Category: Uncategorized

Being Part of The Conversation

Being Part of The Conversation

by Jane Tawel

January 27, 2017

My view has been and remains that President Donald Trump is exactly who America has been pretty much since Reagan– I take that back. Pretty much since the American Revolution. Pretty much since the Native American Holocaust (Today is International Holocausts Remembrance Day. The plural is my addition. Yowza. It is going to be a depressing sobering day — it was a lot more sobering and depressing for holocaust victims though, so…..).

America has always been leaning towards and is now truly an oligarchy of the rich –especially rich and big businesses.Obama tried to make a difference and while I don’t agree with every thing he did, he did change the conversation. That is critical to remember as we continue The Conversation — if nothing else we should mirror his restraint and integrity and respectful speech. I have failed but I must try. This is the Jesus Way– truth with a heart of love. I happen to believe it is not the American way– but I happen to believe it is not the political way any where. Politics always has and always will be about money and power. Only the hands and mouths change.  There are rare people in history who change the conversation –Jefferson, Lincoln, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Abraham, Joseph of Egypt, Daniel, Mary, Jesus of course, Ghandi, Mother Teresa, Elie Wiesel, St. Francis and Benedict, Martin Luther King. But mostly Jesus. Jesus completely changed The Conversation and it was pretty much not by what He said, but what He DID.

Now all of you young people need to stay focused on what throughout the history of mankind has been accomplished in The Conversation and you must own the problems you inherit, I am sorry to say. You must study history and the bible and all ethical and moral humans and scribes that have lived and decide that you can make a difference in the corner of the world in which you live.Then you must start doing it.

And do not be sucked into speaking and thinking and acting as whomever you perceive the enemy to be. This is why Jesus advises us to love our enemy — vengeful actions merely deplete and destroy self; while positive or loving resistance to evil has a way of bringing God into the equation in ways you can not anticipate. It brings your God-image into the equation in ways you can not imagine. You treat your perceived enemy with the respect you do any fallen, sinful human being.This is why we “love others as we love ourselves” because we are fallen sinful, confused, broken human beings with the capability to do amazing great creative miraculous things.  Just like the great heroes of history and just like the only begotten Son.

And you figure out what you can do daily, weekly, to make a difference in the actual space you live in.  If protest propels you to act intentionally, then it is the right thing for you to do. If it is only releasing energy– either positive or negative energy — and then you feel either satisfied or  depressed, then you need to find a positive way of speaking into the universe we share — speaking not just with your mouth but also with hands and feet and minds. And primarily you need to find an action to help someone more needy than yourself. This too is the Jesus Way and how humans are best created to exist.  For white people this should be people of color. For men it should be women. For adults it should be children. And for Americans it should be 3rd world countries and the homeless and the mentally ill and physically ill in our own country. And of course for Christians it should be all of the above as we are commanded to do.  So my part of The Conversation now to speak to myself and all of you is simply:

I hear you. Now what are you going to do about it?

Here is the part of The Conversation I am meditating on today:

The Spirit of the Lord Jehovah is upon me; because Jehovah hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; Isaiah 61:1

Find your broken-hearted ones, and serve them with truth and love.

But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.
 James 1:22

Time to roll up our sleeves and do something about it. Find your part of The Conversation in the world, and just Do It.

 

Growing Old #2 – A Poem

Growing Old #2

A Poem

By Jane Tawel

January 24, 2017

 

Time runs fluid through my brain, my heart, all that make up my soul’s being.

Like a sluice, the years line up

Impeding very little Time’s rushing waves

Flowing toward the Future

Where I will not float.

 

And I gaze ahead with one hand on The Shore,

The memories drifting ever so slowly

Sometimes sludge-like

Sometimes like snowflakes

Sinking to the bottom of my dreams.

 

Dreams that I wade in searching for meaning to my years whether

Waking or sleeping or half awakesleep or asleepwake,

Small parts of me still awkwardly

rolling forward

While more and more

I long to swim Ashore

and play in the

Mud-Sluiced memories

Of my stagnant world.

