Category: Flourishing Today

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Epiphany 3: Finding The Grace To Answer The Call

Once again, I found joy and synergy with God in the gift of preaching at Emmanuel Episcopal Church today.  I am so honored to serve their very fine Rector and my friend, Fr. David Bumstead. So grateful.

The focus of my sermon from the Gospel lesson for today, was receiving the grace to “answer the call.” The call is the greatest opportunity one can ever be given in this life. That call is to become a Christ Follower and Apprentice of Jesus Christ. We are called to a life beyond superficiality to one of eternal significance, to be with him in order to be like him. 

Saint Basil the Great articulated the goal of Christianity as “Likeness to God as far as possible for human nature.” Everyone of us—because of God’s presence and action in our world—can partake in the divine-likeness (2 Pet 1:4).

I also love the way South African Methodist pastor, author, teacher, and spiritual director Trevor Hudson expresses it with these words:

“I have come to see that the central issue of the gospel of Jesus involves the gracious opportunity to become a new kind of person and to enter into a new way of life. Available to anyone who responds wholeheartedly to the invitations and call of Jesus, his gospel embraces both the forgiveness of our sins and the recovery of abundant life”. – Trevor Hudson

May you find these words a source of wisdom. Pray for the grace to accept the call of God in your life and how you can live well and beautifully, no matter what your circumstances.

With you on the Journey, 

Rob+

 

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Beyond Endings To The Gift Of Years

Sister Joan Chittister names the last third of life as the capstone years. It is the time in which a whole new life is in the making again. But the gift of these years is not merely being alive—it is the gift of becoming more fully alive than ever.

These older years—reasonably and intentionally active, mentally alert, experienced and curious, socially important and spiritually significant—are meant to be very good years.

When I crossed the threshold of full time parish ministry into a new season of life, many friends, Bishops, Priests, Deacons, members of parishes I served, offered me words of blessing for my new journey.  I treasure them. 

Now almost two years have passed. I turn 67 this month, 39 of those a priest. These words by Irish poet, author, and priest, John O’Donohue, both illuminating and wise, helped me to cross the threshold into a new invitation to “awaken the depths beyond my work… to live the dreams I’ve waited for…..” They continue to ring true!

Whatever season of the journey you are in, may you find the blessings before you in all of life’s thresholds. Slowly read and pray this poem and blessing.  Let it wash over you. 

BLESSING FOR RETIREMENT
John O’Donohue

This is where your life has arrived,
After all the years of effort and toil;
Look back with graciousness and thanks
On all your great and quiet achievements.
  
You stand on the shore of new invitation
To open your life to what is left undone;
Let your heart enjoy a different rhythm
When drawn to the wonder of other horizons.

Have the courage for a new approach to time;
Allow it to slow until you find freedom
To draw alongside the mystery you hold
And befriend your own beauty of soul.

Now is the time to enjoy your heart’s desire,
To live the dreams you’ve  waited for,
To awaken the depths beyond your work
And enter into your infinite source.

With you on the Journey, 

Rob+

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Advent III – Are You The One Or Should We Look For Another?

John’s condition is heart-wrenching. In an isolated cold dark prison waiting execution,  he is struggling to make sense of it all. He had been so confident of Jesus.
 
Have you ever confronted his question? Jesus are you the one or should we look for another? We all face the existential reality of heartbreak, tragedy, betrayal, and suffering. We may experience doubts about the goodness of God. We may even ask “Are  you the One?”
 
Jesus responds, “Go, report to John what you hear and see.” He doesn’t answer directly to justify himself. He lets actions speak. Then he quotes the prophet Isaiah who centuries before described the coming Messiah as the one from whom “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”
 
Every proof of his being God’s chosen involves compassion and healing rather than judgment and condemnation. And the recipients of this healing are those ordinarily dismissed; the ones usually excluded by the religious. 
 
Yes, if we see his way of being, his words, his actions, it is clear Jesus is the fulfillment of all prophetic hope. He is God with us, the Messiah, and in him we our infinitely loved and given an unshakable life in the Kingdom of God. 
 
With Joy That Sustains, 
 
Rob+

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Increase Our Faith: The Gift Already Within You! A Sermon At Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Orlando, FL.

Have you ever cried out, Lord, Increase my faith?  WHAT AM I ASKING FOR? Faith is confidence grounded in reality, not a wild, desperate leap.

Jesus agrees we need faith. However, he does not support our assumption that a greater quantity of faith will help us. The disciples do not need more faith. They need to be reminded about what faith is and assured they have all they need to do what Jesus has enjoined them to do.  It only takes the size of a mustard seed.

Maybe the mistake the disciples make isn’t so much in asking for more faith, but in thinking they don’t have enough, in thinking God’s gift to them was somehow insufficient. 

Jesus is saying to them and to us:  Faith. It’s Already Within You. Engage it! 

In this sermon I focus on two ways our faith can be engaged:

1. God Confidence and 2. Personal Agency. 

In short, the biblical meaning of faith is confidence in God, or as we say, “God-confidence.” Basic to everything here is the idea that Christian belief is really about knowing who and what to trust. In Christ, what you can rely on are his person, his life, death and Resurrection, and the available resources of God and God’s Kingdom. 

