Dear Friends,

Here I sit at my computer a few days before Valentine’s Day.  In the spirit of the Day I want to write each of you a love letter.  The kind of love I am sending you is the same kind of love God first sent to us – Unconditional Love with no strings attached.  I do not love you because of all that you do or how much you care about the various aspects of your life, although I appreciate your devotion to life. So why do I love you? – because you are who you are in God.  What a joy it is to watch as God unfolds in your life!

Remember the quote, “Which comes first the chicken or the egg?”  It fits with what I am writing to you, but with one major change.  I know which came first between your actions or who you are in God.  It is found in who you are in God.  By doing your spiritual work of growing closer to God one sees the gift of who they are in God.  As that happens for a person they begin to think all things are possible.  They believe in themselves.  They tap into the Source of all that they do – God.  One can begin to see why it is so important for an individual to make sure one’s spiritual life comes first.  The last ingredient in this process is for a person to come to know God’s Voice and God’s Faithfulness.  So many voices in today’s world call us to do this or that.  So many voices tell us we could never do what our heart desires.  So we listen and stop ourselves before we begin.  But those who have been open to God, they know the sky is the limit.  I send you my love in celebration of your awareness of God in your life.  

Have you seen God’s Love and felt It in your life?  How about the spirit which is growing in our world?  Have you noticed how more and more people are getting on board with this idea of being one in God?  Have you seen the joy in people’s faces who believe in unconditional love?  Have you seen the laughter and willingness to respond to needs of those around us who see God as there reason of being?  God continues to fill us with ideas of how we can not only grow in our spirit, but also help others to become aware of God’s Spirit growing in them.  Such insight of the way life is becomes like a snowball building and building as it rolls down the hill of life.

I love you.  I love this awareness.  Most of all I love God.  What more needs to be said?  What more needs to be done?  Living in love opens up life to us in the fullest.  We can now celebrate the good times and hold each other in the bad.  We can encounter new life and let go of what needs to die.  As an old Beatles song once said, “Love is all there is.”  Even more powerfully the Apostle Paul said, ” All things will fall away one day, but love will remain.”

My love to you,

Gary

Dear Friends,

I am writing this letter at the beginning of January.  After living up North for the first 50 years of my life there are some things which are not hard to get over.  Winter is one of them.  The beginning of January up there meant the Holidays were over and now there wasn’t anything to break the long days of Winter until Easter, which sometimes coincided with Spring and sometimes didn’t.  The first few months of the new year could truly drag on.  Unlike here in the South, where the sun shines for a lot of the time and you can get out whenever you like, up north I knew I would be trapped in the house or the office.  I am a nature person and love to be outside, so this was hard on my spirit.  Well as I write these words there is a part of me which still thinks winter will be like it was for the first 50 years of my life.  God reminds me this is not true!

No matter where we live the month of February has the wonderful Day of Valentine.  It is a day to reflect on the gift of love.  Some of us have grown up in homes, churches and jobs where we felt love.  Others of us have not and would have a hard time relating to a gift like that.  Yet even for those of us who have known love it is never perfect, for Perfect Love is found only in God.  The point of my thoughts is to encourage each of us to reflect on that which blocks us from love or a life well lived.  Could it be the ideas we hang onto - like my thoughts about Winter even though now I am blessed with a Southern Winter?  Could it be things or ideas we were taught which said we didn’t deserve love?  Could it even be the idea of a God who is NOT an Unconditional Lover?  On those days when it is cloudy or cool, on those days when we are stuck inside, on those days when we are not blessed with a Southern Winter why not give yourself a Valentine present?  Spend some time reflecting on what stops us from feeling the ongoing gift of God’s Love.

I have found there are so many thoughts and ideas which are on our minds which we don’t pay attention to in any way.  I have also discovered there are patterns of thoughts  of which we also are unaware.  Lastly, I know we often treat ourselves in ways we wouldn’t dare treat others.  We wouldn’t say you are so stupid, or when I look at you in the mirror I get sick, or won’t you ever get it right, or they must have thought you were an idiot when you said that and on and on.  Why don’t we see we don’t want those thoughts to continue.   I keep learning the importance of paying attention to what is happening in my mind.  So much of what happens in my everyday life begins and ends with my thoughts.  I am like others – human- and face what most others face.  so I invite you to join me in loving ourselves by giving our heart the Valentine gift of getting to know who we are – Very Good.  As we do we may find a God already there who says, “At last!  Now I can love you.”

Winter is the season where we lie fallow so God can plant the seeds of self love.  By getting to know ourselves as God does those seeds will be planted in the kind of envionment which will transform our lives.

Happy Valentine’s Day,

Gary

Dear Friends,

I am glad the Christmas Season spills over into the New Year.  We end the whole experience of Christmas with the Wise Men bringing their gifts.  They brought what the little child needed.  Gold for His physical wants.  Frankincense for His Kingly desires.  Myrrh for His death so He could be anointed.  In their Wisdom they knew what God had instructed them to bring.  Another word for Wisdom, of course, is Spirit.

So what will be bring this New Year?  What will we be resolved to do with our life?  To lose a few pounds? – hardly.  Unless what we lose helps to make this holy temple called our body better able to serve God.  To be resolved to serve God leads to deeper aspects of life.  Yes we could lose a few ponds for cosmetic purposes, but the emptiness of such acts come crashing in when someone who looks better than us comes into the room.  All that hard work for nothing.  But a body cared for fills us with the energy to go the second mile for God.  Wisdom tells us this is the case.  A life lived in God’s Spirit affirms this truth.  As a wise person once said, “Would you rather live ten years in a room filled with ice cream or a hundred years in a room filled with rice cakes?”

So what will we spend our lives on this New Year?  I believe each moment is so precious.  God has breathed into us an appreciation of life.  Life in abundance is everywhere.  It is found in something as powerful as a prayer answered or a leaf simply falling from a tree.  It is discovered in realizing how much the love of that other means to us or simply the ability to walk.  It is revealed in someone appreciating who we are or simply having enough food to eat.  Those are the kind of moments which make up life.  I can feel when someone is watching me, although I am never exactly sure who.  God decides which moments I am to be the gift of Wisdom.  How I handle a trying situation can be a moment of Wisdom or me having to be God.  Everyone wants to learn this so we watch trusted others and how they handle those situations. Someone may be watching you even now.

This sounds like a heavy responsibility to carry.  Yes and no.  The world says yes because the world exists for itself and not God.  Wisdom tells us no because we exist for God and God is the source of all our being and doing.  So we are offered another chance to come to a New Year with a light heart.  The Spirit of God is the light which shines into our heart as we offer the gift of who we are to God.  The Baby smiles because we have embraced the Wisdom or rather the Spirit of life.  I think it is time to offer our gifts of Wisdom – ourselves.

Happy New Year,

Gary

Dear Friends,

When I was a Pastor in a local church setting I realized I did a little of everything.  That isn’t very far from the dangerous idea that I do everything.  Lets talk a bit about doing and everything.  This is very helpful to do during the Season of Advent, the four weeks leading up to Christmas.  It is our time to prepare for the coming of God into our lives.  I think it is crucial to reflect, or to use the word I love – ponder, what God coming into our lives would mean.  What do we have to DO to experience that gift?  Does it mean God expects me to DO EVERYTHING to make Christmas a reality?

If we ponder, as Mary did, everything that happened we will come up with some significant conclusions.  Did the characters of the Christmas Story Do anything?  Well yes and no.  Yes they played their parts, but no they didn’t make it happen.  A subtle but crucial difference.  Mary had to say yes to the angel Gabriel’s request of being faithful to God, but no she didn’t make the birth happen by lying with Joseph.  Joseph had to say yes to the angels by going to Bethlehem, but no they did not bring everyone’s attention to God coming into the world.  I think you get the idea.  We listen to God’s calling and follow it, but the ultimate responsibility for anything happening is up to God.  So what we learn from the story is we do a little bit of everything.  We seek out the gift we are and let God inspire us into the form our gift will take.