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Happy Moment to You

Happy Moment To You

by Jane Tawel

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January 1, 2017

I began the new year today at 3:00 am and soon hit the road to take my daughter to the airport to catch a return flight to Virginia.  Under the klieg lights of LAX — rubbing tears into my eyes, giving my daughter a sharp hard hug… or two… all right  maybe it was three… and then heading back into the dark, black but for the blinding headlights behind and oncoming, searing all colors from the landscape and impairing my vision. If I look at my life, bitten off whole, it can often seem like that – lots of dark, black  but for the blinding lights. Blinding lights can hurt.  Blinding lights can frighten.  Blinding lights can keep you awake.  Blinding lights can save. Christmas is a season full of different colored lights –and One Light that was Blinding and yet can save.

 

I began the new year today driving home, listening to what they call an alternative radio station and wishing there were an alternative.  Coldplay’s “Yellow” came on and I thought about how my favorite color used to be yellow and how Coldplay singer guy’s mother died with yellow skin. Things happen in life– to people– and I feel fake at my age liking the color yellow. I wish I could be one of those cheerfully accepting purple -hatted red- dressed old ladies or whatever that was then, but when people ask me I tell them I don’t have a favorite color.  Well, it depends, doesn’t it? Are you talking favorite color for a couch or favorite color for a sweater? Do I need a favorite color for a potato? Or a couch potato? Or  a favorite color for a cleaning rag? What is your favorite color? For a sunset? Or a rainbow? Or your favorite color for understanding? Or for a memory? Or for a hug? Or your favorite color for a moment?

 

I started the new year today driving silently on rain-teared freeways and wishing the stain-teared world a “Happy New Year”.  But what a silly thing to do.  Because there is no such thing as a happy new year. What color the year will be for you or for me or for any one remains to be seen and it might not be one of our happy favorite colors. And yellow can change its meaning from favorite to sad. Every year is guaranteed to be  full of lots of contrasting colors for each of us. In fact, there is no such thing as a new year at all.  There is only this new moment.  I acutely realized that this new morning as in the blink of an eye,  I laid on my horn to wake up some one’s father or sister or child going 90 miles an hour, and to prevent me and Polly Prius being hit and pushed into the semi-truck on my right side.  I just had that single solitary moment in which to live. No more. We all – the someone’s crazy -driving relative, the semi-driver, and I –just had that instantaneous moment. To live. To choose. To breathe. To think. To yell into the dark.  To pray. To thank the Lord. One more moment.  Not one more year.  Never a whole year. Not even a whole week. Not even a whole day. No one has that. We all just have One. More. Moment.

 

I began my new year with just one more moment to get home and text my daughter waiting in the airport for her one more moment. I texted, “I’m home. Praying for you. I love you.”

 

In this new moment, as I sit and type, my husband and other children are still asleep. In the next minute I plan on getting up and if I do, I’ll pour my second cup of coffee. I am thankful to have this moment to hear The Beloveds still breathing– Still alive in the rooms that contain our now stale Christmas decorations and half -eaten boxes of candy. The Christmas colors and lights surrounding me in this new dawn, remind me of all the happy minutes in the past week. I am so full of sweetly-remembered minutes I want to clutch them tightly to hold onto and never let them go. I want to hoard them like a new box of Crayola crayons and get them out just to look at from time to time. They are all such pretty colored memoried moments.

But some of life’s moments aren’t all that great. Some of life’s moments aren’t pretty colors at all.  In this same moment in this same city my friend sits in the hospital by her daughter. In this moment, while I pour my second cup of coffee, she has one more moment of  blindingly agonizing fear and pain. While my daughter crams her bag in an overhead compartment, my friend’s daughter is crammed full of tubes. The color yellow looks different under my dining room’s glowing lights; yellow seems different under the airplane’s muted lights; yellow feels different under the hospital’s blinding lights. Blinding lights can hurt. Blinding lights can frighten. Blinding lights can keep you awake. Blinding lights can save. I hope and pray in this. one. moment. that the One True Blinding Light will change the colors for my friend and her daughter.

 

I began my new year thinking about all the people in all the world who can’t remember their last happy moment, and all the people who won’t have one more happy minute, let alone a whole Happy New Year.  I began my new year thinking about the cascading waterfall of all the happy minutes of my life. So many moments dancing like rainbow-hued water drops reflecting The Light. Just like a favorite color, I don’t have a favorite moment.  And in this world, strangely, moments need contrasting colors to make sense, don’t they? Otherwise it’s like driving in the dark. Or into a blinding light.

It’s hard to say what color a moment truly is. Like a prism, a life lived out and held up to The Light, in the perspective of Eternity, changes every moment into something new. And each moment becomes its own Infinity Box of Crayola -colored Eternity fulfilled.

