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Start with love, respond in love, and keep love in sight

5/23/2020

Every day I feel more gratitude for my faith. How could I possible manage this pandemic if I had to count on myself and others to help get through this? (And I don’t have immediate problems.) How easy it is to blame others for what has gone wrong, for any downward mood springs, and for what might happen next! Or, to take credit when things go my way! Without God, this is where I invariably I go: my will be done, which is sometimes loving, but always led by the ego.
I won’t go into any theological discussion about God. What I know and have come to believe is that whatever we are dealt in life gives us the opportunity to start with love, respond in love, and keep love always as the goal. This involves mind, body, and spirit.
The mind helps us remember and think about love; the body can lead us to do loving acts; the spirit unites the two. It is through the spirit that I feel God is presence, leading me toward Thy will be done, not my will,

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Forgiveness and humility in pandemic times

5/19/2020

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No better time to let go of unnecessary judgments than during this pandemic time. There are myriad opportunities to analyze what everyone is doing, and then disapprove because they are not acting the way I think they should. I’m not talking about appropriate actions to avoid catching or spreading the virus, but about how people are personally responding emotionally and psychologically.
     Yesterday, in talking with a friend, I blurted out a negative comment about a mutual friend. Immediately God appeared, reminding me that this is precisely what I have been praying to let go of in my life. Also, immediately, Jesus walked away from my presence. Throughout the rest of the day I prayed for understanding and healing, and it came in the form of God’s forgiveness; God forgives and in accepting that radical gift, I can ease closer and closer to forgiving myself.
    God had another gift for me: the gift of humility, a gift I sorely need. Humility is a simple gift. It is neither fancy nor complicated, but it is hard to grasp or accept. It is not a gift I always want. And so I lose it, or put it away for Sunday morning. To be humble is to know and believe that I am not in charge; that good I want to do I can only do by praying Thy will be done.
     I leave you with two scriptures that continue to lead me to forgiveness and humility.

Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same thing.
Romans 2: 1

For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.
Roman 7:19-20

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Life after death

5/2/2020

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I posted this on my cottage by the sea blog, but first I want to say more.
     My Christian faith, my belief in ‘life after death’, as the expression goes, gives me enormous comfort. In fact, it makes all the difference. I am grateful that I don’t feel any need to explain this further, either to others or to myself. I thankful for that because, I’d probably start creating/making up all kinds of ways it should be. Ah, how easy it is to play God.

    Up the street from where we live is Wadsworth Cemetery. Lately I’ve been going there after supper, but yesterday it was raining so I postponed by visit until this morning, when I set off at 6:30, coffee in hand.
    I find cemeteries peaceful, calming, and hopeful. If I can embrace that dying is part of living, that death is part of life, I can wander about among the grave stones and feel peaceful; I can breathe in the flowers, flags, sunlight and shadows and feel calm; I can look across the street to a home that was once a stop on the Underground Railroad and feel hopeful.
    COVID-19 is catapulting us to face the death issue, and forcing us to think about our own death and those we know and love, and to consider what the death of the universe as we know it might mean. Visiting cemeteries is one way to bridge the gap between living and dying, and between life and death. It is one way that brings me calm, peace, and hope.

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Start with love, respond in love, and keep love in sight

Forgiveness and humility in pandemic times

Life after death

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