Who will guide you in 2012?

 Richard Rohr opines, "One reason that fundamentalism continues to grow in all religions is that it DOES tell you that you are being guided, and life is not all accidental, and without inherent purpose. God is intimately involved in even small aspects of fundamentalists’ lives. Yes, this is very often misused, but at least it is not secular meaninglessness and often frees them from becoming control freaks. Again, the good and bad of everything! So many liberals are somewhat aware but totally steering their ship, so many conservatives are somewhat surrendered but to a god largely of their own making. There must be a way to be both graciously surrendered and to a true and loving God? This is surely the work of a priest or spiritual director, it seems to me."

Many American Christians have opted for a "lone ranger spirituality," a kind of "Me and my God" spirituality, which leaves them very alone in those moments when life gets tough. These Christians are quickly identifiable because instead of resting on God they blame God when life doesn't go the way they it should.

Throughout Christendom, those who found a maturing faith in face of the struggles and trials of life had a spiritual director who walked with them.

My wife, a trained spiritual director and I, a trained theologian, are willing to work with anyone who wants to have spiritual direction.

Ron Friesen


http://richardrohr.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/accidental-or-providential/

A vision for 2012

The ultimate perfection of the contemplative life is not a heaven of separate individuals, each on viewing his own private intuition of God; it is a sea of Love which flows through the One Body of all the elect, all the angels and saints, and their contemplation would be incomplete if it were not shared, or if it were shared with fewer souls, or with spirits capable of less vision and less joy.

Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation. (New York: New Directions Books) : 65
 

Wrapping up a year....

Twenty-eleven was an interesting year. I started the year working for a university as a full-time online professor and ended the year in a prison. Well, I should explain, I am working in a prison as a mental health counselor.

For years, I have wanted to do "a ministry with men." I am doing a ministry with men in prison - not quite what I had in mind! With men who have been charged with sex offenses, to top it off.

I am finding the work challenging and interesting. The men range from doctors, educators, priests, pastors, youth ministers, to carpenters, plumbers, truckers, farmers. They scan the scope from men who achieved doctorates to those with barely a sixth grade education. Financially, they cover the socio-economic realms from millionaires to paupers.

Each day I meet men who are seeking their way. I walk their journey to the best of my ability.

I didn't know what 2011 would bring; I am not going to make any predictions about 2012.

Social Darwinism is killing the American soul

The virtues that sustain a nation-state and build community, from honesty to self-sacrifice to transparency to sharing, are ridiculed each night on television as rubes stupid enough to cling to this antiquated behavior are voted off reality shows. Fellow competitors for prize money and a chance for fleeting fame, cheered on by millions of viewers, elect to “disappear” the unwanted. In the final credits of the reality show America’s Next Top Model, a picture of the woman expelled during the episode vanishes from the group portrait on the screen. Those cast aside become, at least to the television audience, nonpersons. Celebrities that can no longer generate publicity, good or bad, vanish. Life, these shows persistently teach, is a brutal world of unadulterated competition and a constant quest for notoriety and attention.

Our culture of flagrant self-exaltation, hardwired in the American character, permits the humiliation of all those who oppose us. We believe, after all, that because we have the capacity to wage war we have a right to wage war. Those who lose deserve to be erased. Those who fail, those who are deemed ugly, ignorant or poor, should be belittled and mocked. Human  beings are used and discarded like Styrofoam boxes that held junk food. And the numbers of superfluous human beings are swelling the unemployment offices, the prisons and the soup kitchens.


http://www.projectworldawareness.com/2010/09/american-psychosis-what-happens-to-a-society-that-cannot-distinguish-between-reality-and-illusion/

Sometimes the truth is hard to hide.

Republicans usually don’t want to acknowledge that their purpose is to turn away voters, especially when race is involved, so they invented an explanation, claiming that stricter ID laws are necessary to prevent voter fraud. In fact, there is almost no voter fraud in America to prevent.
William O’Brien, the speaker of the New Hampshire State House, told a Tea Party group earlier this year that students are “foolish” and tend to “vote their feelings” because they lack life experience. “Voting as a liberal,” he said, “that’s what kids do.” And that’s why, he said, he supported measures to prohibit students from voting from their college addresses and to end same-day registration. New Hampshire Republicans even tried to pass a bill that would have kept students who previously lived elsewhere from voting in the state; fortunately, the measure failed, as did the others Mr. O’Brien favored.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/opinion/keeping-college-students-from-the-polls.html?ref=editorials

Christmas Eve 2011

Christmas Eve

It is Christmas eve, a tree blinks, lighting
Cinnamon sticks stir in the apple cider
Lovers look into each other's eyes
It is the eve of love.

It is Christmas eve, children giggle, wondering
Presents await opening under the tree
Children ponder the wrappings
It is the eve of wonder.

It is Christmas eve, flames crackle, sparking
Songs fill the air while angels sing
Worshipers reflect the meaning
It is the eve of awe.

2011 (c) Ronald Friesen

A poem for Christmas 2011

Christmas 2011

It is the season again of pine and cinnamon,
Of hot chocolate and fresh-baked rolls
Store shelves overflow with music boxes
With a serenade: “I wish you a Merry Christmas.”

In Bethlehem hills smelly sheep rested
While their shepherds retold stories of
Wolves and bears defeated by nightfall
With a serenade: “Mary had a little lamb.”

Angels interrupt the drunken carousal
Casting out darkness with glorious brightness
Which faints men who kill wolves and bear
With a serenade: “Glory to God in the Highest.”

“Come to the stable to see the Newborn King”
Invite the heavenly host to men of disrepute
Leave your flocks and see the baby -
the baby who smells of the stable.

© 2011 Ronald Friesen