"Jesus said to her, Mary."

“Jesus said to her, Mary.”

John 20:16

“I have never had a good idea in my life but I recognize one when I hear it.” I have no idea who said this but it resonates as true with me! So, with that encouragement, I am going to offer a few thoughts from Tim Keller as written in his book, “Encounters with Jesus.”

First, let’s read the text from John 20:11-18

“11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; ¹²and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. ¹³They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ ¹⁴When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. ¹⁵Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’ ¹⁶Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher). ¹⁷Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” ’ ¹⁸Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.”

What follows is written by Tim Keller (I highly recommend the book!)

“Here is perhaps the main point of the New Testament in narrative form.

At the outset, you can see the remarkable tenderness of this interaction. There are several places in the Old Testament where God confronts people who are seriously mistaken or wayward, doing so not with intimidating declarations but with gentle, probing questions.  In the Garden of Eden, God asks disobedient Adam and Eve, “Where are you?” and “How did you come to feel shame?” To the rebellious prophet Jonah God asks, “Are you right to be angry?” Counselors know that it is not enough to simply tell people how to live. Asking questions helps the person to recognize their errors, to discover and embrace truth from their hearts. The questions of Jesus are similar. “Why are you crying?” is really a gentle rebuke to Mary, a wakeup call. “Who is it you are looking for?” is a more penetrating invitation to, as commentator D.A. Carson writes on this verse, “widen her horizons and to recognize that, grand as her devotion to him was, her estimate of his was still far too small.”

Notice, however, that Mary misinterprets Jesus’ questions. She thinks perhaps he is the caretaker of the place that that may know where Jesus’ body had been moved. So Jesus makes another effort to break through to her heart, and does it with a simple word. Earlier in this gospel, Jesus said that he was the Good Shepherd, that he “calls his own sheep by name” and “his sheep follow him because they know his voice.” And that is what he does here, simply saying, “Mary.” Real faith is always personal. If you only believe that Jesus dies to forgive people in general for their sins – but you don’t believe that Jesus died for you – you aren’t taking hold of Jesus by faith. You haven’t heard him call you by name.

The graciousness of Jesus of palpable. Mary is running around frantically but (as he hints) she’s looking for the wrong Jesus. For a dead Jesus. For a Jesus infinitely less great than he really is. So she would never have found him unless he sought her. He comes to her, gently works to open her heart, and then breaks through with a personal address. Her faith comes by grace – she doesn’t earn it.

But we learn even more here about the relationship of grace and faith. At the moment Mary realizes Jesus is alive, he sends her with the message “Go to my brothers and tell them…” – and in a sense she become the first Christian. Why? Well, what’s a Christian? A Christian has had an encounter with that risen Christ. And at this moment Mary is the only person in the world of whom those things are true.

Now, is this an accident? I don’t believe so. Jesus could have easily arranged to make anyone the first messenger. He chose her. And that means Jesus Christ specifically chose a woman, not a man; chose a reformed mental patient, not a pillar of the community; chose one of the support team, not one of the leaders, to be the first Christian. How much clearer can he be? He is saying, “It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve done. My salvation is not based on pedigree, it’s not based on moral attainments, raw talent, level of effort, or track record. I have come not to call those who are strong, but to call those who are weak. And I am not mainly your teacher but your savior. I’m here to save you not by your work, but by my work.” And the minute you see yourself in Mary Magdalene’s place, something will change forever in you. You’ll be following the first Christian.

