God is Life...

God is Life.

This could be the reason many have lost interest in God or should I say we have gained interest in so many things this life has to offer us. When life seems scarce and it does for many now—but always has for many more (i.e. the things we want are not readily available or to be had at all) a strange nervousness begins to pulse within and we begin frantically looking for some-thing to convince us we are alive. For the affluent among us (which I am too), this most often sets in as boredom and how many of us are bored right now in the midst of this pandemic, which has erased many of our life-defining activities (travel, entertainment, things, food, etc.). That these are problems not associated with the Gospel will be left to another who is more committed to Christ than I to explore.

In these times of lack it is easy to seek the things that have constituted our daily lives in new ways. We look for more ways to entertain ourselves. I do too. We look for other things to give us a clear sense of meaning in life. I do too. We look for opportunities to serve others for a deeper sense of significance. Anything will do that helps us to feel alive, to feel life within.

The trouble is in such moments of frantically searching for life all around us we miss the Unconditional Life within and that is unconditionally derived from God alone who is Life and that nothing—NOTHING—in the world can give to us. St. Augustine said it well in his Confessions:

“Late have I loved you, beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you! And see, you were within, and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely things which you made. You were with me, and I was not with you. The lovely things kept me far from you, though if they did not have their existence in you they had no existence at all.”

How often is this the case for most of us? We spend most of our lives, living for so many things, thinking therein that we will know some significance, some meaning, a sense of life and the problem may just be that we find just enough significance, meaning and life that we miss The Life God is in, with and through us with others. But, lest we be discouraged, the things of this life as with all things will run out for they are all—including us—temporal. And, it is precisely in the God who is Life—Eternally—that in his persistence, we can be as assured as a prodigal, that when we come to the end of things, and hopefully ourselves, God will continue to call…shout…flash…shine…until we know his very presence breathing in us. Consider the closing part of St. Augustine’s quote above. He finishes by re-minding us of this eternally persistent God…

You called, and shouted and, burst my deafness. You flashed, shone, and scattered my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I burned for Your Peace” (Confessions: Book X, Chapter XXVII, 38)

All God has to offer us is Life because that’s who God is. In this season of Lent, may we know God’s calling to us, shining all around us, literally breathing within us as we yet pant after the things of this life. And, then let us take that big deep breath—that God The Holy Spirit is—within and know ourselves alive—maybe for the firs time—maybe again—and worship the one true God and Jesus whom He has sent (c.f. John 17:3), who said, “I am The Way, The Truth and The Life.” (c.f. John 14:6).

May the song below help bring this blog to life, in your life, by worshipping The One who is Life…enjoy…

Advent-urous Re-Thinking

The meaning of our lives is the shore eroding under the relentless waves of our technological and marketing preoccupations. The traumatic nature of this unnatural disaster is that our capacity to see what is happening is being decreased and the sand on which we stand continues to erode beneath our feet. In the midst of this creation we say we enjoy The Creator still speaks build your life on rock so that when your winds and waves come you might stand (c.f. Matt ???)

Now, less you think this is some melodramatic and existentially indulged blog post let us consider the season we are fast approaching in December. These days (increasingly no different than the rest of the year) are inundated with information at a pace that is not only overwhelming but increasingly decreasing our ability to reflect on life and our living. There’s a shear and relentless restlessness among us. It comes from the information supplied by the marketeers among us who prod us to pay attention to that which is inherently ephemeral. This only increases in a season that is ironically about eternal things—The Eternal One. Anything to distract us from that which can save us will do. The irony is we have sold our God given capacity to reflect on our lives and to discover the meaning inherently within (i.g. Imago Dei) to those who would sell another meaning back to us in appliances, gadgets, and other things that will be sold at a fraction of the cost 8 years from now. At Christmas, the marketeers yet again have convinced us to trade our savings for His Salvation.

The sand beneath our feet is washing away and yet we stand with a smile on our face.

Advent, ironically, a season of such happiness, cards, gifts, togetherness and festivities is a penitential season in the life of the church.

Today, I hear an invitation for us to allow fro some Advent-urous Re-Thinking in our lives. Instead of allowing this years holidays, Christmas, or whatever we call it to come and go and to come out with nothing but the glazed over look of an experience that was self-indulgent might we close our eyes, withdraw from the frenzy and ask for The Gift of The Christ to be born within—again? That we might see the life we’ve been given and live?

There’s much more that could be said, and someone much smarter than I could wax eloquent on it, but the rest of this post can only be written in the intimacy of your own quiet time with God. My hope for us all this season is that God will help us to do some Advent-urous Re-Thinking—to know the meaning He has given us in the image we are made in and The Image that is born among us this Christmas, which will save us and restore to us the joy of His salvation.

As Merton’s title and my lack of footnotes (as if someone else could claim the right to some originality—there’s nothing new under the sun) suggest these thoughts in this post are Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander.