Katrina Revisited

Doubting has really gotten a bad name in most Community of Believers.  Now that I am older I have discovered doubt is often the very doorway to faith.  A good example of this has been my first hand experience in Hurricane Katrina and the life of New Orleans.  My family and I stayed in one of the local hotels as Katrina devastated our beloved city.

After the first few days of no response from FEMA and other government agencies we began to doubt in God.  We were praying for help, but no one came.  Our fears continued to mount and we pleaded with God.  Still the response if any was very slow.  What is the use of prayer if God doesn’t act?  Little did we know God was using our growing doubts to reveal our faith and its power in our life.  We were putting our trust in our government rather than God.  The largest natural disaster in the history of our country was too big for FEMA to handle and rightfully so.

Slow but sure God answered our prayers and used our doubts to lead us into faithfulness.  Church organizations of all types, sizes and shapes responded.  They came as workers with supplies to help us rebuild.  They provided shelter to the homeless.  They spoke words of hope in what appeared to be hopeless situations.  Individuals continue to come to enable us to restore our lives, even though it is four years later.  They have shown us that when we doubt God it is often because we are expecting God to come in a way that is limiting rather than life affirming.  When we truly say “Your Will be done!” we are suddenly touched by the power of God.   Prayers are answered in the Realm of that which cannot be Seen, not in the realm of that which can be seen.

Obviously God created the human condition filled with doubts.  I believe this happened so that we could learn how to see how faith really works.  This is what Katrina taught me and continues to teach me.

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Dear Friends,

I wrote this letter to my church family right before Katrina hit New Orleans.

“Summertime and the livin’ is easy, fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high…..”  I have always loved that song from the Broadway Musical “Porgy and Bess.”  Little did I know that one day I would be in the area where those words fit perfectly.  Summertime has always been my favorite time of year.  It started with my school summer vacation and ended with the wonderful vacation trips my family would take every year.  I am the kind of person who does not like to be cold so the warmer weather suited me fine.  Playing baseball, swimming and taking it life easy was my cup of tea.

As we find ourselves in another hot summer my spirit is rejoicing.  Things slowing down a bit, even in the church, gives me an opportunity to be with God in various ways.  My daily walks on the levee doing my intercessory prayers are filled with the beauty of God’s World.  Heavy humidity, the muggies as we call them, cause me to walk a bit slower.  Pouring rain with potential flooding, as well as the endless threat of a hurricane remind me of the fragility of life.  Running from air conditioned homes to air conditioned cars to air conditioned offices and restaurants remind me of how life runs hot and cold.  Isn’t it interesting how our surroundings speak to us when we look at them?  We can even see God speaking through them to say, “How do you like this life I have given to you?”

Wondering thoughts like these remind me of the wandering we do through life.  Where does it lead us?  What is it all about?  Are there even any answers to this thing we call life?  Are we trying to figure it out to make sense from our experiences or can we see our experiences making sense of us?  That last question is a spiritual one.  It is like a Zen Koan.  It leads us not to an answer, but to a lived life.  How can we not live life you may ask?  By centering on old hurts or future worries.  By hanging on to long gone lived moments.  By not letting be that which simply is.  How many times have we tried to change ourselves, another or life itself?  We don’t like what we  have so we fix it to be something else.  Suddenly living isn’t easy and the fish aren’t jumping but we are sure are jumpy.  Unease is now what we feel.

So what do we do with this God?  “Come to me all who are heavenly laden and I will give you rest.”  Rest from having to fix this thing we call life.  Rest from running around doing so many different things.  Rest from those endless judgmental thoughts running through our minds.  Rest……  Live with it this summertime when you are too hot to do anything.  Live with it when life is uncontrollable.  Live with it when there are no other options.  When I have dared to live in that way I have found a God who continues to rest from God’s creative labors.  God doesn’t rush around fixing everything and everyone.  Sometimes God lets life be what it is.  No wonder that first Creation Story ended with a day of rest.

What does this leave us with? – “Summertime and the living is easy……..”

