Tag Archives: Beatitudes

The Way Up Is Down, Part 5: Doing the Work

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The way through is down.

I really struggled writing this installment in The Way Up Is Down series. The fact is that I am IN the process of “through.” It’s also true that I’m scared as hell doing the “downward” work, yet…

To get through, we must go deep.

We all can get through, but unless we go deep and address the issues that we are facing as we go through, we’ll be back here again before too long.

When I first posted this thought experiment on Instagram back in January, a friend of mine commented, “the enemy’s gate is down…” Immediately I began to debate in my mind the meaning of down in his comment, directionally down or functionally down. Of course, it is directionally down. But you can’t take down your enemy’s gate unless you go down to do it.

My next question was, “Who is my enemy?” I knew the answer to that right away. Me! I am my enemy. To overcome your enemy, you must know what makes him tick. That means I must discover and take responsibility for the actions and decisions that got me here.

“A lot of people…have a problem being true to they self. They have a problem looking into the mirror and looking directly into their own souls. The reason I can…walk around, the reason I am who I am today is because I can look directly into my face and find my soul.”
— Tupac Shakur

If I can “look into my face and find my soul,” then I will no longer be my own enemy. This takes courage. This is deep work. I may not like what I find, but unless I do the work, I will only be getting by instead of going through.

There is so much more to say, and I’ve left out a lot, but I will finish with this. Though this is personal work, it’s not solitary work. I have sought the help of friends and professionals to do this downward work. In a way, this is another aspect of going down, because it forces us to embrace humility. It’s allowing others to see our shadow side, trusting they won’t reject us, and taking their hand as they help us up.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 5:3 (NIV)

This is the hope of all of this. That we would find our way up. That we would rise with a new appreciation for life, love, and community, with our feet firmly grounded and our hearts centered in these realities.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.
— Serenity Prayer

Grace and peace,
Brook

Making a Home

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Have you ever had a moment that you feel your eyes have been opened to a hidden reality or an experience that transcends the visible so that you can observe the fabric that holds together everything you are experiencing right now? These events are rare gifts. They definitely don’t happen for me very often. None the less, I would like to share with you one of these moments that I experienced just last weekend.

familyAutumn and I, with our five kids, were on vacation visiting family in the Los Angeles area. It was an informal family reunion. All of Autumn’s family, except one brother, live in LA. Her middle brother, who lives in Seattle, drove for 20 hours, nearly non-stop, with his wife and daughter to be there to see family. Even though we stayed in a hotel, the hub of our vacation was my wife’s grandparent’s house. We gathered there every day to go swimming, share at least one meal, and see the extended family as they came and went. It was a very rich time.

On Sunday evening I was sitting next to the pool with my wife’s granddad and her brother from Seattle. We had just finished eating dinner and the kids were already back in the pool. In that moment of repose, I found myself replaying the previous day’s events with family from all over the LA area coming over and visiting and recalling the grace and openness with which my wife’s grandparents received everyone that walked over their threshold. It reminded me of what Jesus said in the Beatitudes.

Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
(Matthew 5:5, NIV)

I recently wrote about meekness as “the strength to embrace one’s limitations.” I now see it to include the ability to hold lightly to the things that we posses so that it can be a blessing to those we interact with. I clearly saw this in Autumn’s grandparents. Their love, compassion, and grace over the years wove together a fabric of meekness that not only brought us all together but even held us all together.

Jesus said that the meek will inherit the earth. This is far greater than wealth and property. It expands to include people with whom you can share your life and all that comes with it. I saw the richness of meekness in Autumn’s grandparents because they were surrounded by people they loved and who love them back. May we strive for this type of inheritance.

Grace and peace,
Brook

A Family Marked by Peace

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Blessed are the peacemakers...A few months ago, I was at a Day Retreat organized by Josh Pinkston for the Foursquare pastors in our area. The focus of the retreat was prayer and meditation. Only four of us came. As we gathered, we took prayer requests. Then we dispersed to pray. As I looked over the prayer requests, including my own, they all seemed to embody a Beatitude, which provided a beautiful focus for prayer. Oddly enough, I found some blank notecards in my Bible. For each of the prayer requests I wrote down the Beatitude and a sentence or two of affirmation and encouragement. My prayer request was to be an instrument of God’s peace. This is what I wrote for myself.

Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
(Matthew 5:9, NIV)

“God’s presence is peaceful, but not comfortable. Peacemakers find themselves in places of conflict and by being present, expressing God’s peace, work to establish the kinship of God.”

In my study of the Beatitudes lately, coming to this one brought back a flood of memories from that Day Retreat. The thing that stood out to me the most that day, and still does, is the idea of the kinship of God. This produced a sort of “if – then” formula in my mind. “If peacemakers are called God’s children, then God must be a God of peace.” This equation can also be flipped. “If God is a God of peace, then God’s children must be peacemakers.” This is where I find my heart. I want to be a peacemaker.

“There is no way to peace, peace is the way.” – A. J. Muste

Peacemakers are traditionally defined as, “a person who brings about peace, especially by reconciling adversaries.” I would like to redefine what a peacemaker is as one who creates an environment of peace. Peaceful environments can naturally bring about a resolution to conflict. Otherwise we are left with less than peaceful means by which we try to establish a conflict reduced situation based on contingency and condition. Not exactly peace.

Last weekend, at the VLC Family Camp, getting kids to settle down and go to sleep in the cabin is always a challenge. At one point, our three younger children, who were seriously over tired for a day full of play, all started to melt down. I realized that Autumn and I had become ping-pong balls in the middle of their chaos, so I went over to one end of the room and sat on the floor. A few moments later, Lillian, the youngest, walked over to me sobbing and sat down on my lap. She calmed down and was soon in bed. The tension in the room was deflated, which allowed Autumn to help get the next two kids situated in bed. When we choose to not feed the conflict, the conflict will begin to resolve itself.

One other example that I have come across that demonstrates peace through kinship is Father Gregory Boyle. He is the founder and executive director of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, CA. Their purpose is to “provide hope, training, and support to formerly gang-involved and previously incarcerated men and women allowing them to redirect their lives and become contributing members of our community.” The driving philosophy within the organization is “kinship.” Upon entering the Homeboy program, each person begins to understand that the person working next to them are their brother or sister, even if they are formerly from rival gangs. The environment of peace established by Father Greg and his staff empowers this concept of kinship, which translates to changed lives and renewed futures for those who work through this program. Here is a TED talk from Father Greg telling the story of kinship. Make sure you have tissues nearby!

Peace is one of those ideals that humanity strives after for millennia, but striving doesn’t produce peace. Only peace produces peace. Peacemakers don’t make peace; they are peace!

My hope is that people of peace establish environments of peace where the kinship of God can flourish through the act of being peace, a family of peace.

Grace and peace,
Brook

Seeing God in Our Neighbor

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Religion has a tendency to complicate things. Take this simple saying from Jesus.

Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
(Matthew 5:8, NIV)

heartAs I read this, my religious self wants to say, “What must I do to be good enough to see God?” This type of thinking fails on two levels, doing and seeing. Purity of heart is not something we do, but something we are. Purity of heart has more to do with relationship than it does righteousness. Throughout the Bible, the condition of our heart is shown by how we relate to one another. Jesus taught, “A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” (Luke 6:35) When we speak, we speak to those around us. What is our heart communicating through our words?

How does the condition of our heart help us to see God? We first need to define what it means to see God. I believe that God’s self revelation comes in ways we don’t immediately expect. No one expected Israel’s messiah to come in the form of a peasant child, born to an unwed mother in a stable in Bethlehem. We may not expect to see God in our family members, neighbors, friends, or co-workers. If we do, we might hope to see God in the people we like and love, but we might not expect God to be revealed in the people we don’t know or even care for. I believe that God’s self revelation comes through the people and situations we find ourselves in, with them.

