Meditations on fathers, significant male relationships, and themes from Romans 5
Everything that you think, you thought that you are, you have received from the cosmos, from parents – including your body. — Thich Nhat Hanh
We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise. — Romans 5: 2b (From The Message translation of Romans 5:1-5)
Song: Father and Son by Cat Stevens
Song: Father to Son by Phil Collins
Song: Father and Daughter by Paul Simon
Song: Where Is the Love? by The Black Eyed Peas
Questions for this Meditation
- Who has modeled male love and presence in your life?
- What gifts have you received from the father-figure(s) in your life?
- In what ways does a father-figure offer you a sense of belonging or connection to meaningful gifts? Alternately, in what ways does a father-figure separate you from a sense of being loved and connected?
- If you are called a child of God, what does God look like to you or mean to you? And how do you resemble God?
The Gift (excerpt) — Li-Young Lee
To pull the metal splinter from my palm my father recited a story in a low voice. I watched his lovely face and not the blade. Before the story ended, he’d removed the iron sliver I thought I’d die from. I can’t remember the tale, but hear his voice still, a well of dark water, a prayer. And I recall his hands, two measures of tenderness he laid against my face, the flames of discipline he raised above my head …
Father and Creator: Spiritual Originators
And I say the sacred hoop of my people was one of the many hoops that
made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center
grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother
and one father. — Black Elk
When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy. — Rumi
I was born by myself but carry the spirit and blood of my father, mother
and my ancestors. So I am really never alone. My identity is through
that line. — Ziggy Marley
I imagine God to be like my father. My father was always the voice of
certainty in my life. Certainty in the wisdom, certainty in the path,
certainty always in God. For me God is certainty in everything.
Certainty that everything is good and everything is God. — Yehuda Berg
The Genesis account does not say “Let me make humankind in my own image, but let us make humankind in our own image according to our likeness”
This is not a “me” God, but a “we” God. God from the beginning is, not
God as bad math, but God as community. The triune nature of God
assures that God is in fellowship with God’s self. In the Beginning is
Creator, Word and Spirit all co-mingling to bring forth creation. Here
God creates communally. — Nadia Bolz-Weber
An almost perfect relationship with his father was the earthly root of all his wisdom. — C.S. Lewis
If you have a beautiful voice, don’t think that you have created that beautiful voice for yourself. It has been transmitted by your ancestors, your parents. If you have the talent of a painter, don’t think that you have invented that talent. It has been transmitted to you as a seed. So everything you have thought that you are has come from the cosmos, from your ancestors. The water in you, the heat in you, the air in you, the soil in you, belong to the water outside, the soil outside. Without the forest how could you be? Without your father and mother how could you be there this moment? Therefore you say, in wisdom, that you are nothing. Everything that you think, you thought that you are, you have received from the cosmos, from parents – including your body … You belong to the stream of life. — Thich Nhat Hanh
I’m very moved by chaos theory, and that sense of energy. That quantum physics. We don’t really, in Hindu tradition, have a father figure of a God. It’s about cosmic energy, a little spark of which is inside every individual as the soul. — Bharati Mukherjee
Ideals of Fatherhood
No man stands taller than when he stoops to help a child. — Abraham Lincoln
Anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a dad, and
that’s why I call you dad, because you are so special to me. You taught
me the game and you taught me how to play it right. — Wade Boggs
Peace is the beauty of life. It is sunshine. It is the smile of a child,
the love of a mother, the joy of a father, the togetherness of a
family. It is the advancement of man, the victory of a just cause, the
triumph of truth. — Menachem Begin
Son, brother, father, lover, friend. There is room in the heart for all
the affections, as there is room in heaven for all the stars. — Victor Hugo
My father raised us to step toward trouble rather than to step away from it. — Justin Trudeau
It is easier for a father to have children than for children to have a real father. — Pope John XXIII
I wasn’t anything special as a father. But I loved them and they knew it. — Sammy Davis, Jr.
Every father should remember one day his son will follow his example, not his advice. ―Charles Kettering
My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me. ―Jim Valvano
My father didn’t tell me how to live. He lived and let me watch him do it. ―Clarence Budington Kelland
The quality of a father can be seen in the goals, dreams and aspirations he sets not only for himself, but for his family. ―Reed Markham
He adopted a role called being a father so that his child would have something mythical and infinitely important: a protector. ―Tom Wolfe
I’ve said it before, but it’s absolutely true: My mother gave me my drive, but my father gave me my dreams. Thanks to him, I could see a future. — Liza Minnelli
Where Is the Love? (song lyrics)
— Performed by Black-Eyed Peas
Songwriters — Allan Pineda / Giorgio Hesdey Tuinfort / Jaime Gomez /
Jayceon Taylor / Justin Timberlake / Khaled Khaled / Rakim Mayers /
Will Adams
People killin’ people dyin’
Children hurtin’, I hear them cryin’
Can you practice what you preachin’?
