Christian spirituality is like an apple ripening

Merton once asked, "how does an apple rippen?" His answer to his own question - "it just sits in the sun."

American myths promote that if you are not growing then you must be dying. If you are not working then you are lazy. If you are not moving then you must be dead. I suppose this is where Christianity differs from the American myths. 

There is little we can do to mature. That sometimes being still does not mean you are dead. If we are not growing larger that does not mean we are dead, it could mean we are maturing. 

This is where our churches are failing. We are convinced of the American myth more than we are of the Spiritual Truth that Merton so plainly points out. 

In order to mature, we need to sit in the sun and trust that the sun will do what that sun (son) does.

A net full of fish and the fear of the other

There is a story in the Bible where several of the disciples are fishing and they come up short. They are instructed by a man on the beach to put the net on the right side of the boat and when they do the net is full of fish. The man on the shore is Jesus and the number of fish are over 150. 

The meaning of the number of fish has been debated for as long as this story has been told. Why the number is very specific - 153 - and it seems like it should mean something. Some have said that it is the number of fish types known at that time. Others have used this number as some sort of "code" that reveals a secret message. I have no idea what the number means. What I am most interested in is the note that the net did not break.

Religion has a history of setting boundaries up to define who is in and who is out. There is an underlying fear that if we let just anyone "in" that the line between in and out will be blurry and perhaps the whole thing will come undone. We see this when someone in Christianity talks about universal salvation. Some fear universal salvation because if anyone "gets in" then that means that all that I know to be true (there are saved people and unsaved people) is undone.

When I read about the net being so full and overflowing but not breaking, leads me to believe that all the fear that I have about what happens when the boundaries break, or the anxiety that I have when my social structures are broken down, or the worry that I have when I consider what would happen if I really let everyone come to the table, are all a matter of my lack of faith. 

When our borders are removed it may not mean that our nets will break. Having faith is trusting that the net is strong enough to support everyone. 

Free Cookbook for those on American food assistance (made by Canadian)

Every month while in college I was given an allowance from my parents: $100. Granted they also paid for a lot of other things for me at school - books, much of tuition, rent - but I also had a job and was responsible for a good portion of my bills as well. My job in university ministry was not high paying and so most of my money went to the bills that I was responsible for. And when the first of the month hit and I had an additional $100 in my account, I felt like a king. 

A lot of my college days were also spent eating not only Ramen but bowls of white rice and pinto beans. I also would join my friends in the campus eateries and eat off their plates when they went to the bathroom or were not looking. I would snag a few french fries here and there and even get the last half of a sandwich if my friends were done. I never ate from the trash, but it was tempting at times. 

I felt too guilty to ask for more money from my parents at the time and so I kept on keeping on. I do not resent them and I really never felt like I went hungry. I am eternally thankful for my parents taking on such a huge financial load for me to attend a private school that I just did not think asking for more money would be the right thing to do. I managed to learn to eat on less than $4 a day. 

Eating on $4 a day or less is a situation that many Americans live with all the time. And when I was doing it for 3 years I never thought I could afford to eat more than rice, beans and Ramen. Recently, Leanne Brown created a cookbook for those who eat on $4 a day or less. Those who are on the SNAP program here in America are who she has in mind when she made this book. 

Not only is this a free cookbook, but also one that actually looks amazing. 

This is the sort of change and cultural artifact that I desire to be associated with. My next step is to find a way to get funds to print this off and have free copies available for people at my local food pantry: Community Link Mission. 

Anyone interested in helping fund this?

Freedom from and for

Christianity teaches that Christ as set the world free from sin and death. That in Christ the world was liberated from the heavy burden of the "flesh" or "law". We are people who are free and no longer live under the oppression of guilt, worry, fear or anxiety.

Being set free from something is an amazing thing. I cannot imagine what it is like to be set free from something like slavery or being held hostage. Being set free is something that most of the time we cannot do on our own. If we were able to be free from what holds us captive on our own, then are we really held captive? Being set free is something that requires the assistance of a source outside of the person.

Being set free from something and being set free for something are related but also different. While being set free from something requires the action of an outside source, being set free for something can come from within. Once we are free from, we can decide what we are going to be free for. 

Many people upon being free from, take full advantage of this freedom and focus on living for themselves. It makes sense and I do not condemn this position. If I were held under the rule of someone or something it is very tempting to live the rest of my life living for my own self interest and desires. Having no desire to go back to oppression, it makes some logical sense that I would not want to take orders from anyone but from me. 

Many people upon being free from, take full advantage of this freedom and focus on living for others. For instance the tradition of the Bodhisattva in Mahāyāna Buddhism, in which a person reaches enlightenment (free from the cycles of death and birth) and then uses that freedom to help others also break the cycle.

This is the mandate of the Christian. Christians believe we are set free from sin and death, not so that we can live for ourselves but that we live for others.

Being free from is a miracle. Being free for is a choice.