Forgiveness is the Shortest Route to God

Dear NEXUS Friends,

I am sure that last Sunday was great with Kenny leading the session on the healing qualities of forgiveness. It is interesting that just very recently at work I was having lunch with a lady that I have worked with on different projects over the years. I really did not know a lot about her, but as we were having lunch I was sharing about the NEXUS class that I help to lead. We were talking about forgiveness and she described herself as a “recovering Catholic”. She had been raise by a single mother and spent most of her younger years in a Catholic school where the Nuns were quite strict and her memories from childhood were of “scary ladies” wearing long black dresses. Her mother had also left her at home many times alone and her single goal was to get out of the house as soon as she graduated from high school, get her education and move far away from her childhood home.

She accomplished this goal and graduated with honors and was recruited heavily by several major oil companies. Upon finding a job and getting her own place to live, she believed that she could start life anew and find the peace of mind she had always yearned for. Contrary to her hopes and desires she found herself bound by pain and fear and repeating the same victim role again and again for many years. Her life was spent in pain and self-pity. She discovered that she was imprisoned by her own anger and by the rage she felt about being abandoned by her mother and thrown into the school with the “scary ladies”. Rather than protecting her from the past, her anger became her jailer, causing her to repeat the past. She got angry every time she heard the words God or church, seeing them as the cause of her pain.

Over the past five years however, she had begun to search for spirituality. She became increasingly aware of how she was blaming God for her feelings of abandonment and emotional abuse. The more she became aware of this the more she was able to see how she was responsible for holding tightly to the pain and anger she felt. As she began to let go of the pain, she became aware that her mother had actually not abandoned her at all, but had worked late into the night many nights to be able to pay for their home, provide food and clothing. She also became awakened to the fact that the “sisters” at the catholic school were not as scary as her childhood memories portrayed them. In fact, over time she realized that while strict in their teaching methods, they were doing so out of good will. Eventually, she was able to return to her home and reconcile with her mother and even took the next step and returned to the school and walked the halls just to prove to herself that it was not the nightmarish memory that she had kept for so long.

She did a great deal of forgiving and each day brought greater freedom from the pain and anger associated with her past. Even as she told me that story over lunch, I could see a brightness in here eyes that reflected her deep desire to have a personal relationship with God. I continually am amazed at how God reveals himself through the lives of other people. Opening my own eyes and ears reveals the remarkable essence of this life He has so graciously given me.

Think about these six beliefs for awhile and we can discuss it more at NEXUS this Sunday:

1. Believe that holding on to grievances and unforgiving thoughts is a way for you to suffer
2. Believe that you have the power to choose the thoughts you put in your mind
3. Believe that holding on to anger does not bring you what you really want
4. Believe that it is to your benefit to make decisions based on love rather than fear
5. Believe that there is no value in punishing yourself
6. Believe that you deserve to be happy and that is what God desires for you

See you this Sunday for the NEXUS experience at 11:00 AM at AUMC!

Peace,

The Healing Power of Forgiveness

Dear NEXUS Friends,

Great news this week! Kenny Shortsleeve will be teaching the NEXUS class on “The Healing Power of Forgiveness”. I know this will be a wonderful experience as Kenny shares from the depth and wisdom of his heart. I will be back in the saddle next week and we will continue the lessons on Forgiveness.

Something to think about next week. The great preacher Charles Stanley recommends following these 10 steps to forgiveness:

1. Understand that it is often unwise to forgive face to face. This tends to make the other person feel “put down” and make you look holier-than-thou.

2. Select a time and place when you can be alone for a season of time.

3. Pray and ask the Holy Spirit to bring to your mind all the people you need to forgive and the events you need to forgive them for.

4. Make a list of everything the Holy Spirit brings to your mind, even if it seems trivial to you. (Do not rush through this step: allow the Holy Spirit all the time He needs to speak to you.)

