Love God?

A Christian squire writes:

How can I say that I love God if a hate my brother who is made in his image?

Yes, my brother is hard to know. Yes my brother is dirty in mind and body. Yes my brother cheats. Yes my brother is greedy. Yes my brother steals. Yes my brother kills.

But is that why I hate him?

Or is it because I see in this image of God the mirror image of myself?

I see my deeds reflected back at me.

I see my soul clearly when I see the soul of the other.

Why my Lord do I pray for justice for my brother and mercy for myself?

How do I love the one who hates me?

How do I love the one that hurts me?

Is it my pride that says I am too good to be hated?

Is it my pride that says I am too good to be hurt?

Why not be the one that is cheated: if it means that the name of Christ is glorified?

Why not be the one that is hated: if it means Christ could be loved?

The student is not greater than the Master.

If He was hated and I am loved what does that mean?

I hate my brother because he is me.

I fear being hurt because I am not ready to be as the Master was.

But because of the Master I see I was blind but now…

Selah

Love Myself?

A Christian Knight wrote:

Well, how exactly do I love myself? Now that I come to think of it, I have not exactly got a feeling of fondness or affection for myself, and I do not even always enjoy my own society. So apparently ‘Love your neighbour (sic)’ does not mean ‘feel fond of him’ or ‘find him attractive.’ I ought to have seen that before, because, of course, you cannot feel fond of a person by trying. Do I think well of myself, think myself a nice chap? Well, I am afraid I sometimes do (and those are, no doubt, my worst moments) but that is not why I love myself. In fact it is the other way round: my self-love makes me think myself nice, but thinking myself nice is not why I love myself. So loving my enemies does not apparently mean thinking them nice either. That is an enormous relief. For a good many people imagine that forgiving your enemies means making out that they are really not such bad fellows after all, when it is quite plain that they are. Go a step further. In my most clear-sighted moments not only do I not think myself a nice man, but I know that I am a very nasty one. I can look at some of the things I have done with horror and loathing. So apparently I am allowed to loath and hate some of the things my enemies do. Now that I come to think of it, I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate a bad man’s actions, but not hate the bad man: or, as they would say, hate the sin but not the sinner.

For a long time I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life—namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things. Consequently, Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred we feel for cruelty and treachery. We ought to hate them. Not one word of what we have said about them needs to be unsaid. But it does want us to hate them in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves: being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping, if it is anyway possible, that somehow, sometime, somewhere he can be cured and made human again.

Someone is Listening…

“What I mean is this. An ordinary simple Christian kneels down to say his prayers. He is trying to get into touch with God. But if he is a Christian he knows that what is prompting him to pray is also God: God, so to speak, inside him. but he also knows that all his real knowledge of God comes through Christ, the Man who was God—that Christ is standing beside him, helping him to pray, praying for him. You see what is happening. God is the thing to which he is praying—the goal he is trying to reach. God is also the thing inside of him which is pushing him on—the motive power. God is also the road or bridge along which he is being pushed to that goal. So that the whole threefold life of the three-personal Being is actually going on in that ordinary little bedroom where an ordinary man is saying his prayers. The man is being caught up into the higher kinds of life—what I called Zoe or spiritual life: he is being pulled into God, by God, while still remaining himself.”

–A Christian Knight

Never say that there is no power in prayer.

Because it is the closest that any of us will ever be to the Divine, until we shed mortality. In the simple actions described above humankind becomes more. We become more than a collection of fears, anxiety, and neurosis’s. We become more than a paycheck, more than a number in a file tucked away in some federal building. We transcend the dull every day happenings that swirl around us in a mash of turmoil and greed.

In prayer, while kneeling, we are rising to heights never scaled by great athletes on the field of play. In submission we are at our most powerful. Lifting up and crying out in voices that are heard. In silence we are speaking louder than we ever thought possible. With eyes closed we are looking into a world that is invisible at all other times.

In the prayer of repentance we free a burdened soul from a lifetime of sorrowful action. In the prayer of thanksgiving we show that we know that we are not the center of this universe and that the world is not a story about me, us. In the prayer of adoration we are given the occasion to pass through a juncture between spiritual and physical.

Prayer changes everything.

–A Christian squire

“A Good Year for the Roses…”

I have a million thoughts running through my mind. But all I can think to say is what my favorite Troubadour once said… “but what good year for the roses.”

Even as the world seems to crumble. Even as it feels less and less safe. Even as the anger that pollutes the air moves through every pore of our being.

