How can the simple (though not necessarily easy) practice of sabbath help heal the world? Sabbath is more than taking time off. It’s a basic life orientation toward busyness and fullness. Sabbath is the habit of resisting the hurry and worry, the acquiring and protecting that drives the economics and politics of the modern world. Walter Brueggemann has said that “In our own contemporary context of the rat race of anxiety, the celebration of Sabbath is an act of both resistance and alternative. It is resistance because it is a visible insistence that our lives are not defined by the production and consumption of commodity goods.” Sabbath is ceremonial, that is, it is a way we, as our ancestors did, seek to live more harmoniously with the rhythms of nature from which our lives come and to which they will return. Our key texts are Exodus 20.1-3, 8-11 and a reading from Thomas Berry’s book, The Great Work.
Practicing Authentic Community: Third in the Series "Flourish: How to Bring Out the Best in Yourself"
While relationships can (and have) deformed us and caused us to hide our souls and languish because of it, authentic, generous, and kind community can heal and transform us into the splendor of Christ’s light in us. Third in the series: “Flourish: How to Bring Out the Best in Yourself.” This week is an invitation to the spiritual practice of authentic community. It’s a meditation based on Acts 9.17, 2 Corinthians 5.17, and this quote from Anais Nin: “Everyone of us carries a deforming mirror where we see ourselves as too small or too large, too fat or too thin . . . . Once the deforming mirror is smashed, there is the possibility of wholeness, there is the possibility of joy.”
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If we are going to flourish, we will find ways to practice what I call “deep self-inquiry”—if we do, we will, as I said two weeks ago, discover that we are probably far more than we’ve become. Or as I said last week, “We’ve got more inside us than we ever dared to dream.” If we practice deep self-inquiry, we will discover that who we’ve become may not be, in fact, the fullness of who we truly are. And we will discover that the painful, frightening, and unwelcome experiences of our lives often invite us to wake up to the truth that we may not yet be living from our true identity—from the depth of our soul’s true goodness, beauty, and power.
This journey of our soul, the journey into flourishing, will require courage, a gutsy vulnerability.
Practicing Vulnerability: Second in the Series "Flourish: How to Bring Out the Best in Yourself"
Things are not always going to turn out the way we want. There are things we can’t control. And there will come a time when each of us faces something we wish we’d done differently. We’ll feel like a fool or a failure. To flourish, you’ll need to keep going. Your life is worth it. You’ve got more inside you than you ever dared to dream.
In this second sermon in a three week series, I explore what it means to 1. Show up for your life, 2. Brave up when it gets tough, and 3. when you fall or fail, get back up. It’s a meditation on Luke 12.32-34 and a quote from Letters to a Young Poet: “Think of the world you carry within you. Attend to what rises within you and prize it above all that you perceive around you. What happens most deeply inside you is worthy of your whole love.” —Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)
Find the text version of the sermon below . . .
Practicing Deep Self-Inquiry | First in the Series: “Flourish: How To Bring Out the Best in Ourselves”
I want to thrive. I don’t want to die never having lived into who I really am. I don’t want to hide in fear or smallness. I don’t want to wear masks. I want to understand what drives me. I want to respond to what calls to me. I want to be strong and vulnerable, compassionate, boundaried, courageous, energetic, playful, determined, and focused. I want my outer life to manifest the pure gold of my soul. And I want this for those around me; I want this for everyone; I want this for all of nature. The wellbeing of everything requires it. Justice for everyone demands it. There is no wellbeing without flourishing, and there is no flourishing without justice.
Following the early fall eco-justice series (here and here), “Cooperation Not Exploitation: Finding Ourselves in the Great Web of Life,” I’m now teaching/preaching around the theme, “Flourish: How to Bring Out the Best in Ourselves.” The series is based on the New Testament text, Matthew 15.11 (Jesus said, “It’s not what’s outside you that brings trouble and ruin, but what spills out from inside you”) as well as the early Christian text, the Gospel of Thomas, saying 3 (Again Jesus said, “When you know yourselves, then you will be known. But if you do not know yourselves, then you will live in poverty”). Click here for the audio recording. Click here for the PDF of the Deep Self-Inquiry Questions.
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Once upon a time there was a tigress, she was pregnant and about to give birth. One day, late into her gestation, she was out hunting and came upon a herd of goats. She was ravenously hungry, and sprung upon the goats who scattered in a frightened frenzy. In her pregnant condition, she was only able to catch the weakest and smallest goat in the herd. The stress of the chase forced her into labor. She died giving birth to a single cub.
Diversity will save us: a challenge to Tucker Carlson and other anti-immigrant ideologues
The anti-immigrant agenda runs amok in America and other parts of the world. Ideologues foment a xenophobic reimagination of the values of diversity and inclusion America has stood for, values based in our religious tradition (which itself has often been abused and misused to foster bigotry and violence against “the other.” In this sermon, I summon the biblical tradition and its influence on the American vision to challenge bigotry and urge us to reclaim the values that could make humanity great again . . . .