Wednesday, February 23, 2011

When I was a child my minister father would stand at the front of the sanctuary after his sermons for what was called the "invitation" in my tradition.  It's interesting that that call was extended as "an invitation."

The invitation that my father extended was to enter into a personal, vital, dynamic love relationship with Christ.  In my childhood, I had a very limited, childlike understanding of what that meant.   In my adulthood, that invitation has taken me deeper and deeper into mysteries, perplexities, puzzles and challenges than I ever could have imagined.  That journey has been profoundly meaningful to me and has given a great richness to my life, though it has not been the journey I imagined when I was a child.

Do you have memories from childhood like mine?  Is the God-concept of your childhood adequate for adulthood?  When was the last time you updated your image of God? 

Friday, February 18, 2011

He not busy being born is busy dying. -- Bob Dylan

In this thirteenth and final chapter of What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life, author James Hollis invites us to accept "at last that our home is our journey."

My ego -- that central organ of consciousness and the way I perceive myself to be in the world - wants to settle down and get comfortable, and the truth is that we all need a certain degree of stability and predictability to function well in life.

However, it's often a short trip from becoming comfortable to getting stuck in a rut.  "Boats are safe in a harbor," the old saying goes, "but that's not what boats are made for." 

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Some of the first stories I heard when I was a child were about journeys and pilgrimages.  Abraham, in the Old Testament, was asked to leave his home by this unseen Yahweh and go "to a land that I will show you."

How strange is that?

What rare persons today would strike out on a journey without having maps and motel reservations? 

A burning bush out in the desert caught Moses' attention, and as the story goes, a voice from within that bush told him to leave where he was and go back to Egypt, confront the wicked Pharoah and free the children of Israel from their bondage.  When he protested that he stuttered and asked who it was he should say sent him on this perilous mission, the mysterious Voice said, "Tell them that I Am sent you." 

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Sitting at a signal light on this cold winter day, my attention was captured by a woman at the bus stop.  Huddled deeply into her coat, she waited there to be picked up and taken to her destination.

My mind was preoccupied with getting back to my computer and writing this first blog post for this thirteenth and last chapter of James Hollis' book, What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life.  As I am nearing the end of this project I took on in January of 2010, I was reflecting on how the journey of writing these blogs each week has affected me.  More specifically, I was pondering which of the many thoughts in this last chapter, "that we accept at last that our home is our journey" I would choose to write about in these last four posts.

The woman at the bus stop haunted me all the way home, however.  She looked weary and tired and reminded me of the compassion my father always had for people he described as "not ever having had much of an opportunity."

Where was she going, I wondered, and would there be anyone there who would be glad that she had come home?