On Loan

The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, 

the world and all who live in it.

Psalm 24:1

It is quite remarkable that even though we all know that EVERYONE is going to die at some point it still somehow catches us off guard every single time.  A wonderful woman by the name of Sonja Lartey recently passed away, far too soon, far too soon if you ask me.  I knew that she was sick and towards the end I knew that she was dying and yet when it happened—when she actually passed—I just couldn’t believe it.  For some reason I was in a state of shock.  Even when we see it coming we are never quite ready to say goodbye.

Death is hard.  Death is sad.  Death is so painful.  All of these are such huge understatements.  The sense of loss and helplessness simply cannot be put into words.  And yet experiencing the death of someone we love, someone we still can’t believe is gone, gives us a moment for reflection, to think deeply upon what really matters within the short span of our little lives.  If we are open God can meet us even in our grief and speak, whispering words of wisdom into our fragile and broken hearts.

Our capitalistic society is obsessed with having possessions.  The American Dream is centered on owning property as opposed to developing life-enhancing relationships for example.  On some level we even think we own one another: our husbands, our wives, our children, our friends, we act as if they belong to us.  And then death comes—and we are forced with the realization that they are not ours; they were never ours.  They never belonged to us; they were just on loan for a little while.  Everyone and everything belongs to God and every moment we get to spend with someone we love is a precious, precious gift and we never quite know when the loan will be recalled.

I implore you, don’t wait until it’s too late.  Find someone you love and tell them that you love them while you have the chance.  Find someone you’re grateful towards and say thank you.  Wrap your arms around someone you care about.  You never know when the loan may be recalled.

To Pastor Sonja, I don’t think most of us knew how much you meant to us until you were taken away.  Forgive us; forgive me.  We love you.  We really do miss you, but someday we will be where you are now: home.  Until then….

Following the Way,

Kevin

Act Justly. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.

"He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."  Micah 6:8

For me the most profound passages of Scripture are often the simplest: small, often overlooked passages that are so rich with meaning if you are still long enough to grasp it. This is one of those simple beautiful passages. We make things so much more complicated than they have to be; I think it’s a part of basic human psychosis. Leave it to us to take even the simplest of tasks and turn it into some monumental labyrinth. But here in this passage we are only given 3 simple instructions:

1. Act justly
2. Love mercy
3. Walk humbly

I am struck by the simplicity of these instructions. This is something that we all can do, from the youngest to the oldest, regardless of faith tradition, or social status. This is a simple message for all of us. What would our world look like if everyone tried to follow these 3 little instructions? To act justly, to do justice, to do what is right? We live in a world where people love their houses and love their cars and love their dogs, but what would our world look like if people actually loved mercy and kindness and compassion? With all of the egos we have flying around everywhere wouldn’t it be nice to deal with people who didn’t feel the need to feed their egos constantly but instead decided to embrace humility?

Act justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly. It’s so simple and yet deeply meaningful. Sometimes we need simple reminders on how to live and what life is really about and for this little reminder I am grateful.

Following the Way,
Kevin

Judge Not

"If you judge people, you have no time to love them."

Mother Teresa

I absolutely love this quote! My friend Denisa brought it to my attention this week (Thanks Denisa). I think it should be posted in big bold letters in every single church everywhere! Imagine what Christianity would look like if we spent less time judging each other and more time loving one another. It's amazing how often we judge one another. It's almost a constant thing. We are constantly looking at people and pinpointing things we don't like about them and coming to a conclusion about the person based on these things. We judge people because of their hair, their height, their weight, their age, their looks, where they geographically come form, their past, their social status, their style of dress—and it goes on and on and on..

I was disgusted in church on Sunday. There was a man who's been battling cancer and he was in attendance on Sunday after being away for months. When I saw him I was so happy and so grateful to God that he was well enough to come to church! When the Pastor acknowledged him from the pulpit they church responded with a pathetic hand clap. I don't know what was going on. The whole church should have been rejoicing that our brother who was once too sick to go to church or anywhere else for that matter was now well enough to be among us. A suspect that if he were more involved with the different activities in the church he would have received a warmer welcome.

May God have mercy on us all! We shouldn't treat people differently based on how involved they are in the church. We should treat everyone the same. We should love everyone. We should recognize the immeasurable worth and value of every person who comes into our midst, but we're too busy judging people we don't have time to love them. We don't have time to treat them with the dignity and respect they deserve. We don't have time to see their needs and what we can do to help meet them.

Mother Teresa was right. We can judge people or we can love them. We can't do both. We have to choose. It's one or the other. Which option will you choose today?

Following the Way,
Kevin

Where is The Mercy?

I had lunch with a friend of mine who’s a pastor and he shared with me a story about a young African-American boy, only 13-years-old who tried to kill himself recently. He’s effeminate and most likely gay; he gets teased and bullied a lot at school. His mother called him a faggot one day and that must have pushed him over the edge and he attempted to hang himself to death. By the grace of God he was unsuccessful this time, but who’s to say he won’t try again. And why shouldn’t he? When the church sends out the message that you are better off dead than gay why shouldn’t he try again? Why live? For what reason? To be rejected by the black church and the black community at large? When your own mother cannot show you any mercy and taunts you in the same manner with the same words you get taunted with at school why go on? So now the mother is planning to take him to a pastor for “counseling”. In the church “counseling” so often involves being threatened with an eternity in hell unless you straighten up.

