MISTAKES AND GROWTH IN FAITH

 

One of the most useful things I have learnt in the past decade is that a person will never learn, never make an effort to improve, if they are comfortable. How many times have you worked with someone who makes the same stupid mistake, time after time, but you cannot tell them anything: They know they are doing this job the correct way! Your observation sees the same mistake but you cannot do anything about it.

 

Making mistakes is an integral part of growing up. Parents cringe at the times their toddler has pulled out a bag of flour from the lower kitchen cupboard and spread it around the floor. Well, now this a moment to teach what you can and cannot touch! How much patience a parent must put forth!

 

At the other end of life, how often do we have a senior grandpa, who is convinced of his driving skills, come back from shopping trip with a dent or two on the back side of his vehicle? Maybe your driving skills are not working so well any longer??

 

It is the same with our spiritual lives. The strongest block to growing in our faith is to think that we are believers and that we are doing a pretty good job of living a good life. Nothing blocks God so much as people who are convinced of the strength of their religious convictions. 

 

You cannot come to God unless you are hungry. You cannot come to God unless you experience an absence in your life. This is why the woman or man who are struggling to live a sober life (i.e., free of drugs and alcohol) know in their bones that they need God just to get through today. They know their weakness, and the power of the addiction over their lives and they feel how much they need God just to get through this day, this week or this month. T\heir poverty makes them honest before God.

 

Our Christian religion is based on mistakes. Remember that Peter walked away from Jesus. He denied that he ever knew the man! The disciples argued over who was the best and most proficient of the disciples. They were playing the power game when Jesus upset their apple cart and instructed them to welcome the powerless (i.e., little children).

 

Here is where we must apply this to ourselves. We make mistakes. We fly off at the mouth sometimes and wish that we had never said what we said. 

 

But our mistakes must never become moments of denial but rather a time for us to examine ourselves and see where we need to grow and improve. We need to be the grandpa who gets out of the driver seat, examines the two dents in the back of his vehicle and considers  whether this is time to hand in his keys.

Jesus welcomes us back from our mistakes, our selfish sins and our negative attitudes. There is real opportunity to grow. 

 

Spend some time reflecting on the mistakes you have made in your life and the opportunities that God’s grace gave you to learn, to grow and to begin anew.

HOW IS JESUS A GIFT TO YOU?

is very healthy to make clear what our Christian religion actually means to us. It is a deliberate effort to evaluate if what we believe in the Creed actually has an impact on our daily lives.

 

Now, I must flip the question upside down: What would I lose if I did not believe in Jesus Christ? What if I barely had a touch of the Christian religion?

 

I am sure I would miss the core, the central energy of my life. I would not know who I was on the surface of this earth. This little exercise is pushing me to think clearly.

 

Jesus is God actually coming among us in all the weakness of human flesh. I believe in the great act of human redemption: the death and resurrection of Jesus. But I know that the divine mystery does not stop with Jesus: now, I must be transformed more and more into the likeness of Christ.

 

I feel a strong sense that the war-making between human beings is totally contrary to the very heart of God. We were never placed on this earth to run out and destroy each other as is happening right now in the troubled spots on the globe. God has put a restless and uncomfortable spirit within us to move away from aggression and work toward peace and justice between the tribes of humanity. The spirit of Jesus is an attitude and determination to work toward peace and justice within the human family. There are some days when I perceive this peace-building to be very weak, but God does not give up on human beings. 

 

Humanity has had three centuries of the industrial revelation. Human beings had conquered the land, the sea and outer space but now we are threatened by our own success. The earth is warming up. All forms of life are threatened. But there is a strong movement among Christians and so many others to work of preserve the earth. There is something so much deeper in this concern to save the earth. This is also the spirit of God, who has created all parts of the earth in love, moving us human beings to change our way of living and work to preserve the earth, the  water and the atmosphere. The spirit of God is moving in ways that we have not paid attention before: we are being tasked with survival of the human race and every living creature on this earth. 

