Come and Stay a While- Shalom & Wholeness

Few words in all of the Old Testament are as rich as the Hebrew word shalom. As a matter of fact, the translations of this one little word are varied and numerous- trying in vain to capture the fullness of the idea it is meant to communicate. The most common translation we have for the word is peace, but that does not seem to go far enough. Therefore, it is also translated prosperity, tranquility, well-being, safety, and security. Maybe the best word we have in the English language, however, that even comes close to capturing the true essence of shalom is the word wholeness. Because at its core shalom is about experiencing the creation intent of God. Shalom is life as God intended it to be- life before sin and brokenness. Shalom is finding our way back into the garden where we were created to enjoy and experience God in His fullness as we "walk with HIm in the cool of the day." It is what our souls are really and truly longing for- deep communion and connection and intimacy with our God.
-Jim Branch

The biblical word that most fully expresses this theological understanding of community is shalom, sometimes translated from the Hebrew as "peace." Shalom is an all-encomapssing word covering all the many relationships of life and expression a vision of what the Israelites conceived of as the ideal of what life was intended by God to be. In describing shalom, commentators use words as "wholeness," "totality," "the untrammeled, free growth of the soul in conjunction with others," or "harmonious community." Or as a report of the World Council of Churches puts it: "Shalom is a social happening, an event in interpersonal relations." The report continues, "The goal towards which God is working, i.e., the ultimate end of his mission, is the establishment of the shalom, and this involves the realization of the full potentialities of all creation, and the ultimate reconciliation and unity in Christ.
-Mutual Ministry by James C. Fenhagen

Shalom...gathers all aspects of wholeness that result from God's will being completed in us. It is the work of God that, when complete, releases streams of living water in us and pulsates with eternal life. Every time Jesus healed, forgave or called someone, we have a demonstration of shalom.
-A Long Obedience in the Same Direction by Eugene Peterson

Shalom is a peace that not only recalls all the pieces of one's life but sees how the parts fit together in a unified and glorious whole. Shalom involves rest and gratitude; it provides a balance and harmony where all things seem right.
-The Healing Path by Dan Allender

The Christian journey is a journey in wholeness. It is what we might call an adventure in spiritual growth. To talk about spiritual growth, however, is to talk about all of life. Spiritual growth involves not only the way we "pray" but the way we "play." It is concerned with harmony, the person is nourished by the Spirit of God. Harmony emerges when our work, maintenance, play, and freesense are held together in realistic balance.
-Mutual Ministry by James C. Fenhagen.

The witness and vision of John's Gospel call us to enter more deeply into that mystery of the union between the living Jesus and the believer. We share the shalom, that vibrant word of peace and wholeness spoken in the locked room on Resurrection night. Our empty nets are filled from the lake; the fire and food are prepared for us on the beach. Our inner healing moves to a deeper place, and Jesus Christ gives us the mandate: "Feed my sheep."
-Feed My Shepherd by Flora Slosson Wuellner

Every summer, I go to the Boundary Waters, a million acres of pristine wilderness along the Minnesota-Ontario border. My first trip, years ago, was a vacation, pure and simle. But as I returned time and again to that elemental world of water, rock, woods, and sky, my vacation began to feel more like a pilgrimage to me- an annual trek to holy ground driven by spiritual need. Douglas Wood's mediation on the jack pine, a tree native to that part of the world, names what I go up north seeking: images of how life looks when it is lived with integrity.
Thomas Merton claimed that "there is in all things... a hidden wholeness."... up north, in the wilderness, I sense the wholeness "hidden in all things." It is the taste of wild berries, the scent of sun-baked pine, the sight of the Northern Lights, the sound of water lapping the shore, signs of a bedrock integrity that is eternal and beyond all doubt. And when I return to a human world that is transient and riddled with disbelief, I have new eyes for the wholeness hidden in me and my kind and anew heart for loving even our imperfections.
In fact, the wilderness constantly reminds me that wholeness is not about perfection. On July 4, 1999, a twenty-minute maelstrom of hurricane-force winds took down twenty million trees across the Boundary waters. A month later, when I made my annual pilgrimage up north, I was heartbroken by the ruin and wondered whether I wanted to return. And yet on each visit since, I have been astonished to see how nature uses devastation to stimulate new growth, slowly but persistently healing her own wounds.
Wholeness does not mean perfection: it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life. Knowing this gives me hope that human wholeness- mine, yours, ours- need not be a utopian dream, if we can use devastation as a seedbed for new life.
-A Hidden Wholeness by Parker J. Palmer

His Creation

Only He can make beauty

of the rugged and unruly
without moving to tame
the wildness inherit.

Freedom is His artist's tool,
liberty His vision.
Through gentle strength incomparable
He sets aflame the spirit.