It is so easy to also fall into the trap of feeling like we have to DO EVERYTHING, especially at Christmas time.  Others aren’t following through, so we need to do their part.  Even God, at times, doesn’t seem to understand the importance of something happening.  Or we have so many gifts and talents and can do so many things well it is easier for us to do it.  This is especially tempting with our children.  God knows, some things have to be done perfectly or even well if God is to be a part of them.  Children can’t do things as well as we can.  Being human is a messy business and sometimes God rejoices in our yes even if there are failures along the way.  My prayer life has taught me how to get out of the way, which gives me the opportunity in seasons like Christmas to join Mary in pondering what is happening.  The birth story is filled with the smell of a stable, animals providing warmth and the least of these, the shepherds being the less than elegant witnesses.  God comes into life where we live it.  We don’t have to clean up our inner homes for God to feel at home in us.

Maybe the Advent and Christmas Season God is asking us to DO less so EVERYTHING God has in mind can come our way.  Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel on Your terms.

Peace,

Gary

Dear Friends,

Awhile back I had some time to spend with God by the Gulf of Mexico.  I have always loved being around water.  It has become an important part of my spiritual development.  It feeds my soul with the wonder of God.  Nature has become one of my personal encounters with God’s Love.  I cannot explain the gift it is for me, but then I don’t want to.  By explaining things we take the mystery out them.  We stay in our heads.  We think too much.  This can be a hindrance to meeting God or simply a lesson on what is a hindrance to God.  As I read recently in my devotions, “We are called to get out of our heads so we can enter our hearts.”  Pentecost is the Season in the Church Year where we are called to enter our hearts so we can speak in other languages – God Languages.

So what did I hear by the Gulf?  I heard the screech of the sea gulls.  They would fly by or sit on the beach talking about their space or their food. They would also screech as they flew close to one another.  I was amazed at how 25 sea gulls could fly and dive bomb around one another and never crash.  I watched as they got close and let out their cry.  A sudden shift of a wing caused a near miss.  I also listened to the waves hit the shore.  This was their announcement of “Here I am!”  I wondered where those drops of water had been and what they would say about hitting this beach at this moment.  Of all the beaches of the world they choose to hit this beach.  I then watched the silent flight of the pelican.  Soaring on air or dive bombing into the water to catch the close to the surface unsuspecting fish was their pattern.

What does this have to do with speaking in different languages, like the first disciples on Pentecost?  Not much if you are looking for logic or an easy answer.  But if you are willing to get out of your head for awhile – Listen.  You might  hear the language of sensitivity.  The sea gulls were aware of their surroundings and their sister and brother gulls.  There was no hitting or destroying another creature because someone had entered their space.  I heard the language of wonder.  Drops of water being who knows where for how long crashing into this shore for a brief second only to be swallowed up in a larger whole.  I heard the language of trust.  Believing that the wind currents would keep the pelican in flight.  Also the trust that food would be provided and how the sacrifice of one’s life would add to the life of another.

Do we speak these languages in our lives?  Are we willing to get out of our head to enter our heart?  Will we soar with the spirit to dive bomb into life with the Love of God?  I came back from the Gulf of Mexico renewed and filled with the Pentecost Spirit.  Please join me so we can speak the language of God found in Nature.

Peace,

Gary

Dear Friends,

As you may know I grew up in the North.  The climate is a bit different then in New Orleans.  We had a line we would say with great hope, “April showers bring May flowers.”  Others added the line with the question, “What do May flowers bring? – Pilgrims!”  I enjoy the early spring we have here in New Orleans.  Obviously we have flowers in March and our trees are in full bloom by early April.  I hope I will never stop being amazed at the beauty of nature here in the South.  Where is all this leading? – change, the ongoing element of life.

