Thought For The Day.

Listen to your life.

See it for the fathomless mystery that it is.

In the boredom and pain of it not less than in the excitement and gladness:

touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden part of it,

because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, 

and life itself is grace.

--Frederick Buechner

"Gracespotting."

About eight years ago I began to re-evaluate my life, having just turned 50. In the course of that assessment I came to a realization that my faith was important to me and that I really needed to find out what it was all about for me.  After a few months of digging, reading and praying, I read the book "What's So Amazing About Grace," by Phillip Yancey, that changed my whole viewpoint and approach to my faith.  The author makes the point that "there is nothing I can do to make God love me more and there is nothing I can do to make God love me less."  It's all about grace.  While it's not a free pass, understanding the concept gave me a whole new perspective on the faith I had rebelled against since college and brought me back into focus on what God was all about.

Cathleen Falsani's new book "Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace" is the author's journey around the US, Africa and other places where she experiences grace in places both large and small. The author calls it "gracespotting" and whether on the cobblestone streets of Rome, in the halls of Graceland, driving the rainy roads of post-Katrina Bay St. Louis, trekking through the slums of Nairobi, attending a Passover Seder with the only Rabbi in the state of Montana, or curled up with her cat, Ms Falsani finds grace in the unexpected.  Grace that she describes as "the oxygen of religious life."

The writer is the religion writer for the Chicago Sun Times and a blogger I read regularly. Her style, exhibits her own uniqueness as a writer, but could be described as Anne Lamott meets David Sedaris. She is a storyteller above all and the stories of the people and places she encounters, around the world, on her quest to find grace are each unique expressions of finding grace when she least expected it or when she needs it the most. For the author grace is the "lagniappe" of life.  This lagniappe, a cajun word to describe that surprise bonus given to customers for good measure, is there for each of us every day. 

Reading her book reinforced the grace I've seen in the people of my faith community over the past few weeks as I recover from illness and a hospital stay. “Justice is getting what you deserve. Mercy is not getting what you deserve. And grace is getting what you absolutely don’t deserve.” Thankfully, it's all about grace.

"Sometimes grace is having the strength to persevere through the storm.

Sometimes it's having the guts to rebuild, to take a chance, to follow your nose and your heart rather than your head.

Sometimes grace is finding out that your preconceived notions are dead wrong.

Sometimes it's being surprised by joy.

Sometimes grace is something you can feel even if you can't see it.

And sometimes it's a bowl of watermelon gazpacho when you were expecting Taco Bell."

Obama Ad By Matthew 25 Network.

It's about time people of faith stand up for the candidate of true Christian values.  See this ad from the Matthew 25 Network.

The ad stars Brian McClaren, one of the leaders of the emergent church movement, whose goal is to refocus Christianity on community, the environment and caring for "the least of these."

Thought For The Day.

"Pay attention to the things that bring a tear to your eye or a lump in your throat, because they are signs that the holy is drawing near."

--Frederick Buechner

Thought For The Day.

Christianity ... is always in need of re-simplifying, going back to its origins, ridding itself of the excessive superstructure it has acquired through history.

- José Comblin, Catholic theologian in Brazil

From Sojourners.

Speaking Up For Those With No Voice. Sounds Like Something Jesus Would Have Done.

Highlights from the closing day of the 17th International AIDS Conference on the role of the church in the fight against gender inequality.

“There is a desperate need for the leadership of the Church to smarten up to gender-related issues like violence and issues of power and control,” said Tearfund’s chief executive Matthew Frost on Friday. “Gender inequality is one of the key drivers of the pandemic. The Church is in a key position to transform attitudes within the community. It cannot remain silent.”

*****

“It was the Church that stood on the front line against slavery, and against apartheid,” Lusi said. “Now the Church must stand up against gender injustice.”

*****

Earlier at an HIV pre-conference, Kay Warren of Saddleback Church had also called the Church to action on ending gender-based violence. She said like gender-based violence, the Church is everywhere.

“The Church is the hope of the world, and God’s plan for dealing with the problems of the world,” Warren said at the Ecumenical Alliance Pre-Conference. “Whether dealing with violence, poverty, orphans or AIDS – if we don’t start with the Church, we are starting at the wrong end of the equation.”

Sin Boldly.

