Ending and Beginning Words for a Graduate

Erin, our daughter, graduates from Oklahoma City University on Saturday.  She will complete a religious education degree as a Bishop Scholar with cum laude honors.  (Dad bragging)  We are headed to Oklahoma City today to attend the honors ceremony and reception, baccalaureate, and then the actual graduation ceremony itself, where Erin will give the invocation.

Graduations can get a little long and little bit more than the backside can stand.  It’s worth the two hours of hot air that comes from the dais when you get to see a special someone whom you love deeply and matters to you significantly grasping a diploma after years of hard work

Two speeches are given by the students at graduations; the salutation given by the salutatorian, and the valediction given from the valedictorian.  Salutation means “welcome” and valediction means “farewell.”  I have always thought the reason we have preserved the Latin words is so we who help pay for the education are reminded our graduate is educated.  The real reason, those two speeches remind us this is an ending and beginning.  The fact this is an ending and beginning is the reason we call graduations “commencements”.  They signal the beginning of the next phase of life for which the schooling has prepared the graduate. 

As Erin launches into her adult phase of life, (she is going to love it, rent, insurance, and all the fun stuff) we will offer to her our sagacity and wisdom about what she is leaving behind and what she steps toward.  I could go on and on with another dad talk while she politely rolls her eyes (never knew how she did that).  Instead I will borrow the words of another who captures my own imagination about living into a future.  Rainer Maria Rilke published a lovely book, Letters to a Young Poet.  His advice:

• I would like to beg you as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them.  And the point is to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

Erin you will live your way into the answers for the rest of your life.  Be patient my child and try not to miss a moment filled with the divine grace of God.  Love you!

When my Enemy Becomes my Teacher

We are Psalm 23 people.  We like to think of our God in singular terms.  Those opening words that declare the Lord is my shepherd, helps us build a privacy fence; imagining ourselves strolling through those green pastures and beside the still waters with my Lord.  We stub our toe in this favorite Psalm in verse five.  Suddenly, somebody else is present.  It says, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.”  Into this idyllic, intimate Psalm come intruders who are not our friends, but our enemies, persons who hurt, betray, and oppose us.

Interpretations which suggest this verse endorses vengeance is consistent with what we find in the Old Testament.  Throughout the Psalms, writers frequently cry out in uncensored pleas for God to embarrass those who are enemies (or worse).  “O God, break their teeth in their mouth; let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime…” (Psalm 58:6a, 8a).  So, we could interpret the fifth verse as a promise some day, there will be payback: our enemies will be sorry for what they did, and as they are sinking to the depths, they’ll suffer the added humiliation of witnessing us rising to the top.

It is these Old Testament voices I have been listening to on the morning after a stunning announcement that Bin Laden is dead.  These voices sadden me and cause me to wonder like Tony Campolo after 9/11-WWJD?  Naturally, when we are hurt, our first impulse is to retaliate.  While I acknowledge the blunt emotions of this day, I must not weigh my understanding of God solely on Old Testament verses of eye for an eye.  We are clothed in Christ and we must hear the voice of Jesus, who is the Good Shepherd.

After 9/11, an American columnist opined, “This is no time to go around quoting Jesus when 1000’s of Americans are dying.”  This is exactly the time to quote Jesus.  Anytime we’re talking about enemies or those who have hurt us, we need to hear words like “return good for evil“; “love your enemies“; “blessed are the peacemakers“; and “do good to those who hurt you.”  We need to start a different place than those children caught up in the ways of this world; dancing fools, bringing shame to all the values the White House represents.

What if “you prepare a table before me in the presence of mine enemies” means God has prepared a banquet of creative alternatives for us to choose from when confronted by being in the presence of our enemies.  We are children of God; born to create.  We direct our creativity toward material success, manifesting dreams, or helping a cause.  We forget the same natural ability can be employed in spiritual times like these.  We don’t have to fall back on the same old mantras that re-enforce our war faring ways.  This is what children of this world sound like, not children of a flock watched over by a Good Shepherd.

I pray on this day we can tap the brakes on feelings of satisfaction that come because our enemy has been shamed.  I want to sit in an appropriate silence that gives me room to consider the power of forgiveness and hope of reconciliation.  It takes a lot of God in me to reflectively seek to understand why an enemy seeks to do harm.  The real “me”; the part of me that has been redeemed and the part of me that has yet to be redeemed is revealed when I am in the presence of my enemies.  On this day, I will allow my enemy to be my spiritual teachers; providing me an opportunity to grow.

