Advent Longings

The Cloth of Our Humanity

the Light that gives light to every man who comes into the world was born in the dank darkness of a small isolated cave in a Bethlehem hillside...and He was wrapped in the humble cloth of our humanity that we might be wrapped in the glorious garments of His divinity, "garments of salvation" and "robes of righteousness".

Marketing the Church

Marketing the Church

Viruses and Antidotes

I have often pondered the phenomenon of various types of viruses and the manner in which antidotes are developed, deployed and work to combat and eradicate or prevent a particular virus.  This may seem like a random thought to some, but increasingly we are told by medical research agencies and medical science that certain types of viruses are increasing in their potency and threat to human (and animal) health.

Life on planet earth is slowly growing more and more precarious and fragile, it seems.  Of course, in one way or another, it has always been so.  Human life as we have been able to follow history has always had its temporal vulnerabilities to environmental changes.  The amazing thing is that our Creator has endowed human beings with such a strong "survival instinct", an unquenchable thirst and grasping for life, that we have, by His beneficent Providence, been able to come through a host of some of the most amazing and intimidating catastrophes, plagues, wars, genocides and environmental threats imaginable.

In the process of the challenging quest to live on this planet and survive and overcome developments such as those listed above, some of our making and some completely beyond our control, amazing "antidotes" have been discovered, developed and made available that have in some instances seemingly eradicated from human experience certain threats to human health and well-being.  Penicillin, sulfa-drugs, vaccinations and a host of more recent breakthroughs have, at times, given people a sense that anything can be overcome with scientific knowledge, persistence and human ingenuity.  On the other hand, in the last 15 years we are increasingly being warned that there are certain types of "viruses", or "super viruses", that seem to be emerging or morphing in ways and at an increasing rate that medical science has often pondered the possibility of viruses, and consequent diseases and health epidemics, that could potentially become a major threat, once again, to the safety and health of the "global family" the world of our time has become.

As sobering and disturbing as this perspective is, there are also other types of viruses that pose even more radical and deep-seated threats to human well-being and order in societies.

C. S. Lewis Quotes - Requires Savoring and Pondering

"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You too? I thought I was the only one."
— C.S. Lewis

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."
— C.S. Lewis

"The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us."
— C.S. Lewis

"If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world."
— C.S. Lewis

"Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again."
— C.S. Lewis (The World's Last Night: And Other Essays)

"There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind."
— C.S. Lewis

"God can't give us peace and happiness apart from Himself because there is no such thing."
— C.S. Lewis

"I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time- waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God- it changes me."
— C.S. Lewis

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."
— C.S. Lewis (The Four Loves)

Notable and Quotable - Thoughts for Birthing New Perspectives

“We have to remember that we look for solitude in order to grow there in love for God and in love for others. We do not go into the desert to escape people but to learn how to find them: we do not leave them in order to have nothing more to do with them, but to find out the way to do them the most good”.  Thomas Merton

“A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart, and sings it back to you when you have forgotten how it goes.” Anonymous

"Next to the WORD of God the noble art of MUSIC is the greatest treasure in the world; It controls our thoughts, minds, hearts and spirits." - Martin Luther

"Nobody dreams of music in hell, and no one can imagine heaven without it." - Samuel Parkes Cadman

Ponderings At The Back of the Wardrobe

Mystery is not something we conquer, but something we embrace and enter into; and, in the process, we are enriched, humbled, and transformed.  So often in western "civilization" we try to conquer the mysteries of life, a poor and wearied approach that modernity has tried and found wanting.  Many branches of science are beginning to acknowledge with every new probing discovery the wonder, awe and mystery of life.  "Exact science" is beginning to discover its hubris and the folly of empirical rationalism that would seek to reduce the mysteries of life to controllable equations.

The human mind and reason functioning from a perception of its ability to conquer and control always, inevitably, finds itself on the cusp of the chasm of the "deep magic", as C. S. Lewis describes the nature of creation permeated by the life-giving and life-sustaining power and active Presence of its Creator.  The greatest mystery, that of a loving and personal, yet transcendent Creator - God in Three Persons, as one great hymn puts it - beckons and invites all His creatures back into the embrace of His unfathomable and unfailing love in order that we might have the joy of sharing again in the dance of the divine mystery that gives meaning and purpose to every aspect of life.  And, that great Mystery of Love permeates the everydayness of our lives in a manner that has the power to transform the commonness of our daily struggles, questions and uncertainties into discovery, encounter and awakening and to alter our perceptions of what is real and lasting and that can only, finally, be described as wonder and mystery.

Somehow, it seems imperative to take searching steps of faith toward the back of the wardrobe with a trembling hope that as we reach out in the dark there awaits us the joyful discovery that the Great Mystery we have so often feared, ignored or raged against is waiting to free us to enter into and experience the profound realization that there are other "lands", other "dimensions", other "vistas" available to us. He has prepared for us, as the Holy Scriptures describe it, "that which no eye has seen, no ear has heard and has not entered into the heart of man" as we learn to trust and embrace - the Mystery.

