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

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

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

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

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

Living the Message Feb. 6

Religion and Politics

For Christians, "political" acquires extensive biblical associations and dimensions. So rather than look for another word untainted by corruption and evil, it is important to use it just as it is so that by it we are trained to see God in the places that seem intransigent to grace. The people who warn that "region and politics don't mix" certainly know what the are talking about. The mix has resulted in no end of ills -- crusades, inquisitions, witch hunts, exploitation. All the same, God says, "Mis them." But be ever careful how you mix them. The only safe way is in prayer. It is both unbiblical and unreal to divide life into the activities of religion and politics, or into the realms of scared and profane. But how do we get them together without putting one into the unscrupulous hands of the other, politics using religion or religion using politics, when what we want is true mixture, politics becoming religious and religion becoming political? Prayer is the only means that is adequate for the great end of getting these polarities in dynamic relation, The psalms are our most extensive source documents showing prayer in action,

So rebel-kings, use your heand;
Upstart judgues, learn your lesson:
Worship GOD n adoring embrace,
Celebrate in trembling awe. Kiss Messiah!

PSALM 2:10-12

Living the Message Feb. 5

There Is No Private Prayer

The single most widespread American misunderstanding of prayer is that it is private. Strictly and biblically speaking, there is no private prayer. Private in its root meaning refers to theft. It is stealing. When we privatize prayer we embezzle the common currency that belongs to all. When we engage in prayer without any desire for or awareness of the comprehensive, inclusive life of the kingdom that is "at hand" in both space and time, we impoverish the social reality that God is bring to completion.

Solitude in prayers in not privacy. The differences between privacy and solitude are profound. Privacy is our attempt to insulate the self from interference solitude leaves the company of others for a time in order to listen to them more deeply, be aware of them, serve them. Privacy is getting away form others so that I don't have to be bothered with them; solitude is getting away form the crowd so that I can be instructed by the still, small voice of God, who is enthroned on the praises of the multitudes. Private prayers are selfish and thin; prayer in solitude enrolls in a multivalued, century-layered community; with angels and archangels in all the company of heaven we sing, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty."

While it was still night, way before dawn, he got up and went out to a secluded spot and prayer. Simon and those with him went looking for him. They found him and siad, "Everybody's looking for you."
Jesus said, "Let's go to the rest of the villages so I can preach there also. This is why I've come."

MARK 1:35-38

Living the Message Fed. 4

And know. The word know often has sexual connotations in biblical writings. Adam knew Eve. Joseph did not know Mary. These are not, as so many suppose, timid euphemisms; they are bold metaphors. The best knowledge, the knowledge that is thorough and personal, is not information. It is shared intimacy--a knowing and being known that becomes a creative act. It is analogous to sexual relationship in which two persons are vulnerable and open to each other, the consequence of which is the creation of new life. Unamuno, a Spanish philosopher, elaborates: "'To know' means in effect to engender, all all vital knowledge in this sense presupposes a penetration, a fusion of the innermost being of the man who knows and of the thing know" [The Agony of Christians]. The knowing results in a new being that is different from and more than either partner. No child is a replica of either parent; no child is a mere amalgamation of parents. There are characteristics of both, but the new life is unpredictable, full of surprises, a life of it's own.

This sexual knowing that results in newly created life is the everyday experience that is used to show what happens when we pray: withdrawal from commotion, shutting the door against the outside world, insistence on leisurely privacy. This is not an antisocial act. It is not a selfish indulgence. It is no shirking of public responsibility. On the contrary, it is fulfilling of public responsibility, a contribution to the wholeness of civilization. It is, precisely, creative: You cannot make love in traffic. For all his marvelous creativity, Michelangelo never painted or drew or sculpted anything that compares with any newborn infant. For all his wide-ranging Renaissance inventiveness, Leonard da Vinci never faintly approximated what any peasant couple brought forth by simply going to bed together. People who pray give themselves to the creative process at this same elemental, world-enriching, self-transcending place of surprise and pleasure.

I gave up all the inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power...

PHLIPPIANS 3:8

Living The Message Feb.3

Be Still

After the first command of Psalm 46,the second follows....

