Through Stained Glass: A Mid-Week Reflection on Simple Love

Even the smallest of light
can illumine a room full
of darkness. Your light,
your love is enough.

Simple Love

“To show great love for God and our neighbor we need not do great things. It is how much love we put in the doing that makes our something beautiful for God.”

~Mother Teresa

Stop.

Read the first sentence again.

To show great love for God and our neighbor, we need not do great things.

Stop.

Take a deep breath.

Hold it for 5 seconds.

1

2

3

4

5

Now, exhale.

Breathe in those words.

To show great love for God and our neighbor, we need not do great things.

What is expected of us isn’t ‘greatness.’

No, what God wants from us is to love.

Simple love.

In 1 John the author encourages the community he is writing to do one thing to overcome the conflict they were experiencing:

“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God… Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.”

This letter repeatedly points to Jesus our example in the way of love, but it doesn’t stop there. The community is called to make God’s love tangible to those around them. This love is generous and self-giving, considerate of the other, creating unity.

The author lists no other qualifications, save that we love as God loves.

Nothing else.

It is how much love we put in the doing that makes our offering something beautiful for God.

In order to put this love into action, we may first need to let go of the fear we have in our hearts. Trusting in the assurance and promise that God works with us to bring our love to wholeness.

Fear of the other.

Let go of it—let your neighbors reveal something about this transformative love.

Fear of ourselves.

Let go of it—taste the wonder of this liberating love, that knows us by name.

Fear of the unknown.

Let go of it—discover the love of God in new and unexpected places.

At times we need to remember that we love because God first loved us. That all we need is what we already have. And what we already have is the love of Christ that dwells within.

We need nothing else

other than

this

Simple Love.

May this prayer become yours this day:

O God, before the noonday comes, we are already feeling as though our lives are not full enough. Instill in us this morning the assurance that you are enough for us, Lover of our Souls. Your love, your call, your work, is enough. Amen.

Through Stained Glass: A Mid-Week Reflection on Being Surrounded

“Surround yourself with people who have instilled hope in you.”

This was a piece of advice I received early in my professional career.

Whether at home or in my study, I was encouraged to place pictures of those I can turn to when I’m in need of inspiration and courage.

On the wall in my study hang photographs of three people who remind me that this vast work in which I participate began long before I arrived, and will continue well after I’m gone. Each hangs in its own frame, as a reminder that their stories are their own. Even so, collectively, these stories intersect the hopeful vision of what humanity can become.

In one of these frames hangs the portrait of former slave and abolitionist, Frederick Douglass. There is perhaps no greater story of overcoming oppression, injustice, and imprisonment.

As a slave Douglass was equated with ‘things,’ like cows, pigs, or oxen.  These ‘things’ were property, and so was Douglass.  Slaves resisted this categorization by appealing to their masters when overseers were unnecessarily violent or abusive. If their masters responded with compassion in one situation, the assumption was that similar treatment for other slaves would follow. This compassion acknowledged and therefore humanized slaves; this was something that the system of slavery could not afford in order to remain effective.

Douglass’s formative moment of self-discovery was his personal resistance to an overseer, which Douglass describes as his last flogging.  This scuffle ended with Douglass drawing blood from his overseer, rather than the other way around. Following this act of resistance, Douglass was never flogged again. 

Even more importantly, this incident was the turning point in Douglass’ ‘life as a slave.’  

“It rekindled in my breast these moldering embers of liberty; it brought up my Baltimore dreams, and revived a sense of my own manhood.  I was a changed being after that fight.  I was nothing before; I WAS A MAN NOW.”^[1]  

Through this experience, Douglass experienced a selfhood resurrection ‘from the dark and pestiferous tomb of slavery, to the heave of comparative freedom.’  While still physically a slave, Douglass recovered his personhood, and began to experience his true identity as a ‘somebody.’

All of us are somebody’s. Like Douglass, all of us have a story to tell. While our struggles may not be as extreme or dramatic as Douglass’s, we glean from his narrative that we all posses the strength to somehow rise above those things, which keep our true selves at bay.

Perhaps some of us have already been liberated.

Others among us stand on shaking legs, as we search for the courage to be somebody.

Frederick Douglass hangs on my wall not just because of his role in shaping American history, but also his journey engaging the necessary work of being emancipated from the age-old lie that he could be only a slave and nothing else.

Douglass hangs on my wall as a reminder that I can

that you can

that we can

together,

be liberated into the freedom of our true identity.

Douglass hangs as a reminder of the profound belief in human equality and the hope that everyone may discover his/her true self.

So I ask, friends: who reminds of you of this in your space?

---

^[1] Douglass, Frederick. “Autobiographies: Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave; My bondage and my freedom; Life and times of Frederick Douglass.”  Ed. Gates Jr., Henry Louis (New York: Literary Classics of the United States, 1994), 286.

Through Stained Glass: A Mid-Week Reflection on Silent Spaces

One of my new favorite silent spaces is the chapel at First
Presbyterian Church in Lincoln, Illinois. This photo
was taken during an evening prayer session by an artist
in the church. It is our hope that this space can be a
place of rest and contemplation
for our members and their friends. 

Silent Spaces

Psalm 62.1—¹ For God alone my soul waits in silence; from God comes my salvation.

In the woods at the place where my parents live, there is a tree.

It stands tall.

Branches full of leaves in the fall.

