HEARTBREAK HOTEL

Was just watching Meryl Streep, Shirley MacLaine, Dennis Quaid, Richard Dreyfus and Gene Hackman in "Postcards from the Edge" from Carrie Fisher's book and screenplay, directed by Mike Nichols.
 Was so great to see it again.  Somehow it was one of those movies that I didn't see in the theaters when it came out, and only saw bits and pieces of it until about three years ago.  Hit my life in several ways, but especially just because as baby boomers there is a great deal that we have gone through and that really means a whole bunch to us.

I know, I know . . . all generations have a lot that is important to them.  And as children of what Tom Brokaw and others have called "The Greatest Generation" -- and grandchildren of their parents who also went through  very tumultuous times, maybe we have always had a huge amount  to live up to . . . and even maybe more than most.

No one truly has any other perspective than his or her own.

But what I was thinking about tonight has much to do with all the turmoil of the last twenty years or so as it all seems to keep building and building.  Do we expect it to get better? 

What have our experiences taught us?

What do our history, the stories and legends we grew up with, our expectations and our input into the world all mean to us now as we are in our fifties and sixties -- and some of us even approaching our 70s?

There is obviously not one simple answer because we all come from a variety of backgrounds, social classes, education and experiences.  And make no mistake, we were truly pioneers and on the cusp of a myriad of social changes in almost every perspective of world culture.

We were born right after the horrendous horrible horror that was World War II when pretty near all life on Earth had been affected one way or another by the heinous violence, crimes and atrocities from the war itself to the Holocaust to the employment of nuclear weapons.  The world-wide collective post traumatic stress disorder we have all suffered since the mid-20th Century of course has also been exacerbated by the Civil Right's movement that no matter how much time goes on still seems to need to be fought again and again.  In addition we have really never been without war and strife since the end of World War II, of course. 

The Korean Conflict, the War in Southeast Asia, and all the other wars leading up to this War on Terror and other conflicts driven by economic issues involving oil and other energy resources as well as cultural conflicts based among other factors including age-old cultural and religious rifts and hatreds.

The Women's Rights Movement, too, has had a huge impact on our society and all over the world.  These are so much more than interesting times we have lived through and continue to deal with day by day.

All this has been on my mind great deal lately, and I'm not sure why watching "Postcards from the Edge" triggered all of the above.  (Oh, yeah.  I need to remind you in case you don't know or don't remember, the title of this blog post is "Heartbreak Hotel," which is the song Meryl Streep's character sings at the end of the movie -- just to follow through on the idea!) 

Think I will sleep on it and let you know tomorrow, God willing.

May the Lord continue to bless and keep you and everyone you love.  Holding in my heart some very good friends and family members going through a great deal lately while also rejoicing in the safe arrival of a new cousin in our family.  Isn't life amazing.  The Lord is so good to give us our lives, the beauty of the Earth and all the wonderfulness of love.

NEVER TOO LATE

Sometimes a person we love passes away when there are unhappy or unresolved issues between you and that person.  We can never make that up in the material world, but I truly believe that the Lord can help us make in right in Spirit.  Nevertheless, how much more lovely it can be to be reconciled to someone we love face to face.

There is nothing more important in the whole universe than love in action.

Several times in my life I have lost touch with friends in very sad ways and nothing I have tried to do has been able to fix whatever has been wrong.  Too often I have been speaking and acting according to the way I think about our relationship, but the other person thinks about me and how we know each other in a very different way.  To a great extent there is mostly only our reality and we really can't totally understand where the other person is coming from in the least.

Has that happened to you?  There is a solution.  We can pray and ask the Lord to help us mend what is broken and make right what is wrong or difficult.

What makes it so difficult to face the people we have wronged in some way?  

Why do we often hold on to hurts or mistakes instead of confessing them and asking for forgiveness?  

We are human beings and our hearts and emotions are finite and flawed.  Not so with the Lord.  His knowledge of each person's heart and circumstances is complete.  At one and the same time, the Lord knows the past, the present and the future.  He understand why you feel the way you feel better than you do.

According to St. Matthew's Gospel, there are two solutions to problems between people.  Jesus explains by suggesting a situation when you go to the altar to ask God's forgiveness for your sins, but as you kneel before Him, you remember that someone is holding something against you.  Maybe you didn't even intentionally hurt that person.  But you know that there are bad feelings and that the person hurts because of something you have done or said or not done or haven't said.

Jesus says that in those circumstances we must leave or gift at the altar and go to the person and ask his or her forgiveness.  Even if the person cannot or will not forgive you, you can leave that in the Lord's hands, go back to the altar, and complete the sacrifice to ask God's forgiveness.  Matthew 5:24-25

The other situation the Lord talks about concerning forgiveness Jesus presents in the context of those who have made a commitment to the Lord and to one another in the fellowship of believers.  If another believer, one of your brothers or sisters in Christ has done something to hurt you, or stolen something from you or in any other way has sinned against you, you must go to that person and tell him or her about the sin or transgression.

This gives that brother or sister an opportunity to ask your forgiveness.  If he or she denies the wrong against you, the Lord says that you must bring one or two witnesses with you and go back with you to accuse the person of the sin against you again.  This is based on the requirements to seek forgiveness in the Hebrew Bible, that no one can be accused and then convicted of a crime or a sin unless one or two witnesses are present when the perpetrator comes before a judge at the gates of the city which is the person's ancestral home.

If the person still refuses to take responsibility and ask your forgiveness, you have done all that the Lord requires and can receive the peace of the Lord.  Matthew 18:15-17

All of this has to do with being in right relationship with God and with the people you know and love.

So I would like to ask you these questions just for your own individual "examination of conscious":

Is there someone you love who is holding something against you?