The place I choose to stand today is beside our Good Shepherd who said from a cross, “Forgive them, they know not what they are doing.”  The thoughts I choose plumb on this day is how my redemption was made possible by compassion offered in the midst of violence.  My prayer I offer this day is to tune out voices of this world; and tune into the voice who calls us to offer the same compassion offered from a cruel cross.  I am certain more redemption is possible there, than in any of my un-redemptive tendencies.

“After Easter”

We went and saw Tom Shadyac’s new documentary “I Am” on Easter night.  He is the director of cult comedies like “Ace Venture”, “Nutty Professor”, and “Bruce Almighty”.  This film is much different!  It’s powerful message capped off our Easter Sunday.  Check out the trailer by clicking here or below.

Shadyac documents the emerging story of our interconnectedness which technology is starting to describe in quantum like ways.  Science is starting to acknowledge our DNA is wired to cooperate not compete.

Then on this (Monday) morning, I listened to what Peter Rollins, a new social media acquaintance, had to say on Easter morning.  So poignantly he speaks of all the ways we deny the resurrection when we act like what we are separate from others.  Check out his message  by clicking here or below.

I wondered yesterday in my message what would be different “After Easter” this year.  Shadyac and Rollins put it together for me-I deny the resurrection every time I deny my connection to every living creature fashioned by the hand of God.

So, I laid my head down last night and asked myself the question, what would be different “After Easter” this year.  I experienced a simple revelation.  What would be different “After Easter” this year… ME!

Lingering a Little Longer in Holy Week

Some words needs no improvement.  Instead, the rest of us should just shine the light of Christ on them so they may live.

Richard Rohr is such person whom few could improve on his inspiring words.  His writings speak of the Christian way in the midst of suffering; reminding us of the dark side of passion week.  I need to hear words which remind me of the shadows of Good Friday; so I may more resiliently sing the bright sounds of Easter on Resurrection Day.

I feel deeply that much of our expressions of Christ’s way are watered down because of our proclivity to move quickly past the reality of darkness experienced on that Good Friday afternoon.  Rohr’s words, like Rembrandt’s painting, help me stay long enough to ponder what makes our redemption possible; love offered in the midst of awful hate, and light shone into the real darkness.

I share them with those who need them, like I.  They can be read in their entirety in his book Hope Against Darkness, p. 38.

You alone, Lord Jesus, refused to be crucifier, even at the cost of being crucified.  You never play the victim, you never ask for vengeance, but you only breathe forgiveness.  While we, on this fearful earth, murder, mistrust, attack and hate.  Now I see that it is not you that humanity hates; we hate ourselves, but mistakenly kill you.

I must stop crucifying your blessed flesh on this earth and in my brothers and sisters, and in every form of life, whether innocent or guilty, worthy or unworthy.  We are all your blessed Body, and you have always loved me precisely in my unworthiness.  How can I not do the same to others?

Give me courage to practice these Jesus ways to all I encounter on this holy week.

Open Love Letter

Terri and I will celebrate one of our four children’s first wedding.  Tara and David will be wed this weekend.  We welcome into our family a new member- a son-in-law; but better yet a “good man” who loves our daughter very much.  We think they are lucky to have each other.

This high occasion in our lives has caused me to pause and think reflectively about the essence and energy of love.  I share these thoughts thinking of Tara and David; but they are words that speak to my love of Terri and perhaps they speak to you.

Getting married is like mailing a letter with irrevocable commitments.  That kind of passionate action causes us to lose ourselves in something bigger than ourselves.  Loved promised at that altar is marked by a kind of passion offered that moves beyond the point of no return.  The beauty of real passionate love will escape us if we are preoccupied in preserving self interests.  People who experience passion, are passionately self-forgetful.  They’re absorbed in the other, and not in themselves.  Love grows in giving ourselves to what is beyond us rather than fixate on what is near us.

To David and Tara: You will always be children to us no matter how old you grow.  I pray you will always remain child-like; for children have no problem with passion.  Children don’t worry about what others think of their passionate childish ways.  So, resist propping your feet up as the years go by; allowing the blood flow to slow in your relationship.  Always dance throughout your life like children twirling passionately in the wind.

IT WEDDING WEEKEND: LET THE DANCE BEGIN!