Another Trip Around The Sun

In my retirement I celebrated a birthday recently and my nephew, Cody, sent me an email that wished me a happy birthday and added, "enjoy another trip around the Sun." I think the "trip around the sun" thought for a year of life, has been used for many years. In our popular culture, there have been several songs written and sung by noted artists using all or a part of that phrase as the theme. While on the surface the "trip around the Sun" phrase is a cute way of expressing a year of our lives, it has a much deeper meaning that involves our creation and our belief system concerning a "creating spirit" in our lives. As the Gospel of John begins at verse one, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...........in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it."

As we ponder this gift of life and where it all comes from, we can come to understand our Creator God in a deeper way, just as the ancients did in their primitive way of observing the earth and sky above them. Not having a theology per se, they were able to have some understanding that the vastness around them couldn't be an accident. In fact, that their own minds and bodies were remarkable in and of themselves. While we think of long airline flights to different parts of the country or the world, we are actually always on a flight that makes a complete orbit around the Sun in one year, yet is never ending. While things go wrong in space and in our lives, it is hard not to feel the power that is all around us, and like the ancients we have continuous feelings of something great in our lives and feel comforted by His Spirit. Unlike the ancients we have access to many resources, including the Bible, that help us better understand this loving Creator God.

PROMISE - my psalm

Jesus, on your cross you have blessed me; God has lost all His memory of my life lived in Sin. Oh Your death brings forgiveness and a promise I see. Yes, Your light shines -- New life begins.

Save me from my many temptations; when I look at my sad self I see I've not begun; to turn to You as I know that You want me to.

Help me seek You, in my life.

Every time I turn to things that aren't desirable for me; Your angels fly over to watch and warn me, I know You won't ignore me.

Your light, is the light I must search for; I must look for the new life, that brings peace and ends Sin. Oh Your light shines and shows me that my darkness will end, and eternal life begins.

For all my days in my old ways You will not make me accountable; for when I seek You and turn my life on over, there's nothing insurmountable.

You find it so easy to love me even though I've strayed far from

all the ways that You've shown. You have touched me and now I know the promise You keep.

I will never be Alone.

(c) 1999 by Robert Halsey Pine, Pious Bob, LLC

Hang Up the Gloves

When we read 1-Timothy 6:3-8 we can pick out some characteristics of people that seem to engulf all aspects of our lives. We may even be contributors. Our churches are not immune from this. We see these locally, nationally and internationally. They are at the root of the problems in our lives and in the world. The list begins: conceit, a craving for controversy and disputes about words, envy, dissension, slander, base suspicions, wrangling, mindful depravity, untruthfulness. St. Paul writes to Timothy that these do not, "agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that is in accordance with godliness." We are called to love one another and as St. Paul reminds us as we try to control this natural life, "for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it;" Man's attempt to control up to death is folly and a huge distraction to a meaningful relationship with our creator God, that can be enjoyed here and now and holds the greatest treasure achievable.

The Everlasting Gift

Some say that our faith in God is based on made-up principles and stories that have been used to control human beings over the centuries. Others say that religion is like a drug that allows us to see what we can't understand about our existence. People of faith are sometimes viewed as weak in their fear of death and the need of something to help them understand their mortality. The fact that religion is sometimes practiced and preached for the wrong reasons, however, speaks more to the sinful nature of man than to it's truth.

We are beautiful and complicated creations of a loving God that wants us to love Him back. Unlike the animals He created, He chose to give us the gifts of reason and free will. He doesn't force us to love Him, but he is always there when we turn to Him for love and support. The pain that this gift of life sometimes gives us is negligible in His sight for He created us out of His love, loves us in our natural life, and will keep us in His love when we are finished in this mortal gift. If we can understand His love in this way, we can achieve His comfort and joy in this worldly life.

In The Heart of Christianity, Marcus Borg uses a metaphor from Celtic Christianity, "thin places", to describe those places and situations in life that are, "a means whereby the sacred becomes present to us.......a means of grace." Thin places could be physical locations as well as people, the arts, times of illness, and suffering.

Dear God

Dear God,

You sent Jesus our Lord to save humanity. In our sin we didn't know what life's meaning should be. In living this life we can grasp eternity. And when our world crashes in, we have a remedy. You are there for us in all things we do when we turn to you. Your love is like nothing else we can view and you want us to know it's true. Then, when we must die you'll lift us up, yes up into the sky and you'll show us your love like we've never seen, eternally.

Thank You,

Your Loving Child

(photo from Hubble Space Telescope "the perfect storm in swan nebula")