Through Stained Glass: A Mid-Week Reflection-Stained Glass

Stained Glass

I’ve heard it said once that each of us is like a stained glass window—beautiful, colorful, and translucent. All of us are beautiful exactly as we are but we are made even more beautiful by the light of God that shines through us revealing an inner translucent that is breathtaking.

Part of the splendor of stained glass is that it is exactly that – the colors are not painted on but are deliberately created in the manufacture of the glass by the addition of metallic salts. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.

You believe this, right? You know that you are wonderfully and beautifully made, inside and out? And you also know that God created you in the image of God?

Take a few moments and sit with this truth.

Read Psalm 139: 13-18. Look at yourself in a mirror. Look at the beauty God has created in the uniqueness of your features:  the amazing complexity of each part of your body that was formed in your mother’s womb.

Read Psalm 139: 13-18 a second time. Visualize the “colors” that God has created in who you are that give you a unique luminescence when light shines through. Thank God for the beauty of who you are created to be.

Now, before the nasty freezing rain and sleet get here, go outside and take a walk in the sun. Where do you see the glory of God shining through with that inner luminescence? Take some photos of your favorite “translucent” scenes. Write about them in your journal. Thank God for the glory that shines through all creation.

Even in creation light shines through the pollution and the de-afforestation. It isn’t just the pristine landscapes where God’s light shines, but also in that stunning sunset which is full of oranges and reds, purples and lavenders, yellow and gold.

Now, look in the mirror again. Take a good look. Perhaps you notice the crow’s feet or the bags around your eyes. Maybe you see the broken areas within, the parts no one can see. Often it is our wounded areas that glow most brightly with the inner translucence of God. What are the wounded places in your life that glow with God’s presence? Write them down and thank God for divine light that shines in and through you.

Now listen to the song below and read through these lyrics of the refrain. What else is God saying to you today? How might you respond?

Let your light shine.
Let your love show
It’s a short ride
Down the long road.
When the rains come
And the winds blow
Let your light shine
Wherever you go.

Through Stained Glass: A Mid-Week Reflection-Soon

The snow falls quietly outside. It blows and swirls, making the line in that song relevant just 3 days from March. You know the one, “Oh the weather outside is frightful…”

We’re under a winter advisory for another 30 minutes.

The good news, we are within 30 days until the first day of spring.

There are probably many of us who are tired of the snow. In comparison to our friends out East, we have had a pretty mild winter. A total of 12 inches or so over a season is a little easier to deal with than 12 inches or so every week for the last month.

That is a little dramatic, but you get the point.

Before you know it the sun will be shining across my old Illinois home, buds will be budding on the trees, and kids will be kidding around outside in short sleeves and shorts. Soon, the world will be green again and it’ll look like paradise.

However, I was told paradise is a word we must use carefully. This piece of advice came again via a Christian tract. This time the card consisted of two lawn chairs sitting next to a palm tree, on a sandy beach, looking out over the ocean, a perfect juxtaposition to the weather we are currently experiencing here in Illinois.

On the backside of a card is the explanation of why this world is not paradise. That if you believe a peaceful existence is possible then you have believed the lies this world has to offer. Furthermore, paradise is where God dwells. And that dwelling place, is not here. Rather, it is up there, somewhere. And the only way to get there is if you ask Jesus into your heart and repent. If not, don’t expect sunny skies where you’ll go. You’ll be enduring an eternity of living in Death Valley…

Before sounding too pejorative, or judgmental, there is a need to repent, to believe in the good news that God loves us, and to further the incarnation with our lives. I’m not denying this. However, to declare this world is not a place of paradise is ludicrous.

Anyone who has ever resisted or mourned the destruction of the earth or the demise of one of its living species

or has wondered at the beauty of a sunrise,

or the awesome power of a storm,

or the vastness of prairie or mountain or ocean,

or the greening of the earth after periods of dryness or cold,

or the fruitfulness of a harvest,

or the unique ways of wild or domesticated animals,

or any of the other myriad phenomena of this planet and its skies has potentially brushed up against an experience of the creative power of the mystery of God, Creator Spirit. As the Bible’s love songs show, the love of God for the world is revealed through the depths of love human beings can feel for one another.

What does this have to do with paradise? It speaks to God’s continued creation in our lives. To believe paradise is some far off place is to deny the very real presence of God here and now. God is not a god who set into motion the world, destined it for corruption, and then leaves, only to return just in time for some people and not others. Creation is not a one-time event. Rather, God’s creative activity involves a continuous energizing, an ongoing sustaining of the world throughout the broad sweep of history.

God is the giver of life and the lover of life, pervading the cosmos and all of its interrelated creatures with life. If God were to withdraw God’s divine presence everything would go back to nothing.

And that nothing is a far cry from

                                             

paradise.

The last sentence of the card encourages its readers not to “live in a fool’s paradise thinking this life is all there is. God is inviting you to the ‘real’ paradise through faith in Jesus Christ.”

Honestly, while we have hope in the resurrection, what we have is now and this now is a gift. What is so compelling about God’s love and God’s goodness is that God has promised to remain with us as we return to God’s original vision of earth—paradise. Perhaps we would actually come to know what paradise has to offer if we believed in the goodness of all people, committed to the uplifting of one another, and made sure care was taken of all.

