What’s been hitting me lately is just how utterly different what Jesus calls blessed is from where we think blessing lies or even how we live and what we esteem.

The truth is, we live submerged in this culture that has preached every year of my life, “you are blessed when… you succeed, you get admired, you look the part, you stand out for being yourself (yet) you also fit in, you have money, you do great things, you are beautiful and noteworthy and proud and smart and talented…” You could probably add a few more to this list. Just look at a magazine cover and it’s hard to refute wealthy, attractive and famous is where our cultural blessing lies. And if you’ve succumbed, which I don’t know how we couldn’t to some extent, you can relate to how challenging, exhausting and some days overwhelming it can feel to run after this blessing… and keep it. It’s like your running an ever challenging race with no finish line in sight.

But what does Jesus say? I read amazed. The blessing lies with those who are at the end of their rope. Those who are needy. The ones who think they can’t make it another day and need help? They are blessed.  Jesus says the ones who are completely content with who they are – bare, nothing added. They are blessed. The humble. The persevering. The sad. The exhausted. The ones fed up with cultural cruelty and lack. The ones who feel their lives don’t have the voice, the power, the competence to ever make a difference and yet they love and live and move and breathe anyway. They are blessed.

Woah, right? Yea. That’s what I’m thinking.

When culture tells you one thing and you realize peace lies in another, what do you do? How can someone living in this other sermon, this one of “succeed”, “look good”, “measure up”, ever find the peace of this second Sermon? This Gospel?

Well I don’t know, but I can say it require a practice. Gentle, moment by moment needed reminders. Reminders to strip away all that we add to ourselves (the job, the clothes, the charm) and remember – that is when and where we are blessed. Strip away all achieving (my work, creativity, skills, moral excellence…). Strip it. My possessions. My clothes. My affections from others. My certainty. Strip it all away and sit before Christ knowing you are already blessed.

I don’t know how many years this will take – probably my whole life – how many continual reminders, how many evening moments in quiet – no book, no TV, no journal… just me. Just Him. Before this truth becomes my MO.

But I do know from a gut-feeling-I-can’t-squelch kinda knowing, it is worth it.

How come trusting this True Gospel so hard? Well I think a few things.

One: We are human. We take time to learn, to live, to grow. We are made of process. 

Two: We are surrounded by messages directly opposed. And,

Three: (And this is the big one…) This Gospel will feel like dying.

Drop the achieving. Drop the making-of-myself. Drop the fashion, the pride, the success… Lose what we thought “made us”.

It’s a letting go. A being fully exposed.

As Richard Rohr would put it:

“Real holiness doesn’t feel like holiness; it just feels like you’re dying. It feels like you’re losing it. And you are! Every time you love someone, you have agreed for a part of you to die. You will soon be asked to let go of some part of your false self, which you foolishly thought was permanent, important, and essential!”

But… don’t stop there. Death is always the beginning with this God we know. With God… death is the path to new life. In time, in practice…

“You know God is doing this in you and with you when you can somehow smile and trust that what you lost was something you did not need anyway. In fact, it got in the way of what was real.” – Rohr

Trust. Believe. Practice. Remember. Find freedom to be just who you are and to let that be beloved already.

Extra Musings and Randoms

I’m a learner at heart. So these thoughts came from a study I’m doing on the Sermon on the Mount at home by Jennifer Wilkin. It’s an inductive Bible study – a kind of study my cousin introduced me to that I can’t get enough of right now! It looks into words and meanings and refers to many scriptures. This study also has a weekly podcast with it and I really love having the two together.

Richard Rohr is a contemplative monk that I have learned a great deal from. Not everything he teaches are things I agree with, but he offers a lot of truth that for me has been life-growing. Here’s the mediation I pulled the quotes above from. 

If you’ve not read The Message version of the beatitudes – it’s worth it.

Picture above is from this past weekend’s XPoNential Music festival on the Camden Waterfront. I love this Summer weekend and anticipate it all year long! It’s a gorgeous setting and three days full of excellent live music. I’m still on a happy high from the experiences 🙂 My absolute favorite was The Lone Bellow – although I’ve seen them 3x, they always blow me away. Give them a listen!!