"Breaking Open The Word"

The Question: What simple messages from the Bible are you missing?

My answer is _____ I have missed many messages from the Bible, but things are improving.

In today's reflection Fr. Richard begins by talking about the practice of the Quakers and Mennonites. He says, "They are well practiced in being a minority. They don't need to have crowds around them to believe that it is the truth. They gather in little groups and share the Word of God."

Joe and I find more and more groups emerging who are interested in small, intimate gatherings as opposed to large groups of people where anonymity is valued. We are blessed to serve a church of two-hundred and fifty members who know one another, work and worship side by side, study scripture together and venture out two-by-two in God's name. And, we are exploring what it means to be church in our emerging culture in this post-modern era.

As we approach 2010, Joe and I are looking forward to meeting for two years with a group of persons who are interested in exploring "Innovative Monasticism." Our hope, in this collaboration with forty other people, is that we can study Scripture, practice classical spiritual disciplines and then more deliberately and thoughtfully follow in The Way of Jesus. It is exciting precisely because it is participatory.

We have used the Bible in many ways in our culture during recent years. In his book "The New Christians" Tony Jones speaks to my point. In a discussion with other young ministers Tony said some very provocative things about the Bible.

"In my experience, evangelicals read the Bible like a science book, looking for clues that would establish its truth, in order to prove that the events recorded in the Bible actually took place and to justify what they say it says about women's roles in the church and the abonimation of homosexuality. I knew mainliners, on the other hand, who read the Bible with a healthy dose of skepticism, almost visibly uncomfortable with the extraordinary claims of miracles and items of faith like the resurrection. But I had started to think that either of these approaches is a misappropriation of the Bible. It is a living, breathing document that makes a claim on its reader's lives."

In a journal entry I wrote the question, "So Suzanne, is the Bible a living, breathing document that has made a claim on your life?" My answer was, "The Bibile has made a claim on my life, but there are days when it is not living and breathing."

Father Richard helps us experience the Bible as both living and breathing when he asks the following questions today.

Matthew 1:20 "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit."

Q. Do you really think Joseph understood what was happening?

Q. Was his trust in Mary, his dreams and the visions of angels really total certitude?

Q. Or was it actually faith?

My brothers and sisters, if you want the Bible to live and breathe take some time and answer those questions.  But be warned, it will change your life!

Dear Ones......today's blog is a reflection on the devotional of Fr. Richard taken from his book for the 17th of December. You are asked to skip over to that day in his book and follow the dates rather than the days of the weeks of Advent. This comes from a long tradition in the Roman Catholic church of beginning a special period of preparation for the great feast of Christmas eight days prior to the 25th. The season of Advent varies in length depending on what day of the Fourth Week of Advent Christmas falls.......but the eight days prior to the 25th never changes. All of the major feasts in the church have an "octave" celebration that extends the joy and celebration of the feast. Christmas also an "octave" preparation. So kindly turn to the 17th of December and follow the readings for the dates leading up to Christmas for the remaining blogs. And from me to you..........blessed preparing! Joe

The geneology of Jesus from the first chapter of Matthew begins Fr. Richard's reflection today. He ultimately says in today's writing that "spiritually speaking, authority comes from passing through trial and darkness and coming out the other side even more free, happy, alive and contagious! Transformed people transform people."

Richard continues, "Where we ourselves have changed, suffered and been healed is where we are most in a position to be an effective change agent for others. After a while, that becomes pretty obvious."

The Question: What poverty can you find within yourself that may help you be more open to God?

As you know if you are familiar with my work, I have been learning from Fr. Richard for many years. And one of the many things he has said that changed me is this: "Either you will transform your pain or you will pass it on to others." I have done both. And I have learned from both.

Someone asked me not too long ago if it was easier for me to accept God the Father as "my Father" because I was adopted. It is an interesting question and I had never given it any thought. But I would say, that the reality that I was adopted by very wise and loving people had more to do with my image of God than the reality that I was "given up" for adoption. My parents taught me to trust and my biological parents, by their actions, taught me fear.

There is, no doubt, inherent poverty in being adopted. It seems to center around the question of worthiness and value. If I am good, or okay, why would my "mother" give me away? It is a long journey from that point to where I find myself today, working with adopted children and their parents through My TreeHouse. It is my role in that organization to help keep communication lines open between children and parents so that the "truth" about adoption can keep them all forgiven and free. These are men, women and children who have decided to break the bread of their lives with one another in an effort to transform the pain of emptiness on both sides.

