“See, I Am Making All Things New.”

And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.”

the Universe Humanity

City

God’s son

Making All Things New

Contents Week 1: How? Week 2: Human Response? Week 3: Why? Week 4: How? Why? What? The Incarnation

Advent Over 2000 years ago the early followers of Jesus told the world of good news. Jesus of Nazareth was and is the Christ. His life, his death, and especially his resurrection to which they were witnesses was the key to bringing the world to its fruition, to its created purpose, to its right relationship with God. It was both a promise of what was to come and an assertion that what is gives light to that future, for it is now and yet to be. God in Christ Jesus made a new covenant with the world. The letters the apostle Paul wrote to the churches he knew suggest that the time of fulfillment was near; the coming of Christ in glory was expected soon. As time passed Paul often warned and encouraged those he had led to the truth he saw in Christ Jesus, not to give up hope even though the Parousia was not yet. The gospel writers several decades later echoed that same conviction adding elements of suffering and judgment to the picture of the Day of the Lord. The writer of Revelation envisioned a spectacular descent of the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world and reigns in the city of God, the New Jerusalem. All those assertions, visions, and convictions are a part of each Advent season. We pray “Come Lord Jesus, come.” Yet it is a long time since Jesus of Nazareth walked the highways and byways of Galilee. The kingdom of God which he proclaimed as near is still hidden for many. Discord, pain, and destruction scar our earth; selfishness, greed, and suffering mark our human lives. We struggle to allow our “better angels” to dominate; we ache for a community where love is determinative; we would seek justice, we need mercy, and we know not how to walk humbly with our God. I wonder when we pull back the curtain how many of us ask, “Will the return ever be?” “Has it already happened?” “Is it the answer we need?” “Is it just an ancient myth with no current meaning?” Looking at our natural world, we can see the cyclical progress of birth, life, death, and rebirth in the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, the trees of the land. Life is finite, at least life as we experience it on earth. The seasons circle from winter to summer; the crops are planted in spring and the harvest collected in fall; the child is born and the elder dies. Is not this the way of the world? The universe we are told has moved and is moving through relative time; it expands, but will it reverse and contract or just go on outward forever, infinitely? Is there no beginning or end, or did space- time begin and will end, or will there be a spiraling up and then cascading down only to rise again? I wonder also how many of us who assert that “it” will be, wonder actually what “it” is. What does it mean to say, “Christ will return in glory?” What does it mean that “God will make his home among mortals?” What change is implied in “a new heaven and a new earth?” What is the hope of the apocalypse? What is the coming we enjoin? Why “make all things new,” aren’t they okay now; do we really need to start over? Aren’t we working to bring the kingdom of heaven to our place and time? The paradox that I think underpins our Advent confession is just this: “It” is, and “it” is not yet. Our Scriptures as presently arranged end with the descent of a holy city, the city of God. The ruler proclaims, “I am making all things new.” Those same Scriptures begin in an idyllic garden where humans innocently walked with God until they did not, until they were thrown out. In-between we read of peoples whose relationship with God is troubled, turbulent, and blessed; the passages tell us that God wishes relationship, that God’s love is steadfast, that humans are sought, forgiven, and redeemed. We are still in that in-between time it seems, or are we? Perhaps the truth is subject to the relativity of time and space, and reality is in essence becoming. Maybe we humans are tied together to the one that always is, but it does not yet seem real to us. I imagine some, if not all, by now are saying, “Wait a minute, does it really matter? Do we need to trouble our minds and hearts with unanswerable questions? Why can’t we just say it’s a mystery and go on with our lives?” I hear that and for much of the time I could agree, and I am sure there are those for whom this sort of questioning is not only a waste of time but dangerous and heretical. I honor that and suggest if that is truly where your heart and soul are now that you use the devotional time and readings to find the joy in your convictions and the hope in your assuredness. In fact, joy and hope are the responses I seek in this time of Advent while we ponder, wait, and are still. If on the other hand, when you hear God’s prophets of all times say “I am making all things new,” it raises questions about the nature and direction of God, then I invite you fearlessly to entertain the queries and listen for replies. In both instances, I believe, when honestly engaged, our time of intentionally being in the presence of the divine will give God glory and will make real our Advent prayer “Come, Lord Jesus, come.” Introduction The cosmic view of the new creation is found primarily in Revelation although both the gospel writers and the authors of the letters in the New Testament tell us of what they perceive is and is to come. The words of the prophets of the exile recorded in the Old Testament assured the Israelites that God would make all things new. Jesus in his last week speaks of a new covenant “sealed in his blood.” We are the recipients of these writings and two millennia of deliberation and experience. And yet we still wonder, question, and pray. This Advent again we ask for understanding, for direction, and for hope. We pray for our world, for our relationships, for renewal, for joy and peace. “Come, Lord Jesus, come!” This devotional is organized around these questions: How is God making all things new? What is the human response? Why is God making anew? And how is the incarnation a part of what God is doing? Each week addresses one question using a Scriptural passage that provides a place to begin to ponder the question. A discussion follows of possible ways the Scripture leads us to respond and considerations of what the natural world reveals. The week includes suggestions for imagination and contemplation. Finally, I try to suggest how these considerations relate to the essentials of our faith, the birth, life, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus. I pray you will find useful words to ponder, opportunities to deepen your relationship with God in Christ Jesus, and new ways to be a follower of Jesus now and in our world. Blessings Caroline.

Making All Things New How will God make all things new? Advent Week 1

19Restore us, O LORD God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved. Psalm 80:19

Scripture: Mark 13: 24 – 37 Sunday Week 1 Read slowly, and pick a word you feel called to carry through the week. Let it occupy the back space of you mind and return to it consciously as the week ends. What is the word of the Lord to you this first week of Advent?

24 “But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, 25 and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. 26 Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. 27 Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. 28“From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. 29So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. 30Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. 31Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. 32“But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. 34It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. 35Therefore, keep awake — for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, 36or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. 37And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”1

Lord, save us from misusing your words and help us stay awake. Amen.

Following a Time of Violence Monday Week 1 32“But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. Mark 13: 32 – 33 Our Scriptures tell us God is “making all things new.” In the cities of Babylon, where the Israelites lived in exile, their prophets told them

