It's Not a Spectator Sport!

 

But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.

(1 Peter 2:9-10)

...from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

(Ephesians 4:16)

It's not a spectator sport!

Peace, Love and Light!

Kevin (Cloud)

The Miracle of The Feeding The 5,000

Five Loaves and Two Fish pendant by Kerri W.

I have been thinking about the miracle of Jesus feeding a crowd of over five thousand hungry people with just five loaves of barley bread and two fish. This particular miracle appears in all four of the Gospels, all with very similar details. In the made for TV series The Chosen, Jesus is portrayed as blessing the five barley loaves and two fish, after which they are placed in several baskets where they miraculously multiply to near overflowing before being distributed to the hungry people by the disciples. But I wonder if Hollywood got it wrong.

What if the miracle actually took place in the hands of the disciples, the bread and fish multiplying each time they broke off a piece? Then, what if it multiplied as each person took it and broke off what they needed and passed it to the next person? What if it simply multiplied again and again, over and over in their hands exponentially until every person had more than enough to eat to the point where there were enough leftovers to fill up the twelve baskets as the Gospels claim?

I realize that this way of thinking about the feeding of the five thousand probably doesn't exactly follow the pattern of Jesus' other miracles which seemed to happen in an enormous and sudden fashion. Many of Jesus' miracles involve some form of participation on the part of those receiving healing or water being turned to wine or catching a huge load of fish after a futile night of empty nets. The feeding of the five thousand has some of the same elements of participatory faith, but the Gospel accounts of Jesus feeding the five thousand lack that Cecil B. DeMille flair of enormity and suddenness that Hollywood loves and that leaves me imagining five thousand individual miracles happening right in the very hands of the recipients.

The point I'm trying to make is that participation in the miracles of Jesus just might be a series of small acts rather than a big showy event. Maybe you can't feed five thousand people at once, but you can show acts of kindness and generosity to one person at a time. We can go through life being overwhelmed by the great needs of the whole world feeling that we can't make a difference, and that might be the reality. But we can make a world of difference in one person's life.

From him the whole body,

joined and held together by every supporting ligament,

grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

(Ephesians 4:16)

Peace, Love and Light!

Kevin (Cloud)

You Say You Want A Revolution

 If you desire to experience a true "Jesus Revolution" then go back to following Jesus.

Read Jesus' Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapters 5 through 7. Then read it again and again and again. You will find all that you need to know about being a true follower of Jesus in those three chapters. That is where us Jesus Freaks started, there in the simple truth of Jesus' words. No fancy theology, no complicated rituals, no conforming to what the establishment church wanted us to be. 

We wanted something more genuine than religion. We wanted something more fulfilling than empty rituals. We wanted something based on love rather than rules. That is what is contained in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' instructions on how to follow him.

Here is my condensed version of the Sermon on the Mount written as The Hippie Christian Manifesto:

The Hippie Christian Manifesto

Peace, Love and Light!

Kevin (Cloud)

The Jesus Revolution, Time Magazine June 21, 1971 - Cover art by STAN ZAGORSKI

 Fair Use Notice

The Theology of Redwoods

I don't think I could ever leave California with the Pacific Coastline, Big Sur, the Sierras, the Redwoods. The Redwoods are such a spiritually renewing experience for me. The massive size, the thousands years of existence, the contrasting reds and greens, the scent... oh the aromatherapy of a Redwood forest!

I don't pretend to understand the mysteries of God and the Universe, but in the Redwoods there is this sense of "deep calling unto deep" that supercedes man's best attempts at theology.

“I didn't need to understand the hypostatic unity of the Trinity; I just needed to turn my life over to whoever came up with redwood trees.” 

~ Anne Lamott

Peace, Love and Light!

Kevin (Cloud)

Photo: My photo of Giant Sequoias in the Mariposa Grove, Yosemite National Park

Unschooled Ordinary Men

The leaders of the First Century Church were "unschooled, ordinary men" whose only qualifications were that they "had been with Jesus".

The Church was filled with regular folk who were not "wise by human standards" or "influential", and few were of "noble birth".

But those who call on Jesus Christ are declared to be "a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation". Each one is considered to be a member of God's priesthood, a minister with a personal ministry to fulfill.

"As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." (1 Peter. 4:10)

From my earlier blog post Simple Church, Simply Everywhere


Peace, Love and Light!
Kevin (Cloud)

Photo credit: Lumo Project, www.LumoProject.com

Learning New Normal

Our normal ways of doing life have been radically interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic. Finding healthy and productive routines proves to be a challenge for everyone I speak with. Isolation from friends and extended family while experiencing hyperbolic interactions within our sheltered homes produces a yearning for the good old days of being able to freely associate when and where we desire.

With so much put on hold we crave any sliver of normalcy that we can cling to, but we may of necessity learn new ways to experience normal. With Holy Week upon us one of the biggest topics of late is when will we be able to freely assemble in our various houses of worship. Many churches are making use of technology and a few are defying CDC guidance to cancel large public gatherings. How we “do” church seems to have become more important than “being” the church.

This reminds me of when St. Stephen laid out how the Temple had become the focus of Hebrew worship proclaiming "However, the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says: 'Heaven is My throne, And earth is My footstool. What house will you build for Me? says the LORD, Or what is the place of My rest? Has My hand not made all these things?'" (Acts 7:48-50)

Our dependence on a prescribed time and place to do church is an impediment to authentic relationships that should exist outside the four walls of the church building. That dependence on a prescribed time and place for worship also hinders our fully experiencing the Living creator of the Universe on a daily basis.

