Categories
Faith Life

Everyone Is To Blame. Everyone Is Loved.

A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices,  for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn. ~Adolphe Adam

crowd

Some days the world feels old, crumbly around the edges.

Some years we feel discouraged, as every hope dies the minute it bursts into flame.

Some crowds leave us yearning for other faces, other places, other times.

Some moments we look in the mirror and wish a different set of features, a different kind of heart, stared back at us.

Sometimes, we wish we could “refresh” every page.

The calendar tell us, in January we start over. In August, the smell of sharpened pencils and musty gym lockers proclaim a new year. But the Christian church year begins with Advent. Because life is made new when Jesus comes.

New For Everyone

In his last and, many say, greatest novel, Fyodor Dostoyevsky introduces us to Father Zossima, teacher and spiritual advisor to Alyosha, the youngest of The Brothers Karamazov.

The setting? Imperial Russia, in crisis. Inflamed cries for human freedom, individual rights, and doubts about God swirled in the streets. The search was on for someone to blame for their economic and social misery.

Sound familiar?

When we find a nation in moral crisis, whose fault is it?. Zossima points the finger not at criminals, bad politicians, or a restless populace, but at the evil we all treasure in our hearts. Greed, selfishness, jealousy, resentment, lust, the desire for revenge, even indifference to need–we carry these with us, like a virus, wherever we go.

We are the moral crisis. Therefore, everyone is to blame.

This is the message of the gospel. Not, “those people are the problem,” not “those people need to change,” but that we all are badly in need of saving, to be made new. Not just once, but every day.

And Jesus has come to do just that. To open our eyes, re-shape our hearts, and make us new.

“And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love,” promises Father Zossima.

An Invitation

If this world seems vacant of hope, or you feel crushed by the demands of the season, I invite you to walk with me through Advent, and invite everyone to come along. We begin right here on Sunday.

The Gospel in Dostoyevsky is last on the list of the 15 Books That Found Me. Subscribe to this email today and you could be the winner of your choice of any of those 15 books, or an Amazon.com gift certificate instead.

Image Credit

 

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Categories
Faith Life

Advent And An Early Gift

We read to know we are not alone. ~C.S. Lewis

gift Last April I pushed the “publish” button on my first blog post and peered into the distance. At post #100 (wise gurus advised) my writing  would maybe be worth reading. I am at #95 and taking a moment to say… Thank you!

  • Thank you for reading
  • Thank you for commenting, sharing, liking or tweeting,
  • Thank you for subscribing to your e-mail or RSS feed,

All of which will help others find their way here.

Blog writing is a bit like making music in a subway station. We play our heart out and hope that somewhere in the distracted rush of humanity one head turns, one eyebrow lifts in surprise, one weary soul is refreshed… Today I offer two gifts to you, the readers who stop and “listen” and sometimes hum along.

Gift #1: Advent Reflections

Twelve Gifts of Advent will be featured on my blog Dec 2-28.  Twelve moments of stillness in the midst of the frantic clamor, we will uncover the gifts often hidden by the season’s glittery wrapping. Why not share my link, https://janetchanson.com/, to others who may want to join us during Advent? If friends or family avoid the internet, the green button at the bottom of each page allows you to e-mail them that day’s post.

Gift #2: A Book I Love

Love getting a free book? I love giving them! The first 10 new subscribers to e-mail between now and Sunday get their names put in a hat.  The winner will receive your  choice of one of the 15 Books That Found Me we’ve feasted on these past months. OR a gift certificate to choose one of your own. If you are already a subscriber, invite a friend to subscribe and take the credit (you can reply to your e-mail notification). Both your names will go in the hat. It’s easy to subscribe. Scroll up this page and look to the right of the picture.

C.S. Lewis once wrote,

Friendship is born at the moment when one person says to another, “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.

Exactly my hope and intention for this blog. Will you help me get there?

Thanks again for being one who stops and hums along. 

Image Credit
Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Categories
Faith Life

Sabbath Quiet: Humble Gratitude

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. ~G.K. Chesterton

gratitude

Gratitude And The Giver

Thank you, God, for everything, the big things and the small,

For every good gift comes from God, the giver of them all.

And so at this time we offer up a prayer to thank you, God for giving us a lot more than our share.

First, thank you for the little things that often come our way, the things we take for granted and don’t mention when we pray,

The unexpected courtesy, the thoughtful, kindly deed, a hand reached out to help us in the time of sudden need.

