Marriage is an archetypal act of freedom. Marriage partners, by leaving their natural family ties, break out of networks of necessity and predictability and at that moment become prime movers in the politics of freedom. This is true even in an arranged marriage: though the free will of the partners in not consulted, the arrangement is a result of someone's choice and not the mere product of biological necessity. Every marriage, then, introduces into society fresh energies of love and freedom that have the power to unself not only the lovers themselves but America itself. The mere introduction of these energies is not enough, however, or we would have become Utopia long since. They need continuing and perfecting. Where can we get that but in Christ? A prayed and praying faithfulness carries us into the long life of love in which and by which the world will not perish.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
1 Corinthians 13:4-5
2010-03-02
2010-02-18
Living the Message Feb 16
Marriage
Every marriage crosses another boundary of genealogy. Disparate histories are brought together in such a way that the other is presented for appreciation and praise, not contempt and rejection. Every marriage is proof that the other is not the enemy, not the rival, not the threat, but the friend, the ally and at best, the lover.
All marriages are ventured into with this possibility and expectation, but they do not all confirm it. Marragies fail. Paterners become rivals, jealous and threatened, rejecting and rejected. Betrayals occour. Still, the most significant recurring act of love that takes place in society is marriage. Ezra Pound was radical in his claim for it: "One humane family can humanize a whole state into courtesy; one grasping and perverse man drive a nation to chaos."
...a man leaves father and mother and cherishes his wife. No longer two, they become "one flesh." This is a huge mystery, and I don't pretend to understand it all. what is clearest to me is the way Christ treats the church. And this provides a good picture of how each husband to treat his wife, loving himself in loving het, and how each wife is to honor her husband.
Ephesians 5:31-33
Every marriage crosses another boundary of genealogy. Disparate histories are brought together in such a way that the other is presented for appreciation and praise, not contempt and rejection. Every marriage is proof that the other is not the enemy, not the rival, not the threat, but the friend, the ally and at best, the lover.
All marriages are ventured into with this possibility and expectation, but they do not all confirm it. Marragies fail. Paterners become rivals, jealous and threatened, rejecting and rejected. Betrayals occour. Still, the most significant recurring act of love that takes place in society is marriage. Ezra Pound was radical in his claim for it: "One humane family can humanize a whole state into courtesy; one grasping and perverse man drive a nation to chaos."
...a man leaves father and mother and cherishes his wife. No longer two, they become "one flesh." This is a huge mystery, and I don't pretend to understand it all. what is clearest to me is the way Christ treats the church. And this provides a good picture of how each husband to treat his wife, loving himself in loving het, and how each wife is to honor her husband.
Ephesians 5:31-33
2009-03-04
Living the Message Feb. 15
To Grow is to Love
The self cannot be itself if it does not grow, and for a creature made in the image of God to grow is to love. No living being can be static.
The shelf cannot be preserved in amber. Every new act of love requires detachment from what is outgrown, what serves merely to infantilize us. Karlfried Durckheim used to insist: "You never kill the ego, you only find that it lives in a larger house than you thought." The self, if it to become itself, must find a larger house to dwell in than the house where everyone coddles us and responds to our whims. The passage from leaving home to entering marriage is the archetypal transition from the comfortable cared-for self to the strenuous, caring-for self.
Self-love is obsessed with keeping what it has and adding a little more of the same. That is why it is so boring, There is never anything new to say, nothing new to discover. Self-love assesses its position by what it has and is panicked at the thought of losing any of it. Forced into new relationships, into new situations, its first consideration is not of new fields for love but of the appalling prospects of loss. So it clings. It holds. And it whines.
The detachment that prerequisite for mature marriage prepares us for maturity in love across the board. We outlive our past over and over again, There comes a moment when I am no longer a spouse, I am no longer a parent, I am no longer employed, I am no longer healthy. There are period of my life that are immensely valuable and enjoyable and useful but which by their very nature cannot be perpetuated. Ironically, if we try to perpetuate them in the name of love, we ruin love.
Detachment is not disloyalty; it is a requirement for the next movement of love, which is a movement into more perfect love. Such movements almost always begin in feelings of loss, of deprivation. But detachment is not loss--it is a precondition for fresh creativity.
"Well-meaning family members can be your owrst enmies. If you prefer father ot mother over me, you don't deserve me. If you preferson or daughter over me, you don't deserve me."
"If you don't go all the way with me, through thick and thin, you don't deserve me. If your first concern is to look after yourself, you'll ever find yourself. But if you forget about yourslef and look to me, you'll find both yourslef and me."
MATTHEW 10:36-39
The self cannot be itself if it does not grow, and for a creature made in the image of God to grow is to love. No living being can be static.