If that little boy tries to kill himself again and succeeds his blood is on the hands of the church, his blood and the blood of every single other young gay man and woman who believed that they were better off being dead than gay because that was the message the church communicated to them in one form or another. May God have mercy on the church! Sometimes I find myself in church asking myself why am I here? What does this have to do with my relationship with God? When so many Christians do not resemble Christ in any way shape or form why am I wasting my time coming here?

I’m so tired of the judgment, the self-righteousness. The church is so quick to condemn everyone else, but themselves. How convenient! If indeed God is disgusted by the lifestyle of homosexuals than God must also be equally disgusted by the lifestyle of most Christians. If homosexuality is a sin than the way the church treats gay people is equally as sinful. The church with all of the many, many sins it has committed in the name of Christ is in no position to condemn any human being. God and God alone will judge the living and the dead. What is needed now is mercy. Jesus never uttered a word about homosexuality but he did say for us to love everyone even our enemies. Why don’t we stop occupying ourselves condemning others and actually do what Jesus told us to do: love God and love your neighbor as you love yourself. Do unto others as you would have them do to you.

Following the Way,
Kevin

April's Theme: Mercy

I really am in awe of the unconditional love of God. You don’t fully realize what a gift mercy is until you see yourself at your worst and discover that even then God is still with you. God doesn’t abandon us when we fail one another instead he shows us mercy and it is the abiding presence of God despite our failures that makes change a real possibility for us. We are not transformed by God’s wrath, judgment or condemnation, but by his love and mercy.

I got so upset yesterday. I was waiting for a consultation in this Chinese herbalist store and I got irritated so quickly. You couldn’t make an appointment; they don’t write down your name or give you a number when you come in. This is really stupid to me. Instead you just walk in and hope there’s not too many people there. I felt that it was so disrespectful of my time. And while I’m waiting a couple of people come in and they are told very clearly that there are 3 people ahead of them and they will have to wait. What do they do? As soon as someone walked out of the office they walked right in; they knew full well what they were doing. That was it for me! Once that happened I was just mad at the world for the next couple of hours. Everything and everyone irritated me from that point on.

Later when I calmed down I had to laugh at myself. There was no reason for me to get that upset. With all that I have experienced of God’s love and grace and new life I could have responded to that frustration differently, but I didn’t. I’m so grateful for mercy. I’m so glad that as God watched me lose my temper it didn’t change the way he felt for me at all. He extended mercy to me before I even asked for it. He is still with me and his presence never left me. What a wonderful assurance to have that even at our worst moments God doesn’t leave us. This is mercy. This is love. And for this I am grateful.

"Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness." 

Lamentations 3: 22-23

Following the Way,

Kevin

I Believe

I believe because I cannot not believe. I cannot doubt the wind when it blows upon my face and whispers through the leaves of the trees. I cannot doubt the sun when its light hits my eyes and its warmth touches my skin anymore than I can doubt the water that surrounds me when I plunge into the ocean. I cannot doubt the God that moves within me anymore than I can doubt the existence of love, truth and beauty. God speaks. He shouts, he bellows, he whispers into the deepest crevices of my soul where no other sound can be heard and reaches down into the most inaccessible and inhospitable spaces of my heart where no one else desires to go.

I see God in the sunset. I feel God in every drop of rain that falls from heaven and waters the earth causing life to spring forth from what was once only dry ground. I hear God in the morning chirping of the birds, the lovely tiny sparrows flitting and flying about the trees, almost dancing upon the branches.

God is. Nothing else needs to be added. It is necessary for nothing else to be understood. The most ornately elaborated sophisticated theology cannot come close to capturing the simple and awesome beauty of this. God is. And God is the is-ness of all that is. Everything that is is because God is. The fish is free to swim because God is. The worshipper is free to worship because God is. Indeed the atheist is free to deny God because God is. All that is is because God is, from the single-celled bacterium to the dizzying complexities of the outer universe. All that is is because God is.

God is.  Nothing else could possibly be of greater importance. God is. Nothing else must be spoken.  God is.  Nothing else needs to be added,  except perhaps that God is love.

Following the Way,
Kevin

Love Makes Us Real

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,

before you were born I set you apart;

Jeremiah 1:5

This thought is just amazing to me! How is it possible that I yet without form could be known by the One? Doesn’t life start in the womb? How can God know me before then? How is there any “me” to know?

I believe that when I was just a thought in the mind of God, just an idea, just a possibility — even then God loved me and that divine love made me real. My origin is not the womb of my mother, but the womb of God, the womb of divine love. Divine love is our source as well as our destination. It is love that makes us real. Without love the human heart becomes a cold empty shell, beating simply to mark the time, counting down to the end. Life begins when we learn to love, to receive and give love. Until then we are not truly ourselves, only possibilities of what we can become once love makes us real.

Following the Way,
Kevin