5. Take two chairs and arrange them facing each other. Seat yourself in one of the chairs.

6. Imagine that the first person on your list is sitting in the other chair. Disclose everything you can remember that the person has done to hurt you. Do not hold back the tears or the emotions that accompany the confessions.

7. Choose by an act of your will to forgive that person once and for all time. You may not feel like being forgiving. That’s all right. Just do it and the feelings will follow. God will take care of that. Do not doubt what you have done is real and valid.

8. Release the person from the debt you feel is owed you for the offense. Say, “You are free and forgiven.”

9. If the person is still a part of your life, now is a good time to accept the individual without wanting to change aspects of their personality or behavior.

10. Thank the Lord for using each person as a tool in your life to deepen your insight into His grace and conforming you to the image of His Son.

Peace,

Forgiveness is the Path to the Soul

Dear NEXUS friends,

Last week we started on a journey of forgiveness. It is an opportunity for us to explore and understand what forgiveness really means, to learn to let go of the many things in life that brings us so much unhappiness, find happiness by completely suspending judgements, and practicing love and forgiveness. Sounds easy to sum up in one sentence, but how do we begin to practice this and live a life of continuous forgiving and being forgiven?

Perhaps we should start with the end result. Consider for a moment that happiness is our natural state of being. Take a look at life from the perspective that you are a spiritual being who is just temporarily in your body. If you really can make that cognitive paradigm shift, you begin to understand that peace, love and happiness are inseparable. This breaks the belief system that our true identity is limited to our bodies and personalities. Once that belief has been vanquished, forgiveness can then teach us that it is possible to choose love over fear and peace over conflict regardless of the circumstances affecting our lives.

Where does this healer named forgiveness come from? It comes from our spiritual being, our soul which is always connected to God. It is only through His grace and presence that we can suspend judgements, release anger and hatred, forgive and receive this miracle of forgiveness.

To forgive and be forgiven is to feel the compassion, gentleness, tenderness and caring that is always within our hearts, no matter how the world may seem at the moment. Forgiveness is simply the path to our soul.

Please join me this week to share your thoughts and stories of forgiveness. NEXUS at AUMC immediately following Connexion at 11:00 AM. See you there!

Peace,

Forgiveness

Dear NEXUS friends,

Words never spoken. Pain that lies deep beneath the layers of the soul. A heart that beats, but every other beat is one of regret. A life not yet fulfilled or realized. These are the characteristics of a life that has not forgiven or needs forgiveness.

“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” This is a pivotal phrase in the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ and it reveals the unambiguously mandated centrality of forgiveness in the Christian faith. Within Judaism, Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, requires repentance and forgiveness between humans, and between humans and God. Muslims pray for forgiveness five times a day using the words: “I seek God’s forgiveness from all wrongdoings, and to God I return.”

Forgiveness is such a part of the human condition and lies so solidly in our sensibilities that the actual act almost seems mechanistic, sentimental or superficial. In fact forgiveness truly practiced is not an exercise in easy answers or cheap grace. It is a difficult and complex human interaction that requires a person to completely release all pent up emotions of anger, hatred and extreme anguish and pain. The end result is nothing short of a miracle and a complete experience of God’s grace. To be forgiven is to be set free and experience a therapeutic rebirth of life.

I want to spend the next couple of months exploring the authentic act of forgiveness and the mystery of being forgiven. I hope you will join me this Sunday.

In closing, I want to tell you how much I missed being in NEXUS these past 3 weeks. It has indeed left a hole in my life that I really must fill. I also want to thank Carrie for stepping in during my absence, and based on all of the feedback I received, did a marvelous job.

See you Sunday at 11:00 AM, immediately following the Connexion Service.

With love,

The Dawn is Coming

My dear NEXUS friends,

It has been a rough two weeks. I mentioned last week that Carla and I said goodbye to our brother Dale. This past Monday, we had to say goodbye to our nephew Robbie who had been battling lung cancer for the past 16 months. I am writing this letter on the plane back from Little Rock, AR. Carla and I flew up early this morning to attend the services and be with our families. Saying goodbye for the final time is one of the difficult, but necessary events in our lives. Carla and I counted the opportunity to spend final months, weeks and days with our brother and nephew as the highest honor of our lives. These were truly holy moments.