1 Al references from New Revised Standard Version their God would do a new thing. In the letters of Paul, the early followers of Christ are warned not to lose faith or follow false teachers, for Christ will return in glory. The gospel writers record that Jesus taught in the last days of his earthly life that the end was near. He would return to judge the peoples and begin the glorious reign of Christ. Be alert, watch, wait, have faith. The time is coming. “How will we know?” “How will this happen?” “When will this be?” These questions quickly surfaced and seemed to be the first concern of those who saw themselves as witnesses to what God had done in Christ Jesus. Even before they asked what will it be like, this new world, or why is God making all things new, they asked how will it happen. Think for a moment: Is that what you would ask first? Why might this be their primary concern? What does it tell us about our Advent waiting? The gospel writers heard Jesus proclaim that the time of his return in glory would be fraught with violent disruptions of the natural order, warfare among nations, a collapse of institutions, want of the basics of living, and times of persecution and pain. The powerful would use all the levers of control they held to maintain their position. A horrible picture, a time no one would want to be a part of, yet the followers of Jesus were told they must continue to proclaim the good news. All nations must hear. They, who proclaimed that these struggles are the forerunners to the coming of the Lord, would be hauled before magistrates, beaten, and thrown out because they remained voices for God’s sovereignty and good news. Betrayal, death, suffering will afflict them. Even worse, false prophets claiming the mantel Jesus wore would try to lead them astray. Their communities would devolve into places of discord; insecurity and faithlessness would tear their human bonds; truth would be challenged and discredited by evil. A final darkness would descend. Then and only then Christ would return heralded by angels to rescue the elect. “Making all things new” comes in violent conflict, widespread suffering, destruction, and darkness. “No stone will be left standing.” God the all-powerful will destroy the forces arrayed against God’s good news. For those that heard this prophecy at the time, the good news was mixed. The reign of God Jesus promised would be healing and restorative to those oppressed. Yet the advent of Christ’s reign was a time of horror. Hard words to hear I imagine for those of Jesus’s day and certainly for us. “God, is all this necessary?” we might ask. Granted if all things are to be new the old must go away, but does it have to be so violent? That question prompts me to ask about radical change in my personal life and in our social order. It appears that human nature, though desirous of a “better” way, clings to what is known. Even if unpleasant the known often is held preferable to the unknown “better” way. We continue to engage in habitual behaviors that damage our bodies and relationships unable to grasp what we know would help. We challenge those who suggest a new way of doing, asking for absolute assurances before we cross over the line and change what we do. When we look at significant changes in our personal life or the world’s history, we see often that the new only occurred after times of violence, pain, and suffering. When we look at the struggles to increase inclusiveness within the Church over the last fifty years, we see the pain—pain from waiting too long for the oppressed to be freed, pain from conflict that arose as the oppressors fought recognizing and confessing their guilt, pain from polarization resulting from the lack of universal acceptance of the new. As this Advent happens maybe God is suggesting that we recognize the terror we create and participate in, that fuels the world’s resistance to the coming of the Lord in glory.

Lord, save us from misusing your words and help us stay awake. Amen.

Following Time of Sacrifice and Vulnerability Tuesday Week 1 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. Jeremiah 31:33 - 34 The violent apocalyptic vision of the Day of the Lord is not the only way Scripture tells us God will make all things new. Without denying the existence of forces opposed to the coming of the kingdom of heaven and the power of humans consumed in evil ways to wreak havoc on our planet, we can entertain scripturally the idea that the coming of the Lord in glory follows from sacrifice and vulnerability. The prophets that called Israel to repent often picture God as steadfast in love, aching for the return of the unfaithful, and willing to wait. Hosea described God as the husband who seeks the return of his adulterous wife. Isaiah, addressing a Jewish community reduced to living in exile and bereft of their homeland, found it was a comforting word of God that declares the former things will end and the new will spring forth. Jeremiah suggested that a new covenant will be made with its words written on the hearts of God’s people. Taken together perhaps we can imagine that the new earth comes not with destruction but in the evolution of creation as it is meant to be. From the beginning humans and God have danced around seeking relationship, a relationship that brings life to humanity and expresses the love of the Creator. The universe, as we in the 21st century see it, is not the three-layered heaven, earth, hell that the ancients used but an ever-expanding cosmos begun as a singularity around 13.8 billion years ago and expanding and changing ever since. Into it life entered and that life has evolved into humanity that is conscious of its consciousness. The findings of science invite us to reconsider our ideas about life and death, the particular and the universal, time and space—the universe, continually exchanging matter and energy and creating new, is widening exponentially and moving toward consciousness of the interconnectivity of all, it seems. With these changing views of life on this planet and the greater realization of the nature of the cosmos, the idea of a place heaven and another hell loses credence. Thus, the use of reward and punishment at the end times as motivations for behavior now is less effective, and, indeed, perhaps inconsistent with a faith in a God who loves steadfastly, a God who makes all things new. Ilia Delio, a Franciscan nun and an academic in the fields of pharmacology and historical theology, writes that this new perception of the cosmos forces religions to rethink the motivation for moral action: “The greatest obstacle to a more unified, just, and peaceful world,” she says, “ is a religious belief that God and the world are in conflict and that doing good in earthly life will reap a reward in eternal life….If we are concerned about the final things—death, judgment, heaven, and hell—we might consider in a universe of infinite space-time these four things may be four dimensions of the one universal law of love.”2 The notion of a great battle between the forces of God and Satan described by some of the writers of the New Testament

2 Ilia Delio, Making All Things New Catholicity, Cosmology, Consciousness (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2015) pp. 92-93, 115. and Christian literature may be replaced more realistically by a scene among all forces—natural, human, and divine—evolving into a universe permeated by the God of love and at one with the Creator. Vulnerability and sacrifice can of course be painful, perhaps as painful as the destructive dissolution of the earth described in the apocalyptic literature, but it is different, I think. While the suffering will be similar, the cause will not be the result of evil desires but concern for creating a world of God’s desiring. As we become more and more conscious of what we do and the congruence of our behaviors with a heart in which God’s law is inscribed, we can choose ways that work to bring about a world where Christ is king. Are we willing is the question.

Lord, save us from misusing your words and help us stay awake. Amen.

Nature’s Message: the Earth Creates, the Universe Evolves Wednesday Week 1 When we observe the natural world, we can see examples of processes of creating the new similar to that described in religious literature. Volcanoes spew lava and rock from deep within the earth onto adjacent areas. As the flowing matter cools new land is formed. Soon plants spring through the cracks and eventually a new environment comes to be. Violence produces the new. Earthquakes shatter the current arrangement of solid crust of the earth and new arrangements come to be. In space the collision of meteors and planets destroys and creates in a split second. On a micro level, particles throughout space-time interact, annihilate, and reconstitute. Our universe constantly is making all things new. The work of physicists in the last century has demonstrated that the mechanistic static nature of the universe described by Newtonian physics is illusionary. Albert Einstein, as we have been told, theorized that time and space were a continuum, not absolutes but relative. The German physicist Werner Heisenberg showed that the more precisely we locate a particle the less accurately we can determine its momentum. Thus, the object-subject divide becomes fuzzy when viewed in the world of particle-waves. Existence is, only when observed; the observer is the creator. New is a constant; space and time are relative; matter and energy are interchangeable. Nature suggests that the universe is ever evolving, dynamic and uncertain. We, perhaps as co-creators with the deity, are continually making all things new. Interestingly, we read, “Einstein was captivated by the mystery of matter. His deep religious sense and his quest for spiritual truth motivated his scientific mind.”3 As we wonder about how God is creating the new, how God intersects with the universe, consider what science says to our pondering. M. C. Escher “Relativity”

Lord, save us from misusing your words and help us stay awake. Amen.

