Leaves on the Tree

I love to travel!  Let me say that out the beginning here – I love to travel!  Well, what I really love is new places, seeing new places, eating at new places, meeting new people – hence travel.  I do not actually like the traveling part – unless I am able to drive to the place I am going.  I do not really like to fly so much any more.  I usually get airsick – at least a little bit.  My ears usually stop up and can take a day to clear out.  I don’t like that we have to get to the airport so early anymore, get practically undressed to go through security and worry about someone stealing the stuff we had to send through an x-ray while we are being “screened” ourselves.  I get the need for it – but I still don’t like it.

I love to travel though.  I really enjoy seeing new places – new scenery, getting royally lost looking for the hotel or the restaurant or wherever I am meeting someone.  I enjoy the different accents of a new place – hearing people greet each other.  I enjoy seeing folks reunite at the airport.  I enjoy finding new places to eat.  I love travel.

And I love to come home again – to sleep in my own bed, to make something I want to eat that tastes like I know it will taste, to see familiar faces, to hear familiar voices.  I love to come home again.

That must be what it will be like someday – we will see all those whom we love and miss.  We will taste a banquet of our faves and their faves.  We will see creation made new and fresh and sparkling.  And we will hear sounds both familiar and new.  And at the same time, we will be truly home for the first time!

I love to travel!  I love to come home!  I just can’t wait for what is coming next!

In His name, Tammy

Happy May Day.  Yep, May 1st.  Hard to believe actually that it is May already – that means school is nearly over and the summer plans begin and if you are like me, you probably have not made all the summer plans or maybe even any of the summer plans and there are so many things going on in May what with school programs and concerts and parties and projects and, and, and…

Stop.  Breathe.  It’s May.  Relish and enjoy.  Today a friend reminded me of one of the old treasures of May that I remember from elementary school and later in high school – the treasure of May baskets.  Remember those?  In elementary school, you would make a lovely paper basket with some tissue paper flowers.  Take the basket home – but not just give the basket to your mom or auntie or best friend’s mom – you would hang the basket on the door – or set it on the door mat – then ring the bell and hide, hide somewhere where you could hopefully see the person’s face as they opened the door and received the lovely May surprise of a handmade basket of May flowers.  One year, I remember we got those plastic strawberry baskets and put paper handles on them and pretty wildflowers that we had grown in April in the baskets and gave them to our chosen surprisee.  How fun!

Then in high school – there was the great fun of giving a May basket to the current or perhaps desired sweetheart.  Sometimes anonymously to avoid complications.  But the fun or watching as the person received a basket from a secret admirer and then tried to figure out the rest of the day who that admirer was – and sometimes being the recipient of a secret admirer’s basket.

Gentle customs for times we remember as gentler.  Perhaps it is time to revive some of these gentle customs.  Could something as simple as a May basket change a person’s day?  Yes, it can.  Yes, it does.  Could something as simple as a May basket change a person’s life?  Yes, again yes.  Could something as simple as a May kindness or a June kindness or any day kindness change the world.  Yes, again yes.

Simple kindness, simple surprises, simple thoughts of love and care.  We can change someone’s world today – or tomorrow or the next day.

Happy May Day!  It’s a May day all month long!

In His name, Tammy

OK, now those of you who know me know that cleaning is just not my thing.  My dad, my cousin and I are founders of the We Three Pigs School of Housekeeping.  If you have dust bunnies, name them and they become pets – then you don’t have to clean them.  If you can find it in the pile, it is a horizontal filing system (new one I just learned).  But there comes a time to each one of us when we must clean out stuff or we risk going on Hoarders.  So this past couple of weeks has been some of that going on – at a generally leisurely pace – but at a steady pace.  Several things have happened including finding floor in the office (although truth to tell, there is more floor still to be discovered) and finding the top of the dining room table.

I think of Paul with Onesimus.  Paul had this fellow who was very helpful and useful to him, Onesimus.  Paul seemed to just sort of attract folks who would follow him around and learn from him and help him in various ways.  The trouble with Onesimus was that he was a runaway slave, and probably a thief as well.  And Paul knew his master, Philemon.  What to do, what to do?  Paul really could use Onesimus’ help as Paul was himself a prisoner of Rome at the time, and Onesimus could run lots of errands and was apparently very handy as well as being very well-loved by Paul – called “my very heart”, at one point.  But he was not a free man, nor did he belong to Paul and he had some “spainin’ to do” to Philemon.  So Paul felt compelled to send him back to Philemon, but Paul wrote a letter explaining a lot to Philemon about the relationship Paul had with Onesimus, with Philemon and that Philemon and Onesimus had with each other, which had changed because Onesimus had now become a Christian, as was Philemon.  Paul appeals to Philemon to forgive Onesimus, to take him back as a brother rather than as a slave, and to change anything he owes Philemon to Paul’s own account.   In short, Paul asks Philemon to forgive Onesimus and to reconcile with him completely.