The Mystery and Enchantment of Faith

It seems as though “post-modernity” as a philosophy and way of seeing life has come round to reveal to the world of modernity with all its hubris, pride of control and the exaltation of reason and will over all things just how far from reality and truth it really is. 

The last 250 years have seen the rise and ascendancy in the western world of what has been known as The Age of Reason, the Enlightenment or Modernity.  It is philosophy that has shaped the western worldview in such a way as to deify human reason and will and to make “progress” the ultimate “modern” idolatry.  Most of the “isms” that plague our contemporary world have sprung from the womb of Enlightenment thinking in almost all of the aspects of culture and society in mainstream America and Western Europe.

Autonomous individualism, moral relativism, lethal societal narcissism, secular humanism, scientific or rational reductionism (sometimes called “scientism”), pluralism and a host of other Enlightenment offspring have taken hold of our society in almost every field of endeavor and social construction.  In so doing, modernity (which is still very much with us despite post-modernity’s increasing influence on younger generations) has reduced most of the meaning of life to what we make of it, to what we can make happen by will and reason, by gaining understanding so as to control our environment. 

We see the fruit of this insidious philosophy of life in the increase of other, more ancient “isms” which fueled the Enlightenment “human engineering” project.  Hedonism, rampant materialism, unrestrained consumerism and the economic brutality of globalization and runaway capitalism have reduced human experience of life to the survival of the fittest, or the greediest, or the shrewdest, valuing power and wealth above compassion and generosity.  Totalitarianism has arisen in new and unexpected forms in many parts of the globe, even “post-communism”, and the regard for the dignity and value of human life, together with most other categories of meaning, have been reduced to impersonal “bottom lines” of various kinds. 

The late Pope John Paul II lamented these developments in societies and cultures where the “culture of death” seemed to open its maw to consume individual dignity and freedom.  He described the state of man in 1991 in his speech before the United Nations General Assembly: "At times it seems as though man exists only as a producer and consumer of goods, or as an object of state administration," he said.

But, you might be saying by now, what about our faith, what about the power of the Gospel to bring change to these desperate times and developments.  I ponder the same questions and look for the fresh and transforming answers the Good News of Jesus Christ and His new way of being human may hold for our times.

One of my deep concerns in this regard has to do with what I see as a capitulation of the Christian faith on so many fronts to the very same Enlightenment rationalism, particularly in America and western European nations.  So often, the Christian faith has been reduced to accommodate or fit in with aspects of modernity that are so pervasive we don’t even realize we are serving its agenda in the ways we approach the implementation and understanding of the faith.

Caterpillar Moments and Butterfly Potentials

Someone once said, "Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly".

For all those facing caterpillar moments who are on the threshold of butterfly breakthroughs it is vital to remember that struggle, challenges to change and grow and conscious, intentional battles with old patterns and ways of thinking are necessary for new potentials to be realized in our lives.  The caterpillar moments are part of a design God has implanted and included in human nature and experience that enables us, like the caterpillar, to reach our full potential and identity.  So often, it is when we are on the threshold of a "butterfly breakthrough" in our lives that we are most tempted to give up the struggle.

Most of the time, these temptations to give up or give in or resign ourselves to the caterpillar mentality (oh, well, I guess this is just the way I'll always be; there seems to be no way out of this cocoon) come from what C. S. Lewis famously described as the spiritual activity of "Screwtape" and his associates in their attempts to continually thwart God's good creation and purposes for our lives.  To borrow a line from the "Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers", "the enemy knows you, and he fears what you may become".

We will always be opposed by the enemy of our souls in progressing toward who we are created to be, the butterfly that resides within.  In Christ's coming into the world in our human nature, He showed us clearly the path from caterpillar to butterfly.  His resurrection from the dead on the Great Sunday of Easter was the demonstration for all that the way into becoming who we are meant to be in God's loving plan of purpose and relationship with Him is through the struggles, sometimes the deep soul sufferings that battles and challenges cause.  But the release of the new person we are meant to be, the coming forth of the butterfly in us through the divine inward assistance and enabling, brings with it the joy of discovering that we were meant to fly, not crawl, and that there is a beauty in each one of our lives that is meant to be experienced and shared with the world that will bring hope to others caught in caterpillar moments and mentalities and great joy and fulfillment to each of us.

In this way the world, the created order itself, societies and cultures, can be beautified and elevated and transformed as people begin to realize that which they were created for and find the power to fly and share the beauty within them in ways that inspire the faith, hope and perseverance of others stuck in caterpillar moments and patterns.  There is a butterfly potential within each one of us awaiting its release.

An Alleluia People

We are living out since the Great Sunday of the year, the Easter season of 50 days, the time between Easter Sunday and the Sunday of Pentecost.  The great Feast of The Ascension of our Lord falls 40 days into this glorious season.