If God can make dry bones walk, why can’t God use us to usher in paradise?

God loves us and this love God has for us creates goodness, making the entire world and us lovable.

That sounds like a place I could call paradise…even when it does snow.

Through Stained Glass: A Mid-Week Reflection-Starz

Starz

It all became too much for me.

The footage of violence on TV.

The images of grief on the faces of those who lost loved ones in yet another plane crash.

The news of a major company laying off more than 200+ employees in Central Illinois.

The generalized portrayal by the media of our Muslim brothers and sisters because of a few extremists who carried out acts of terror in the false name of Islam.

The story about a Transgendered teen committing suicide because of being misunderstood not only by classmates, not only by the teen’s own parents, but also the teen’s faith—Christianity.

The recording of buildings shaking as the ground rumbled and rolled because of an earthquake.

The reports of so many experiencing the coldest week of this young year—making me mindful of the homeless and the pets left outside.

All of this I received while watching 10 minutes of a local news segment last night as I talked to my mom about my ailing grandmother.

The world is hurting.

It feels dark and cold, not only in the frozen tundra of Logan County, but also in places beyond our imagination.

As the first commercial break occurred, I felt like I do when I walk outside on days like today:  my breath was taken away. It is an overwhelming feeling.

Sometimes when I was a kid on nights when the world seemed too big and the problems to arduous, I would head outside and stand under the cloudless night sky, gazing upward at the starz and the moon. From their distance light years away, they somehow brought me comfort.

With the ground covered by snow, the moonlight reflected off the frozen particles of precipitation, illuminating acres of frozen trees, that when the wind blew, their icy limbs would shake and wave, creating a perfect rhythm with the tranquility of the night.

This polar but perfect harmony would leave me motionless, staring skyward in astonishment, and without expressing a sound, giving thanks for being a part of something, broken yes, but also magnificent. A bit like Christ’s body.

Being cold isn’t much fun. In fact, if you stand out there long enough, it will begin to hurt. But watching our breath dissipate into the world offers us a reminder,

a reminder that

in this moment in time,

with all that is going on,

as the world longs to be held in God’s arms of grace,

we are reminded that

your breath, that my breath,

that our breath,

matters.

Friends, be not afraid to inhale the wintry weather. For when we do on cold days like today, during painful times like ours, we can show the world our care, our hope, and our love for it, by simply exhaling…

And today, that is more than enough for me.

May your lives be cradled in God’s arms today, your hearts warmed with Christ’s grace, and your beings burning with the life-giving presence of the Holy Spirit.

Through Stained Glass: Advent Word of the Day-God

Day 12:  God

“God doesn’t see as mortals see.” [1 Samuel 16.7]

God is has come

God is here

God is on the way.

Are you ready?

 In this season of Advent that is typically described as one of preparation, what does it mean to prepare? Maybe, preparation means simply adjusting our eyes to see light when there seems to be none.

God sees us as beautiful.

God sees this world worthy of saving.

After all, She created it good.

Very good.

What are you creating this Advent?

When was the last time you cast your gaze upon the world with the gaze God has on you?

Dream.

Prepare.

Listen.

God is coming.

God is already here.

Through Stained Glass: Advent Word of the Day-Keeper

Day 3:  keeper

“Am I my sister’s/brother’s keeper?” [Genesis 4.9]

To answer it directly,

yes.

This text comes right after creation, the moment when out of selfless love, God created. That is the truth I continue to come back to:  however the ball of creation got rolling, when there was nothing—there became something.

I find comfort in that something, despite the mystery surrounding it, being God.

We are meant for each other. Together, as a collective community of creatures, we make up the beautiful quilt of God’s imaginative love—humanity.

How are we to keep each other?

At the risk of sounding too simplistic, I can’t help but say—turn to Scripture.

The Bible in its entirety speaks about God and God’s concern for the creation and all creatures, including human creatures; it speaks of God’s involvement with the creation for the benefit and the healing of it. The premise of all Scripture is that without this involvement on God’s part, creation would perish in an abyss of violence.

God asks Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” in the same way God asked the humans in Genesis 3.9. God is asking more than about location. Cain’s flippant answer offends against the Torah’s ethic of responsibility for one’s kinsman and neighbor.

Advent is the season where God extends the promise of healing in the person of Jesus Christ. As Christians we enter into Advent as a people of God, studying the stories of Torah because we have come to believe in the same God who called ancient Israel, who still calls our Jewish neighbors, who also calls gentiles into relationship with this God for the healing of creation. We trust and believe, hope and know, that in life and in death we are kept by God.

So friends, during this season of hope and expectation, what is God asking you? We wait and we listen…but with God, it is never a passive activity.

I leave you with a paraphrase from one of my favorite scholars, Thomas Merton. I think it speaks perfectly to today’s word:

“Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody's business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy.” 

God keeps you close to God’s heart. May we do so with those we share life with. After all, there is but one Love. And yes, that is what keeps us as brothers and sisters.