Have you not forgiven someone who has hurt you?

Both of these situations can cause a rift or a block that keeps you from being able to receive God's love and the good, peaceful fellowship of the people in your life.  Please don't allow these blocks or walls remain between you and the people in your life.

Please act to make peace so that you are able to receive God's love and blessings.

And please open your heart to the possibility that even if the person you have hurt or the person who has sinned against you has passed away, the Lord is able to help you find His peace, mercy and grace.

Through prayer you can ask the Lord to forgive you even if you are no longer able to be in touch with the person because of time, distance or even death.  A witness may be someone who knows both you and the person who sinned against you.  The witness may also be a family member, a friend, a pastor, or a therapist who believes you.  Again, through prayer the Lord can help you be released from the bonds that keep you connected to another person in an unhealthy way.

There is one more important concept and activity I want to make sure I tell you.  In the Lord's prayer Jesus makes it very clear that we can only receive forgiveness if we give forgiveness.  When we are not able to forgive or when we choose to continue to hold something against a person, we prevent the Lord from helping us to receive the divine forgiveness that is ours.

When Jesus left the Garden of Gethsemane in order to suffer, to die on the Cross, and to resurrect Himself to return all of creation to its original pristine goodness and to make possible the reconciliation of each person who has ever lived or who will ever lived, He not only destroyed sin and death.  He also took down every possible barrier between each human being and Himself.  

This is a great and wonderful mystery and beyond our comprehension in many ways.  The first important part of the mystery is that God loves each one of us.

The second part of the mystery that is very marvelous is that the Lord did not give each one of us our lives and our time on Earth for our own sakes.  He created each one of us for His sake.

Love cannot exist in a vacuum.  Love cannot exist by itself.  Love must be active.

In John 3:16 Jesus says, "For God so loved the world that he GAVE His one and only begotten Son, that whoever BELIEVES in him shall not perish but have eternal life." 

The actions intrinsic in this promise have to do with giving and with the response to the gift -- believing.

This is another devotion I have written to ask you again, do you believe God loves you?  

If not, why not?

Will you give the Lord a chance to answer questions and satisfy doubts about faith?

I promise you that if you truly open your heart to Him He will satisfy you.  His love is always flowing out and always available to you.  If you are willing to give God a chance, He will help you not only receive His love and blessings, you will become an instrument of His peace, love, mercy and forgiveness.

My most fervent prayer for you is that you will open you heart to the Fullness of Love. And if you have already done that, my prayer for you is that you will continue to open your heart.  There is no limit to the Love of God.  One of the most important spiritual directors and pastors in my life loved to say that God is the God of surprises.  

The Lord takes great joy in showing us how He delights in us.  And the more we share His love, the more He continues to bless us.  Because you can't out-give God.  As Jesus says in Luke 6:37-38, "Do not judge, and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be pardoned. "Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure-- pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return." 

Again, if you do not know this in your own life's experience, please give the Lord a chance to show you.  I promise you He will answer all your questions and take away your doubts if you only give Him a chance.

May the Lord continue to bless and keep you and everyone you love, now and always.

WON'T YOU ANSWER?

Happy Thursday, Beloved.  I am praying that you will know you are loved in new and special ways today.  If you find your thoughts are occupied with worries and fears, turn them into praises and thankfulness.  Even if it is not quite true, tell the Lord that you trust Him and that you want to be drawn closer to His heart.  In the whole of the finite universe, only God is infinite.

One day when I was putting the dishes into the dishwasher while living in my apartment that was five blocks from the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C, I heard the Lord say very clearly, "I love each person on Earth more than I love the whole of my beautiful creation."

Time seemed to stand still and I was filled with wonder and awe.  Do you live your life believing you are loved and that you can trust the Lord to take care of you?  If you don't, why not?

Whose lies do you believe that say you are not beautiful, wonderful, unique and transcendant?  Reject them.

When you look into the mirror do you find your self trying to see what is wrong with you?  Ask the Lord to show you how He looks at you.  Seek His face and look into His loving eyes.  The truth is that you were created to be loved.  There is nothing that you need because the Lord has given you everything.

Someone has told you that you have to scrape and beg for anything you want, or within your self you just feel undeserving.  It's not true.  The Lord loves you and provides for you.

Someone has told you that you were not wanted.  That's not true.  You were given this life because God wants you to have joy, peace, love, mercy and abundance.

Someone has told you that you can't do what you want to do.  That's a lie.  When you live in the fulness of God's love and find the delight of true unconditional love, God gives you the desires of your heart.

Someone has told you that you have to pay for everything you have.  It's a lie.  God gives you everything you need and you don't have to do anything to earn it. His grace depends not on you or on anything you do, but only on His free love for you.  He delights to bless you and take care of you.

Please keep resting in Him and trusting Him, Beloved, no matter what is going on in your life.  He has wonderful plans for you and there are infinite levels of love and joy that you can experience in Him and through Him.

God loves you and He has promised never to leave you or forsake you.  God the Father, your Abba (Daddy) in Heaven and God the Son, your redeemer Jesus stand outside the door to your heart and knock, hoping you will open the door to your heart and let them in.

Holy Spirit reveals Jesus to us when we are willing to see Him.  If you have any doubts or questions, the Lord will answer them in exactly the way you need them to be answered.  Please give God a chance.

PROPOSALS

The second to the last guy who asked to marry me was a friend who popped into my life after fifteen years. I was at the Anchorage Airport having just put my folks on a plane heading back to Chicago. All of a sudden there in front of me was my old friend's Mom. She was heading to her gate, having just been escorted there by her son.