When things are good we don’t want them to change or end.  Obviously this was the case with the Disciples when they were confronted by Jesus with words of His death and ensuing resurrection.  After Easter comes the Season of Resurrection where nothing is the same.  This reveals a great deal about God.  Just about the time we think or believe we have God pinned down, God changes or as I would like to say God grows.  We can either stay where we are or move forth with God into places we simply don’t have control.  Change is the experience of continually letting go.  It is death crashing into the reality of our daily living.  As Jesus said, “We have to die to ourselves to be born anew.”

I want to speak about one of the hardest things to allow to change – our thinking.  To be in control we have to have the answers for the way life is.  This means when there are sticky issues we want to remove the stickiness by saying, “This is the way it is always and forever!”  We use the Bible or other Holy Books to testify to our truth, but this is extremely hard to do with those Books.  The Bible, for instance, contradicts itself.  One place it gives us permission to take an eye for an eye and in another place it says we are to love our enemy.  In still another place it says stone the sinner while in another place it says he who is without sin can cast the first stone.  There are numerous other examples of this, but you get the idea.  If you want something to never change or for it to always be the same don’t go to the Bible.

Wait a minute!  I thought the Bible is the guide for our life?  It is, but it was never meant to be stagnant.  Like resurrection it is an ever changing Book.  It changes because we change.  We have grown in our understanding of God.  Does that mean we throw out that which we don’t agree with?  Absolutely not!  It means we live with it spiritually.  We check out the words in our heart.  We life them up to trusted others.  We listen in Church to the interpretation given there.  Truth is not found in one thing being a certain way forever – Jesus always being physically alive for example.  No Truth is found in daring to question death so we might live in a Season of Resurrection – constant evolution of God and us too.  This is the way I believe we can faithfully change and thereby grow with a Resurrected Christ.

Peace,

Gary

Dear Friends,

We live in a very interesting time.  An old Chinese Proverb states, “The worst time to be born is in an interesting time.”  Why would that be the case?  I have searched my heart and the answer I come up with is because it is so easy to become distracted.  Now we need to ask from what?  I would venture to say God.  This is an important idea to put in the context of Holy Week.  This is of course a key time for Christians.  We move from Parades, to Communion, to Prayer and Betrayal, to Death and who knows what will be next.   I believe it is crucial to not move too quickly to Easter.  We need to embrace the uncertainty of death and what happens next.  We claim in our faith to believe in eternal life, but there is a small part of our faith that wonders – Oh Really!  Maybe not.

That first Lent and Holy Week sounds like an interesting time doesn’t it.  It could have been so easy for Jesus to lose His focus on God.  Maybe He did.  Remember what He said, ”If it is possible God let this cup pass from me.  My God, my God why have You forsaken me?”  Those could have been comments filled with wondering what will happen next.  Jesus was honest in His relationship with God.  He didn’t move too quickly over the death parts of life.  Because Jesus did that we are able to catch glimpses of God in the rest of the story.  Like being with Jesus as He said, “If this cup cannot be passed from me let Your Will be done,” and “Into Your Hands I commit my Spirit.”  God was going to have the last word.  How did Jesus know that?  Because God had consistently been with Jesus throughout His life and ministry.  We have no greater assurance from God than God’s continual faithfulness.  The problem, over and over again in the Bible, is for people of faith to trust God to be totally in charge.  We read about failure after failure in the faithful’s lives.  Is God really with us? is asked over and over.  This question continues down to today.  

As you read these words we may be at war.  The economy may continue to be in decline.  The stock market may be in chaos.  The education of our children may still be facing a shortage of funds.  Medicare and health insurance may be sky rocketing.  The poor will still be with us.  In other words, various forms of death will continue to be everywhere.  People like you and me, who are sensitive and caring individuals, are hurting.  We would like to make it all better or for it to be all better.  We have done all that we can, BUT nothing has seemed to change.  Where do we go with our feelings about this?  To God of course.  But what do we say to God?  Let this chaos pass away!  Why don’t you do something?  Sounds a bit like Jesus doesn’t it?  The cup will not be passed from us and we may very well feel like God has forsaken us.

