The widest circle

It's Trinity Sunday, a day that I like to think about how our God is a God of relationship, and more all-encompassing than human beings will ever be able to understand. God, the Creator of all, could have stopped at coming to us as Jesus, God with skin on, but no -- She and He also appears to us as God, the Holy and Creative Spirit. Together, the three form a wide circle and invite us all in to their dance. They show us the love and inclusiveness that we are all called to offer to one another.

Imagine, for a moment, a more inclusive world -- one in which everyone is recognized and treated as a cherished child of God no matter their age, ability, culture, faith, gender, race, or socio-economic status. That's exactly the kind of circle we are called to create by the way we welcome one another and live together.

Happy Trinity Sunday!

The wisdom of non-discrimination on a Sunday

Lately I've been thinking a lot about human beings and our left-or-right, black-and-white ways of thinking. We like to divide things into opposing categories rather than try to see everything as one part of a much greater whole. Unfortunately this is where so much of our world's suffering arises.

But if the human race is to survive the challenges it is facing on so many different fronts -- ecological, social, financial, intellectual, spiritual, political, etc., we need to look beyond our own prejudices and our tendency to exclude those whose outlooks and opinions are different than ours. When we have the wisdom of non-discrimination, according to Thay, we don't suffer. Whether we tend towards the right or the left, we need to remember that the suffering or happiness we feel or cause isn't ours alone. Both sides are affected, and both sides can help the other to heal.

With this in mind in the week ahead, let's practice inclusiveness rather than discrimination. Talk to a stranger and learn about his or her challenges. Look at opinions different than our own. Smile at someone who needs a smile of their own. Hold open a door. Offer a helping hand. Show genuine concern for someone different than us by trying to understand their point of view. There are so many ways to reach across the chasms that divide people.

It's just a matter of reaching.

For our good, and the good of all creation

It drives me crazy, how we human beings have separated ourselves and the things we have created from God's creation. I've been thinking about this for a long time, being an environmentally conscious kind of person, but it was really underlined for me this past week in the daily emails that I received from Richard Rohr, OFM, and his Centre for Action and Contemplation.

Father Richard is a Franciscan, which already gives him high marks in my books, and he's also a man who has figured out a lot of really important things when it comes to faith. He shares his understanding in books, presentations and the daily emails that land in my inbox.

Actually, I think a lot of us have a sense of those important realizations in our heart-of-hearts, but he has a knack for putting them into words. From my email on Monday, January 19th:

We must know that creation is our first and final cathedral. Nature is the one song of praise that never stops singing, as many of the Psalms say. If you are drawn to "kneel" in this cathedral, you can always talk to a Mystery that is so much larger than yourself. It takes no theology classes whatsoever, no proofs, or arguments. Aweism is the one true religion. All the other native and historical religions merely build upon this primal awe that bows before everything. 

Adapted from "Nature and the Soul," Radical Grace,

Vol. 24, No. 3, Summer 2011, pp. 3, 22; 

and In the Footsteps of Francis: Awakening to creation

The first humans knew this, and lived it. But several thousand years later, we over-intellectualized it all, and started having intellectual arguments, forgetting that the Love that created everything probably didn't want us arguing about Him and Her as much as living love. And somewhere around that time we lost the idea that She and He is in every created thing, which allowed us to objectify and "use" creation rather than treat it as God's body. So...

Acknowledging the intrinsic value and beauty of creation, elements, plants and animals, is a major paradigm shift for most Western and cultural Christians. In fact, we have often dismissed it as animism or paganism. We limited God's love and salvation to our own human species, and even then we did not have enough love left to cover all of humanity! God ended up looking quite miserly and inept, to be honest.

Adopted from "Is 'Green' a Christian Position?" Radical Grace,

Vol. 22, No. 1, January-March 2009, pp.3, 22

And this is where I really struggle with my church. God is still miserly and inept, according to its vision. People are kept from the table of plenty because of their perceived "state of un-grace" or their sexual orientation or their unwillingness to "join the club" -- only suitably holy "club members" are allowed. The church forgets that Jesus ate with everybody, and we shouldn't bar the way, either.

My other pet peeve is that the words of our liturgy rarely remember creation in prayer at all. Sure, there's talk about blessing the "fruit of the vine and the work of our hands," but what about blessing all the other stuff God made? And all the other people who believe differently than my church? Jesus had an intimate relationship with nature, always drawing it into his teaching, and he certainly didn't shun people who believed differently than he did -- remember his praise for the centurion? (Matt. 8:5)

So I have become a rebel (as though you hadn't guessed by my refusal to call God by only the traditional masculine pronouns). I change the words. I don't just pray that God accepts our prayers "for our good and the good of all his holy church," I pray for the good of all creation. Not just for my church and its good, but for everyone and everything.

And I expect that God, who is anything but miserly and inept, is just fine with that.

(If you're interested in the writings and teachings of Fr. Richard Rohr, information and daily email signups can be found by Clicking Here. The email sign up is on the upper right side of the webpage.)