The second command is "Be Still, and know that I am God." Be still. Quit rushing through the streets long enough to become aware that there is more to life than your little self-help enterprises. When we are noisy and when weare hurried, we are incapable of intimacy--deep, complex, personal relationships. If God is the living center of redemption, it is essential that we be in touch with and responsive to that personal will. If God has a will for this world and we want to be in on it, we must be sill long enough to find out what it is (for we certainly are not going to learn b watching the evening news). Baron von Hugel, who has a wise word on most subjects, always held out that "nothing was ever accomplished in a stampede."

Step out of the traffic! Take a long,
loving look at me, your High God,
above politics, above everything.

Psalm 46:10

Living The Message Feb.2

Creative Action

God is engaged in worldwide disarmament. All the ways in which men and women attempt to forcibly impose their wills on neighbors and enemies are thrown into the trash heap. Violence does not work. It never has worked. It never will work. Weapons are not functional.

The history of violence is a history of failures. There has never been a won war. There has never been a victorious battle. The use of force destroys the ever reality that is exercised in its behalf, whether honor, truth or justice. living in the kind of world in which we do and being the sinners we are, we somtimes cannot avoid violence. But even when it is inevitable it is not right. God dos not engage in it.

A steady, sustained look at God's works sees that our grantic, foolish arms build-up (whether personal or national, whether psychological or material) is being sujected to systematic and determined disarmament. Violent action is the antithesis of creative action. When we no longer have the will or the patience to be creative, we attempt to express our will by coercion. The lazy and the immature account for the most of the violence in the world. But however prevalent violence is, the person at prayer sees that is not the way most of the world, the world of Gos'd action, works. But it takes energy and maturity to see it and to sustain the vision.

Attention, all! See the marvels of God's!
He plants flowers and trees all over the earth,
Bans war from pole to pole,
breaks all the weapons of war across his knee.

PSALM 46:8-9

Living The Message Feb.1

The Works of the Lord

The next four days are reflections of Psalm 46.

two commands direct us from the small-minded world of self-help to the large world of God's help. First, "Come, behold the works of the LORD." Take a long, scrutinizing look at what God is doing. This requires patient attentiveness and energetic concentration. Every-body else is noisier than God. The headlines and neon lights and amplifying systems of the world announce human works. But what of Gog's works? They are unadvertised but also inescapable, if we simply look. They everywhere. They are marvelous. But God has no public relations agency. He mounts no publicity campaign to get our attention, He simply inviteds us to look. Prayer is looking at the works of the Lord.

Reach out and experince the breadth! Test its length!
Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.

Ephesians 3:18-19

Living the Message Jan. 16

Childlike Trust

Christian faith is not neurotic dependency but childlike trust. We don not have a God who forever indulge our whims but a God whom we trust with our destinies. The Christian is not a naive, innocent infant who has no identity apart from a feeling of being comforted and protected and catered to but a person who has discovered an identity that is given by God which can be enjoyed best and fully in a voluntary trust in God. We do not cling to God desperately out of fear and the panic of insecurity; we come to him freely in faith and love.

I look to you, heaven-dwelling God,
Look up to you for help.
Like servants, alert to their master's commands,
like a maiden attending her lady,
We're watching and waiting, hholding our breath,
awaiting your word of mercy.

PSALM 123:1-2

How to finish this?

Everything...

Living the Message Jan. 15 (editing...)

Worship

When they said, "Let's go to the house of God,"
my heart leaped for joy.
And now we're here, oh Jerusalem,
inside Jerusalem's walls!

PSALM 122:1-2

Living the Message Jan. 14

Repentance

Among the more fascinating pages of American history are those that tell the stoies of the immigrants to these shores in the nineteenth century. Thousands upon thousands of people, whose lives in Europe had become mean and poor, persecuted and wretched, left.

They had gotten reports of a land where the environment was a challenge instead of an oppression. The stories continue to be told in many families, keeping alive the memory of the event that made an American out of what was a German or an Italian or a Scot.

My grandfather left Norway eighty years ago in the middle of a famine. His wife and ten children remained behind until he could return and get them. He came to Pittsburgh and worked in the steel mills for two years until he had enough money to go back and get his family. When he returned with them he didn't stay in Pittsburgh although it had served his purposes well enough the first time, but he traveled to Montana, plunging into new land, looking for a better place.
In all these immigrant stories there are mixed parts of escape and adventure; the escape from an unpleasant situational the adventure of a far better way of life, free for new things, open for growth and creativity. Every Christian has some variation on this immigrant plot to tell.