I knew my friend's mother and two older sisters much better than I had known him, since he had more or less played the role of pesky little brother. Would never have recognized him. You have probably noticed that some men look nothing like they looked when they were teenagers. I wonder why.

Then other guys look almost the same, just grown to full size. At our 20th high school reunion that was held six years after our divorce I was amazed to find my self in a big room full of people who(for the most part) knew and loved one another. Or (for the least part) had shared a certain geography, teachers and classmates as well as students in classes above and below them. The reason I was so amazed had a bit to do with being "out there" dating again for the first time since I was barely eighteen.

The nostalgia I feel about our home town only deepens over the years, especially because of social media and the web of connections in which I find my self at the age of 61 1/2. I also have learned a great deal about the way people remember me and even some secrets about the time that I was estranged from my kids after they had gone to live with their dad and stepmom.

One of the main revelations has been that many times it has appeared that people I thought really cared about me back then do not seem interested in any updates about my life. But then again, why should they if they have not seen me or even thought of me for twenty or forty years.

Then again there have been sweet surprises like an older boy who lived near our school bus stop writing that he could just "hear" me singing the Happy Birthday Song when I posted a chat version of the same on his birthday.

When I have asked the Lord to give me a better idea of how He sees me . . . or when as just recently the Holy Spirit lets me know that some friends already in Glory want me to know how they felt about me while we were all still on this side of the veil. I'm sure that was triggered by finding out online that several good friends from my active duty days in the US Air Force have passed away in the last few years.

I think one of the best cinematic depictions of being stuck in the past comes from the first "Superman" movie with Christopher Reeves. Do you remember the scene? The big bad villains have been put into a kind of prison where they are trapped inside a mirror of sorts and just floating through the universe until the effects of the Planet Krypton being demolished trigger the "locks" on their mirrored cells to bust open and they escape and head down to Earth to revenge themselves against Superman's father (who was the prosecutor most credited with their sentences).

Of course since Superman's Dad has been destroyed along with his Mom and everyone else on the Planet Krypton . . . and the planet itself, the big bad guys want to destroy Superman.

When I get like this the past is much more vivid than the present. The psycho-therapeutic community tends to call this kind of consciousness dissociation. Usually triggered by some trauma or by memories of trauma, there always seems to be the danger of not being able to come back to the present. Along those lines I was thinking about several situations concerning the late, marvelously great and wonderful Robin Williams and his abandonment of us.

Several scenes from the movie "The Big Chill" come to mind. Scenes and the music to go with them, actually. Can't always come back to the present until all the spirits of dear ones have each had their say.
 

  The Big Chill

Oh, I forgot. My friend from childhood was the third to the last guy who asked me to marry him.

That's as far as I can get to whatever is wafting through my mind on topics like these tonight. Maybe I will remember why I started to tell you about it when I wake up in the morning.

More than ever feeling a bit like an unnoticed ghost at her own wake. Sleep will bring the answers, I hope. Meanwhile, please don't be alarmed. I am safe and sound and well taken care of by beloved family members.

DID YOU KNOW?

Did you know that the Upper Room where Jesus spent the last Passover He observed on Earth was built over the tomb of King David?

Did you know that the "living water" Jesus told the woman at the well would rise up within her was His promise to her that she woulds no longer be barren?  She was not an unfaithful wife -- she was put aside by each of her husbands because she was barren.

Did you know that Jesus' life was threatened even when He was in Mary's womb and you can look at His Crucifixion as the final successful attempt on His life when He was threatened with death over and over throughout His life?

Did you know that when the Roman soldiers in charge of killing Him stuck the spear into His side, they, who were such experts at death and dying, were looking for something that only after death -- when the heart stops pumping clear fluid surrounds the heart in the sac around it?  They were trying to find out if this water was present.  Since it was, it meant He was dead and they did not have to break his legs.  The other two who were crucified on either side of Him had their legs broken because the ultimate cause of death on a cross was asphyxiation when the person was no longer able to breathe because his legs were still being used to help his diaphragm continue to help him breathe.

Did you know that the woman who anointed Jesus with oil and washed His feet with her tears and dried them with her hair was using the most important and most expensive of her belongings? The stone jar of anointing oil she would have used on herself for her wedding.  Not only was she anointing Jesus in preparation for His death, she was showing that she trusted Him completely not only for her life, but for all her hope of being a wife and mother -- the only position in society that might make her future secure.

There is so much we don;t understand about the Bible because we read it from our culture rather than trying to understand the culture in which Jesus lived, suffered, died, and rose again.

BITING THE DUST, CRASHING AND BURNING, BUYING THE FARM

Remembering one of my best friends in Alaska who "bought the farm" thirty years ago today.  Appreciate knowing that he is with all my other friends and loved ones who are already back home.  These are a few memories of him --

 -- Meeting him the basement of the O Club on Elmendorf AFB . . . the first reason my heart went out to him was because he had just found out that his son's mother had allowed another man to adopt his son.  Had to hurt, but he still said he believed it was best for his son.

-- Watching him race down the hall of the squadron offices yelling that he was headed out "to be somebody" when he was on call and got tapped to respond to a battle scenario in an exercise.

-- Hearing a knock at the door of our quarters, asking who it was, and Ben answering, "Santa Claus," as he walked in the door.

--  Seeing the sheepish faces of him and Mark, another F-15 pilot when they had taken my 11 year old son up to the expert slope at Mount Alyeska Ski Resort.  Tommy was as white as a ghost and looked terrified, but a few minutes later he was headed out the door with the two of them again . . . and back down the mountain lickety-split.  No doubt it was all good training for the time that Tom became a US Marine.