Would you turn the other cheek again?
Mama, mama, mama, tell us what the hell is goin’ on
Can’t we all just get along?
Father, father, father help us
Send some guidance from above
‘Cause people got me, got me
Questioning
(Where’s the love)
Yo what’s going on with the world, momma
(Where’s the love)
Yo people living like they ain’t got no mommas
(Where’s the love)
I think they all distracted by the drama and
Attracted to the trauma, mamma
(Where’s the love)
I think they don’t understand the concept or
The meaning of karma
(Where’s the love)
Overseas, yeah they trying to stop terrorism
(Where’s the love)
Over here on the streets the police shoot
The people put the bullets in ’em
(Where’s the love)
But if you only got love for your own race
(Where’s the love)
Then you’re gonna leave space for others to discriminate
(Where’s the love)
And to discriminate only generates hate
And when you hate then you’re bound to get irate
Madness is what you demonstrate
And that’s exactly how hate works and operates
Man, we gotta set it straight
Take control of your mind and just meditate
And let your soul just gravitate
To the love, so the whole world celebrate it
People killin’ people dyin’
Children hurtin’, I hear them cryin’
Can you practice what you preachin’?
Would you turn the other cheek again?
Mama, mama, mama, tell us what the hell is goin’ on
Can’t we all just get along?
Father, Father, Father help us
Send some guidance from above
‘Cause people got me, got me questioning
(Where’s the love)
It just ain’t the same, always in change
(Where’s the love)
New days are strange, is the world insane?
(Where’s the love)
Nation droppin’ bombs killing our little ones
(Where’s the love)
Ongoing suffering as the youth die young
(Where’s the love)
Where’s the love when a child gets murdered
Or a cop gets knocked down
Black lives not now
Everybody matter to me
All races, y’all don’t like what I’m sayin’? Haterade, tall cases
Everybody hate somebody
Guess we all racist
Black Eyed Peas do a song about love and y’all hate this
All these protests with different colored faces
We was all born with a heart
Why we gotta chase it?
And every time I look around
Every time I look up, every time I look down
No one’s on a common ground
(Where’s the love)
And if you never speak truth then you never know how love sounds
(Where’s the love)
And if you never know love then you never know God, wow
(Where’s the love)
Where’s the love y’all? I don’t, I don’t know
Where’s the truth y’all? I don’t know
People killin’ people dyin’
Children hurtin’, I hear them cryin’
Could you practice what you preach?
Would you turn the other cheek?
Father, Father, Father help us
Send some guidance from above
‘Cause people got me, got me questioning
(Where’s the love)
(Where’s the love)
Love is the key
(Where’s the love)
Love is the answer
(Where’s the love)
Love is the solution
(Where’s the love)
(Where’s the love)
They don’t want us to love
(Where’s the love)
Love is powerful
(Where’s the love)
(Where’s the love)
My mama asked me why I never vote never vote
‘Cause police men want me dead and gone (Dead and gone)
That election looking like a joke (Such a joke)
And the weed man still sellin’ dope
Somebody gotta give these niggas hope (Please hope)
All he ever wanted was a smoke (My gosh)
Said he can’t breathe with his hands in the air
Layin’ on the ground died from a choke
(Where’s the love)
I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders
As I’m gettin’ older y’all people gets colder
Most of us only care about money makin’
Selfishness got us followin’ the wrong direction
Wrong information always shown by the media
Negative images is the main criteria
Infecting the young minds faster than bacteria
Kids wanna act like what they see in the cinemas
What happened to the love and the values of humanity?
(Where’s the love)
What happened to the love and the fairness and equality?
(Where’s the love)
Instead of spreading love we’re spreading animosity
(Where’s the love)
Lack of understanding leading us away from unity
(Where’s the love)
Reflections on matriarchs and mothers
We are born of love; Love is our mother.
— Rumi
To My Mother (excerpt) — Edgar Allan Poe
Because I feel that, in the Heavens above,
The angels, whispering to one another,
Can find, among their burning terms of love,
None so devotional as that of “Mother,”
Therefore by that dear name I long have called you—
You who are more than mother unto me,
And fill my heart of hearts …
What’s Going On? (song excerpt)—
Alfred W Cleveland / Marvin P Gaye / Renaldo Benson
link to music video Mother, mother
There’s too many of you crying
Brother, brother, brother
There’s far too many of you dying
You know we’ve got to find a way
To bring some lovin’ here today, eheh …
For only love can conquer hate
You know we’ve got to find a way
To bring some lovin’ here today, oh oh oh … Mother, mother, everybody thinks we’re wrong
Oh, but who are they to judge us
… Oh, you know we’ve got to find a way
To bring some understanding here today, Oh oh oh
- Mother Goose: link to information.