Contemplation: the Brain and the Mind Thursday Week 1 19 I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? Isaiah 43:19a

We live in the 21st century—around 2000 years since the early followers of Christ lived and Jesus, the one sent from God, walked the earth, and around 2,800 years after the prophets of Israel and Judah brought the word of the Lord to God’s people that God was going to do a new thing. The Day of the Lord was coming, a new covenant would replace the old one. Can we conclude that God still is creating a new way? Can our prayers for the coming of the kingdom in fullness be real? Can we wait in faith; can we prepare the way? Do we hope, trust today? Knowing God’s ways, finding God’s presence, hearing God’s directives, is not often clear. For most of us the word of the Lord is not writ large nor are we often ready to receive. We have lives to live, responsibilities to meet, and a world to engage. Time set aside to become attuned to our Creator, to bear witness to the good news of Jesus, and to nurture the spirit life within, though our intention and definitive we say of who we are, because we are overwhelmed by our own affairs, is often missing from our daily living. People of faith through the ages tell us that knowing God and the self in God requires work, dedicated time, and

3 Ilia Delio, op cit, p. 36. perseverance. Times of contemplation and prayer train the mind to be open to the divine. Recent scientific investigations of the brain and our mind suggest that the development of our consciousness, the activity of our mind, follows the emerging pattern of all of the universe, which implies that we are a part of the wholeness that is reality. Our consciousness according to the research of Roger Sperry depends both on a particular region of the brain and its complexity which is a function of the degree of its interconnectedness. Exponentially increasing feedback and feedforward loops create a brain that is a multilayered frequency receptor. As we tune in, we pick familiar frequency patterns and “train” the mind. If we become locked into fixed loops we will fail to evolve or, in other words, we will be forced to live in a particular static reality.4 The brain is now known to have a certain degree of plasticity and is continually in flux and potentially creating new. It is an open system operating on many levels. Meditation or contemplation can focus the brain and allow the mind to center on its inner reality. Repeated meditative practice can develop a mind that is freed from egocentric narrowness and false identities. According to Ilia Delio, over the years a contemplative practice of conscious emptying of the mind of thinking brings us “not [to] nothingness but, paradoxically, [to] ‘all-ness’ or ‘oneness.’…[This reveals] the deepest core of oneself beyond thought, words and concept, the level at which there is no separate ‘I.’ Only when we experience emptiness can our innate compassion arise.”5 This silencing can increase our chances of perceiving the new thing God is doing that now springs forth. Continuing or establishing a regular time of contemplation this Advent may be the means we need to heal, to perceive, to be instruments of making all things new as God intends. Will you try?

Lord, save us from misusing your words and help us stay awake. Amen.

4 Ilia Delio, op cit, pp. 66-68. 5 Ilia Delio, op cit, pp. 152-153 Imagination: Poet Robert Frost Friday Week 1 7 When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. 8 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs. Mark 13: 7-8 Some hear the descriptions of the return of the Son of Man as judge of the “quick and the dead” as suggestive of the end of the world. If not the complete annihilation of all that is, certainly the apocalypse is a means of “making all things new.” Read Robert Frost’s poem in light of the messages of this week’s study. Try journaling your responses to the poem. Journaling is writing freely without the constraints of form or correctness. It is personal and free flowing. Reread and hear what God is saying.

Fire and Ice6 Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.

Lord, save us from misusing your words and help us stay awake. Amen.

Who is God? Message of the Crucifixion Saturday Week 1 13 As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” 2 Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.” Mark 13: 1 - 2 This is the season of Advent; we look forward to the return of Christ in glory, or probably we look forward more to the celebration of

6 Robert Frost, Complete Poems of Robert Frost (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1949), p. 268. Jesus’s birth. The little baby, the bright star, the magi gifts, these are the things we like to think about, these are the things that make Christmas a glorious holiday. However, the return of Christ for which we wait, the redemption of creation and its fulfillment, happens we are told because Jesus, God’s son, the Son of Man, was crucified. His message was rejected; his call for return to God’s ways was a threat to the authorities; his insistence on his and our oneness with our Creator was seen as blasphemy, so he was killed. God redeems the world in the face of the violent death of an innocent person. What kind of God is that? What message does that bring to our understanding of how we are to live in a rapidly changing world, a society that has yet to find the way of Christ. What does the “how” of the declaration that God is doing a new thing tell us about the one to whom we pledge allegiance? The issues confronting our society today in many ways parallel those that Jesus addressed. We struggle to create a social order that includes all, and does not relegate some to the margins, to places where their pain cannot be seen and thus ignored. We continue to struggle to find ways for nations to interact without violence—violence of war, violence of economic subjugation, violence of assigning superiority and inferiority. How often do we fail to hear the prophets cries for repentance? How frequently do we settle for accommodation and security of our position rather than address the issues as followers of Christ? Is God not perhaps crying to us, “How long will you close your eyes and ears to me?” The God Jesus reveals is the God who gives all, the God whose love knows no end. Perhaps the crucifixion says that this is a God who defeats evil by submitting to it and changing it. Imagine what that says about our Creator and we the created ones. Imagine how this God will make all things new. Perhaps the new comes in a broken heart, a tortured body, and a loving embrace. How do you see it; what do you hear?

Lord, save us from misusing your words and help us stay awake. Amen.

Making All Things New What is the Human response? Advent Week 2

10 Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other. Psalm 85: 10 Scripture: 2 Peter 3: 1 – 18 Sunday Week 2 Expectation is about the future; waiting is about now; delay tugs at our sense of being. Before you read look within and seek to know where your heart is now. Are you excitedly expectant, impatiently waiting, fearfully experiencing delay? In awareness read and listen.

3 This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you; in them I am trying to arouse your sincere intention by reminding you 2 that you should remember the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets, and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken through your apostles. 3 First of all you must understand this, that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and indulging their own lusts 4 and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since our ancestors died, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation!” 5 They deliberately ignore this fact, that by the word of God heavens existed long ago and an earth was formed out of water and by means of water, 6 through which the world of that time was deluged with water and perished. 7 But by the same word the present heavens and earth have been reserved for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the godless. 8 But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. 9 The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed. 11 Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, 12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire? 13 But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home. 14 Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; 15 and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation. So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures. 17 You therefore, beloved, since you are forewarned, beware that you are not carried away with the error of the lawless and lose your own stability. 18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

Lord, let our waiting response be acceptable in your sight. Amen.