-- Ben and two other pilots in their flight suits after the Elmendorf O Club had closed in a bar outside one of the main gates . . . a log cabin with big rocks on the roof . . . tall grass and flowers grew on it in the summer.  There was a ZZ Tops hit on the juke box and they were playing air guitars.  Somehow you could almost see the long beards draped over their flight suits.

-- Seeing Ben right before he went to fly that last time.  He was selected to be the pilot of a special flight in one of our two-seaters . . . a reward for an enlisted man who had done a good job.  Less than an hour later the aircraft and they were in little pieces on the side of the mountain.  Aircraft malfunction.

-- A fighter pilot wake . . . a memorial service at the base chapel . . . a Missing Man Formation fly-by outside the chapel with F-15s, of course . . . a reception back at the squadron and all sorts of stories . . . how he got his tactical call sign (he had a Harly and so of course he was "Biker"  . . . that he had ridden his Harley up from South Dakota to Alaska after visiting the Hell's Angels Summer Encampment in the Badlands . . . that he was one of the oldest Zoomies ever to have graduated at the Air Force Academy because he had been enlisted . . . that when he first met his biker chick girl friend when she was wait staff at the O Club Bar, he knew she was right for him because she had the identical leather biker jacket that he had -- long fringes and silver studs in all the right places. . . that he came after we had already had two crashes and I told all the new guys I didn't want to get to know them very well because it was too hard when we lost them. . . the way he was our host when we visited an intell girl he knew at the base where we exercised on the Florida panhandle less than a week before he crashed and burned.

It got so that whenever we heard the jets returning from their air combat training missions, we would be afraid to look and make sure that the four-ship that had gone out was not now a two-ship.  And when we heard the helicopters of the rescue squadron taking off, even if we were pretty sure they were just going on a normal everyday training mission, we still shivered a bit.  And prayed.

Thanks, Lord, for Ben.  Looking forward to seeing you again, good buddy.

MY PLEA

In ministry when I was given the opportunity to initiate an outreach to Russian-speaking people in the region of Baltimore and Washington, our bishop used to go around the world and speak in various forums about the new church starts he had commissioned.  I was given the charge for one of the ten because I studied Russian as an undergraduate at the University of Illinois; Urbana-Champaign.  

In 1980 I became an Air Intelligence Officer in the United States Air Force because of the BA in Russian and East European Area Studies. Even though my focus at seminary was urban ministry, I found myself living in a five bedroom parsonage on 2 1/2 acres of land in a 2,000 ' valley with rolling hills and rack-strewn fields between the Blue Ridge and Adirondack Mountains of the Appalachian Chain, some of the oldest mountains in the world, serving three rural churches not far from Harpers Ferry, WV..

The bishop used to tell the story about walking through the Baltimore Washington Conference offices one day when he saw me conferring with a woman from Moscow who had immigrated to the US and who lived in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, New York along with many other people who had come out of the Soviet Union since the early 1970s because of the provision of Detente's economic and political provisions, one of which was that if an ethnically Jewish person or family could prove persecution because of their ethnicity, he or she or they could leave the Soviet Union.  Many went to Israel, but many more came to the US, supported by the US Government tax dollars and by the Jewish people of the US through funds and social services.

So this Russian woman from Moscow and I were getting to know one another and planning how to kick off the out reach to Russian-speaking people.  I was not unhappy when I found out the bishop was mentioning the outreach when he was speaking in various venues all over the world,  But what did bother me a bit was that he felt led to say that he was amazed at how the Lord worked because that day when he saw us working together, he was told that I had been a U.S. Air Force Intelligence Officer and that my colleague had translated U.S. military and political documents into Russian for the Soviet Communist Government.

 He ended up the story with something like, "How amazing is that?  Here were two people who had been working for the evil their governments were plotting and carrying out, now working together for the Gospel."

At large conventions concerning the work of the United Methodist Church in the countries of the former Soviet Union after the break up, strangers would come up to me and seeing my name  on my name tag say things like, "Oh, YOU are the one the bishop was talking about!!!"  And I would have to ask them what in the world they meant.

After a while it got old.

During one annual conference right after I had been appointed to be in charge of the outreach I happened to be walking down an aisle in the almost empty large meeting room and the bishop caught up with me and asked, "It doesn't bother you that I talk about your past as an Air Force Officer, does it?"

"Well, sir, " I carefully replied. "Not much.  The only thing I object to is the inference that somehow I had been working for evil while I was on active duty.  I totally believe that I was where the Lord had placed me, using my talents and experience in His will and with His grace.  At the same time, I completely believe that at that time the Russian woman did not know the Lord and her government did not only teach and state that God did not exist, but called the Body of Christ evil in every way."

He was less than pleased.

I will now firmly state however, that I repent of all the ways I was a part of anything developed for revenge and killing and destroying.  I do not repent of anything I worked on or believed that has to do with saving or protecting people, our nation, our freedoms, or our way of life, but only in so far as they relate to being faithful and in awe of the LORD, the Creator, The Master of the Universe.

God has created eerything that exists.  He created human beings to be able to live in that creation and to be able to share His joy and His love and His Life; to be in loving relationship with Him and co-exist in perpetual joy.  I firmly believe that the LORD is sometimes very surprised and hurt deeply by the ways we can be cruel and by the heinous, violent acts we human beings continually perpetrate.

At the same time I believe the Creator/Redeemer/Sustainer of all that is and all that ever will be is sometimes quite amazed and deeply touched to the bottom of His heart when we show one another love in very active ways. When we are struggling and show Him the capacity we have to overcome the effects of suffering.  He is delighted and extremely happy when we turn to Him to ask Him to be part of our lives, when we show we trust Him as completely as we are able to do that.