- Divine Feminine: article in HuffingtonPost by Joan Chittister
Of Mothers & Matriarchs
Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children. — William Makepeace Thackeray
The chain connecting mother to daughter was broken and the world passed to the keeping of men, who had no way of knowing. ― Anita Diamant
… give them to all the people who helped mother our children. … I don’t want something special. I want something beautifully plain. Like everything else, it can fill me only if it is ordinary and available to all. — Anne Lamott
Our images of God, then, must be inclusive because God is not mother, no, but God is not father either. God is neither male nor female. God is pure spirit, pure being, pure life — both of them. Male and female, in us all. — Joan Chittister
We are braver and wiser because they existed, those strong women and strong men… We are who we are because they were who they were. It’s wise to know where you come from, who called your name. — Maya Angelou
Motherhood: All love begins and ends there. — Robert Browning
Mama was my greatest teacher, a teacher of compassion, love and fearlessness. If love is sweet as a flower, then my mother is that sweet flower of love. — Stevie Wonder
The love of a mother is the veil of a softer light between the heart and the heavenly Father. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge
A mother’s happiness is like a beacon, lighting up the future but reflected also on the past in the guise of fond memories. – Honore de Balzac
I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life. — Abraham Lincoln
Life began with waking up and loving my mother’s face. — George Eliot
For when a child is born the mother also is born again.— Gilbert Parker
With what price we pay for the glory of motherhood. — Isadora Duncan
My dear Mama, you are definitely the hen who hatched a famous duck. — Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
It may be possible to gild pure gold, but who can make his mother more beautiful? — Mahatma Gandhi
God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers. — Rudyard Kipling
Mother and Child — Louise Glück
We’re all dreamers; we don’t know who we are.
Some machine made us; machine of the world, the constricting family.
Then back to the world, polished by soft whips.
We dream; we don’t remember.
Machine of the family: dark fur, forests of the mother’s body.
Machine of the mother: white city inside her.
And before that: earth and water.
Moss between rocks, pieces of leaves and grass.
And before, cells in a great darkness.
And before that, the veiled world.
This is why you were born: to silence me.
Cells of my mother and father, it is your turn
to be pivotal, to be the masterpiece.
I improvised; I never remembered.
Now it’s your turn to be driven;
you’re the one who demands to know:
Why do I suffer? Why am I ignorant?
Cells in a great darkness. Some machine made us;
it is your turn to address it, to go back asking
what am I for? What am I for?
God as Creator: Source Code of Grace (excerpt from longer sermon)— Nadia Bolz-Weber
In the beginning, all there was, was God. So in order to bring the world into being, God had to kind of scoot over. So God chose to take up less space—you know, to make room. So before God spoke the world into being, God scooted over. God wanted to share. Like the kind-faced woman on the subway who takes her handbag onto her lap so that there’s room for you to sit next to her. She didn’t have to do it, but that’s just who she is . . . the kind-faced subway lady’s nature is that she makes room for others.
Then God had an absolute explosion of creativity and made animals. Amoebas. Chickens. Crickets. Bees. Orangutans.
Then God said, “Let us create humans in our own image and likeness.” Let us. So, God the community, God the family, God the friend group, God the opposite of isolation, said, “Let us create humanity in our image and likeness. Let there be us and them in one being.”
So God created every one of us in the male and female image of God. Then God gave us God’s own image —something so holy that it could never be harmed, and never be taken away. A never-aloneness. An origin and destination. A source code of grace.
Reflections on locked room mysteries and love that doesn’t knock: themes from John 20
What barriers stand between you and Love? Can you really keep out a love that is transformative, or will it pass through your closed door and locked heart, somehow? Yet doubt and questions have their place … they sometimes help open the way.
Man goes far away or near but God never goes far-off;
he is always standing close at hand,
and even if he cannot stay within he goes no further than the door.
— Meister Eckhart
Locked Room Mysteries
Locked room mystery lists. What is your favorite locked room mystery?
- Eight Fiendish Locked Room Mysteries recommended by Barnes & Noble
- Top 10 Locked Room Mysteries recommended by the The Guardian
History of Locked Room Mysteries — Scott Laming (link to article)
The ‘locked room’ mystery is one of the most intriguing sub-genres of crime writing. These books depict a crime committed in what appears to be an entirely impossible situation such as a locked room where the killer has seemingly vanished into thin air.
The concept of a behind-closed-doors mystery has been a plot device since the heyday of Ancient Greece but it was not established as a sub-genre of crime fiction until the 19th century. One of the earliest examples is Edgar Allan Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue … Several other authors (Joseph Conrad, Sheridan Le Fanu and Wilkie Collins) also made early attempts at this style of mystery.
