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sammy24682468 · 4 years

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2019 Revelation Study lesson 5

"Memory Text: “ ‘You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; for You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth’ ” (Revelation 5:9, 10, NKJV)."

"Revelation 6 continues the scene of chapters 4 and 5, which describes Christ as worthy to open the sealed scroll, because through His victorious life and death, He regained what was lost through Adam. He is now ready, by opening the seals on the scroll, to carry forward the plan of salvation to its ultimate realization."

"Pentecost marked the beginning of the spread of the gospel, by which Christ expands His kingdom. Thus, the breaking of the seals refers to the preaching of the gospel and the consequences of rejecting it. The opening of the seventh and last seal brings us to the conclusion of this world’s history."

"Revelation 3:21 gives us the key to the meaning of the seven seals: “ ‘ “To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne” ’ ” (NKJV). Chapters 4 and 5 tell us of Christ’s overcoming and His worthiness, as a result of His sacrifice at Calvary, to be our heavenly High Priest and to open the scroll. The last verses of chapter 7 describe the overcomers before Christ’s throne. Thus, chapter 6 is about God’s people in the process of overcoming so that they might share Jesus’ throne."

"Read Revelation 6:1-8 along with Leviticus 26:21-26 and Matthew 24:1-14. Note the common key words in these texts. What do you learn about the meaning of the first four seals on the basis of these parallels?"

"The events of the seven seals must be understood in the context of the Old Testament covenant curses, specified in terms of sword, famine, pestilence, and wild beasts (Lev. 26:21-26). Ezekiel calls them God’s “four severe judgments” (Ezek. 14:21, NKJV). They were the disciplinary judgments by which God, seeking to awaken His people to their spiritual condition, chastised them when they became unfaithful to the covenant. In a similar way, the four horsemen are the means that God uses to keep His people awake as they await Jesus’ return."

"There also are close parallels between the first four seals and Matthew 24:4-14, in which Jesus explained what would happen in the world. The four horsemen are the means by which God keeps His people on the right track by reminding them that this world, as it now exists, is not their home."

"Although symbolic, Revelation 6:1, 2 is about conquest, too. It brings to mind Revelation 19:11-16, which portrays Christ as riding a white horse and leading His heavenly armies of angels to deliver His people at the Second Coming. As a symbol of purity, the color white is regularly associated with Christ and His followers. The rider on the horse holds a bow and is given a crown (Rev. 6:2), which evokes the image of God in the Old Testament, riding a horse with a bow in His hand while conquering His people’s enemies (Hab. 3:8-13; Ps. 45:4, 5). The Greek word for the crown (Rev. 6:2) worn by the rider is stephanos, which is the crown of victory (Rev. 2:10, Rev. 3:11). This rider is a conqueror going forward conquering and to conquer."

"The scene of the first seal describes the spread of the gospel, which started powerfully at Pentecost. Through the dispersion of the gospel, Christ began expanding His kingdom. There were, and still are, many territories to win and many people who have yet to become followers of Jesus before the ultimate conquest is realized with Christ’s coming in glory."

"Prophetically, the scene of the first seal corresponds to the message to the church in Ephesus; it describes the apostolic period of the first century during which the gospel spread rapidly throughout the world (Col. 1:23)."

"Read Revelation 6:3, 4. On the basis of the description of the red horse and the rider, what is being talked about here in reference to the gospel?"

"Red is the color of blood. The rider has a great sword and is allowed to take peace from the earth, which opens the way for people to kill one another (Matt. 24:6)."

"The second seal describes the consequences of rejecting the gospel, beginning in the second century. As Christ is waging spiritual warfare through the preaching of the gospel, the forces of evil render strong resistance. Inevitably, persecution follows. The rider does not do the killing. Instead, he takes peace from the earth. As a result, persecution inevitably follows. (See Matt. 10:34.)"

"Read Revelation 6:5, 6 along with Leviticus 26:26 and Ezekiel 4:16. On the basis of the description of the black horse and the rider, what reality associated with the preaching of the gospel is referred to here?"

"The rider on the black horse holds a scale for weighing food. An announcement is made: “ ‘A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius’ ” (Rev. 6:6, NKJV). In that part of the world, grain, oil, and wine were the basic necessities of life (Deut. 11:14). To eat bread by carefully weighing the grain denoted great scarcity or famine (Lev. 26:26, Ezek. 4:16). In John’s day, a denarius was a daily wage (Matt. 20:2, NKJV). In normal circumstances, a daily wage would buy all the necessities for the family for that day. However, a famine would enormously inflate the normal price of food. In the scene of the third seal, it would take a whole day’s work to buy just enough food for only one person. In order to feed a small family, a day’s wage would be used to buy three quarts of barley, a cheaper, coarser food for the poor."

"The scene of the third seal points to the further consequences of rejecting the gospel, beginning in the fourth century, as the church gained political power. If the white horse represents the preaching of the gospel, the black horse denotes the absence of the gospel and the reliance on human traditions. Grain in the Bible symbolizes the Word of God (Luke 8:11). The rejection of the gospel inevitably results in a famine of the Word of God similar to the one prophesied by Amos (Amos 8:11-13)."

"Read Revelation 6:7, 8. What scene is portrayed here? How is this scene related to the previous one?"