You see, the text is not just telling us that grace is the cause of our faith, but it is the content, too. If you believe that Jesus was a great teacher and you believe he can help you and answer your prayers if you live according to his ethical prescriptions, you are not yet a Christian. That’s general belief but not saving faith. Real Christian faith believes that Jesus saves us through his death and resurrection so we can be accepted by sheer grace. That’s the gospel – that good news that we are saved by the work of Christ through grace.” (Tim Keller, “Encounters with Jesus” Penguin, 2016)

The Catechism says this, “Faith is a gift from God, a supernatural virtue infused by him…. Believing is possible only by grace and the interior helps of the Holy Spirit. But it is no less true that believing is an authentically human act. Trusting in God and cleaving to the truths he has revealed is contrary neither to human freedom nor to human reason.” (CCC  153 -154)

“Faith seeks understanding”. It is intrinsic to faith that a believer desires to know better the One in whom he has put his faith and to understand better what He has revealed; a more penetrating knowledge will in turn call forth a greater faith, increasingly set afire by love.” (CCC 158)

A Heart of Stone

“I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” – Ezekiel 36:26

As a chaplain to federal offenders my ears hear many stories of brokenness, pain…and hope.

My mind processes much of this information based on my experience. My experience is informed by myriad factors such as cultural context, family, education, etc…

My heart processes much of this information and experience based not only on the processes of my mind but seemingly by something that, based solely on my experience, is malleable and yes, even drastically changeable. These changes seem to well up inside me from a place I can comfortably describe as my spirit; that part of me which yearns to be in union with the very essence of unity itself. I sense this source of unity as embrace, love, peace, abundance and freedom.

Thomas Merton put it this way, “Living is the constant adjustment of thought to life and life to thought in such a way that we are always growing, always experiencing new things in the old and old things in the new.”

As a sailor this reminds me of the constant trimming of sails and subtle heading changes (and sometime tacks and jibes) to get where you desire to go.

In the book of Revelation 21:5 it is written, “Behold, I am making all things new” as Paul encourages us in his letter to the Philippians to set our minds on higher things, noble things, pure things, holy things, honourable things, commendable things.

I did not always live out of this place of oneness; this place of freedom. I chose through rightly or wrongly ordered desires (insert much debate here), to make decisions based on something that has changed in my spirit, my heart and my mind. It is interesting to me that I no longer desire things that I once desired; I no longer fear that which I once feared. On a personal level these inner changes in my psyche interest me as a sort of self-study. I don’t want to make too much of it but, likewise, I don’t want to pretend that it isn’t true. There has been a stirring deep within me for many years and the more I trust it the more whole I feel.

So, when I hear others reflect on similar themes I am intrigued. Recently in a group session with federal offenders a man attempted to describe how he had felt “nothing” inside. He struggled to put words to the emptiness that he felt before going into prison. He could not use an emotion to describe this emptiness or a facial expression to capture how the feeling might look if projected onto a human face. It was a void, he said, “incapable of feeling”.

He went on to explain that a crack of light began to penetrate this deep void when he accepted the gravity of what he did. He had gotten to a place where he accepted responsibility for his crime. Yes, there were mitigating realities in his life that may have served him a handicap in good decision making but he seemed to fully accept that his decision to go down a path of criminal behaviour was his. He owned up to his responsibility in this. His total responsibility.  With this acceptance of responsibility he began to understand that not only what he did was wrong but that it created victims. He caused people considerable pain. He described this moment (after a year of therapy, prayer, meditation and self-examination) as the moment that he began to feel something in that pre-existing void. He felt guilty and even shameful that he had done this. He also began to feel empathy for all those who have suffered as a result of his past.

I may write later on the difference between guilt and shame. The former is a healthy response to past regret; the latter is never healthy and must be dealt with for a healthy redefinition of self-worth and healthy living. It is not healthy to have an identity built in shame.

He went on to describe his previous inner life, the void, like that of an empty rock quarry. Large boulders, no grass or trees; no sign of life whatsoever. After his accepted responsibility for what he did empathy for his victims seemed to open up the flood gates of emotion. The water of his tears seemed to drench the parch soil of the rock quarry that was his inner life, his heart. Large boulders began to crack open as grass and vegetation sprung up. His inner life began to transition from a void, a rock quarry, to a garden; from a stony void to a place of life.