It is possible for our common humanity to create fear, doubt, pain and estrangement. But it is also quite possible for great compassion to grow out of our pain and loss. When I look at the faces of the adopted children I have the honor to know and with whom I share my story, I am transformed by their courage and honesty. It is often these children and their parents who transform my poverty so that I can be open, one more time, to the ways God is in love with me.

I hope you have teachers who do the same for you.

"One of the major problems in the spiritual life is our attachment to our own self-image __ either positively or negatively created. We have to begin with some kind of identity, but the trouble is that we confuse this idea of ourselves with who we actually are in God. Ideas about things are not the things in themselves. We all have to start by forming a self-image, but the problem is our attachment to it, our need to promote it and protect it and have others like it. What a trap!

Fortunately, that is what the Spirit has to strip away from us so that we can find our "triumph and glory," as Isaih says, in God's image of us rather than in our image of ourselves, which is always changing anyway."

__Fr. Richard

"Only in the Lord ..... are righteousness and strength ...... In the Lord all the offspring of Israel shall triumph and glory." __Isaiah 45:24,25

I am concerned about the elderly. I am worried that we have inadequate health care and I am worried about the economy and the job market. But all of those concerns together do not equal the concern I have for our children, teenagers and young adults. What are we teaching them about themselves? How are we teaching them to value themselves, as they are, beautiful children of a loving God.?

Several years ago I was a presenter at a conference and a man approached me at the break talking about image and the culture. He explained to me that he was retired from a very successful advertising career and that he carried some significant guilt from that part of his life. He said, "You know, every single advertisement, regardless of the medium, is designed to make you feel bad about yourself and then offer you a solution." My immediate response was, "Well, it works."

Fr. Richard says in today's reflection, "Their self-image was based on mere psychological information instead of theological truth," when speaking of both youth and adults he has worked with in the past. Unfortunately parents, educators and other authority figures are often as trapped in the values of the culture as our children are. I'm not sure of the statistics of other generations but among Baby Boomers, those born between 1946 and 1964, most of us are not "churched." There are seventy-five (75) million of us and only fifteen (15) million are involved in church. That leaves sixty (60) million who are not. I don't know how their children are developing self-image based on theological truth.

It is easy to talk about "them", but it is me too and it breaks my heart to say it also includes my children. We have all been in the church all of our lives. We know theological truths and we try to live by them. And yet, there are many moments and many days when each of us is caught in the trap of taking our cues and identity from the world.

The Question: Which of your self-images (positive or negative) get in the way of your relationship with God? Whenever we get defensive or go emotionally up and down, this is a sign that we are attached to a self-image.

Any time I am tied to my self-image it gets in the way of my relationship with God. I so want to be part of changing the way we see ourselves. I have a platform and sometimes I can stay tuned to what is Real and other times I am as trapped as anyone else.

Two things that help me as I struggle are:

1. My self-image is not the same thing as other people's image of me.

2. I am responsible for the legacy I leave my children and my grandchildren regarding what they value and how they see themselves. I want them to always see themselves as God sees them. They want the very same for me.

Suzanne is not available to write this blog today due to oral surgery.  She is still under the influence of the sedation.  So I will try to fill in for her until she can return.  I pray I can do her justice and not disappoint.

A couple of years ago we went on a brief family vacation to a lake resort about an hour away from Dallas.  When I say it was brief, that is to say it was only for about three days; as for family, it meant all of our children, sons-in-law and grandsons.  At one of the resorts three pools there was a waterfall that flowed into the pool from a height of about seven feet.  I have a wonderful picture of myself and my two sons sitting under that waterfall allowing the refreshing water to flow over us.  Each of us has our head bowed as if in prayer and in the stillness of the moment just allowing the flow to cover us.  This scene was captured on film and the picture sits on my bookshelf in my office.  It is a reminder of the day, of the love I have for my sons, and of the flow of God's grace upon each of us.

In Fr. Rohr's devotional today, I was moved by his last sentence:  "There is probably no other way to understand God's nature except to daily stand under the waterfall of divine mercy and then become conduits of the same flow." As I view the picture of my sons sitting on either side of me and allowing the water to flow upon us; I can begin to understand just a bit of God's nature that loves the contradictions in me and offers me His mercy.  There I sat with my two sons knowing full well their faults and failures and their gifts and graces; knowing they were contradictions and knowing that I so dearly love them both.  The waterfall of mercy that I have offered to them through the years, is so very much like the waterfall of mercy that the Father has offered to me over and over again in my life.  