Emotions Monday Week 2 13 But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home. 2 Peter 3:13 Waiting in expectation, when we think about it, creates all sorts of responses. We may logically, that is in light of cold reason, determine a particular event will happen with certainty, even if it is not absolutely assured. We say we’ll be there “if the creek don’t rise,” or “you can take it to the bank.” Yet even in those circumstances we may feel a twinge of anxiety as the time approaches; we may check secretively to make sure what we promised indeed has happened. When the expectation is truly that, a hope but not a given, our deeper emotions raise their heads. We may fear the future. We may feel relief that something will soon be done about a troubling problem. We may openly put our trust in the assurance of another, a leader or guru, but underneath we may hold some angst. The early followers of Jesus heard those who knew the Lord in the flesh say that he had said he would return—return in glory and bring the kingdom of God to fruition. Later followers heard these same words from those who had known the early disciples. And those who were the leaders of the church as it became an institution within the social order of the Empire repeated the promise, the hope. Each time, however, the message was farther and farther removed from its origin. We, some two thousand years later, depend on a group of collected writings suggesting what is to come, and every Advent we repeat the prayer “Come, Lord Jesus, come.” The delay, though, bothered the followers in the first century CE and perhaps it still leaves us wondering. Doubt raises all sorts of questions. Some say those words of promise were misunderstood, wrong. It will never happen, or it already has happened, and I missed it. Others tell us, or maybe themselves, that it doesn’t really matter; don’t waste your time thinking about such strange stories. Inside of us perhaps we lose faith in God, we fear the world will never be redeemed, and we feel adrift and cheated, especially when our world is full of turmoil. We think we see those around us laughing at our expectations. “How long,” we cry, “are we to live in this darkness? How long must we wait?” Many, if not most, who walk the spiritual path find themselves facing times of questioning, times of upheaval, times of loss. These times of great change either in our corporate life or our personal situation often elicit fear, confusion, and a strong sense of dis-ease. We anxiously seek resolution, return to “normalcy” even if the cost is denial of reality and prolonged pain. Often we accept a dangerous solution just to escape. Counselors of course advise us to go slow, to work to see the truth undistorted by pain and loss. Societal transitions from one way of viewing reality to a totally different paradigm disrupt the social order and propel many into despair. We wonder how we are to relate, how we are to react, what indeed are the rules. The historian Yuval Noah Harari in his new book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century writes about our time: “We are still in the nihilist moment of disillusionment and anger, after people have lost faith in the old stories but before they have embraced a new one.”7 The Biblical descriptions of the early church imply that those newly minted Christians faced definitive questions of how to live in the way Jesus taught and to accept their changed status in the Roman world, a change that at times brought persecution and sacrifice. As the faith became the coin of the realm, the Church struggled again to find its appropriate role, maintaining their call as disciples of Christ, and yet significant participants in the halls of power and prestige. History tells us that often the process of reinventing, renewing, reestablishing fails to bring the order closer to the ideal espoused. As we continue to await the promised return of Christ in glory and the kingdom of heaven on earth, we are still in a transitional place. The kingdom, two thousand years after it was announced that it came near, still is and not yet. How are we to wait? How are we to use the emotions of the moment to guide us in positive expecting? What can we say to our world? Our cry, “Come Lord Jesus, come!” means what to us? Lord, let our waiting response be acceptable in your sight. Amen.

7 Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century (New York: Penguin House, 2018) Kindle Edition, Loc. 483 Lives of Humility Tuesday Week 2 14 Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; 15 and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation. 2 Peter 3: 14 – 15a

The generation who had known Jesus in the flesh and who had heard him say they would see the Son of Man returning in glory and power expected it would be in their lifetime. But it was not. Their followers likewise thought the time was near, but death intervened, and teachers came along questioning the promise. They told these early Christians that knowing Jesus as Christ didn’t require them to live expectantly and righteously. Echoing the Epicureans who argued God was totally beyond the earthly realm and uninvolved with the affairs of men, these teachers encouraged the followers to reengage the local society and reap the benefits of the Empire. They need not fear imminent judgement. The writer of second Peter adamantly counsels otherwise. The coming is in God’s time, and, as Jesus had said, it would be as unknown as the arrival of a “thief in the night.” Those who truly knew Jesus as Lord must be prepared and blameless. As they waited, they were to strive for a life worthy of Christ. In the in-between time they who knew of God’s salvific work in Christ could grow into persons ready to become citizens of the new heaven and new earth. The delay perhaps provided the opportunity to increase righteousness on earth and expand repentance among the population as a whole. Being Christian was more than affirming a set of beliefs; it demanded a disciplined and moral life.8 We obviously live in the same relationship with the Parousia as did those to whom the letter was written. And perhaps we too entertain the notion that our faith makes no real demand on our life choices. Judgment, end times, are ideas simply for the fringes. Even if we think less of a coming eschaton, does not our affirmation of the Lordship of Christ and a God who is making all things new require a response worked out in the way we live our lives? We are often aware that our lives fall short of what we would desire and certainly short of what we as redeemed in Christ would expect. The question to us, it seems, is much the same as the one the writer poses for the early church congregations: Will Christ find you faithful when he comes? Are you using the waiting

8 Duane F. Watson, “The Second Letter of Peter Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections” The New Interpreter’s Bilble Vol. XII (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998) pp. 323-331 time to do the work of preparing the earth for the reign of God? Is your relationship with God and with humanity, right? Interestingly when we think of times of expectancy, we may remember that when we concentrated so on the end to come time seemed to crawl. However, when we engaged ourselves in other activities, sometimes those of preparation for the coming event, the time seemed to move swiftly by. I suspect most women who have carried a child are aware of that paradox. Those who have longed to be finished with schooling in belief that “being adult” would free them, perhaps as they look back, realize that the time had its necessary preparatory purpose. Ponder perhaps what in your life, what in our life, is necessary to welcome Christ’s return. Try walking humbling with our God.

Lord, let our waiting response be acceptable in your sight. Amen.

Nature’s Response—Probabilistic Universe and Human Choice Wednesday Week 2

In the strange world of quantum mechanics reality is probabilistic, subjective, relational, and uncertain. Fuzzy one might say although the term is rather outside the precision mathematicians and scientists prefer. A probability function describes where a particle might be when it is behaving as a wave. Waves of the myriad of subatomic particles interact, bond and create new. “The quantum world” says Ilia Delio “is a continuous dance of energy in which relationships form reality.”9 Only when observed, scientists tell us, does the probability wave collapse. Experiments have shown that particles possess an interconnectivity, “entanglement webs,” across the universe and these webs transmit information instantaneously, a property being used in present communications technology. Joanne Baker points out that

9 Delio, op cit, p. 61. “Entanglement tells us that it is simply wrong to assume that our entire world exists independently in one form, irrespective of our measurement of it. There is no such thing as an object fixed in space, just information. We can only gather information about our world and order it as we see fit, so that it makes sense to us. The universe is a sea of information; the form we assign to it is secondary.”10 The change in how the universe is viewed as a result of the work of twentieth century physicists has led to a rethinking and rediscovery of theological views. Many have noticed how congruent these findings about the universe are to the experiences and descriptions of reality that mystics of all faiths and times have expressed. The notions of the unity of all things, the dynamic flow of life, and the subjectivity of nature are the way many who through meditation have touched a place within and beyond and understand the world.11 Significantly when we consider the role that physicists cite of observation and choice in determining reality, it raises the question about the part humans might play in the process of creating the new. Likewise, the picture of the universe writ large and subatomic as painted by today’s theories invites us to reimagine the nature of the deity. Einstein famously saw this revised view of the universe convincingly argue that God does not role dice. Stephen Hawking reached the opposite conclusion. He saw God as “an inveterate gambler, who throws the dice on every possible occasion.”12 The universe as well as Scripture implies that we do have choices. We have a choice how we wait. We have a choice how we expect Christ’s return. We have a choice how we envision the new heaven and new earth. We have a choice whether or not to discount the idea that God is engaged in our world. We have a choice whether or not to ignore the idea that what we do and who we are matters to more than our limited and finite circle of existence. How might choice as a part of the universe affect your relationship with God?