"Woe is me, that I sojourn in Meshech, that I dwell among the tents of Kedar! Too long have I had my dwelling among those who hate peace." But we don't have to live there any longer. Repentance, the first word in Christian immigration, set us on the way to traveling in the light. It is a rejection that is also an acceptance, a leaving that develops into an arriving, a no to the world is a yes to God.

I'm doomed to live in Meshech,
cursed with a home in Kedar,
My whole life lived camping
among quarreling neighbors.

PSALM 120:5-6

Living the Message Jan. 13

Dissatisfaction

People submerged in a culture swarming with lies and malice feel like they are drowning in it; they can trust nothing they hear, depends on on one they meet. Such dissatisfaction with the world as it is preparation for traveling in the way of Christian discipleship.

The dissatisfaction, coupled with a longing for peace and truth, can set us on a pilgrim of wholeness in God.

A person has to be thoroughly disgusted with the way things are to find the motivation to set out on the Christian way. As long as we think that the next election might eliminate crime and establish justice or another scientific breakthrough might save the environment or another pay raise might push us over the edge of anxiety into a life of tranquility, we are not likely to risk the arduous uncertainties of the life of faith. A person has to get fed up with the ways of the world before he, before she, acquires an appetite for the world of grace.

Psalm 120 is the song of a person, song with the lies and crippled with the hate, a perosn doubled up in pain over what is going on in the world. But it is not a mere outcry, it is pain that penetrates through despair and stimulated a new beginning--a journey to God which becomes a life of peace.

"Deliver me from the liars, GOD!
They smile so sweetly but lie through their teeth."

PSALM 120:2

I love You

I love you, say we're together baby, you and me

I can only give my life and show you all I am
in the breath I breathe,
I will promise you my heart
and give you all you need if it takes some time,
and if you tell me you don't need me anymore
that our love won't last forever, no~
I will ask you for a chance to try again
to make our love a little better, ooh...

I love you, say we're together baby,
say we're together, ooh...
I need you, I need you forever baby, you and me

You say you hardly know exactly who I am
so hard to understand,
But I, I knew right from the start, the way I felt inside,
if you could read my mind

if you tell me don't need me anymore
that our love won't last forever,
I will ask you for a chance to try again
to make our love a little better

I love you, say we're together baby,
say we're together, ooh...
I need you, I need you forever baby, you and me

Remember when you used to hold me,
remember when you made me cry
You said you loved me, oh, you did, yes you did

--
Joanna is cool

Living the Message Jan. 12

Holiness

The newt two weeks are reflections on the Songs of Ascent
(Psalms 120 -134)

There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for the long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness.

Do you see what all this means--all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on. It means we'd better get on with it. Strip down, start running -- and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes in Jesus, who both began and finished this race we're in.

Hebrew 12:1-2A

Living the Message Jan. 11

Subversive

Jesus was a master at subversion. Until the very end, everyone, including his disciples, called him Rabbi. Rabbis were important, but they didn't makes anything happen. On the occasions when suspicions were aroused that there might be more to him than that title accounted for, Jesus tired to keep it quiet--"Tell no one."

Jesus' favorite speech form, the parable, was subversive. Parables sound absolutely ordinary: casual stories about soil and seeds. meals and coins and sheep, bandits and victims, farmers and merchants. And they are wholly secular: of his forty or so parables recorded in the Gospels, only one has its setting in church, and only a couple mention the name God. As people heard Jesus tell these stories, they saw at once that they weren't about God, so there was nothing in them threatening their own sovereignty. They relaxed their defense. They walked away perplexed, wondering what they meant, the stories lodged in their imagination, And then, like a time bomb, they would explode in their unprotected hearts. An abyss opened up at their very feet. He was talking about God; they had been invaded!

Jesus continually threw odd stories down alongside ordinary lives (para, "alongside"; bole, "thrown") and walked away without explnation or alter call. Then listeners started seeing connections: God connections life connections, eternity connections. The very lack of obviousness, the unlikess, was the stimulus to perceiving likness: God likeness, life likess, eternity likeness. But the parable didn't do the work--it put the listener's imagination to work. Parables aren't illustrations that make things easier; they make things harder by requiring the exercise of our imagination, which if we aren't careful becomes the exercise of our faith.

The disciples came up and asked, "Why do you tell stories?" He replied, "You've been givin insight into God's kigdom You know how it works. Not everybody has this gift, this insight; it hasn't been given to them. Whenever someone has a ready heart for this, the insiggts and understnading flow freely. But if there is no readiness, any trace of receptivity soon disappears. That's why I tell stories: to create readiness, to nudge the people toward receptive insight."

Matthew 13:10-13

Asking Me about My Dream?

To find someone who knows John 3:16, and then lead a modern but simple life with him after so many wanderings.

Living the Message Jan. 10

Christian Spirituality

I enjoy reading the poet-farmer Wendell Berry. He takes a small piece of land in Kentucky, respects it, cares for it, submits himself to it just as an artist submits himself to his materials. I read Berry, and every time he speaks of "farm" and "land," I insert "parish." As he talks about his farm, he talks about what I 've tried to practice in my congregation, because one of the genius aspects of pastoral work is locality.

The pastor's question is, " Who are these particular people, and how can I be with them in such a way that they can become what God is making them?" My job is simply to be there, teaching, preaching Scripture as well as I can, and being honest with them, not doing anything to interfere with what the Spirit is shaping in them. Could God be doing something that I never even thought of : Am I willing to be quiet spend fifty years reclaiming this land? Like Wendell Berry, am I willing to spend fifty years reclaiming this land? With these people?

Christian spirituality means living in the mature wholeness of the gospel. It means taking all the elements of your of your life--children, spouse, job, weather, possessions, relationships--and experiencing them as an act of faith. God wants all the material of our lives.

Meanwhile, freinds wiat patiently for the Master's Arrival. You see farmer do this all the time, aiting for their valuable crops to mature, patiently letting the rain do its slow but sure work. Be patitent ike that. Stay steady an strong. The Matster could arrive at any time.

James 5:7-8

Meiko - Piano Song

Every little thing I do I do for you
With every little think I thought of you
And I try so hard not to notice
I try so hard not to care
I try so hard not to know that you're not here
But I'm countin' down the hours
And I'm countin' up the days
I try so hard not to show this side of me
Jealous of the way they walk, the way *they* talk
'Cause I don't think they know just what they got
I'm jealous of the way they look, the way they are
When I just want to be the way we were
And I try so hard not to notice
I try so hard not to care
I try so hard not to know that you're not here
But I'm countin' down the hours
And I'm countin' up the days
I try so hard not to show this side of me

this side of me
this side of me
this side of me
this side of me
this side of me
.... .... .. ..

Living the Message Jan. 9

Gift of Words

The gift of words for communion. We need to learn the nature of communion. this requires the risk of revelation--letting a piece of my self be exposed, this mystery of who I am. If I stand here mute, you have no idea what is going on with me. You can look at me, measure me, weigh me, test me, but until I start to talk you don not know what is going on inside, who I really am. I f you listen ans I am telling the truth, something marvelous starts to take place -- a new event. Something comes into being that was not there before. God does this for us. We learn to do it because God does it. New things happen then. Salvation comes into being; love comes into being. Communion, Words used this way do not define as much as deepen mystery -- entering into the ambiguities, pushing past the safely known into the risky unknown. The Christian Eucharist uses words, the simplest of words, "this is my body, this is my blood," that plunge us into an act of revelation which staggers the imagination, which we never figure out, but we enter into. These words do not describe, the point, they reach, they embrace. Every time I go to the ill, the dying, the lonely, it becomes obvious after a few moment that the only words that matter are words of communion. What is distressing is to find out how infrequently thy are used. Sometimes we find we are the only ones who bother using words this way on these occasions. Not the least of trials of the sick, the lonely and the dying is the endless stream of cliches and platitudes to which they have to listen. Doctors enter their rooms to communication the diagnosis, family members to communicate their anxieties, friends to communicate the gossip of the day. Not all of them do this, of course and not always, but she sad reality is that there is not a great deal of communion that goes on in these places with these ill and lonely and dying people, on street corners, in offices, in work places, in schools. That makes it urgent that the Christian becomes a specialist in words of communion.