To hug it would require 3 or 4 of us, locking hands and reaching around its sturdy trunk.

It stands straight, stretching high into the heavens.

From a distance, if you know where to look, you can see this mighty tree rising above the rest.

As a child, this tree was a place of relief and rest for me. On hot summer days I’d weave and wander around thick brush so I could disappear beneath its spacious shadow. I’d listen to the birds squawk while the leaves sighed under the rare summer breeze. During the winter, when the exposed branches of the tree was draped with white snow, I would lean my back against the wide trunk, sitting perfectly still, hoping I would see the elusive red fox or the darting white tail deer.

I named that tree ‘Rex’ as in ‘T-Rex’ because in my young mind it stood tall like one. Under that tree, I found much solitude. Though each of us 4 boys had our own room, this tree in the middle of the woods gave me a space I could truly call my own. I could go there whenever I wanted, to be alone with my thoughts, but could still hear my mom yell for me when it was time for supper.

Little did I know that the practice of sitting in that space, under this tree, was my first encounter with silence and solitude.

The disciplines of solitude and silence are beneficial for all people who seek to be intimate with God. They allow us to answer a call, present deeply in the center of our heart. Every person born on this earth is called to find and realize him or herself, not only in discovering the love God has for us, but discovering how we access and participate in this love as it is present in the world. When we attend to God’s presence within, we will begin to see the holiness in the world around us.

This work can be difficult. Distractions abound daily. That is why it is essential for us to find “at least one room, or some corner where no one will find you and disturb you or notice you. You should be able to untether yourself form the world around and set yourself free, loosing all the fine strings and strands of tension that bind you, by sight, by sound, by thought, to the presence of other ‘people.’”[1]

So, what is your silent space? Where do you retreat when you are in need of rest and relief?

Whether it is under a tree named ‘Rex,’ or at your kitchen table early in the morning, remember that outward silence opens the door to inner silence; and inner silence is the silence of the true self before God.

And it is that self, in that moment, when we become fully alive to God.

May you find peace in the silent spaces of your days.

Holding you in prayer,

Adam

---

[1] [1] Thomas Merton. “An Invitation to the Contemplative Life.” Ed. Wayne Simsic. (Maryland:  The Word Among Us Press, 2006), 81.

Seeing Through Stained Glass: A Mid-Week Reflection

On Being Stuck on a Snow Day

Psalm 142.7—Bring me out of this prison, so that I may give thanks to your name…

It was about 1 pm yesterday when, through the hushed purple and gentle golden stained glass windows in my study, I noticed the snow. Flakes were falling fast and with purpose as they soared through the sky. A dusting quickly turned into a covering, and streets already paved with ice became consumed by snow.

Despite living mere blocks away from my favorite building in Lincoln, I knew I needed to get home quickly. When your vehicle of choice is a rear-wheel drive Chevy pick up truck, you have just moments between the accumulating inches of snow to get where you need to be. Otherwise, your chances of getting stuck increase exponentially.

And well,

despite my best intentions,

as well as my ability to

nimbly navigate in wintery weather

I made it all the way to my house

before I

got

stuck.

After 30 minutes of spinning my tires, rocking and rolling, I was eventually rescued by a thoughtful neighbor, and was able to free my tiny truck. I waded through the white snow, turned black by this point with the stench of rubber on its surface, and made it the 15 feet into my garage.

That moment of being stuck was frustrating. I was so close, and yet, so far away. Despite employing all the necessary tactics, and taking my time so I could arrive safely, still I managed to get stuck. My adrenaline was pumping and my heart racing as I tried and tried and tried to complete this journey on my own.

Being stuck is no fun. There is perhaps no worse feeling than being trapped or fastened to some facet of life. Looking out my writing room window, I see cars buried in snow; neighbors un-sticking themselves with shovels and snow blowers; and I see something else too. Just beyond the trees that hang heavy with snow, past the intersection glistening with ice, there is a reminder sparking in the soft snow. From the window I see an opportunity to stop:

to stop wanting to be unstuck;

to stop wishing for warmer weather;

to stop pondering how problematic these winter weather patterns have been

and to begin just

being.

Being “stuck” has made me realize that life isn’t so much about progress as it is about process. Spring will have its day. We know that it will come: but winter needs hers as well. Soon the sun will shine and the warmer weather will return, and we will be liberated from being stuck. But we must not hurry these forced days off so quickly. Having to slow down provides us the occasion to engage in activities for which we often don’t have time. We can drink our coffee more deliberately. We can take our time working the crossword puzzle in the paper. And we can do the difficult work of stopping rather than starting; stalling rather than moving—learning that perhaps one cannot happen without the other.

Maybe being stuck is necessary to being unstuck, maybe acting cannot happen without listening first.

When we’re stuck, what is the world trying to reveal to us?

When we’re stuck, what is your soul speaking to your personhood?

When we’re stuck, what is God bringing forth in your beautiful life?

Poet Wendell Berry said this about Winter,

“Suppose we did our work 
like the snow, quietly, quietly, 
leaving nothing out.”

So friends, put your arms around your soul, embrace the anguish that comes with being stuck, and respond to your summons from God. Get ready for the adventure of growing into the next part of your life. Getting stuck is worth whatever angst you must go through just so you can hear God say to you,

"Hang on, you are about to get unstuck."

See you tonight at Kirk Night, friends!