We can know the purity of our heart by how we treat one another. What if we feel that our heart is not that pure? This is actually a continuation of Jesus’ previous saying in the Beatitudes. “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” There we found that mercy comes from empathy. To be pure of heart is to love God by loving others the way we would love ourselves. Living in love is both a work of the Holy Spirit and a choice we make. I find that I am more loving when I set myself aside to meet someone where he is at. It is in being present with those we are with that we find we can love them as they are. It is also a work of the Spirit. The fruits of the Spirit begin with love. (Galatians 5:22)  When we commit our lives to follow the indwelling Spirit of God, we commit ourselves to live a life of love as Jesus loves. Jesus said that the role of the Holy Spirit is to reveal the Father and the Son, which is the purest relationship ever. God is love. We love God when we love others. When we love others as Jesus does, we live out of the purity of our heart, which is the outworking of the Holy Spirit within us.

Religion wants to complicate what Jesus simply calls love.

May we grow in love as we seek to honor God in the face of those we find ourselves with, and may we see the face of God in the face of our neighbor!

Grace and peace,
Brook

The Biology of Righteousness

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Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
(Matthew 5:6, NIV)

bee drinking nectar from fruit blossomWhen I’m hungry or thirsty, I usually don’t think of righteousness as something that would satisfy. A cup of coffee and a burrito, maybe! And, what is righteousness, anyway?! As you can see, I’ve been stumped by Jesus’ saying here. The more I thought about it, the more questions I had.
   • What is righteousness?
   • What does it mean to be filled or satisfied?
   • Why does Jesus use biological terms for a
seemingly spiritual activity?
These questions, and more, led me to some surprising conclusions. At least I didn’t see them coming!

The biggest hurdle for me was the aspect of righteousness and how it can be fulfilling. The most common definition I’ve heard in church is “the state of being in proper relationship with God.” This is a fine definition, but it didn’t seem to mesh for me with the idea of hunger and thirst. Hunger and thirst are earthy terms. This definition of righteousness spiritual, positional, and abstract. I felt like I needed a definition of righteousness that had feet to it. Then this passage came to mind.

He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justly,
To love mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God?
(Micah 6:8, NKJV)

To be righteous is to do rightly with a view to justice, mercy, and humility. Logically speaking, it just feels good when we do good. It is satisfying feeling we get when we have just helped someone.

What does Jesus mean when he blesses those who “hunger and thirst for righteousness?” When we are hungry, we usually know what we want to eat. We can see it. We know what it tastes like. It’s something that lives inside of us before we even get a chance to do it. We see rightly before we do rightly. We know what it looks like, and we want to see it happen. Seeing the kingdom of God lived out in our world only happens when we see it lived out in us. To quote Josh Pinkston, quoting Jesus, “the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:21)

So in wrapping my brain around Jesus’ words here I find that the satisfaction of righteousness is not static, but dynamic. It is alive like our appetites. The more we do rightly the more we are hungry to do it again. This doing comes from seeing what the world could look like when we all do rightly, justly, and filled with mercy and humility. I hope you can see it, just as I long to see it!

Grace and peace,
Brook

Enjoying the Journey!

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I am a task oriented person, and a bit perfectionistic at times as well. It is easy for me to pay more attention to getting something done or getting somewhere than it is being present with those I’m working or traveling with. I’m sure most of you have no idea what I’m talking about!

For about the last month, I’ve been meditating on Jesus’ third statement in the Beatitudes.

Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
(Matthew 5:5 NIV)

Meekness is not weakness. It invokes a spirit of humility, but that’s not all. A definition I’ve been working with lately is “strength that embraces it’s limitations.” At first I approached this definition with the attitude that meekness was the ability to say, “I can’t do everything, but what I can do, I’ll do it well.” But, I began to realize that meekness is also the presence of mind to say, “I don’t need to do everything that I can do well.”

wooded pathAn example that came to mind is that my family and I went on a hike last Saturday. We were at a place that had quite a few trails that led to different points of interest. We didn’t have a map and thought we were going to a specific place, but ended up somewhere else. Since we weren’t exactly sure where we were, we just went back the way we came.

One of my kids said, “Well, this is kind of pointless!” And, he was right. We lacked a spirit of adventure. Our hike turned into a trek from point A to B and then back, instead of enjoying the scenery and the people we were with (our family). It would have been so much more enjoyable if we hiked until we felt we had gone far enough and said, “Let’s see what we can find on the way back!”

