Interior Darkness

Advent began today. We are celebrating the coming of light into darkness in this season.
I've been reflecting on my own darkness lately. I've noticed that the more time I spend with God, the more aware I am of my own depravity and sinfulness. Ironic, since the more time I spend with God, the more my external life gets "cleaned up." So people hear me say things like this and think I'm being too hard on myself. Probably at least 1 comment for this post will be along those lines. But people, let me tell you, I am the only person inside my head and it is UGLY in here!
Back to my point: that as we grow in our faith, we gain more understanding of our depravity. I think that this is a common experience for many of us. And I think it's an example of God's mercy. I think we only perceive our true sinfulness to the extent that we perceive God's grace. So the more I experience God's grace, the more I see of my own evil. The grace is what enables the vision. Because if we saw ourselves, truly saw ourselves without God's grace, we would fall into utter despair. So God gives us some grace, and then we see a little more. Then God gives us more grace, and we see a little more. The grace is what lifts us up and allows us to keep going. We begin to be like the debtor in Luke 7, who loved much because he was forgiven much. This is why sin is not a painful subject - not a depressing topic. It's a joyous one! God brought light into the darkness of my soul! And the more I understand of God's forgiveness, the more I love God! Talk about win-win! It would be like being audited, and discovering that the last 7 years of taxes were wrong and you owed millions to the government, and the auditor then smiled and said, "How about we make what you owed for the last 7 years your refund this year?" And the millions owed became the millions received. This is the good news of Advent! This is why Christ came into the world!

centering prayer

I've been practicing centering prayer for a few years now. However, I've been practicing it with much more discipline lately. It occurs to me that my cats provide the perfect image for it.
My mind is like Duchess on the screened-in porch. Every fiber of her being is alert, eyes wide open, nose twitching, ears rotating to catch every sound, tail up, body quivering with readiness to run and pounce. And at every noise, every movement, every smell, she moves. She runs and rushes all over the place, totally focused but also switching focus every second.
When I enter centering prayer, I detach from my Duchess mind. I see it. I know it's doing its thing. But I just let it go. I try to access my Pipsqueak center. Pipsqueak sits in my lap. He doesn't much want petting. He doesn't move around every 5 seconds like Shadow. He just wants to sit in perfect stillness in a warm place. He is solid and heavy and completely relaxed.
I pretty much think everybody ought to be trying out centering prayer, that's how awesome it is.

Eye-Planks and Amplifiers

Today I got to see the plank in my eye and it wasn't fun. I started out happily enough, planning a few errands in my head. My first errand was to go to the Going Out Of Business Linen N Things and exchange a tablecloth. I didn't have my receipt, but the cloth I needed was the same price, so I went anyway, filled with foolish optimism. Of course, they denied me anything without my receipt, so I left the store grumbling under my breath and drove home again, determined to find the receipt, which was at the bottom of my trash can, naturally. Armed with the receipt, I drove back, still grumbling things and with a decidedly frowning face. When I arrived, the cashier was dealing with an irritated woman wanting to exchange some broken dishes. I waved my receipt at the cashier who told me to wait for the manager.
When the manager arrived, she had to deal with the other woman first. She did not have a receipt. She did not get her way. So she threw a fit, telling the manager to "have a nice day ripping customers off," and stormed out. When the manager said, "Have a nice day" to her back, she threw the F-bomb at her. Wow. I meekly walked up, pointed out my receipt, the identical prices, and walked out with the correct tablecloth.
And then the plank in my own eye started jostling around, causing many painful splinters. It was like someone had hooked an amplifier up to my inner thoughts and broadcast them to the whole store, via the first customer. Oh yeah, sure, I didn't say those words to her face, but I thought them. Jesus never made a distinction between what goes on in your head and what comes out of your mouth. Seeing that woman curse those store employees was seeing the true impact of my secret thoughts. Even if they stay secret, they are utterly destructive.
Isn't that the point of Jesus' plank and speck of dust story? We don't try to pull out the plank in order to point out the speck of dust. Instead, the speck of dust illuminates the plank in our own eye. Every time.

Movies that are Good for you

We have Kite Runner from Netflix sitting on our TV stand. It's been sitting there since Thursday. This weekend we watched: the new Bond movie, Iron Man, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, a Seinfeld episode, and 2 Season 3 X-Files episodes. And Dale watched some football. (A note to the few who don't know - I've been sick all weekend so our movie watching was unusually high). We did not watch Kite Runner.
See, I've read the book. I know what's in that movie. It's one of those movies that's good for you. Everyone knows they should watch it. It's like Hotel Rwanda or Crash - movies that contain incredibly painful content but also contain incredibly painful truths. So we rent these movies, because we know we ought to, but we hesitate to watch them. It's kind of like that volume of Shakespeare on the bookshelf, or the dusty piano in the corner - our cultural guilt. Right? We own Shakespeare, but we avidly check out all the Dexter books from the library and secretly read them with great pleasure. Intellectual junk food. :)
I'm pretty sure we'll watch Kite Runner. Probably. heehee, maybe we'll just want til Mom and Dad are here and make them watch it with us! Most depressing Thanksgiving movie ever!
What kinds of movies or books do you get just cause they're good for you?

clarification

It has come to my attention that Duchess looks angry in that photo. As if she's just been disciplined for bad behavior (a not uncommon occurrence). But in fact, that's not the case. When I took this photo, she was sitting in my lap receiving petting. And if you know Duchess, you know that she doesn't sit in laps unless she puts herself there. So she chose to sit in my lap and receive my pettings (and if she didn't want them, she would've bitten me). And she still made that face...

Jesus' bumper stickers

I spend a lot of time imagining what heaven is like. I imagine it's a place where sip-stealing is not just tolerated, it's encouraged. When you go to the "Golden Arches", your burger is always made to your exact specifications without you having to even ask. There's only 1 channel on the TV, but it's always playing what you want to watch....without commercial interruption.

So, I was wondering...when Jesus is scooting around the highways and byways of the great beyond in his Smart Car, what kind of bumper stickers does he have? (This is generally how I spend my time, I let Elaine ponder the heavy spiritual stuff.) Here's my guess:

1. Kucinich '08
2. My Dad can beat up your Dad
3. My Other Car is a Donkey
4. Real Men Love Me
5. Protestant since 1517

He may/may not have an NCSU sticker in his window. I mean, Jesus was all about suffering, and well....NCSU athletics is about as pathetic as you can get in the world of college sports.

Duchess or the Grinch?

Is it just me, or is there more than a passing resemblance here?