Category Archives: Devotional Reading

We truthfully belong together in God. This is the spiritual basis of solidarity.

Here too we find the ground of all Christian action. As prayer leads us into the house of God and God’s people, so action leads us back into the world to work there for reconciliation, unity, and peace…. All Christian action – whether it is visiting the sick, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, or working for a more just and peaceful society – is a manifestation of the human solidarity revealed to us in the house of God. It is not an anxious human effort to create a better world. It is a confident expression of the truth that in Christ, death, evil, and destruction have been overcome. It is not a fearful attempt to restore a broken order. It is a joyful assertion that in Christ all order has already been restored. It is not a nervous effort to bring divided people together, but a celebration of an already established unity. Thus action is not activism. An activist wants to heal, restore, redeem, and re-create, but those acting within the house of God point through their action to the healing, restoring, redeeming, and re-creating presence of God.

Nouwen, Lifesigns, Image Books p. 35

Speaking Words of Love
Often we remain silent when we need to speak. Without words, it is hard to love well. When we say to our parents, children, lovers, or friends: "I love you very much" or "I care for you" or "I think of you often" or "You are my greatest gift," we choose to give life.

It is not always easy to express our love directly in words. But whenever we do, we discover we have offered a blessing that will be long remembered. When a son can say to his father, "Dad, I love you," and when a mother can say to her daughter, "Child, I love you," a whole new blessed place can be opened up, a space where it is good to dwell. Indeed, words have the power to create life.

From Henri Nouwen via

I don’t come up with quite the quality of words that Nouwen did.  But I recognize that even my words are important.  As I speak them I am either speaking love to people or, well I guess the opposite is hate.  I always hope my words are not quite so strongly negative to be taken as hateful but I know that when I speak words quickly, without thinking, without caring about the person I speak them to, they can hurt.  There are occaisions when I deliberately say things to hurt another in anger. 

I always end up regretting those angry words.  And they can’t be taken back.  I can try to make amends for them but I can never really take them back.

I was reflecting on my day yesterday – a pretty normal day at work.  There were lots of patients that forgot their appointments and one mother bringing her child for sedation who confessed that her child had had some cereal and juice that morning – which means they are automatically cancelled for safety reasons. 

Sometimes I regret that I am not more of a person of words.  But I wonder if angry words would come more easily then too.  It would not have been helpful to the child in pain for me to berate her mother with words.  It would not have been helpful to the three young women who came in with far too much decay to berate them and make them feel belittled.  They would have left with a message but it would likely have been that they weren’t worth much in my eyes.

Their worth in my eyes – hmmm.  I need to remember that each one, each person is loved by the one who lovves me most as well.  God never drives us away because we have not met his expectations – because we can’t really.  And he just keeps loving us anyway, delighting in what we do accomplish. 

And my family; I am glad that I can express my love to them in words.  And in hugs.  And in time spent with them.  I hope they learn to do the same with their children – even when the kids don’t want them around.  Just keep on loving and finding occaisions to say it with actions or with words.

Todays meditation from Henri Nouwen is

The Cup of Life
When the mother of James and John asks Jesus to give her sons a special place in his Kingdom, Jesus responds, "Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?" (Matthew 20:22). "Can we drink the cup?" is the most challenging and radical question we can ask ourselves. The cup is the cup of life, full of sorrows and joys. Can we hold our cups and claim them as our own? Can we lift our cups to offer blessings to others, and can we drink our cups to the bottom as cups that bring us salvation?

Keeping this question alive in us is one of the most demanding spiritual exercises we can practice.

I recall reading this passage in Nouwen’s book Can You Drink The Cup?  and being profoundly moved by this thought, "The cup is the cup of life, full of sorrows and joys. Can we hold our cups and claim them as our own? Can we lift our cups to offer blessings to others, and can we drink our cups to the bottom as cups that bring us salvation?"

“Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth; knit my heart to you that I may fear your name.”

As I read this in the morning, I was reminded of both the intimate closeness and the great and awesome majesty of God. It seems a contradiction to talk of being knit to God – joined intimately, woven in as one of two threads, the other being God – and fearing God at the same time. Being out in nature reminds me of this often. I have a hard time understanding this; like trying to join a dichotomy in my mind. I know God’s spirit dwells in me and yet when I look at the power of the wind and snow in the storm like we had yesterday, I know that my God is also the creator of the weather including the fury of the storm. He seems too big for me to be knit to. I cannot contain him; I am too small, and yet he wants to reside in me.

He is truly a mystery.

“Save me, O God, for the waters have risen up to my neck.” Psalm 69:1

Now if that isn’t a cry for help, I don’t know what is.  This line from the Psalm was the Request For Presence part of the morning prayers from The Divine Hours by Phyllis Tickle.  It is used frequently throughout the prayers in all the seasons. 

How often it is my cry as well.  When we are immersed in life up to our necks, it is a good time to call out for help. 

This morning I spent some time calling out “save me” for friends and children.  Life can get very complicated, usually from something we have done that in retrospect was not great.  But life has this inconvenient factor of not having a rewind button.  We have this tendency to want to live in the constant mode of rewind or in fast forward.  Living in the now, giving each moment to God, letting him help us get through the present moments we have flavoured or tainted with our past decisions takes a certain amount of courage.  Especially when we are up to our necks in life and can’t see how we are ever going to land our little boats safely on the shore. 

So, save us God.  Give us wisdom to live well in the here and now and ride out these storms with us; these flood waters that rise to drown us. 

This passage was part of the morning readings.  Luke 6:36 to 38 (NLT)

You must be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate.  Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn others, or it will all come back against you. Forgive others, and you will be forgiven.  Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full—pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.

I am receiving many suggestions right now in the period of buying frenzy before Christmas of what my children would like to receive.  I am reflecting on what place this kind of giving has for Christ’s followers.  Maybe I am just tired of the excesses.  Maybe I know how much their requests really will cost if I treat them all fairly and know that it will not be possible for me to meet their requests.  More and more I wish I could get away from the pressure to give at this season.  So much of the giving is stuff no one needs, really.  

A http://www.buynothingchristmas.org/ looks more and more attractive. 

Maybe it is just my feet sore with plantar fasciitis that tell me I do not want to walk around in malls fighting people for a place in the line ups.

Yet, I want to give.  It is part of my nature and when done for the right reasons and to good causes (even to one’s own children) it is a response to God’s love.  I am not sure the kind of excesses of our North American Christmas honor God nor do all the requests of my children.  Balance I guess.  Keep honoring God my first desire.  Pray I do not become too cynical or miserly to catch some of the glory of this season.