Meekness is a complex ideal in regards to wisdom, learning, caring, and being. Meekness can also be simple in its application. It is being true to yourself and those you are with, and enjoying the moments you have together. From there, the potential for fruitful outcomes is endless.

I’ve always wondered why Jesus said that the meek would inherit the earth. I’m realizing that we possess our experiences. We can receive them as an inheritance, not only for ourselves, but also as something we can pass along. Meekness informs how we live our lives so that we can be a blessing to others.

My prayer is that the Holy Spirit will lead us into ways of meekness, so that we will inherit an earth that honors God and those we love and that we would be proud to hand down to those who follow us.

Grace and peace,
Brook

Loving unto Wholeness

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“Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.”
(Matthew 5:4, NIV)

I have been sitting with this passage for a few weeks, not really knowing how to interact with it, not really sure of what it was trying to speak to me. It was the idea of mourning that was tripping me up. I don’t really know what it means to mourn, what it looks like or even how to do it. I think that says as much about me as it does the American culture we live in. Americans don’t mourn well, especially American Christians. We are taught to say “It is well with my soul” when we are confronted with any kind of loss. We are encouraged to throw a party instead of a funeral. But, setting that aside for a moment and returning to the passage at hand, I think that mourning is a stand-in for processing loss.

rocky path in the woodsIn this Beatitude, Jesus is inviting us to mourn when we need to mourn. He is saying that if you choose to enter into the process of grieving a loss and stick to through the end, you will come out of it comforted. This process is not supposed to be a lonely journey. God, through the Holy Spirit, is ever present and walking through it with us. There is also family, friends, and the community of faith to whom we can lean on throughout this process, if we choose to invite others into it with us.

“Happy are people who grieve, because they will be made glad.”
(Matthew 5:4, CEB)

I cannot prescribe what this process will look like, nor how long it will last, but I do know it will include three things: love, acceptance, and forgiveness. This is first and foremost a work of love. It is love for those around us and ourselves that will lead us into the process and sustain us through it. Acceptance involves trusting the process and the new reality that the loss brings us into. Lastly, loss will most likely require some amount of forgiveness, and probably more than once. All told, we will come out of this process not only comforted, but able to comfort others. Choosing to go through a season of mourning is a very brave thing to do. There is nothing glamorous about it. It is a lot of hard work. But, there will be an end to it, and that end will bring love, joy, and peace.

My hope it that in embracing Jesus encouragement here, we can begin to establish a healthy environment for those experiencing the pain of loss and even help to change our culture so that grief would not be something to be dismissed, but seen as the next loving and logical step to living a life of wholeness and love.

Grace and peace,
Brook

The Currency of Love

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I have been reading through and thinking about the Beatitudes, the first act of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. (Matthew 5:3-12) I am always amazed at how Jesus turns common perceptions on their ear. In this first of eight couplets that make up the Beatitudes, Jesus uses language of commerce to teach about the inclusive nature of the people of God.

boys walking in nature “Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
(Matthew 5:3 NIV)

Jesus starts out with “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Being poor is a reference point to wealth, that is, not having enough. We would most naturally say, “Blessed are the wealthy!” We wouldn’t even add “in spirit.” But Jesus flips the sentiment on us and declares those who understand that they cannot add to the dimension of the Spirit available to us are the ones with whom the blessing of the Spirit can most naturally reside. It is from this position of poverty that makes way for the inclusive nature of the people of God, because we can appreciate people for who they are and not what they have or can buy.

Jesus then says, “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Kingdoms naturally bring up notions of wealth. Kingdoms are fought over and bought off. Heaven is the one resource that can never be bought or even earned, but due to it’s elusiveness, it is of the upmost value! Jesus affirms that kingdom of heaven belongs to those who understand that there is nothing they can do to acquire it. Kingdoms are comprised of people. People cannot be acquired, only accepted! It is from the place of mutual acceptance that Spirit of God’s love can most freely move.

I pray that as we seek to know Christ more and the love God has for all people, that we too would understand our poverty of spirit and that we love God best when we love others well.

Grace and peace,
Brook