Categories
Faith Life

Fourth Deadly Thought: Sadness

Melancholy should be an innocent interlude, a tender and fugitive frame of mind; praise should be the permanent pulsation of the soul. G.K. Chesterton

Sadness is the ancient monastic name for it. Melancholy. Self-pity, the longing gaze at lush grasses growing on the other side.

What I might have…what could have been…if only that…if not for them…if I had not…

How fortunate others are, compared to me.

Sadness: One of the Eight Deadly Thoughts that rob us of joy, distract us from love, paralyze our lives.

Yikes, I am good at this one!

Problem #1. We swim in sad news. There are people making big money to keep our focus on how rotten we have it. Other regions are more prosperous, other eras were more ideal, we are all on a slippery slope to doom and devastation.

Headlines You Will Never See:

  • Residents of 24 Main Street feel great today.
  • 3, 000, 000 area commuters arrive home, unharmed.
  • Local couple reportedly unconcerned about the economy.
  • Recent studies prove majority of teenagers like their parents.
  • Neighbor’s pit bull licks master’s hand before daily walk. Story on page 14.

Problem #2. From what we can tell, everyone else has more money, a nicer house, better vacations, brighter children, funnier friends and tastier dinners than you do. And that’s just from Facebook–forget the Christmas letters. How did everyone else achieve such perfect lives?

We compare our worst with others’ best and come up wanting, and so we either fall into the slimy pit of envy, or set out on the noble search for something we can’t define and will never find. Melancholy is the happiness of being sad, Victor Hugo noted.

What Sadness Reveals

  1. We view other people as competitors.
  2. We feel trapped by the deficiency of life in the present.
  3. We refuse to settle for a non-ideal world.
  4. We are defining our worth by what we achieve.

Freed From Sadness, Unleashed To Love

  1. Share rather than compare, the gifts you’ve been given.
  2. Cultivate the habit of noticing what is good.
  3. Set out on a quest to make beauty where it’s lacking.
  4. Seek your identity in the incomparable love of God.

What ideas do you have to overcome the temptation of sadness.

photo credit
Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Categories
Faith Life

Sabbath Quiet: New Mercy Every Morning

Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each day. Lamentations 3:23

Morning Hymn

New every morning is the love
Our wakening and uprising prove;
Through sleep and darkness safely brought,
Restored to life, and power, and thought.

New mercies, each returning day,
Hover around us while we pray;
New perils past, new sins forgiven,
New thoughts of God, new hopes of heaven.

If, on our daily course, our mind
Be set in hallow all we find,
New treasures still, of countless price,
God will provide for sacrifice.

The trivial round, the common task,
Will furnish all we ought to ask;
Room to deny ourselves, a road
To bring us daily nearer God.

Only, O Lord, in thy dear love
Fit us for perfect rest above;
And help us this and every day
To live more nearly as we pray.

John Keble (1792-1866)

Beneath this simple lyric lies profound wisdom. Read the prayer again. God’s mercies are found in the midst of the mundane and even the undesired moments of our day, a new supply each morning. Where have you failed to notice his loving hand at work? Take heart! Though we fail to see, we can never fail to be seen.

When are you most aware of God’s presence?

Photograph by Mary Ellen Armbruster
Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Categories
Culture Faith Life

Third Deadly Thought: Avarice

We must understand that the lust for affluence in contemporary society is psychotic…We crave things we neither need nor enjoy.  ~Richard Foster

Avarice: Insatiable desire for wealth or material things. One of the Eight Deadly Thoughts that whisper in all our ears.

What do you have too much of? The question was an ice-breaker at a Women’s Retreat. Answers were shared: shoes, fabric (this was a crafty group), clothes, books. We all nodded in sympathy.

My answer surprised even me. What did the speaker have too much of?

Butter.

I was in the throes of the baking-cookies-for-kids-and-their-friends stage of parenting. At the grocery store, I could never remember if we had butter so, just in case, I would pick up a pound or two. One day I cleaned out the fridge and found 20 pounds of butter hiding in the back.