 

Right now, only Now, I have this gloriously joyful emerging-colored moment. It could be someone’s idea of a favorite colored moment.  But I am in fact, living in a completely new undiscovered –until- this- very- heartbeat, new moment’s hue.

I shall name my newly discovered color: Enough.

 

And this moment is henceforth called, Enough.  It is enough.  It is meant to be enough. It is Created Enoughness. It is a Universe of Enoughness.

 

I began the new year with just one guarantee– No guarantees. Not for a happy new year, at any rate. Not even a guarantee I’ll live another minute in this world. But right now I could guarantee myself that I can live this eternal moment and it can be deemed Enough. In this moment, I can accept and embrace Enoughness. One whole moment of Enoughness. One moment to breathe deeply. One moment to smile. One moment for a tear drop. For a belly laugh. One moment for a song. For a thought. One moment to see. One moment to listen. One moment to reach out to someone.  One moment to be home. One moment to risk. One moment to explore. One moment to wait. One moment to pray. To ask. To praise. To thank.  One moment to say, “I love you.”

 

And that is more than enough.That is every thing. This moment is a many-hued kaleidoscope of Eternity’s Enoughness. I can guarantee  you — I think it is going to be one of my favorites.

 

Happy New Enoughness to you and yours – in this very moment. Period.

 

The Sky Is Indeed Falling and There are Wolves in the Woods by Jane Tawel

The Sky is Indeed Falling and There are Wolves in the Woods

by Jane Tawel

My husband and son call me “Chicken”.  I have somehow lost all my other nicknames, including “wifey” or “mom”.  And now that I am the sole female left to live amongst my two men, their daughters and sisters having moved to different Dreamlands, I am beckoned or lovingly teased by being called “Chicken”.

Raoul and Gordon tell me I have achieved this moniker because I am always, and they mean ALWAYS, screaming. Shrieking, they claim.  Hence, I am a “chicken”.  Evidently I not only scream during scary and violent movies, which I am now forbidden to watch in their presence, but I am told I also scream, when in the passenger seat; when someone quietly comes up behind me unexpectedly; when some thing bangs in the wind; and I scream, when, or so I am told, a fly lands on the counter, a kitten walks by, a child sneezes, an ant passes in front of me, or someone silently nods their head unexpectedly. I am a Chicken.

I have lately been called, I think “Chicken” perhaps by many of my friends and family.  Perhaps not to my face, but, there is definitely the feeling that many consider me “Chicken” in the sense of the old fairy tale, “Chicken Little”, or “Henny Penny” as the Brexits call it.  It is true.  I have been unable to clear my head ever since the large piece of firmament fell on it in the last weeks, toppled from the sky, Made in the USA,  in the land in which I live.  I have been running around, screaming, “The Sky is Falling!  The Sky is Falling!” My head literally still feels numb and aching — as if my head will blow apart — from the very large chunk of celestial  matter that fell right on top of my mind.  It is like a window in my mind opened up, was blown to bits in fact, and I could suddenly see out on a world that I might have suspected was the reality in which I lived, but which I could still turn away from.  Now I feel as if my mind’s eye is forced to look out that blown out window at what my world — physical, human, and spiritual — is really like after all. It is mind-blowing — like being hit on the head with a sky boulder.

The phrase, “The sky is falling” is meant to imply that the person, or “Chicken” saying it, is foolish and hysterical — humorous –if it weren’t for the fact that the chicken convinces so many of her friends — the Duck, the Goose, the Rabbit — to panic and run with her because the sky is falling.  All these peaceful, non-aggressive truth-seeking animals eventually let the Fox lead them to the Lion — the King of the Forest. The Fox assures all the wrongly hysterical animals that  the Lion will confirm whether the sky is in fact falling or not.  Of course — the Lion assures them they are hysterical and that the sky is in fact not falling.  Then he eats them.  The clever, wily Fox enjoys the leftovers.