Finding comfort in the ones we love helps to heal the hurt, but I say to you today finding comfort in Jesus is everlasting. The dawn will come in the morning and with that the confidence our goodbyes will soon be turned into hello celebrations. This weekend symbolizes the celebration of life where the bonds are broken, joy springs forward and eternity is realized. I hope this Sunday you will take time to celebrate the resurrection of life with your families, and if they are not nearby, your church family will surround you with that love.

I will see you day after tomorrow where we can together celebrate life in all of it’s splendor!!

Peace to you,

In Honor of Dale Medley

This week we said goodbye to our dear brother Dale Medley. He lived life on his own terms with courage, integrity and honesty. He leaves a legacy of two children and two grandchildren who will remember him by recounting the stories of his life. He loved them unconditionally. We will miss him greatly and there is an emptiness and void left by his departure. May God Bless you Dale.

God’s Patience

Dear NEXUS Friends,

Max Lucado in his book “A Love Worth Giving”, paints a very descriptive and terrifying picture about a man and wife hiding in the house terrified of the knock on the door. It is the eve of eviction and the bank has given them one day to pay the mortgage. Credit card agents are camping on the front lawn and loan sharks have their number programmed into their speed dial on their mobile phones. This couple has spent the last of their food stamps, their water and power have been turned off, the car repossessed, and as they cower in the house an IRS agent is knocking on the door. He wants the back taxes they owe.

With fear and trembling, they open the door and he tells them how much they owe. They try to explain their situation, but he is not sympathetic at all and even mentions jail. At this point a warm bed out of the reach of creditors doesn’t sound half bad.

Just as he motions for the sheriff, his cell phone rings. It is Washington and the president wants a word with the couple. The president wants an explanation, but the couple has none. They only plea for patience. The president listens in silence and asks to speak to the agent again. In a few minutes, the agent ends the call and says, “I don’t know who you know, but your debt is paid”, he says tearing up the papers and letting the pieces fall to the ground.

Now stand where that couple stood on the porch and look at the scraps of paper, the torn pieces scattered and strewn across the lawn. Stare at the proof of God’s patience. You were in debt and he paid in full.

Now that is the first part of the story The rest of the story waits for you to be at AUMC this Sunday at 11:00 AM for the NEXUS Experience and hear the second half. I hope you will join me.

Peace

It’s a Wrap – Falling Upward

Dear NEXUS Friends,

I hope that all of you enjoyed this past week of spring break and spring weather! I know I enjoyed a couple of days off We had lots of family and friends coming in and out of our lives all week which made it a remarkable experience and is part of the reason this Friday letter is again on Saturday!

This week we will wrap up our series on Richard Rohr’s “Falling Upward” and move on to what is next. I plan to start a new series soon after Easter, but do not want to begin one now as I will be out a Sunday prior to Easter and another one right after Easter. We will be rewarded with a guest teacher for both of those Sundays. As we have in the past, NEXUS will not meet on Easter Sunday as many of you will have family in or possibly traveling.

Here is a preview of the closing and summary that we will discuss tomorrow:

In the Book of Hebrews the call is given to “press on to maturity, by moving on from the basics about Christ’s word” (Heb. 6:1). The reason why this word of wisdom is given to the readers of this sermon/letter is that the author recognized how easy it is to get stuck on the basics and never move on to spiritual maturity.

For the most part we Christians are content to live inside the comfortable confines of the institution and the tradition. We’re not too eager to ask questions or wrestle with doubt and despair. So, the numbers of people who take the journey toward maturity, and thus union with God are few in number. The road is narrow, and thus we prefer the wide and smooth highways. But, if we’re willing to follow the path that Rohr sets out, there will be blessings to be found – though they may be not the riches that some would promise.