The last morning of the retreat, every breakfast table sent their butter to mine. In case I was worried I would run out.

Harmless And Prudent?

A mildly amusing story, but too much butter in the fridge is hardly a problem. This is my point–avarice sneaks up on us and claims to do no harm.

Covetousness we call ambition.
Hoarding we call prudence.
Greed we call industry, 

writes Richard Foster.

It may not be millions in an off-shore account, it may be twenties in an envelope under your mattress. Or a stash of food, supplies and weapons against the coming apocalypse du jour. Or a closet full of unworn clothes, a basement cluttered with barely used items “you might need someday.” We hoard,  “just in case.” We store up for bad times we can’t predict.

Jesus calls it irrational. In Luke 12,  he shares the parable of a wealthy man with crammed-full storage units, planning to upgrade to larger ones. What a fool, Jesus says. He’ll be dead by morning, and what good will stuff do him then?

Avarice distracts us from God, the simple enjoyment of life, and the very real need of others. “Wherever your treasure is, there your heart and thoughts will be also.” (Luke 12:34 NLT)

Why would we want to give our heart to things?

Arresting Avarice: ABC

  • Appreciate: God knows what you need each day–put him first and he promises to provide.
  • Be generous: Share your best things, not your cast-offs. Don’t keep anything–your home, car, clothing, food or cash–as “just for you.” Give it all to God for his use, for others.
  • Clear out your basement, storage unit, garage, attic, closets on a regular basis–give away what you haven’t used for a while.

Reading Luke 12 regularly is a great antidote to avarice. What others ideas can you add?

 

photo credit

 

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Categories
Culture Faith Life

Second Deadly Thought: Lust

We are not masters of our own feeling, but we are by God’s grace masters of our consent. ~St. francis de Sales

Lust is the alien impostor of love. And we live in the thick of its pollution.

So thick, we’ve forgotten what it feels like to breathe air unclouded and clean.

Lust is named one of the Eight Deadly Thoughts for good reason. Left to its devices, lust kills the most beautiful gift God has given–relationship. Richard Foster writes, “The relationship between male and female is the human expression of our relationship with God.”

Or so it is designed to be.

Lust: The strong physical desire to have sex with somebody, usually without associated feelings of love or affection.

That second part is key. Lust is sex with all the relationship drained away. A corpse.

You hold up a picture in your mind and say “I will love you.” You hold that same picture up and say “I will lust you.” Notice your thoughts travel in opposite directions.

  • Toward self-giving–the desire to encourage and serve for their good
  • Toward self-absorption–the desire to possess and enjoy for your pleasure

We’ve lost our way. Not only do we glorify lust in our movies and sitcoms, but the laugh-track implies something’s wrong if we don’t.

So, Is Lust Really A Problem?

  • A mind filled with fantasy can’t also discern.
  • A mind listening to lust can’t also hear God.
  • A mind willing to objectify others can’t also love.

How do we climb out of the smog, clear our heads and restore our vision?

Some Ideas:

  1. Care: Notice the millions neglected, abused or trapped in self-loathing. This is what unbridled lust has accomplished. Allow yourself to be sickened and sad.
  2. Confess: Notice what you watch, where you “surf,” what you read. When alone with your thoughts, where do they linger? What influences needs to go out with the trash?
  3. Community: Find an accountability partner or group. Prayer is the power that breaks lust’s deadly grip.
  4. Cultivate your appetite for wholesome fare. As the Apostle Paul urged,

Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise…and the God of peace will be with you.

Philippians 4:8-9

A Few Resources:

I appreciate Barb Wilson’s blog post, 50 Shades of Frenzy, on the damaging effects of lust, glamorized in books like 50 Shades of Gray. Her website offers helpful resources for sexually broken men and women.

Dee Bright has written a great book, The Divine Romance, on healing for women trapped in harmful thinking . Click on her website to learn more.

What change can you make today to clear the air of lust?

Photo Credit
Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Categories
Faith Life

Sabbath Quiet: Disturb Us When We Attempt Too Little

Cowardice asks the question, ‘Is it safe?’ Expediency asks the question, ‘Is it politic?’ But conscience asks the question, ‘Is it right?’