Empathy was the path. It was there he realized the beauty of the other and the embrace that is still freely and lovingly offered to even him. He began to realize that he is worthy of love.

“I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” – Ezekiel 36:26

CoSA Conference June 2016

Yesterday we finished up a three day conference in support of Circles of Support and Accountability (CoSA). Over the three days we met with community members who are on the one hand concerned that high-risk sex offenders are re-entering their community and, on the other, share a desire to mitigate the risk by doing something about it. The conversation throughout the three days was powerful, insightful and sometimes deeply personal. It was authentic and vulnerable.

CoSA intrigues many because it seems to work. In fact, through five highly respected research studies, CoSA has been proven to reduce sexual recidivism by between 70% to 83%. Two of these studies took place in Canada, two in the USA and one in the UK.

At our all-day training session on Saturday, community members who self-identify as atheist, agnostic, liberal Christian, conservative Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Buddhist all came together to deal with the reality that convicted sex offenders are released into our cities after their sentences are completed. Whether we want to admit it or not, when their sentence is over, sex-offenders get out of prison and are in our communities. So, now what?

There are, of course, many public policy options to this question although the law is unlikely to change, for better or for worse, on this matter. So, now what?

Well, armed with good research, good training and good networks in community, committed volunteers are willing to embrace CoSA as a proven means of reducing victimization in community. It is important work and it works.

We are motivated by our core values of, "No more victims. No one is disposable."

To learn more about CoSA please visit:

www.cosacanada.com

For more on the research please visit:

http://www.robinjwilson.com/

http://andrewmcwhinnieconsulting.com/

Viola Desmond, Suffering and Redemption

Viola Desmond, Suffering and Redemption

“…upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.”

Isaiah 53:5

Holy Week has begun. We begin to consider with our minds and participate though our liturgies the great mystery of the suffering of Jesus. The word suffering does not cross my lips easily. I only confront the reality of suffering in our wonderful but deeply wounded world on my knees. There is too much suffering. I can only seem to think about these things on my knees. It is far too simplistic for me, a healthy, wealthy man blessed with a healthy family to consider these things without an overabundance of gratitude for today’s daily portion of breath, health and peace. O Lord have mercy on us all.

In this short reflection I will consider a very narrow aspect of suffering. I want to consider the power that explodes as a result of unjust suffering.

What is an example of unjust suffering? Well, there are so many but since Rev Dr. Lennett Anderson and his church family are being dragged into the bowels of unjust suffering through the actions of Sobeys I will briefly discuss one who knows unjust suffering – Viola Desmond.

After her car broke down in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia in 1946, Viola Desmond, a Canadian of African descent, purchased a ticket to a local movie theatre while awaiting repairs. She had no idea that the seating area on the main floor was reserved for whites only. She suffered the indignity of being dragged out of the theatre by police, spent a night in jail, charged with defrauding the government and fined $20. Through all the indignity that followed Viola Desmond helped to raise the awareness of the reality of segregation in Canada through her suffering – her unjust suffering.

I would like to suggest that Viola Desmond, precisely because of the unjust suffering she endured, helped free others from suffering. Just think of the many in my generation and today’s young people who are not as shackled to racism as was Viola. Her unjust suffering enabled the freedom of others from victimization. It is not perfect but it helped.

Jesus of Nazareth was innocent. He suffered unjustly. Christian theology has argued since the first century that His suffering, the only innocent human being who ever lived, enabled the freedom of all from the shackles of sin, guilt, shame and fear. He did something that no one else, no saint, no social action, no disciple can do. His innocent suffering saved us all.

The law cannot contain the explosive power of true justice.

Every once in a while we get a glimpse of the power of unjust suffering, just as we did in 1946 with Viola Desmond and just as we are now as children of God carry placards decrying the unjust treatment of a woman by Sobeys. The law cannot contain the explosive power of true justice.

Let us pray for justice.

Let us act with justice.