 

When people get pushed aside, that is pushed to the margins, I sense the spirit of Jesus moving us to reach out to the poor and the neglected. The spirit of Jesus is not different but is moving us to see the very face of Jesus in the forgotten, the struggling and the poor with their many faces. 

 

If I did not have Jesus, the struglesnof my life would collapse. This exercise forces me to become more aware of what Jesus is and does in my life.

 

 

 

 

BE A PEACE-MAKER

 

This Sunday our second reading (from the Letter of James) offers us a stimulating image for the Christian life: ^“ And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace for those who cultivate peace” (James 3,18)

 

The people who walk with Jesus, seek to implement his vision and share with all they meet the very mercy of God will take the image of planting a garden of peace and use it in their spiritual reflections. An old image can generate new insights.

 

When you plant a garden in the springtime you are planning to get definite results in August and September. 

 

Plant the seeds of respect to all your fellow employees who are different from you in terms of race, gender, language and age. See in each person the very image of God. If the other with whom I work is of such great value by God’s creation, how can I not value them and rejoice in their existence? 

 

Sow the seeds of mercy over the mistakes that you have made in life and that others have made. Take each of their mistakes, hold the mistake in your hand and bless their failures with mercy. Your brother who is struggling with drug addiction, and had fallen off the wagon twice, needs the mercy of understanding. His decisions for sobriety may be very good, but the addiction can do a real job on his efforts. Mercy is lived in patience and understanding for the good will of your own brother.

 

You want to plant seeds that will break the violence and hard-heartedness that so often destroys our trust in one another. We pray to move into forgiveness and healing of the brokenness that  cripples our lives. May the seeds of forgivness produce the ointment of healing.

 

You need to plant the seeds of sincerity in all the words you  speak and all the decisions you make. Sincerity does not mean that we avoid the tough issues or avoid risking conflict and misunderstanding. Sincerity is always trying to do the right thing, even when it is very tough o accomplish. Sincerity means that we do not cut any corners in our relationships with others.

 

And then there is the constant weeding: pull out all selfishness, all excuse making and all the deep rooted weeds in our lives. Pull out all indifference to the pain and suffering of others. Weeding is hard work. 

 

Last of all, water frequently with water. When the soil is dry, nothing can grow and mature. Water is to your garden of peace-planting what love is to your Christiaan life. Water your peace garden often.

 

This may be a well-worn image, but it is very stimulating to place yourself as the gardener. What are you sowing in peace? What are you reaping from the peace you have planted?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IT IS A WALK WITH THE POOR

Take your Bible and work through the four gospels. Try to see if you ever hear Jesus praises the rich and the successful (by worldly standards)? Did he ever say: “What a grand house you have built to show your power and wealth?”

 

What does it mean that the Son of God does not value marvellous buildings and a strong showing of power over others?

 

Jesus, who is God’s revelation and God’s truth, begins with “blessed are the poor.” He reaches out to the people who get pushed aside: the peasants (considered dirty and illiterate), women, workers, prostitutes and the ordinary folk, like Peter and company (small business people with a fishing business). 

 

Every person counts! No one is excluded from the goodness and mercy of God. We humans may push the undesirables to the side, but the arms of God reaches out to embrace them. God is so unlike us humans who exclude or degrade others as not being worth as much on the status ladder.

 

To live the Christian life, to walk and pray with Jesus is to walk with the poor of this world. And the poor are always very close to us.

 

We have fellow believers who take time to visit, smile and care for the elderly with their various degrees of dementia. There are  very few words, but there is the gentle and warm taking of the elder’s hand and holding it in human kindness. That simple touching of hand to hand affirms the value and gift that this grandmother, who can only smile at you, possesses.