And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but because conscience tells one it is right. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Disturb Us, Lord

Disturb us, O Lord
when we are too well-pleased with ourselves
when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little,
because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, O Lord
when with the abundance of things we possess,
we have lost our thirst for the water of life
when, having fallen in love with time,
we have ceased to dream of eternity
and in our efforts to build a new earth,
we have allowed our vision of Heaven to grow dim.

Stir us, O Lord
to dare more boldly, to venture into wider seas
where storms show Thy mastery,
where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars.

In the name of Him who pushed back the horizons of our hopes
and invited the brave to follow.

Amen.

~by Desmond Tutu, based on a prayer attributed to Sir Frances Drake

Disturbing Questions

Do you dream small, hugging the shore so in your own strength you can’t fail? Is your hope shallow, praying for a quick fix rather than deep change? Is God calling you to launch out, trusting his Spirit to guide? Will you pray, “Disturb me, Lord?”

Photograph by Melanie Hunt

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Categories
Culture Faith Life

First Deadly Thought: Gluttony

Gluttony is an emotional escape, a sign something is eating us. ~ Peter De Vries

Gluttony. One leering face of an eight-headed bully is blocking my way. I’m hungry, my heart cries, as I swerve to avoid him. Stop here, he beckons, and I’ll show you a shortcut. Come, make your choice from the menu in my hand. As long as you’re filled, what could possibly matter? He waves it before me, the

Menu du jour

Specialty of the house: 

  • Food

Other popular items:

  • Drink
  • Luxury
  • Clothing
  • Cars
  • Technology
  • Travel
  • Entertainment
  • Work
  • Exercise
  • Applause

Check back tomorrow–new items each day. Don’t forget this is an all-you-can-eat buffet. Our motto: More is always betterLess is never enough.

The Problem With Gluttony

Gluttony, from the Latin, gluttire, lit. gulp down. To over-indulge, to over-consume. In our propaganda-swamped culture, everyone’s promoting the next-shiny-new-thing. And a voice assures us,

  • You deserve a reward
  • It’ll help numb the pain  
  • No one is hurt if you choose to upgrade.

But gluttony is deadly because of the lie it upholds:  God (he made every morsel you pile on your plate) hasn’t and isn’t and will never be enough.

For the 4th century monastics who warned of the Eight Deadly Sins, meals were simpler. But the voice of temptation sounded as strong: What difference does it make if you go back for seconds? But unconsumed food was set aside for the poor–if a monk over-indulged, he sent a child away hungry.

For many of us, the consequences of gluttony are more hidden, but the lesson is the same. We say “no” for the sake of God’s compassionate “yes.” We say “enough” so love will have its way.

Beheading The Bully: The Spiritual Practice Of Enough

  1. Make a habit of paying for groceries with cash. Remove from your cart any food low in nutrition. Place the money you save in an envelope for the poor.
  2. Borrow what you can; refuse to buy new until you’ve worn out the old.
  3. Purchase for usefulness, rather than status.
  4. If food is your weakness, bring a meal to a neighbor. If you’re a glutton for shoes, give them away. If you drool over luxury, share life with the poor.
  5. Write a letter “releasing” your chocolate, your work, or your iPhone from the burden of providing comfort and escape. “Remind” them of their true, but far lesser role.
  6. Keep a Journal of Contentment, listing all you’ve been given.
  7. Find ways to enjoy f00d-free, gadget-free fun.
  8. Aim for significance not self-indulgence when you travel.
  9. Cultivate a holy gluttony for God.
Share with us your ideas for beheading the bully!
Photo Credit

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Categories
Faith Life

Eight Deadly Thoughts That Rob You Of Joy

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. ~Romans 12: 2

deep thoughts

Thoughts are my downfall.

You know the ones I mean. The dark kind that slip in undetected when I’m most in need of hope. The kind that circle above my pillow in the night, robbing me of peace.

