Greater Things

I read through the gospel of John.  I see the seven signs:

turning water into wine    healing the official's son at a distance   making the paralytic walk   feeding 5,000 with loaves and fishes  walking on the water   healing a man born blind    raising Lazarus

Are things missing in his first steps toward making all things new?  There wasn't a creation salvation: he didn't protect the coral reef, the melting ice caps, or the species' we've lost since then.  He didn't harbor a child, a battered woman, or an oppressed slave.  And, of course, he didn't create any political freedoms. But there's also this:   Jesus didn't lift anyone out of poverty.  

In John's story, healing takes priority and changes four stories.  That Roman official spreading the news.  The paralytic at the center of a Sabbath controversy that would cost his healer dearly.  The man born blind walking away from darkness to light.  Lazarus making the most of his second chance sharing a table with Jesus again and again.  Certainly new legs and new eyes could now give a man a living.  Mary and Martha spared destitution with the return of their brother's strength.   A field of people were given a meal, but just once.

He was here to point to himself, the rescuer.  He was here to usher in a new creation trickling it out to our grasping hands. First things first: draw hearts, shift thinking, give choices.  

He didn't come to make us rich, but to make us reach.  For him.  For one another.  Perhaps the poor won't always be with us and we can move to eradicate poverty in my lifetime,

Today we would ask for all the other things -- communal salvation, global relief.  We'd beg, "Help all the sheep. All the folds."  That was his intent all along.  We just weren't ready to join him.  He wanted us to be a part of the process.  He's left some miracles for us to do.  Rescue and redeem all of creation through the work he's already done.  And even greater things than these.

{Giving out of Poverty.  Lent 2013}

Monday's Oxymoron: Writing About Humility

February came and blasted us.
as February is prone to do.
Winds of opposition.
A weeklong blizzard of misunderstanding.
Mistrust.
It's the last hard push into Spring to make us alive again.
Death loves to whip its tail around while we crush its head.

The tapes in my head say: don't make major decisions in February.  Don't disengage, disavow, distort, disable, disband.  It's only the weathering of February.  It will pass.

When winter storms hit around here, snow pack below average, it's only a moment before the first person says, "We need it so bad."  We speak this need while it's all falling beautiful and white or days after when getting out is easier and we can make our own choices again.  But when shoveling happens two or three times in one day just to keep up, when slickness keeps us home, when we cancel conversations -- that's not the thought I choose.  Did I need this?

Perhaps yes:  my muscles thankful for the workout.  My children thankful for the yard's fresh canvas.  My calendar thankful for the rest.  When everything is falling all around I have to let all slide out of my hands and ask, "What has this storm brought?"

What do they all bring?

Perhaps the reminder that I don't have the market on assumptions.
Perhaps a different kind of desperation.
Perhaps a practice session of having less.
Perhaps something that I could not have done.

...Humility is not a thing that will come of itself, but that it must be made the object of special desire and prayer and faith and practice. (Humility, Andrew Murray)

I walked into Lent with three ideas: humility, detachment and generosity.  Generosity was going to be, hands-down, my favorite.  Detachment was necessary for generosity -- so I could hold my breath for 40 days while I gave.  But humility just sounded good.  I'm not sure I really wanted it to go beyond just living poor.

But that's what I have in front of me.  Pushed in by a storm.  Unsettled air.  Laying it out and holding out everything precious to me: my skills, my identity, my calling.  Offering them to be reshaped by the storm.  Left trusting, more detached.  More generous with my listening, and hoping, and unity.  Shoveling out wasn't fun.  There's still some frozen places to remove, but I can make it in and out again.  Grateful.  Dependant. and Free.

{Giving out of Poverty. Lent 2013}