Holy Disatisfaction..

(A repost of a previous one)

May this year bring you the great discomfort expressed in this prayer:

May God bless you with discomfort

At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships

So that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger

At injustice, oppression and exploitation of people

So that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears

To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger, and war

So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them

And turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness

To believe that you can make a difference in the world,

So that you can do what others claim cannot be done

To bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.

I had something more to say; something about our appetites for the new, the shiny, the conspicuous. Something about those appetites preventing us within the Church from lives of self-denial and sacrifice, about our appetites being the very thing that gives life to the evil we all so bemoan, how I wonder if Jesus was saying something deeply profound when He taught about the love of money. But I'm so weary of the preaching, of calling people to embrace something whole-heartedly and without compromise when I grasp the same thing haltingly and with failing trepidation. I'm running out of words and inclined within my spirit to believe that it's time to shut up and show up.

I want 2007 to be a year of much less so it can be a year of much more; a year letting the "good" pass me by so I'll have ready hands and hearts to grab hold of the "better" when it comes.

A year of internal over external, kingdom values over the crappy substitutes and shoddy knock-offs. Because, simply, there must be more.