But life goes on, even in the midst of death.  This is the tension we live in and in interesting times like ours we need to keep our focus on God.  We may be living on the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter.  We don’t know what will happen, BUT we know God will happen.  This is the very moment to embrace the words, “Be not afraid for I am God.”  Even when our best efforts have failed to make a difference, God’s Efforts always will!

Peace

Gary

Dear Friends,

The edge of Lent – 40 days, not including Sundays, of going into the Wilderness is about to begin.  Recently, in a sermon I preached I included the idea of Wilderness and discovered the meaning of the word.  To be in the wilderness or the desert was a time of getting to know God.  This startling fact, for me, was I had never thought about being in the wild parts of life and inside of me as an opportunity to relate to God.  Oh sure I had heard and read about the desert mothers and fathers monks who lived in places like that.  I had also heard a lot about people who went into times of silence to meet God.  I have done a lot of that myself.  But I had never thought about wandering around in my inner spiritual wilderness as a time to meet God.  Why not?  It sure makes sense when you stop and reflect on it.

Lent was Jesus’ time to go off and fast and pray for 40 days and nights.  He was then tempted by the devil with those parts of life which would cause Him to lose focus on God.  Maybe this explains my misunderstanding.  I have fasted, not eating, at various time in my life but that is one spiritual discipline which has not worked for me.  There is however another kind of fast which is also spiritual.  It is to empty ourselves for God.  Actually that is the definition of celibacy.  We have been a bit confused about that one in the church.  We think we need to fast from intimate relationships with someone we love to serve God.  That certainly works for some people, but to say this is the way for all I believe is a mistake.  Of course, to say anything is the right  way for all people has always struck me as off the mark.  Now if we think about fasting from that which takes us away from God’s Love, we can begin to see how we can get to know God more fully.  We might see why we might shy away from this idea also.  It takes a lot of work to do this, or it may even mean giving up something we can’t live without.

This brings us to the second thing which might have caused us to not see our inner wildernesses as an opportunity to grow in God.  The idea of facing our temptations.  Sometimes we may think it is easier to live life unaware.  As long as I don’t know what sets me off, I don’t have to face it.  The major problem with such an approach is we continue to live a life which is unfulfilled.  Jesus didn’t choose to do that.  As hard as it was for Him to face his inner demons, He realized He could not know God if He didn’t.  So Jesus took a look at what would take Him away fom God.  In the midst of that He found out who God was in life’s temptations.  To get to know God is to see God as an active Partner in whatever happens to us.  Does this mean our temptations go away? – No.  Does this mean we will never fail in meeting them? – No.  What it does mean is God loves us in and through our temptations.

I hope Lent will be a very rich Wilderness time for you.

Gary

Dear Friends,

Here I sit at my computer with another opportunity to write a letter to you.  I have to come up with something to write.  What if I don’t feel like writing?  Fortunately, for me, I love to write and be creative.  What if I can’t come up with anything?  Again I am very blessed because, like writing sermons, that has rarely happened to me.  What if I would rather be doing something else?  Once more I love what I do, so that isn’t a problem for me.  So, here I sit at my computer with another wonderful opportunity to relate some of my inner thoughts with you.

Those three questions I raised in the previous paragraph speak to the essence of our lives.  What if we don’t feel like doing something?  Does this mean I only do the things I feel like doing?  What if doing something I don’t feel like is actually helpful to me?  For example, I may not feel like doing dishes, but if I don’t I won’t have clean dishes to eat off.  So even though I don’t feel like it I will do it because it will be better for me in the long run.  The tricky thing about feelings is that they ebb and flow with our ongoing daily activities.  To let our feelings rule our lives is asking for trouble.  Sometimes we may need to rise above them to embrace our true desires.  At first I didn’t love to write, but as I become more disciplined in writing I found it is something which is an important part of me.