Always.

Descendants of Freedom

They answered him, ‘We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, “You will be made free”?’ (John 8:33)

A couple years ago I read Desmond Tutu’s book No Future Without Forgiveness wherein he not only discussed the individual and community healing that can flow through forgiveness but he made no bones about its messiness. Forgiveness is tough work.

“Forgiving and being reconciled to our enemies or our loved ones are not about pretending that things are other than they are. It is not about patting one another on the back and turning a blind eye to the wrong. True reconciliation exposes the awfulness, the abuse, the hurt, the truth. It could even sometimes make things worse. It is a risky undertaking but in the end it is worthwhile, because in the end only an honest confrontation with reality can bring real healing. Superficial reconciliation can bring only superficial healing.”  - Desmond Tutu

 If you are looking for quick, neat and tidy solutions, forgiveness may not be the first word that crosses your mind; it may be something closer to revenge. Revenge, or the instinct to desire revenge, comes from a deep innate place of justice – a deep yearning for justice to be done. Surely we can have some measure of empathy for the anguish and bitter hatred expressed by victims of hideous crimes. We want to see justice done – and quickly please. We seek justice; this is good.

Sadly, it is likely not too difficult for us to image mass deportation, war and even genocide. It has been all over the news during my lifetime alone. The Psalmists lived through such a time of exile and hated their captors. Their land had been conquered, language despised, culture ridiculed, sacred places of worship and community gatherings destroyed, and vessels used for religious rites desecrated during drunken parties. The feverish pitch of the visceral desire for revenge, and a yearning for divine justice is expressed throughout the Psalms. These yearnings exist today by many peoples.

Psalm 139 is a staple for those who seek the comfort of being fully know and fully loved in spite of sin. It has moments of a mysterious divine gentleness in being intimately known and sings out in amazement and joy that “such knowledge is too wonderful for me.” Yet, it quickly turns on the issue of justice with a guttural desire for their oppressors to be slain. “Do I not hate them, O Lord…I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.” And just as quickly as the psalm turned toward the pain and delight of revenge it turns back in surrender to a just God. “Search me, O God, and know my heart…see if there is any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.”

The appeal is to a God of eternal justice. As a follower of Jesus I must confront the reality that divine justice is intimately bound up in forgiveness as an enabler of perfect freedom. Forgiveness frees individuals to heal and to participate in authentic community. Forgiveness has the power to liberate us from inner turmoil, cultural hurts and systems of injustices. It is messy work but forgiveness powerfully enables healing.

As I reflect on the reintegration of prisoners back into community I often think about justice, community safety and hope. I would like you to consider a reality many prisoners experience - they are outsiders in a world of insiders. They come to see that, to quote one man, “I was a prisoner long before I went to jail.” This is not to lessen the reality of the crime and the sometimes horrendous consequences on the victim. It is, however, to suggest that sometimes we come to see ourselves as slaves of a freedom-depriving macro system. And we realize we don’t like being slaves. A slave is a prisoner to some power dynamic, craving, insecurity, injustice or false god in society. To see oneself as stuck in a slave-master relationship with someone or something is to plant a seed of injustice and a desire for justice. Slavery is a false identity imposed on another by coercion or in some cases simply societal norms. Slavery is life-depriving. The truth is that we are set free and the sooner we learn to walk in freedom the sooner we can deepen in the truth of justice. Seeing oneself freed from the shackles of slavery is the starting point for authentic healing.

Freedom is not a birthright but a revealed and learned identity.

We become more ourselves by participating in the lives of others. Yes, it is messy work, but should that surprise us? Surely we can admit that we all have our messy bits on the inside. Learn to forgive yourself, to be merciful to yourself and it becomes easier to forgive others and to offer mercy to the other. This is the building blocks of the common good, our collective home, our community and we will surely get glimpses of the Kingdom of God as we begin lifting these building blocks.