Lord, let our waiting response be acceptable in your sight. Amen.

10 Joanne Baker, 59 physics ideas you really need to know, (Quercus, 2007) p. 118. 11 Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism Third Edition, Updated (Boston: Shambhala, 1991) This work details the similarities between the mystics’ experiences and the description of the universe held by physicists today. 12 Joanne Baker, op cit ppp. 116, 119. Contemplation: Mind of Christ Thursday Week 2 20 and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. Gal. 2:20a This verse from Paul’s letter to the Galatians is one of my favorites and in many ways for me one of the most provocative lines of Scripture. How indeed can Christ live in me and is it not presumptuous to think that could ever be real? Paul in the first clause of sentence says he was “crucified with Christ” and thus he no longer lives but Christ lives in him. I leave that part out often for it demands more than I am willing to give. However, prudent thought would declare that for Christ to live in me, then the “I” that I am must in some way die, and experience tells me that is painful, at times violent, and feels done to me. Still I sense that if I am truly to live, dying is essential to the rising. As one reads Paul’s letters I believe one can see that he found that putting on the mind of Christ, allowing Christ to guide his inner being, was a journey not accomplished simply with an assertion of belief or statement of faith. He described his transition from a persecutor of Christians to a champion of the faith as a result of a blinding light and a vision of the Lord, but he then withdrew for years before beginning his ministry. One could imagine that in this time away the beginning steps in the process of having the mind of Christ within were taken. As he engaged his mission to the Gentiles we see in his preaching and writing an evolving understanding of what God has done in Christ Jesus, and one could suppose an increasing inner transformation as the mind of Christ becomes his. Our intentionally choosing to be one with Christ, to finding God’s law written on our hearts, forms the process by which we become makers of heaven on earth. Ilia Delio describes it this way: “But if the self belongs to God, it belongs to all that God is and is becoming; this, the self does not simply belong to God in this immediate moment, but it has always belonged to God in the divine infinity of love. Thus the self that is still being created in this space- time cosmic adventure belongs to God in the same way that the world unfolding in and through us belongs to God; and because God cannot stop loving and oneing, God is deeply intwined with self and the world. When Saint Paul states that we are to have the ‘same mind as Christ Jesus,’ he means we are to break through our individual egos and become one with God in all our relationships so that, like Jesus, we create the world as a reflection of the One we love, God.”13 Contemplate the state of your mind this day. Ask Christ to be your guide within and all around. Lord, let our waiting response be acceptable in your sight. Amen

13 Ilia Delio, op cit, p. 161. Imagination: Dialogue with Disciples of Early Church and with the Future Church Friday Week 2 22 And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them. Luke 7: 22

This week we have been thinking about how we as humans respond to the declaration that God is making all things new. In this time of waiting for the new heaven and new earth, a wait that perhaps by now seems eternal, we live, and as living beings we choose how to chart our existence. Every day we make decisions, some major, but most what we call every day. I imagine most of us don’t invest much energy in these everyday choices; we run on autopilot much of the time. But when we reflect, the cumulation of these decisions define our lives; perhaps we need to pay more attention. I suggest that you spend some time imagining two conversations. First imagine you are visiting with a disciple in the early church in Rome. He too waits for Christ to return in glory. Ask him about how he waits; what he see as important to do; what strengthens his faith and what discourages it. Let the conversation flow. Then bring to mind a Christian in the 22nd century. Ask her questions about Christ’s return. Has it happened? If so, what is it like? If not, how does she wait; how does she maintain the faith? I find journaling a dialogue illuminating. Letting the words just flow out and writing them down in a way that doesn’t interrupt the conversation, but allows for a record, is what I have tried to do. I use initials for the speakers—M for me and O for other or if you give the person a name the first letter. With a written record you can reread at another time and reflect seeking direction for how you are to engage this time of waiting. Let your imagination be a means to hear the One who is making all things new.

Lord, let our waiting response be acceptable in your sight. Amen

Who is God? Message of Jesus’s Life Saturday Week 2 16 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: 18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” 20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Luke 4: 16 - 21

We often say that Jesus as pictured in the Gospels is a model for human living. When you hear that or even say it, what do you envision? What about the way Jesus lived do you find descriptive of a life well lived or a life you would emulate? We all know that we live in a vastly different time from Jesus; our world’s dominant features have few parallels with first century Palestine or so it seems. Would we say that we humans are almost a different species from those we read about in the Roman Empire, or are we truly similar? Has the human race evolved so that there is little realistically that current humans can learn from Jesus? Stop for a moment and truly ask those questions. We have been programmed as Christians to see in Jesus the perfection of humanity and the way in which God is revealed in our sphere. When we observe how we interact as a species on this planet now, how like the way Jesus related do we seem to be? Jesus announced his public ministry using the words of the prophet Isaiah. The longed for new, the freedom of the oppressed, the world structured according to God’s commands he said was now, and he was the one who would bring fulfillment. When we read the prophets promise and think of the teachings and deeds of Jesus’s life over the next years we must conclude, I think, that he lived concerned first and primarily about the circumstances of the oppressed. Those society rejected, he heard and redeemed. The poor, the captives, the blind were those to whom his message of good news is addressed. Who are they today? How are we those? As we answer those questions, may we find direction about how we are to live as we wait; how we are to hear and redeem those now. In this work perhaps we pave the way for God to make all things new.

Lord, let our waiting response be acceptable in your sight. Amen.

Making All Things New Why is God Making all New? What is God Making? Advent Week 3

10 Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other. Psalm 85:10

Scripture: Revelation 21: 1 – 7 Sunday Week 3 As you read find a word or phrase that speaks to you about why God is making all things new. Read again and find a word or phrase that for you is the essence of the new earth. Pray as one a part of this place.

21 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; 4 he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” 5 And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” 6 Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. 7 Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children.

Lord, we pray in thanksgiving and confession for all you have done and are doing. Amen.

