New Year. New Me. Not Really.

I often wonder why we go through the work of creating New Year Resolutions that we never seem to keep, instead of sticking with the the changes we make for Advent or Lent.

I mean, when will we learn that when we make resolutions not grounded in our faith, that we don't usually keep those things. Yet when we decide to make changes to be more conformed to Christ, those changes are more lasting.

So with the New Year just hours away, I must be honest with myself, I won't be making any sweeping changes. I'm going to be the same ole timone. Check with me again as Lent begins, then you'll find me working to be a new me, conforming myself to Christ, for the glory of God.

Peacefulness

Blessing Through Scandal

Teenage pregnancy; divorce; lying politicians; murder of innocent bystanders; escape to safety. Long ago a young girl didn’t think twice about saying yes to life. Long ago, divorce was waved around like it was the solution. Long ago, politicians plotted and schemed against people and innocence was murdered. And into this a child is born offering us a way to safety. These ancient situations are new, calling on the Elizabeth’s of today to rejoice in the presence of our LORD. These ancient new situations call on the Mary’s of today to sing a song of Thanks Living showing others the blessing in the mess. As Advent comes to an end, we are asked to be women of courage, not afraid to say yes to God no matter the adversity, understanding that blessings are THROUGH the scandal. Rejoice! for God is moving us out of the darkness to dwell in the LIGHT.

Peacefulness
www.PEACEcenteredWHOLENESS.com

Go Tell It On the Mountain

As I was reading the gospel this week, I wondered why Jesus told John’s disciple to tell what they had seen and heard instead of just answering the question. It seems so simple a question. But then I realized that sometimes the answer to a simple question is not enough. To report on what one sees and hears is to speak from experience. It is the experiences of others that we value more than answers. As women, we long to hear the stories of other women’s experiences in the hope that their story will shed light on our own circumstance.  I can better understand what Jesus asks of me when another recounts  a story of what Jesus has done for them. I can feel it; see it. It is more complete. Women of God, we are the first teachers of faith for our children. They depend on us to speak about who Jesus is and what Jesus does. Let us go to the mountains of our lives and tell what we have seen and heard. People are counting on us. 

Peacefulness

Repentance for Freedom

Oh Freedom. As Americans, we often connect freedom to our country and to our rights.  Freedom is not usually seen from the standpoint of flesh, yet it is the flesh that holds us prisoner.  For it is the flesh that seeks sin and is at war with the spirit. It is also the flesh in the form of Christ's sacrifice on the cross that gave us salvation.  The Black woman, seeking to be set free, knows that freedom, true freedom, comes from the Divine within her being. With the Divine within, the Black woman is set free. In setting herself free, the Black Woman sets everyone free. That freedom comes from aligning oneself with the Holy Spirit.  John the Baptist calls us to move beyond lip sync repentance toward repentance of heart where true freedom lies. It is being set free from our sins that we learn how to deal with the injustices, imbalances and losses in life.  Take time this week to repent and enjoy the freedom of the Holy Spirit.

Peacefulness

Beginning Again

When I think of Advent, I rush ahead to the Nativity stories in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. The Nativity is refreshing in that we are reminded that we get to begin again. Born anew is the opportunity to say yes to God’s will. The stories of Christ’s beginnings are less about God and more about us and our acceptance of God into our lives. When we hear about Gabriel coming to Zechariah and Mary, we imagine Gabriel coming to us telling us that our prayer has been answered or asking us to allow God to grow within us. Will you question the answer to your prayer or will you say yes?

Advent gives us the opportunity to prepare ourselves for Christ’s Birth in our hearts. Little by little as each candle is lit, we learn again how to let Christ’s Light shine within us. Rush ahead with me to the Nativity Stories. Read the first few chapters of Matthew and Luke and allow God’s Star to lead you to Christ. Let the chorus of angels proclaim Christ’s birth, not in some far off place of yesterday, but right here and now, in YOU.

