Buying

I remember one of my Old Testament professors saying in class one day that God cares where we buy things. I wasn't totally sure what he meant by that saying. During my time in seminary a lot of small farmers were going out of business while large corporations bought out their land. The small farmer couldn't compete with the corporation.

My professor said that God cares about where we buy things and that a society would be judeged on how it treated the least among them. He was a scholar primarily in the Psalms and Prophets. The prophets often brought words of judgement against Israel becuase of their disregard for God and their neighbor.

Buying from a corporation at the expense of a small business owner is not loving our neighbor. The way most large corporations work is the top few become rediculously wealthy while the most remain less than wealthy, often their growth is at the expense of small business.

Lately as I have been making purchases I have been thinking about who I am buying from. It has cost me more money to buy from smaller companies and knowing who I am buying from. The American way is to get the cheapest price regardless of the social cost.

A great man, John Wolman considered the source of where he bought things from and vowed not to buy from goods produced by slave labor (he lived before the civil war). He felt it was not loving his neighbor.

I think we are challenged in our buying to think about the impact of how we spend our money. Is it consistent with loving God and loving our neighbor? Is it good stewardship of the Earth and the resources given to us?

I have come to agree with my professor some eight years later, God cares about how we spend our money..

Listening

Today I went to see my new primary care physician as a follow up to an ER visit three days prior where I was diagnosed with pneumonia. While we talked about my pneumonia he also listened to me talk about my peripheral neuropathy, a disease that has changed my life and those that I live with.

On the way home I was telling my wife how magnificent it felt to be listened to. When I told my doctor that it changed our lives he understood, no additional comments. When I told him it messes with everything else in my body, he agreed. When I told him that we still don't know what it is from, he told me that the Pacific Northwest is the mecca for strange neurological diseases.

As I laid down for my late evening rest I reflected on how rare listening is. People are heard yet rarely listened to. The tendency is to want to fix, solve or give advice, it seems as though it is never okay simply to hurt or suffer. The other tendency is to avoid the pain, that is, not enter into the suffering of another. Granted we can never truly enter into another's pain but the word "compassion" means literally "to suffer with".

Compassionate listening is to allow the other person simply to be themselves and to have the courage to love them as they are. It is to see Christ in the one who is suffering and to minister to Christ in, as Mother Theresa says, "his most distressing disguise". To be a compassionate listener is to be Christ to another and to be compassionate. Christ is compassionate; for selfless love is compassionate. Does it have a cost on the listener? Yes, but our lives have been bought with a price, ransomed by the blood of Christ and it is our privilege to pay the cost. We have all been called as Jesus says "to take up your cross and follow me".

Is their someone in your life who is suffering and simply needs be listened to? Are you at a place where you can be a compassionate listener? If so take a risk, trust the Holy Spirit and listen with a loving heart, remembering it is Christ you are ministering to and Christ ministering through you.

For those of you looking at the time stamp I took one of my meds a little late and so I am up later than I want to be. Don't worry I can sleep all day if I need to.

BTW: I love you all...

The Gift

The other day in a "teaching moment" I was trying to teach our daughter about being thankful for all she has, especially stuffed animals. The girl has 87 (we counted) in one basket plus the ones in the garage. I would love to say that most of them were gifts from outside our family or even from my wife but the fact is the majority are gifts are from me. As a wannabe Franciscan this is certainly not the way to embrace Lady Poverty or simplicity.

However I love to buy her stuffed animals, I give them to her becuase she likes them and it gives me pleasure to be able to give to her. I am not trying to justify my actions, only to make the point that as an earthly father I love to give to my daughter lavishly and beyond what seems good or right. It is my good pleasure to do it.

Jesus says "11Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? 12Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? 13If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"" (luke 11:12-13 NRSV).

It is our Heavenly Father's good pleasure to give us the Holy Spirit. In other words: divine union.. God loves to give us Himself....This is more generous and lavish than anything we can imagine. God offers us Himself while we are still sinners, it is something my mind cannot comprehend. Praise is the only good and right response to a love this lavish and reckless.

The love of God is reckless in that it is available for all and any. God is willing to be ignored, spit on, made fun off and eventually crucified for this reckless love... Gratitude seems to little...

"Where the whole realm of nature mine, that were a tribute far to small; love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all!" (Isaac Watts LBW 482)

I think such reckless, passionate and generous love of God's own Self given to us in the Holy Spirit is what we should meditate on and let it be a source of tears, joy and praise.

This is why the spiritual life is not a performance event, we already have everything through the Holy Spirit...We just need to grow in our awareness and knowledge of what we already have.

Christ Jesus made this Divine Gift possible......Come, let us adore him....

It is the Father's great and joyus delight to give the Holy Spirit to you....