The real kick-starter for the genre came in 1892 when Israel Zangwill used the same locked room puzzle concept for his primary plot device in The Big Bow Mystery. However, he added another classic mystery writing element, the red herring … John Dickson Carr, who also wrote as Carter Dickson, is probably the king of the locked room mysteries and The Hollow Man is the Dickson Carr book to read to encounter the best example. Also look up The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux.
ON KNOCKING & ENTERING
Poem — Rumi
One went to the door of the
Beloved and knocked.
A voice asked: “Who is there?”
He answered: “It is I.”
The voice said: “There is no room
here for me and thee.”
The door was shut.
After a year of solitude
and deprivation
this man returned to the door
of the Beloved.
He knocked.
A voice from within asked:
“Who is there?”
The man said:
“It is Thou.”
The door was opened for him.
If I Knew Then (excerpt)
— performed by Lady Antebellum,
written by Charles Kelley /
Richard Belmont (monty) Powell / Anna Wilson
… ‘Cause love only comes
Once in a while
And knocks on your door
And throws you a smile
And takes every breath,
Leaves every scar,
Speaks through your soul
And sings to your heart …
So I say to you, Ask and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. — Jesus Christ
It’s really interesting how music can knock down a wall and be an open connection between you and someone else where something else can’t. When music comes along, it just opens your heart a little more. — Phillip Sweet
If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door. — Milton Berle
No man ever got very high by pulling other people down. The intelligent merchant does not knock his competitors. The sensible worker does not knock those who work with him. Don’t knock your friends. Don’t knock your enemies. Don’t knock yourself. — Alfred Lord Tennyson
If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody.
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
How strange that nature does not knock, and yet does not intrude!
— Emily Dickinson
I can’t never stop nobody, can’t knock nobody hustle.
— The Notorious B.I.G.
There are five issues that make a fist of a hand that can knock America out cold. They’re lack of jobs, obesity, diabetes, homelessness, and lack of good education. — will.i.am
We know we cannot plant seeds with closed fists. To sow, we must open our hands. — Adolfo Perez Esquivel
You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space. — Johnny Cash
All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant’s revolving door. — Albert Camus
I have become my own version of an optimist. If I can’t make it through one door, I’ll go through another door – or I’ll make a door. Something terrific will come no matter how dark the present. — Rabindranath Tagore
In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself. — Jiddu Krishnamurti
The outward man is the swinging door; the inner man is the still hinge. — Meister Eckhart
You close the door on me and tell me I can’t, I’m gonna find a way to get in. — Tyler Perry
Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during the moment. — Carl Sandburg
I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 A.M. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. — Joan Didion
I cannot sleep for dreaming; I cannot dream but I wake and walk about the house as though I’d find you coming through some door. — Arthur Miller
Commentary on Fear, Doubt & Questions: John 20
The fact is that all the great spiritual models of the ages before us found themselves, at one point or another, plunged into doubt, into darkness, into the certainty of uncertainty: Augustine, John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Meister Eckhart, John the Baptist, Thomas, Peter, one after another of them all wondered, and wavered, and believed beyond belief. Surely, then, doubt is something to be grateful for, something about which to sing an alleluia. Unlike answers that presume the static nature of God and the spiritual life, doubt stretches us beyond ourselves to the guidance of a God whose face is not always in books. Doubt is what leaves us open to truth, wherever it is, however difficult it may be to accept. But most of all, doubt requires us to reconfirm everything we’ve ever been made to believe is unassailable. Without doubt, life would simply be a series of packaged assumptions, none of them tested, none of them sure, and all of them belonging not to us, but to someone else whose truth we have made our own. — Joan Chittister
… questions … So many of them seemed to imply that people were struggling with the fact that hard things in life are hard. That somehow since they don’t have great positive feelings about God in the midst of their own suffering that this somehow means they lack faith and this worries them. For some reason we tend to think that having faith means unwavering belief, and never doubting and always no matter how awful things get, never ever having negative feelings about God and certainly never wondering if there really is a God. It’s like we’ve forgotten the strong, and totally awesome tradition in the Hebrew Bible of complaining to God. It’s called lamenting – and we should totally reclaim this part of our tradition…I have a friend who says if you’re going to have a praise band in your church, that’s fine but only if you also have a lament band because being the people of God has always meant a whole lot of both praise andlament. — Nadia Bolz-WeberNot surprisingly, Jesus came to visit his disciples, knowing that they would feel defeated and understanding the support they would need in order to move forward. He bestowed peace upon them, and they were overjoyed when he showed them his wounds. They, like Thomas, apparently needed physical proof of the resurrection. Jesus’ return to visit with his disciples appears to have had a clear mission of fortifying them to continue his work. First of all, they would need peace to counter the turbulence of his death, and secondly, they needed evidence of his resurrection to restore their faith. Jesus dealt with these two pressing issues immediately. He did not simply return to celebrate his resurrection, but to prepare them as he sent them forth to continue the work he had begun. — Samuel Cruz, Workingpreacher.org
