Category: Just folks

One In the Spirit, One in the Lord

On By Charis PsalloIn Photography, Flowers, Just folks3 Comments

A song came to mind today. I remember linking arms with friends as we sang it around the campfire when I was young and naïve, and perhaps a little too trusting. The song is “We Are One In the Spirit.”

I believed in the ideals in the song. I still do. Fifty years later, having observed at least fifty demonstrations of decimating attacks on “each man’s dignity and each man’s pride,” and experiencing lots of opportunities to forgive, I still cling to the hope of the unity the Apostle Paul describes in Ephesians 4.

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

We have some maturing to do. In the same chapter he writes:

I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Are there good reasons for separating? Of course. Dangerous people who refuse to change remain dangerous. A parent who loves two children will move an aggressive bullying sibling away to another room protect the other. The object is protection for one and restoration for the other. We have far too many examples of situations where habitual abuse in churches was covered up using 1 Peter 4:8 “love covers over a multitude of sins,” as justification while ignoring Ephesians 5:11, “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.” One is about extending grace for growing-pain type sins and the other is about not tolerating a pattern of serious sin with potential long-term consequences, whether for one person or for thousands.

One instruction has grace for the faults of immaturity while the other permits harmful, ungodly ideas and practices to become established. That discussion requires more time and space than this blog post allows today. I’m talking today about the chafing that occurs when we rub shoulders with fellow-believers who still have rough edges, in other words, all of us.

I saw these roses in the landscape patch between an apartment building and the sidewalk as I walked to the grocery store. I grabbed a photo on my phone because I liked the circle they formed. Usually, I edit out the flaws in my flower photos before I publish them. I tell people that if a photo of mine doesn’t have a time/date stamp on it, assume I have adjusted something. I did zap a couple of aphids on this one, but I left fading colour, browning edges and uneven pigment just the way it was. To me, the image represents a circle of unity with grace for imperfection.

I heard a wedding sermon in which the officiant gave a pep talk to the bride and groom. He talked about the admonition to forgive and forbear. (Colossian 3:13)

“Who knew that forbearing the daily annoying stuff would be harder than forgiving the exceptional major stuff?” he asked, speaking of his own experience.

I’ve noticed that one of the major reasons for splits in places where people once gathered with every intention of bearing with one another in love, are often triggered by the opposite character qualities of humble, gentle and patient. Instead, they jostled each other with arrogance, harshness, and impatience.

Sometimes we find ourselves side by side with prickly people. Graham Cook calls them “grace-growers.” Their presence in our lives is not so that we can fix them (or develop protocols for their removal), but so the Lord can using their annoying qualities that continually rub us the wrong way to smooth our own rough edges.

Jesus said we would be recognized as his disciples, but not for our ability to shun the flawed and those who fail to fall in line with shunning practices. We will not be visible representatives of Christ for developing perfect theoretical doctrine, for “maintaining the pure DNA” of our particular sect, for either indulging sinful practices or condemning people still in process, or for becoming successful by the world’s definition. He said his followers would be recognizable. You’ll know who they when you hear people say, “Look how they love one another!”

It’s like they are one in the Spirit or one in the Lord or something.

One in the Spirit by Joseph M. Martin

People, People, People

On By Charis PsalloIn Just folks, Photography3 Comments

One day, when we were in Jerusalem, the crowds in the narrow streets got to me. It was hot, smelly, and noisy. Many people shouted in many languages. People kept trying to sell me stuff, and people pushing to see edifices that were more likely memorials to quarrelling religious traditions than actual historic locations were just too much. People, people, people!  I just wanted to get out of there.

 I don’t like crowds much. In fact, one of the major factors in planning my day is figuring out how to avoid crowds. It’s not merely that I am inpatient and dislike accommodating everyone’s need to turn left on the same corner, or reach for the same sale item on the same shelf, (although I admit the attitude needs some work), it’s that I am not good at blocking out the humanity of humanity.

I feel anxiety, frustration, fatigue, disappointment, excitement, and aggressiveness that is not just mine. Lately I sense more anger and outright hatred than usual. When I do treat individuals in a crowd like noisy unpredictable impediments in a video game and resort to self-serving assertiveness, I don’t like what I have become. Yet to act otherwise means not getting business done so I can escape.

Jesus avoided crowds when he could, but at the same time, these were the people he came to save. Perhaps his exhaustion came from feeling so much in the people who pulled at him and shouted to him. He never shut off his compassion.

“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” Matthew 9:36

Today we remember Jesus’ triumphal entry to Jerusalem. We remember that even though he sensed the thoughts and feelings of everyone in those crowded streets, including the ones who wanted to kill him and would soon manipulate a mob to call for his execution, he still loved them.