The Evangelist Matthew says that prostitutes and tax collectors were entering the kingdom because the were paying attention to John and his call to repent and turn around.  In the honesty of their lives, they knew they were the ones who society considered to be on the margins and out on the edge of the community.  They were self-reflective enough to realize that they were sinners in need of divine mercy and open enough to hear John say that they were also beloved children of a loving God who had mercy to offer them.

I have preached for a long time that there is nothing that we can do to get God to love us more and nothing that we can do to get God to love us less.  As John the Evangelist says:  "God is love."  That being true, the work is ours to do to accept that God loves......we are the ones called to repent and turn around and accept the love which flows down like a waterfall of divine mercy.  

Question:  Do you think God can still love you?  Knowing yourself well, can you love yourself?  Then during this the Third Week of Advent let us be honest enough to name for ourselves the inner contradictions of our lives, knowing that we are indeed beloved of God just as we are.  Let the divine mercy flow!

Father Richard's reflection opens with these words: "Can we care intensely and passionately and not care at all in the same moment? If we are seeking God's will and not our own, it comes somewhat easily. We do the best we can, but we are detached from any need for personal success or response. We can then care and not care in the same moment. That is true spiritual freedom."

Non-Dual Thinking is the title given by Richard for the day. It is a concept that is new but very old. I never heard it discussed until Fr. Richard started talking about it a few years ago. Since then the idea of both/and as opposed to either/or has changed the way I see and experience so many things.

In his work for today Fr. Richard lists some examples that are helpful for one who is just beginning to look at non-dual thinking. He says, "All great spiritual doctrines invariably have the character of paradox to them. For example, we believe that Jesus is human and divine at the same time. Mary is virgin and mother at the same time. The Eucharist is bread and Jesus at the same time. God is both three and one at the same time." Interested isn't it ..... that we could have been surrounded by this non-dualism while creating systems that are, at their very foundation, dualistic.

The Question: What are the seemingly irresolvable paradoxes in your life? How do you deal with them emotionally? Intellectually? Spiritually?

While paradox has not always been my way of thinking, it has been, for a long time, my way of being in the world. In spite of that truth, I had to find my own path to the spiritual freedom that Richard talks about in the opening paragraph. My route is almost always circuitous and therefore seldom easy, but I arrive at the right place often enough to be encouraged by the journey. My path to experiences of this freedom is paved with four mantras that I have used to teach for the past several years. I usually teach them in tandum with the Old Testament book of Jonah. But for this writing I will just speak to each one briefly.

1. Show up ... It is our task every day to show up for life. When presented with paradox some of us dig in. We grasp for certitude and if certainty is a necessity then it is impossible to show up for what is.

2. Pay attention ... We seldom pay full attention to things that are not as we want them to be. We are so set on our own desires and agendas we cannot pay attention to what is, as it is and often our habitual way of seeing will be dualistic.

3. Tell the truth ... Truthtelling may be a lost art. But if we can learn to tell the truth then we are on the raod to being able to hear the truth. As Fr. Richard teaches us today, many of the great truths are paradoxical. So I struggle to understand why we ended up in a world where black and white, either/or thinking has replaced what is true. Perhaps we have ended up here because we have grown so sure of ourselves we think we can replace the truth with our personal beliefs and agendas. That is an illusion

4. Don't get attached to the results ... This one is, by far, the most difficult for me. The big problem with getting attached to the results is that it is that the attachment is accompanied by expectation. And, as Ann Lamott says so well, "Every expectation is resentment waiting to happen."

In answering today's questions for myself I know what paradoxes are challenging me. I'll share one that I am trying to find peace with.

My work means something .. and .. my work is like one drop of water in the ocean.

All I can do is prepare and show up for every commitment I've made and then offer the best teaching I am capable of that day and in that moment.

Then I must pay attention to all that presents itself to me and take it as it is. If I am not open and attentive my habitual ways of thinking will color how I see and hear and we most often take in information dualistically.

It is my responsibility to tell the truth as I understand it at the time and then to be as honest as I can in acknowledging all that I do not know.

And then I need to let it all be, not attaching to any results, knowing that I have done what was mine to do.

In that context my work does mean something and I can allow it to be what it is .... important and insignificant at the same time.

"The spirit of the Lord God is upon me ... he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners."