The shelf cannot be preserved in amber. Every new act of love requires detachment from what is outgrown, what serves merely to infantilize us. Karlfried Durckheim used to insist: "You never kill the ego, you only find that it lives in a larger house than you thought." The self, if it to become itself, must find a larger house to dwell in than the house where everyone coddles us and responds to our whims. The passage from leaving home to entering marriage is the archetypal transition from the comfortable cared-for self to the strenuous, caring-for self.
Self-love is obsessed with keeping what it has and adding a little more of the same. That is why it is so boring, There is never anything new to say, nothing new to discover. Self-love assesses its position by what it has and is panicked at the thought of losing any of it. Forced into new relationships, into new situations, its first consideration is not of new fields for love but of the appalling prospects of loss. So it clings. It holds. And it whines.
The detachment that prerequisite for mature marriage prepares us for maturity in love across the board. We outlive our past over and over again, There comes a moment when I am no longer a spouse, I am no longer a parent, I am no longer employed, I am no longer healthy. There are period of my life that are immensely valuable and enjoyable and useful but which by their very nature cannot be perpetuated. Ironically, if we try to perpetuate them in the name of love, we ruin love.
Detachment is not disloyalty; it is a requirement for the next movement of love, which is a movement into more perfect love. Such movements almost always begin in feelings of loss, of deprivation. But detachment is not loss--it is a precondition for fresh creativity.
"Well-meaning family members can be your owrst enmies. If you prefer father ot mother over me, you don't deserve me. If you preferson or daughter over me, you don't deserve me."
"If you don't go all the way with me, through thick and thin, you don't deserve me. If your first concern is to look after yourself, you'll ever find yourself. But if you forget about yourslef and look to me, you'll find both yourslef and me."
MATTHEW 10:36-39
2009-02-18
Living the Message Feb. 13
Love
This is from an exposition of Psalm 45.
If I, deeply in love with another, begin describing with passionate appreciation what has been unnoticed or ignored by everyone else for years some people around me are sure to dismiss me, "Love is blind." They mean that love diminishes my capacity to see what is actually there so that fantasy, tailor-made to fit my desires, can be projected on another and thus make him or her acceptable as a lover. The cynical follow-up is that of this did not happen, if I saw the other truly, I would never get involved. Why? Because everyone is , in fact, quite unlovely, either visibly invisibly, or , in some particularly unfortunate cases both. Love doesn't see truth but create illusions ans incapacitates us for dealing with the hard0edged realities of life.
But the popular saying, as popular saying so often are, is wrong. It is hate that is blind. It is habit, condescension, cynicism that are blind. Love open eys. Love enables the eyes to see what has been there all along but was overlooked in haste or indifference. Love corrects astigmatism so that what was distorted in selfishness is now perceive accurately and appreciatively. Love cures shortsightedness so that the blur of the blessed invitations. Love looks at the one who had no "form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him" and sees there the "fairest of the sons of men...anointed with the oil of gladness above your fellows."
If we could see the other as he is, as she is, there is not one we would not see as "fairest" ... all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia." Love penetrates the defenses that have been built up to protect against rejection and scorn and belittlement, and it sees life created by God for love.
If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I dont love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I 'm bankrupt without love.
I CORINTHIANS 13:3
This is from an exposition of Psalm 45.
If I, deeply in love with another, begin describing with passionate appreciation what has been unnoticed or ignored by everyone else for years some people around me are sure to dismiss me, "Love is blind." They mean that love diminishes my capacity to see what is actually there so that fantasy, tailor-made to fit my desires, can be projected on another and thus make him or her acceptable as a lover. The cynical follow-up is that of this did not happen, if I saw the other truly, I would never get involved. Why? Because everyone is , in fact, quite unlovely, either visibly invisibly, or , in some particularly unfortunate cases both. Love doesn't see truth but create illusions ans incapacitates us for dealing with the hard0edged realities of life.
But the popular saying, as popular saying so often are, is wrong. It is hate that is blind. It is habit, condescension, cynicism that are blind. Love open eys. Love enables the eyes to see what has been there all along but was overlooked in haste or indifference. Love corrects astigmatism so that what was distorted in selfishness is now perceive accurately and appreciatively. Love cures shortsightedness so that the blur of the blessed invitations. Love looks at the one who had no "form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him" and sees there the "fairest of the sons of men...anointed with the oil of gladness above your fellows."
If we could see the other as he is, as she is, there is not one we would not see as "fairest" ... all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia." Love penetrates the defenses that have been built up to protect against rejection and scorn and belittlement, and it sees life created by God for love.
If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I dont love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I 'm bankrupt without love.
I CORINTHIANS 13:3
Living the Message Feb. 10
Geographical
The gospel emphatically geographical. Place names--Sinai, Hebron, Machpelah, Shiloh, Nazareth, Jezreel, Samaria, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Bethsaida--are embedded in the gospel. All theology is rooted in geology. Pilgrims to biblical lands are sometimes surprised to find that the towns in which David camped and Jesus lived are no better or more beautiful than that hometowns they left behind.