John is explicit about the prevailing sentiment behind the closed doors. They were behind the doors because of fear, one of the most powerful human emotions. Fear shuts all sorts of doors in our lives. It shuts the door to anyone who is “other” because it sees them as a threat more than a friend. Fear causes us to live out of reptilian fight or flight rather than the deeper virtues of faith, hope, and love. Fear causes us to react to what we fear rather than reflect the one we worship. When one lives in a constant state of fear, it can actually rewire the brain so that everything looks like a threat. Fear had the disciples behind locked doors. Despite the pervasiveness of walls and locked doors, however, Jesus walked right through them. And his greeting to them was one of peace. — Preston Clegg, The Truett Pulpit
And suddenly, in the midst of their fear and confusion, there he was, not with angels, trumpets, or legions, but quietly, without a hint of anger. No accusations, no trouble or turmoil. Only peace. And then, the very next thing, he gives them the gift of the Holy Spirit – he doesn’t just give it to them, but breathes the Spirit into them. — Katheryn Matthews
Of course, it’s not just a story about Thomas. It’s also a story about frightened disciples. So scared, in fact, that, they hid behind locked doors. And who can blame them? They had just witnessed the one they confessed to be the Messiah betrayed by one of his own, tried and convicted by both religious and civil authorities, and then brutally executed. Little wonder they were afraid, assuming that the next step would be to round up Jesus’ followers. But when Jesus comes on the scene, their fear falls away and is replaced by joy… But that’s not the way it works with Thomas. He doubts. He questions. He disbelieves. He’s not satisfied with second-hand reports and wants to see for himself. And again I would say, who can blame him? … do we make room for the Thomases in our world? Because I suspect that their number is legion … And sometimes faith is like that – it needs the freedom of questions and doubt to really spring forth and take hold. Otherwise, faith might simply be confused with a repetition of creedal formulas, or giving your verbal consent to the faith statements of others. But true, vigorous, vibrant faith comes, I think, from the freedom to question, wonder, and doubt … Indeed, I think that if we don’t have any doubts we’re probably not taking the story seriously enough. — David Lose
This is John’s great commission: Jesus breathes on his disciples and tells them to be about the business of forgiveness. John’s commission … does not imply the necessity for conversion of others, but a rebirth of the self. — Jonathan Burkey, aplainaccount.com
Resurrection is relationship. A relationship that will never be broken, that will never be abandoned, that will never know separation, and will forever be. Think this is just a pie-in-the-sky promise? Let’s pause and think about how much a relationship that will never end might mean. We live for and exist in relationships that are not life-giving, that are on the brink of dissolving, that will end, most certainly, because of every fault or no fault of our own. Think about the relationships that have changed over time, that can’t go back to the way they were before, that need to change, but maybe can’t and, in the end, maybe that’s okay. So we exist in tension and frustration and grief because we are not sure how to handle an acceptable demise or how to negotiate what this means for our relationships in the future. Think about the relationships that ended too soon — by terrorist acts, the ruthlessness of illness, the not-so-random events of nature’s reaction to environmental complacency, the sudden separations not planned, never anticipated, and so devastating, for whatever reason and for whatever cause. Our lives exist in, are known through, and defined by broken relationships. But it is not so with our relationship with God. — Karoline Lewis, workingpreacher.org
Love on the move. Themes from Gospel of John
Bending down to wash and anoint someone’s feet. What story do our feet tell about us? How we live? How do we love? How do we touch the earth?
Indeed, what amazing gifts might must be ours if we could kneel and honor the humanity in another? I imagine we might just start to see the holy there as well. — Janet Hunt
My Grandmother Washes Her Feet
in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears (excerpt) — Mohja Kahf My grandmother puts her feet in the sink of the bathroom at Sears to wash them in the ritual washing for prayer, wudu, because she has to pray in the store or miss the mandatory prayer time for Muslims She does it with great poise, balancing herself with one plump matronly arm against the automated hot-air hand dryer, after having removed her support knee-highs and laid them aside, folded in thirds, and given me her purse and her packages to hold so she can accomplish this august ritual and given me her purse and her packages to hold
so she can accomplish this august ritual
and get back to the ritual of shopping for housewares
Respectable Sears matrons shake their heads and frown
as they notice what my grandmother is doing,
an affront to American porcelain,
a contamination of American Standards
by something foreign and unhygienic
requiring civic action and possible use of disinfectant spray
They fluster about and flutter their hands and I can see
a clash of civilizations brewing in the Sears bathroom …
Standing between the door and the mirror, I can see
at multiple angles, my grandmother and the other shoppers,
all of them decent and goodhearted women, diligent
in cleanliness, grooming, and decorum …
On Feet: Walking and Washing
I would say that there exist a thousand unbreakable links between each
of us and everything else, and that our dignity and our chances are one.