Human Failure Monday Week 3 7 So the LORD said, “I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the sight of the LORD. Gen. 6: 7 - 8 23 since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; Romans 3: 23

Questions of why a new creation and what are the elements of newness seem to circle around each other with no beginning and end, but together they begin to satisfy our desire to know. We want to know what to expect. We humans seek cause and effect; knowing the why of an event calms our angst, enables acceptance, and gives peace. It at times drives us to find that which is not, to assign blame or glory where it is inappropriate. Other times, however, it gives us freedom to accept when the world turns away from us. Knowing what and why in other instances shows us the ways of truth and prompts profitable behaviors. So, when we read in Scripture that God is making all things new, we wonder what will this newness be and why, oh why, is God doing this. Some of us will find it bordering on sacrilegious to question God, wonder why God does what God does; some will find fearful probing the depths of the divine and divine vision. However, Scriptures abound in descriptions of those who question the deity. Job wanted to know why he suffered so. Jonah wanted to know why God would rescue his enemies, the residents of Nineveh. The prophets warned the people telling them that they knew why they suffered so: they had broken their covenant and they had disavowed their God. The gospel writers recount in detail the message of Jesus, the Messiah, as he describes the coming of the Day of the Lord. The visionary who penned the Revelation concludes his work with a glorious description of the New Jerusalem. So, we dare to ask: Why is God making all things new and what is this new? The prophet Jeremiah in the midst of the military defeat of Israel and the deportation of its elite affirms that God has not abandoned them and will make a new covenant different from the last. He says, 31 The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. (Jer. 31: 31-32). The why is the failure of God’s people to uphold their side of the bargain. Failure on the part of humanity appears frequently to have led God to try a different course, to do things differently, to make things new. God according to the writer of Genesis planned to destroy life on earth by flood, so God could start all over with a new creation. Only the righteousness of Noah stopped the complete destruction (Gen. 6:5-8). The why was the violence of humans, the failure of our species to please the Lord. The corrupt behavior of humans, the desire we have to be our own god and control our destiny, the failure to worship God alone prompts God through God’s messengers again and again to declare,17 …I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. (Isaiah 65: 17). In the gospel of John, the writer in perhaps what is the most famous quotation in the Bible tells us that God in love sent God’s son to reconcile the world to God’s self (John 3:16). Why is God making all things new; God loves. So, are we to conclude that we, humans, are responsible for God “making all things new?” We failed; God must rescue. Or did God make a mistake in the creating process? Were we created with a fatal flaw, a flaw only apparent in time? Humans from one perspective have within their DNA the seeds of destruction, or to put it another way, we are all sinners, everyone. Only God could make it right, redeem, and to do that God must make all things new. Whatever the cause of human failure to be good stewards of the earth, the answer to why God is making new is perhaps our inability or unwillingness to live as God intends. So maybe the joy we can find is indeed the conviction that God is redeeming and the pain, the want, the separation is to be made new. Today spend some time pondering our nature as humans.

Lord, we pray in thanksgiving and confession for all you have done and are doing. Amen.

Fruition Tuesday Week 3 16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. 17 So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 20 So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 2 Cor. 5: 16 – 20 Is there not another scenario to answer the question of why God is making all things new, one that would prove more palatable and preserve the declaration that God saw creation as good (Gen. 1)? Perhaps instead of seeing the span of the history of humanity as a continuous example of human failure to live according to God’s commands, a failure that suggests a fatal flaw in our nature, we saw the movement of time as an evolving process. All of creation is moving along a trajectory that ultimately brings it to fruition. From the perspective of the natural world, creation seems to be evolving into ever more complex forms of life with increasing diversity. We, a part of that process, have developed a consciousness of it and thus perhaps a unique role in its unfolding. Ilia Delio echoing the thoughts of Teilhard de Chardin sees Christianity reflecting the evolutionary way God is creating new. She writes: “Evolution describes the process of unfolding life, including, but not limited to, biological life. It involves an interplay of forces and can be thought of as ‘a broad set of principles and patterns that generate novelty, change, and development over time.’”14 She sees Jesus and his mission as the beginning of a new age, an age where humanity is unified in love of God and a part of God’s rule. Jesus’s inner connection with God and his renewal of a spiritual life that leads to compassionate living and oneness with God show humanity the way to its true reality. All life then would be characterized by truth and love and wholeness. The problem in Jesus’s view, she says, was humans, their desire for “mastery and success,” their addiction to “power and control.” Nature didn’t have that problem as Jesus pointed out, “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin” yet God provides. (Luke 6:28)15 She concludes, “[Christianity] is a religion of evolution because we believe in the power of God to do new things, symbolized by the risen Christ. Christians, however, must choose to evolve; to become conscious of what is yet unconscious and unwhole; to connect consciously to the whole planet, the whole earth community, and the universe.”16 The love of God seen in Christ Jesus points the way and, as Paul says, humanity is forever changed. Perhaps the ultimate purpose of life is just this—to evolve over the space-

14 Delio, op cit p. 44 15 Ibid. p. 74-77 16 Ibid. p. 197 time continuum into the image the Creator has. The process indeed would be “making all things new.” Can you see life this way? Is it real?

Lord, we pray in thanksgiving and confession for all you have done and are doing. Amen.

Nature’s Response: Caterpillar to Butterfly Wednesday Week 3 The idea that the natural world reveals God is found in many religious dogmas. Pagan faiths created gods who controlled the forces of the sea, the river, the stars. Around the globe people believe certain places hold special powers and connectivity. The Celts, both pagan and Christian, saw the same deity revealed in scripture and nature. The pattern of the seasons is repeated in the birth, growth, and death of living things. For Christians the One who reigns, the one who comes in glory, was born, died, and was resurrected. Perhaps engaging the elements of the natural order whether subatomic particles, vast galaxies, or tiny insects can give us insight into ourselves, our world, and yes our God. I saw an article in the paper not too long ago about a caterpillar that was stinky. I wasn’t aware of any such; the caterpillars I had seen were fuzzy, sometimes colorful, but always crawling usually on a leaf it needed for food. The life cycle of these insects involves a complete metamorphosis which probably is the reason the caterpillar/butterfly is a frequent metaphor for Christ. At the risk of overusing the metaphor, I thought this particular member of the lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) order would be interesting to investigate. The larva is described as snakelike with a gland that secretes a strong unpleasant order when threatened. Like all members of this species, this caterpillar forms a chrysalis from which emerges a swallowtail butterfly, one of the most spectacular insects. The adult butterfly lays eggs before it dies, and the cycle begins again. Interestingly the longest period in the process is the caterpillar stage. Sometimes it takes us a long time to grow to the place where we can begin to be transformed into the beautiful self we are. Some of us or maybe all of us in some way begin stinky! When we look around our surroundings, we probably notice that most forms of life don’t have such a variant life cycle. The young are just smaller replicas of the mature creature. Change though does take place as the creature matures, procreates, and dies. I have a huge oak tree in my backyard that grew from an acorn planted by a squirrel I assume. Certainly, it was not planted by us, but it reminds me that creation is designed as a whole with interacting parts, oneness out of many. When we think of our own lives perhaps we can identify what it is in us that resembles the natural order we see and find both assurances of God’s presence in our lives and our continuing transformation as children of God. Lord, we pray in thanksgiving and confession for all you have done and are doing. Amen.

