Tag: just
Protected: A 7 Step Discernment Process
An Inmate’s Mission (dispatches from Prison Ministry)
As some of you know, I’m ministering at the Federal Prison: FCI Schuylkill.
1,330 male inmates. Our class has 31.
I gain so many insights from my brothers there. So, it seems a terrible waste not to share some of them here.
We just finished up on lesson on Finding Your Mission.
We talked about what Jesus’ mission was. We talked about our own missions.
Some of them hadn’t thought of the concept and surely didn’t like it apply to them behind bars.
… if you are in prison, it’s really high time you find your mission…
But, that’s true for all of us.
I’m learning right along with them. The pressure is higher to learn lessons to help and heal you when you live behind bars, but the lessons themselves tend to be quite the same.
So far, the ground is fertile and the spiritual thirst is fervent!
The hearts of the those who choose to come on Monday’s is “the good soil”!
(If it was half of this at church the world WOULD be on fire with it!)
MISSION for inmates?
In reading the verse that is essentially Jesus’ mission statement (and also a prophecy from Isaiah) I realized that I have the same mission. It came into sharp focus.
“I’m setting literal captives free with the Good News.”
Jesus came, taught, brought and lived the Good News, died, rose, and then…left.
He didn’t stay where everyone would surely try to force him to be king (or pope, or whatever). Everyone still wanted to be free of the Romans. Except for a few of his students and friends and a few family members, everyone would be missing the point.
The Jews were captives of the Romans. That didn’t change when Jesus was here or after he left.
The Kingdom of God doesn’t free you in that way.
The invitation was (and is) to be free from the captivity of sin and death and the mindsets that keep us imprisoned (or in the case of my brothers…it puts you in an actual prison).
The Good News was and is the hope, the reality, the plan fulfilled: that God came to reconcile us to him, forgive us, and make things right. Little by little we carry it out and remake the world.
Little by little we provide the impact of authentic justice in the world.
It starts, for me, in jail along side my brothers. As these men transform, so will their world and the world, at large.
What a joy it was to tell my brothers that they are truly missionaries with a genuine mission behind the bars!
They are light in a dark place.
No time is wasted.
They are NOT just doing their time; The are making up for wasting it.
Their mission has begun, and no one can stop it. Once you’ve been set free, you are free indeed!
Jesus is our model and so is his mission.
Are you doing time too? Or are you on your mission?
Luke 4:14
Then Jesus returned to Galilee, filled with the Holy Spirit’s power. Reports about him spread quickly through the whole region.
15 He taught regularly in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.
16 When he came to the village of Nazareth, his boyhood home, he went as usual to the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read the Scriptures.
17 The scroll of Isaiah the prophet was handed to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where this was written:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, 19 and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.[f]”
20 He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down. All eyes in the synagogue looked at him intently.
21 Then he began to speak to them. “The Scripture you’ve just heard has been fulfilled this very day!”
If you can help us, we need it. Badly. Monday nights 6-8:30. Let me know!
This temple Site pre-dates civilization, itself
As promised, I’m giving you a summary of the Wesley Forum I attended on April 7.
Lecturer Dr Ben Witherington focused his 3 lectures on The Imago Dei (Image of God)
The 1st session had to do with the Imago Dei seen through archeology.
He spoke about the huge dig at a high place found in Turkey, in 1993, called Gobeckli (click for amazing National Geographic photos and info).
This is probably one of the most significant discoveries since the Rosetta Stone–and I hadn’t even heard of it. Have you?
It invalidates the typical (secular) ideas of how religious and spiritual life emerged among humans.
Social Anthropologists have, until now, thought that religion came after people began farming and wanted to gain control of their unpredictable environment.
It worked like this…so they thought…
• Human stumbles on a new kind of mutated wheat that be more easily harvested.
• They kept the seeds and settled in areas to raise crops.
• They struggled against the harsh elements and began to think of wind, sun, rain, etc as superpowers (i.e. gods)…(superstitious folks).
• They tried to please and apprise the gods to gain better circumstances…and…
• Boom…religion.
You’ve heard this theory before, right?
To Witherington, this recent discovery shows that the need to reconcile with the divine is part of the human experience, not an invention that came at the advent of the agricultural age.
The religion of these high places helped begin civilization, not the other way around.
The oldest part of the Gobeckli site is dated to 10,000-12,000 years ago and is the oldest temple ever found in the world.
That’s old…but how old?
Wrap your brain around this!
It was created before people were living in villages, farming, and before they had domesticated any animals (sheep, dogs, cattle, etc).
People were wandering, gathering, hunting, and trying to connect to the divine…the whole time.
As the highest point in the region and situated between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, I can’t help but wonder if Cain and Able used this very place. It could be just east of Eden. (LD)
Now, think of the age of this place this way:
The site dates to about 6,000 years before the Great Pyramids were created. It’s a time that precedes writing, by thousands of years.