A dear friend of mine is a crack addict who has been clean for some time now. He does not take a healthy, drug-free day for granted and he knows the next craving could be just around the corner. He knows the feeling of living out of an identity in exile, a slave in a foreign land. He also gets glimpses from time-to-time of a freedom born out of his true identity and he knows the power of an enemy which deprives him from living out of this true identity and true nature. He knows this voice of guilt, shame and fear. He also knows that every day of walking in the image and likeness of his true identity allows the place of exile to feel more distant; it becomes a place to which he no longer wants to return. This personal journey of “slavery” to “freedom” involved going to prison and the embrace of a forgiving community who are as interested in holding themselves accountable as they are in holding the other accountable.

We have a tremendous capacity to keep ourselves busy. Maybe we can find a little time to delve into the messy reality of forgiveness. I think our freedom is somehow bound up in forgiveness.

Flesh in...

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us…”

John 1:14

I don’t know very much about much. I do know that I have bumbled around plenty. Some bumblings have been of the focused sort and some, well, not so much…  None was necessarily directionless as I have learned plenty in rabbit holes I really didn't think I needed to explore. I am thankful that my spiritual formation, as angelic as some moments have been, has always seemed to force me into a more profound earthy reality. I am convinced that spirituality and humanity should not be separated.

I remember walking along Quinpool Road when Julia was about five years of age. I did my best to protect my daughter from hearing the vulgarity of a very drunk homeless man as we walked by. I admit my primary motivation was a desire to protect my daughter from his tirade of insults directed toward passerbys.

Julia asked, “Why is he like that, daddy?” to which I bumbled to find a half-suitable answer when a moment of self-possessed illumination caused me to say, “I think it’s because he doesn’t have anyone in his life who loves him.” My reply to her came with a certain sense of self-satisfaction as I just spewed out what I thought was a clever, fitting answer which would surely satisfy a little girl.

This sense of self-satisfaction quickly, and entirely, evaporated when Julia responded, “But, daddy, I love him.” She totally unravelled my new-found, detached spiritual thesis of love and replaced it with a deep, personal intimacy of love. She revealed my answer as one of detached spiritual nonsense void of the humanness, mundane dirt and grime of authentic spirituality.

Out of the mouth of this babe came the truth that the incarnation forces us into a world of “sinners and tax collectors” armed only with an abundance of subsistence; a daily portion of grace. Being fully human is to embrace the spirituality of every aspect of the human condition; a condition with plenty of crap, to put it mildly. If we ignore any part of the human condition we stand to give power to either spiritual blindness or some sort of self-delusion.

Most surprising for me in my bumblings is that any “progress” I seem to make spiritually results in the very notion of progress being shattered by a deeper understanding of my brokenness. I really can’t claim much success, or progress, based on my own merit. This, of course, heightens the very scandal of the incarnation and the crucifixion in my own mind as I come to see that I am more dependent on my daily portion of grace that I care to fully admit to myself. That I meet an even deeper outpouring of acceptance amid this state of dependence is, paradoxically, not to deepen in despair but to deepen in the freedom of grace. It is to come alive. It is to bask in grace. It is to know love and to be set free.

I have come to see that every moment of spirituality is a deeper call to humanity.

I think this is the way of the cross.

“Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.”

GK Chesterton

Forgiveness

“O Lord, you have searched me and known me.”

–Psalm 139

If a church community is blessed enough to have an addict come to a worship service they will likely come in contact with someone who knows fear. It is likely this sense of fear comes from an inner sense of shame and the accompanying fear of being abandoned.

The addict is looking for hope.

Hope to conquer the cycle of addiction.

Hope that values still matter and relationships can be real.

Hope that one can be fully known and still loved.

Hope that a string of assumptions can be revealed for the lies that they are. The lie that the addict has no dignity can be replaced by the truth of inherent dignity. The lie of rejection is replaced by the truth of embrace. The lie of worthlessness can be replaced by the truth of healing.