And I firmly believe that no matter how well we get to know the LORD, no matter how deeply we have come to be able to yield to Him, there are infinite levels of knowledge and trust that remain.  And He wants each one of us to keep seeking His face, to continue to be willing to be drawn deeper into His grace, to be able to receive and let flow out of our selves and our lives even more love, peace, grace, mercy and joy.

If this all seems nonsense to you, perhaps you might open your heart to the possibility that what I have written is true and perhaps you might be willing to give God a chance to prove to you in whatever way you need proof that first of all God IS; that second of all God loves you; that third of all God has good plans for you; and fourth of all . . . whatever God wants you to know and experience,

The choice is up to you.  God will never demand that you seek God.  The free will the LORD has given every human being is sacred to the LORD in the deepest way possible.  He will bless and provide for you and for everyone you love in all sorts of ways, but He will never intrude upon your absolute free will to respond to Him or not.

And what you believe and how you play out your live is completely your choice, always and forever.  But please understand this:

1. God is always loving you even when He may hate what you are doing.

2.  God created you and understands you completely no matter what is happening in your life and no matter how you respond to people and circumstances.

3.  God is always knocking on the door of your heart, hoping to be invited in by you.

4.  Even before you were made incarnate, when you were who you are and always will be in Spirit, God knew you and delighted in you.

5.  God created you for His own sake.  That means He created you so that He could have the joy of loving you and blessing you WHETHER OR NOT you would ever respond to Him.

6.  When God became incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth in order to redeem creation and reconcile the brokenness of creation and the fallen human race, even if you were the only person on Earth, the infinite, all-knowing, all powerful, everlasting Spirit of the universe would still have become a tiny, very quickly growing finite human creature in a young woman's womb; would have gone through the pains and experiences of being born; would have weathered the threats on his life from even before He was born; would have been a defenseless infant, child; would have been a teenager and a young adult living under the yoke and power of the Roman Empire in the occupied territory that had been given to His ancestors; would have been baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River; would have gone out to be tempted by the evil one; would have called His disciples to Himself; would have lived among people, finding out exactly what life on Earth as a human being was; would have taught, healed, delivered and lived in joy amongst His family members and friends; would have deliberately and obediently suffered and taken on the sins of the world in order to save humanity and restore creation to its pristine goodness; would have gone through the excruciating pain, degradation and humiliation of His time nailed to the Cross; would have died and entered into Hell; would have raised Himself back to life . . . all for JUST YOU.

All because the LOVE that He is  . . . is the only thing that lasts, the only thing that truly exists and will exist for eternity.

Nothing about what I just wrote is meant to convince you of anything.  You can only know if it is true or not if you are willing to open your heart, mind, soul and spirit by asking whether or not it is true.

I promise you that if you do that, God will answer you in whatever way you need in order to be convinced.  What you believe does not affect reality, the truth of what creation is and who you are.  But what you believe affects how you live right now and for the rest of your life.

God will never force you to do anything.  If you are feeling pressure or any kind of negative or compelling urgency, it is not from the LORD.  The LORD is peace, joy, goodness, faithfulness, forgiveness, mercy,. love and grace, which is unmerited favor -- something you are given that you do not deserve and cannot earn or buy or connive to have,

God's unconditional love is such that nothing you do and nothing that is done to you can change it.  God loves you because of who you are -- His child.

Won't you give Him a chance to prove to you the truth of that?

Please do.  I keep praying that you will.

IN THE MORNING WHEN I RISE I WILL PRAISE YOU

Good morning, Beloved.  Hope you will have a blessed day in the Lord.  If you are feeling bad or afraid or anxious about anything, turn your mind to think about all the blessings in your life.  Look with the eyes of your Spirit into the loving eyes of the Lord.  Put your hands out and imagine there is a package with all your sorrows, troubles, worries and fears in it.  Stretch out your hands and then turn them over as if you are dropping the package.  Give it to the Lord. 

THEN DO NOT GO BACK AND PICK IT UP.

Thank Him and praise Him, turn around and go about your day listening for His voice with the ears of your Spirit.  You will hear Him say, "Go right, go left.  If you do not hear anything new, keep going the way you are going.  But take time to rest.  Whenever you hear something negative or accusing or denigrating you either out loud or in your mind, say it is not true and say what IS true.  Sometimes I have a stream of negativity that puts me down and tries to make me discouraged.  I know it can't be from the Lord, so I tell myself what is true by praying Psalm 139 or Psalm 23.  Or I open the Bible and read the Gospel According to John until I feel at peace. 

The loving voice of the Lord always puts the voices of negativity and discouragement to rest.

Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His power.  Put on the Armor of God so that you may resist the wiles of the evil one. (Ephesians 6) The Lord is your strong tower.  He is your shield and your buckler.  Putting on the Armor of God is putting on Jesus Christ.  In Him we live and move and have our being.  He is your shepherd, He gives you everything you need.  He leads you beside still waters. He makes you lie down in green pastures.  He restores your soul. He leads you in the paths of righteousness for His Name's sake.  Even when you are walking through a terrifying place like the Valley of the Shadow of Evil, you will have no fears but be completely at peace because you will be certain that the Lord is with you.  He lays a table before you in the presence of your enemies.  He anoints your head with oil.  He pours a flow of blessings into your cup and keeps pouring as the blessings overflow from the cup.  Surely goodness and mercy will follow you throughout your life and you will dwell in the House of the Lord for eternity.

Pray that.  Take it deep into your heart.  See it written in Spirit on the palm of your hand so that it is always before you.

Believe this and live it out:  You are completely, absolutely, eternally loved. No weapon formed against you shall prosper.  You are the Lord's jewel and He delights in you.  Your Abba in Heaven provides everything you need and you can come into His House whenever you want to.  Without even asking you can go and get whatever you need or want.  He has given angels charge over you to protect you no matter what you are doing.  Those who fight for you are greater, more numerous and more powerful than ANYTHING that come of will come against you.

