A New Inspiration

Lesson From The Moth

Warmth, dark, tight
Comfortable in the cocoon
But it's time to come out.

Can't stay in the cocoon forever
Cool, light, air
There's a world out there.

Wiggle, squirm, squeeze
The body bloated, wings folded
Struggle is needed to emerge.

The crack widens
Anticipation, determination, commitment
The blue sky and gentle breeze beckon.

Weary, tired, weak
The energy is waning
Surely there is help out there.

But no, leave it alone
Courage, perseverance, steadfastness
Needed for beauty to finally unfold.

Relief, exhilaration, accomplishment
The body supple, the wings full
Ready to discover the world.

The moth takes flight
Freedom, hope, strength
Soaring high above the broken cocoon.

Struggle, challenge, pain
All needed to leave the cocoon
To become strong, beautiful, free.

LM, 12/09

This comes from a story I recently heard - about how a monk, seeing a moth struggle to come out of the cocoon thought he could help it along. He cut the cocoon but the moth emerged with a fat swollen body and weak, collapsed wings. It was ugly and lived a miserable life. For a moth needs the struggle to squeeze the fluid from its body into its wings so that it can fly free. And so I am challenged to not be tempted to get quickly out of my struggles but to endure - because I want to live a free, unencumbered life.

When We Ask of God

I came across a poem the other day which got me thinking (Oh no!).

The Olive Tree

Said an ancient hermit bending
Half in prayer upon his knee,
'Oil I need for midnight watching,
I desire an olive tree.'

Then he took a tender sapling,
Planted it before his cave,
Spread his trembling hands above it,
As his benison he gave.

But he thought, the rain it needeth,
That the root may drink and swell;
'God! I pray Thee send Thy showers!'
So a gentle shower fell.

'Lord! I ask for beams of summer
Cherishing this little child."
Then the dripping clouds divided,
And the sun looked down and smiled.

'Send it frost to brace its tissues,
O my God!' the hermit cried.
Then the plant was bright and hoary,
But at evensong it died.

Went the hermit to a brother
Sitting in his rocky cell:
'Thou an olive tree possessest;
How is this, my brother tell?'

'I have planted one and prayed,
Now for sunshine, now for rain;
God hath granted each petition,
Yet my olive tree hath slain!'

Said the other, 'I entrusted
To its God my little tree;
He who made knew what it needed
Better than a man like me.

Laid I on Him no conditions,
Fixed no ways and means; so I
Wonder not my olive thriveth,
Whilst thy olive tree did die.'

- Sabine Baring-Gould-

So I wonder how much I try to ask God for what I think I or others need when I pray, rather than letting Him carry out the things that He knows is best for me or them.

Just a thought.

Childlike Dependency on God

I have moved on to reflecting on the phrase "Give us this day our daily bread" in the Lord's Prayer. Albert Haase in "Living the Lord's Prayer" suggests that praying this is to be childlike and admit our dependency, helplessness and need as is how little children are. It is not necessarily just the innocence aspect of children (which is a common interpretation)but also their total trust in and dependency on their parents for their needs that Jesus challenges us in Matthew 18:3 to change and become like children to enter the kingdom of heaven.

There is a French saint called Therese de Lisieux who died of tuberculosis at the age of 24 in the late 1800's. She spoke of spiritual childhood as acknowledging our nothingness and expecting everything good from the Lord. In her simple faith she wrote saying that she was looking for a "very straight, very short, a completely new little way" to heaven. The elevator had just been invented saving people the long walk up the stairs. She wanted to find an elevator to lift her up to Jesus because she was "just too little to climb the ladder of perfection." She found Isaiah 66:12,13 that says "As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you ... You shall be nursed and be carried on her arm and dandled on her knees." She realized that the elevator to lift her up to heaven was the arms of Jesus. She says "For that I do not need to become big. On the contrary I must stay little."

