God's way seems so simple. We're not told to say specific prayers, although we are given illustrations of people praying with integrity, or not. It's OK if we want to fast, but it doesn't seem required for salvation. We're not required to perform magnificent actions, altho our lives might turn out that way.

Jesus simply says: "If you love me, you will keep my commandments" and "Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me."

Jesus' commandments are summed up in this one: "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

But Jesus doesn't leave things there. This is entwined with what follows: "... I will ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always" "...you will know him, because he remains with you, and will be in you." “I am in the Father, and you are in me, and I in you"

It feels like a great whirlpool of energy, circulating, uniting you, me, Jesus, God and all of creation. I find it difficult to find words to describe what this is to me. Maybe the author of John's Gospel had trouble too. Does even the word "communion" adequately express this mystery?

One of the ways we know we are living in God and God in us, is by the way we act. It's something of a "chicken and egg" question. Does God live in us because we are loving, or are we loving because God lives in us? Perhaps it is a circle, one we enter where ever we are.

This circle also expands. At one time I thought life was all about loving God. Then I found that being caught in God's love impelled me to love other people. Then I came to understand that God's love extends beyond people and embraces all of creation - even the universe. I wonder what could be next!

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote that "Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves."

What is "deepest in ourselves" is that Divine Mystery that lives within us. We don't have to go searching for it "out there" somewhere, or struggle to obtain it. We do need to remove the barriers that keep us from living fully.

 

One of my favorite poets, Hafiz, writes:

 

No one can keep us from carrying God

Wherever we go.

No one can rob His Name

From our heart as we try to relinquish our fears

And at last stand -- Victorious.

We do not have to leave him in the mosque

Or church alone at night;

We do not have to be jealous of tales of saints

Or glorious masts, those intoxicated souls

Who can make outrageous love with the Friend.

We do not have to be envious of our spirits' ability

Which can sometimes touch God in a dream.

Our yearning eyes, our warm-needing bodies,

Can all be drenched in contentment

And Light.

No one anywhere can keep us

From carrying the Beloved wherever we go.

No one can rob His precious Name

From the rhythm of my heart --

Steps and breath.

 

Barbara Cooper, OP

Vancouver Island, BC Canada

Taken from Preachers’ Exchange at preacherexchange.com

 

This tall, narrow wing chair

pale upholstery soiled where my father

read the stock market reports again

            and again and with newsprint

and body oil touched the

round terminus of the arms with his fingers

            over the years

then my brother, book-absorbed

with the selfsame brushing

smoothing movement

burnished the cloth so that

the darkening stains glow

            afternoons

softly as the pearly

August light in that corner room –     

 

this chair, narrow

upright as a cradle board

            like me

shelters.

 

I’ve come for shelter

in the crevice between dark and dawn

to sit and hear morning birds

to walk slowly

 

            diagonally

 

between the door and the chair

where its back corners

            windows south and west

past dim mirror and family photos

            knowing my walking

            knowing my sitting

now a plaid throw rolled behind behind my back

a blue one on my knees

the chair wings cupping my mind

holding it steady.

 

The birds I hold nameless

voices that penetrate dark’s last exhalations –

 

selahbetween night’s psalms

            and morning’s –

 

            raised in sequence

or barely overlapping

            in antiphons.

I can’t tell you just how they sound

only that they do –

raucous chattering or

here tentative, or burbling, tinny

– sudden basso thrumming

            a bullfrog in the old pool – 

marking moment, moment, moment

 

            all there is

 

Bette Edl

STARTING OVER

Every day a new beginning

Every day starting over

Every day rising and falling

 

Some days I cannot get started

Some days I do not get started

Some days I won't get started

 

Those worst days are my best days.

Inflation begets deflation

ego comes to rest in

pure, raw, empty heart

always starting over