Do not fight.  Sit and watch.  The Lord has the victory and the battle belongs to Him.  Merely sit and watch, praise and rejoice.  Rest in Him and trust Him.  He loves you with an everlasting love.  You have been called by the name He has given you, an eternal name describing how He sees you.  Only that name is true.  No name or description of you from anyone except Him belongs to you.

You are continually, lovingly being recreated in His image moment by moment, hour by hour, day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, decade by decade.  When you come to stand before His Throne of Grace, you will be clothed in white and shiny garments of praise.  The Word of the Precious Lord, the Lamb Who Was Slain and now lives forever will speak for you to His Abba and the Accuser will be silenced.

Rest in Him and trust Him no matter what is happening.  You are His and He is yours.  Anyone who says anything different from that is lying and you can rebuke that lie and turn your back on that person or spirit.

All is well and all is completely well no matter how it seems.  God is in charge.  He is sovereign over all the rulers, the principalities, the powers and the thrones.  Even if you begin to think your Deliverer is not coming, that is NOT true.  Your Deliverer is coming. Indeed He is already with you.  Fear not. For behold, He tells you, I am doing a new thing.  Do you not see it?  Streams of living water are flowing throughout the parched ground that was once desert. 

You belong to Him and He belongs to you,  There is nothing you cannot ask Him. You have access to Him every moment of every day.  He is with you and He glorifies you when you glorify His Son.  When you ask for something believing, it is given to you.  When you hear Him call and answer, "Here am I, LORD, send me," His heart rejoices and His banner over you is Love.

Do not worry and do not be afraid.  He is with you and He loves you with an everlasting Love.He hides you under the shadow of His wings and rejoices over you with singing.  His compassion never ends. His loving kindness sweeps over you and envelops you.  When you seek His face and look into His eyes, you see your self truly and completely the way He sees you.  As you delight your self in Him, He gives you the desires of your heart.

He has called you by your name.  You belong to Him as He belongs to you.

Do not worry or be afraid.  If you hear your self thinking or speaking something negative or damaging, it can never be from Him, so reject it.  Turn your back on anyone or any spirit that does not belong to LOVE.  The LORD has placed a hedge of protection around you and He has clothed you in the finery of the eternal.  No weapon formed against you shall prosper and He will have His angels surround you.  Holy Spirit will accompany you, guard you, guide you and lead you.

Just keep resting in Him and trusting Him. You do not have to toil.  You do not have to fight.  His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

The self you manufactured and embraced to survive your childhood is your false self .   You must die to that false self and let it go.  Do not look back on it or desire it again.  The true you is hidden in the Lord and can emerge.  YOU, the beautiful wonderful person who God has always known even before the plans for you to be incarnate were decided is emerging out of the rubble, out of the fire that destroyed your false spirit.  Rise up and claim your place next to the Throne of Grace. 

You are His and He is yours.  You dwell in Him and will always dwell in Him, the Fullness of Love.  Rejoice and be glad in the beauty of peace, wholeness, joy, grace, mercy and ecstasy.  He is yours and you are His.

Alleluia!  Amen.

NO REVERBERATION

Sometimes I feel a bit like "the voice crying in the wilderness," like nothing I say or write is heard or read; as if nothing I have to offer is acceptable to anyone. Maybe I am so often on "Send" that no one thinks I will be open to receive.

When someone is very needy there often comes a point where ears are just closed to the same old pleas and there is a limit to what people are able to do or want to do for someone. It is so sad when a person overstays his or her welcome or asks too much of another person.

Nevertheless, that can never happen with the Lord. God loves each one of us so very much that He wants to meet all of our needs. Sometimes we are begging and begging for love or help from a person when if we turn away from that person and just ask the Lord, He will provide whatever we need from sources we sometimes can't imagine.

Often we have relationships with people and we expect certain things from them. Maybe they don't even know we expect whatever it is. We just think they are supposed to feel a certain way towards us, or act a particular way, but over and over we are disappointed. At the same time, someone else dearly wants to give us the exact some thing but without realizing it we turn our backs on the people who love us and want to help us, hurting them in order to keep begging at doors that will never be open to us.

When Jesus taught the people, the way He healed them was by giving them a new way of looking at their lives and at the world. Thoughts and emotions, speech and actions trigger the use of biochemicals in our bodies. Personality is dependent on the formation and use of these biochemicals. Therefore the smallest change in the way we feel or think about ourselves and others -- and the way we talk makes a difference.

Someone who is never happy and always expect things to go wrong will just be burdened and sad. Did you know that the movement of the muscles of your face when you smile or laugh actually releases biochemicals that make you feel happy?

Let's think about that for a minute. Here is a narration of Jesus walking through the crowds. All of a sudden a man runs up and elbows his way through the people surrounding him. He cries out to Jesus,

"Please come to my master's house Rabbi! His daughter is dying!"

Jesus nods and turns to follow the servant with many people pressing in and around him. At that moment a woman is crouched over trying to make herself as small as possible. She is sick and has had an issue of blood for twelve years. In her culture that issue of blood has made her untouchable for all that time. She has been alone. She has not been able to go into the synagogue in her village. She is not able to go up to the Temple in Jerusalem for any of the feasts or celebrations. She is an outcaste.

In addition to that she has tried to get well. The narrator of the scene tells us that she has spent all the wealth she has on doctors who have not helped her in the least.

But think about this. The woman has heard about Jesus. She has heard that He heals the sick. She has heard he delivers people from oppression. And lo and behold, she sees a crowd of people and hears them call His name.