So you see, even though everyone tells the story as if the Chicken is foolish and wrong, in the end she is right.   The world might not have been ending right then for everyone, not necessarily because the sky was literally falling, but Chicken Little’s world of peace and unity and justice and love and joy, did end. Just not the way she expected.  The sky is falling is a metaphor —  and of course some of us believe metaphors are always truer than fact — deeper Truth needing to be told in pictures or poetry. The World doesn’t get better. It does actually end. It ends because a predator capitalist fox and a greedy power-mongering lion, ate Chicken and the other animals — not because they were hungry, but because they could,(and because Chicken was irritating).   Just like in the past, a predator fascist Fox and a greedy power mongering Lion ate other animals. And a predator communist Fox and a greedy power-mongering Lion ate other animals.  And  a predator Khmer Rouge Fox and a greedy power mongering Lion ate other animals. And before that a predator European Fox and a greedy power mongering  Colonist Lion ate other animals. And before that, and before that, and before that, and before that, and before that. . . .

And once a Fox named Herod and a Lion called God’s Chosen People Judah, killed a Chicken named Jesus.

And throughout time,  Chicken Littles are mocked or calmed or silenced. Or crucified.  Chickens are told that it is time to move on– “The sky hasn’t fallen, Join us!”, — and we all need to just go back to the pretense of getting along. But Chicken Little was right. Because unless we are caring for the sky, and the earth, and the children, and the other animals, and each other, and Yahweh, and unless we are caring for justice and truth and free will and sharing and serving and mercy and love and shalom — well then,  the sky  is always going to be falling.  The climate is indeed, always changing. And we want to look at a dark night sky and call it daylight. But the sky is falling. And it always has been, since The Fall. Falling. Falling. Falling.

Until Jesus comes riding in on the clouds. Then the Falling will stop.

Trust me, this doom of mine really bugs people.  You are so bugged right now. And I do not blame you. I am not a very good prophet — not really one at all — I am after all,  not Chicken Little but, as  my boys will tell you, I am “Little Chicken”. I don’t mean by this story I’ve retold here, to compare myself to any true prophetic voices — but there are plenty of true prophets out there.  They are even more irritating that I am because they are much smarter and more spiritual than I.

And I don’t blame you for being upset.  No one likes to hear their Sky is falling. Not even Chicken Little– after all she keeps trying to prove to her own self that she is wrong! She is looking for signs and people to convince her she is wrong.  But her head is still hurting from the blow and she is still looking out of the window. And she can’t not see or feel. And she can’t not hear the voices of the prophets, written on subway walls and in Bible verses.

After the prophets are shut up or killed, the people  left don’t care. They can finally move on.   They get to live on with the knowledge that they were right.  The sky didn’t fall after all.  And so everyone gets to say, “I was right, see. You were wrong.” Only a wee part of the sky fell and that part doesn’t affect me. Everyone is safe in the knowledge that they were right.

Except Chicken Little.  She’s dead.

 

You know, the Lion of Judah — the real Aslan — compared Himself to a chicken.  In his own words, Jesus said: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” (Luke 13: 34, 35)

Jesus’ hearers would have remembered their scripture and the words that God Himself spoke to His Chosen People, Israel in Psalm 91, when God compares Himself to a Chicken.

Surely he will save you

from the fowler’s snare

and from the deadly pestilence.

He will cover you with his feathers,

and under his wings you will find refuge;

his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

 

.  Perhaps what has really made my mind go numb lately as if a piece of the heavens had fallen on top of it, is the forgetfulness of God’s people about Who God is, Who Jesus is.  About my forgetfulness about Who God Is. You see God and Jesus are Chickens.  God and Jesus try to warn us over and over and over again, through their prophets, through their Words, through metaphor and myth and story and laws and examples– through Jesus’ non- powerful death as a criminal on a cross — through The Father’s non-greedy serving heart — God warns us that the Sky is Indeed Falling– but that you, dearly beloved, do  not need to panic like chickens with your heads cut off. You do not need to look to any one — not the Fox nor the Lion — to tell you the truth and save you. You do not need to fear or grasp, or grab, or deny, or fall by the wayside and curl up in a little ball of denial. BUT — (God loves this conditional conjunction and uses it often)  BUT!! — My beloved little chicks, says God: You do need to waddle along  on your little feet and imprint on Me, Your Mother Chicken.You do need to obey me. You do need to repent.You do need to follow in the ways of my servant Son. You do need to see and speak the truth.  You do need to love.  You do need to be different.  You do need to trust Me.  You do need to converse with Me and listen.  You do need to walk the narrow path. You need to seek The Kingdom and The King. You need to lay up treasures that don’t have a president’s picture on them. You need to worship in humility and joy not power and comfort. You need to cover yourself not with the strength of the Lion, but with the blood of The Lamb.