Peacefulness

Down to the Wire

Today is the second to last day to complete my talks for +National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry Youth Conference.  #NCYC2013 and @ntlccc

I'm down to the wire and it's finally coming together. I was worried for a minute, then I had to remind myself who I work for. Yes Jesus it's You!! Hallelujah!!! Amen.

My excitement about attending the nation's largest Catholic gathering of teens and young adults keeps getting in the way of writing. But my unwillingness to embarrass  myself has me finishing the writing TODAY. Can you say last minute? What about procrastinator? Yeah, Yeah, that's me. And here I am taking a break to write this.

Click on NCYC 2013  for live streaming of Signed. Sealed. Delivered.

Peacefulness

The Flying of Time

Am I the only one who thinks that time moves too quickly a great deal of the time? Have you sat at your computer to start a task, deciding that you'll check Facebook first and discover that an hour has passed and you haven't even begun your task?
When I know I must get some writing done, I don't log on to Facebook, twitter, or even my email. That way I'm able to focus on the task at hand.

They say that "time flies when you're having fun." Time also flies when you're "wasting" it. Time. Time is the topic of so many of us that sometimes we become preoccupied with time and forget what is happening while time is passing.

Several weeks ago I sat in my home chatting with a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses. Our discussion of course began with the 'last days." As if zombie movies aren't enough, we had to begin our bible reflection on what will be left of the earth at the end time. I asked a question after politely listening for a few minutes, "Why the constant focus on the end time? the final judgment of God?" The answer? "We speak on the end times because now is so bad. Humans are in a destructive state of mind. We must talk about how important it is to get to the end as one of the chosen." My challenge to that answer was to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ NOW. People need help now. The gospel is not just for end times, it's for now, for time is flying.

Letting GOD Shine Through

Too often I find myself abridging what God desires to do through me. For surely a God could be doing many things but I'm limiting HER by allowing my insecurities to rule over the Grace God places before me, within me. 

This journey towards peace is the practice of Letting GOD Shine THROUGH me. In doing this I am able to move freely, freed from the bonds of what people may think, heck freed from my own thoughts that keep me trapped and limited. 

Letting GOD Shine THROUGH takes me out of the way. Helps me realize that God at the center allows for right movement forward.

 Letting GOD Shine THROUGH reminds me that God's Glory does flow through me and points not to me but to GOD and my abridging is an attempt at hiding God's Greatness. 

Peacefulness...Recognizing God in me and Letting HIM Shine THROUGH.

Who Am I?

Who am I LORD that people come to know You more fully through me? How is it that many of the words I speak illuminate You? 

As I pose this question again for myself, I'm flying Southwest Airline on my way to New Orleans. I'm struck by God's Beauty and how She invites me to reflection.

Who am I? I'm a willing participant in God's work. I'm a struggling player in this act of living. The fact that people come to know God is really not about me, but about God. If I say something that helps you grow closer to God, that's God transforming my sin into Grace. Because you are seeking God, your spirit recognizes God outreach. Who am I?

A vessel seeking and extending PEACE.

Today

Today my morning routine changed. I was up early as usual, but instead of morning prayer first, I chose yoga. Interesting decision since I was really thinking I'd skip yoga altogether. But God knows best and yoga it was. I discovered during my morning practice that prayer came much easier. There was a flow of movement and spirit. This surprised me. I had a lot of things on my mind, but the sweet whisper of the Holy Spirit kept calling me back to the present--the now.

Today. Today is what I have and I am feeling so Peaceful. What a delight it is to be with God and just rest.

Worthiness

Too often do we consider ourselves unworthy. Especially when it comes to our relationship with Christ. We tell ourselves that Jesus shouldn't love us the way He does. We remind God of our faults and flaws, resigning ourselves to unworthiness. Ah but the love of Jesus, the grace of God, the wisdom of the Holy Spirit if allowed, changes our sense of unworthiness.
Worthy. God calls me worthy. Jesus calls me friend. The Holy Spirit transforms me. Worthy.
That is why I praise God. That is why I can be joy-filled and on purpose.