The farthest star and the mud at our feet are a family; and there is no
decency or sense in honoring one thing, or a few things, and then
closing the list. The pine tree, the leopard, the Platte River, and
ourselves – we are at risk together, or we are on our way to a
sustainable world together. We are each other’s destiny. — Mary Oliver
And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair … ― Khalil Gibran, The Prophet
Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm. — Abraham Lincoln
What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the
feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and
want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what
love looks like. — Saint Augustine
You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer
yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own, and you know
what you know. And you are the guy who’ll decide where to go. — Dr. Seuss
When food comes you open your mouth; when sleep comes you close your
eyes. As you wash your face you find your nose, when you take off your
shoes you feel your feet. At that time, if you miss what’s being said,
take a torch and make a special search deep in the night. How can you
attain union? — Joshu
The greatest form of praise is the sound of consecrated feet seeking out the lost and helpless. — Billy Graham
Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of
what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be
curious. — Stephen Hawking
This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to
fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step
without feet. — Rumi
… Walking meditation is really to enjoy the walking — walking not in
order to arrive, just for walking. The purpose is to be in the present
moment and enjoy each step you make. Therefore you have to shake off all
worries and anxieties, not thinking of the future, not thinking of the
past, just enjoying the present moment. … We walk all the time, but
usually it is more like running. Our hurried steps print anxiety and
sorrow on the Earth. If we can take one step in peace, we can take two,
three, four, and then five steps for the peace and happiness of
humankind. … If we can transform our walking path into a field for
meditation, our feet will take every step in full awareness. Our
breathing will be in harmony with our steps, and our mind will naturally
be at ease. Every step we take will reinforce our peace and joy and
cause a stream of calm energy to flow through us. — Thich Nhat Hanh
From our feet, we can tell how the rest of our body is doing. The way we
follow the Lord reveals how our heart is faring. The wounds on our
feet, our sprains and our weariness, are signs of how we have followed
Him, of the paths we have taken in seeking the lost sheep and in leading
the flock to green pastures and still waters. The Lord washes us and
cleanses us of all the dirt our feet have accumulated in following Him.
This is something holy. Do not let your feet remain dirty. Like battle
wounds, the Lord kisses them and washes away the grime of our labors. — Pope Francis
Extravagant Love: Washing and Anointing
… we don’t separate a self from its environment, and cleaning expresses
our respect for and sense of wholeness with the world that surrounds us.
— Shoukei Matsumoto
A monk asked Joshu, “I have just entered the monastery: please give me
some guidance.” Joshu said, “Have you had breakfast yet?”
The monk said, “Yes I have eaten.” Joshu continues, “Then go wash your bowl.”
— Joshu, Buddhist Koan
In this text, Mary continues the theme of extravagance in the form of costly gestures involving expensive ointment. … Now is no time for frugality. This extravagance on earth is participating with the work of heaven. — Lynn Miller
Do you see this person that you are judging? Do you see her humanity, her profound child of God-ness, her generosity, her capacity for compassion? — Joy Perkett
Sounds
like a horrible idea to me, trying to get closer to God. Half the
time, I wish God would leave me alone. Getting closer to God might mean
getting told to love someone I don’t even like, or give away even more
of my money.It might mean letting some idea or dream that is dear to me
get ripped away. — Nadia Bolz-Weber
So Mary might have given Jesus this stunning gift of extravagance as a
thank-you or as a prophetic witness as to what would soon be. Perhaps
her motivation was a mixture of both. But what if another reason Mary
poured it all out that day was simply because she knew deep down that
her gift would make a holy difference to Jesus. Her gift, her generous
offering, could remind him who he was and how much he was loved. — Shannon J. Kershner
What
amazing and wonderful thing can she do, what can she say not with words
but with her whole self: Mary takes the best she has to give and in an
hour of need, as death looms over this little band of disciples, Mary
takes the best and breaks it open over the feet of Jesus, the one she
loves, the one she is about to lose…even if only for awhile…but we
suspect she does not know that, yet. — Kathryn Matthews
Then again, we might ask whom God might work through next. And if you
ask that question, then invite your people to look at those sitting near
them. For God may be about to use each of them in a surprising way to
care for their neighbor, to offer a listening ear, to do their work with
faithfulness and courage, to stand up for those who are less fortunate,
to resist peer pressure at school and offer an alternative to those
watching. Who knows? What we do know is that God is regularly about the
business of surprising us with where God shows up, whom God uses, and
what God accomplishes. — David Lose