"The color of the horse in the fourth seal is expressed with the Greek word chloros, which is the ashen-gray color of a decomposing corpse. The rider’s name is Death; meanwhile, Hades, the place of the dead, accompanies him. These two are allowed to destroy people by sword, hunger, death, and wild beasts over one fourth of the earth (Matt. 24:7, 8)."

"The good news is that the power of Death and Hades is very limited; they are given authority only over a part (one fourth) of the earth. Jesus assures us that He has the keys of Hades and Death (see Rev. 1:18, NKJV)."

"Review once again, in Revelation 2, the contents of the messages to the churches in Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, and Thyatira. Compare the situation in those churches with the scenes of the opening of the first four seals. What parallels do you observe between them?"

"The scenes of the seven seals portray the future of the church. As was the case with the seven churches, the seals correlate to the different periods in Christian history. During the apostolic times, the gospel rapidly spread throughout the world. This expansion was followed by the period of persecution in the Roman Empire, from the end of the first century to the beginning of the fourth century, as portrayed in the scene of the second seal. The third seal points to the period of compromise of the fourth and fifth centuries, which was characterized by a spiritual famine caused by a lack of the Bible and its truths, leading to the “Dark Ages.” The fourth seal aptly describes the spiritual death that characterized Christianity for nearly a thousand years."

"Revelation 6:6 states that “the oil and the wine” will not be affected by the famine of the third seal’s plague. Oil symbolizes the Holy Spirit (1 Sam. 16:13, Acts 10:38), and new wine symbolizes salvation in Jesus Christ (Mark 2:22). What do the meanings of these symbols tell us about the fact that, even when the Word of God is scarce, the Holy Spirit is still at work and that salvation is still available to all who seek truth?"

"Read Revelation 6:9, 10. What is happening here?"

"The word “soul” in the Bible denotes the whole person (Gen. 2:7). The martyrdom of God’s faithful and persecuted people is portrayed here in terms of the sacrificial blood poured out at the base of the earthly sanctuary’s altar of sacrifice (Exod. 29:12, Lev. 4:7). God’s people have suffered injustice and death for their faithfulness to the gospel. They cry out to God, asking Him to step in and to vindicate them. These texts concern the injustice done here on earth; they are not saying anything about the state of the dead. After all, these people do not appear to be enjoying the bliss of heaven."

"Read Revelation 6:11 along with Deuteronomy 32:43 and Psalm 79:10. What was Heaven’s response to the prayers of God’s martyred people?"

"The martyred saints were given white robes representing Christ’s righteousness, which leads to their vindication—His gift to those who accept His offer of grace (Rev. 3:5, Rev. 19:8). Then, they were told that they would have to rest until their brothers, who would go through a similar experience, are made complete. It is important to notice that the Greek text of Revelation 6:11 does not have the word number. Revelation does not talk of a number of the martyred saints to be reached before Christ’s return, but of completeness regarding their character. God’s people are made complete by the robe of Christ’s righteousness, not their own merit (Rev. 7:9, 10). The martyred saints will not be resurrected and vindicated until the second coming of Christ and the beginning of the millennium (Rev. 20:4)."

"The scene of the fifth seal applies historically to the period leading up to, and following, the Reformation, during which millions were martyred because of their faithfulness (Matt. 24:21). It also brings to mind the experience of God’s suffering people throughout history, from the time of Abel (Gen. 4:10) until the time when God will finally avenge “ ‘the blood of His servants’ ” (Rev. 19:2, NKJV)."

"“ ‘How long, O Lord?’ ” has been the cry of God’s suffering people throughout history. Who has never struggled with the lack of justice in this life? What comfort do you find in the scene of the fifth seal, knowing that one day justice will, indeed, be done?"

"In the fifth seal, we see God’s people suffering injustice in a hostile world, as they cry out for God’s intervention on their behalf. The time has come for God to intervene in answer to the prayers of His people."

"Read Revelation 6:12-14 along with Matthew 24:29, 30 and 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10. What is being revealed here?"

"The last three signs of the sixth seal were foretold by Jesus in Matthew 24:29, 30. They were to occur near the end of the “great tribulation” (Rev. 7:14), in 1798, as the harbingers of the Second Coming. As with Christ’s prophecy in Matthew 24, the sun, moon, “stars” (meteors), and sky are literal here. The use of the words “as” or “like” paints a picture of an actual thing or event—the sun became black as sackcloth, the moon became like blood, and the stars fell to the earth as a fig tree drops its late figs. The Christians in the Western world recognized the fulfillment of Jesus’ words in the order of each of these signs: the Lisbon earthquake, in 1755; the dark day of May 19, 1780 (experienced in eastern New York and southern New England); and the spectacular meteor shower over the Atlantic Ocean, on November 13, 1833. The fulfillment of this prophecy, in Revelation 6:12-14 led to a series of revivals and to the realization that Christ’s second coming was near."

"Read Revelation 6:15-17. Also read Isaiah 2:19, Hosea 10:8, and Luke 23:30. The scenes portray people of all walks of life in a panic trying to hide from the terror of the upheaval at the coming of Christ. They are asking rocks and mountains to cover them in order to protect them from “ ‘the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb’ ” (Rev. 6:16, NKJV). The time has arrived for justice to be dispensed as Christ comes “to be glorified in His saints” (2 Thess. 1:10, NKJV). The end of the wicked is described in Revelation 19:17-21."