 

We have a ellow Christian who pick up the phone every week to call his sister in Calgary who has lost a thirty-year old son to a drug overdose. Sometimes you reflect on this mother’s pain, but most often, this is a simple call ‘to see how you are doing.’ It is a warm phone call of care. You want your sister to know that you care and you are walking with her in the painful winter of loss and emptiness.

 

And then you have your old high-school teacher. He has lost his wife three years ago and seems so lost. You pick him up, refuse to hear any excuses and fears that he is imposing on you, and you go to Tim Horton’s for coffee. There are lots of old stories about all the students he had in that chemistry class, but it is all about caring, laughing and just enjoying the surviving relationship from high school.

 

When our Christian faith is actually lived (and not going through the motions) it always leads us to reach out and walk with the poor. We must always think of the poor as the “poor with their many faces.” Poverty comes in many different flavours and colors.

 

Jesus never meant us to be comfortable and secure. He moves us to reach out the poor with the reminder that the poor are always near.

 

 

LISTEN TO YOUR ENEMIES

 

Who gave a word of wisdom to all politicians: “Listen to your enemies, because they are the only ones telling you the truth!”

 

We live in a time when people can be very shrill with each other: try to shout them down! We have become hardened and no longer shocked at some of the outrageous things people will say to one another in social media.

 

This is where we must learn from the mistakes that were made in the past. Many of our social breakdowns, our wars and our religious divisions have come because people refused to listen to one another.

 

In Western Christianity, five hundred years ago, we experienced the Reformation and the break-up of Christianity. This is where we must be very critical of our ancestors. They were Europeans with a long history of making wars with each other (i.e., not listening). When new ideas (i.e., challenges ) were brought forth, they could not hear the truth that the other was speaking. Christianity did not have to break apart. 

 

Simply put: no one was listening!

 

When people actually sit down and listen to one another new bridges are built; relationships are strengthened and we see each other in the new light. Listening is not only to overcome conflict but to strengthen a new future.

 

We are being challenged to listen in a new way to the pain and the suffering of the earth. Human activity is causing the atmosphere to warm up, to see rivers poisoned by chemicals dumped into its streams and the disappearacnce of species of  animals and birds. The earth calls out to listening to its pain.

 

Thousands of refugees are on the move to a safe country with stability and an economic opportunity. The world needs to listen to the thousands of displaced peoples; displaced by civil war and the breakdown of the society they are now trying to survive in. The movement of refugees is all about survival.

 

In our country, and every country, we need to listen to the countless people who are working two jobs and still cannot get established and become self-reliant. These are the working poor who most often are overlooked and marginalized. Are the media and the government listening to their struggles to survive?

 

Then there are the families and friends of Canadians who have died of a drug overdose. And what of all the health-care workers who are actively caring for people addicted to drugs?

 

The power of listening is to affirm the value of the other person, even if we firmly disagree with them. Listening will bring new insights and enable us to chart a new course of action within our society. It will always be challenging.

 

A  life built with honest listening is similar to the strengths we put into building our family home: it will last and thrive.

 

 

 

 

 

THE EARTH IS OUR COMMON HOME

 

 

At this very moment, every human being ( all eight billion of us) are being challenged by the reality of global warming. It is very possible that the earth could warm up that human life, and all forms of life, would find it very difficult to live and thrive. This issue can appear so overwhelming  that many people will just turn away: There is nothing I can do about it! They might just give up!

 

Our Christiaan faith and the way we must live it is not a recipe all worked out for us. We must deal with the unplanned movements of God. We now live in crisis times: we humans are doing all kinds of harms to the earth. What does out Christian faith have to say about this?

 

In many concerned and committed C Christian communities there has been a recovery of our place and responsibility towards the earth ( including all its inhabitants).  Pope Francis gave us the encyclical (official policy for the Church), Laudato si in 2015. He beings from the pain of the earth. “This sister [i.e, the earth] now cries out because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods which God has endowed her.” (#2)

 

All humanity must recover and take ownership that the earth is our common home. It belongs to everyone and everyone must work to nourish and preserve our common home.  This is where our Christiaan faith can give us so much energy and love for the earth: every  single human, leaf and gopher! Set out on the journey to discover how God actually feels about creation.