Then thank you for the miracles we are much too blind to see, and give us new awareness of our many gifts from Thee.

And help us to remember that the key to life and living is to make each prayer a prayer of thanks and each day a day of thanksgiving.

~ Helen Steiner Rice

Accept With Gratitude

Accept with gratitude everything that God allows from within or without, from friend or enemy, in nature or in grace, to remind you of your need for humbling and to help you in it.

Reckon humility to be the mother-virtue, your very first duty before God, the one perpetual safeguard of the soul, and set your heart upon it as the source of all blessing.

The promise is divine and sure: He that humbles himself shall be exalted. See that you do the one thing that God asks, and He will see that He does the one thing He has promised. He will give more grace; He will exalt you in due time.

~Andrew Murray, Humility

Do you notice the relationship between gratitude and humility as you look at your life?

Photograph by MC Hunt
Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Categories
Faith Life

Hunger For Humility

We shall find that the deepest humility is the secret of the truest happiness, of a joy that nothing can destroy. ~Andrew Murray

humility

On the shelves of my world, humility is often in short supply. Like the endangered Twinkie, a humble view of self gets put out of business, pushed off the market by more popular fare.

Why be humble, when instead I can be right? Why withhold judgment when I can be outraged? Why be self-aware when I can be self-satisfied?

It’s like a catchy tune we can’t stop humming.

Our side is correct, their kind are ruining things. Our way is better, they need to measure up. We own the truth, they are idiots.

No wonder we feel battered and afraid. Our hearts were designed to beat to the serene rhythm of humility, not the frenetic pace of pride.

I know about this first-hand.  I’ve researched  humility enough to wince at the ways it eludes me. One day an understanding friend handed me Andrew Murray’s slim volume, Humility: The Journey Toward Holiness. One of the 15 Books Than Found Me, it’s my favorite of them all.

Murray writes,

Humility is not so much a virtue along with others, but is the root of all, because it alone takes the right attitude before God and allows Him, as God, to do all.

Think about it:

  • Learn to be humble, patience will grow
  • Learn to be humble, kindness will bud
  • Learn to be humble, courage will bloom
  • Learn to be humble, faith will mature
  • Learn to be humble, hope will arise
  • Learn to be humble, love will flourish

But focus on self, end up with self. How much of my angst and anger stem from trying to grow my own goodness?

So, maybe empty shelves are a good place to start. With no plan to stock them, just the willingness to let God fill me with his virtues, where I have none of my own.

Hunger For Humility

Put humility on your wish list, the quality and the book. Nurture it, savor it, treasure all that’s humble and give your frantic heart a rest.

serenity of humility

Have you experienced the serenity of humility?

Image of Store Shelves Credit

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Categories
Culture Faith Life

Stay Thirsty, My Friends

Deep in unfathomable mines of never-ending skill, he treasures us his bright designs, and works his sovereign will. ~William Cowper

Thirsty

People hang on his every word. He can speak French, in Russian. He enjoys inside jokes with complete strangers. Even his enemies list him as their emergency contact. Sharks have a week dedicated to HIM. He once had an awkward moment just to see how it feels.

He is the most interesting man in the world.

In case you’re wondering, I’m quoting beer commercials.

In TV and radio ads, actor Jonathan Goldsmith plays the daring, debonair mystery man described above.

Each segment closes with Goldsmith, surrounded by beautiful admirers, saluting us with the words,

Stay thirsty, my friends.

Here’s a sample if you haven’t seen these commercials, cleverly designed to leave us thirsty. Thirsty for adventure, thirsty for life. Thirsty to meet someone so brilliant, so at ease with himself that everyone else fades from view.

On a related note,

What do you picture when you think of Jesus? A flannel-board figure, a naive, disillusioned wonder-worker, or a white-robed vision smiling (or scowling) at you from the clouds? Or, worse, does he float in your mind as a composite of every well-coiffed, white-toothed celebrity speaker you’ve heard invoke his name?

Who could entrust the weighty matters of life to a caricature?

I open the New Testament and meet a Jesus impossible to ignore. Everywhere he goes, crowds gather. Outcasts and scholars alike are amazed and dumbfounded at his intelligence, wisdom and power. Or they are angry they can’t outfox him. No one is bored.

It was in Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy, one of the 15 Books That Found Me, I realized it. While wading with Willard through the entire New Testament to discern, “Who is Jesus and what does it mean to be his disciple,” the question occurred to me, “How can Jesus be Lord of my life if he is limited?