Yesterday, I posted Cathleen Falsani's comments about my favorite TV show, Saving Grace. 

Here's her new book, Sin Boldly. I just ordered my copy.  More to come after I've ready it.

Saving Grace.

God Girl, Cathleen Falsani, one of my favorite religion bloggers writes about one of my favorite TV shows, Saving Grace.  Read it all, but here are some highlights.

Grace is, by my definition, something unexpected.

*****

The series follows Oklahoma City police detective Grace Hanadarko, played by Oscar-winner Holly Hunter in a virtuoso performance that rightly earned her an Emmy nomination this year.

Grace is a complicated, deeply faulted, entirely engrossing character. She drinks too much, chain smokes, cusses like a sailor and sleeps around with random men and, most perilously, with her married partner, Detective Ham Dewey (Kenneth Johnson).

She's a survivor of clergy sexual abuse and a family-survivor of the Oklahoma City bombing, where her sister was killed.

When we first met Grace last season, she was chewing up the screen and her life, living recklessly and without apologies for her sins, until one night, driving drunk, she hit a pedestrian and killed him. Kneeling over the man's bleeding body in terror, she asks aloud, "God, help me."

And with that, Earle appears. He is, we (and Grace) soon learn, her last-chance guardian angel, a tobacco juice-spitting, T-shirt-wearing, tabbouleh-loving, drawling messenger from God, come to save her (or, more accurately, help her find salvation).

******

Grace is a modern-day King David, a woman after God's own heart despite -- or perhaps because of -- her fallen-ness. She makes the same mistakes over and over with troubling and sometimes tragic results. And yet, God doesn't stop extending grace to Grace, giving her chance after chance after chance to change her life and get healed.

*****

"Earle dispenses a lot of grace," Miller said. "And the man himself, Leon Rippy, is just walking love. Oh my God. He's so talented as an artist, but as a man -- I'm gonna cry just talking about him. He really is just wonderful and meant to play this part. He's the kind of angel I would need in my life, and he's just a graceful, patient, loving angel."

That's how I like to believe God is.

"So do I. He delights in humans and what we do and how we try so hard. Several times in the show, he holds Grace -- that's God, to me, holding us when we're ashamed of something we've done and just there with his arms around us," Miller said.

If you haven't seen the show, watch it on Monday nights on TNT and, as God Girl says:

Embrace the sacred messiness of life and, perhaps, your own grace.

Is Obama A Christian?

Following up on a critical editorial by Cal Thomas, God Girl has this to say:

Thomas concludes that Obama is not really a Christian. He says, "Obama can call himself anything he likes, but there is a clear requirement for one to qualify as a Christian, and Obama doesn't meet that requirement."

This puzzles me. When I asked Obama to describe himself spiritually, he said he was a Christian, that he has a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ," and that he believes Jesus was an actual man (a "historical figure," is how he put it) who is "a bridge between God and man . . . and one that I think is powerful precisely because he serves as that means of us reaching something higher."

What I think stuck in Thomas' craw was Obama's elaboration when I asked him whether he was a "born-again Christian." He said, "Yeah, although . . . I retain from my childhood and my experiences growing up a suspicion of dogma. And I'm not somebody who is always comfortable with that language that implies I've got a monopoly on the truth, or that my faith is automatically transferable to others."

Thomas singled out another of Obama's answers as an indication of his falling short of Christian orthodoxy when he said, "The difficult thing about any religion, including Christianity, is that at some level there is a call to evangelize and proselytize. There's the belief, certainly in some quarters, that if people haven't embraced Jesus Christ as their personal savior, they're going to hell."

It's fascinating to me how two people can hear or read the same thing and come away with diametrically different interpretations. I sat with Obama and listened to him talk about his faith and came away believing that he is very much a genuine Christian believer.

And these final paragraphs sum it up for me.

Someone once said to me that trying to prove you're a Christian is like trying to prove you're not a pedophile. You can't "prove" it. It's a matter of faith, not (political) science.

I asked Scot McKnight, a professor at North Park University and author of, among many titles, The Jesus Creed, to answer the question: What is a Christian?

"A Christian is a person who trusts in the redemptive work of God in Christ and seeks to live that out," McKnight said. "I do believe that there is an existential relationship with God that transcends even what we say."

Though Jesus never uses the word "Christian" in the biblical accounts, he answered the question many different ways, which can be summarized as, simply: "Believe in me. Follow me. Abide in me."

Obama says he believes, abides and is trying to follow Jesus.

He's a humble believer and doesn't want to give the impression that he has the corner on truth. I respect that, although it makes fielding questions about his faith more complicated and provocative.

It is dangerous to try to judge the quality of a man's faith. That is God's purview, not ours.

Top Ten Commandments.

1. Thou shalt love the Lord your God with all your mind, heart, strength, and your fellow human beings even when they are total wankers.
   
2. Thou shalt not judge.
3. Thou shalt not attempt to change people but love and serve them.
4. Thou shalt not use the bible as a weapon to further your own agenda.
5. Thou shalt dream big dreams and pray big prayers.
6. Thou shalt live with the questions and allow others to do the same.
7. Thou shalt honor all human beings and respect their spiritual beliefs.
8. Thou shalt drink deeply from the cup of grace.
9. Thou shalt keep in mind the big picture and attempt to make a difference in this world by serving the poor, living compassionately and loving unconditionally (even when it's hard.)
10. Thou shalt have a sense of humor.

Oh, if only we would all live by these--maintaining a life of tolerance and kindness. (Thanks to Donna Jean for this reminder.)

"Inclusion Is A Reality."

After all the Anglican BS from Lambeth, this positive word from LA Bishop, Jon Bruno.

“I can only say that inclusion is a reality in our diocese and will continue to be. For people who think that this is going to lead us to disenfranchise any gay or lesbian person, they are sadly mistaken.”

The Rt. Reverend J. Jon Bruno, Bishop of Los Angeles

(as quoted in Episcopal Cafe)

Now, if the church would just get on with the work it is supposed to do.

Christian-Muslim Compatibility.

Sounds like a good start.  Now if we could just tone down the rhetoric of the right wing politicians and talking heads here in the US.

Swapping Partying For Meditation.

If you have an interest in meditation, here's an article from the Times of London, about how a six week stay in a Buddhist Monastery in Bangkok changed her life.

My problems were different; they couldn't be fixed by simply sitting still every day. I needed intervention! A personal trainer! Oprah Winfrey! A hypnotherapist! But in the monastery, with no other option but to sit and at least try to meditate, I slowly found that I could sit for longer and longer, sometimes more than an hour. And I began to feel clean and refreshed afterwards, as if I had bathed in a cool sea.

My memory became sharp, and I could remember my chants, which impressed my old monk no end. I gradually stopped being angry with myself and starting feeling proud of myself. I saw strengths that I had never noticed before, and I stopped punishing myself with food and lost the extra weight naturally. I've never really been religious, and I was not attracted to Buddhism as a faith, but I felt that meditation allowed me to understand myself better and to find the right thing to do. Essentially, it taught me to listen to myself.

A New Era For Christianity.

Brian Mclaren, one of the leading figures of the emerging church, spoke this past week to Anglican Bishops at Lambeth.  Here's an interview with him in Christianity Today that I found interesting. 

This Q & A about the future of Christianity, I found particular good.

CT: You suggested a new era for Christianity. What else do you think we can expect?

BM: I am just one small person with a very limited perspective in the face of such a huge question. But let me offer four small thoughts.

First, I think our future is more about the Christian way of life than it is about a rigid and polemicized systems of belief. Second, I think our future is mission-oriented - meaning that we focus on forming disciples who advance God's mission in their daily lives.

Third, I believe our future is ecumenical - with Catholics, Anglicans, Pentecostals, Eastern Orthodox, and Evangelical Christians taking a humble posture as fellow learners and collaborators for the common good rather than as competitors or us-versus-them enemies.

And fourth, I think our future will also require us to join humbly and charitably with people of other faiths - Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, secularists, and others - in pursuit of peace, environmental stewardship, and justice for all people, things that matter greatly to the heart of God.

Great Big Love.

In the middle of my troubles

In the midst of all my fears

In the dark night of my worries

In the bitter salt of all my tears:

God is watching over me

God is watching over me

God is watching over me

with great big love.

In my times of sorrow

In the midst of my despair

In the darkest, darkest midnight hour

I know God is always there:

God is watching over me

God is watching over me

God is watching over me

with great big love.