1 Peter 1:3-9
Easter 2 - Year A
Amazing - death (or is it a resurrection from death) becomes a source of mercy that bears the fruit of hope.
When we are merciful we are engaging our hope in the present situation. When we are hopeful we are building on experiences of mercy. These are the parenthesis of a resurrected life (Jesus', yours, any).
Whether receiving or offering mercy, we do so with joy. Whether living in hope or recognizing hope living in us, joy abounds where it would otherwise be barred.
We pray for the potential of mercy and hope to flourish in the death of Terri and the near-death of Karol.
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Wesley (Blogger)
Sometimes we need to see ourselves as the butt of humor. Here is a wonderful source of such many opportunities to practice an ability to see ourselves as others see us.
http://www.geocities.com/inquisitive79/humor.html [MISSING URL]
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/april2005.html
I Peter 1:3-9
Acts 2:14a, 22-32
Psalm 16
John 20:19-31
Joy is not in what is currently going on, but in participation with a vision of a Peaceable Preferred Future always before us. [Look at "Peaceable Kingdom", an early American painting by Edward Hicks, and wonder about what changes are needed to update it.]
This is a loose translation of a phrase from Acts 2:25, "I saw the Lord always before me." It was from this that David affirmed, "therefore my heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced; moreover my flesh shall live in hope."
The word "Lord" is fraught with overtones. It does not mean one thing to all people. So it is important to figure out what one means by the old language of "Lord" when using it and begin to use the meaning (even if it is a more awkward phrase that does not run trippingly off the tongue, thus rejoicing it on one level) rather than the shorthand.
Here it would seem we are speaking of a particular vision. Peter casts it in terms of escaping Hades, but we might well speak of it in a positive way by referring to some aspect of what might loosely be called "Paradise" or a preferred future come on earth.
What vision would you hold before yourself to stimulate joy?
= = = = = = =
in your presence is joy
summarizing
every love song and hymn
uniting
secular and sacred music
challenging
every separation we construct
reducing
our specifics to generalities
expanding
lovers into love
concretizing
love into lovers
binding
joy to presence
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html
Blessed be G*D and your Intimacy with Creation. A mercy you participate in is the hope engendered by being resurrected from a previous limitation. This connects with a larger, web, that connects us with all parts of time and space and energy. As a part of such a web and benefactor from its support, we bounce higher and see farther into an available wholeness of life.
Consciously being part of one or more interdependencies is cause for rejoicing, as well as weeping, and attests to the genuineness of relationships as basic as other physics of time, space, and energy. Test it where you will, the results continue to reveal an interpenetration of self and other. Rejoice in the connections, unseen and yet present, wherein we grin all over ourselves in the wholeness of life.
All of this is periodically focused on revealers of connections heretofore unseen. Standing at an oblique angle (you’ve heard it said . . . , - but look!) allows a deeper look and the holistic outcome of the revealers of the world beckons each of us to become a next revealer of connections and participator in healing at least our part of the larger web of life. Called by the name Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, (your name here), or one we have yet to hear of, we look forward to seeing where a whole web of life might yet travel.
How much tinkering did you have to do to this passage to have it be something other than an external creed of long ago yearning for new life through the corrective lens of today? Or was it just fine the way it has come down to us?
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/04/1-peter-13-9.html
Holy Humor Sunday
1 Peter is not my usual go to for something light.
Image yourself actually being born through emptiness. How strange, but is it knee-slapping hilarious?
By great mercy (creative conception)
we are born in living hope (midwife’s hands)
through a resurrection (empty tomb)
into bright and stolid paradise (back to here and now)There were trials (labor pains, breach position, C-section)
strengthening caterpillars and chicks (don’t help them out)
and trials continue (refining decisions)Though you didn’t set up this system (you don’t see and get it)
you can redefine it (love that draws a larger circle)
and claim it now (already receiving an outcome of trust)
No, probably not, hilarious. Smirkily ironic? Probably. Enough to get 15 minutes of relief from chronic pain? Probably. Go back over that again - What images Peter uses! I didn’t think he had it in him. But then I sometimes don’t think I have G*D’s image in me, either. Somehow in wrestling together, these moments, when we call a mutual time-out to laugh at how silly we are being, give us what we need to reenter the fray.