But you know, there are always people who want to see God as being on the side of the Fox and the Lion. There will always be those of us who can not submit to a God who uses feathers not claws. There are always people who will do semantic and spiritual gymnastics to get the leftovers. We always prefer the powerful because we prefer not to trust. And so the sky keeps falling and people call it evolution. And the world never changes til the end, but we call it progress. And the prophets are killed and we call it reality. And the Son of Man weeps and calls… until He judges. And one day He gathers His chicks to a new earth and a new sky.

You know to be honest, of course, the Chicken Littles really just want, like everyone else, to turn off the violence, and not look at the signs, and not scream any more, and go back to pretending that they were never hit on the head with a piece of the sky.  But until this Little Chicken gets tired and folds her cards and admits she is trumped. . . . well, as any one will tell, you, I hate gambling so until I get that tired…..  I’d rather read a good story and keep inviting you all to hear Good Stories as well.

Tomorrow I will tell you the story of “Peter and the Wolf” — another prophetic myth seldom told any more.  After all, the “Wolf of Wall Street” is a lot more fun to hear. And The Ending is to die for.

“Chicken and Her Men”

 

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A Song of Prepositions: Act III: Behind

A Song of Prepositions– Act III

For Patrick –In Anticipation

Behind

By Jane Tawel

 

 

I can Not run with Your Light in my eyes.

Your Sun blinds me to the path ahead

And I see stars and darkness instead of Sunlight.

My head aches trying to see straight.

I need Your Son behind me

Like The Wind but not as pushy.

I need Your Sun behind –lighting the way

Around the shadow of my body’s darkness.

Ah, Patrick, Did you ever, like I

Prefer the Son behind you

Not before you?

Not around you?

Behind.

Trip Lightly

Trip Lightly

Or “It’s The Little Stones That Trip You Up”

by Jane Tawel

August 20,2016

 

It’s the little stones that trip you up. The guy who almost hits you as he speeds past. The bill you paid on time but that got sent back because at 4:00 in the morning, you didn’t see it was a two cent stamp. (How the heck did I still have a 2 cent stamp in that drawer?!) It’s the little pebbles like that shoulder /neck ache combo.  It’s that giant yoke of a backpack. And by the way, it’s still bugging you about that person who cut in line ahead of you. Oh, and there’s also the constant sales pitch from that group that will not let you Unsubscribe. The heat. The dust. The thingy that is never working properly. The tiredness. The bird poop. The person that said that thing that way. The person who didn’t respond right.  All those little pebbles you didn’t see in your road and you can’t figure out why you just stumbled into a depression.

And after a morning or a day or a week of little stones getting in the soles of your journeying shoes, you find all the little pebbles have lodged inside the Soul of your Journeying Self. And rather than the outside rocks tripping you up, and making you wonder irritably why you feel bad;  it’s the inside heart of stone that is making you wander angrily and aimlessly, looking for something to numb the pain.

And you know how truly horrifically bad it is for some  people.  And you know you have more important things to think about.  And pray about. (God knows you do!) And you know God doesn’t like you to be crotchety. And you know Jesus isn’t like that.

And you know you currently just can’t give a flying fandango.

 

Because those stones, just like a bunch of gall stones or kidney stones have lodged in your gut, and are preventing important movement forward.

Just like kidney stones, the experts will tell you the pebbles of life tripping you up  are itty bitty microscopic little specs of trouble and worry. If you’ve ever had a kidney stone, you know that as you writhe in pain, the fact that the stone is microscopic compared to other things is a mute point — unlike your groans which you cannot mute.

The experts will tell you, “this stone too will pass”. And if after self-medicating, you still weren’t so bogged down by the constant throbbing dull pain of life’s stones, you would kill those smug experts in their sleep. Maybe with a big rock.

As they say in Narnia, you want to go “further up and further in” but you have soles  and a soul full of stones. You’re so busy looking down and shaking a leg to dislodge the pebble, that you can’t look Up. And your progress on the narrow path, gets slower and darker and more painful. But you keep treadmilling ahead even with aching feet. You just can’t find a way to stop and throw out the stones. Or you’re afraid if you stop, you won’t be progressing, achieving, gettin’ it done .  You thought you were clipping along briskly — how the hey did you end up on this sweaty treadmill? What is that stuck in your shoe?! What is that –stuck ON your shoe!? Again?!?!?  Oh, Cr_ _!!