"The scene concludes with the rhetorical question by the terrorstricken wicked: “ ‘The great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?’ ” (Rev. 6:17, NKJV; see also Nahum 1:6, Mal. 3:2). The answer to that question is given in Revelation 7:4: those who will be able to stand in that day are the sealed people of God."

"The vision of the opening of the seven seals points symbolically to God’s care for, and discipline of, His people on earth. As Kenneth A. Strand has pointed out:"

"“In Scripture there is assurance that God has always cared for His people: that in history itself He is ever present to sustain them, and that in the great eschatological denouement He will give them full vindication and an incomprehensibly generous reward in life everlasting. The book of Revelation picks up and expands beautifully this same theme, and thus Revelation is not by any means some sort of offbeat apocalypse that is out of tune with biblical literature in general; it conveys the very heart and substance of the biblical message. Indeed, as Revelation emphatically points out, the ‘Living One’—the One who conquered death and the grave (1:18)—will never forsake His faithful followers and that even when they suffer martyrdom they are victorious (12:11), with the ‘crown of life’ awaiting them (see 2:10; 21:1-4; and 22:4).”—Kenneth A. Strand, “The Seven Heads: Do They Represent Roman Emperors?” in Symposium on Revelation—Book 2, Daniel and Revelation Committee Series (Silver Spring, Md.: Biblical Research Institute, 1992), vol. 7, p. 206."

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daveblume · 6 years

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Don’t Look Away

Speech to the Museum of Social Justice’s annual Tardeada event, September 29, 2018.

The Brazilian economist-turned documentary photographer Sebastiao Salgado said, “I have never put myself in a situation where I have a moral question about whether or not to photograph, such as ‘Do I have a right to photograph when the death is there in front of me, the suffering is there in front of me? ’I never ask these questions, because I asked myself the more important questions before I arrived there. Do we have the right to the division of resources that we have in the world? Do I have the right to eat when others don’t eat?” This philosophy has informed my approach to documentary work from my college days, through my years working in Africa, on up to the present.

One of the biggest challenges when presuming to represent life’s various “marginalized” populations or communities, is not the act of seeing, or of wanting to be there, listening, watching, empathizing, commiserating, and collecting images and anecdotes. Ultimately it is in the editing, curation and display where the work is given form and context. This is why it has been a unique pleasure to work with the Museum of Social Justice staff and board members.

One of Us grew out of a collaboration with then-director Wade Trimmer of the SFVRM, who suggested that I visit sites where their mobile shower unit went in the early morning hours. From there it was a matter of gaining permission from the respective directors of MEND Poverty in San Fernando, North Valley Caring Services in North Hills, St. Charles Borromeo Church in North Hollywood, and the Living Praise Christian Church in Chatsworth, to introduce myself to those who would come to these facilities for breakfast, a shower, maybe some fresh clothing, and hopefully some supportive human contact. Asking them if they wanted to sit for portraits and interviews required gaining trust, and trying to reassure them that this was not just another variation on the media stereotyping that many of the people I spoke to were painfully wary of. Those who agreed to speak and sit for portraits tended to be among the people who sensed that their participation might help lead to some improvement in their condition, or a softening of the critical way society in general looks at them, and in so many cases, treats them as outcasts, even untouchables. I’m grateful to each one of these people, as well as the group of homeless friends along the 405 freeway in North Hills that I have become close with over the past few years , including Terry and Aimee, Lynda, Gracie, Craig, and a revolving cast of others who have come and gone, sometimes to prison, sometimes temporarily into shelter, sometimes just gone. Visiting them regularly on my bicycle, whether just hanging out and talking or documenting their endless survival strategies as they engaged in a cruel game of cat and mouse with law enforcement, was an education in itself. Witnessing their struggles with endemic poverty, their prospects of ever rising above their circumstances compromised by whatever mental, physical or dependence issues they were dealing with, I always leave their company with a profound sense of their humanity, even generosity of spirit. I often think of something Manny Flores told my students when they interviewed him: “I’ve come to realize that homelessness is like a disease. The longer you have it the harder it becomes to cure.” But that doesn’t make someone any less human. We all know people that have these same afflictions but are not homeless, and that this overgeneralization of equating the homeless with mental illness and addiction is a false equivalency.

With Manny Flores

I carried two books with me in 1987, when I moved to Kenya run the information department for an NGO called InterAid International; James Agee and Walker Evans’ Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, which still serves as a crucible and a vital check on one’s ego while engaged in advocacy work, and William Stott’s Documentary Expression in Thirties America. Stott wrote something that I would like to share: “That the world can be improved and yet must be celebrated as it is are contradictions. The beginning of maturity may be the recognition that both are true.”

This reminds me of Father Arnold Grol, a Roman Catholic parish priest and a fixture in Nairobi's slums and streets for nearly 30 years, until his death at 73 in 1997. In 1975 he started the Undugu Society, an organization that still works today with the urban poor, and especially street children. From the time I arrived in Kenya and started photographing the street kids out of personal interest, we would cross paths occasionally in the streets and alleys, and I eventually joined forces with Undugu in 1992, running their Information Department during my last two years in Africa.