Isaiah 61:1

Father Richard says, " .... Jesus describes his work as moving outside of polite and proper limits and boundaries to reunite things that have been marginalized or excluded by society: the poor, the imprisoned, the blind, the downtrodden. His ministry is not to gather the so-called good into a private country club but to reach out to those on the edge and on the bottom, those who are "last" to tell them they are, in fact, first! That is almost the very job description of the Holy Spirit and therefore of Jesus."

In the Spring of 1993, Joe was pastoring The First United Methodist Church in Leonard, Texas. The population of Leonard was about 1800 at the time and our church, and parsonage, were two blocks from the downtown square. We had a child in each of the three schools and we were heavily invested in the community. The years we were there hold some of our fondest memories of ministry and family.

One day, I was standing in the small den in the parsonage with my back to the glass doors that led out to the yard we shared with the church, when a man we didn't know knocked on the door. Joe had come home for lunch and he was still in the kitchen so I called to him to answer the door. He did and the gentleman introduced himself, although he already knew Joe and knew that Joe had a beautiful singing voice.

He said, "Pastor Joe, I am under the unction of the Holy Spirit and I'm headed down to the square to preach on the corner near the drug store. I thought it might add to the chance of getting people's attention if you would come along, bring your guitar, and sing."

I was still folding clothes, with my back to the conversation when Joe introduced me to our visitor as he invited him in and closed the door. My thoughts were loud and consistent .... "surely Joe is not going to join this man on the street corner ...... what is unction? ...... the children would be unbelievably embarrassed if Joe did something like this ..... I would be embarrassed .... what would our parishioners say?"

Joe was gracious as always. He said he would pray about whether or not he too was called to the corner, and if so he would walk to the square. The man who was sure about his calling said, "Well I sure hope you come. I've never done anything like this before and I'm a bit afraid, but I know it is what God wants from me today." Joe responded with a promise to pray for him.

I must confess that I am too often one who participates in ministry that gathers the "so-called good into a private country club" and leaves reaching out to those on the edge and on the bottom to others who might be under the unction of the Holy Spirit. For almost seventeen years now, whenever I hear this reading from Isaiah, I remember the day our visitor stood on the corner of the square to preach the good news of Jesus Christ.

The Question: What divisions exist in your life? How can you let the Spirit mend those divisions?

Of course, the divisions are many. There is the separation I experience from the people in my everyday life. And then there is the great divide between the rich and the poor, the insiders and the outsiders, those we engage and those we avoid.

I don't know quite how to address allowing "the Spirit to mend those divisions." But I am working to try to prevent them. It is quite simple to express and very hard to live. But the teaching is this:

All comparison leads to competition and all competition divides. So one practice would be to avoid comparison, measuring one thing against another, or myself against someone else. It is harder than I would have expected.

Joe didn't go to the square. I hope the reason is that he was not called. I pray the reason is not that my opinions about the idea were loud enough to prevent his hearing a deeper, more personal voice.

Matthew 6:31-33

"Therefore do not worry, saying, "What will we eat?" or "What will we drink?" or "What will we wear?" For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."

Father Richard's reflection on this reading from the gospel is titled "Less Is More." In that writing he talks about muchness and manyness, coupled with some great wisdom about time and our lack of it. He writes,"Time is exactly what we do not have. What decreases in a culture of affluence is precisely and strangely time __ along with wisdom and friendship. These are the very things that the human heart was created for, that the human heart feeds on and lives for."

Jesus said it to us quite clearly: "Why are you so anxious? Why do you run after things like the pagans do? What shall I eat? What shall I wear? You are not to worry about tomorrow. Each day will take care of itself." (Matthew 6:31,34).

In closing Richard says, "This must tell us that we have not understood the spiritual message of Jesus very well."

The Question: What one or two things do you need to do well? What do you have to stop doing to do that?

A few years ago I gave a retreat to the women of The First Presbyterian Church of Ft. Worth. The Topic was "Why Less is More." In preparing to talk with that great group for a couple of days I realized that the practical aspect of simplifying life gets plenty of text and attention. But the spiritual work that is the necessary underpinning of those practical tasks is not often explored. I have come to believe that the only way the practical steps will be lasting lies in whether or not we do the spirtual work as well.

Parker Palmer wrote, "If I try to be or do something noble that has nothing to do with who I am, I may look good to others and to myself for a while. But the fact that I am exceeding my limits will eventually have consequences." For the work of simplicity to be real, lasting, true and effective, it will have to come from a place of organic reality within me. The work of simplifying our lives will necessarily have to become integral to our nature or it is a futile effort and wasted time.