Contemplation: Centering Prayer Thursday Week 3 10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11 For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. 13 And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual. 1 Cor. 2: 10 - 13

Being open to God and neighbor takes practice. We seem as humans to be constructed with an innate co-operative spirit, (Some postulate that without acting in concert homo sapiens would not have survived as a species thus the natural selection process favored the growth of that trait.) but we also have a strong instinct for self- preservation. Often the self-oriented drive prompts us to use the other rather than form groups that are equitable. However, if we look to Jesus as the one who comes in the name of the Lord, one who reveals God’s kingdom, we must conclude that our true selves love as God loves. Centering prayer is one method when practiced that can train and transform our way of being so that we are in God and at the same time of the world. Thomas Keating, a American Cistercian monk, is credited with popularizing and refining for the contemporary audience this form of contemplative prayer. Centering prayer’s primary characteristic lies in the idea that one is intentional in being in the presence of God. One doesn’t pay attention to anything; the mind is silenced so the heart can be heard. The practice is quite uncomplicated, though the execution takes many times of intentional practice. To begin one finds a comfortable seated position. One or two words, such as ‘come Lord,’ or ‘peace’ are adopted to signify your intention of being in God’s presence. Close your eyes and ask God to be with you in your time of meditation by repeating your word. When thoughts arise and grab your attention (and they will often) repeat your word of intention. ‘Thoughts’ is a generic term for anything that grabs your attention—feelings, physical itches, brilliant insights, ideas. The practice is to let all thoughts float away like leaves in a stream without attracting your attention or using your energy. When the prayer period is up, classically twenty minutes, open your eyes and say a prayer of thanksgiving. Setting a timer can help discourage worry about time passing. Practitioners over a lifetime find this prayer is transformative. Cynthia Bourgeault describes her experience this way: “Like most beginners, I thought that the aim in Centering Prayer was to let go of my thoughts so that God could “fill” me with [God’s] presence. One day I suddenly realized that the God story was the sideshow and the letting go was the main event. That was when the practice flipped for me, as I recognized that thoughts were not the obstacle; they were the raw material, as every opportunity to practice releasing that focal point for attention deepened the reservoir of “free attention” within me and strengthened the signal of the homing beacon of my heart…. Sooner or later a tipping point is reached … when the strength of this signal becomes stronger than the attraction exerted by the thoughts. When a thought arises at the surface of the mind, a countering pull from the depths becomes so strong that letting go is effortless; in fact, it is impossible to do otherwise. At about this time, typically, one also begins to experience this “tug” outside of the prayer period itself, as events of daily life offer themselves as reminders of (rather than distractions from) the deeper yearning of the heart….”17 Regular prayer in this way can help us see the new that God is making. I encourage all to practice. Lord, we pray in thanksgiving and confession for all you have done and are doing.

17 Cynthia Bourgeault, The Heart of Centering Prayer: Nondual Christianity in Theory and Practice (Shambhala Publications: 2016), 87–88, 89–90. As quoted in [email protected] 10/31/2020 Imagination: Picture Garden and City Friday Week 3 8 And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 Out of the ground the LORD God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Gen. 2: 8 - 9 2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. Rev. 21: 2

I have for some time been intrigued by the fact that the Bible begins the story of humanity in a garden and ends it in a city. The ancient story of human creation and human disobedience (Genesis 2 and 3) tells us humans walked around an idyllic natural garden, Eden, where God joined them and conversed with them. There we had everything we needed. We were surrounded by the beauty of the earth. The passage from Revelation at the end of the Bible also describes a beautiful place, a place where God is and a place where there is no want. God is with us ideally in both, but one is a garden and the other is a city. I wonder what that means, why that is. I invite you to imagine—close your eyes and see the garden. Now draw it. Color it. What is the dominant hue? What is the major feature? What hides in the background? Rest for a while in that garden. If God comes along engage in conversation if you think it is right or just enjoy God’s presence. At some point close your eyes again and see the city, the New Jerusalem. Draw it. Color it. Looking at your picture what is the most prominent attribute of the city? What amazes you? What pleases you? What words describing the city come to you? Wander around the city. Hear the Lord, the ruler of all, speak to the citizenry. Find your home and go there for a while. When the time of imagining rightfully ends reflect on your drawings. Look again at your pictures. What changes seem important? What constants seem right to you? What does God of both the garden and city want you to know about your city and your garden, our world? Lord, we pray in thanksgiving and confession for all you have done and are doing. Amen.

Who is God? Message of the Resurrection Saturday Week 3 5 And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” 6 Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. 7 Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children. Rev. 21: 5 - 7

At the heart of our faith is the promise embodied in the resurrection. The earliest Christians, as revealed in the letters of Paul, sought deeply to grasp what Christ’s presence among them after they had seen him crucified meant. The idea of resurrection was not completely foreign to Jews of Jesus’s time, but it was generally thought of as something a long way off. Perhaps like us they affirmed it, but only when death knocked on their personal door did they ponder deeply. The conversation between Martha and Jesus as she mourned the death of her brother Lazarus is illustrative. (John 11:17 – 27). Paul said he met Jesus on the road to Damascus, an encounter that changed his life completely. Much of his writing centered in convincing us that Christ, the crucified one, indeed had risen from the dead and in his rising he had conquered death. We who were united to him in death would also be united with him in resurrection (Romans 6:5 – 6:11). God’s grace made apparent in Christ had entered the world and brought justification, forgiveness, and freedom to those who lived in the faith of Christ Jesus. Paul, like the early followers of the Way, believed Christ would return soon and take his rightful place in the world, so any separation of their promised eternal life as foreshadowed in the resurrection of Jesus and the expected return of Christ in glory was not an issue. But as followers died and the return was not apparent questions arose, and perhaps still nag at us today. What is the message of the resurrection? What does it mean that Christ will return in glory? Are these two questions connected; if so, how, and if not, what does that say about God’s “making all things new?”

Lord, we pray in thanksgiving and confession for all you have done and are doing. Amen.

Making All Things New How? Why? What? Respond Advent Week 4

7 I will tell of the decree of the LORD: He said to me, “You are my son; today I have begotten you. 8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. Psalm 2: 7 - 8 Scripture: Luke 2: 8 – 14 Sunday Week 4 After reading ponder how Christ will be born this year; how God’s peace might come.

8In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see — I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” 13And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, 14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”

Lord, we pray that you will be born in our hearts and in our world. Amen.

How? Why? What? and Human Response? Monday Week 4 1 The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Mark 1:1 The proclamation “See, I am making all things new.” ends the Biblical Christ story. It is uttered from the throne in the New Jerusalem, the holy city, the home of God. All is new—the old heaven and the old earth are gone and the new is. Glory, majesty, triumph mark the scene. Pain, death, and thirst are no more. No more spectacular scene can be imagined than the descent of the Lamb in glory. “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.” “It is done.” As the words paint pictures for us our breath is taken away. The story, however, begins in a small Jewish town, Bethlehem. While there is a heavenly host to announce that God is bringing good news, the scene was at night and the participants were lowly shepherds. The Messiah, the Lord, was a baby lying in a manger. So, when we ask how God is making all things new we perhaps are forced to leave the question open or consider answering not in terms of a physical event, but in terms of the heart that is revealed. The deity will go to great lengths by human measure to save the world. God makes the effort. God comes to humanity. God invites shepherds and Gentiles, women and Jews, all; God so loves. We wait still. But is it different this time? How are we responding now to what God is doing? What is it that we see when we close our eyes? Indeed, how is God making all things new? Stop now as we begin the last week of Advent and reflect, wonder, and pray. Take time to anticipate the coming without closing God’s door of being and doing with your expectations. We do know our universe is different today from what it was when we began this Advent season; it probably is a difference we can’t physically see, but the physicists tell us, with the caveat “as far as we can tell now,” our heavens are constantly expanding along an arrow of time which began at the Big Bang. What we see in the sky are remnants of the universe eons ago; what we see tomorrow will bring glimpses of past we could not know before. We too are changed. We have dreams; we hope for peace; we seek Christ in our neighborhoods. We pray to God that we are a little less the failure that leads God to be forced to make anew. We at times have flickers of the Spirit within us and around us in the others we meet and in our surroundings. The lights strung to celebrate the season cast a hazy color in the night sky; something is new now. Let us participate in the excitement of what is to come and let us in the silence of hearts know what has been. Let the good news of Jesus Christ engulf us as we wait. Wonder how Jesus will come this year? Wonder how you will be as God is making all things new. Wonder how others will be too. I pray Lord that I will know you and find my joy and peace in you.