Fr. Grol was as comfortable in the alleys as I was; the difference being he was also at home in the boardrooms, involved in a lot of his own fundraising. He once told me, as we talked about the frustrations we shared at the lack of civic concern and empathy for the street kids, "The point where we have failed is that we have not involved the rich people; we have not made clear to those who have money, and especially big firms, that money is there to be a little bit equally distributed. I'm not against big salaries, but what I am against is that when you get the big salary you use it in order to buy your third or fourth car, your third or fourth house, or a private plane. In my own family, I've had people who only lived for money. I don't know one of them who only lived for his personal pleasure and money that has become happy. Those who shared their big salaries-- not giving half away, but a reasonable sum-- they are the ones who are the happiest."

Advocating on behalf of the street kids and others was an extraordinarily formative time in my life. The daily experiences, the endless frustrations tempered by the small victories and shared moments of humanity… I don’t think anyone in this room could feel any different than I did when a small barefoot girl, part of a gaggle of kids who were following me around near the city market one day, tapped me on my back and returned half of a mandarin I had just given her. Such a simple act, but one that puts to shame those with plenty who refuse to share. More frequently though I watched a loaf of bread fall in pieces to the ground as two ravenously hungry boys fought over it, or listened through the door in guilty horror as a group of boys were beaten in a police station after I reported them for breaking into the trunk of my car and stealing a laptop.

As I like to say, “don’t look away.” You never know when you will be able to reach someone and help them to a better place, or at least give them hope. That’s what Undugu did so well. One street girl named Mercy Gichengi was helped out of the particularly dangerous conditions and circumstances that the girls faced in the streets, and lived for a time in a home we rented in a rural village named Rioki. Years later as I was editing together the book on Africa (that is finally being printed), we reconnected on social media; I learned that after being helped through school, Mercy went all the way to higher education, and today she is involved in a number of development initiatives related to urban poverty and women. Mercy was kind enough to write something about her experiences for my book, the horrific details of which I decided not to include in this speech because I am still not able to read through them dry-eyed.

I couldn’t be prouder of anyone that I am of Mercy Gichengi today, and so happy to learn she rose above the conditions I was compelled to write editorials and other essays about, advocating for the protection of these children from government policies and the conditions in remand homes and prisons which directly violated not only the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, but Kenya’s own Child Law Project Children’s Act.

So all of this informed my worldview when I moved back to Los Angeles in 1994, almost immediately drawn to Skid Row and other places where homelessness had taken hold. Photographing for the LA Reader, I met Ted Hayes in Justiceville, the utopian dome city that he had started in what is now the LA Live part of the city. His vision was overrun by economic realities, and looking back I think now that this was a squandered opportunity; his concept wasn’t embraced and replicated, instead it was allowed to fizzle out.

The criminalization of poverty is a recurring theme. During a particularly harsh raid of their encampment in North Hills in December 2016, orchestrated between city and county agencies, I received a text message from Gracie urging me to rush down to the freeway— which I did in time to see several of them in handcuffs, hauled off to the courts and prison system, only to gradually, one-by-one, return to the same location where they were supposedly banned from. An exercise in futility and shortsightedness…

I think it says a lot when I receive comments from old friends like John Muiruri, who was one of many selfless social workers at Undugu back in the day, responding a few days ago to a photograph I posted on social media, of a homeless woman holding a sign essentially begging for food and shelter: “It hurts to see people sleep outside and hungry while so much space is available.” This from a man who has worked for decades with street children and the dirt-poor residents of some of Africa’s most desolate slum communities. It’s sobering to recall how the people of Rioki welcomed those street girls into their village, and into their schools, with the headmaster telling me that they were excellent students, “just like any other children.” If only our NIMBY hard-liners could demonstrate the same open-heartedness to their less fortunate neighbors.

But here we are. In light of the fact that this city waited too long to tackle homelessness with the resources that are surely available, we cannot now depend on the real estate profiteers and political operatives under their sway to somehow fix an intractable problem that is essentially baked into the cake of our “ownership society,” and so it falls on everyone to pitch in, and watch in awe as outreach workers venture into the encampments to meet the dispossessed head on, and dedicated activists fight tooth and nail for every concession regarding bridge housing, safe parking, and other crumbs that fall slowly off the table.

I’ll finish with one more thought from Salgado, who declared that “The most interesting function of this kind of photography is exactly this: to show and to provoke debate and to see how we can go ahead with our lives. The photographer must participate in this debate.”Thank you to the Museum of Social Justice, to all the activists and other Change Agents, and to the members of the homeless community for giving me access and allowing me to participate in the debate, even though I tend to agree that “Humanitarian imagery,”as the historian Heide Fehrenbach has suggested, “is moral rhetoric masquerading as visual evidence.” With this in mind, I encourage everyone to read and listen to the stories in the One of Us collection with as much interest as you might study their faces and living conditions. Simply bringing these photographs to your attention is not enough—there’s no shortage of dramatic imagery of human suffering, and without their stories, these images are in my mind even less than moral rhetoric, they promote a brand of voyeurism and spectacle, even entertainment, that led the Kenyan author and social critic Binyavanga Wainaina to coin the term “poverty porn,”a phrase akin to the “poverty pimping”coined by Skid Row’s General Jeff Page to describe the well-meaning but misguided efforts being made to combat urban poverty and homelessness in Los Angeles. I often wonder how it would look to have the collective force of corporate philanthropy married to the most idealistic vision of social engineering possible.