Peace,

Gary

P.S.  I sit here four years later reflecting on the effects of Katrina.  It was uncontrollable.  We took one thing at a time.  We still have a long way to go.  BUT and that is the big word – BUT God is still doing a new Creative Thing in New Orleans.  We are putting not only the physical reality of our city back together, but we are en example of how “Disaster is gift!”  I have met more wonderful people,  from all over this wonderful country, since Katrina that I never would have met.  I have seen a spirit and energy in New Orleans that disaster could not defeat!  I have seen God using us as an example for everyone who has met with disaster in their lives, which by the way is everyone.  We are only defeated when we see ourselves that way.  The living is Easy in the Big Easy because we trust in a power greater than us – God by whatever Name you call God.  Easy not in the sense of not having problems – NO we have problems, but Easy in the sense of God helping us to overcome all things.  An old Spiritual said, “We shall overcome one day.”  I believe we overcome every day we show up for life – no matter what happens or what season of life we find ourselves.

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Dear Friends,

The month of June is a very interesting month.  There are graduations to attend.  The heat is on with all the wonderful humidity in the New Orleans area.  There is also Father’s Day.  So many things to be aware of in our lives.  I was watching Family Feud recently and the question 100 hundred people had to answer was, “What is the most sad and happy time in a child’s life?”  The number one answer for most people was graduation.  Interesting isn’t it?  I invite you to ponder the meaning of this in your life.  Back to June.  Some of us like the heat and humidity,  Others though find this time of year very stressful.  Father’s Day brings its own issues.  Great joyful memories fill some of us, while others are sad over the loss of an opportunity to be close with someone very important in our lives.  On a recent week of retreat I read these words from Scott Peck, “To have a loving relationship with one’s spouse and children is a great blessing.  Not many people can say that about their lives.”

Where am I going with these thoughts?  When I sit down to write I rarely know what I am going to say.  It is a special time I have to connect with God who moves my fingers over the keyboard forming words that come from my heart in God.  I watch God unfold before my eyes and look up to see what appears on the screen.  Earlier in my life, if I was going to do anything like public speaking, I thought I needed everything written out ahead of time.  That thought and resulting action was good for one period of time in my life.  Now things have changed.  I think and contemplate what I am going to say ahead of time and then right before I am ready to speak or write I pray and say, “Let Your spirit lead me Oh God.”  I have also found this a helpful spiritual discipline in living life itself.  By no means am I saying this is the way for everyone.  How presumptuous that would be on my part!  What I am saying though is life seems to work much better when we let God direct it.

Now let’s see how this fits into the month of June.  What happens when there are major transitions in our lives like graduations?  Do we look at them as an ending or a beginning, or both?  How do we handle weather situations that make us uncomfortable?  Is it the same as the life conditions that make us uneasy?  What do we do with unmet expectations of those we love like Fathers?  What do we do with unmet expectations of life?  The answers to those questions tell us how much suffering we are encountering in our daily life.  Jesus encouraged us to suffer for our faith not for expectations unmet.  We certainly can suffer when we stand up for who God is and the way God operates in life.  It is a challenge to let God be God.  It is an even greater challenge to let life be what life is.  By doing that we live in the moment.

As the Buddha said, “The suffering we unnecessarily feel comes from unmet expectations or as He would call it attachments to things or outcomes in life.”  But just as importantly it can come from losing this moment.  Graduation is wonderful when we don’t have to worry about the past or future, when we can rejoice in the moment of culmination of hard work for someone we love.  Heat and humidity is bearable when we deal with the now rather than seeing  June as just the beginning of another beastly hot summer in Louisiana.  Father’s Day is good when we can let our Fathers know not only of the best moments we have spent with them, but also the pain from the lost or hurtful moments.  This kind of sharing creates an opportunity to not repeat past mistakes with our own children.  Forgiveness now can even become a reality with our Fathers dead or alive.

Just a few thoughts from my spirit to yours.  What do you think?

Peace

Gary

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Dear Friends,

One of my favorite scriptures is Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.  To me this is one of the places in the Bible where the human and divine come together.  Obviously we live in the tension between these two aspects of our time.  As the Apostle Paul said, “We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”  This is totally different from the idea of a human being having a spiritual experience.  The difference is if we are simply human then when we die we die!  If we are spiritual beings then when we die we return to our spiritual form.  This is the battle of Good Friday and Easter.  The last enemy Jesus defeated was death.  With His death on the cross, Jesus set us free to embrace our eternal divinity.  We do not have to be afraid of death ending life in any eternal sense.  The gift of Easter is now ours.

Let’s return to the Garden of Gethsemane and its role in this discussion.  Jesus tied to convince God that being alive, being human was more important than dying.  This is the major issue of this lifetime.  Is this all there is?  Do I hang onto this life at all costs?  Jesus was not just concerned about the torture He was about to encounter, although no one really likes the prospect of such acts.  Jesus was also dealing with whether He was a human being having a spiritual experience or a spiritual being having a human experience with torture and death being a part of His humanness.  Is it any wonder Jesus sweated blood over this?  The agony of deciding whether we are spiritual or human is something we struggle with as we look at our own death.

Jesus looked at all of the possibilities with God in the darkness.  Notice it was night.  Also pay attention to none of the disciples being awake to pray with Him.  There comes a time in each of our lives when we are alone to face our death.  It is often a very dark subject.  In addition, don’t waste time with the disciples who couldn’t stay awake.  They were doing the best they could.  Don’t waste time in your life either saying why couldn’t so and so be awake to life enough to give me my answer  for my death question.  Thank God they don’t because now God is the only source of the answer that we will find.  It is too easy to let someone else answer for us.  We have to sweat our own blood facing this question so we can realize we don’t have the answer either.  Only by going into the darkness of facing our own deaths can we ever become aware of the meaning of the words from Jesus, “Not my will be done, but Yours!  God help my unbelief.”

Death is the ultimate surrender.  We give up the only life we know, the human one, to hope for the only life God knows, the spiritual one which just happens to also include this brief human time.  Without the Garden of Gethsemane how could Jesus say on the cross, “Into Your Hands I commit my spirit?”  Moving from our will to God’s Will is moving from what we know to what God Knows.  So much of life is limited by what we know.  So much more of life is opened to us when we enter God’s Wisdom Realm.  This is the one that moves us from Good Friday to Easter.  The one that moves us from being human to being divine.  The one that opens our spirit to this life not being and en all be all, but just a part of a much greater spiritual journey.

I invite you to ponder such thoughts in your own Garden of Gethsemane.  Jesus is waiting for you.

Peace,

Gary

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Dear Friends,

When Christmas is over how do you feel?  Rested? Relaxed?  Full of the Joy of the Season?  I read in one of my devotions today, “If we were in touch with the meaning of Advent and Christmas we would find ourselves overflowing with a Yes to the answer to those questions.”  I wonder.

This is a time of year when you can be caught in a double bind.  We know what we are supposed to feel, but rarely do we feel that way.  We actually feel just the opposite.  We have missed the meaning of the Season and because it is our fault we feel guilty about it.  That is the double bind we can get caught up in.  I say enough already!  If we are ever to understand the meaning of the Season we need to listen to ourselves, good or bad.

What is stopping us from feeling rested, relaxed and full of joy?  Maybe we are not rested because we have been doing a lot.  Is that all right?  Is it acceptable to be feel tired?  The Christmas Season is one in which we are very active.  It is meant for getting together with those we love.  We have a bit of time to recover now before the Mardi Gras Season.  But maybe we also need to rest from the time we spend with those who are not easy to get along with.  We can relax with the fact that some people are just a pain in the ……..  No matter how much we try to make it otherwise for them they can never accept Christmas isn’t all we hope it would be.  Even worse they simply look for things to pick on related to what we have done or haven’t done.  If we can let go of the feeling that somehow we are responsible for what they say, I’ll bet we will not feel as tired.  Resting in the Lord can sometimes mean accepting things and people as they are without having to change them.  By acting in that way we might even see a miracle or two happening in our relationship with that troublesome person.  Don’t count on it; just keep and eye open for God at God’s Best.  To relax after all is to let life happen.

What about the fact we don’t feel very joyful?  Sometimes we can have a very good reason for not feeling joyful at this time of year.  A loved one may have died during this Season.  Any anniversary of a death can be challenging.  It doesn’t matter how many years have passed , we remember the death again.  This can be extremely difficult now because we are supposed to be joyful, BUT we aren’t.  Pay attention to why not.  Listen to your heart.  Be kind to yourself.  Even if a loved one died at another time of the year we miss them, especially if they were a Christmas type person.  If we let ourselves be who we are we may join God in feeling Joy through eyes and spirits filled with tears.

