Steve

Today’s Word: Grace

Steve · August 14, 2013 · 1 Comment

Grace is one of those words we use almost without thinking about it. We say someone is graceful. We say grace before meals. We have a grace period to pay our bills. And, of course, we sing that most famous and well loved of all Christian hymns: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me…”

But grace, especially in its Christian meaning, is a word that deserves our attention. The grace we receive from God through Christ deserves to be mulled over, contemplated and prayed. We shouldn’t toss it off like a found penny, unaware of its deep meaning and power. For if we have a relationship with God, it is only because God initiated that relationship by his grace — by his free and undeserved communication and union with us. God’s gift to us is grace, and our ability to accept it is the work of grace.

We are surrounded by grace as fish are surrounded by water, unaware that it is there at all even though we would die without it. God’s grace is pervasive and complete in our lives — our very life and breath are, after all, gifts and not mere happenstances. Once again, I’ll give a contemporary songwriter the last word today. John Mark McMillan writes in his beautiful song “How He Loves”:

And we are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If His grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.

Ask yourself in silence: If not God’s grace, what have I surrounded myself with? Am I trying to earn God’s love and grace, or am I able to just accept the free gift being offered?

Today’s Word: Alive

Steve · August 13, 2013 · Leave a Comment

Detail of America Windows, stained glass by Marc Chagall, the Art Institute of Chicago. SJG photo

The second-century Christian writer Irenaeus once wrote: “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.” What a contemporary sounding idea! God is most happy — is in his glory — when we are fully alive. So what does it mean to be fully alive? This thought reminds me of that great question in Psalm 8 (and I paraphrase): Who are we that God pays any attention to us at all?

Irenaeus has a comeback for the Psalmist: I’ll tell you who we are…we are his GLORY — as long as we’ve living lives of abundance, as long as we’re living lives that complete God’s purpose and hope for us. To be fully alive is to live fully in God, for God, of God. It is to seek God with every fiber of our being and in every moment of our lives. Or as a much more contemporary source (songwriter David Crowder) writes: “You make everything glorious. And I am yours. What does that make me?”

Ask yourself in silence: What am I doing when I feel I am most fully alive?

Today’s Word: Consciousness

Steve · August 12, 2013 · 4 Comments

Self portrait in shadow and brown grass. SJG photo

They’re the tiniest of errors
He made them every day.
Ignore them, they’re forgotten
But, never really go away.

– John Caravelli, The Tiniest of Errors

Have you ever driven somewhere and, upon arrival, realize that you remember virtually nothing of the trip? Here’s a better question: Have you ever come to the end of a year and wondered where it all went and what you did with it? Been there, wondered that…

This is one of the greatest challenges of our busy lives. All too often, we’re leading Socrates’ “unexamined life,” which, as we all know, is “not worth living.” Our days, weeks, months and years rush by in a flash of seasons, holidays and anniversaries, and we find ourselves a year older and with not much else to show for it. That’s why most philosophers, poets and theologians can all agree on at least one thing: Stop and smell the roses. Or the coffee. Or the strawberries. Or whatever it is that will slow you down a bit and help you appreciate what’s going on around you.

St. Ignatius suggests an “examination of consciousness” at the end of each day. This is not just a recounting of our sins and failings (although they may creep in…) but rather a prayerful recollection of the myriad ways that God has touched our lives. “Ignore them, they’re forgotten,” as my friend John writes in his song. But when we take the time to remember them, we are blessed and made all the more aware of the countless ways that God insinuates himself into our lives everyday.

Ask yourself in silence: How did God enter my life today? What people, experiences and moments (now in hindsight) spoke to me of God? And perhaps most importantly, how can I be more aware tomorrow?

Today’s Word: Signs

Steve · August 11, 2013 · 4 Comments

Signs, whether informational or directional, are really just stand-ins — symbols — for real things. The street sign is not the street. The stop sign is not the law. The map is not the journey. And yet, we need these signs to help us get around, understand where we are and where we want to go, and keep us safe. We’d be pretty lost and confused in a world without signs.

Henri Nouwen once wrote: “We, as followers of Jesus, are sent into this world to be visible signs of God’s unconditional love. Thus we are not first of all judged by what we say but by what we live.” So like it or not, aware or not, we are all walking signs. We are symbols that either proclaim the unconditional love of God or tell the world that we’re all on our own and there’s no hope for joy, life or anything beyond our small little lives. Either way, we’re signs. Spiritual sandwich boards. So what are we saying and where do we point?

Ask yourself in silence: What signals am I sending out to the world? Do my actions and my words point to God and invite others to a life of faith or do they leave others wondering what it is I stand for?

Today’s Word: Barriers

Steve · August 9, 2013 · Leave a Comment

In his poem “Mending Wall,” Robert Frost’s neighbor tells him that, “Good fences make good neighbors.” That’s probably very good advice for New England farmers with wandering cows, but as spiritual advice it leaves us on the wrong side of the fence, so to speak. Indeed, Frost gives better spiritual counsel in the very first line of the same poem: “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.”

Knowingly or unknowingly, we erect barriers in our lives that keep God at a distance, or at least at arm’s length. We get too busy. We work too much. We worry too much. We drink too much. We have too many things in our lives that, while perhaps not bad or evil in themselves, nevertheless become distractions and obstacles to a life of pursuing God through prayer and worship. We build walls when we should be building gateways that connect God with the rest of our lives, where our work and our time can be made holy by God’s presence and touch.

Ask yourself in silence: What are the barriers that keep me from seeking God? What do I do instead of spending time in prayer?