it snowed

Important things to do today. And we have had a pile of snow dumped on us. Not near as bad as on the east coast, but enough to keep everyone off the roads. So all those important things are put on hold. Isn’t it interesting how on days like this, so many “important” things are delayed because of the more importance need of safety due to the weather. Yet, many folks never do the daily important things of prayer, meditation and scripture reading because they claim they don’t have enough time regularly to do these things. We need a snow storm daily to allow us the time and space to do what Jesus did every day – take a time of solitude with God.

cold lonesome

We started off with a mild winter and now for 3+ weeks we have had cold. Right now it is deep cold. Bodies ache. Energy is zapped. Skin is dry and parched. Sounds like wandering in the wilderness. When I was in Nicaragua over 20 years ago, it was all I could to get through the day. The campesinos were so more deeply connected to Jesus in their lives than I was back home with all my luxuries. We are a weak people. We rely on money, technology, intellect and military power to try to make us strong. These are all false gods/idols. We are still weak with all of that. This difficult weather is a godsend to help me to be mindful of my weakness all the time. In You O Lord, I put my trust. I give to you my life.

Haiti and our caring

Now is the time to take your excess and give it to the poor. Does charity being at home as some are wont to say? Guess it depends on what you consider “home” to be. It seems like this week many people are finding that home is in Haiti. Jesus in many cases calls us to give up our privilege and our excess lifestyles and learn to live on what is essential. That way we will be able to respond as needed when God calls us. If we have been on a spiritual journey to be a disciple of Jesus, now is the time to show that spiritual maturity and not remained stuck in anxious self-insecurity. GIVE!

Church World Service
Heifer International
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forgiveness

I know I want it. Wish I provided it more. I believe in it. Struggle in the practice of it.

I keep wanting everyone else to do it which would make the world an easier place for me to practice it. I wonder if I have waited too long.

I flare up at the drop of a hat. I feel self-justified in my anger fits. I resent so many things about other people.

But I am tired of all this. It drains me not just emotionally, but spiritually. I wonder if all the anger of past years is like a big cesspool inside me that is spilling over the top.

I ask God to forgive me. I ask myself to accept it. It is at this point love transcend being a philosophy or a theology. The question I am facing is, “Is this incarnational? Is is real? Is it true that God is living here with my family, my church, my community, my world, me, right now?”

I know how I am suppose to answer that question in light of what I believe. I can no longer exist on “suppose to’s.” I will die without the truth of life rather than the truth of the head. The head truth (head tripping) is killing me! God save me! Have you heard my cry?

United Church of Christ, UCC, forgiveness, David Loar

the long winter haul

I love cold & snow. I also get more tired in winter. I think one of the purposes of winter is to help us learn how to pace our lives.

time after…

Everything around us is saying that Christmas is over. Now its “after Christmas” sales.

On one hand Christians just began observing Christmas on December 25th when the 12 days of Christmas traditionally begin. Going unto Jan 5th which is 12th Night and then the 6th which is Epiphany. On the other hand how could you ever be “after Christmas” if you are truly following Jesus Christ. Christmas is just the “beginning” of the journey. The world is ready to move on to its next “high.” We who follow Jesus are on a continual journey that is never ending until Christ returns to fulfill the promise. Even now though we are not lost. We may not know precisely what the road ahead will behold, but with Christ we will find the way.

I admit that personally this last year I have had times of despondency and anxiety. I have had questions about the future. I am grateful for the gift God has given us which is the future in the present.

coming up on 61

Turning 60 a year ago seemed like I was truly becoming a senior citizen. Now that I am turning 61, I find myself narrowing the scope of what I will attempt to do in my life. It doesn’t feel like I am giving up. Rather, focusing my time and energy more on what I can accomplish at this point in my life rather than what I hope to accomplish at some point over my life span.

I continue to find that I have spent a lot of life in spinning my wheels, turmoil. But I have also spent a lot in working for justice and peace, and sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I have spent a lot in sharing love with my wife and daughters and others in my family. I have also had some time of screwing up relationships that maybe could have been more sustaining than I allowed them to be.

At this point though I don’t spend time in regret. I anticipate what can be before I die and after I die. That is a biblical sense. The promise is to “you and your children” we are told. God acts in time frames that are not our time frames. For instance, after 400 years. Or really 600+ years from Abraham’s promise until the children of Israel arrive in the promised land. What am I anxious about?!

With this in the season of Advent, with my birthday on Dec 23 and Christmas on Dec 25, it is enough. There is no more that I need to have fulfilled. It is sufficient. Let me O God be your servant for your will.

Loar, United Church of Christ, Akron, justice, peace, Christian

so much to do…

There is so much to do…and eternity in which to do it. So it is time in the present to live with knowledge that God has accomplished all that which we humans hope will happen in the future. Here in the season of Advent I have no anxiousness for the savior or for Christmas. I am content to wait with and for God. Because God has already come. The peace of the world is already present, even though there are many peace advocates running around anxiously advocating for peace and often creating as much “un”peace or chaos as those they are trying to overcome.

Within the United Church of Christ there is a category for churches to claim for themselves call the Just Peace Church. I believe that if a church is a church, it is the body of Christ, and thus living in the midst of a chaotic world, in peace. Before it advocates for peace, it must be peace. In Christ, that is true.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves

There are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves by James Kavanaugh

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who prey upon them with IBM eyes
And sell their hearts and guts for martinis at noon.
There are men too gentle for a savage world
Who dream instead of snow and children and Halloween
And wonder if the leaves will change their color soon.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who anoint them for burial with greedy claws
And murder them for a merchant’s profit and gain.
There are men too gentle for a corporate world
Who dream instead of candied apples and ferris wheels
And pause to hear the distant whistle of a train.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who devour them with eager appetite and search
For other men to prey upon and suck their childhood dry.
There are men too gentle for an accountant’s world
Who dream instead of Easter eggs and fragrant grass
And search for beauty in the mystery of the sky.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who toss them like a lost and wounded dove.
Such gentle men are lonely in a merchant’s world,
Unless they have a gentle one to love.

stewardship or fundraising

There is a difference between Christian stewardship and fundraising.  Stewardship is about aligning one’s life in a righteous relationship with God and then making all of one’s life decisions based on that relationship.  It is more about lifestyle than simply money.  It is about caring for creation more than the church budget.  It is about love more than obligation.

Stewardship begins with responding to the call to be a disciple.  Jesus invited people to drop what they were doing and to take up their cross and follow him.  That changes everything.  Thus, stewardship is in a whole different context than organizational fundraising.  Tithing and offerings are about love, not charity.  Love for Jesus!  And as Jesus describes it late in chapter 25 of Matthew, we love him when we care for the poor, the homeless, the prisoner, the sick.  There are some who follow Jesus who use charitable organizations to be disciples.  But that does not necessarily mean that charitable organizations enable discipleship.

Stewardship is about God, not charity.  Charity is good.  It is needed. Discipleship of Jesus and the love of God is at the heart of stewardship.  Leaving all behind and following Jesus is at the heart of stewardship.  Taking up your cross to follow Jesus and facing condemnation and persecution is at the heart of stewardship.  These things are not required for charity.