The second question deals with how our abilities arise.  To be afraid of not coming up with something means I have to do it.  If God is the source of all things than God provides me with these ideas.  I no longer have to depend on me.  This leads me back to staying in touch with the endless font of thoughts.  I know I need to have my quiet time with God to be attentive to God’s Voice.  I also know I need to read various books and other things to be refreshed.  What provides you with the ability to stay in touch with God?  What creative activities provides the inspiration for you to do your calling?  Each of us has our own path to walk with God and our gifts.  We spend our lives discovering this fact.  Remember as you do this God is a God of abundance.

The third question relates to what we want to do with our lives.  I think we are called to do everything in our lives that comes from our inner Being.  Who we are translates into what we do.  When we are being who we are there is a passion of spirit which drives our actions.  We feel energized rather than depleted.  The final piece to the puzzle called life is found in always doing what we want.  In the process we spend day after day determining what kind of life we will co-create with God.

I share these questions knowing each of us have the answers to them in our hearts.  May God bless us with God’s Presence as we journey forth.

Gary

Dear Friends,

What would giving be without a receiver?  I think about Epiphany, or King’s Day as we know it in New Orleans, every year.  What would their gifts have meant if the Christ Child wouldn’t have been there?  I can hear some of you saying, “Wait a minute – Christmas is over!  Enough already!  Let’s move on.”  You will have to forgive me.  I am writing this New Year’s letter on December 9.  I am still excited about all that is yet to come.  Seriously though what a statement it is that as soon as Christmas is over we want to pack up everything and move on.  The house has been turned upside down long enough.  I want to have some of the old stability of life back.  What do we learn from a statement once we have removed the guilt from saying such a thing.  I don’t think there is anything wrong with saying let’s move on.  What I invite us to do is look at what this might say about being a receiver.

I love to remind my family about Christmas coming two months ahead of time so they don’t forget to buy me presents.  I joke with them about this, but I have to tell you I don’t mind receiving gifts.  My family will assure you of that fact.  I believe life is a gift.  I took a walk this morning by the levee and saw the colors of fall.  I know some people say we don’t have seasons in New Orleans, but I don’t agree.  We don’t have radical shifts in color or temperature, but there are changes which occur.  It is colder now, the trees in the swamp are bare and there are red, oranges and a lot of drab colored leaves falling to the ground.  I was a receiver of these gifts today.  I also find, as I look for them, God.  Bt letting myself be aware of these gifts in Nature my life is enhanced.  Do I do this all of the time?  Of course not.  Sometimes I am a good receiver, and when I am I have an Epiphany of God’s Love in my life.

What are we passing by in our lives when we are not good receivers?  What may be stopping us from thinking it is alright to be a receiver rather than a giver?  Lets address the last question first.  Do we ever feel like we are not worthy of being a receiver?  God really doesn’t want to give us anything, especially after all we have done to reject God – Right?  A yes to either of those questions will tell us we have spiritual work to do this New Year.  God does not give to us because we are worthy or have been perfect.  No, God gives to us in spite of that,  You see God is the ultimate Giver.  All God is doing is waiting for us to accept this spiritual truth.  That is when we become a receiver.  Now we do not pass by the gift of the person we love, live with or have as a friend.  We start to look for the good in them.  In the process we find ourselves receiving the positive aspects of life.  We start standing on tip toe watching for what God has next.  I happen to believe we practice being a receiver all of our lives so we can accept the ultimate gift – eternal life.  By doing our spiritual work we get what we know will be given to us.  See why it is so important to see God as a loving Giver?   Have any ideas in this area?

I hope this letter has provided some epiphany’s for you.  Won’t you join me in a New Year’s resolution of being a receiver of God’s endless Love?  By the way it is the kind of resolution you might break, but can go right back to with renewed enthusiasm.  See the gift found in being a receiver?

Happy New Year,

Gary