Lord, we pray that you will be born in our hearts and in our world. Amen.

Who is God? Message of the Incarnation Tuesday Week 4 15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” Luke 2:15

Humans, when they conceive of God, frequently picture one who is out-there beyond their realm, completely other, transcendent. Often God or gods are seen to control the earth and so humans need to please them or cajole them to get what they need to survive. The Israelites expanded the out-there God to one that while still heavenly was engaged in the affairs of men. In their desert experience they came to see Yahweh as having chosen them to be his people and to bring the world to know and worship the one true God. Yahweh they saw as an active player in the world, in fact the principle actor in human affairs, but Yahweh was still Other. The one the shepherds were told about and went to see would be seen by his followers as the embodiment of Yahweh, God. The babe of Bethlehem, the itinerant preacher Jesus who wandered the country of Galilee, the one crucified by Rome as an insurrectionary, that one was the Word made flesh. God entered the human race becoming one of us to bridge the chasm between the out-there transcendent deity and men and women created in the image of that God. An embodied God experiences human life in its fullness, the joys and sorrows, the pains and blessings, the love and betrayal, the living and dying. The incarnation affirms the worth of human flesh, human relating, human goodness. God who chose to be one with humankind restored relationship between Creator and created; God in God’s love bore the cost of healing the brokenness. God came as a baby just as we all do. As God in Jesus lived and died, he showed the way all people can find wholeness and love. Soon we return to Bethlehem to see what God has done, even while we wait for what God will do. Will you join the shepherds and see anew this thing that God is making known to us, the new thing that God is doing?

Lord, we pray that you will be born in our hearts and in our world. Amen.

Contemplation: Wake Up! Bring Christ to Birth Wednesday Week 4 “Merry Christmas” to which the monk replied “May Christ be born in you..” The late Anthony de Mello, a Jesuit priest born in Bombay India and a noted spiritual guide combining insights from Western and Eastern spirituality, continuously called on people to wake up, to know themselves truly, and recognize their greatness. Most he said were asleep, a point he made in rather pointed and surprising stories. Sadly he says we spend our lives asleep and miss “the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence.”18 As we approach the end of Advent and the celebration of the birth of Jesus we are perhaps more

18 Anthony de Mello, Awareness The Perils and Opportunities of Reality (New York: Image, 1990). p. 5. The book gives insight and suggestions on how we can make our spiritual journey one that sheds attachments, illusions, and all that keeps us from being completely aware and our true selves. The way of emptying is known to mystics of all stripes as the path where our “I” is, in the words of Paul, the Christ that lives in us. There are many publications of his exercises and YouTube videos of his presentations. conscious, or at least aware that we lack consciousness, of lives lived in Christ Jesus. My call for the birth of Christ in our world in glory means that I wish Christ to be born anew within me and that our world reflects the love of God and the peace of Christ. I hope your wish is the same. Sue Monk Kidd describes her experience of Christmas out of her waiting heart: “…as the birthing begins, the soul becomes a nativity. The whole Bethlehem pageant starts up inside us. An unprecedented new star shines in our darkness—a new illumination and awareness. God sends Wisdom to visit us, bearing gifts. The shepherding qualities inside us are summoned to help tend what’s being born. The angels sing and a whole new music begins to float in the spheres. Some new living, breathing dimension of the life of Christ emerges with a tiny cry that says, I am. One of the best parts of the whole drama is that it happens in the dung and the straw of our life, just as it happened in the dung and straw of Bethlehem. Birthing Christ is an experience of humility.”19 I invite you to take some time and ask Christ, the one who was in the flesh as we are, to increase your awareness. What about the exterior world bothers you, what blocks what you want, who are your enemies, why is life difficult, not good? Then look within for these same issues, barriers, trials? What truly keeps the Christ within from being? Again, look outward and determine what gifts you bring to the world, where do you have impact, what do others tell you that is important to them about what you do? Look inward and give thanks and seek further direction. Finally, find how you are or can be a prophet and a healer to the world. Honestly and hopefully ask yourself how can Christ be more alive in me in the coming year? How can I give birth to Christ this Christmastide? Lord, we pray that you will be born in our hearts and in our world. Amen.

19 Sue Monk Kidd, While the Heart Waits Spiritual Direction for Life’s Sacred Questions (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1990) p. 181. Imagination: Dream Angels in the Night Sky Christmas Eve 2 The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness — on them light has shined. Isaiah 9:2

Today is Christmas Eve; perhaps you have a few moments to absorb the beauty and darkness of the night. Step outside or look out the window. See the stars, the moon, the lights of Christmas. Close your eyes and imagine. Imagine you are on a hillside away from the world. Sit and feel the evening coolness. See a sky bright with starlight. Remember today is the day we celebrate the angelic voice that told shepherds that God was coming to earth in a new way and they, those society had pushed aside, were invited to be witnesses. Think about the world today. Name the concerns you have. Express the emotions that hold you now. Let your body feel whatever tensions it has and then gently turn them loose. See your embodied self—mind, heart, soul—all one in your body. Rest in yourself until you sense you are open to the new. Ask God to come. Now hear in the night sky sounds, songs. Listen carefully; what are the words? What is the tone? Who sings? Let light shine brightly, covering the darkness. Let God’s messengers, angels of the night sky, tell you of what is happening, what God is doing for God’s good creation now, how God is making all things new. Let the sounds fade away and ponder how you will reply. What is your prayer tonight?

And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new”

us, humanity cosmos

the Son world Merry Christmas Christmas Day Hebrews 1: 1 - 12 1Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, 2but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. 3He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. 5For to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you”? Or again, “I will be his Father, and he will be my Son”? 6And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God’s angels worship him.” 7Of the angels he says, “He makes his angels winds, and his servants flames of fire.” 8But of the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, and the righteous scepter is the scepter of your kingdom. 9 You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.” 10And, “In the beginning, Lord, you founded the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands; 11 they will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like clothing; 12 like a cloak you will roll them up, and like clothing they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will never end.”

May God be born in you today, may God be alive in our world today, may the earth find peace. Amen