With deepest gratitude to Fr. David Bumstead, Rector of Emmanuel.

With you on the Journey, my dear friends, 

Rob+ 

 

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The Gift of Years: Pilgrimage Into The Last Third

Donegal, Ireland – 2017

I am not an expert, but I am in the heart of this stage of life. How do we live to our fullest potential in the last third of life? With careers winding down, and children having long ago left home, we are faced sometimes for the first time in our ever-productive lives with the most basic questions. What is the most important? What is the essence of my life? Who am I becoming? 

This podcast episode is a reflection about living into the last third of life. Baby boomers are retiring at an average of 10,000 per day; over the next 20 years, an estimated 70 million boomers will stop working. Those over age 65 are the fastest-growing age demographic in the United States.

The Gift of Years can be a Pilgrimage.

I have been inspired to see this stage of life as a Pilgrimage. If we re-envision aging as a pilgrimage and ourselves as pilgrims, it can imply a life of meaningful intent and spiritual intensity, a far more vital way of looking at the experience of the Last Third of life.

How do we become pilgrims, how do we understand living in our Last Third as the most important pilgrimage of our lives? The decision to go on a pilgrimage is uniquely our own. 

As the Psalmist wisely says: “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Psalm 90: 12

            Two Foundations For This Pilgrimage 

1. Be Grateful For The Gift of Years

The last third of life, from age 60 on up, doesn’t have to be feared. When viewed from a Christian perspective, this season of life can be meaningful, endurable … and even joyful. 

These years can provide new adventures and challenges we never would have dreamed of. Being older can come as a gift, a joy and a blessing far exceeding our younger years. And this is not to deny the realities of frailty and disability that we may suffer.

May we affirm our gifted age and live out the Last Third of life with courage and joy.

2. Deepen Your Embrace Of The Love That Carries

Isaiah 43:6  God speaks and  says: 

“ …even to your old age, I am he,
    and to gray hairs, I will carry you.
I have made, and I will bear;
    I will carry and will save.”

We choose to see this as our final pilgrimage—the one that will ultimately lead us to our Beloved, our Source. Through the love of family, friends, colleagues and most important the relentless and first love of God in Jesus Christ, we learn to give, to contribute, to adventure, and to flourish evermore.

With you on The Pilgrimage! 

Rob+

Episode Resources

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 Fr. Rick Lord Classical Guitarist and Priest

 

 

 

 

 

Doogie MacLean – Songwriter and Performer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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For The Feast of Saint Aidan-August 31st Practicing The Presence Of God In Daily Life

On Lindisfarne 2014+2017
On Lindisfarne 2014+2017

What can we do to have the manifest presence of God in our lives? What can we do to be sure that we really are living before the shining face of God?

St. Aidan of Lindisfarne was one example of the Celtic Christian Tradition for whom God the Trinity invites us to live in two landscapes: the visible and the invisible, the seen and the unseen, the domain of the physical and the spiritual. We can practice and know the manifest presence of God in every moment of daily life. 

Aidan’s life work began at Iona. During his exile, King Oswald of Northumbria, had lived at Columba’s monastery of Iona where he had been converted and baptized. He sent to Iona, rather than to Canterbury, for missionaries. The head of the new mission was a gentle monk named Aidan, who centered his work at Lindisfarne, an island off the northeast coast of England.

With his fellow monks and the English youth whom he trained, Aidan restored Christianity in Northumbria. They counted on the manifest presence of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

Lindisfarne 2017

Don’t forget to download the prayer resource below! 

Feast of St. Aidan Contemplative Practice PDF DOWNLOAD

With you on the Journey, 

Rob+

Aidan Icon by Dave Peterson

 

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Integrity With Ourselves: What Our Soul Longs For

Almost everyone lives a divided life where we are out of touch with our soul – that life-giving core of the human self, with its hunger for truth and justice, love and forgiveness that has the power to guide our lives.  

Parker Palmer,  Director of the Center for Courage and Renewal, has wisely said: “Congruence between our inner lives and outer actions is what our soul longs for and whenever we live in defiance of this inner voice our life is divided and our spirit suffers under the burden of duplicity.”

What our soul yearns for are wholeness and integrity. We need to care for our soul.

One of the best ideas about integrity and the soul comes from Dr. Dallas Willard: “Our soul is like an inner stream of water, which gives strength, direction, and harmony to every other element of our life. When that stream is as it should be, we are constantly refreshed and exuberant in all we do, because our soul itself is then profusely rooted in the vastness of God and his kingdom, including nature; and all else within us is enlivened and directed by that stream.” Your life depends on the health of the stream.

The stream is your soul, and you are the keeper.

In this second of four podcasts on Integrity, I explore how our inner life, our soul, is where we find the capacity for living “divided no more.” 

“For God alone, my soul in silence waits. From God comes my salvation. Flourishing. (Psalm 62)

With you on the Journey! 

Rob+

 

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