If the fallout of our belief in the supernatural is a contempt for the one-horse towns and impatience with their dull-spirited citizens, we had better reexamine what we say we believe in. For supernatural in the biblical sources is not a spectacularly colored hot-air balloon floating free of awkward contingencies but a servant God with basin and towel washing dusty and callused feet.
Philip went and found Nathanael and told him, We've found the One Moses wrote of in the Law, the Once preached by the prophets. It's Jesus, Joseph's son, the one from Nazareth!: Nathanael said, "Nazareth?"You've got to be kidding." But Philip said, "Come, see for yourself."
John 1:45-46
The gospel emphatically geographical. Place names--Sinai, Hebron, Machpelah, Shiloh, Nazareth, Jezreel, Samaria, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Bethsaida--are embedded in the gospel. All theology is rooted in geology. Pilgrims to biblical lands are sometimes surprised to find that the towns in which David camped and Jesus lived are no better or more beautiful than that hometowns they left behind.
If the fallout of our belief in the supernatural is a contempt for the one-horse towns and impatience with their dull-spirited citizens, we had better reexamine what we say we believe in. For supernatural in the biblical sources is not a spectacularly colored hot-air balloon floating free of awkward contingencies but a servant God with basin and towel washing dusty and callused feet.
Philip went and found Nathanael and told him, We've found the One Moses wrote of in the Law, the Once preached by the prophets. It's Jesus, Joseph's son, the one from Nazareth!: Nathanael said, "Nazareth?"You've got to be kidding." But Philip said, "Come, see for yourself."
John 1:45-46
2009-02-08
Living the Message Feb. 8
Prayer Is Elemental
Untutored, we tend to think that prayer is what good people do when they are doing their best. It is not. Inexperienced, we suppose that there must be an "insider" language that must be acquired before God takes us seriously in our prayer. There is not. Prayer is elemental, not advanced language. It is the means by which our language becomes honest, true, and personal in response to God. It is the means by which we get everything out in the open before God.
When I call, give me answers. God, take my side!
Once in a tight place, you gave me room;
Now I'm in trouble again: grace me! hear me!
PSALM 4:1
Untutored, we tend to think that prayer is what good people do when they are doing their best. It is not. Inexperienced, we suppose that there must be an "insider" language that must be acquired before God takes us seriously in our prayer. There is not. Prayer is elemental, not advanced language. It is the means by which our language becomes honest, true, and personal in response to God. It is the means by which we get everything out in the open before God.
When I call, give me answers. God, take my side!
Once in a tight place, you gave me room;
Now I'm in trouble again: grace me! hear me!
PSALM 4:1
2009-02-07
Living the Message Fed. 7
Help Was There
To the objection "I prayed and cried out for help, but no help came," the answer is "But it did. The help was there it was right at hand. You were looking for something quite different, perhaps, but God brought the help that would change your life into health, into wholeness for eternity And not only would it change your life, but nations, society, culture." Instead od asking why the help has not come, the person at prayer learns to look carefully at what is actually going on his or her life, in this history, its leaders, its movements, its peoplesm anns ask, "Could this be the help that he is providng?" I never thought for this in terms of help, but maybe it is." Prayer gives us another, far more accurate way of reading reality than the newspapers. "Think of it!" exclaims Bernanos's country priest. "The Word was made Flesh and not one of the journalists of those days even knew it was happening" [The Diary of a County Priest].
I call to you, God because I'm sure of an answer.
So --answer! bend your ear! listen shar!
Paint grace-graffiti on the fences;
take in yout frightened children who
Are running from the neighborhood bullies
straight to you.
PSALM 17:6-7
To the objection "I prayed and cried out for help, but no help came," the answer is "But it did. The help was there it was right at hand. You were looking for something quite different, perhaps, but God brought the help that would change your life into health, into wholeness for eternity And not only would it change your life, but nations, society, culture." Instead od asking why the help has not come, the person at prayer learns to look carefully at what is actually going on his or her life, in this history, its leaders, its movements, its peoplesm anns ask, "Could this be the help that he is providng?" I never thought for this in terms of help, but maybe it is." Prayer gives us another, far more accurate way of reading reality than the newspapers. "Think of it!" exclaims Bernanos's country priest. "The Word was made Flesh and not one of the journalists of those days even knew it was happening" [The Diary of a County Priest].
I call to you, God because I'm sure of an answer.
So --answer! bend your ear! listen shar!
Paint grace-graffiti on the fences;
take in yout frightened children who
Are running from the neighborhood bullies
straight to you.
PSALM 17:6-7
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