He can’t. And he’s not.

Some Christians fear the educated “elite,” distrusting scientists and experts in every field. I wonder if it’s because they don’t believe Jesus is as comfortable in a physics lab or law library as he is at a hymn-sing.

Stay thirsty, my friends.

Stay thirsty enough to keep following after the one person in whom “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3) are found. Don’t settle for the limp imitation you may have embraced.

Have you considered the brilliance of Jesus?

Image Credit
Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Categories
Faith Life

Sabbath Quiet: The Heart of Thanksgiving

Let there be for every pulse a thanksgiving, and for every breath, a song. ~ Konrad Von Gesner

Thanksgiving

 A Thanksgiving Prayer

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food,
For love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
[We thank thee, heavenly Father].

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

A Thanksgiving Hymn, In All Circumstances

Thanks to God for my Redeemer,
Thanks for all that you provide,
Thanks for times now but a memory,
Thanks for Jesus by my side.

Thanks for pleasant, balmy springtime,
Thanks for dark and dreary fall,
Thanks for tears by now forgotten,
Thanks for peace within my soul.

Thanks for prayers that you have answered,
Thanks for those you have denied,
Thanks for storms that I have weathered,
Thanks for all you have supplied.

Thanks for pain, and thanks for pleasure,
Thanks for comfort in despair,
Thanks for grace that none can measure,
Thanks for love beyond compare.

Thanks for roses by the wayside,
Thanks for thorns their stems contain,
Thanks for home and thanks for fireside,
Thanks for hope, that sweet refrain.

Thanks for joy and thanks for sorrow,
Thanks for heavenly peace with Thee,
Thanks for hope in the tomorrow,
Thanks through all eternity!

Tack O Gud, by August Ludvig Storm, trans. by Carl. E. Backstrom 

A Thanksgiving Verse

In everything give thinks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
1 Thessalonians 5:18

How will you live out this verse this Thanksgiving season?

Photograph, Kennebunkport, Maine by MC Hunt
Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Categories
Book Review Faith Life

A Year With G.K. Chesterton by Kevin Belmonte, ed.

This world of ours has some purpose; and if there is a purpose, there is a Person. I had always felt life first as a story: and if there is a story, there is a Storyteller. ~G.K. Chesterton

A Year With G.K. Chesterton

[I love books, and so do you, so just for fun, a book review!] 

You find yourself in a cozy tavern, a warm refuge from the rain pelting the roof above. The fire is generous, the drinks are hot and the conversation merry.

But you mostly listen, enthralled by the literary giant seated before you. Armed with a satirical wit, towering intellect, deep curiosity and a grateful attentiveness to all of God’s created world, he blasts away at your shallow assumptions.

You leave the conversation nourished, challenged, overwhelmed, and not surprised C.S. Lewis regarded this man as a catalyst to his own faith journey.

So I felt after wading through the works of C.K. Chesterton.

His books aren’t easily digested–I imagine the author was accustomed to more robust readers than are found today. Fortunately, in A Year With G.K. Chesterton, Kevin Belmonte provides a way to experience Chesterton one chewable tidbit at a time.

Belmonte has compiled a wide range of materials into a 365 daily format. Each day includes a scripture verse followed by excerpts from Chesterton’s writings. Politics, literature, philosophy, theology–no topic is left unexplored by his lively mind. In addition, interesting glimpses of Chesterton life events are scattered throughout.

This is a great book to give as a stocking stuffer, or to keep on your night stand for a daily dose of his wisdom.

A couple of thoughts:

  • This is not a “daily devotional” of the 5-minute-check-in-with-God genre. Nor does it claim to be. Some days you will be inspired, others, not so much; some passages you will understand, others may puzzle you. Keep a highlighter handy–Chesterton is a very quotable writer.
  • If you are not familiar with the political, literary and philosophical climate of the early 20th century, some topics may confuse you. But that’s what Wikipedia is for! Become educated as well as encouraged (smile).

If you prefer a book of just quotations, Belmonte has also published The Quotable Chesterton: The Wit and Wisdom of G.K. Chesterton.

I’ve added it to my wish list!

Have you read G.K. Chesterton? What did you think?

 

Will write for free books! [BookSneeze provided me with a complementary copy of this book and I am not obligated to give a positive review].

Thomas Nelson product page: click here.