Oh, that I may never grow up, that I may never outgrow my need for God. May I remain dependent on and fully trusting in my heavenly Father as a child depends on and trusts in their parents. And may I always find myself in Jesus' arms when I think I have lost my way.

God bless you

I have had some niggling questions over the past few months. As I drive around Detroit I see the many homeless on the street corners with their signs requesting a hand out (or hand up as I like to consider it). Many of these signs say "God bless you." More often than not, when I give a dollar to them, they say "God bless you." Just yesterday I gave a newcomer to a corner frequented by them a dollar and he said the same words and I asked myself as I so frequently do, "Does this guy really mean it? Does he know God enough to bring God's blessing on me? Can someone who is not in God's family bless me? Is he saying this out of sincerity or is it just the "in thing" to say?" Lately I have begun to wonder about this.

It seems that "God bless you" is said very frequently one to another in Christian circles very sincerely. I will often say it to my Christian frineds and acquaintances in saying good-bye. I have even tacked it on the end of my voice mail messages. I know that I sincerely wish God's blessing on that person. It is not really something my non-Christian friends would say to me - it's just not in their vocabulary.

I do not necessarily give money to the homeless to get God's blessing. I do it because God has given me the resources and many times as I see a homeless person, I am thankful for what God has provided for me and at the very least I can share some of it with others who are more needy than I. In a way it is passing on God's blessing to me to another person.I do not give indiscriminately - many times I give because I feel God nudging me to give. And while I do appreciate a "thank you" or a smile, I do not expect anything in return.

I do believe that those who are poor and impoverished have a greater awareness of how God provides for them than those who are not in need. And I know that many of the homeless, regardless of how they use my dollar, are truly grateful. Perhaps they do have a right to request God's blessing on the giver.

I have briefly tried to find a Scripture relating to this but have not really found anything. Certainly someone saying "God bless you" is a short prayer of request by that person for God to bless another. So can someone who is not a Christian request God's blessing on another and expect God to answer that prayer? Acts 20:35 (NIV) says "...remembering the words of the Lord Jesus himself said 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'" So therefore just by my act of giving a dollar I already receive a blessing from God. Does it matter then if someone wishes God's blessing on me when I give something to them?

I am afraid I just have questions at this time. I will let them niggle at me as I drive away from each homeless person but will not lose sight of the satisfaction I feel knowing that I have blessed the receiver of my dollar with the blessings that God has given me.

Our Father, Who Is In Heaven

I am reading a fascinating book about the Lord's Prayer. The author takes each phrase and expounds on it in ways I have never heard before. In the liturgy at my church we say the Lord's Prayer before communion. This book has totally changed this well-known prayer for me and I will never take any word of it for granted again and I am only at the "Who art in heaven" chapter!!

The chapter discusses the difficulty we have as humans in understanding just who we are praying to - "When we locate the presence of God "in heaven" in the Lord's Prayer, we are not confining God to a snail-mail address or physical location.... No word or image can accurately describe this ineffable, unapproachable and incomprehensible God who lives in heaven."

So many times I think I have arrived at finally understanding God, only to be frustrated by His revealing something else of Himself to me. And when I pray, I think I know this God I am praying to - but do I really know Him - the God who is in heaven?

The author continues: " God refuses to become an object that can be contained by the human mind. God lives in heaven! God dwells in unapproachable light. God is like the air we breathe: we can never grasp it in our hands. God is like the horizon: we can never take in its length in one single glance. ... Indeed it is an arrogant presumption to think God can be captured, photographed, contained or described by the human mind or heart. God is God: totally other, totally transcendent."

Wow, how liberating this is. I don't have to figure Him out! I just have to believe in who He is, allow Him to be outside of whatever box I put Him in and let Him be the God that He is. Even though the nature of God puts Him way outside of what I can understand, it is not discouraging - for He meets me where I am at - He is my (our)Father, my Abba, who lives in heaven. What more can I ask for?

(From "Living the Lord's Prayer" by Albert Haase)