 

Now, consider your own home and try to picture that your family will live in this house to your great-great grandchildren’s generation. You will not do anything like dump garbage or chemicals into the soil that will destroy life in the future. You will care for your house and yard with maintenance, upkeep and you will beautify it. You will take great pride in your house/yard because it is a living part of your own family. This is not something to use, abuse and then throw away. This is my legacy that I want all the members of my family to benefit and enjoy. 

 

Now, we must take ownership of this same attitude. The earth is our common home, for countless generations in front of us; and we want to care for it, love it and help it to thrive. We are challenged to change from dumping  tons of CO2 into the atmosphere or polluting any water-ways and to ensure that all living species can continue to live and thrive. 

 

At this point in time, we are challenged to return to our Biblical roots and once again discover that God has made all parts of the earth to be good. God takes great pride and joy in all aspects of creation. We humans have been placed on this earth to care for, to steward, all parts of creation. A warming climate challenges us to make some drastic changes in our means of production. But we can make these changes if we are motivated by our Christiaan faith. If we open ourselves to reality that this is our common home. Not only do we want to preserve it, but we want to earth to thrive and be joyful.

 

Good things will come with this new awareness of the part we can play in nourishing and supporting our common home. 

 

What a great day to be alive!

 

 

THE POOR ARE VERY CLOSE

 

What we see is determined very much by who we are. Your mother (no matter how old she night be) will always see if your collar is straight on the photo. No one else will even notice; but you mother will!

 

What you see is determined by where you stand!

 

When you move around Canada, different people will see (or not see) the people who are poor. Many times, the poor are actually invisible to many of our citizens. 

 

We want to teach people that the poor are very close. We need to use the expression (originally arriving out of Italy), ‘the poor with their many faces.’

 

Poverty is not only economic poverty. We have a very polite way of describing this poverty as “they have a very weak cash flow.” The absence of financial resources is a definite form of poverty. Th\ink about the situation when you were a student in Calgary: nineteen years old and flat broke! Now that is a painful memory of poverty.

 

One of the most common forms of poverty is your aged mother in the nursing home. She may be secure, kept neat and clean, properly nourished – but hardly anyone ever comes to visit her. Her basic physical needs are well taken care of, but there is a hunger in her heart for the love and friendship she knew from her family. Many times ,the only person that ever visits is her one sister (who is just a year older than Mom). Poverty is a longing in the heart of your aged mother!

 

Poverty is the man discharged from jail. As soon as people know he has a prison record, no one will employ him. It is almost impossible to find a good job and become self-reliant. This man suffers from social poverty: the absence of trust from the society at large.

 

Poverty is the man or woman struggling with drug addiction. Only the persons trapped in this addiction to drugs can understand that their life is capture in a bear trap. Many people are not aware that hunters used to use this very strong steel trap of capture bears. 

A bear is a very strong animal and can break almost any sort of trap but the older bear trap (now illegal) snapped on the bear’s leg and the animal could not break the trap or the chain that held the trap. Drug addiction is an unforgiving, unrelenting trap. The cornered addict cannot shake the addiction. Their life is a living hell until they can turn into recovery. Anyone who uses drugs can innocently fall into this horrendous trap. Drug addiction is poverty with deep, deep pain.

 

Poverty is your aged great-grandfather, who can manage well on his own, but all his siblings and friends have all died. In the true sense of the word, he is all alone. The people, with whom he associates with, are all thirty years younger than he is. They are all sixty-five. Poverty is being alone, the last one, in old age. 

 

When we look around at who is poor, we discover that they are very close. We just have to adjust our vision: they are right in front of us.

 

And now we are challenged to see the face of Christ in each one of the poor, with their many faces.