You can see the Rest Stop just up the bend, but you are stuck in the slow lane full of the smoggy traffic of your treadmill troubles.

You also know that people get tired of your being so negative all the time about all the ” little stuff”.  But you want to talk about stuff to process it. But sometimes — not always — but sometimes talking about the negative stuck stuff  with someone else  is sort of like trying to blend a handful of rocks in your Kitchen aide Blender. It will only break your blender. Processing is tricky and there are people you need to do it with and for, but you want to be care-full not to take out the pebbles in your shoes only to add them to the soles of your listeners.  It makes for a “rocky relationship” sometimes.

I think even our ever patient and loving God must get tired of listening to my stones grind around in the blender prayers of my relationship with Him. I think He often has all these positive, affirming, encouraging, nutritional things to blend into my relationship with Him.  If I let Him get a Word in edgewise.

But I am often just too overwhelmed and I kinda’ start to  hate myself. And everyone else. And there is no joy in the journey with shoes full of stones.

And  my soul gets hard rather than strong. Rocks have good, solid, important qualities but they aren’t meant to be in your shoes. Rocks make good metaphors for lots of things, but not the heart.

Jehovah/ Jesus is often referred to as Our Rock, but a lot of times, I make Him just one more little pebble stuck in my shoe that I’m trying to stand on.  How can I walk on The Rock of my Salvation if I don’t throw out the sinful stones in my soul?

If I could only stop picking up those irritating stuck pebbles on The Way.

But maybe I’m full of rocks because I’m not  resting enough to pick the pebbles out before they cause me to stumble.

Maybe I need to walk barefoot in the sand more often.  Maybe I need to pick up a good pair of dancing shoes.  Maybe I need to stop walking alone. Maybe I need to let The Comforter Insole In-Soul — lend support. Maybe I need to “become like a little child” and be carried for a while.

 

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for i am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your soul. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  Matthew 11:28-30

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Songs for Prepositions: Act I

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Act I:  “Dwelling”

A Song for Prepositions

By Jane Tawel

July 12, 2016

 

 

I desire to not dwell on it;

I desire only to dwell in it–

 

With You.

 

It’s true,

They want to build a wall against the tide

But I long for You to build a wall around my heart

To hedge me in, a prisoner in the walls of Your mercy and forgiveness,

A porous wall of Water that trespasses on the throne of my self

And keeps Your Spirit in,

Not them out.

 

My skin-wall is not me.

Your skin-wall is not you.

 

We keep making each other so sad

And the tears don’t wash away the colors

Of our collective, hateful grief.

 

I desire not to dwell on it,

I desire to dwell in it.

Inside–

A wall to keep the rushing fountains of Your love

Emigrating out to Immigrants I welcome in

To the circled enclosure of Our love.

 

We keep talkin’ ‘bout, talkin’ ‘bout, talkin’ bout,

The colors of,

The multi, separating colors of the world,

 

But You in agonizing silence,

Rebirthed us in one color only

The color Red

The Red of Your Blood

Shed.

 

So many colors shedding other folk’s blood

I have to start telling them today,

It’s all been already shed for you

No matter your hue.

 

From Costcos to bodegas

From favelas to beach fronts,

It’s time to sing a psalm of

Equitable housing for all.

If we can let Him trespass on the property rights of our souls

We can dwell in a new world mansion forever,

No more weapons, no more nightlights,

No security but His eternal light.

 

 

The housing of my skin is just like yours

A thin covering of dust which will return to dust, to dust, dust,

I simply must,

Get out of my skin and into your heart,

Like He has done to mine.

We will either cease and desist or we

Will live together forever.

 

It’s time to sing a psalm:

“We will dwell in Your House forever.”

Or not.

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Zechariah 2:5  “ ‘For I’, declares the Lord, ‘will be a wall of fire around her, and I will be the glory in her midst’.”

Psalm 23:6  “Surely Your goodness and unfailing love shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

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What’s In Your Center?

A Devotional Thought on Christ-Centeredness

By Jane Tawel

June 7, 2016

As a lot of Christian businesses and churches do, at my work place we talk a lot about being “Christ-centered”.  Do we know what that means?

 

What does “centered” mean? The definition in the Oxford Dictionary is “having a central axis” and we Christians must believe that our “axis” goes through the whole earth. Our axis is the cross of Christ.  That central axis of Christ’s cross is true and it always points due North. So “centered” means our life compass points due North through the cross of Christ.