A New Year is about to begin.  God only knows what this year will hold for us, but if we hold ourselves during the trying times or let God hold us as we are, we may find this year restful relaxing and full of joy no matter what happens.

Peace,

Gary

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Dear Friends,

What can I say about Christmas I haven’t said before?  This is the question running through my mind as I prepare to write a letter about Christmas.  Why do I believe I have said everything already?  One of the things which stops our creativity is to think we have done it all.  Once we look at our lives in that way the element of surprise has been removed.  What would Christmas be without the element of surprise?  What would our lives be like without any surprises?  I think I have something I can write about and ponder with you.

Christmas without any surprises – what a thought.  Don’t you think Mary and Joseph were surprised to find her with child?  The word we often use is amazed.  This is what surprise gives to us – the gift of amazement.  Living with a God who surprises us with the present of God’s Presence is more than we can understand.  This leads us to another element of being surprised - it is beyond our understanding.  Thank you God that we are no longer limited by our grasp of life so now we can be amazed by Yours.  Christmas is about a God who has everything except our desire to be in love with God.  Our human reality has distracted us with its baubles and so many incredibly unimportant things which have to be done!  God surprises us by coming without any baubles and in the incredibly important things found in silence.  In the stillness of the night a baby wails the birth cry of new life found in a returned desire to be in love with God.  The example of the Christ Child reveals the surprise waiting for us as we return God’s Love.

Now we are ready look at the everyday as a surprise.  One of life’s most precious wonders is waking up in the morning from our daily sleep.  We go to sleep believing we will wake once again.  Every day this promise is fulfilled.  To take this for granted is like not returning God’s Love.  If God knows the number of hairs on our head certainly God knows every experience of our day.  Living on this level enables us to appreciate all of life.  Yes, even the trying parts of it or those parts of ourselves we would rather not face in the mirror.  Someone who loves us accepts us as we are.  Now get ready for the gift of Christmas.  If we understand the unconditional love of such acts we won’t take advantage of them.  We will see them as stepping stones to who we are as the Christ Child in our time.

I love to be surprised.  I hope I will never tire of such gifts.  As I live on that level I discover I am now out of control and that is alright.  Like Mary and Joseph who were out of control with the birth of Jesus, I am also out of control with the birth of the Christ in me.  By being God’s hand maiden or servant we become Christ like people.  We surprise others with understandings of God which don’t tell people the right way to see or celebrate Christmas let alone life.  No we amaze them by encouraging them to accept God’s Invitation to a Christmas which will offer them the stability found in Unconditional Love.  Surprise, surprise surprise!

Peace,

Gary

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Dear Friends,

I recently did a retreat on Spiritual Disciplines.  I discussed how those disciplines keep us in the present moment.  Try to stay in this moment and I can assure you it isn’t as easy as it sounds.  The past or future crash in and take us out of this moment.  In my quiet time this morning the idea of this letter came to my spirit.  If we are to move into this moment we need to take something with us – God!  If we do this then we will not only be able to live fully in this moment, but we will also be able to move confidently into the future.

What is it about God which we bring with us?  Love certainly.  The stories from the Bible or any Holy Book describing God will also be with us.  What about peace?  Now there is a word you can chew on.  Is peace the absence of conflict?  I don’t think so.  The power of peace is the sense of well being which occurs in the midst of conflict, problems or whatever usually upsets us.  Is it any wonder Jesus said, “Peace I bring to you, my peace, but not as the world does.”  Jesus’ kind of peace comes from having lived all those moments in the now when our world was crumbling, yet we knew everything was working for good.  Whatever is happening in our lives now can no longer distract us from the truth – God being present.  How can anything defeat us?  With this kind of peace we can smile.  That is a simple act which defeats any challenge we face.  The next time you are finding life drag you down smile.  Then smile with a friend or even someone you don’t know.  It may feel like you are getting away with something and you are.  You are getting away with no longer being dragged down by the events of life.  You will find yourself being lifted up be a God who is greater than anything, any event or challenge of this life.

Now if you want to take the ultimate step use all of this information as you face the future.  How about a life where there is no need to worry about what is going to happen?  This is called moving confidently into the future.  When the problems of life do raise their heads their power has been diffused.  Illness, money concerns, potential problems fade in the Peace of God.  The world can give us techniques to stay well, but sometimes they don’t work.  If we win the lottery money concerns will grow even greater.  The endless challenges of life will eventually wear us out.  But there is something we can always depend on – God!  Confidence in the future with God not only adds peace to that time, but also to the present moment.  Wow what a God!

Peace,

Gary

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Dear Friends,

As we enter the month of September one of the thoughts which come to my mind is the celebration of Labor Day.  The work we do is so important, but how do we define work?  Do we have to be paid for our labor?  If so that quickly restricts our definition of work.  Does what we do have to have value?  If so what is and is not valuable work lifts its head.  Do we have to do something to be considered working?  If so then things like prayer and simply being lose their meaning.  All of this is to say we need to expand our definition of work is we are linking into God’s definition of work.  As is so often the case God’s ideas are different than ours.

Sometimes we put all kinds of effort into some kind of work and it doesn’t turn out successful.  If we define ourselves by the work we do then the next step is to realize we are not successful at what we are doing.  That is true by the world’s standards, but necessarily God’s.  This becomes a tricky business doesn’t it?  Was Jesus a success?  Not if you look at how many people were present at the Cross.  The world and religious community would say he was an utter failure.  When you return to the story three days later God is saying something else.  This also applies to other spiritual leaders.  Buddha sat under a tree for a long time waiting for enlightenment. Would the world say he was using His time wisely by sitting under that tree for all those years?  Probably not, but God used that time to reveal something to a number of Buddha’s followers.  Like the faithful who have gone before us, how do we find out what God’s ideas are for us?

Through the work of prayer and listening becomes our answer.  Sorry world, but this entails the work of doing nothing.  Talk to most people and they won’t find much value in that occupation of our time.  How often people reflect on what a waste it is for the worldwide monks of different religions to waste their time praying and chanting.  But in God’s Realm they may be the very ones who are holding everything together in this crazy world.  How can this be you ask?  Because they are praying and listening to God so the rest of us might be able to hear over the din of this noisy world encouraging us to waste our time with the useless doing someone else thinks is right for us.  If we are all One spiritually then what they do does matter to us.  Life becomes so much easier when we are simply following the direction our spirit is lifting up to us in our quiet prayer time.  The outer world and our outer world still has its problems, but like the fish who go deeper into the water when there are storms above the water, so we do the same by being quiet.  Will those worldly issues matter when our life comes to an end?

This brings us back to reflecting on our own labors.  God places tasks before each of us. Some fit the general interpretation of getting paid for what we do, some do not.  Some things go as we plan for them, some do not.  Obviously we rejoice when everything goes smoothly, but the longer I live the more life doesn’t work out the way I planned.  My mind goes back to a Man called Jesus who spent three years teaching, preaching and healing only to be rejected, scorned and forgotten by those He trusted most.  Were His labors in vain?  Was God leaving Him abandoned?  Well we know the rest of the story – Resurrection!  This is what happens to us when we labor and things don’t work out.  Like Jesus we may not see the end of the story, but there is always an ending filled with God’s Love which is Success.  As you celebrate Labor Day, I invite you to reflect on your own labors done in the Name of God.

Peace

Gary

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Dear Friends,

There is a growing spirit of joy which is filling my heart.  Just about the time I believe life couldn’t get any better it does.  Sometimes I think my relationship with God couldn’t get any better – WRONG!  God continues to tell me in my thoughts that I am and always will be loved.  I have a very precious relationship with my wife Karen.  We recently celebrated our 43 wedding anniversary.  God has filled us with a rich and abiding love for each other.  It has been a gift, but one which we have had to work toward faithfully.  On top of that I have been blessed with two incredible daughters.  Being a child of the 60’s I have felt that the revolution, or any change in the world, will begin in the family.  Next to Karen my daughters have filled my heart with richness.  They have been open to the gift they are and have worked diligently to flesh God’s Love out in their lives.