I wrote in an earlier blog post:

“I am trying to see the sacred in everyday moments realizing that family life, interactions with friends and strangers, even putting in an honest day’s work are all sacred expressions of being in the Way. I am trying to develop a daily spiritual practice, knowing that committing to it isn’t the way to salvation but only a way to help me keep a spiritual focus throughout the day. I prefer quiet moments, spending time in nature, prayer, and reading the Psalms as ways to help me focus.”

Hopefully when this pandemic is over we will have found for ourselves a more deeply personal faith that in turn moves us to nurture authentic relationships with our neighbors rather than returning to a church in isolation behind stained glass windows.

Peace, Love and Light!

Kevin (Cloud)

Church - The DIY Factor

I have written a few posts on the subject of Simple Church, most of those posts are based on an earlier website of mine called Gathered In His Name. The basic premise being that Jesus promised he would be present in a gathering as small as two believers.

I made the proposition that church was intended to be a Do It Yourself (DIY) affair, that the promise of the risen Christ to be present and active in the simplest of meetings was real. Jesus promised in Matthew 18:20 to be present in every gathering, large or small, giving us permission to be the Church everywhere believers go. We can tap into the existence of the ever present Christ and his Church at any time, in any place, on any day of the week. Jesus made Church so simple that anyone can do it, it is as simple as two Christians gathered together. He made Church totally DIY - Do It Yourself!

This week as I continued to research more of my Quaker ancestor's faith I came across a young Quaker writer, teacher, pastor named Micah Bales. Micah has published an e-book, A Guide To Quaker Worship, that echos much of my writings on simple church. Micah says this about Quaker worship:

"This style of worship doesn’t have a lot of moving parts. It’s not very complicated to pick up and try it out. There’s no reason that you can’t have a Quaker meeting for worship today, in your living room with a couple of friends, if you’d like. It’s basically just some folks sitting together, waiting on God! Yet, despite the utter simplicity of this worship style, there’s more going on than meets the eye. While we wait together, there’s a whole lot happening on a spiritual, psychological, even emotional level. You'll see."

Micah's twenty page e-book is a free PDF download available on his website. I highly suggest getting A Guide To Quaker Worship if you are interested in exploring an accessible form of Simple Church.

 A Guide To Quaker Worship

Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? (1 Corinthians 3:16)

You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ... you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light (1 Peter 2:5 & 9)

Peace, Love and Light!

Kevin (Cloud)

Searching For The Monastery Within

Finding our way through daily life and keeping a spiritual perspective isn’t always easy.

There are those fleeting moments of spiritual bliss that seem to be so out of place with the “real” world that any connection between the two seems unimaginable.

But everyday life should not be seen as something separate from our spiritual life and one should not be seen as a barrier to the other. On one hand, we shouldn’t become so Heavenly minded that we are of no earthly good, on the other hand, we can’t view everyday life as somehow totally devoid of Holiness. Achieving integration between the sacred and the profane, to me, is the Holy Grail of life.

I am trying to see the sacred in everyday moments realizing that family life, interactions with friends and strangers, even putting in an honest day’s work are all sacred expressions of being in the Way. I am trying to develop a daily spiritual practice, knowing that committing to it isn’t the way to salvation but only a way to help me keep a spiritual focus throughout the day. I prefer quiet moments, spending time in nature, prayer, and reading the Psalms as ways to help me focus.

The “Nones” are searching out how to be spiritual but not religious and some are finding their way into New Monasticism while others are exploring becoming "everyday mystics". I am intrigued by the following suggestions for developing daily spiritual living.

The Nine Vows of the New Monastic

From The New Monasticism: An Interspiritual Manifesto for Contemplative Life by Rory McEntee and Adam Bucko 

1. I vow to actualize and live according to my full moral and ethical capacity.

2. I vow to live in solidarity with the cosmos and all living beings.

3. I vow to live in deep nonviolence.

4. I vow to live in humility and to remember the many teachers and guides who assisted me on my spiritual path.

5. I vow to embrace a daily spiritual practice.

6. I vow to cultivate mature self-knowledge.

7. I vow to live a life of simplicity.

8. I vow to live a life of selfless service and compassionate action.

9. I vow to be a prophetic voice as I work for justice, compassion and world transformation.

 

The Five Practices of the Everyday Mystic

By Mark Walter, The Little Creek Monastery

1. Study and Training — formal or informal, reading or seminars, certifications or degrees. The so-called initiate never backs off. Study is a constant thread throughout their lives.
2. Prayer and Meditation — there are many forms of prayer and meditation. For some, it’s as simple as breathing. For others, it’s a ritual or time set aside each day. For anyone, it’s about finding a better or deeper form of connectedness.
3. Application and Integration — application is set at the very center of this list of practices because if you don’t apply it, what’s the point? The everyday mystic is practicing applying and using it in anything and everything they do and encounter.
4. Modesty and Humility — if you meet an ordinary mystic, you might not even notice them. They’re not usually the star attraction. They tend to live small. They’ll tend to give you their last dollar, and are unobtrusive in helping the needy. They also tend to be givers, not takers.
5. Devotion and Tirelessness — the dedicated everyday mystic can’t turn off the switch. It’s not that they are uninterested in other things. It’s more like their ‘devotion’ is something that’s burned in so deep that it’s never quite out of sight and mind.

There might be some value to be found in these practices while I'm searching for the integration of two worlds that are actually far more interconnected than they first appear to be.

“The Kingdom of God does not come in such a way as to be seen. No one will say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ because the Kingdom of God is within you.” ~Jesus (Luke 14:20-21)

“But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.” (1 Peter 2:9-10)

Peace, Love & Light!

Kevin (Cloud)

(Photo by Warren Fish, St. Kevin's Church / Kitchen, County Wicklow, Glendalough, Ireland)