The cycle of fear of rejection is broken not by hiding the truth but revealing the truth of the past and being embraced rather than rejected.

Healing - existential, mental, physical and spiritual healing happens when the brutal cycle of the lies of alienation are replaced by the truth of truth-telling, embrace and forgiveness.

My grandmother told me years ago that the most important word in the Bible was forgiveness. “Everything else flows from forgiveness,” Mom Smith said with experience and authority. She was right.

A man told me a couple weeks ago that he “was in prison long before he went to jail.”

His prison was the brokenness of alienation. Healing came when he knew that he was loved, not because of what he did or didn’t do but because it is a truth. He discovered that authentic love is real.

So, if you are blessed to have an addict join your well-intentioned family of faith you have every likelihood to witness healing and to know a deeper sense of self-healing and communal healing.

If that addict has a relapse, don’t perpetuate the cycle of fear and shame by dragging them in front of a board of elders with a demand for a written apology. Instead, listen to their deep pain and pour out God’s mercy.  The pain comes from a place of profound sadness, fear, shame, unworthiness and, yes, where the still voice of hope can be heard. Hope that forgiveness is real.

Forgiveness is messy work but it is worth it.

The Manliness of Mercy

The Manliness of Mercy: A Reflection on Male Spirituality

When my son was about three years of age he and I witnessed a couple dogs fighting near the Halifax Common. I remember him asking me to “Make them stop, Daddy!” My thoughts were focused on protecting my son as the dog owners yelled and tried to regain control of their pets. My son’s thoughts, however, were focused on his father seemingly being capable of fixing this scary situation.

Of course he would reach out to me to “make it stop” because, like most parents in most situations, we have a good track record in our child’s limited experience of carrying out our role as protector and “make it go away” guru. We brush dust off small scrapes and administer the loving medicine of a kiss and an “all better.” We make problems go away. That’s what we do; it’s a function that comes with the territory but it does not last and, really, never truly existed anyway. The only truth active in these early days of parenting is the truth of self-giving love; everything else is a deception of control which will be unveiled by the child through the healthy blossoming of maturity.

I will suggest in this brief reflection that control participates in the language of slavery not freedom. The tentacles of control run deep in our lives in a myriad of ways.  

Can we pause for a minute and admit that we really like control? A Christian worldview would suggest that this is the epicentre of the question to be asked as we grow. It is arguable that the entire fall of humanity was based on the human’s desire to wrestle control from God who is entirely invested in our freedom but we wanted control of our own destiny. Our control did not gain us freedom but a slavery disguised as we-know-best. The human race has proven a tremendous ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory because we want control.

Control sets us on an addictive path of manipulating our surroundings, relationships, experiences and feelings to such a self-destructive, delusional level that we actually believe that we have earned freedom. Grace unmasks this self-deception and deprives it of power. This free gift reveals the seat of our slavery, our control and our desperate attempts to protect ourselves from shame, hurt and pain.

Life is gift. It is all gift. That we earned nothing is as fundamental to the Christian understanding of reality as it gets. Grace is radical. It is total embrace, reconciliation, satisfaction for the sins of the whole inherited legacy of humanity that stemmed from our going it alone trying to control our own destiny. Grace reveals God’s immeasurable, unmerited, unearned, free gift - totally free, ridiculously free, abundantly free - which restores the beauty of the Garden that we may know now, dimly as it may be, as we draw closer and closer to its clarity in the intimacy of our walking out our journey as we deepen in relationship and trust with Jesus Christ. It restores our capacity to know beauty, hope, faith, embrace and mercy as breadcrumbs back to the heart of freedom as love. Grace restored our freedom; grace is restoring our freedom and grace will restore our freedom. Grace was in places and events we know and those we can only fathom and, yes, even those places that are outside of our entire understanding. Even the darkness is not darkness to you, O Lord.

