WANTING

Maybe my main job is to nurture passion, or as Jesus called it, “hunger and thirst for goodness”. Passion for God … for life … for healing … for hope … for justice. This is my job.

Now, passion is a dangerous thing if it goes wrong. “Crimes of passion” should include religious wars and judgmental hostilities to those who think different from us. Thus, passion is best when it is pastored, shaped, guided. At my ordination as a pastor I used the image of a controlled burn.

But without the burn, nothing happens. Where there is energy there is heat. When the news of more job layoffs brings you to a painful desiring for those affected to be whole and safe, that is from your deepest passion. Even the anger over the government’s and bankers’ irresponsibility is from that honorable place, though we can take it crazy places.

When you want badly to see a child healed or a war ended, a relationship reconciled or poverty ended, you do that from your passion for God, for life, for healing, for hope and for justice.

When we play the cynic, or pretend that we can prefer detachment or distraction, we lie to our core. We are in love. No amount of work, or television, or computer gaming can really deplete your hunger.

You thirst for the best of reasons. Feel it in your taste buds! Listen to God in your soul. Don’t rush. The hunger doesn’t die. But do stay engaged. This wanting … it’s in your nature!

HOLY DEFIANCE

We pretend sometimes that we will find a one-to-one ratio to “niceness” and spirituality. Kindness, maybe, but niceness, no. Joy? Oh, yeah. Sweetness? No guarantee. Much of life is lived best because we exercise holy defiance.

Quick example: Someone recently said to someone in front of me in a long line “Life sucks, doesn’t it?” I guessed he meant it to suggest he shared the sense of the long wait. But the person to whom he spoke said back “Well, I love my life, but this moment isn’t so hot!” No, I didn’t hear ‘what do you mean life sucks? It’s great! What’s the matter with you? Don’t you know about life in God … ‘etc. Just a gentle counter. But that is still holy defiance.

Sure, we see holy defiance when spiritual people stand against the powerful for the poor or against a government when it kills or wars or degrades people’s lives. But you will have several opportunities today to be defiant in the best sense, right in your day’s work and in your evening rest.

You will be tempted toward numbness by your television or electronics; you will be invited into negativity by the news manipulators (some of them in your own back yard). You will be lured toward self centered-ness and averted from touching the creation by much that will come your way.

Defy!!! Love! Care! Walk in the wind! Feel deeply, and hope against hopelessness. Pray! Read. Plan your datebook around love, faith, and doing good. God is making you strong. Use your gifts.