by Kari Henkelmann Keyl
Ok, here’s your time to make some connections, with your own inner self, with God, maybe even with the universe, who knows. See if these readings and prayers, chosen for this week’s Bread for your Journey, take you anywhere. Try slowing down enough to pause between phrases, to really listen to what God might be saying…
http://breadforyourjourney.blogspot.com/2009/10/readings-and-prayers-for-oct-15-2009.html
So here’s Joyce Rupp, calling us to notice the gift of life, take in all the beauty, receive the abundant energy, hear the groaning and the sighing as well as the call to oneness. She beckons us to drink from the cup offered to us. It’s amazing stuff, and its challenging, too. Drink it all up.
How is this cosmic cup similar to (or different from) the cup that Jesus is talking about to James and to John and to all of us who have so much and yet ask for more?
Keep that question in mind while you hear another voice calling you to notice amazingness, using the link below. (If you’ve already checked this out from my last post… well, go ahead and see it again! It’s worth a second look. But remember my disclaimer, about how if you’re easily insulted, just chill a bit and enjoy the ride…)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk
Yeah, it’s kind of fun to hear from both a deep mystic and a crass comedian about appreciating amazingness. I really think both voices would have been appreciated by the approached-by-James-and-John Jesus. There really is so much that we take for granted, and we end up with the wanting-more disease. Jesus invites us to drink from his cup as an antidote to this spiritual illness. As our third reading says, this cup is full of amazingness, alright: the amazingness of self-emptying love. Quite a contrast with what James and John thought they might get out of Jesus.
But this is God’s way. And something inside us has to die in order for us to truly receive all that God is offering. We have the whole amazing cosmos, ours to savor and marvel over. But when we try to grasp onto it, control it, keep it for ourselves, we become a mess inside… and we leave the world a mess, too. Jesus leads us on to die to the old, sickly dream, but in turn to find a mysterious new one.
Revel in the awesomeness. Feel the overwhelming gratitude. Drink in the cup of energy that powers you up to give yourself to the world. Serving out of pure, overwhelming gratitude! That’s LIFE. That’s life lived next to Jesus, right there on his right or on his left, in his glory.
Well, that’s all I’m going to say, but I hope you have something to share. Please leave your comments, so we can expand our awareness even further.
If you happen to be hungry for more, scroll down and read my blog post from yesterday, in case you missed that. And for another tasty morsel, check out this REALLY amazing sermon preached by Dr. King.
http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_the_drum_major_instinct/
All the richness of the cosmic cup to you,
Kari
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment