20 posts tagged “god”

Fishers of people

Sep 28, 2009

A couple of weeks ago, I broke down and purchased a lovely polynesian-style fish hook, hand made by a local Hawaiian artist. It's wonderful swirls match my tattoo, and the koa wood that is mixed with cow bone to make a stunning, creative design is endemic (I think) to Hawai`i, and has a beautiful grain. I bought it to wear on liturgical occasions... occasionally.... part of the emphasis on discipleship I learned as a Methodist, and the imperative of our closing ritual at one of the summer youth mission trips I went on several years - "Mt. T.O.P." - fishers of men.

Today I woke before dawn to join my uncle, Otha on a fishing expedition to a highly top secret pond in the area of Kemper County. It's the best fishing in the new world, and quite possibly all the continents and oceans. It was fun.

We told stories, and I got a chance to ask him his favorite memories of his father and mother.

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I have to admit I was surprised at myself to discover that I was surprised at the feeling of killing. I've fished before, although years ago. I certainly have no compunction about eating meat, though I attempt to buy "happy meat" when possible (free-range, etc.). Yet, when unpacking the fish from the ice chest an hour after our trip, I noticed some of the fish were still twitching - 'looking at me!' I couldn't help but feel a connection to these lives. I thanked them, because they gave up their life for my sport and table.

How often do we stop to ponder the death that happens around us, deaths which sustain us, and provide life for us? I told the fish 'thank you,' and hoped my sense of obligation to life around me will increase as I ponder the delight of this journey with my uncle.

Fortunately my calling is to be a fisher of people, not.... fish.

photo copyright (C) Michael Barham, 2009.

For the sport of it....

Feb 10, 2009
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My cousin Rachel loves psalm 104, and I do too. The idea that God has created us (all of us, including our non-human sisters and brothers), for God's own delight. "Yonder is the great and wide sea, with its living things too many

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to number, creatures both small and great. There move the ships, and there is that leviathan which you have made for the sport of it." (vs. 6-7). The idea that these magnificent, large creatures in the ocean, jumping up and spouting ... they are made for joy.

I couldn't catch any pictures of the beautiful arch of the whales's tails, their emerging like submarines and submerging, or the fountains spurting out to warn us of their pending emergence, but it was fun to be out on the water whale watching. A must.

Natural cathedral

Feb 2, 2009
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A "green cathedral" of bamboo behind the Byod-In shrines in the valley of the temples. Sometimes architecture invites us to pray and meditate. Often, nature does - reminding us that before our own architecture was God's creation. Through the canopy and arches of bamboo knocking and tick-tocking in the wind, light shines in and time seems to stand still, affording us a call to ponder, like Mary did in her heart, mysteries of God's love.

honu 11864

Dec 21, 2008
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11864

Chelonioldea: the green sea turtles that I swim with (I think they are the species green sea turtle, or chelonia medas) are some of my favorite swimming companions. Yesterday, on my sabbath snorkel, I spent several minutes hanging out with chelonioldea number 11864.

Just a number. How sad. It was like a prison number, or other such identifier. God knows us, each of God's creation, human and non-human, by name. Christianity believes that the God, whom some believed had a name that is unmentionable, gave us a name by which to know, intimately, that very God. Jesus.

My objective is to track down a name for my new friend, honu number 11864, so that in future snorkelings, I can say 'hello' by name. Is that not a way of celebrating the relationship we all share with the Creation in which God has placed us? And let Creation share in our life, too?

One of the parishioners with whom I work is a volunteer at Hanauma Bay, and I suspect he might know how to track down the nick-name that the scientists gave 11864 - the more personal pronoun than the scientific numerical is an opportunity to reflect on the relationship of life calling out to life.

MAHALO

Nov 28, 2008
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Thanksgiving is a pleasant holiday - a time to pause and give thanks, a time of reflection.

Also a time for looking

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ahead - as the fallow earth lies to be renewed. As bellies are fed to be renewed.

Gratitude is not only a recognition of what has been done, but hope for things to come. As a Christian, my gratitude is directed towards my ohana - the family back in the contiguous states, and my friends who are becoming my ohana here. My gratitude is informed by the story of a great, a magnificent God who has been and is at work in the world; a God visible in the beauty of creation and the rhythms of seasons. My gratitude is also informed by the telling of stories - sharing traditions, memories of loved one's - the tales that connect generations.

It's also a day to stop and remember those who don't have: family, love, material needs, material pleasures that those of us who blog and read blogs can afford. Let our thanksgiving not be a means of avoiding the true spirit of thanksgiving: inviting strangers and the hungry to our table.

getting dew on your nose from roses

Oct 3, 2008
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When I was in grad school, I loved walking through the university's gardens. I loved the infrequent snow, when it would sneak up on an early spring day, and we'd find wisteria encased in ice, or fall leaves caught just before dropped like sculptures suspended in autumnal reverie.

One day, I was walking through and leaned over to smell a rose. I got a drop of dew on my nose and it tickled. It reminded me of being a kid and smelling the buttercups that would close around your nose with the force of the inhale.

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The church has beautiful flowers growing around - something I can imagine taking for granted if I don't stay vigilant.

This morning I noticed a bloom beginning to open. I am amazed at the detail of God's paint brush.

Bless the Lord, you tiny blossoms, bless the Lord, you vibrant colors, let all creation bless the Lord!

How often do we allow ourselves to get so close to something else? Someone else?

No! on proposition 8

Oct 1, 2008
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A friend of mine posted this youtube video - the "love passage" that is so overused at weddings, yet so appropriate.

Love Poem

It's a beautiful passage, and I think nicely done. Since I cannot separate the politics of God from the politics of mammon, I appreciate the application of this message to voting no on descrimination. I'm sure some of my friends will disagree with the theology and politic behind the purpose of this video. It's my reality.

Waves rolling

Sep 30, 2008
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Today I did not go swimming. The water was a little choppier than yesterday at the beach here in Mokule`ia. I did sit on the edge of the beach, where I would catch the last of a wave before it pirouetted and danced back out to sea.

It's amazing sitting at sea level, at the level of the ocean's undulations, palpitations. You can see just how magnificent and awesome is this creation. Some of the waves lifted my rather big body and I could feel the slight undertow pulling, wanting to take me away from the shore. It was an easy fight - the waves weren't that big. But I could imagine them being bigger, more powerful. I sat there for several minutes, just letting the waves remind me over and over again of my baptism.

Last night, in compline, I was struck during the profound 'silence' between the invitation to confession and prayer of confession (that time when we are supposed to review and reflect on our sins, particular and general). There was another pause between the invitation to offer our intercessions and the concluding antiphons/nunc dimitis.

In these silences, the waves crashed in and rolled out. They witnessed to me of grace and peace and mercy. In these moments of remembering our 'manifold sins and wickedness,' and in our prayers, God crashes in over us, rolling in and out, over us and over us... pummeling us and smoothing our souls like sea-glass... taking away the rough, jagged edges of our sin, our sorrows, our sadness.

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Many years ago I heard the voice of God whispering in my ear, 'Dive into my fullness and you will be healed.' Mixing the ocean with compline reminds me of Catherine of Siena, who wrote about swimming in the peaceful abyss of God's love. What a delight to be here on the Pacific abyss!

Footwashing

Mar 21, 2008
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Homeless Feet Washing

Maunday Thursday - I washed the foot of a mother - and as I did, it struck me, how would a mother wash a foot? Or a dad?

Holding one's foot in my hands and running a wash-cloth soaked with hot water around it, I suddenly pondered the sacred touch in the mother's work of washing her infant, and often a playfulness - "one little piggy...". Maybe there was little playfulness that night as Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, but there was intimacy - there was intimacy.

This gesture of Jesus, which he bids us to pay-forward, is not so much about service as it is incarnated agape (love). While we need more of what looks like service, it must be love, not mere altruism, that is embodied in those gestures.

Footwashing

Mar 21, 2008
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Maunday Thursday - I washed the foot of a mother - and as I did, it struck me, how would a mother wash a foot? Or a dad?

Holding a foot in my hands and running a wash-cloth soaked with hot water around it, I sensed that there is a sacred touch to the mother's work of washing her infant, and often a playfulness. Maybe there was little playfulness that night as Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, but there was intimacy - there was intimacy.

This gesture of Jesus, which he bids us to pay-forward, is not so much about service as it is love.

Fishers of people

For the sport of it....

Natural cathedral

honu 11864

MAHALO

getting dew on your nose from roses

No! on proposition 8

Waves rolling

Footwashing

Footwashing

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20 posts tagged “god”

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