 

What does “Christ” or Cristos mean?  The Greek word “Cristos” means “the anointed one of God, The Lord”. The overriding biblical meaning of Christ is the anointed KING. So we are saying that we in this place, in this world, in this nation, city, office, house, in this community– serve Jesus the Cross bearer – the God-image bearer — as The King of the World. We serve.  Jesus spoke a lot about himself as the King and what His Kingdom and His followers were like – or where, and how and what His Center would be.

 

In John 18:37 We find Jesus confirming his kingly identity to a mere politician of this world, one who will soon put the Ruler of the Ages, The King of All Kings to death on a Roman cross.  Jesus tells Pilate. “For this was I born.” To be the King.

 

To His first disciples, Jesus offers no cheap grace. No excuses. No alternatives. If you want Jesus to be the center, if you want Him in charge, if you want to put His name on your propaganda, if you want to be Christ-centered, then you must do as He says.  Which of course would include the whole testimony of YHWH, all the laws and prophets, and God-spoken words which we find in the Old Testament.  Jehovah’s law was Christ’s law. “I came to fulfill the law, by my Kingly rule in my upside down Kingdom.” God’s word was in Christ– The Word –from the beginning. God’s word IS Christ. The Word of God in Christ is the Center of the universe, of time, of our history and of eternity.

 

Luke 6:46: “Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do as I say?”

 

Jan Victors in “The Anointing of Jesus” writes:

 

To use the word “Lord” displays an attitude of obedient submission to a greater power.  Jesus seems even to expect that those who call him Lord obey him.  To his listeners he asked, “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46) To call him “Lord” or to call him Jesus “Christ” is to say that he is the King that God has sent who has a right to reign over us. 

This has implications about how we define ourselves as Christians.  Usually, we talk in terms of doctrines and beliefs, but the very word “Christ” calls us to more than assenting to a creed.  If Christ means King, a Christian is one who considers Jesus his Lord and King, and submits to his reign. (Victors, OurRabbiJesus.com)

 

So what does that mean? Well it means that our number one thing on our renewable daily “To Do List” is that, day by day, moment by moment, we live as if only Jesus were around and as if we were the only Jesus around – as if the image of God that was in Christ Jesus is in me.  You are created to be the image of the unseen God just as the True Image Bearer, Jesus The Christ, was and is.

 

At my  Christian school the faculty was asked to discuss the new and revised “Statement of Faith” that we all must sign. There were several folk who were discussing our Faith Statement and remarking that to them, the word “evangelical” which was used in several places, means different things to different people.  Not to put them down in the slightest, but let me just tell you what “evangelical” means to me.

Being “evangelical” means that I live as if the very most important thing in all the earth is the human soul. My soul.  And Your Soul. And that because my soul was created before time to be eternal. Ephesians 1:4 assures us that “even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.”

 

The Human Soul, which is every thing that sets us apart from all else, our mind, our heart, our will – that “very good” thing that God created is a valuable and valued thing to the holy, living Creative God, three in One, YHWH, Jesus Messiah, and the Holy Spirit alive in me.

 

Because of that, because I was bought with the greatest price a God can pay to redeem a human soul  from the weight of sin, the agony of death, and the curse of eternal separation from the Creator – God paid that price through His only Son with His death from the weight of my sin and as a propitiation on a cruel cross – because of that, then I must take to heart that what the bible says is true about the King and His eternal kingdom – a Kingdom established before Time, real in the present, and fulfilled with a new heaven and new earth in the future.

 

So what does The King say about how His redeemed should be centered in Him?

 

John 3:3 –  “You must be born again. Truly, truly I say to you, unless a human is born of the water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”

 

Matt 16:26 – For what shall it profit a woman if she gains the whole world but forfeits her soul? For what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

 

Matthew 19:23: And Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven.”

 

Matt. 23:25 – “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.

 

 

 

When is the last time I asked the King to point out the dirt inside my cup?  When is the last time I confessed my greed and self-indulgence?

 

We live in beautiful vessels – healthy, well dressed, nice colors of skin.  At my school, we claim to have Christ “in the center” of what we proclaim to be the most beautiful high school campus “of its kind” in the San Gabriel Valley.  But what “of its kind” is this place?