Forgiveness is like house  cleaning.  We don’t really like to do it sometimes.  Sometimes we say the act done against us is too big or too horrible.  Sometimes we just enjoy having that wrong held over the other person’s head.  Sometimes we cherish it and relish it and reveal in the bitterness of it and of our own victimization.  But eventually, we have to clean out the unforgiveness in our hearts and minds and find the clean surface to begin again, to live without the clutter of unforgiveness – either our own inability to forgive or our lack of accepting forgiveness for our own wrongdoing.

So spring cleaning – not just of the house of brick or wood – but of the house of our heart.  The house where Christ longs to dwell.  At the end of his letter, Paul asks Philemon to prepare a guest room for him becuase he hopes to come for a visit.  Prepare a space in your heart for Christ to live in – he is going to want to be able to walk on the floor and eat on the table after all.

In His name, Tammy

Happy Easter!  Yep, it is still Easter – for several more weeks – until May 27, it is Easter season!  I love that we have so much time to celebrate new life.  After some long winters, we really need a long spring and not just to thaw out.

But one interesting wrinkle that occurs in my life for the last 12 years now, is that I have my annual M D Anderson cancer followup in April.  Usually around mid-April.  So sometimes it falls in Lent, sometimes it falls during Holy Week – at least once I got my news on Maundy Thursday, and sometimes it falls during Easter.  There is something very powerful about facing mortality during Holy Week and facing new life during Easter.  The trip to the tomb early on a morning and finding not at all what you expected.  The confusion, the inability to take it all in, the smells, the feelings, the sights – the surprises, the miracles, the LIFE.

And so, once again, I journeyed into the valley of the shadow of death, only to find that there is once again, new life rising up.  Praise be to God!

He is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Hallelujah!

And because he is risen and is alive – we too rise and are alive, and we don’t even have to die to rise.  Although that too will happen.  We can rise to new life, right here, right now.  Rise up and walk.   Rise up and live.  Peace be with you.

In His name, Tammy

I acutally love spam in a can – but spam on my blog and/or website – not so much.  I don’t know exactly how they found me or what to do next – those of you with a blog – what do you do to block spam?!  Besides monitor every post – which is what I do – but really folks, what is the point of the spam?  It is so obviously spam and how much free time do you have?  Of course – perhaps this is part os someone’s job…

Still, let’s keep spam where it belongs – in the can, in the skillet, and on the plate – not in the web – too messy!

And in looking at forgiveness and spam – well, really, if this is an institutional thing, which I suspect – forgiveness is not possible.  It does not fit the qualifications we have outlined before – no one was really harmed, although I do feel wronged.  But I don’t actually even know if the spammers are real people and so the first questions are unanswerable – Who did what?  Therefore, forgiveness doesn’t even actually come into play using our criteria.  But annoyance does – so I am annoyed, but there is no one to forgive.

Ah, the dilemnas of modern life and timeless issues!

In His name, Tammy

A good friend, you know who you are Marilyn, and I were having a conversation awhile back.  We were discussing among many things, justice issues.  She told me a quote by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. which has just stuck in my mind and won’t let go!  It comes from a letter he wrote while in the Birmingham jail.  “An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself.”  This is a very challenging statement to us all.  What kinds of things do we impose on others but do not intend to impose on ourselves?  Really gets me thinking and thinking.  Still pondering all the permutations – but also beginning to look at how my decisions and actions can oppose unjustice, and especially unjust laws.  The quote works for all kinds of injustice, not just legal injustice and laws.   All kinds of justice.  Justice – one of the big three.

“What does the Lord require of you?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

In His name, Tammy

Again, I am treading carefully and lightly into the Jewish understanding of forgiveness.  Please, please correct any thoughts I have mis-understood or gotten wrong.  I believe our understanding of Jewish thought is crucial to our understanding of Jesus and how he interacted with others in his life on earth.  We attempt to understand Jesus teachings from another time, another culture, another language, another worldview.  We want to experience God in all his fullness, and that means to continually strive to use our minds, our bodies, our souls, our spirits - our entire beings to reach toward God who is already all around us and with us.  In honor and humility, we reach up and out.

The Jewish understanding of forgiveness involves:

1) Sin distrupts our relationship with other people

2) Sin disrupts our relationship with God

3) Only the offending party can set the wrong right

4) Only the offended party can forgo the dept of sin

5) The offended person is NOT obliged to forgo the debt if the offender is not sincere in his or her repentance and has not taken concrete steps to correct the wrong done (see post on repentance)

6) There is a type of forgiveness that is an act of the heart – this is more an act of mercy, here the offended person may forgo the debt, here the offended person achieves empathy for the troubledness of another person, not so much “letting them off of the hook” as understanding, sympathizing and empathizing with our common brokenness and woundedness – remember however, this does mean reconciliation occurs

7) There is a third type of forgiveness, atonement or purificiation – this is the total wiping away of all sinfulness and it is only granted by God, no one else can do this

How do these ideas on forgiveness impact your understanding of forgiveness?  How do they apply to us today?  What is challenging about these ideas?   Do you think they differ from out Christian understanding of forgivness – if so, how?