Like cracked, smudged lenses covering 20/20 vision, like a curmudgeonly hand smothering my delight, these thoughts distort, discourage, and distract me from the reason I am here–to enjoy God and love people. And the other way around.

The ancient desert fathers named them deadly, dark thoughts that whisper into every human ear.

You will recognize them:

The Eight Deadly Thoughts

  1. Gluttony
  2. Lust
  3. Avarice
  4. Sadness
  5. Anger
  6. Acedia
  7. Vainglory
  8. Pride

The danger seems distant with such old-fashioned names. Until we look deeper to the assumptions beneath:

  1. God is okay, but more is better. Nothing I try seems to satisfy.
  2. My needs are what matter, people are there for my use and enjoyment.
  3. God is stingy and unreliable, I must stockpile for every potential disaster.
  4. Life is unfair, I got a raw deal, God treats everyone else better than me.
  5. I’ve a right to my anger, people have earned it. Even God–he could have prevented my hurt.
  6. Why even try? Why even bother? Life is complicated and painful, I give up.
  7. Nobody notices my efforts and talents. Why do I never receive the applause?
  8. I’ve built my success by my own work and effort–why can’t others be more like me?

Thoughts are my downfall, yet thoughts set me free. I sit here in silence, and let God change my mind.

I recall all you have done, O LORD; I remember your wonderful deeds of long ago. They are constantly in my thoughts. I cannot stop thinking about them. O God, your ways are holy. Is there any god as mighty as you? You are the God of miracles and wonders! Psalm 77:11-14.

In the next few weeks I will post on each of the Eight Deadly Thoughts, and let God awaken our thirst for their opposites:

  1. Contentment
  2. Self-control
  3. Generosity
  4. Gratitude
  5. Forgiveness
  6. Acceptance
  7. Modesty
  8. Humility

Do you long to change the way you think?

 

photo credit

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Categories
Faith Life

Sabbath Quiet: To Live Wide Awake

Grant to me, O Lord, to know what I ought to know, to love what I ought to love, to praise what delights Thee most, to value what is precious in they sight, to hate what is offensive to Thee. ~Thomas à Kempis

Wide Awake

Awake my soul. A voice urges you to consider, Is this the life I was made for? Is this as far as I go? What if there is more to the ocean than the shallows I’ve mastered? What if there is more to me than I’ve allowed to grow? What if there’s more to God than the safe one I’ve fashioned?

Listen to that voice when you hear it.

“Perhaps somewhere in the subterranean chambers of your life you have heard the call to deeper, fuller living. Perhaps you have become weary of frothy experiences and shallow teaching. Every now and then you have caught glimpses, hints of something more than you have known. Inwardly you have longed to launch into the deep.”

~Richard Foster in Celebration of Discipline

Awake My Soul

Awake, my soul, and with the sun
Thy daily stage of duty run;
Shake off dull sloth, and joyful rise
To pay thy morning sacrifice.

Redeem thy mis-spent moments past,
And live this day as if thy last;
Improve thy talent with due care;
For the great day thyself prepare.

Let all thy converse be sincere,
Thy conscience as the noonday clear;
Think how all-seeing God thy ways
And all thy secret thoughts surveys.

Lord, I my vows to thee renew;
Scatter my sins as morning dew;
Guard my first springs of thought and will,
And with thyself my spirit fill.

Direct, control, suggest, this day,
All I design, or do, or say;
That all my powers, with all their might,
In thy sole glory may unite.

Praise God from whom all blessing flow;
Praise him, all creatures here below;
Praise him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

~ Thomas Ken (1637-1711)

Where are you half-asleep to God and to life?

Photograph by Melanie Hunt
Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Categories
Faith Life

Jeff Reed And The Estuarial Way Of Jesus

God is the perfect poet. ~Robert Browning

If a plan can succeed without God, it wasn’t his plan in the first place.

But we forget that.

We read, for example, “Love your enemies.” Experts that we are, we think, “That’s impossible. Only a show of force, only a strong defense–or clever offense–will keep my enemy from destroying me.”

So, we look for the loop-hole.