In relation to Fr. Richard's question, "What do you have to stop doing ....?" My response includes another question. What is stopping me from making the changes I want to make? The answer is .... many things. I'll share one.

My Compulsions ...... Mary O'Malley defines compulsion as, "engaging in any recurring activity to manage our feelings, an activity that eventuallly ends up managing us."

Those activities are often behind the lack of material simplicity in our lives. Many of us are compulsive without even knowing it. It isn't until the computer crashes or the credit card is canceled or the doctor says we can't eat a high-fat diet that it becomes clear just how much a particular activity controls our lives.

Ultimately our compulsion is to struggle. We live in a story in our heads that is always trying to get us to "do" life, telling us we need to make ourselves and our lives better or different from what they are. That story is what I have to give up.

That story is the core of the mess we are in. The complications of our lives, the lack of simplicity, stems in great part from this reality. And in the middle of our awareness of these compulsions and what they bring about in our lives, we discover for ourselves another of Fr. Richard's teachings from another time: "If you have to have more and more of the same thing, it isn't working."

Perhaps one of the questions to take with us throughout the remainder of Advent could surely be ......

Wouldn't less be more?

To open today's reflection Fr. Richard asks us all a question. "How do we also give birth, as Mary did?"

Immediately we are all invited into the story of what God is doing and we all have a part to play. But, we cannot define the story, nor can we determine what is ours to give birth to.

The connection to birthing reminds me of some of the differences between the births of my children and my grandchildren. Our oldest daughter Joey has two little boys, ages three and one. And our other daughter Jenny has Noah who is two and another baby on the way. All three of us have enjoyed pregnancy, sharing lots of stories about anticipation and how inadequate we have each felt as mothers. But the waiting has been different for them than it was for me. When B.J., our youngest, was born it was still in the time before parents had the option to know the sex of the babies before they arrived. My daughters have so much more information than I had to prepare for the birth of my babies. They not only know the sex of the baby but they are offered tests to determine if the babies can be expected to have certain challenges or problems. And, they, along with their peers, often even select a good day of the week to deliver when the time comes.

However, as Fr. Richard has taught me, information is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom. So while they have more information than we had, they are not necessarily more prepared. Richard writes near the end of his offering today, "There is no mention of any moral worthiness, achievement or preparedness in Mary, only humble trust and surrender."

I haven't talked to my girls yet, but I suspect they would agree with me when I suggest that more information does not increase either trust or surrender. Those great gifts are beyond information and knowledge. Trust and surrender are a matter of faith. I would further say that it is possibly true that the more information we have, the harder it is to trust and surrender and allow God to be God.

The Question: How can you receive instead of manage life? How does managing life give you a sense of importance? How does receiving give you a sense of unimportance?

Any who read this probably know well that control is an illusion. I know it too, and yet I catch myself trying to be in charge on a regular basis. It is really kind of embarrassing to think for even a moment that I am in charge of any of the things in life that really matter.

E. L. Doctorow is a novelist who said writing is like driving on a dark road at night. You can only see as far as the headlights but you can write the whole book that way. Ann Lamott brought the quote into my world by changing it slightly and she says, "The spiritual journey is like driving on a dark road at night. You can only see as far as the headlights but you can make the whole journey that way." By every account Mary was content with that. Are you?

How can I receive instead of manage life?

I really have learned a lot in recent years about trust and surrender .... no perfection here .... but I'm better. Though it seems odd, one of the things that has helped me most is a lesson I learned from David Whyte. He says that we are moving so fast that we can no longer take note of anything or see anyone who isn't moving at the same pace we are. For some reason that inability to see helps create in my life the illusion that I am controlling and managing what is going on around me. The teaching touched me so deeply I have really tried to slow down. And I'm discovering that when I move in a more conscious and deliberate way I am less controlling and more allowing. I don't know why, I only know that it is true.

How does managing give you a sense of importance?

Truthfully, managing only makes me feel important if I keep moving pretty fast and ensure that there is very little down time. Because I know, we all know when we are still and quiet, that even if we can manage this minute we may not be able to manage the next.

How does receiving give you a sense of unimportance?

Receiving feels like someone else is in charge .... fixing and controlling and performing. But connecting to the reality that God is God and I am not only takes a moment.

