The Journey Continues ...

Not I, nor anyone else can travel that  road for you.
You must travel it by yourself.
It is not far.  It is within reach.
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know.
Perhaps it is everywhere - on water and land."
- Walk Whitman, Leaves of Grass

Prior to lent, I started my year off with the “One Little Word” project.  I blogged about it…my word for the year being Balance.  But then early on in my Lenten journey, I decided that Balance just wasn’t going to work for someone like me that does so much teetering.  Lent gave me that focus to really hone in on me, my life, what needed tweaking now, and what needs sorting through later.  Balance had to take a back burner to PEACE.  And so a few weeks ago, I declared my new word for the year.  PEACE.  And my Lenten journey is helping me to achieve it.

One of the things I worked on(and am still working on), is keeping a check on negativity.  I don’t think of myself as being a negative person at all.  But there are things in my life that I would like to change, and sometimes these things are not entirely in my control.  Or maybe they are but they require patience (also not one of my strong suits).  This leads to a degree of negativity that tends to cloud over my days sometimes.  So I’ve really been trying to make that a focus, an awareness, on my journey.  So here's an example of how the scenario goes: I’m at work, feeling like a square peg in a round hole, and I start getting all dark inside, and that leads to a mental funk.  A few minutes later, I’m assessing the situation and stopping myself from going there (okay, I'm there, but stopping myself from going deeper in).  And I’ve been turning it around and trying to focus on the positive:  I am alive; We are able to pay the bills, We ate today… I am warm today. You get the idea.  And it has really helped me to work on the “peace” issue.  The problems might still be there…and it’s not that they’re not going to get a serious looking at, but being negative in light of so much positive is just not productive.

And the second thing that I worked on was gossip – especially being on the receiving end.  This one was difficult and I’ll tell you why.  Like vegetarianism, when you don’t partake in it, the person that you’re not partaking with feels that you are judging them.  And that’s totally not the case.  I have had to stop friends and say, “if it’s bad, please don’t share that with me…I’m working on it for lent.”  I didn’t say what “it” was.  Or in the event that we were in a group, and there was conversation going on, I had to stop myself from commenting…which again is viewed as you being aloof or not wanting to participate.  BUT, I have to say that the feeling afterward is one of exhilaration. I remembered back a few years ago when I was much heavier than I am today.  Because I wasn’t happy with myself back then, I was hyper critical of others.  Whereas now, the focus is more on self-improvement. The no gossip has also gone hand in hand with the no negativity thing.  Gossip is negative.  No room for it.  And both of those have made me much more peaceful inside.

My lenten journey has helped me keep my focus on things.  There is a LOT of room for improvement in my life.  I do still need to re-visit balance and patience, but I have a feeling that they will eventually come.  Even though lent is almost over, the journey is really just beginning.  Now it’s time to take what I’ve learned about myself, and move it forward. Of course, none of these are possible without prayer – a dialogue between myself and God which helps me focus and feel like I’m on the right track.  

This Sunday being Palm Sunday, I’m looking forward to taking communion again.  It’s been six weeks.  There’s a lot to atone for, and a lot to be thankful for. I hope your Lenten journeys have been fulfilling as well.  May God give us the strength to grow from what we have learned over this period of introspection, and to carry it forward in our lives.
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You can hear this podcast read on epostle's weekly podcast, The Next Step with Fr. Vazken.  Click here to tune in.