 

No matter if we call ourselves a Christ-centered school, or Christ-honoring church, or Christian nation, or a Jesus-Freak– If we are putting things on from the outside, with statements and policies, creeds and lifestyle statements,  fields and uniforms, trophies and landscaping, higher grades and deeper benefits, winning streaks and more free food — but our insides—the soul of us so to speak — are not washed clean by the blood, are not purged from sin, are not daily under the ministrations of His nail-scarred hands, then we are hypocrites. If we choose to hide or ignore the dirt – if we are more self-centered than Christ-centered – then what is at the center of us?

 

You know when you get those candy boxes and you aren’t sure what filling is inside – so you take a bite and quickly spit it back out because it is some ooey gooey fake berry filling and not the lovely caramel and nuts you had hoped for?  Our King says if His Bracingly Cold Fresh, Clean Living Water is not at our center – or if His Hot Purifying, Bathing, Cleansing Water is not at our center, then like a stale, icky Sees “lukewarm” candy, God will spit us out.

 

In Revelations 3 Jesus says as much to The Church at Laodicea – but He could be saying as much to me.

 

15 “‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! 16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth. 17 For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing; not knowing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. 18 Therefore I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, that you may be rich, and white garments to clothe you and to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see. 19 Those whom I love, I reprove and chasten; so be zealous and repent. 20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. 21 He who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I myself conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.22 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”

So here is my last “evangelical” word for now: He knows our centers. He formed my center. He adores your center. And He knows if Christ is there. I can’t put Christ’s name on the outside – it needs to be from my inside. We are commanded not to ever use The Lord’s name in vain – and in vain means I give Him credit He doesn’t want. It means I am really pushing my agenda ahead under my own steam, but just to make sure I want to use – in vain–without really turning anything over to Him – I want to use the power of His Holy Name – in case. Usually it means I put His name on something that rightfully belongs to this World’s kingdoms, and policies, and politics and powers. When my compass is off, then rather than journeying the central axis that leads due North, I am not only not centered, I am spinning around in circles, with an ever changing, ever confusing center.  I’m off center, not Christ- centered. No matter what I wish were true.

The King wants to know us for who we were best created to be – not okay, not so-so, the best. And He longs for us to know Him –Jesus Messiah– The Center of the Kingdom, The Center of it All.  “My sheep know my voice.”

 

In  Matthew 7: 21-23, Jesus looks at the human souls before Him in the final judgement and speaks these chilling words: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ Evangelical? Definitely.

 

When I hear that from the Center of the World, I am very afraid. It’s sobering news. But it’s also good news! Because nothing else matters if you have Christ in the center. It’s doesn’t matter who will run this nation – that is peripheral – It doesn’t matter who wins the game – it’s a game. What matters is – the King is in the Center.  “Ring around the King –We all fall down – and worship.”  Evangelism means I ask every one: Is He in the center of your soul? Right now?

 

 

Jesus is very clear about how we are to live for Him.  We are to crucify ourselves  (Gal. 2:20) We are to put others before our own desires  — even our enemies – we are to not to merely tolerate, not be simply nice, not even to chivalrously turn the other cheek – we are to love others, even our enemies, as Christ loved us.  (Matt 5:44) We are to love God, YHWH, the Holy God with every part of our being – heart, mind, soul, and strength (Luke 10:27).  And we are to worship the Lord, the King – as a King above all kings and Lord above all lords. Rev. 19:16 on his robe and on his thigh it is written King above all kings and Lord above all lords.

 

I believe evangelical means that I can not shut up until every one knows intimately as a bride knows her bridegroom — the ruler of this universe – my King Jesus – until—

10  at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil 2:10-11)

 

I believe Christ- centered means I submit to the king as a servant of all and that I allow my soul to be refined for eternity, for if Christ is not in the Center of this very moment for me, then He is certainly not in the center of a place – school, family, nation, business office, house, or church building – all of which will pass away as all temporal things will.

If Jesus, The King is not sanctifying my innermost parts into His image daily, then He is certainly not at the center of my job, my family, or my friendships. With everything the world has to offer but without Christ in the Center— I am nothing. But Christ in me, means I have nothing in this world but everything in God.

We should be sobered – and elated both – that the description of The Christ that we are proclaiming to be in our very inner most centers comes from: Philippians 2:6-11

6     Jesus, The Christ —who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,[a] being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

 

If today my soul were a piece of candy, what would be in my center?

 

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