This moment is alive to the fullness of God

Spiritual practices can help us live more focused, more meaningful lives. Recently, I invited you to unlearn your distractedness.  Consider a baby I suggested.

Another way to unlearn distraction is to study a dog—they never obsess about the past or worry about the future. Their minds aren’t busy elsewhere. They seem to have an inherent belief in the goodness of the moment. Merely mention a dog’s name and his ears perk up, his eyes brighten, and his tail wags as if to say, “Hey, does life get any better than this?”

Jesus once pointed his distracted and worried followers to the birds and flowers around them, inviting all who seek God to imitate them, to be radically present to life here and now. “Do not worry about tomorrow,” he said, “for tomorrow will bring worries of its own” (Matthew 6.34).

Jesus taught that the present is all you need, for this very moment is alive to all the fullness of God.

Practicing Relinquishment: An Interview with John Gabel

Distraction is epidemic. You don't have to look at the driver texting in the car beside you to witness this truth. You are distracted--much more than you'd like to be. Real focus, concentration, and the kind of awareness that brings us back to our senses spiritually, bringing us happiness and meaning, requires some degree of relinquishment.

In this interview, John Gabel talks about what relinquishment means in his life and how this neglected spiritual practice is enriching his daily experience.

Unlearning your distractedness

There’s a big difference between being awake and being aware, alert, or conscious to what’s really going on around and within you. Consider a baby. When a baby’s awake, she’s also present. She’s not learned enough to be distracted. She takes in everything around her, absorbing what’s coming to her at the moment. It’s little wonder Jesus said, “Unless you change and become like a little child, you cannot enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 18.3).

Becoming spiritually aware

When you wake up each morning, you open your eyes, put your feet to the floor, shuffle to the bathroom or coffee pot and begin the process of becoming more aware of your surroundings. Sometimes, a dream still lingers, and you’re confused—while part of you has got two feet in the real world, your mind’s still in the dream. Sometimes you awaken with a jolt, late for work or class or some other obligation and your mind’s already far ahead into your day, obsessing over something you have to do or something still left undone.

You’re awake but your not really there; you’re moving in the world, but not present to it.

There’s a big difference between being awake and being aware, alert, or conscious to what’s really going on around and within you.

An interfaith prayer for 9/11

Here's the invocation I offered tonight at the 9/11 Commemoration Service to an interfaith group meeting at the Islamic Cultural Center of Fresno.  Note, I was asked by the director of the center to pray specifically as a Christian and not minimize my theological/spiritual convictions.

Almighty God, we call upon you tonight as memories of September 11, 2001 weigh heavily on our hearts. We recall our horror and shock when buildings tumbled and planes fell and people perished.

We remember our fear and anger our confusion and despair, the sense of vulnerability and insecurity that's been with us ever since.

The world has changed, and we have too.

But today, we come, resolved to be people of faith, taught by our sacred texts, comforted by your presence, instructed by your Wisdom, given hope by the friendship we share despite our differences, and committed to work together as people of peace, working for the reconciliation of the world, to you and to each other.

Come among us now, awaken us to your presence within us, drive fear and suspicion far from us-- for they are not the fruit of your Spirit.

Instead, open us to the power of your love, that we may love you with all our hearts and souls and minds and strength, and to love each other, for we are all made to be "partakers of your divine nature" (2 Peter 1.4)

So, may we turn our grief into action for the sake of your love for us and for all your world.

We ask this of you whom we call by many names, you, who have revealed in Jesus-- who lay down his life rather than take up arms-- what it means to live a life pleasing and honorable to you who call us to love one another.

Amen.