"Oh!" she thinks. "If only I can just touch the fringe of His talit, (his prayer shawl that reaches His ankles) if only I can in secret touch just the smallest part of that sacred garment, I know I will be made whole and healthy again."

As Jesus turns to follow the servant of Jairus, the main with the dying twelve year old girl, the woman with the issue of blood quickly reaches out her hand and indeed is able to grab at the fringe of Jesus' talit. She immediately feels warmth and can almost see the light flowing from the cloth draped around his shoulders and almost touching the ground.

Jesus feels it, too. He asks, "Who touched me?"

His disciples are amazed. "What do you mean who touched you, Lord? All sorts of people are pressed around you in this crowd. You are being jostled and bumped into from all angles!"

Jesus fervently replies, "No. Someone in need touched me. I felt the power go out of me to that person. Who touched me seeking help?"

Now maybe you might think that this was kind of mean of Jesus to ask this question. She might feel humiliated. People know she is not supposed to be out in public. People know she is untouchable. They have an obligation to Torah to stone her and keep her from making anyone else unclean.

And that is exactly why Jesus wants to make sure people know she is now clean. He knows very well who touched His talit and who has therefore received healing and wholeness. By asking her to own up to that act and that faith, Jesus is announcing to everyone that she is now clean. She can return to the bosom of her family. She can take part in every day life of her village. She is welcome to all the celebrations in her village. She can now once again receive forgiveness at the time of the Great Sacrifice. She can again worship in the Temple. She can finally go to the cleansing ritual baths with the other women of her family and her village.

What joy she feels in her heart! How grateful she is to Him! And how amazed are all the people who have just seen her pale, almost white face and hands turn pink with new life and fresh blood flowing through her body.

As Jesus accepts her gratitude, He tenderly lifts her up. Then he turns to follow Jairus' servant, quickly heading toward the house where the young girl is dying.

He is within a stone's throw of the house when people see Him. They are already wailing and mourning loudly. The news they have just been given is that the twelve year old girl has died. Jesus has not come in time. They deride Him and abuse Him with their words. They tell Him to just go away.

But Jairus and His wife have come out to greet him. Grateful that Jesus has come, they are filled with grief that he didn't come in time.

"Never mind that," Jesus urges them. "Just believe in me."

He takes only the father and mother of the child along with his disciples James and John who are the main witnesses to His greatest deeds of power and he enters Jairus' house.

Now let's take a moment to realize a few things. A few minutes earlier, Jesus has restored a woman to her life; to her place in her family; to her place in her community, and given her the ability to again come before the Lord in the Temple. The young girl of twelve has lived during the span of the time that the woman has been unable to participate in the rituals and celebrations of her people before the Lord. And this twelve year old girl is of the age where she is about to become a woman of God, blessed by the Lord and able to take her rightful place in her own home, in her village, in her synagogue and at Temple.

Jesus swiftly walks over and takes the cold hand of the child who was on the verge of reaching womanhood and says to her in Aramaic, "Talitha cum," which means "Little girl, rise up!"

There are only a few places in the New Testament where what Jesus said in Aramaic is not translated into Greek or into biblical Hebrew, into Latin or into any other language in which the Bible exists. One is when He is on the Cross and says, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" meaning "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Another is what he commanded the dead young girl.

Aramaic is the every day street level Hebrew used in day to day life. Most likely the first narrations about Jesus were in Aramaic, the native tongue of the majority of people who knew and loved Him.

So what do we make of these narrations about the life-giving, fulfilling love of God demonstrated by the Incarnate Word?

Salvation is wholeness, shalom, renewal, regeneration. Jesus gave people the gift of being able to be completely who each person was created to be. He made sure that there was nothing interfering with each person's ability to approach and communicated with the Fullness of Love by whom each one was created.

If you are feeling less than your self or separated from people you love or from God, please remember what happened that day when the crowds surrounded Jesus and He was called to Jairus' house. Maybe you can see yourself in the crowd. Maybe you are or have been a grieving parent. Maybe you are sick. Maybe you are one of Jesus' disciples who still has a lot to learn.

God in Jesus Christ meets each one of us at the point of our greatest need. If we allow Him to, though, He will not leave us there. He will grant our heart's desire and bring us wholeness, peace, grace and love.

Whatever you need, all you have to do is reach out your hand, or call out to Him. he is waiting for you, loving you, ready to help you in any way. he wants you to be exactly who you were created to be. he wants you to come close to Him and get to know Him. Jesus is waiting for you with the same offer to each person who is alive now, who has ever live and will ever lie:

"Come to me all you who are burdened and heavy laden and I will give you rest."

Won't you answer Him and come to receive His love and grace?

ESCAPING FROM THE DUNGEON

The thing is that when a child is abused, neglected or abandoned from an early age before he or she can talk, it is almost like that infant was put into the dirtiest, dankest, darkest lowest dungeon and can have no way of figuring out how to escape because he or she has no other reality.

Especially when that child is hurt by the person or people who are supposed to save, love, cherish, protect and provide for him or her, the child is truly and almost unredeemably lost.

Instead of love, nurture, food, gentle loving touches, warmth, soft clothes, blankets and safety, the child exists in a living hell.  There is no hope and no possibility of any other kind of existence in the child's mind or heart.  If the child is blessed enough to be rescued or to have someone who is loving and positive in his or her life instead of a person or people who use and abuse the child for his or her or their evil and damaging purposes, there might be some hope.  BUt the road to recovery will be long and the possibilities that the child will eveer be normal are very slim.

