Spiritual Seeing

On an iPhone you can get/buy "app's", which are media resources for your phone. You can get game apps, you can get sports apps, you can get weather apps, you can get dating tip apps, you can get social networking apps, you can get twitter apps, and you can get...

news apps.

What I have come to experience with these apps is that they can get you what you need to know in a hurry. You get onto the facebook app and the next thing you know, you're updating your status about how you just got done going through a McDonald's drive through while speaking entirely in an English accent.

Or...

You can get up to date notifications on how UK lost in the NCAA tournament, having yet another let down of a season.

Or...

You can get updates from the certain news app you recently downloaded, letting you know all of that is happening in the world of politics, US news, World News, and Entertainment.

These handy, easy to access apps have many benefits and have had an impact on our society and the way we view media and news.

Yet I've noticed something else too.

I have an app for a particular news channel and I have my settings set up so that when 'breaking news' happens I would get an alert, letting me know, just minutes after 'it' happens, what just happened. It is great too. I was one of the first to know when many events occurred.
But here is what I've noticed....

Most of the time, most of the dings I get when I get an update, most of the 'breaking news' is nothing but...

bad

news.

Death toll is up to ____

So and so said this about so and so.

Plane crashes....

River floods....

Volcano erupts...

Terrorist plot....

You get the point.

Too often all we get is bad news. When you turn on the TV, what do you see? Floating heads, accusing someone of saying something and then on the other channels you have so and so saying they never said anything like that. You have one station too ____ and another station to _____.

All of the bad news being reported about makes me wonder, is there any good news out there? Are there any good things happening to people? Are there any good people out there providing hope to those who are hopeless?

It is quite understandable then when we hear people ask...

Where is God...

amidst these floods, bombs, earthquakes, killing of animals and oil spills, death threats, and political mumble-jumble?

God, if you are real, where are you then? Show us a sign. Show us you are with us.

Let's be honest though, what we are really asking , what we really are projecting, is our own fears, anxieties, frustrations and doubts. We join our voice to the cacophony of negative voices that surround us and we get caught up on 'just how bad things really are.'

Again I can't help but to ask, are they really that bad?

Or is it, we focus too much on the negative and spend too little of time acknowledging those good things that are happening in our lives, the good work that is being don, the good news that is coming to us in different ways?

I understand and realize too there are times when we need to express our frustration. There are times when we need to express our anger. There are times when we need to express how upset we are with the way things have turned out. For if we don't, we aren't being honest to ourselves and we begin to hide behind a facade of 'religious and spiritual' nonsense, stripping us of any authentic voices we may add to the community at large. Suppressing any emotion, both positive and negative, can have a lasting and harmful affect.

What to do then? Where does one begin?

This is what is exciting about what we will be doing this Sunday. As we load up in vehicles and as we grab our camera's, we are going to make time to look for the good in our community. Our exercise is to drive around the city...

looking for those places where we know Christ is present...

and...

go to those places where we would least expect to meet the risen Christ.

Henri Nouwen says, "Spiritual disciplines are the skills and techniques by which we begin to see the image of God in our heart. Spiritual formation is the careful attentiveness to the work of God, our master sculptor, as we submit to the gradual chipping away of all that is not of God, until the inner lion is revealed (referring to a marble artist carving a lion of a marble stone, freeing the lion from within)."

I mention this to remind us of the discipline of holy listening...

and watching.

Living a spiritual life is far from easy. Being attentive to God in our lives, amidst our busy schedules, bad news reports, and all the other distractions which get in the way, is difficult. Yet, being formed in God's likeness involves the struggle to move from absurd living to obedient listening, Nouwen would say. Absurd includes the word sardus, which means 'deaf'. Absurd living is a way of life in which we remain deaf to the voice that speaks to us in our silence. Nouwen also said, "It seems that the noisy, busy world conspire against our hearing that voice and tries to make us absolutely deaf. It therefore is not surprising that we often wonder, in the midst of our very occupied and preoccupied lives, if anything is truly happening."

Replace 'deaf' with 'blind' and this is where we find ourselves, looking and seeing God in a different way.

Prayerfully seeing God in our lives, in our community, in our nation, and in our world.

Being able to embrace the good in our lives, see it, and maybe even embodying it, our attentiveness can grow too. Growing in faith requires a growing attentiveness to perceive where God is active and to where we are being led.

This Sunday, and for the remainder of this study, we shall ask:

Where is God active in my life or community right now?

This Sunday, we go out into the community, we go out into the city and ask:

Where is God active in the community of Owensboro, Kentucky?

May it be then, as we begin our journey down the way of spiritual disciplines, that we will create the spaces in our lives for God to reveal God's self to us in a variety of ways. And in doing so, may we recognize God's claim on us, and may our eyes open, and may we begin to see what God has already been at work doing, even when, while, and during, those times when we asked, "Where are you God?"

See you Sunday!