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Luke

That one thing…

Luke 10:41-42 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “…only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” At Sky Farm, I would set the meditation timer on my phone, then just sit. Or kneel. But what then? During the first few days, these silences were about letting the words drain away—or trying to, anyway. Words about God and prayer and Christianity. Words from books, sermons, blogs, videos, stories, songs, classes, conversations. Millions of words, accrued to me over decades. So I tilted my head to one side to let them pour out of my ear and into the ground. I knelt with my forehead to the carpet and let the words fall out the top of my head and disappear into the silence. Sometimes words are just clutter, something that blocks our view. In The Wisdom of the Desert, Thomas Merton […]

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What the angel could mean

Luke 1:29 Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. This evening I parked in the garage behind the YMCA, walked to the elevator, and pushed the call button. The doors opened and a tall woman stepped out. I only saw her for a few seconds as she passed, but in those few seconds….. Unlike most others who step out of the elevator in the parking garage behind the YMCA, this woman was looking up, and right at me. Her face was lit with unselfconscious recognition, as if she had been hoping it would be me when those doors opened. She smiled right into my face, beautifully, kindly, as she quickly stepped past me and out into the garage. I moved inside the elevator, the doors closed, and the moment was over. But what I felt in those seconds of anonymous encounter was … love. Recognition. […]

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Unenlightenment

Luke 1:35 … and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. On the surface, fame; deeper down, obscurity. The angel has just told Mary that she will be famous, and she wonders how this will come about, given her empty state. The angel’s answer? Among other things, Mary will be overshadowed. Overshadowed. Light will be blocked. God’s proximity will throw Mary into darkness. In Isaiah 45:7, God says, “I cause light to shine. I also create darkness.” The author comments in verse 15, “You are a God who hides yourself.” This is a puzzling God, alright, whose love for me does not always involve enlightening me or saving me from the terrors of the night. God is not always driven to self-revelation. God is not afraid of darkness, is not anxious to make it go away as fast as possible, and in fact even creates it. And God […]

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To be found

Suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Won’t she light a lamp and sweep the entire house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she will call in her friends and neighbors and say, “Rejoice with me because I have found my lost coin.”
(Luke 15:8–9)

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Waves of sand

Luke 13:10–17 When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.”Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God. I had a dream a few weeks ago that has already served me a few times as a touchstone. In the dream, a young man is in a desert, and waves of sand are sweeping over him as if they were water. He has to stay upright and pay attention so he won’t be smothered. What are my waves? …. the thought of an overwhelming problem in the world or in the life of someone I love …. an impulsive idea that seems to need my immediate attention …. a tangled situation that I don’t know how to solve ….. In her sermon yesterday, our vicar pointed out that the bent-over woman doesn’t ask […]

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A maddeningly long wait

Luke 12:32–40 It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the middle of the night or toward daybreak. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. Okay, so…Servant = meMy master = JesusHouse = the worldHouse’s owner = whatever’s calling the shots around here What does it look like to be ready? What helps me stay ready, even if it’s a maddeningly long wait? It helps me that Jesus predicts a maddeningly long wait. Thank you, Jesus, for being realistic. It’s not a surprise to you, I guess, that this world is a dark room in which people seem to be stumbling all over each other. But someday the door will open, and light will break in from the outside. That’s […]

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My cupboard is bare

Luke 11:1–13 … Teach us to pray. Hmm. …one of [Jesus’] disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray…” …Then he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and she goes to that friend at midnight and says, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.’ “Then the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children are with me in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, though he will not get up and give her the bread because she is his friend, yet because of the woman’s boldness he will get up and give her as much as she needs. I heard this, went home, and sat in my chair to reflect. Here’s what hit […]

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Who takes care of me?

Luke 10:25–37 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” That is, “Who must I love if I want to inherit eternal life?” And then Jesus hit him with the story of the good Samaritan: A man is robbed and beaten. A man just like the lawyer asking the question, perhaps? Two upstanding citizens walk past without helping, but a Samaritan (read: outcast) bandages his wounds, gets him a room at a hotel, and leaves a credit card in case the man needs more help. Jesus asks which of the three is a neighbor to the man who was robbed. The Samaritan, of course. Neighbor = the one you must love if you want eternal life. Neighbor = the amazingly generous outcast who isn’t too busy to help the story’s “me” (the man to whom Jesus is replying). Therefore, the one you must […]

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In my right mind

Luke 8:26–39 Jesus cast a squadron of demons out of a crazy guy. And then… …they found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus’ feet, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. At the 8 a.m. contemplative mass at St. Cuthbert’s, a twenty-minute silence follows the reading of the gospel. I listened to the story about the lonely, unclothed, crazy man who had broken his own chains again and again, but still wasn’t free, and how it was only Jesus who could clean up the nasty mess of his life. And then I sat there for twenty minutes at Jesus’ feet thinking and feeling this: I am in my right mind. I haven’t always been and might not always be, but for now, I am in my right mind. And I am grateful. At 9 I headed off to visit a place […]

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