us, obviously we have a way to handle this delima.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" (Matt. 6-25-27 NIV)

There it is- don't worry.  A command- 'don't worry'.  It does not mean that you stop living, it means that you put it in proper perspective.  It means that you make a decision to serve God and watch what happens.  It means that you stop fretting over what you can or cannot do.  Can you imagine how stress-free you can live by not worrying over money?  You can do it.  Try today.  type to you later.

Stretch

Stretching out. That's what I am doing.  I can't stay where I am, and live.  I must continue on this leg of my journey and try God in all aspects.  I can no longer sit and wonder.  This is my miracle expecting time.  That's what stretching does.  You expect something great to happen.  What does it look like?  How does it feel? Hmmm. A little uncomfortable, adventurous, exhilarating, exciting, scary.  Why?  Because I am going where I have not gone.  I am going where others don't want me to go.  No limits, no holds, no boundaries. 

This stretch is somewhat like Paul, "Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me His own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.  Let those of us who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you.  Only let us hold fast to what we have attained" (Phil. 3:12-16 NRSV).

Have you considered the blowing up of a balloon?  You have to know when to stop blowing.  Just how far can you blow the balloon? How much can you stretch the rubber band?  You won't know what can happen unless you try. The cool part is this stretch is orchestrated by God.  type to you later.

A different view

There is a sign on a community center close to home that reads, "Closed for Renovations."  On the opposite side of the sign there is a new sign that announces an activity playing from January to March, yet the center is closed for renovations.  My sister laughed as she posed the question, "which report do you believe?"  You see, it is all in your approach.  As you go about your day to day activity try to approach it from a different perspective.  type to you later.