The roses still bloom. They keep their promise. They push out through the dirt and bring their color and tenderness into the world. The rain caresses their petals in a loving kiss that tells us that there is always a tomorrow. If not here, then at least there will be one, somewhere else.

Like the one that came and spoke only of kindness. They bring beauty into creation. They stare at our poverty of soul and stand in perfect harmony with the world of what could have been.

Every year they die and it seems this desolate place will never know beauty again. But then, just like the One. They break the door of their tomb and rise again in the world brand new.

So, what do I say when the world closes in?

What do I say when I feel the pain and anger?

What do I say when it seems there will never be an escape?

“It is a good year for the Roses.”

the Journey

The journey does not take place from mountain top to mountain top.

 

In order to reach a summit, you must explore the depth.

 

“Sorrow carves out space in the vessel that is your soul.”

 

To be filled there must be depth.

 

To feel love, you must know loss.

 

Loss of the love of self.

 

To live free, you must know slavery.

 

Slavery to the desire of the world.

 

Slavery to the desire of the natural person.

 

Slavery to the poverty of spirit.

 

“Comfort kills the soul, and walks smiling in the funeral procession.”

 

“To do the good, you must know the good.”

 

“I do not seek the applause of men.”

 

The Shepherd of good will walk both before and among his flock.

23 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

² He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

³ He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

⁴ Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

⁵ Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

⁶ Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

NO TITLES

Logos said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.”

Can I Love like that?

 

How?

 

Logos said, “I am the way and the light and no one can find the Father, the LOVe, except through me.”

 

Logos is LOVE.

 

Logos, Greek in name, God in nature, Love in truth, and the truth shall…

 

Freedom is Love, Freedom to Love, or not to Love, that is what Logos offered.

 

The Christian Knight said, “…in this place the silent places are the empty ones. But in the other place Logos is silence from the density of Life.” Density of life! The giving of Life is Love. In Logos there is Life so dense that it has no choice but to produce more Life, which produces more Love.

 

What does Love sound like?

 

The Christian Knight said, “Silence from density of Love!”

 

How does Love move?

 

Love moves so fast, BUILDING ON ITSELF, FEEDING ITSELF, so that He stands still even though He is stirring in everlasting tenderness.

 

In Silence and Density there is Peace.

 

Peace is abundant Love, like the glass brimming, this is my blood, take and drink; so that self is swallowed in one abrupt shift.

 

A shift from turmoil, to Peace, and from Peace comes Love.

 

Peace is in the lifting of the burden your sister CARRIES onto your shoulder. Pulling forward into a place where the indwelling and the outdwelling unite into simply dwelling.

 

Forget, the night’s terror, and see the dawn’s reality. Logos said,” no matter how dark the night the dawn cometh in the morning.”

 

And with the morning; fear shatters, regenerating the brightness of Love.

 

Love is Peace, Love is Tenderness, Love is, Love is…an outward expression of the inward Logos.

 

Logos said, “I am the way and the light…”

 

Motivation

What does it mean to be “motivated?” One definition, provided by Merriam-Webster of the word motivated is, “to be provided with a motive.” This is not exactly a lot of help. Another definition is, “a motivating force, stimulus, or influence.” Now I think we may be getting a bit closer. We hear about motivation a lot. Has anyone ever said of you, “He or she shows a lot of motivation?” Or if you are like me your report cards in school may have contained this phrase, “Lacks Motivation.” Whichever the case may be I know when I hear that phrase, “he is motivated,” I get a vision of an ambitious person or someone who is single-minded in the pursuit of some type of excellence. But I have often wondered where the desire for this pursuit comes from? What makes one person motivated and another not?

 

I know that I have had seasons in my life where I have been motivated. I have been motivated to excel in my career, academically, and physically. But eventually that motivation always wears off. I sour on the potential of my career to provide me with the rewards that I seek. I graduate, and the academic is no longer in front of me. I work in the gym and diet to achieve some semblance of physical perfection, at least as much as a 43 year old man can achieve, but then I run out of gas on that and go back to my old habits. That brings me back to the first definition, “to be provided with a motive.”

 

In the three things I named above my motive was clear. I wanted to provide myself with a better life financially and physically. I wanted to mold myself into something that I could be proud of and that others would admire. That is why the motivation left me. In the end the motive was one that had no staying power. Why?

 

I can build my mind and body in the neo-classical Greek mold but if there is no great purpose behind it, it is nothing more than what a Jewish king who lived many years ago called “vanity.” Vanity, “something that is vain, empty, or valueless.” When self-love is the motivation vanity is the result. This is why I can be the Adonis of Indianapolis and have a heart as cold as the marble that stands in great museums across the world.