Amazon.com preview: click here.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Categories
Faith Life

A Tale of Two Stories

Tell me, what is it you plan to do, with your one wild and precious life? ~Mary Oliver

stories

Like an unwelcome squatter a story has taken over my brain.

As squatters will, it has rearranged the furniture, fluffed up the pillows, put up its feet and sits there, smirking, “What can you do?”

It started with a photograph I couldn’t put down, morphed into a poem that ended strangely, and before I knew it, chaotic voices demanded a hearing, a prominent place on the page.

As I shared the story’s theme over coffee and scones with a friend, the plot sounded familiar, as if written long ago.

And so it was. Because only two stories have ever been told.

Stories We Have Devised

go something like this:

A disillusioned King Solomon: I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind (Ecclesiastes 1:14).

A  despairing Macbeth: Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

A cheesy Brad Pitt, his recent commercial for Chanel No 5: It’s not a journey. Every journey ends but we go on. The world turns and we turn with it. Plans disappear, dreams take over. But wherever I go, there you are. My luck, my fate, my fortune.

It’s a story told every time we shrug our shoulders and walk away.

The day we stop searching in the ashes for a glimmer of light; when we give in to the uncaring winds of fate; when we believe we are nothing and our lives have no meaning, we’ve embraced the story’s false claims.

Stories That Turn Out To Be True

go something like this:

  • Life is not a circle. The world as we know it had a beginning and it will have an end. A day of accounting will come, when justice will triumph, when all that’s been broken will be restored.
  • You are unique, there is no other. You matter and no effort will be in vain.
  •  Where there is no way, a way will open–help is as close as one desperate prayer.
  • Dare to hope, hold fast to your dreams, put your trust in the One who planted them in you.

It’s the second of these stories I choose to write.

Which story are you writing with your life?

 Image Credit
Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Categories
Faith

Sabbath Quiet: Who Will Keep You?

I lift my eyes to the hills–from where will my help come?

He will keep you from harm

My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.

God, help me, dull of heart, to trust in thee.

Thou art the Father of me–not any mood can part me from the One, the verily Good.

When fog and failure o’er my being brood,

When life looks but a glimmering marshy clod,

No fire out flashing from the living God–

Then, then, to rest in faith were worthy victory!

~George MacDonald

He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.

He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.

The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.

The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and for evermore.

Psalm 121

Photograph, Franconia Notch, NH by M.C.Hunt
Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Categories
Faith Life

Rushing Ahead of The Promise

It is in the course of our feeble and very imperfect waiting that God himself, by his hidden power, strengthens us and works out in us the patience of the great saints, the patience of Christ himself. ~Andrew Murray

The promise

We are still waiting for the promise and we don’t know why.

We gaze into the future, afraid to blink, willing for the time of longing to end. We throw our hearts like stones into the distance, but we bring the distance no closer, and only make our own hearts hurt.

Once in a while we are given a glimmer of hope. But then hopes are dashed again, the promise fades away, as if shy. Why do dreams so often linger just out of reach?

Stories of Promise

The first chill of Autumn draws them close, hands stretched to the fire, children nestled beneath the folds of maternal robes. A silence falls as the storyteller chooses his spot, the broad sweep of stars his only spotlight.

The characters are familiar, the plots, like smooth stones. Should he leave out a word, or a syllable’s inflection, startled eyes will remind him. They know these stories like they know every freckle on their hard-worked hands.

His voice deepens, this will be a tale he wants imprinted on their hearts. Something important about God. Something they must hold tight to in their memories when the waiting is long, and the promise seems lost. When their tight-throated days end in restless slumber, when all the evidence shouts, “God has forgotten!”

Ah, tonight it will be Sarai and Hagar’s story we will hear.

Sarai’s bitter words resonate with their own, “You see, God has prevented the very promise he made. Barren, empty, dried-of-all-hope is my new name. If there is to be a child of the promise, it won’t be from this body. I refuse to wait any longer for my own blessing. There is another way and I will take it.”

Around the fire, they sigh. They know how things will turn out, when God’s people take matters into their own hands. God will once again clean up the mess, though lives will be left limping. One more time he will remind them,

Waiting is not wasting. Don’t rush ahead of the promise. Trust me–watch what I will do.

Our Stories

Thousands of years later, we sigh too. Some of us live in the autumn of early spring’s promise, and God  is taking his time.

He is taking his time, re-shaping our wills, saving us one promise at a time.

Are you ever tempted to take matters into your own hands?

(Sarai and Hagar, Genesis 16)

 

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail