No Division

In Jesus, no division existed between his words and his actions, between what he said and what he did. In Him the night and the day are both alike. Can we have the same fidelity? Can our yeah be yeah and our nay be nay?  If we live the Word we speak, not the word of secular culture, miracles would happen. Walk toward the light of Him, walk toward hope, truth, mercy, compassion, forgiveness.  Image: Walking Toward The Light, Katia von Horn Artist Description:Mystery man walking on a road into the light. Shadows cast in all directions. Painted on black canvas, highlighting the man's silhouette against the sun. Artist webiste: https://www.artpal.com/kvonhorn

The new year had begun and it seemed, like standing before a locked threshold with no window to peer through, no doorman to request an entrance inside. What was beyond the door? One would imagine warmth, a hearth with a crackling fire, and a table set with a meal and good company, safety, the sanctuary of a place. On the streets it had been catch as can, belonging nowhere, sleeping in doorways until shooed away and hoping for a scrap of something to sustain. Gnawing hunger and cold on the street served with a side of loneliness and fear. 

My husband was told he could not come back until he was "all better". He had sworn at an usher in our church who refused to let him leave when he was upset. My husband begged the man to step aside so he could pass through the door and go home but the usher said "No, I can see you are upset, tell me about it and we will pray." One blocking the doorway, one pleading to leave to get medication to take care of a medical condition that had arisen. "No" So in desperation my husband swore, the man jumped aside in surprise and my husband went home. 

The following day my husband met with the pastor and explained what happened and apologized for swearing. The pastor then explained that he "knew all about PTSD" and that my husband could come back to church when "He was all better". The door to our church home was closed to my husband and might as well have been to me. How could I continue to attend a church my husband was not allowed to attend until he was "fine".

We waited a year. I continued with the ministry I was engaged in on behalf of the church   praying for reconciliation, a new minister arrived. I met and then my husband met with her. Forgiveness,grace, mercy were not extended. Evidently swearing once in the lobby of the church, with no priors, was unforgiveable. 

I wrote a letter of resignation from the ministry I had been engaged in and joined my husband on the outside looking in. The Church universal is hemorraging membership annually. Our situation was totally avoidable. This story continues as I pray and seek God for new direction and purpose within or without the organized church. Currently my husband and I have been attending a small local church that has been very welcoming. We havn't joined. We are like divorcees who would prefer to live together unmarried than risk the committment of the ceremony at the moment. We shall see, time will tell.

We all fall down....

"Every one of us has had some sort of experience of leaving home, of responding to a call, of having to leave something or someone behind to journey in fidelity to who we are."
This was one of the statements on the Creighton university online Ignatian retreat for week 19 that I just opened yesturday. I was trying to catch a glimpse of a leaf releasing from a tree as I was walking My dog under the maples on the college campus near my home when a flock of geese flew over head followed then by a "murder" of crows; all answering a call I could not  hear but they could. 

Soon the landscape in this snow belt region will be bare and grey, actually by the end of this month. If the trees don't release their leaves and travel " light" through the winter season their branches will be stripped off by the heavy ice and snow. They might not recover from the damage. As I wondered what I needed to release this coming season, I ran into a few people with whom I realized I had not forgiven for what had happened in the past. God issued an ultimatum, it was time, to let that go. Let the anger and hurt go. 

Divine insight flooded my thoughts for a moment, a moment of grace. I don't have to let these folks back into my life, but they are forgiven, I have done it. God knows, I know, they know what happened and Grace has covered it. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.  I can finally be at peace. 

Change

The trees are releasing their leaves slowly in multicolored wisps on the wind. I am being called to release parts of the past in order to move ahead to the next season as well. Will it be done with the grace and glory of the autumn trees, each falling leaf a dazzling offering of what was and what might have been, could have been, should have been? The coming winter in all its frozen blow will create the space for rest, then ready for another chance, a new hope will arise.

So today, while visiting my elderly father in the hospital, he referred to the attention he was receiving from me sarcastically as being like Mother Machree. Having plenty of time to mull this over on the way home,as well as many other cranky comments he made during the visit, I decided to find out just who he was referring to. He would have been two years of age when the silent film was released bearing that name about an Irish immigrant single parent struggling to work and raise her family on her own. While not a single parent, my husband does have a medical condition that has caused us to decide he would be better as the a house husband and I as the bread winner. In Machree's time being a single parent would have carried a stigma, just as my husband's condition and our choice has. Machree is an anglised version of "Moi chroi", my heart, or "mother of my heart". The difficult choices my husband and I have had to make and live with were made with care and prayer. Being a mother of God's heart,"moi chroi", the way I choose to think of it, has a price, a price I am willing to pay today because of my debt that was cancelled so long ago by Grace. It is by that same amazing Grace that my dad's comments did not stick, sting or define me as once they did, and by that same Grace we are in God's eyes, children of His heart.