And yes, it’s pre-Noah and the flood.
Giant monoliths, the largest weighing about 50 tons (¡ yikes !), depict a host of detailed carvings of animals. There are also some stylized carvings of people dressed in priestly vestments. Even more tremendous are the enormous erected stones which have holes drilled into them to tie up animals.
But, remember this is a pre-bronze age. Pre-iron age.
How long did it take to make a hole such as this in this rock with just another rock?
These structures are made in a sophisticated fashion. Cave people were smarter than we assume.
It’s astonishing.
But there are not just 1 of these 30 m. circles with 13 massive stones …they have found 17 of them.
Each takes about 3 years to unearth. (Things are just starting to get interesting! In 50 years they still will not be finish. Much more surprises could be in store.)
Here’s the wikipeda article about the site.
According to archeologists on the dig, the site was eventually backfilled (purposefully) at a point in human development when villages were being established. It seems that local temples were used at that point.
NOTE: (Witherington believes they were not backfilled purposefully, but that the flood (in Noah’s time) moved sand up to the place from the Tigris River. I, personally, think that the flood would have ruined them and that they were indeed backfilled purposefully [for what specific reason, I don’t know]. To me, this burying is what preserved them so well so we could now find them intact. It’s a crazy amount of work to do such a thing, and I don’t know how they could, but the whole site baffles our understanding, so I haven’t ruled it out.)
Dr Witherington concludes that because of the image of God within us, we desire to commune with God (or gods). We always have.
All the ancient people groups had 3 things:
1. Temples
2. Priests
3. Sacrifices
I will elaborate more on the lectures in the next post and include some of my notes from the other 2 sessions.
Read PART II
Read PART III
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Save-the-Date: Next Trip to Narnia
Here’s what some of the previous retreat-goers said about the experience:
To learn more or sign up, join the Retreat list click HERE.
THE STORY…
Suppose you found a place…like Narnia…a magical parallel place…
This happened to me, and the only way it makes sense to tell you about it is to tell you that the land of Narnia comes to mind.
I spotted no White Witch, but I’m certain that Aslan was on the move!
I keep going back and it keeps getting better.
I’ve tried to sketch out something of what it’s like with my words. My strings of syllables are full of adjectives and I start to gush and make a fool of myself.
These words and my intensions fall short. Maybe a photo will help, I think. No, not really.
I try to tell people about it and say “come and join me”. Several of my closest friends knew to trust me and come “in faith” and it turns out that you sort of “catch something” while you’re there that draws you back again and again.
Yes, I can say, it’ll be restful, or I can say, it’ll be refreshing, or life-changing, or amazing…and of course I sound a little crazy because I’m making such a big deal about it.
But, I hope it doesn’t seem so absurd.
When you are really thirsty, water sounds wonderful.
Yet, it’s only when you taste it that you are satisfied.
Maybe you have some kind of deeper thirst. Then come!
~ABOUT THIN PLACES~
A “thin place” is where you see this dominion of the kingdom of God come into clearer focus.
And dominion doesn’t refer to a location per se, or sometimes at all.
There, the world as you know it grows strangely dimmer and smaller. You notice a threshold that separates heaven and earth too much. It seems much thinner.
This thin place can even be manifest in a person.
When you are near him or her, you sense something greater at work in a richer and more powerful unseen reality. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but you know it’s real. There is weight there.
The epitome of that is, of course, the Son of God. Jesus was the thinnest place of all when he walked among us.He is our model.
But a thin place is a location too, right?
Yes, sometimes a you sense a thin place in a location that has been somehow, or intentionally, consecrated and set apart for apprehending the deeper realities of existence. A house of worship. A garden. A home where love abides. A bookstore. A mountain perch. A bench at the beach. Everyone has probably felt a thin place, at some point.
(If you have, let me know where in the comments section)
The retreat center were I go at least 3-5 times a year is one such thin place. If you haven’t gone to a place like this, it’s nearly impossible to convince you that being there, just being, will improve your life.
I’m left “pitching the benefits” to you, like a giddy salesgirl, because conveying the actual experience is so obtuse and ethereal.
Postcards, paper ones or verbal ones, never really share a place properly.
I have a plan to return soon
Your story will unfold in new ways there.
I’ll be the guide. I’ll show you the grounds and acquaint you with the places for quiet reflection and rejuvenation, and provide you with some devotional reading and prayer material to guide your time, if you want the structure. I’ll get you started and you’ll have nothing else to do but enjoy yourself.
Are you thirsty?
We’ll meet for a (provided) hot lunch at 12:30, than after we will “gather the graces” we’ve been given, and leave for home when the time seems right. It could be the half day that changes your life. The cost is a tiny $15.
Let me know if you’re interested by signing up HERE, and I’ll prepare a spot for you and send details.
To be on the update list, click HERE.