I celebrated the 32 anniversary of my Ordination this past May.  Little did I know what God had in store for me.  There have been many highs and lows along the way.  That is the way it is when you live in community and share life with others.  I know I did what I was called to do.  It feels so right inside when one is blessed with this kind of inner knowing.  Now that I am retired I am ready to take on the next tasks God is placing before me.  This web site with its various writings is the first thing.  I am now ready to send some of those reflections and poems to various devotional magazines.  I also am about to embark on the writing of my next book.  This one will be of prose rather than my first book of poetry.  The second calling of retirement is to continue to offer spiritual direction to individuals interested in deepening their relationship with God.  Last I am now working as a consultant and public relations person for CRC Trucking Company’s’ “Pay It Forward” program.  We offer to the challenged schools in the New Orleans area an opportunity to grow with the surrounding community.  Yes just about the time you think God couldn’t bless you any more it happens – God says “Oh yes I can!”

Earlier in my life I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop.  For the good times to not just slow down, but to also stop.  Isn’t that the prevailing mood of this day and age?  When is the goodness going to end?  When is the next terrorist attack going to occur?  When will the economy fall apart again?  And on and on!  Now I am not a Pollyanna person.  I know life is not always successful or good, at least as the world describes it.  Many proclaim a God who blesses you with bounty or good times.  That is correct, but only as it pertains to what is happening inside our spirit.  On a rainy outer day God provides a Son who walks with us or for us.  When life falls apart God says I am greater then those problems or even life itself.  I am Life Eternal.  When the other shoe drops and it often does, God’s inner shoe of Love will drop too stomping out our fears.  After we have grieved the outer pains and trials of life, we find a God bringing a Son to Shine into our hearts.

There is an expression that says, “Attitude Is Everything.”  How true.  When our outer glass of life is half empty our inner glass of spirit is not only half full, but also totally full with the Unconditional Love and Acceptance from God.  It is up to us to believe it.

Peace

Gary

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Dear Friends,

Have you ever had those times in your life where you had more than you could handle?  If you are human, of course you have.  Well recently I had one of those times myself.  I had written something on my computer and saved it to a file.  As wonderful as computers are they can be very trying.  As much time as they can save, they can add countless hours and many frustrations.  This is fine when we have plenty of time, as if that is the case very often, but when we don’t it is enough to push us over the edge.  Well later when I wrote something else and thought I was creating a new file to save my work I was actually over riding a present one that had a deadline attached to it.  One that I needed to have right away.  There was a sickness in the pit of my stomach when I realized what I had done.  Now what?

I thought about shaking my computer until the file fell out.  That wouldn’t work.  I thought of saying God where are You, but God really doesn’t have much to do with computers.  A very smart God.  What could I do?  Not write the piece over again because I was too busy.  But my compulsiveness wouldn’t allow me to do that, so somehow I had to fit it in.  Well as my oldest daughter Sara said. “Why don’t you make lemonade out of the lemons?”  I decided to use this opportunity to improve on that which I had originally written.  In addition I am writing this because I thought it might speak to your life too.  Where is God in the midst of our busy lives?  Where God always is – right in the middle of what we might consider a mess.  Does this remind you of the Post Resurrection Time when Christ was with His disciples?  Their lives had fallen apart and God was still there!  Not in the way they expected, but God was there bringing new life out of the lemons of their experience of Jesus’ death.

Does this not speak to those times in our lives when things simply are not going the way we would like?  In fact, when we are rushed or hurried or possibly looking for more things to fall apart,  God is still there in spite of us and our thoughts and actions.  As I was rushing back to my office today before I had to get onto the next big responsibility, I became frustrated with the traffic and the slow drivers.  In the midst of one of  the stops in traffice God spoke to my heart and said, “Look at my beauty.”  I started to look around and you know what I saw? – flowers and they were gorgeous.  As I reflected on their beauty I remembered something.  Even though I have had a lot to do other times in my life it always got done somehow.  What a great reminder of God’s Presence for who really helps us do everything?  God!  God helped the first disciples to spread the Good News of Christ’s Resurrection in spite of the despair they had felt with Jesus’ death.

I would like to say I am totally calm and collected now, but I am not.  Because I am not God knows I still have some spiritual work to get to that point.  At least I have gained some insight for the next time my world seems to be falling apart.  I have also discovered when I have lost something that seems important God maybe using that experience to help me to laugh as my world falls apart.  That is when I learn again, a bit more deeply, God is still in charge helping me to live life abundantly.  How about you?

Peace,

Gary

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