So for me the question really comes down to whether or not I can stop, for just a moment, to reorient myself to what is Real. And that, is not nearly as easy at it sounds.

Fr. Richard ends his reflection with these words, "Mary does not manage, fix, control or perform in any way. She just says "yes!"

I want to say "yes". Don't you?

In today's reflection, Father Richard says, "Without great love and/or great suffering, human consciousness remains largely at the fight-or-flight, either/or, all-or-nothing level. The dualistic mind, that we can now prove is the lowest level of brain function, will never be able to access, much less deal with, the really big things that are invariably 'mysterious.'

What are the big things? I would list love, freedom, evil, God, eternity, nonviolence, forgiveness, grace and mercy. These, the dualistic mind cannot comprehend, and in fact, it usually gets them utterly wrong because they each have a paradoxical character that demands some degree of non-dual thinking."

The Question: Do you tend to think dualistically? Does it help you to be more loving? Does it help you to be more obedient to the gospel.

I'm not really sure why, but I've not ever been inclined to initially think dualistically. I would guess that one of the reaons I don't tend to think that way is because of the legacy of my parents. My Mom and Dad had lots of room for people and they were capabale of offering great freedom to me as well.

I more often have dualistic feelings that might or might not lead to dualistic thinking. If someone I love really hurts me or is hurt by me, I tend toward either/or thoughts. And those thoughts do not help me to be more loving. Instead they cause me to be irrational, fearful, imaginative in a negative way and suspicious. I wonder if the same is true of people who think dualistically as a matter of habit? I don't know.

I do know this. Love, real love, is not dualistic. It is not either/or but rather both/and. I also know that the gospel is all about loving. However, I don't know exactly what I think about my personal realization today that I have dualistic feelings that seem to lead to dualistic thinking.

Jesus said, "Let anyone with ears listen!" Matthew 11:15

I am listening.

Matthew 11:28

"Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest."

Fr. Richard says, "The upwardly mobile in our culture cannot feel good about themselves unless the vacation next year is more luxurious than last year's, unless the clothes and the house are upgraded, unless the latest gadget is acquired."

I've been listening to Fr. Richard's tapes for a very long time and the chance is that I have heard almost all of them. Each has taught me something valuable but none has challenged me more than a set titled "The Spirituality of Subtraction." On a trip to San Antonio a number of years ago, we listened to the tapes as we traveled with the plan to spend part of each day of our time away listening to Richard and discussing his ideas. When we began to see the billboards advertising the San Marcos Outlet Mall I asked Joe if we could exit and look for a couple of things we needed. I wanted to get some new sheets for the boy's beds. I did and then I said, "Joe. I really would like to look in the kitchen shop as well. We need to get one of those new wide slotted toasters." He reluctantly said, "okay" and we did.

We got back into the car and as we drove out of the parking lot I pushed play and the tape continued. Fr. Richard's first words were, "people think they have to have the newest thing in order to be happy, like those new wide slotted toasters."  Joe and I laughed, but it was nervous laughter, the kind that avoids the moment.

Richard continues in today's reflection, "This keeps us all quite trapped and un-free, and inherently unsatisfied. We are running on a perpetual hamster's wheel."

Meanwhile, most of God's people on this earth starve; most of God's people have to learn to find happiness and learn to find freedom at a much simpler level. What the Gospel is saying, of course, is that such simplicity is the only place that happiness is ever to be found in the first place. We have moved to a level where we have made happiness and contentment largely impossible."

The entire system is so very subtle for those of us who live in a city like Dallas. And it is my contention that because we don't "rest in God" we are intentionally and easily led to new styles, bigger houses and wide-slotted toasters. For so very long I believed that after we got everything we needed we could rest. But the truth is, unless the rest that Jesus offers comes first, there will never be an end to the desire for more of this or that.

According to Brother David Steindl-Rast, "The economics of affluence demands that things that were special last year must now be taken for granted."

The Question: What in your life, material or not, are you using to fulfill a need that really should be sought from elsewhere?

And the answer for me is ..... it all depends on the day and how faithful I have been to my spiritual practice. It could be any number of things on any given day. Just last week I was in the kitchen and I thought, it would be good to have a four-slice toaster. We don't eat bagels much and I could toast them in the oven when we want one.

I don't know how I have arrived at a place where I think of toasting the bagels in the oven after I have the wide-slotted taoster instead of before. But I do know that this journey is not an easy one. And I do know that the only way to fill the hole in my soul is with rest in God.