Are you trying to get healthy?  Lose some weight?  Join me on "The Journey of the Pudgy Pomegranate" at www.pudgypomegranate.blogspot.com  

Controlling My Inner Martha

Painting by Dr. He Qi       www.heqigallery.com

On our drive home from church on Sunday afternoons, my mom and I usually like to discuss the day's sermon.  This Sunday, being the Sunday of Expulsion  we were talking about obedience to God, the shortcomings of humanity, and then, out of the blue, my mom says, "You know...there's one Bible story that I just don't like!  It's the story of the two sisters, Mary and Martha."  So I asked her what it was that didn't sit right with her.  So she told  me the story:  Jesus was good friends with Lazarus and his two sisters, Mary and Martha.  The story goes that Jesus was invited to dinner, and Martha tended to all the house prep, cooking and cleaning and serving her guest, while Mary sat at Christ's feet and listened to His teachings.  When Martha had had just about enough of being the only one working, she asks Jesus if it's right that Mary is just kicking back while she's slaving away over a hot stove, and Jesus gives Martha a kind little reprimand saying that her sister has the right idea.  Okay, this is the simplified "mom" version...but it's on the money.  And mom continued, "I don't like it because Martha is working so hard.  I'm like Martha.  If Jesus were coming to my home, of course I would want the BEST that I have to offer for Him.  I would want to put out the best food, and make sure my house was clean.  I'd want to make sure that he was offered food and drink.  And I'd want him to feel at home.  So poor Martha is doing all of this and her sister is just sitting there!  Of course Martha would be upset.  I would be upset too.  That's why I don't get this story.  Didn't Jesus see that Martha was doing all of that for Him?  Why did Jesus take sides with Mary?"

We did talk about the obvious answer...that Christ wants us to listen to Him, to spend time with Him.  The rest of the hoopla is not important. But we arrived home, and then  there was lunch to fix, so the discussion got cut short.  But I have been thinking about this for two days now and came to the conclusion that there were two issues at hand.

The first is  "Priorities".  It's not so much that Mary was spending time with Christ - that's a given.  But it's more about the fact that Mary put Christ first above everything else.  Mary understood that once Jesus came to their home, she would put aside everything else and make Christ her priority because nothing else could be as important as being "present" in Christ..  I mean, when would she ever have that opportunity again?  And because of that, would she want to sit and absorb everything she could about Him? or would she want to be dishing up pilav in the kitchen?  On the other hand, that part is important too.   It's just not AS important.  So I was thinking of these priorities during my morning prayer.  I like to pray first thing in the morning, at about 5:00 a.m.  I love this special time alone in the morning, and my intention is good - to set aside quality time with God - BUT my life is hectic.  Inevitably during my prayer time, as I'm trying to purge my mind and focus on prayer, the Martha in me makes an appearance and allows my day-to-day to creep in.  Then Mary corrals my thoughts back to prayer. Then Martha reminds me of all I have to do, then Mary takes the reins, well, you get the idea.  I'm going to have to work on that.  Focus and prioritization!

And then the second fault of Martha was that she allowed what started off as her JOY - to offer her hospitality to Christ - to become a negative.  Her goal was to do something wonderful to show her love for Jesus.  But she allowed anger, resentment, and jealousy toward her sister to creep in.  She was probably feeling like she wanted Jesus' praise for all the trouble she was going through for Him.  Instead Mary was the shining star of the day.  I can totally understand how she felt.  And the Bible doesn't mention how Martha's comments probably hurt Mary and caused her embarrassment .  Negativity breeds negativity.   Sometimes, it's the very thing that we're most passionate about that can frustrate us the most.  Only because we have a vision of how we want things to be.  And there's a healthy dose of pride - okay, an unhealthy dose -  attached as well as we embark on the path to making things "just so."  But we are not perfect.  It's better to let things go that we are not in control of.  We can't control what someone else does.  We can't control the Mary.  Mary is just fine the way she is.  All we can do, is control the Martha.  Try our best to do our best, but in all things to act out of extreme love.

During this Lenten season, I'm going to try to control my inner Martha, and set my priorities on living a Christ-centered life more like Mary.  With only four weeks to go, I have my work cut out for me.

A Separation of Church and State?

Where do I start?  After last week's MLK retreat and presidential inauguration, I was left with a lot of food for thought and a new hopefulness for our country.  I came back refreshed and renewed, but over the course of this past week, I've heard so many negative comments about the ceremony itself, and just general negativity about this presidency.  It's been a big energy suck.  Seriously.