Don't flee to tasks and stature
these things to fill your soul
their chains and shackles bind you
and slavery takes its hold

It's He who formed the mountains.
It's He who filled the sea.
The longing in your heart for grandeur
is infinitely deep.

You need a risk and wonder
you need the wind to sail
The life you live is anchored in
but already there's a gale.

Run to raw and powerful,
stability by peril.
Risk it all and find your call
along the path so narrow

Reoccurring Dreams

Reoccurring dreams

And fantasies

Passing back into my mind for storage

Truth and nonsense,

Our carelessness

Feeling to be free forever and I wait

Ten thousand days

Just to wonder if it ever really were

Or as it seems

As in a dream

Only like the secret keepers like to say,

"Those were the days"

And how we danced because our youth was fading fast

It never lasts

But I don't want to chase the place I'm in or wish

A moment by

I would not hide

Because the sun requests our company and we

Can not deny

That in each night

There is a time when we consider life or pray

To be awake

Appreciate

That each breath could be the last one that I take

Loose Thread

Like loose thread, it teases.

I take hold and I pull.

Carefully, cautiously

Begging it, "Unravel."

So delicate, it breaks,

Becoming but a shred.

How pitiful!

String between my finger tips,

Laughing as it twirls,

Mocks my own mortality,

and tuants me when it curls.

Fraying ends distract

The tatters from their tales

Making sure to hide the faded truth

And all that it entails.

It's clear I'll never you

Your full length or how

A stitch once made you lovely

Or how love wore you out.

Now though, I can see

A glimpse of what's beneath

And say that I am satisfied

With knowing just this piece.

In Response to Robert Frost's "Wind & Window Flower"

I do not believe the winter breeze

might love and long to stroke the window flower.

Fog upon the glass is deceitful

misty like the breath of a kiss

that almost came to be.

It seems to beckon gently and to tease

as the wind shivers in the gaps along the shutters.

But the wiser know the frosty snow sparkles with a secret

hiding behind his wintery, love-sick eyes;

a plan to steal away the life that waits

so patiently upon the sill behind the pane.

Faith

His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward Him and find Him- though He is not far from any one of us.

Acts 17:27

"The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we will take this view, life will become one great romance- a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time."
-My Utmost for His Highest

God placed in your heart the desire to know Him so that you would begin feeling your way towards Him. You found little hints and great signs that pointed towards Him. You felt His presence, but you were not able to find Him on your own.

Then He began to reveal Himself to you. He began to romance you. He tugged on the strings of your heart, pulling on the desire he placed within you, drawing you closer as he revealed more and more of HImself. And He led you that way, by the strings of your heart, to the tipping point. You walked right up to the edge-you could not help but follow Him- and then you fell. You tumbled into a love that was true and undeniable because you knew your lover and you knew that He would never leave you.

That is faith.

A confident man walks into a room and everyone can see, written in his expression and displayed in his body language, that he is confident. He never chose to be confident, but because he knows who he is and because he likes who he is, he IS confident. His confident nature shows in his manner.

Faith is confidence produced by knowing who God is and accepting what God did and is doing for you. You do not choose to have faith. You chose to follow the desire He gave you- to search for Him. You began to feel your way towards Him and He began to reveal Himself to you

Begin with the End in Mind

"How different our lives are when we really know what is deeply important to us, and, keeping that picture in mind, we manage ourselves each day to be and to do what really matters most. If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster. We may be very busy, we may be very efficient, but we will also be truly effective only when we begin with the end in mind."

"in developing our own self-awareness many of us discover ineffective scripts, deeply embedded habits that are totally unworthy of us, totally incongruent with the things we really value in life. Habit 2 says we don't have to live with those scripts. We are response-able to use our imagination and creativity to write new ones that are more effective, more congruent with our deepest values and with the correct principles that give our values meaning."

"I can live out of my imagination instead of my memory. I can tie myself to my limitless potential instead of my limiting past."

"People can't live with change if there's not a changeless core inside them. They key to the ability to change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about and what you value."

"whatever is at the center of our life will be the source of our security, guidance, wisdom, and power."

Guidance means your source of direction in life. Encompassed by your map, your internal frame of reference that interprets for you what is happening out there, are standards or principles or implicit criteria that govern moment by moment decision-making and doing.

Wisdom is your perspective on life, your sense of balance, your understanding of how the various parts and principles apply and relate to each other. It embraces judgment, discernment, comprehension. It is a gestalt or oneness, an integrated wholeness.

Power is the faculty or capacity to act, the strength and potency to accomplish something. It is the vital energy to make choices and decisions. It also includes the capacity to overcome deeply embedded habits and to cultivate higher, more effective ones."

"each of us has a center, though we usually don't recognize it as such. neither do we recognize the all-encompassing effects of that center on every aspect of our lives.

-The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People