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healthandfitnessrecipes-blog · 6 years

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Very Funny, God

https://healthandfitnessrecipes.com/?p=4508

My mom hates it when I rank our pets, but Brooke is my favorite. She is sweet and gentle.

When I called my newest specialty pharmaceutical company at 4:59 p.m. on Friday (obnoxious, I know) I quickly learned that my insurance would not be covering one of my recently prescribed long-term medications. Thankfully, the very understanding pharmacist I was speaking with adopted a deeper level of patience when I confirmed my 1999 birth year and he realized that I was a fresh soul in the confusing world of medical systems. He supported my decision to table the discussion until after the weekend, in order to allow me time to talk with my mother. On Monday, I found myself jotting down extensive instructions about my newest prescriptions with a shaky hand, teetering in between feeling capable and unprepared. Unless I felt like paying a serious upcharge to have the pharmaceutical company include the necessary supplies, I would need to carve out time to find my way to a drugstore within two or three days. Every time I thought the dramatic warnings about drug interactions and potential side effects were over, there were more of them lurking in the wings, prepared to challenge my sanity and composure. "Would you like to speak with a pharmacist again?" the second employee on the line asked after I expressed some confusion about one of the medications. Do you have a chaplain available? I wanted to ask her, despite knowing how ridiculous the question would be. My concerns did not stem from a lack of understanding so much as an alarming suspicion that God was leaving me to fend for myself with scribbled down, misspelled prescription names in the margins of my planner. "No thank you," I responded instead, wondering whether or not the slightly broken quality of my voice was transferring through the phone, "but I appreciate it."

The Monday conversation with the specialty pharmacy was my third or fourth medical phone call of the day, and I had just raced through the hospital app on my phone to grab an appointment off of a waitlist that was released into the portal just minutes earlier. I needed the appointment, yet still felt sick to my stomach about the notion of competing for it with other patients who probably need it just as much. I do not want to participate in this capitalistic system where some people receive prompt treatment and some do not, and at the same time I do not know how to back out of it in the name of these serious ethical concerns when my body is breaking down. On top of the medical coordination exhaustion, it was a Monday, which is academically my busiest day of the week, packed full of six hours of classes. I had slept very little over the weekend due to back and hip pain, and I did not have the energy to deal with a remote specialty pharmacy. My fatigue this week has been severe, especially in the late afternoons and evenings, to the point where I have had to drag myself to classes, worried that I might collapse or need to lie down along the way. It is so frustrating that I could cry, except that crying would take entirely too much energy. When the fatigue is particularly debilitating, I have to force myself to speak while I hang out with my friends, each syllable adding another weight that crushes into my brain and body. Getting words out feels like it will shut down my system. Given the context, it will not surprise you that on Monday, after I finished up my phone calls and appointment rearranging, I found myself contemplating the concept of Sabbath, and more specifically how the significance of Sabbath changes if you are chronically ill.

Meet Eleanor, aka Ellie, aka Flotus. She is talkative and feisty.

These were desperate times. I legitimately considered asking a public preacher a few questions about pain and rest and theology when I passed by him while leaving my final class of the day, a sign that I was truly losing my mind. Luckily, I remembered that I did not feel like someone putting their enormous palm on my head and casting out the "demon of arthritis" (it seems that in the context of an autoimmune disease the demon would be me) or insisting that my Planned Parenthood laptop sticker was the reason for my illness, so I decided to continue my policy of never engaging with public preachers under any circumstances. Some questions are less disturbing than the responses they are bound to provoke. I have a confession to make: in Building Chapels, I mentioned that it makes me uncomfortable when people pray for my physical health, but what I did not consider when writing that post, and what a friend pointed out to me shortly thereafter, is that I do often find myself typing out online prayer requests to a convent (or two... okay three) in the United Kingdom. There is something inexplicably comforting about knowing that there are dozens of holy women praying for me from an ocean away, even when I am not brave enough to ask for those prayers in my own communities. On Saturday I met a priest in the grocery store after I opened the refrigerator case containing all of the non-dairy milks. I was having a lot of pain, particularly in my back and hips, and I had just submitted a prayer request form to a convent a few hours prior (I feel like I need to clarify that these correspondences are most definitely not an everyday thing). I needed the vanilla almond milk off of the very top shelf for a batch of vegan lemon blueberry muffins I was baking for church, but it was too high for me to reach. The priest spotted my dilemma and quietly offered his much taller stature, retrieving the carton for me and placing it into my shopping basket. As soon as I saw his clerical collar, I wanted to assure him that the muffins I would bake with the almond milk were for a sacred place full of people who blow me away on the daily with their commitments to love one another and the freeness with which they extend compassion, but that seemed altogether unnecessary, because ultimately he had no stake in the destination of the milk. Furthermore, I think a taller person helping a shorter person in the grocery store is more of an act of human kindness than a priestly obligation. I wonder where these lines are drawn, or if they should even be drawn at all.

Our little dog, Lexi, (featuring my face when Hannah tried to explain the training technique we are using with Dante to me).

Still, I did think it was appropriate that it was a priest who showed up in the moment I needed help, even for a task without any sort of direct religious component. Very funny, God, I imagined myself saying to the heavens, in the mostly grateful, mildly sarcastic tone of someone who is speaking casually with an old friend. I imagined God telling me that there are more holy people in the world than just the nuns of the UK, and that if I would just be a bit braver I would discover the people all around me who will listen to me in person and who will pray for me just as earnestly. Most people probably do not have to consider whether or not they should branch out from convents located thousands of miles away, but I like to think that we all have our own challenges. At this point if you were to sum up this post you might observe, You considered asking a specialty pharmacy if they had a chaplain available, you came a hair away from approaching a public preacher with theological questions, you regularly submit online prayer requests to British nuns, and you almost told a priest in the grocery store about the churchly intentions of your almond milk. All of these things are true, though I will note that 3 out of the 4 are almost-experiences, and it is also true that when you put them all together I sound a bit (very?) odd. Perhaps these are the sort of experiences that I should have slowly revealed instead of dumping them all out at once. But I am coping, and sometimes coping follows no particular patterns or logic, and trying to do so within a religious context is extra difficult sometimes and hopefully extra worth it in the end. I do not encounter chaplains, preachers, nuns, and priests every time I leave my dorm room, but sometimes I do feel as though I cross paths with them more frequently than most of my peers do. Perhaps I am just hyperaware of their presence, wondering if they have some sort of secret to offer, some piece of hope that I am incapable of finding on my own. Perhaps I just find it comforting to know that they have asked themselves the same questions that I do, and that by the very nature of their careers they demonstrate a willingness to look into the face of mystery and uncertainty. It is just now occurring to me that I have been consumed in thinking about my religion lately, finding fragments of it in phone calls with specialty pharmacies, in frantic Mondays that cry out for Sabbath Tuesdays, in teary-eyed walks to the drugstore, in almond milk purchases. Perhaps this heightened awareness of my faith has been obvious based on my last several posts, but it is something that I have just now recognized.

Dante is thriving. His ears are an inspiration. His face could not be cuter.

Do you have a chaplain available? It is a question I wish I could ask in almost every setting as I continue learning what it means to love the people around me while being physically bombarded with reminders that I exist within a body that does not love me. Am I my body? Is my body me? These are questions I wish God would answer, so that I could know whether I am fighting against my body or fighting for it. Will everything stop hurting one day? It is a question that I suspect I already know the answer to, but this has yet to stop me from seeking constant confirmation that one day all pain will disappear. Very funny, God, I think to myself with varying degrees of sarcasm, not really expecting God to take note of either my appreciation or despair. On the rare occasion that I do stop to imagine a response, I see a warm smile, the smile of everyone I already love and all of those I will love wrapped up in one, and I feel a hug that lifts me out of fatigue and pain, its eagerness softened only by a humble sigh of gentleness, and I listen as the words that I have repeatedly used alongside humor transform into a sacred phrase I have been waiting my whole life to hear, "Very funny indeed."

Credits: Original Content Source

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brightsideofrockbottom · 6 years

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See you at Midnight.

Well here we are. This is a day that I have been looking forward to for several months now and it’s finally here. I have made it through a year that I never truly thought I would survive.

Do I think that at the stroke of midnight everything will magically change? No, of course not. But the start of a new year is a light, a glimmer of hope for me that things can and will improve in my life.

I’ve been through some very difficult times in my life, and have experienced extreme lows. I have to say 2017 brought me into the lowest of lows and the darkest of darkness I have ever experienced. This was and still has been a period in my life that I have been struggling to deal with.

I could write a book on all the things that happened to me this year that brought me into the state I’m in now. But mainly what has brought me into this “rut” I am experiencing is the drastic unexpected changes that have come upon my career path, my finances, and my personal relationships with others.

We don’t like to talk about our problems because we may be embarrassed of them, people may get the wrong idea about us. We may be considered stupid or not good enough, or we will just be perceived as weak. So I didn’t, I avoided any kind of confrontation with these problems and kept them from almost everyone I knew, until now. Why? Well, because despite every horrific thing that happens in the world, I still have love for human life, human beings, and the human race itself. If I can provide help to someone else, help that I had most definitely wish was given to me in these difficult times, then I have realized my purpose, acknowledged my purpose, and fulfilled my purpose on this Earth. So my dear friends to any of you that may be struggling please know you are never alone in your suffering, and I hope you find comfort in these words.

When I found out I wasn’t able to continue my education this year, I felt that everything I had done was for nothing. I felt that my journey ended here and that this was it. I was done. It was over, and that what everyone had said was true. I did not have what it takes to become a doctor. And so I began to extremely regret my education as I felt it had given me nothing but an indescribable amount of debt. I struggled to find a job and ended up working, making minimum wage amongst people that did not even possess a high school diploma…. Let alone a master’s degree. I had completely lost everything: my apartment, the place I called home, my education, my money, my independence, and most upsettingly- my sense of self-worth, who I was, and my purpose for still being here.

I battled with extreme mental and emotional health issues throughout the year that become almost crippling to me. I began to obsess over weight loss by abusing supplements and laxative based “detoxes” in hopes that maybe looking or being skinner would get people to like me, allow me to have companionship, or have validation that even if everything was lost- I still had my looks. This did nothing for me but make me feel incredibly sick to the point that I was unable to eat more than one full meal per day. Exercise and physical activity became a punishment or a chore for me, instead of something that I used to enjoying doing.

This year is one of the first years I have not made a resolution in regards to weight loss. Over these past few months I have stopped weighing myself and allowing myself to eat more mindfully, by fueling my body with foods that made me feel good and only indulging in moderation. I started to get back into martial arts again- which is something I had always enjoyed since I was 5 years old. Now I make exercise part of my daily routine as an outlet from the daily stresses I deal with, in addition to something I do for fun. I have such wonderful and encouraging trainers and instructors, that even on the worst of days bring me 30 minutes to an hour of happiness. In 2018, one of my resolutions is to take care of my physical health by exercising and trying to eat regularly, and healthy meals but also not being ashamed or distraught over having a cheeseburger and French fries, every once and while.

Another resolution I have made for myself this year was to manage my feelings of depression, stress, and anxiety. This year I started experiencing panic attacks, bouts of depression where I could not even get out of bed, returning back to harming myself, and of course public mental break downs that allowed me to not even be able to function. This year I tried everything in the book that I could think of to help myself but I never could truly find exactly what was going to make this all go away. My finances were so tight so I could only fund seeing a therapist for so long. He was alright, not super helpful in the fact that he told me, “well everything currently sucks right now but you have a good head on your shoulders and you’ll figure something out…..” WELL THANKS. I turned to online counseling services and text lines, self- help books, literally anything out there, and I just didn’t see the improvement that I thought I would. I’ve always been very involved in the church and have met a lot of good priests in my lifetime, which I began to reach out to in regards to my condition. They helped me as I was beginning to lose my faith. They gave me hope, but also kept me in touch with reality. I spent more of my time in churches due the feelings of calmness and serenity that it brought me. It gave a hope that there is something more powerful than the people or things that were making me feel this way, and helped me to once again try to believe in miracles. I knew at the end of the day, even if I had no one, I had God.

Another way in which I have proposed to manage my mental and emotional health is to rid my life of toxic and abusive relationships among “family”, “friends”, “significant others”, and co-workers. I’ve had knives stuck in my back by so many people this year and in years past. That is something I do not deserve and something I will no longer tolerate. I have told an abundance of people to “kick rocks” this year and it is beyond a liberating feeling. In 2018, I will no longer subject myself to the emotional abuse that I have endured in the past and especially this past year. I don’ t care if it’s your blood relative, your boss, or your ”best friend”- NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING on this earth is worth losing your sanity, mental stability or happiness for. I recently quit a job in which I was subjected to an unbelievable amount of abuse in the workplace, and I’ve already started to feel so much better despite my loss of income. I have realized that the loss of income is not worth listening to people telling me I’m worthless every single day. What’s more important here, losing your money or losing your mind? I was at this job for 3 months and these people had broken me down so much, I felt on the verge of suicide for the first time in many many years. In 2018, I am detoxing my life of evil people, unhealthy work environments, and unhealthy/abusive friendships and relationships.

Yes, these things all happened to me, and no I’m not ashamed. I have gained such incredible strength to overcome such obstacles that I felt were near impossible. I hope someone reads this little part of my story and they learn from my mistakes, they find a sense of hope, or they find a reason to never give up. Nothing could honestly get worse than 2017, so I know things can only go up from here. I hope 2018 brings light into the areas of darkness and brings hope to the hopeless. I hope in 2018, I find happiness and accomplish goals that are beyond my wildest dreams.

Peace & blessings,

Mel

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newstfionline · 7 years

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When it comes to saying grace, Americans are still united

By Sarah Pulliam Bailey, Julie Zauzmer and Emily Guskin, Washington Post, June 17, 2017

OMRO, Wis.--One by one, the Weiss family rounded up the nine grandchildren, who had been running circles around the barns. They gathered under a towering maple tree, around a table laden with barbecue meatballs and French silk pie, and grabbed one another’s hands.

“We ask your blessing on the meal we’re about to eat,” said David Weiss, 75, head bowed under his camouflage hat.

“Amen,” his family responded--a quintessential display of one of America’s most enduring religious traditions.

A new poll by The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation finds that saying grace is a widespread practice in the United States. About half of all Americans take a minute to say a prayer over their food at least a few times a week, the poll reveals, making grace an unusual commonality in a politically divided nation.

Rural and urban Americans are equally likely to say grace, the poll shows. Northerners and Southerners, Catholics and Protestants, Democrats and Republicans, all say grace to varying degrees. Even some Americans who reject organized religion still say grace.

“It’s a powerful way of reminding yourself that you are not self-sufficient, that you are living by somebody’s grace, that plenty of other people who work just as hard as you don’t have anything to eat,” said Tim Keller, a prominent New York City pastor who wrote a book on prayer.

Keller said the physical act of bowing heads, closing eyes and folding hands is an important exercise in gratitude for people of many faiths, from childhood on up.

That’s true for the Weiss family, evangelical Protestants who gathered on their 77-acre farm in Wisconsin. Silvie Weiss, 11, called grace “a peaceful moment to get away from the world.” Her aunt Becky Sell, 36, said that “it offers me a chance to fix a point in my day where I am intentional about honoring and acknowledging what God has done for us.”

In the Post-Kaiser poll, which was conducted April 13 to May 1 among a random sample of 1,686 American adults, 48 percent say they give blessings to God or say grace before meals at least a few times each week. Slim 51 percent majorities say grace in both rural and urban America; in the suburbs, 45 percent say grace regularly.

There’s a larger partisan split: 62 percent of Republicans say grace at least a few times a week, compared with 43 percent of Democrats and 41 percent of independents.

There’s a religious split, as well: Six in 10 Protestants say grace a few times a week or more, as do 52 percent of Catholics. But the practice is far more prevalent among black Protestants (80 percent) and white evangelical Protestants (74 percent) than among white mainline or nonevangelical Protestants, 31 percent of whom report saying grace frequently before meals.

Overall, about 8 in 10 blacks, about 6 in 10 Hispanics and about 4 in 10 whites say grace at least a few times each week.

The tradition of mealtime grace is firmly established in the black church. For Lynn Thompson, 64, grace connects her to God even when she’s not well enough to make it to her Arkansas Baptist church. She and her husband take turns leading the prayer.

“I say, ‘Lord, I thank You for one more day, for waking me up this morning, for giving me the health that I have, whatever it may be,’” Thompson said.

Even 11 percent of people who describe themselves as atheists, agnostics or adherents of no particular religion say grace at least a few times a week.

Take Greg Epstein, a humanist chaplain at Harvard University, who asks someone to say a blessing when he hosts nonreligious students for dinner. Some bristle, he said, but Epstein believes in the act of gratitude.

“Why do we have to give up the good parts of being religious--including the mindfulness, the reflection that comes from a ritual like grace--just because we don’t believe in the traditional wording of the poem that people recite when they sit down to a meal?” Epstein said.

Stuart H., 32, of Las Cruces, N.M., is a nonbeliever who incorporates prayer into his life. He grew up Catholic but later came to consider himself an atheist. His fiancee followed a similar religious trajectory, and as young adults they both became addicted to heroin.

When they learned she was pregnant, they committed to getting clean, said Stuart, who told his story on the condition that his full name not be used to avoid revealing the couple’s drug use to his daughter, now 2. The couple began meditating and decided to start saying grace again. But what to say, when they don’t believe in God?

Stuart found an answer when he went to work on a medical marijuana farm in California. There he met a Native American man who taught him to give thanks to the spirits for his food.

Now Stuart and his fiancee pray with their daughter to the spirits of the earth for fruits and vegetables, and to the spirits of “the four-legged ones” for beef. One recent day, with chicken on the table, Stuart thanked “‘the winged ones’ for providing one of those that we may feed our bodies.”

“Whether or not I really have a firm belief in something, I believe it’s always best to give gratitude for the things that are given to you in life,” Stuart said. “Adopting this mind-set and these practices has allowed me to get past a lot.”

Three hundred miles away in Portales, N.M., Carl Smith, 31, was raised in a mainline Protestant church but no longer has a congregation. “I’ve kind of stopped going to church,” he said. “I don’t like organized hypocrisy.”

But the practice of saying grace has stuck with him, he said, calling prayers before food “a habit thing.”

Smith, who answers emergency calls for 911, often prays for the desperate people on the other end of the line. “There’s some rough stuff here on the phone sometimes,” he said. So he engages with God, “like a conversation with a friend.”

“I say, ‘Hey, God, this is what’s going on. If you could get some help in this direction, or help me understand why this is going on, I’d greatly appreciate it.’”

For those who don’t like to improvise grace, numerous denominations offer specific formulas. The Lutheran table prayer is popular: “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest, and let these gifts to us be blessed.”

Reciting a prayer before meals is also traditional in other religions, including Islam, Hinduism and Bahai.

For Aaron Gold, an Orthodox Jew living on Long Island, the blessing before meals is just one of many prayers he says each day. “Before you eat something, you have to say a blessing,” he said, “whether it’s one glass of water or a whole big feast.”

His children, 3 and 5, have mastered the Hebrew prayer before meals, which means, “Blessed are You, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who brought forth bread from the Earth.” Now he’s teaching them to sing the longer prayer that comes after the meal.

The act of teaching his children makes “you concentrate more on it, and you think about it more,” Gold said. “You grow closer to your kids through it. It’s a bonding experience.”

Clergy and theologians say the association between food and prayer exists in nearly every religious culture. “It feels like a human luxury to pause before eating,” said Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal priest and popular author.

Christian author Anne Lamott said she added grace to her spiritual practice after a long struggle with the eating disorder bulimia. “Grace adds something that is beautiful and very sweet and healing,” she said.

Many people say they started saying grace once they had children, as a way of teaching them to pray. While 40 percent of Americans younger than 35 say grace, at least half of all older age groups say grace regularly.

Anne-Marie Dole, 56, has been saying the same Catholic grace since she was a child, every time she eats a meal. When she recites the prayer for a stranger, she chokes up at its power.

“Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts--I can’t do it,” she said, breaking down in tears. “I’m just saying thank you to God to have food at all. You know, it’s a horrible thing to go hungry.”

Once a professional horse breeder and trainer, Dole was left permanently disabled after a car crash. She needs more surgeries and a new wheelchair, and she just broke up with another boyfriend who hit her, she said. Going hungry is a familiar pain.

Sitting in her faulty wheelchair in Cortland, N.Y., she’s down to 99 pounds. But she has dinner waiting, one she picked up at church that morning.

“It’s a wonderful feeling to be grateful and thankful,” she said.

And so before she eats, Dole will say grace.

#saying grace #mealtime prayer

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