Black Belt Spirituality

Today was a rough day. It was the one year anniversary of the suicide of a resident in my CCRC. One of my flock. I spent a good chunk of the day with this persons widow, as well as the couple that witnessed the events unfold.  In light of Lent, My heart yearns for the resurrection, and my heart is continually broken for God's people. But we are Easter people; and Easter is coming!  Below is what I shared with my team that week last year: I walked my people through a trauma this week. And they walked me through it. So in light of Good Friday, this is what I shared with them: "It has been a rough week. Chaos has descended.(Oh, yeah, yeah it’s Holy Week.) Death’s sting has stung. Death is a Liar. It’s Friday! BUT that IS the good news; cause Sunday is coming! Nothing, NOTHING is outside the redemptive reach of God. We ARE Easter people. See you at the empty tomb! Rev. Sal"

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty  and have to keep coming here to draw water.” He told her,  “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her,  “You are right when you say you have no husband.   The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”-John 4:15-18 NIV              How many of us have every done a Google search on our computers or smart phones? If you have, you may know that each time you open your browser, that browser keeps a record of you searches and the websites you may have looked at. In tech talk this is your browser history, or just your history.  And security experts say you should routinely erase or clean out your “history.” But, guess what, we all have a history. And not just a google history. And every now and then we are reminded of or look at that history. And sometimes, like if our computers get hac

So we are in Lent. Where has this year gone? I feel like I just finished digesting Thanksgiving dinner. But we are in Lent. We are journeying together to Easter. The joy and celebration of Easter.  But first we have to go through Lent. A season for Christians, whether it is a new found practice or one of liturgical tradition, it is the most beautiful season of the Christian year. Our reading for today I think is a great for the beginning of lent. I, like countless preachers around the country, even the world, are preaching on it if they follow the Lectionary. Which is a cycle of Scripture that allows us to preach and listen through the bible for the year. (If you follow it through the 3 year cycle you will have read 80% of the bible.) The past few weeks or months the lectionary has been leading us through Matthew but will switch to John for the remainder of Lent. I think the choice to use Matthew 4 for the beginning of lent is  a wise and beautiful one.  What does the 40 days wa

Joel 2:13 Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. Rend your hearts and not your garments. Well what the heck does that even mean!? Well good thing I went to seminary and barely survived, I mean studied Hebrew! Well the Hebrew word qara (kaw-rah) actually means to  tear, so Joel here is telling us to tear our hearts, and not clothes. Um, no, that would hurt!          But the prophet Joel is talking here in the 2nd chapter about coming to the Lord with fasting, mourning and weeping and to tear your heart and not your clothing. In ancient Israel, tearing your clothing was an act of symbolism, it expressed grief and morning. So Joel is telling the people to come to God when in grief not ripping your clothes in an outward expression of sorrow, but in a inward looking, self reflective, self aware act of submission and mourning.     

             I based this post on a familiar scripture from Mathew.(5:13-20) Familiar even if you haven’t read it because of the song based on it, “This little light of mine.” This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine, Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. Hide it under a bushel, no! I’m gonna let it shine. We have all sung the lyrics to the familiar hymn. How many of us have relegated this to the children's sermon. Along with Jesus loves me. It’s ok, you can raise your hand. It falls in the larger section that is the Sermon on the Mount. There, Christ speaks of those who are blessed, but in our passage today he continues on what the responsibilities of those who are blessed is.             Our passage falls after the well-known beatitudes, where Jesus expounds on who is blessed. It is Christ’s rule for how those who are blessed should live. Their lives are meant to be transformed but this is not a simple list of rules. He calls the disciples to be Salt and ligh

        What Are we afraid of? What are you afraid of? I am afraid of heights, and growing up, I was always afraid of fireworks. Until I was about 8, I couldn't enjoy 4th of July festivities. Silly I know, but loud noises scared me. They still do, if I am not expecting them. That’s part of why I don’t like horror movies, not so much the blood or gore, but the unexpected noises and surprises.  But we are all afraid of something.  We read psalm 46. A psalm I have prayed at countless bedsides before surgery, at the time of death and times of grief. A simple passage that directs to not fear, to trust and hope in God; to trust in his providence, his power and his grace in even the worst of times. This psalm imperils us to trust, to trust with confidence who God is. HE is our source of refuge, our strength and very present help in times of need.  I have sat at the bedsides of so many people in the times of need, at times when they have joined the cloud of witnesses. An

I encouraged people I have visited as a chaplain  to remember that people are always nearby. I was reflecting on Mark 6 recently for a chapel service. The portion in the "in between," between the feeding of the 5 thousand and Jesus walking on water to meet the disciples. And the miracles were not so much that Jesus multiplied the food or walked on water, but that he took compassion and made the disciples the hands of that compassion. When was the last time you thought of yourself as that?  But in Mark 6, we see that Jesus again wants to retreat to pray….He’s always doing that! In my chaplain positions, often after long visits with people, I find that I need to retreat. Retreat back into my office. This does a few things practically. It allows me to go make notes or chart what happened during the visit. But it also allows me to breath, process my feelings and the experiences I just shared and to recharge spiritually. This is common for people whose personalities are on the