Lord, I am not worthy to receive You in my mess, but only say the Word and I will recognize You and work to change.

It's Not Hard

You would think that we could get it by now...TRUSTING God. But for so many of us we haven't. But it's not hard at all. It's so easy to let go of the control, to forget the worry, to allow God to lead. Really? Yes, really. It's as simple as saying yes LORD. Yes Savior. You are God. Then,...PEACEFULNESS.

The Prodigal Story

Today I'm in Washington DC at a friend's house and I picked up "The Little Black Book: Six-minute meditations on the Sunday Gospels of Lent"

Today's meditation is on Luke 15:25-30. This is significant to me because I preached this text last Sunday at Faith Community MB Church and then cried with joy. It was powerful: God rushes out to meet us in our distress. 

This is such great news for those of seeking peace. 

Hate Will NOT Win

A FLOWER FOR THE GRAVES

This column by Eugene Patterson, then editor of the Atlanta Constitution, was originally published in that paper on September 16, 1963 and read aloud that evening by Walter Cronkite on the “CBS Evening News.” Patterson died Jan. 12, 2013 at the age of 89.

A Negro mother wept in the street Sunday morning in front of a Baptist Church in Birmingham. In her hand she held a shoe, one shoe, from the foot of her dead child. We hold that shoe with her.

Every one of us in the white South holds that small shoe in his hand.

It is too late to blame the sick criminals who handled the dynamite. The FBI and the police can deal with that kind. The charge against them is simple. They killed four children.

Only we can trace the truth, Southerner — you and I. We broke those children’s bodies.

We watched the stage set without staying it. We listened to the prologue unbestirred. We saw the curtain opening with disinterest. We have heard the play.

We — who go on electing politicians who heat the kettles of hate.

We — who raise no hand to silence the mean and little men who have their nigger jokes.

We — who stand aside in imagined rectitude and let the mad dogs that run in every society slide their leashes from our hand, and spring.

We — the heirs of a proud South, who protest its worth and demand it recognition — we are the ones who have ducked the difficult, skirted the uncomfortable, caviled at the challenge, resented the necessary, rationalized the unacceptable, and created the day surely when these children would die.

This is no time to load our anguish onto the murderous scapegoat who set the cap in dynamite of our own manufacture.

He didn’t know any better.

Somewhere in the dim and fevered recess of an evil mind he feels right now that he has been a hero. He is only guilty of murder. He thinks he has pleased us.

A grieving relative of one of bombing victims in Birmingham, Ala., Sept. 15, 1963 at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church is led away after telling officers that some of his family was in the section most heavily damaged. Man just in back of him is holding a shoe found in the debris. At least four persons were known to have been killed. (AP Photo)

We of the white South who know better are the ones who must take a harsher judgment.

We, who know better, created a climate for child-killing by those who don’t.

We hold that shoe in our hand, Southerner. Let us see it straight, and look at the blood on it. Let us compare it with the unworthy speeches of Southern public men who have traduced the Negro; match it with the spectacle of shrilling children whose parents and teachers turned them free to spit epithets at small huddles of Negro school children for a week before this Sunday in Birmingham; hold up the shoe and look beyond it to the state house in Montgomery where the official attitudes of Alabama have been spoken in heat and anger.

Let us not lay the blame on some brutal fool who didn’t know any better.

We know better. We created the day. We bear the judgment. May God have mercy on the poor South that has so been led. May what has happened hasten the day when the good South, which does live and has great being, will rise to this challenge of racial understanding and common humanity, and in the full power of its unasserted courage, assert itself.

The Sunday school play at Birmingham is ended. With a weeping Negro mother, we stand in the bitter smoke and hold a shoe. If our South is ever to be what we wish it to be, we will plant a flower of nobler resolve for the South now upon these four small graves that we dug.