This past Sunday at church we had a visiting priest, a monk from one of the churches in Armenia.  As he gave his sermon, I couldn't help but connect the attitudes regarding our church, with the attitudes regarding our country.  Fr. Asbed is assigned to a small monastery in Armenia.  Since most of the older adult population  grew up under the communist regime, he didn't have many in his congregation that were true believers.  But he was happy to report about the children.  He had 22 children coming to Sunday school, a handful of altar servers, and a children's choir.  He was hopeful.  But, he reported, that most people that come to his church, view the church as a museum, some "antique" building  to visit.  And what unnerved him was that the people that came to "visit" were very critical of the church complaining that the grounds could use maintenance, or that the place looked run down.  To which he would respond to them, "Excuse me?  Who are you to come here and criticize.  I've never even seen you here"  He went on to remind us that the church was not "his" or the country's but it belonged to ALL of us.  And it was up to all of us to take care of it.  Whether we had the blessing of financial ability or we could volunteer our voices in the choir or serve on the altar, or if we can help with physical maintenance, we should all understand that these talents are entrusted to us by God and that we should use them to his glory. 

Okay, a simple message, right?  Take care of what is entrusted to you by God.  It's up to you to take care of it.  And so what about our country?  What about our world?  For those of us that are blessed to live in the U.S., or in any democratic society that allows us to vote for our leaders, whether you agree with your elected officials or not, it's our country.   We are entrusted to take care of it...to make the best of what we have, and if not, to use our talents to bring about change to make it better for everyone.  Not sit back and bash and bad mouth. 

When I got back from Big Bear last weekend, I asked a friend of mine if he had watched the inauguration.  The response was no, that he wouldn't want to watch it.  I filled him in on what he had missed - the prayers, the poem, our president's speech.   His response was that the president has speech writers who write the speech for him and therefore it's not sincere and that, oh, by the way,  Beyoncé lip-synced the National Anthem of all things! (how could she?)  Really?  Okay, so he didn't view the ceremony, yet he knew all about it from various media outlets.  And to be clear, it wasn't the fact that he didn't watch it that upset me - certainly, everyone has a right to choose what they want to do with their time  - but what upset me was this person's negative and pre-conceived speculation on programming he didn't watch based on political bias - based on the commentary of pundits and speculations by media talking-heads.

Our country was built by the sweat of our people.  People who worked together for these United States. Every four years we elect a president.  Your political party either wins or loses.  Are we like the people that come to visit the little church in Armenia?  Detached and removed by choice, and then filled with negativity and complaints failing to see that this country belongs to ALL of us, and it's up to all of us to make use of our God-given talents to make it great?  We learned last week at our retreat that we CAN make change happen.  It requires patience, persistence, hope, prayer but more than anything, change requires action. It's easy to sit back and criticize.  I, too, was not happy with our president's first term, but I am hopeful that this next term will be better.   If we're not happy with the current situation, then we can work together to make it better.  And it's okay to complain (because we shouldn't just sit back and drink the Kool-Aid), but we should at least be informed on what we're complaining about and then work toward fixing it.

Is this democratic system that was created to unite us and give us a voice, creating separation and complacency among us?  I pray that we can set aside political party bias and prejudice and use everything in our ability to make things  better for all.  The office of president is a difficult and challenging one for anyone, no matter what their party affiliation.  Let's pray that God grant our president the wisdom to lead our nation toward peace and prosperity.  And also, pray that He gives us the courage and wisdom to judge a man not by his political party, but by the content of his actions.  And then after that informed judgment is made, to create in us the passion and fire to either work toward implementing those programs or create new ones that are better!

Finally, I'll leave with you a quote I read from one of our past presidents - Franklin D. Roosevelt:
There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still."  Let's work together to move beyond our prejudices and work to achieve our highest potential...and let's do it together.

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