The benefits, however, are wonderful. There may be sadness, but there will be less anxiety and fear, and thus openness to others. What you may have avoided in the first half of life, in the second half becomes your friend and teacher. And, this should come as no surprise, considering this perspective, Jesus would have been and is, a “second-half-of-life man,” but as Rohr points out he had the “unenviable task of trying to teach and be understood by a largely first-half-of-life history, church, and culture” (p. 149). The choice of moving into the second-half-of-life is ours to make or not. To be ordinary is not really a choice, but to move on to something extraordinary is a choice. The question is – wherever you are in life, whatever your stage of development, are you ready to make that choice?

Come join the NEXUS Experience as we wrap up Richard Rohr’s brilliant book. See you at AUMC, 11:00 AM immediately following Connexion!

Peace,

Falling Upward and Onward

Dear NEXUS Friends,

First thing I want to mention is tonight we all need to “spring forward”!! I know….we lose an hour during this time of the year, so you will need to go to bed an earlier if you want to keep that hour in your nocturnal dreams. If you don’t set your clocks ahead, you will show up for NEXUS just as we are all leaving for lunch.

We are going to spend two more sessions on the “Falling Upward” series. During the next two weeks, I am going to be planning our next topic(s). If you have any topics you have passion about, please let me know.

This week we are going to continue to think about second half life from the perspective that you have real choices about how you approach this part of your life. Most of us begin thinking about the second half of life in our mid to late forties, although there are many examples of people beginning much earlier based on life experiences. We tend to think ahead to second half of life as largely about getting older, dealing with health issues and letting go of our physical life, but the whole thesis of what we have been studying is exactly the opposite. What looks and feels like falling can be largely experienced as falling upward and onward, into a much broader and deeper world. Here the soul finds it fullness and is connected to the whole, and therefore lives in the “big picture”.

It is not a loss, but indeed a gain. Not losing, but actually winning. This is an opportunity to become radiant through suffering. It is the time to find human fullness based on all the experiences you have collected along the journey. It is a time when we can fully accept our spirituality and find that radiance. As Jesus says in John 7: 38 “He who believes in me, as the scripture said, from his innermost being will flow the living waters.”

Come join me this Sunday for the NEXUS experience at 11:00 AM at AUMC. If you are traveling this week for Spring Break, then please stay safe and our prayers will follow you.

Peace,

Salt, Yeast and Light

Dear NEXUS Friends,

Another great discussion last week. I am looking forward to NEXUS again this Sunday, although it will be a small and intimate group as many of our women are on a retreat celebrating their strong identity in the church.

The lesson this week is somewhat provocative in that focus for second half lifers are really to satisfy “soul needs” and not “ego needs”. Rohr makes a compelling point as he talks about our institutions, corporations and even churches operating on “first-half-of-life-tasks”. They are most concerned about membership requirements, policies, procedures, protocols and precedents. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong in this as it is necessary for their survival and growth. They could not exist or thrive without practicing these ways of working.

People moving into second half of life begin to shift focus away from these types of processes and rules. It is a natural part of the development process, but we still have to live in our society and therefore presents a dilemma. Now remember that dilemmas cannot be solved, they can only be managed and this presents a creative tension. Second half of lifers still must live in the world, but find their needs met in new and different ways. Before I go on, I want to remind you again that first half of lifers and second half of lifers are not necessarily defined by chronological age, so don’t get hung up on the age factor. I have met 10 year olds that seem to be in their second half of life and inversely 70 years olds that appear to still be in their first half of life.

We begin to practice what Jesus talks about in Matthew 5:13-16 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”

Soulful people are the necessary salt, yeast, and light needed to grow groups up. All institutions need second-half-of-life in their ranks; just “two or three” in each organization are enough to keep them from total self interest.

So while we may think as we move into second half of life that we no longer carry the influence that we used to, we find our outlook, wisdom and new developing talents are just as valuable and necessary. Something to look forward to wouldn’t you say? Let’s discuss this more Sunday when we meet at 11:00 AM at AUMC for the NEXUS Experience.

See you there!!