Eastertide is a season of great rejoicing and thanksgiving and of abiding hope and faith in the promise of God that in Christ we, too, will share fully in this new life He has purchased for us with His suffering, death and mighty resurrection.  Here, we have a "foretaste", a "pledge", an "earnest" or "down-payment" on the fullness of our inheritance in the eternal kingdom of joy, righteousness, peace and praise.  An old Gospel hymn states it this way, "O, I want to see Him, look upon His face...".  That will be a joy that cannot be comprehended or explained in human experience, but only hinted at in the "down-payment" of the indwelling of Christ's Holy Spirit in our hearts.  Sometimes, we get a glimmer of that fullness of joy that is found only in His Presence, gazing upon His awesome beauty; that is, when we are grateful, thankful and full of loving praise and worship from our hearts and whole being to the One who has loved us and given Himself for us.

  So, we are called to be an "alleluia" people, in every season of life - even in the midst of sorrow, loss and death.  For our risen Lord has transformed the enemy's last weapon of death into a gateway to a glorious and unending life of fullness, wholeness, completeness and wondrous discoveries unlimited.  As we learn to die daily to sin, self, satan and the world, we are already tasting the death of Christ, as well as the beginnings of His new Life of Resurrection glory in our inner being.  As an alleluia people we are called to live from the inside out, for St. Paul reminded us that though our outward man (our physical nature) is wasting away day by day, our inner life is being renewed by the fountain of the abundant and unending and unbounded Life of the Risen One we have come to share in, even here, even now.

Alleluia!  Christ is risen!  The Lord is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

The Many and the One

Many streams, but only one River;
Many needs, but only one Giver;
Many ideas, but only one Truth;
Many languages, but only one Spirit;
Many divisions, but only one Body;
Many paths that we travel, but only one Gate to receive us;
Many the branches, but only one Tree,
Whose fruit heals the nations and binds up our wounds
As a gift from the One who is Three.

Jesus Our Way Bread

1 Kgs 19:4-8

Elijah went a day’s journey into the desert,
until he came to a broom tree and sat beneath it.
He prayed for death saying:
“This is enough, O LORD!
Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”
He lay down and fell asleep under the broom tree,
but then an angel touched him and ordered him to get up and eat.
Elijah looked and there at his head was a hearth cake
and a jug of water.
After he ate and drank, he lay down again,
but the angel of the LORD came back a second time,
touched him, and ordered,
“Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!”
He got up, ate, and drank;
then strengthened by that food,
 he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb.

Jn 6:41-51 

The Jews murmured about Jesus because he said,
“I am the bread that came down from heaven,”
and they said,
“Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph?
Do we not know his father and mother?
Then how can he say,
‘I have come down from heaven’?”
…Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me.
…Amen, amen, I say to you,
whoever believes in Me has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died;this is the bread that comes down from heaven
so that one may eat it and not die.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven;
whoever eats this bread will live forever;
and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”


Taste and see the goodness of the Lord. Psalm 34


Recently, the daily Bible readings from the lectionary included the two passages above as complementary passages that both speak profoundly of a spiritual reality given to us as God’s people and the devoted followers of Jesus His Son. I was reminded as I meditated on these readings of the scene in the movie, “The Fellowship of the Ring”, in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, where the Fellowship of the Nine are preparing to make their departure from Lothlorien, the land of Celeborn and Galadriel and the ‘heart of elevendom on earth”, with gifts given them by the elves for the demanding and dangerous journey ahead of them.

Two of the hobbits, Merri and Pippin, are sitting in a boat waiting for their embarkation and Legolas, their Woodland elven companion on the journey ahead of them, remarks about the elivish “waybread” given to them called “lembas”. He says to them, “one small bite can fill the stomach of a grown man”. Merri looks at Pippin who is giving off a sly, self-satisfied smile, and asks, “how many have you eaten?” – meaning loaves of this same wondrous bread. Pippin replies, “four!”

Open Our Eyes That We May See

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Appareled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
Heaven lies about us in our infancy;
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows.
He sees it in his joy;
At length the man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day. William Wordsworth

Inspiring Quotes For Seeing Differently

Perspective may be defined as the way we see and perceive or understand the nature of things around us.  Of course, if we live very long, we hopefully begin to understand that things aren't always what they appear to be on the surface, or at first glance.  It is stated of God in Sacred Scripture that "God doesn't see as man sees.  God looks at the heart, while man judges by outward appearance."

 So, often in life, we presume that we are seeing and understanding a situation, a person, a circumstance, a struggle correctly, when, all the while, there may be a deeper reality at work beneath the surface that we are not perceiving and that may give quite a different color to the whole matter before us, if we could be see it more clearly.  The story of the blind beggar, "Bartimaeus", recorded in the Gospel of Mark, illustrates most strikingly the point about the importance of our perspective.  Bartimaeus sits by the side of the road begging for his living because he is unable to see and, therefore, navigate his way safely and normally through life.  So, because of his lack of clear sight, he is limited, sidelined in life.