The right word at the right time
is like a custom-made piece of jewelry,
And a wise friend's timely reprimand
is like a gold ring slipped on your finger.

Proverbs 25:11012

Fort Minor - Where'd You Go

Where'd you go?
I miss you so,
Seems like it's been forever,
That you've been gone.

She said "Some days I feel like shit,
Some days I wanna quit, and just be normal for a bit,"
I don't understand why you have to always be gone,
I get along but the trips always feel so long,
And, I find myself trying to stay by the phone,
'Cause your voice always helps me to not feel so alone,
But I feel like an idiot, workin' my day around the call,
But when I pick up I don't have much to say,
So, I want you to know it's a little fucked up,
That I'm stuck here waitin', at times debatin',
Tellin' you that I've had it with you and your career,
Me and the rest of the family here singing "Where'd you go?"

I miss you so,
Seems like it's been forever,
That you've been gone.
Where'd you go?
I miss you so,
Seems like it's been forever,
That you've been gone,
Please come back home...

You know the place where you used to live,
Used to barbecue up burgers and ribs,
Used to have a little party every Halloween with candy by the pile,
But now, you only stop by every once and a while,
Shit, I find myself just fillin' my time,
With anything to keep the thought of you from my mind,
I'm doin' fine, I plan to keep it that way,
You can call me if you find that you have something to say,
And I'll tell you, I want you to know it's a little fucked up,
That I'm stuck here waitin', at times debatin',
Tellin' you that I've had it with you and your career,
Me and the rest of the family here singing "Where'd you go?"

I miss you so,
Seems like it's been forever,
That you've been gone.
Where'd you go?
I miss you so,
Seems like it's been forever,
That you've been gone,
Please come back home...

I want you to know it's a little fucked up,
That I'm stuck here waitin', no longer debatin',
Tired of sittin' and hatin' and makin' these excuses,
For why you're not around, and feeling so useless,
It seems one thing has been true all along,
You don't really know what you've got 'til it's gone,
I guess I've had it with you and your career,
When you come back I won't be here and you can sing it...

Where'd you go?
I miss you so,
Seems like it's been forever,
That you've been gone.
Where'd you go?
I miss you so,
Seems like it's been forever,
That you've been gone,
Please come back home...
Please come back home...
Please come back home...
Please come back home...
Please come back home...

Living the Message Jan. 8

Communication

There is an enormous communication industry in the world that is stamping out words like buttons. Words are transmit by television, radio, telegraph, satellite, cable, newspaper, magazine. But the words are not personal. Implicit in this enormous communication industry is an enormous lie: if we improve communications we will improve life. It has not happened and it will not happen. Often when we find out what a person "has to say," we like him or her less, not more. Better communication often worsens international relations. We know about each other as nations and religions than we ever have before in history, and we seem to like each other less. Counselors know that when spouses learn to communication more clearly, it leads to divorce as often as it does to reconciliation.

Stay clear of pious talk that is only talk. Words are not mere words, you know. If they're not backed by a godly life, they accumulate as poison in the soul.

2 Timothy 2:16-17

--
I should read everyday; however, it never be too late to learn lessons. Be quiet.

Prayers and Confession for Inner Healing

With team leader @ 9 Japanese time.
Please pray for me.

--
Faith, Hope & Love

Everything I Know - SANDII

See the bird upon the tree finally at home
Is the birdsong not so sweet cause it is alone?
“Little birdie” says the tree
“You’re not own your own”
Bird is you tree is me
That is only everything I know

See the boat upon the sea faraway it goes
Where it heads a mystery only sea will know
With each one for company love can only grow
Boat is you sea is me
That is only everything I know

I love you oh how I love you so
I love you that is only everything I know

See the flower and the bee how they seem so close
Understanding’s all the need
Love is al they show
Then the honey can be sweet and the flower grows
Flower’s you bee is me
That is only everything I know

I love you….Oh how I love you so
I love you….That is only everything I know
That is only everything I know

[是否真愛我]　　