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.” Matthew 23:37

He still longs to gather the harassed and helpless into his arms. There is no greater love.

Devotion

On By Charis PsalloIn Just folks, Photography9 Comments

Someone told me I should write a devotional. I didn’t take kindly to the suggestion. For those of you out of the North American Protestant/Evangelical/Charismatic lingo loop, a devotional is a collection of meditations and suggested Bible readings attached to dates on the calendar. Some of them are published as monthly booklets and some as hardbound classics.

The problem for me is that “devotional” did not bring up fond memories of pleasant times of focusing on God. It brought up memories of one more thing I had to do before I could shut off the lights and go to sleep, one more tense morning around the breakfast table while Dad quickly read to us from the booklet with one arm already in the sleeve of his coat, one more packaged sermonette from the camp counsellor before we could go down to the lake to swim, one more occasion to cease the fun and get serious at youth group. In short, I associated “doing devotions” with religious duty that interfered with stuff I valued more. I needed deep healing from the ravages of godless religiosity. I’m realizing, when negative reactions like this pop up, that I still do.

I know I’m not the only one, because a brief online search for devotional material revealed a number of titles bragging about brevity. The Ten Minute Devotional. Quick Daily Devotions for the Busy Mother. Seven Minutes to Starting Your Day Right. Five Minute Devotions. I think the winner of this genre had it down to one minute. That’s what happens when a once good idea becomes an obligation. Let’s get this thing out of the way and get on with life.

The other use of the word “devotion” means a heart set apart and acting out love, loyalty, and care for a person or object. Being devoted to something or somebody means making the object of that devotion a high priority. Imagine Moses saying to his brother Aaron, “I’d love to stay with you and listen to these people complain, but I have to go up on a mountain top and watch the goodness of the Creator of the universe go by.” Imagine Mary of Bethany saying to her sister Martha, “I’d rather wash pots with you, but I have to put in ten minutes of listening to Jesus talk about his Father in heaven first.” Imagine Paul telling the Holy Spirit, “Fine. You can explain the mystery of the ages to me, but be brief. I’ve got a boat to catch.”

Here’s the thing it has taken me far too many years to realize: we cannot love God without receiving his love first. Without his love, without his grace, without revelation of his purposes since time began we have nothing to give but grudging obedience to rules and a quick prayer that nothing bad will happen to us, or our kids, if we miss occasionally. From the beginning he planned for our salvation. He has always been devoted to our well-being, our spiritual spiffing up, and satisfying eternal life with him. We can love him because he loved us first. We can respond from the heart to his invitation to go for a walk with him and ask him our questions, or we can choose to go for the record and see if we can cut down the doing devotions thing to thirty seconds next time.

One day, some years ago now, with the ugly voice of depression whispering that I would just be disappointed again, I chose to get up and go for a walk with the Lover of my soul. I’ve never looked back. Sometimes we talk about how much we value each other, but he always wins. His love is stronger. His devotion to the objects of his love is from everlasting to everlasting.

Love Song

On By Charis PsalloIn Just folks, Music, Photography6 Comments

In 1975, a month after we moved across the country to Vancouver, British Columbia, I had a miscarriage.

Between October and January that year, there was only one day I remember that wasn’t made even darker by oppressively low clouds. We lived in a dark closet-less basement suite with the circulated scent of our upstairs neighbours’ love of curried cauliflower wafting through the heat vents accompanied by the sound of their favourite ethnic music crackling through an intercom that didn’t shut off.

My husband worked long hours teaching and doing post-doctoral research amid the publish-or-perish culture of the university. The new church we went to had a nursery room without a speaker connected to the sanctuary. I sat alone with a hyperactive toddler in that room week after week just for the chance to connect with someone in the foyer after the service.

I was exhausted. I was depressed. I was profoundly lonely. I was in mourning for a child no one but my husband and I knew had existed. Not one to hide my feelings easily, I’m sure I probably gave obvious nonverbal clues that I was not exactly a ball of fun then.

One person reached out to me. On impulse, Sandy, the only other young mom in the congregation, bought a record album for us. Back in the basement suite, I put on earphones and played it over and over. Her kindness made a huge difference in my life. Love Song was the name of the band made up of hippies on the fringe of society in California. A pastor opened the door that allowed these diamonds in the rough play their new music in his church.

The story of that pastor and the people affected by his choice to open the doors is featured in the movie, “Jesus Revolution” which opens next week. The message that healed my aching heart is still real. Feel the love.

Ruthless Love

On By Charis PsalloIn Just folks, Photography, Winter3 Comments

“Romantic love is blind to everything except what is lovable and lovely, but Christ’s love sees us with terrible clarity and sees us whole. Christ’s love so wishes our joy that it is ruthless against everything in us that diminishes our joy. The worst sentence Love can pass is that we behold the suffering which Love has endured for our sake, and that is also our acquittal. The justice and mercy of the judge are ultimately one.”