It’s all gift. Freely given to us by God.

I met a woman a short time ago who having raised a family was now going through a valley she had never experienced before and it was a terrifyingly scary place for her. The depths of this painful walk were hard to hear being poured out. She showed me a picture of her bruises. One bruise had the distinct image of the cross at its centre. It was a striking whiteish cross in the midst of a black and blue bruise. For this woman the cross symbolized hope. Hope amid the bruises. Such hope amid acute pain in life should not surprise us because we know God never abandons us. God is present in the depths of our brokenness, hurt, shame, pain, sin and whatever mess we find ourselves in, whether the consequences of our own bad decisions or not. The simplest truth I can speak to someone else is that God will not abandon them – ever – even if sometimes it feels like it.

My powerlessness to “Make it stop!” for my son is an early admission for me of things I can and can’t control. I am grateful that my inability to make it stop was in the presence of dogs fighting one another in a pleasant park area of Halifax rather than the father in any number of warzones in our world who cannot make the war stop, or the father who cannot make the dying of their sick child stop.

“I can’t stop it, my son” was my feeble response to my young son. There are many things that I can’t explain adequately that he will come to know as he grows into a man, but the one that grounds it all is the very essence of our faith, the paschal mystery as rescue, restoration, comfort, renewal, peace, hope, love and freedom. God has been merciful to me; please, Lord, help me walk in this gift of mercy and share it with others.

May we learn to redefine victory because we have been lured into a sense of success that we must control in order to maintain. It is a lie, possibly the first and great lie. Changing direction is sometimes a painful walk through a desert but we have God in our midst; God who never abandons us and is full of mercy. The contemporary band, “Mumford and Sons” put it this way in their song, Roll Away Your Stone “It not the long walk home that will change my heart but the welcome I receive with every start.”

As we let go of control may we be merciful to ourselves, because the still voice of God is merciful to us. May this gift of mercy give us humble confidence to be merciful to others.

I believe the seat of manliness is found not in control but in receiving mercy as free gift to be re-offered to others. The machismo of control pales in comparison to manliness of mercy.

Freedom

February 13, 2016

For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another.

Galatians 5:13

I have begun to work with a not-for-profit, registered charity in Halifax, Nova Scotia called the Halifax Community Chaplaincy Society (HCCS). We are an organization that helps ex-prisoners reintegrate back into community. This is a deepening in my sense of calling to follow Jesus. (I may write about that sometime)

Over the past few years I have been working with people on the margins of what we would consider mainstream society. Although some of these people on the margins are visible to us daily I have come to appreciate some of the tremendous complexities that have created and perpetuate this reality.

Just about daily I experience my many limitations. I am part of the whole working of the entire machine of domination which perpetuates the norm; a norm with an emphasis on material wealth which seems to take a toll on the mental and spiritual health of many in our society.  I have come to see that my limitations are not necessarily a bad thing because they have allowed me to emphasize an authenticity in my relationships which is not motivated by ‘fixing’ but by simply being in relationship.

Not everyone is called to work on the streets but every one of us is called to be in relationship with someone. Who is that someone for you? How is your relationship?

I work alongside a man I have come to admire. Paul Holmes began the Grace Street Mission on Gottingen Street about ten years ago. He told me that in his early months of working on the street he was motivated by “Bringing Christ to these people”. When he saw the face of Christ in a man passed out in a corner he was initially shocked but came to realize that they were actually bringing Christ to him. Much changed in his outlook and his focus. He became much less task oriented and far more relationship oriented. The rest seems to take care of itself as he welcomes anyone and everyone into his little mission. Bible study is powerful at the mission!

I have come to see that God identifies with people who are hurting, locked in cycles of shame, guilt and fear. God frees. Freedom is a great gift not to be squandered.

How do we identify with God as our supporting, liberating presence? Does this freedom give us the opportunity for self-indulgence or self-giving?

In faith, hope and love.

Rob