Mary’s extravagant love for Jesus makes it possible for Jesus to show
extravagant love in what follows — washing the feet of his disciples,
handing himself over to be arrested in the garden, carrying his own
cross, dying, rising, and ascending. Mary loves Jesus into his future as
the fulfillment of, “for God so loved the world.” — Karoline Lewis
Jesus’ commandment to love one another is not a commandment to feel
affection, but a commandment to act in a loving way, even when we would
rather do otherwise. — Elisabeth Johnson
Remembering her may help them leave him alone while he finishes delivering his message. At home in Bethany, the storm clouds are still piling up against the door when Mary gives the forecast: it will be bad, very bad, but that’s no reason for Jesus’ friends to lock their hearts and head to the cellar. Whatever they need, there will be enough to go around. Whatever they spend, there will be plenty left over. There is no reason to fear running out–of nard or of life either one–for where God is concerned, there is always more than we can ask or imagine–gifts from our lavish, lavish Lord. — Barbara Brown Taylor
Reflections on prodigal love: themes from parable in Luke 15
When is love prodigal? When is it wasteful and exuberant to offer compassion and welcome though it may not be merited or appreciated? Some early theologians so feared this parable of prodigal love, that they decided it shouldn’t be told or taught … it offered a model that overturned good sense and economical, societal order. When have you been prodigal and excessive in your love? And would you do it again? When have you received such impractical generosity of heart? — Rev Gail
Song: Prodigal by Sidewalk Prophets
The Prodigal Son (excerpt) — Spencer Reece
For a decade I did not speak to my parents.
Are you listening to me? I will not bore you with details.
Instead, I will tell you something new. Listen to me.
I was angry. But the reasons no longer interest me.
I take the liberty of assuming you approve of forgiveness
… we discuss blessings, absolutions, consecrations—our work of the soul.
… Mother and father, forgive me my absence.
I will always be moving quietly toward you.
Blessing that Waits to Come to Your Aid — Jan Richardson
When I have become / so reliant on myself
that I cannot see / the need that gnaws / so deep / in my soul,
open my eyes, open my heart, open my mouth
to cry out / for the help
that you do not ration, the deliverance
that you delight to offer / in glad and / generous measure.
Poem (excerpt) — Rumi
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
… You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.
Prodigal Love: Extravagant Welcome & Unearned Grace
We’re all being loved in spite of ourselves. — Richard Rohr
I now see that the hands that forgive, console, heal, and offer a festive meal must become my own. ― Henri Nouwen, Return of the Prodigal Son
The pattern of the prodigal is: rebellion, ruin, repentance, reconciliation, restoration. — Edwin Louis Cole
We are so afraid of letting people off the hook. We are so resentful of unearned love. Unless we happen to be the ones toward whom the father is running, with his arms wide open and tears wetting his beard. — Barbara Brown Taylor
The story of the Prodigal Son is a story about hearts: selfish hearts and generous hearts, closed hearts and open hearts, cold hearts and warm hearts, broken hearts and joyful hearts, unrepentant hearts and repentant hearts, unforgiving hearts and forgiving hearts, resentful hearts and grateful hearts. It reveals so much about the vagaries of the human heart. When all is said and done it is the heart that matters. … The heart is what I am deep down. It is the real me. Darkness of heart is the blackest night of all. Emptiness of heart is the greatest poverty of all. A heavy heart is the most wearisome burden of all. A broken heart is the deepest wound of all. But the parable reveals how steadfast is the heart of God. — Flor McCarthy
The eyes of mercy are quicker than the eyes of repentance. Even the eyes of our faith are dim compared with the eye of God’s love. … It means much love truly felt; for God never gives an expression of love without feeling it in His infinite heart. — Charles Spurgeon
The question is not “How am I to find God?” but “How am I to let myself be found by him?” The question is not “How am I to know God?” but “How am I to let myself be known by God?” And, finally, the question is not “How am I to love God?” but “How am I to let myself be loved by God?” ― Henri Nouwen
Prodigal Child
… the prodigal figure is at work in us when we go racing through the candy store of life, unaware of the price of the going and comingor the cost. We are takers who gather everything we can to ourselves, or squander it or do nothing, and then discover that life demands back everything it gives in ways we never dreamed. — Joan Chittister
In relation to my practice, I am the prodigal son when I live in forgetfulness and self-centeredness. When I hurry … because I am attached to my agenda, I waste the precious gift of life in the present moment. When I come back to my breath, I seek the peace of mindfulness … — Mark LeMay, from Mindfulness Bell published by Plum Village (Thich Nhat Hanh’s Buddhist Sangha)
And, like the prodigal son, he had returned broken in body and also in mind to the house where he had been born … ― Catherine Cookson
The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate. A fine example was the Prodigal Son — when he started back home. ― O. Henry, The Green Door
The back door beckons to a prodigal son. ― Michael Davidow
It was his home now. But it could not be his home till he had gone from it and returned to it. ― G.K. Chesterton