Frederick Buechner

Truth

On By Charis PsalloIn Art, Just folksLeave a comment

Truth, real truth, total truth is like a burning laser light. Most of us can’t handle the truth.

When the prophet Isaiah encountered God in a vision, he encountered Truth. He cried out, “Woe is me for I am a man with unclean lips.” The blindingly holy light of truth revealed that he (like most of us) had spoken things that were untrue. I wonder what would have happened if God had not ministered mercy by sending an angel to purify his lips with a hot coal. I’ve also noticed that sometimes truth leaves scars.

Here’s the thing. Truth without love is harsh. Very harsh.

Have you ever watched two people fall in love? When most couples go on a first date, both put great effort into creating a good impression. The truth is, they don’t always look this good, smell this good, or act so thoughtfully. They keep some important information to themselves and may add a sheen to unavoidable details if they want a second date. As time goes on, they begin to test the interest level by gradually revealing minor unappealing aspects about themselves to see if the other will stick around. Love grows in an atmosphere of safety and acceptance. More truth can be told. Sadly, some people keep up a false image until the effort half kills them and everything falls apart. The truth will eventually come out.

Many of us are still vainly attempting to impress God while concealing aspects of ourselves that trigger shame. Hiding stuff doesn’t work. He knows. That fact alone sends millions into metaphorical sewing of fig-leaf wear whilst hiding in the shrubbery like Adam and Eve.

For those who don’t read social cues well and are whole-truth-and-nothing-but-the-truth tellers, this whole dating thing is a mine field.

“You told her she needed a better deodorant?” I exclaimed with shock when my neuro-divergent friend told me about meeting a girl he liked. “I was only telling her the truth. I care about her. She should know.”

My explanation to him involved caring truth-telling about the way neuro-typicals perceive information. (At least I hope he perceived it as caring.) He was telling her the truth, but how was she to know he cared? How did he demonstrate that? Telling her she needed better deodorant could have felt a bit hurtful even if it was true. Most people can’t handle the truth, especially truth about themselves. Truth must be wrapped in communicated love, or it feels like a frying pan to the face and that’s the end of that.

Before Jesus was taken away to be killed, he told his friends, “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.”  (John 16: 12,13)

The disciples were not ready to bear all the truth Jesus wanted to tell them. Jesus is The Truth, but he is also Love. Love doesn’t lie, and Godly truth gives us only as much truth as we can handle. He understands out frailty, but he also wants us to grow. Without a solid understanding of who God is, and that his lovingkindness and mercy endure forever, all of us, including the extremely narcissistic, tend to mix our truth medicine with a spoonful of denial, if not a cup of outright fantasy. Maturity is being able to appreciate the whole truth without being blown away by it. We need help getting to that point, but God provided for that too.

J.B. Phillips phrased it this way in his paraphrase of Ephesians 4:11-16

His “gifts to men” were varied. Some he made his messengers, some prophets, some preachers of the Gospel; to some he gave the power to guide and teach his people. His gifts were made that Christians might be properly equipped for their service, that the whole body might be built up until the time comes when, in the unity of the common faith and common knowledge of the Son of God, we arrive at real maturity—that measure of development which is meant by the “fullness of Christ”.

We are not meant to remain as children at the mercy of every chance wind of teaching and the jockeying of men who are expert in the craft presentation of lies. But we are meant to hold firmly to the truth in love, and to grow up in every way into Christ, the head. For it is from the head that the whole body, as a harmonious structure knit together by the joints with which it is provided, grows by the proper functioning of individual parts to its full maturity in love.

The Holy Spirit guides us into all truth, but patiently, not by dumping it all on our heads all at once. He is kind. Sometimes it’s a wonderful warm experience and sometimes it feels like receiving a father’s concerned discipline, but it always carries the scent of merciful lovingkindness.

Like many aspects of spiritual maturity, the ability to comprehend truth and see the way God sees is a process. I am learning that being Christ-centered and acknowledging Jesus in everything means becoming as intentional about a deepening relationship as he is.

It’s all about getting to know him.

Creative Meditations for Lent, Word Prompt: Truth

Expansion: Get Used to Different

On By Charis PsalloIn Just folks, PhotographyLeave a comment

I will pursue your commands,
for you expand my understanding. (Psalm 119:32 NLT)

Sometimes I think about what life was like when my grandparents built their first houses on the Canadian prairies. They had to be adventurous people. Breaking ground that has never been broken before is a daunting task. I think about both my grandmothers preparing meals for large families and threshing crews without modern appliances or even a grocery store nearby.