Read 2 Samuel 16:5-13 and 2 Samuel 19:18-23.  Use the questions on forgiveness.  Use the Jewish understanding of repentance in the encounters of David and Shimei.  Use the Jewish understanding of forgiveness in the story of David and Shimei.  How does this help you in your own walk to repentance and forgiveness?  How does it help you to work towards forgiving others?

In His name, Tammy

With great trepidation, I am going to write what I have read about the Jewish understanding of repentance and forgiveness.  Please, any Jewish readers, correct what I have wrong.  This is what I have read and understand to be what Jewish leaders and rabbis generally agree upon.   This first post in on repentance.  Next one is on forgiveness.

The Jewish understanding of repentance requires five elements, most rabbis agree:

1) Recognition of sins as sins – moral and intellectual

2) Remorse – feeling of regret, failure, anguish – this can be spiritual as well as physcal, some people have a very physical reaction of remorse

3) Desisting from sin – this is an active action, stopping the sin and resolving not to do it again

4) Restitution where possible – making good the damage done, an interesting side point on this one – the one injured is the one who gets to set the restititution within reason, not the offender – to allow the offender to set restitution is to injure the wonged person yet again

5) Confession – ritual and personal

It is interesting to note that we, as Christians, also use the same elements for repentance.  Although we do not lay them out as neatly as our Jewish brothers and sisters do.  We also feel that repentance requires these five elements – but we do not in all cases require ritual confession – especially protestants do not.  And we often hedge on the desisting from sin.  True repentance though as Jesus taught, requires that we make sincere efforts to “go and sin no more”.   And we often “pardon” sins against ourselves, forgoing our just restitution.

How do you see these elements interacting with forgiveness?  Both our requesting, receiving and accepting forgiveness from God and from other people?  How about our forgiving others?

Why do you think each element is important or why not?

During the season of Lent, we often focus on repentance and forgiveness.  Consider using these elements to repent and seek forgiveness from God or another person.

In His name, Tammy

When we need to forgive others, there are several things that come into play.  Forgiveness is a process more than it is a single act.  It is a process for us to understand God and God’s forgiveness.  It is a process for us to acknowledge our own need for forgiveness from God and from other people, and even from our own self.  It is a process for us to receive and accept forgiveness.  So it is no surprise, really, that forgiving others is a process.

Sometimes the process is quick – short and sweet.  Sometimes it takes a long, long time.  But forgiving others is possible.

The stages of forgiveness that we tend to go through are:

1) We hurt – we acknowledge the injury (the wound)

2) We hate – we acknowledge the wrong and the person who did it (hate may seem a strong word for some injuries – but we do at the very least get angry about what has happened and who did it)

3) We heal – we rediscover the humanity of the person who hurt us, we see the human being called to be a child of God, we do not diministy the wrongness (no excuses, no tolerance), we do not turn the person into a close friend, we acknowledge that the person is capable of doing this again

4) We surrender our right to get even – we give up vengeance (our pleasure at seeing the person get their due), we do NOT give up justice (the payment of a FAIR penalty for wrongdoing – this can include moral justice as well)

5) We review our feelings toward the person we forgive – we feel differently about the person because we see the person differently (see #3 above), we are healing (again healing is a process as well), we may begin to bless the person – this may or may not lead to reconciliation, reconciliation does not depend on just the forgiver, it also depends on the offender, but we do wish the person well

6) We cannot count on a happy ending, we can only forgive as God forgives

Read the story of Joseph in Genesis 37-50.   Use the questions of what happened, who did what and so on to examine the story.

Now look at the stages of forgiveness.  Imagine Joseph going through those various stages during his life.  How do you think he came to the point of forgiving his brothers so completely?  Did he do it on his own or by himself?  Who helped Joseph to forgive?   Do you think the brothers were able to eventually accept Joseph’s forgiveness?  Why or why not?

In His name, Tammy

Read Matthew 26:69-75 and John 21:15-19. How does Peter feel after he hears the rooster crow? Have you ever felt this way? Have ever betrayed a friend or family member – oh, not to this extent, but betrayed them still the same? How does it feel? Have you ever been betrayed?
How does Peter react when he sees Jesus on the beach? How do you think he feels to be with Jesus again? Does Peter ever say “I’m sorry”? Does Jesus ever say “I forgive you”? Yet we know that Peter has been forgiven. How does Jesus let Peter know he is forgiven? How does Peter know he has been forgiven? How does Peter receive forgiveness? Do you think Peter forgives himself?

Have you ever had a situation where you needed to receive forgiveness, to know you were forgiven and just never received that forgiveness or did not know for sure? Spend some time with that situation and then experience Jesus’ forgiveness.

In His name, Tammy