一棵樹問一片土　你是否真愛我
或你只是貼著我　陪你度秋冬
我的枝與我的根　已植進你懷中
不問秋　不問冬
只想問你是否真愛我

一朵花問一隻蜂　你是否真愛我
或你只是吻著我　不擔我的愁
我的心與我的夢　都讓你帶走
不問心　不問夢
只想問你是否真愛我

一艘船問一面海　你是否真愛我
或你只是依著我　帶你天地遊
我的帆與我的槳　任你催著走
不問天　不問地　
只想問你是否真愛我

--
I know this song in Chinese version very well, grrr... it was a hit about 16 years ago...>.< I am so lucky to find the English version today and realize that the same feeling but expressed in different ways. In Chinese version, the title is "If you love me in truth?"; however, in English version, it asks no question but describe about the belief in their love. I love it! I like English version more. GOD IS LOVE!

HikaReikin Kitchen 1

1. Buli Teriyaki

2. Wasabi Salad Sauce

3. Dashi (soup)

Living the Message Jan. 6

Epiphany （顯現節）

Today us Epiphany. The Life-Light gets shared beyond.

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem village, Judah territory--this was during Herod's kingship--a band of scholars arrived in Jerusalem from the East. They asked around, "Where can we find and pay homage to the new born King of the Jews? We observed a star in the eastern sky that signed his birth. We're on pilgrimage to worship him."

When word of their inquiry got to Herod, he was terrified--and not Herod alone, but most of Jerusalem as well. Herod lost no time. He gathered all the high priests and religion scholars in the city together and asked, "Where is the Messiah supposed to be born?"

They told him, "Bethlehem, Judah territory. The prophet Micah wrote it plainly:
"'It's you, Bethlehem, in Judah's land,
no longer bringing up the rear.
From you will come the leader
who will shepherd-rule my people, my Israel.' "

Herod then arranged a secret meeting with the scholars from the East. Pretending to be as devout as they were, he got them to tell him exactly when the birth-announcement star appeared. Then he told them the prophecy about Bethlehem, and said, "Go find this child. Leave no stone unturned. As soon as tou find him, send word and I'll join you ar once in your worship."

Instructed by the king, they set off. Then the star appeared again, the same star they had seen in the eastern skies. It led them on until it hovered over the place of the child. They could hardly contain themselves: They were in the right place! They had arrived at the right time!

They entered the house and saw the child in the arms of Mary, his mother. Oversome, they kneeled and worship him. Then they opened their luggage and presented gifts: gold, frankincense, myrrh.

In a dream, they were warned not to report to Herod. So they worked out another route, left the territory without being seen, and returned to their own county.

Matthew 2:1-3

And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going

And I am telling you
I'm not going.
You're the best man I'll ever know.
There's no way I can ever go,
No, no, no, no way,
No, no, no, no way I'm livin' without you.
I'm not livin' without you.
I don't want to be free.
I'm stayin',
I'm stayin',
And you, and you, you're gonna love me.
Ooh, you're gonna love me.

And I am telling you
I'm not going,
Even though the rough times are showing.
There's just no way,
There's no way.
We're part of the same place.
We're part of the same time.
We both share the same blood.
We both have the same mind.
And time and time we have so much to share,
No, no, no,
No, no, no,
I'm not wakin' up tomorrow mornin'
And findin' that there's nobody there.
Darling, there's no way,
No, no, no, no way I'm livin' without you.
I'm not livin' without you.
You see, there's just no way,
There's no way.

Tear down the mountains,
Yell, scream and shout.
You can say what you want,
I'm not walkin' out.
Stop all the rivers,
Push, strike, and kill.
I'm not gonna leave you,
There's no way I will.

And I am telling you
I'm not going.
You're the best man I'll ever know.
There's no way I can ever, ever go,
No, no, no, no way,
No, no, no, no way I'm livin' without you.
Oh, I'm not livin' without you,
I'm not livin' without you.
I don't wanna be free.
I'm stayin',
I'm stayin',
And you, and you,
You're gonna love me.
Oh, hey, you're gonna love me,
Yes, ah, ooh, ooh, love me,
Ooh, ooh, ooh, love me,
Love me,
Love me,
Love me,
Love me.
You're gonna love me.