I wonder if they were suddenly transported to today, a hundred years in their futures, if they could comprehend cooking a quick dinner in the microwave from a recipe I searched for on my cell phone. I wonder if they would understand a fraction of the material my thirteen-year-old granddaughter learned in science today or the games my twelve-year-old grandson played on his computer this afternoon. Instead of my spinning wheel I could show them the shirt I bought this morning. It’s made from recycled plastic bottles.

Yet I wonder if we, ok I, went back a hundred years, if I could understand their willingness to go beyond the bounds of the familiar, and seek a better life for themselves and their children. Both my grandmothers remained faithful to God in challenging circumstances, both saw many changes in their lifetimes. Both had a vision for the future and a willingness to expand their horizons (which were literally much broader on the prairies.)

I wonder if God has much more for us to understand about him, and the world he created, and who he created us to be in that world. I wonder if we will not be able to understand without taking the risk of making changes.

There is a line spoken by the actor representing Jesus in the popular episodic series, The Chosen. It stood out to me when the smiling, kind Son of God said, “Get used to different.” It was a pay-attention moment.

Throughout history, the stress of change and upheaval has often been the way God has moved to expand our understanding. He’s doing it again. Get used to different. Your understanding may be his next expansion project.

Creative Meditations for Lent, Prompt Word: Expansion

Let

On By Charis PsalloIn Just folks, Photography2 Comments

After their last supper together, Jesus asked Peter to let him wash his feet. Peter protested.

Peter looked at Jesus and said, “You’ll never wash my dirty feet—never!”
“But Peter, if you don’t allow me to wash your feet,” Jesus responded, “then you will not be able to share life with me.” (from John 13 in The Passion Translation)

Jesus confronted him sternly. This was important. This was so important that Jesus said Peter could not be a part of him if he did not let Jesus wash his feet.

On that evening full of important parting instructions, he also said, “So this is my parting command: Love one another deeply!” (verse 17)

Loving one another deeply requires mutual submission. Submission is not a word I like. Surrender is even worse. By confronting Peter he gave the clear message: Unless you are willing to accept help — my help — you can’t be a part of this.

This is the aspect of submission that I’ve missed for so many years. Submission doesn’t mean being a doormat to someone who would take advantage. Submission means saying, “How can I extend myself to help you to become all Christ means you to be?” Submission also means surrendering to Christ when he says, “Let me help you.”

Submission means becoming vulnerable to God’s goodness.

Experiencing God’s goodness is a prerequisite to loving one another.

Creative Meditations for Lent, Word prompt: Let

Love

On By Charis PsalloIn Black and white, Just folks, PhotographyLeave a comment

Recently I met a refugee family who has demonstrated love in a way that goes beyond the usual experience in North America. They come from a country where it is illegal to change religions or influence anyone to change religions. When approached by two young men who were looking for an understanding of God, a Christian man gave them Bibles to read. After they read about the God who loved us so much that he let his son die and overcome death so that if we believe in him we will have eternal life, they chose to follow the God of love. They found new life in Christ.

The consequences of assisting at the birth of this new life were dire for this man and his wife and children. They faced serious death threats. Even after they fled to another country, they were incarcerated, the mother and the children for a short time and the father for five years.

Conditions in that prison were appalling. The father endured great stress. The mother and children knew great hardship as well living without him in the home. And yet everyone in the family says their love for God grew most during this time as they experienced his faithfulness and provision. They are truly beautiful people, and the love of God shines through tears as they tell their story.

Today I thought about the way love takes the risk of birth. My granddaughter asked me if childbirth hurts.

“It does,” I told her, “But the reward is so great that most women who have given birth once choose to give birth again because they know the joy of seeing new life and that love is greater than pain.”

My mother nearly died giving birth to me. I heard the story many times. The physical consequences for her lasted a lifetime. And yet she chose to give birth to my brother even when a doctor warned she could face problems again. She did it out of love for someone who would not understand the significance of her willingness to suffer for him until many years later.

As I think about it, I realize that the greatest force in the universe is love. It was love that motivated Jesus to suffer, die, and overcome death. It was love that sent my new friend to those men knowing that he could suffer and even die for doing so. It was love that sent my mother to the delivery room for the second time knowing she could suffer like the first time, or even die.

It is love whenever someone is willing to extend themselves beyond a low-risk comfort zone to make it possible for new life to begin and grow. Only the love of God is strong enough to overcome the fear of suffering or even death and cause a person to know they are loved even in the middle of severe trials. We can love because God loved us and gave us first mortal life, then the opportunity for eternal life through Jesus Christ.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13 NIV)

Creative Meditations for Lent, Word prompt: Love