Certainly, at the same time, with God all things are possible, but so many, many children in the world today are lost, tortured, killed, thrown away, enslaved.  We are living during a time where conditions like this should not even be imagined, let alone exist.  And I am not talking about all this happening in some faraway place.  Children are treated, starved, enslaved, abused, mistreated, tortured, abandoned and neglected right here in the US.  Our own children and many others who the sex slave traffickers steal or buy or allow to be born to woman who are already enslaved.  The slaves are of all ages and both genders.  Some are runaways who have been abused, neglected or cruelly treated in many other ways by father, mothers, relatives, neighbors and strangers.

Their abusers may do and/or sell drugs.  They may have been born into circumstances exactly like they perpetuate, or they may not have been kept safe like the people who are responsible for them.

And for the most part we just stand by and allow the infants, children, teens and adults remain captive, abused, neglected and abandoned.  

We make lots and lots of excuses.  Or we say it's okay if a child is touched or used in a certain way because the perpetrator doesn't know better.  

The truth is sometimes the perpetrators have also been treated that way . . . or they are addicted to porn, or to substances.  Perhaps no one else in the family knows what is going on and the child has been threatened or beaten or warned not to tell anyone.  The child has no other reality so for a long time he or she just thinks how he or she is being treated is normal.

Even if the barred door of the dungeon cell are open, though, the abused, neglected, enslaved child has no possible way of knowing how to get out.  

So what do we do when we want to help those who are enslaved, abused, neglected, and abandoned? 

We must work together to make sure that each child everywhere on Earth is protected, provided for, loved, fed, clothed, housed and has all the opportunities possible to have the kind of life that the Lord of Love wants for each person who is ever born.

We can do it.

It only takes will and working together.  No one has to suffer like they do. Now.  Every minute of every day.  Too many places.  For far too long.

Here is some more information

Soroptimist 

ABC News

Veterans with PTSD 

Problems in Adulthood 

Medline Plus 

US Federal Government Child Welfare Gateway 

Effects of Sexual Assault

Here are some websites where you can find out more and help if you feel led to do that:
 
Polaris Project 

Organizations

May the Lord continue to help us make this something that happened and will never happen again.

MIRACLE OF MIRACLES

Good evening, Beloved --

Did I ever tell you about when some Israel Self-Defense Force F-15 guys came to Alaska during the summer of '85 to play with our F-15 guys?  

At that time the only place the F-15 had been used in real combat was during battles in Israel.  I was in the hospital recovering from having an ovary taken out, so I didn't meet the pilots, but, as is often the case, they gave the Alaska squadron guys a large photo of the IDF F-15s flying in formation over Masada.  

The caption on the top of the framed photo read "Never Again!"  I was admiring the photo when one of my F-15 guys came up behind me and said, "They told us several amazing narrations about miracles and wonders."  

The F-15 has all sorts of computerization that helps it fly and do amazing things with radars, missiles, guns, etc . . . one plane was shot at in a way that it lost 75% of one wing.  And the computerized avionics were so good at compensating for that problem (or just about any problem) that the pilot was able to land the fighter jet safely.  Also, two of the IDF pilots said that when they were in the middle of a mission they were flying near the Golan Heights and they actually SAW chariots of fire above the heights.  

God is faithful and keeps His promises, but sometimes we are not spared the consequences of our actions that hurt others.  God loves each person who has ever lived, who is living now and who will live.  Nevertheless, because of free will to make out own choices sometimes we are vulnerable, wounded or even die.  In each case the Lord has the victory and each time the triumph is grounded in the eternity of perpetual, complete everlasting loving kindness, forgiveness, mercy, peace and grace.  

No matter who, what or where, God is always on the side of the least, the last and the lost and never on the side of the oppressors.  If the story you are living does not have a happy ending, it just means the story isn't over yet.  He is able to do so much more than we can think to ask.  He pays back in equal measure for what is done out of evil, hatred, anger, oppression and nastiness . . . but He has set up the way creation works so that when we consciously do good in loving ways we get good, blessings, provision, grace mercy and happiness in return . . . not in a one-on-one way but with the measure we use into a harvest bushel . . . shaken, pressed down and over-flowing.  

We can't out-give God. 

COME SATURDAY MORNINGS

Sometimes it would be like this . . . my brother George, my sister Jenny and I would still be in our pjs on a Saturday morning and there would be a show on WGN TV in Chicago . . . and Ray Raynor or Frazier Thomas or someone would talk about what was going on that weekend. 

 The plate twirlers and the dog act from the Shriner Circus would be shown, and before we knew it our sweet aunts Millie, Katie and Annie would have called up our parents and told them that they wanted to take us . . . where?  Yes, you guess it! To the Shriner Circus!! And we would get to see who and what we had seen on television in person.

Late 50s and Early 60s -- Shriner Circus

And I loved horses a LOT, so one of my favorite things they took us to was The Lippazaners . . . 

FANTastic! What an amazing childhood we had with such wonderful parents, grand parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, neighbors, teachers, adults who were the sponsors of clubs, scout leaders, et al.

We were sooooo blessed and I am grateful to the Lord for all of them-- for the good times and for the difficult times when we all helped on another.

Spanish Riding School of Vienna 

BEYOND NON-VIOLENCE

Violence and the threat of violence will never create peace.  There is something beyond non-violence.  It is caritas -- actively loving and allowing people to be guaranteed all the opportunities they need to have water, food, clothing, and a roof over their heads.

Peace begins in each person's heart . . . goes out to his or her family . . . moves out to the neighborhood, to villages and towns, in work places, clubs, gangs, faith-based associations, synagogues, churches, mosques, cities, states, nations and the whole wide world.

What if every time a ship sailed or a plane flew anywhere, part of the cargo hold was dedicated to humanitarian relief or whatever any of us can share with one another.  And the exchange would go both ways.  We can all learn from one another, respect one another, honor each other and all of our cultural backgrounds, and ethnic attributes.