  • Jesus didn’t mean that literally.
  • Jesus didn’t last long, did he?
  • Jesus gives us an impossible ideal so we will appreciate his grace.

You doubt me? How many of us have an index card with the words, Love my enemy today taped to our bathroom mirrors? Or, sticky-note reminders on the back door,

  • Take up my cross on the way to school
  • Die to self in the big meeting this afternoon
  • Overcome evil with good during evening commute 

Few, if any. Common sense says it’s not possible to obey.

Jesus And The Estuary

Jeff Reed, a poet friend, has written a series of  21 poems entitled Estuarial. The overall premise: when wildly different elements collide, (like fresh and sea water in an estuary), an unlikely community (rather than the chaos we expect) often emerges.

But our culture is hostile to unity. The pull is ever stronger to stay divided. We ignore the promise Jesus made, Blessed are the peacemakers,  for they will be called children of God. 

But Jesus meant it. When, despite divergent cross-currents, one person reaches to another, God will provide the peace. Jeff’s poems dip a toe in this truth: God’s children will be recognized in the estuaries.

Jeff has graciously shared three of the poems. Savor them–you’ll see more with each reading.

The Plumber to the Shoe Salesman

Do you know the world
is leaking? Can’t you tell it
by the squeaking of

your tennis shoes upon
the hardwood floors that will
be ruined by this wet?

I cannot keep up.
If I move faster
I arrive at next

before the last is fixed
and find the following flood
swallowing up my span.

Have you waders that float?
I need to walk on water
or find someone who can.

The Arborist to the Soccer Mom

Each one has a Latin
name which I cannot
pronounce as I should.

But I know how to grow them–
good soil, sun and shade,
deft with the pruning blade,

though I cannot predict
all the coming contours–
which limbs need attention

when and where to cut–
until the time’s at hand
on the way to tall,

always watching, tense
at sudden sprints of wind,
at each inevitable fall.

The Hair Stylist to the Highway Patrolman

The license on my wall
testifies that I
am to make beautiful

the messes that I meet.
That keeps me going.
Were I only to snip

the snarled and wash away
the oil and grime and quit
before the shaping, I

would despair. For hair
will insist on breaking
outside the boundaries set,

drunk on its freedom to frazzle,
reckless in the thrill of
fleeing the barrette.

Photograph by Melanie Hunt
Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Categories
Faith Life

Searching For Treasure

I have learned that the most important difference between people is between those for whom life is a quest and those for whom it is not. ~ Walter Percy

treasure map

The dawn is a mere hint as I force myself from beneath warm covers and stand under a hot shower long enough to convince my brain I mean it.

The coffee maker hisses with one touch of a button. I light the fire and my work day begins. If I’m going to write, it’s pointless to waffle, to list my excuses to the rising sun.

Commit or quit.

Eight days into the new year, I have obeyed. Eight days better than nothing, I am launched on a journey. I am, like Bilbo Baggins, off on an adventure, and my map is still unfolding. The treasure I seek? The only goal worth pursuing: To draw close to the Father, respond gladly to the Spirit, and more truly resemble the Son.

For some reason, God is using my own typing to remind me of the way.

Your conversion, however, may take a different shape.

Where Your Treasure Is

To become a Christian is not to arrive (“I’ve made it!”) but to set out (I’ve found the path!) on a journey to discover the treasure every molecule of you was made for–to love God and enjoy him forever.

Inevitably, we turn aside to run toward a mirage. My glittering illusion is called Independence. Self-sufficiency. A dark, twisted way where I am the guide.

But I’ve turned around…again.  So will you, if you realize:

  • Your only true love, your only true friend, your only true king,
  • The only relief for your thirst,
  • The only sate for your hunger,
  • The only source of the joy you are missing,
  • The only provider for your need,
  • The only treasure worth seeking,

is God.

No, of course you don’t believe it. Your eyes are distracted by other offers. All you’re asked to do is turn and, forsaking other paths, walk toward your Treasure. He will show you  the way.

Have you been looking for treasure where it can’t be found? How is God converting you?

Photo Credit
Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail