"John the Baptiser" Tagged Touchpoints
John, Jesus and Ravi
“More happened in that session, and I went to my room and packed, ready to walk out of the Episcopal retreat center in LA’s Echo Park. I yelled to no one, aloud, “I can’t believe I’m paying for this abuse!” I sat on the edge of the bed and heard a voice inside me saying, “Henry, they are just a bunch of human beings.” (There was an expletive before the word ‘human’ that I left out.) I returned to the group and talked with Ravi, and he said, “Henry don’t ever lose your magic. But in spiritual direction, it’s about the directee, and how Spirit directs them together. You are a witness; listen for your own prompts.””
Shape of My Heart
“We have been told, or we may think, that we need to be fit. Boy scouts need to be prepared, yes! But why do we need to be prepared to love… to engage strangers and deliver life-giving seeds of new beginnings or watering the seeds already scattered? Jesus said, “You don’t need any other equipment; you are the equipment!” In talking to Samuel he said, ‘They don’t need a king to tell them what to do, they have me!'”
Catch and Release
“Satan is called the Prince of the Air. Of the air! What a joke! Evil and all its negativity does not have power except that which is given. It demands a response and receptivity to give it breath. Until then, it is just air. Spirit is breath. The breath we breathe. Evil has lost an eternal battle and simply annoys us in its desperate, vulnerable state.”
Immersed in Life
“As I stared out and watched this living metaphor, I thought about how in my suffering, Spirit was no longer separate or dormant in my life. It did not reside in my practices, and it need not be conjured up emotionally. It is ever present and stirred by my conscious awareness of its silent, life-giving power. It fascinates me that we are more comfortable talking about the force in Star Wars than the third person of the Trinity in all its power.”
Who Are You?
“Rather than entering the season as cynical adults, perhaps we should enter as children. I think children know the difference between Santa Claus and God better than we do. We sometimes think we are both. Maybe we should begin as a child, wondering who this God is, as though for the first time, rather than wondering who is behind the beard.”
Let’s Get Tattoos!
“At baptism it is not about our declaration of acceptance of God, it’s about our full acknowledgment of God’s reception of us! This mystery invites us into God’s heart. This mystery is the heartbeat in all people, whether aware of it or not. Though we may sin, doubt, judge, curse, deny, betray, we cannot remove the tattoo placed on our hearts as a reminder that we belong.”
The Divine Slam Dunk
“What we think may not be the authority, but it reveals what we have surrendered to. If we believe that we belong once we ask the Spirit to indwell, then prior to this moment, we did not belong. There would be prerequisites. What if we always belonged in our intrinsic nature? Changing our thinking, metanoia (repentance), is simply surrendering to the declared truth that always was.”
WAY Better
“I can’t imagine the words that came back to John were easy to hear. John had always felt he knew who God was and how God acted. And that the world had better change. In the end, it was John who ended up being changed. And the answer he received only raised more questions.”
I AM (not)
This is the SIN the Lamb of God takes away from the world – our trying to be or become THAT which we think we NEED to be. Because when you realize you are not the Messiah, you actually get your life back as a gift – to be lived – and not something you have to save.