… and it was the son’s new revelation of his poverty of heart that propelled him back into his Father’s arms. ― Tommy Tenney
But at least you and I have this in common: I know what it’s like to hunger. To hunger for love, for depth, for passion, for joy. And I know what it’s like to imagine an exotic Elsewhere, a more perfect nourishment miles away from my Father’s all-too-familiar table. I know what it’s like to “come to myself” in the broken, impoverished places of my own foolish fashioning, and to long for the warmth and sustenance of a home. — Debie Thomas
Once a person learns to read the signs of love and thus to believe it, love leads him into the open field wherein he himself can love. If the prodigal son had not believed that the father’s love was already waiting for him, he would not have been able to make the journey home – even if his father’s love welcomes him in a way he never would have dreamed of. ― Hans Urs von Balthasar, Love Alone is Credible
So when I reject my identity as beloved child of God and turn to my own plans of self-satisfaction, or I despair that I haven’t managed to be a good enough person, I again see our divine Parent running toward me uninterested in what I’ve done or not done, who covers me in divine love and I melt into something new like having again been moved from death to life and I reconcile aspects of myself and I reconcile to others around me. — Nadia Bolz-Weber
Offering Exuberant Love: Prodigal Parent
Every parent is at some time the father of the unreturned prodigal, with nothing to do but keep his house open to hope. — John Ciardi
But the real Prodigal in this story is your Father, is he not? Over-the-top, undignified, and hair-raising in his love? — Debie Thomas
You never depart from us, but yet, only with difficulties do we return to You. ― Saint Augustine, Confessions
This father is not content to have one child without the other; he advocates for and seeks out both. — Barbara Brown Taylor
When the prodigal son returned … The father accepts his son with loving-kindness and rejoices at his return. He greets the prodigal son warmly and rejoices at his return. The father’s response is a model for how I can treat myself when I stray from the path of mindfulness … I try not to cling to or repress my shame and anger. I notice these feelings and return to my breath. My feelings cannot be removed with aggression. I recognize them as part of the fold, and each time I return to the path, I say to myself (paraphrasing Thay), “I have arrived; welcome home.” — Mark LeMay, Mindfulness Bell published by Plum Village (Thich Nhat Hanh’s Buddhist Sangha)
… let us remember that God is the prodigal Father, who refuses to give us the love we deserve, but instead who gives the love we need. … who waits patiently for His lost children to return. When He sees us from a long way off, He runs to welcome us. … feels our absence … steps outside to be with us, and waits patiently for our response. — Barbara Brown Taylor
The father wants not only his young person back, but his elder son as well … The father … wants both to participate in his joy … Thus the father’s unreserved, unlimited love is offered wholly and equally. He does not compare the two sons. He expresses complete love according to their individual Journeys. — Henri Nouwen
… your relationship to God is simply not defined by your really bad decisions or your squandering of resources. But also your relationship to God is not determined by your virtue. It is not determined by being nice, or being good … Your relationship to God is simply determined by the wastefully extravagant love of God. A God who takes no account of risk but runs toward you no matter what saying all that is mine is yours. — Nadia Bolz-Weber
Older Child: The One Who Stayed Home, Yet Was Also Lost
… But here’s your vindication: the power in this story is yours … Your Father stands in the doorway, awaiting your company. You get to write his ending. What will you do, as the music grows sweeter? What will we choose, you and I? — Debie Thomas
There are many elder sons and elder daughters who are lost while still at home.― Henri Nouwen
The fatted calf, the best Scotch, the hoedown could all have been his too, any time he asked for them except that he never thought to ask for them because he was too busy trying cheerlessly and religiously to earn them. ― Frederick Buechner
The older son squandered his freedom by not thinking he had any. He didn’t believe that all that was the Father’s was his. He squandered the gifts of the Father by living a life of mirthless duty. And coming home from the field he hears the party underway and resents such a lavish show of love thinking it a limited resource. He was being a complete ass and yet again, the Father comes to him reminding him of the great love he has for his child. — Nadia Bolz-Weber
The third character, the elder son, remained faithful to his father while his younger brother squandered his inheritance. … The story does not explore the elder son’s feelings, aside from his anger. I can easily imagine him also feeling resentful, wounded, and suspicious. These feelings are familiar, for I have held them toward others and towards myself … I wake up to the suffering caused when I stray from mindfulness, I feel critical and suspicious of myself … I sometimes feel the sting of shame … I feel both the guilt of the prodigal son, and the angry suspicion of the elder brother toward myself … Each time I catch myself living in forgetfulness and feel the prodigal son and his brother in my heart, I try to remember the father. — Mark LeMay, Mindfulness Bell published by Plum Village (Thich Nhat Hanh’s Buddhist Sangha)