Tag: faith

Glimpsing Jesus

kenwoodley32 Comments

By Ken Woodley

I am too late. My ears will never hear what what Jesus had to say on the mountainside by the Sea of Galilee. My eyes will never see him near me. My heart and soul mourn after traveling so far and overcoming so much to try to see Jesus.

Wandering and feeling lost on this hillside, I find a trail. I follow it first with my eyes and see its winding undulations. 

The breeze is strong here. It caresses my cheeks. It’s as if the sky, itself, is comforting me, and I hear a distant but determined voice tell me, “Blessed are the poor in the spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God.”

Suddenly, I feel like a sheep that watches in wonder as a pack of wolves, their ears twitching as they listen, turn and run away, leaving me  free to safely journey on.

The shadow of an eagle crosses my steps. I look up and spot it not far above me. I stop to watch its journey, which doesn’t feel so different than my own.

Flying in circles, the eagle rises higher and higher in the sky until it disappears from view, lost in the sun, my eyes almost aching from the brightness.

I reflexively look away and then down and see my own shadow, wingless and lying on the ground, as far away from the sky as it could possibly be.

I spread my arms and so my shadow does, too. My arms look nothing like wings. I move them, mimicking the eagle, but I stay rooted to the ground with my shadow, accepting that no wings of mine will ever touch the sky, embracing my flightless life, flightless in so many ways.

My journey is on the ground where at any moment I may trip on a root or stumble on a rock, but I take the next step anyway, hearing the same voice tell me, “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.”

My footsteps continue on and I see that the trail will wind around a wide hummocky field, dotted with trees and tall grasses.

In the distance, I see a leaf sailing on a soft but steady breeze. I am drawn to that leaf somehow and stand where I am, watching.

The leaf is coming in my direction, far away but getting closer and closer. I have a curious feeling that there is some message in it for me. Nearer and nearer it comes until I reach out and catch it in my hand.

The leaf is painted by the autumn season. Red and yellow and orange, but still traces of green here and there. 

As I think of all the seasons that have come and gone and will never come again, I hear the same voice, sounding somehow closer now. “Blessed are those who mourn,” it tells me, “for they will be comforted.”

There is a turning in the trail now, away from the meadow and now down a tree-lined path. Mid-way down it, not far from the woods, I find a Monarch butterfly captured in a spider’s web, caught tight with no hope of escape for this beautiful and endangered species.

There is no movement. I fear that it is dead but I can’t bear the thought of it being eaten by a spider.

Using twigs, I carefully free it from the web but it is still wrapped up in the strands as I place it gently on the ground. With as much delicacy as I can, I pull the strands off, fearful that I will damage its delicate wings.

Miraculously, its wings begin to flutter, awkwardly at first, but soon it takes awkward flight up into the leaves of a small nearby tree. To rest from its ordeal, I suspect, but it is free to continue its journey.

As I look toward the place where I last saw it, I hear the voice as if it’s just beyond the trees. “Blessed are the merciful,” it says, “because they will be shown mercy.”

I find myself wishing I could free every creature, every person caught in whatever web has bound the wings of their hopes and dreams. 

Tears run down my cheeks and I hear the voice, almost inside me, say, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”

And there, fluttering in front me, is the Monarch butterfly I had just freed. Its wings of stained glass keep it flying close to me, instead of flying off and away.

It circles me and I have the uncanny sensation of it unwrapping what has bound my own wings for so long as it flies around and around me.

The path leads into the edge of a forest and as I journey on the Monarch flies before me, leading me on. The tall ancient trees create a cathedral effect. I look up in wonder as the Monarch flies through a window in the sky.

“Blessed are the pure in heart,” I hear the voice say, sounding right in front of me. Looking away from the trees, I see a man walking toward me. He’s dressed simply, wearing a knee-length tunic covered by a prayer shawl, sandals on his feet.

A gentle love is shining from his eyes as he completes the sentence.

“Because,” he tells me, “they will see God.”

And then Jesus seems to disappear and I am by myself, but never ever alone again as my journey continues.

None of us are ever truly alone, no matter where our paths take us.

The Sermon on the Mount was a long time ago but its words—desperately needed now—are all around us.

Waiting.

As is the one who spoke them.

By Ken Woodley

I am too late. My ears will never hear what what Jesus had to say on the mountainside by the Sea of Galilee. My eyes will never see him near me. My heart and soul mourn after traveling so far and overcoming so much to try to see Jesus.

Wandering and feeling lost on this hillside, I find a trail. I follow it first with my eyes and see its winding undulations.

The breeze is strong here. It caresses my cheeks. It’s as if the sky, itself, is comforting me, and I hear a distant but determined voice tell me, “Blessed are the poor in the spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God.”

Suddenly, I feel like a sheep that watches in wonder as a pack of wolves, their ears twitching as they listen, turn and run away, leaving me free to safely journey on.

The shadow of an eagle crosses my steps. I look up and spot it not far above me. I stop to watch its journey, which doesn’t feel so different than my own.

Flying in circles, the eagle rises higher and higher in the sky until it disappears from view, lost in the sun, my eyes almost aching from the brightness.

I reflexively look away and then down and see my own shadow, wingless and lying on the ground, as far away from the sky as it could possibly be.

I spread my arms and so my shadow does, too. My arms look nothing like wings. I move them, mimicking the eagle, but I stay rooted to the ground with my shadow, accepting that no wings of mine will ever touch the sky, embracing my flightless life, flightless in so many ways.

My journey is on the ground where at any moment I may trip on a root or stumble on a rock, but I take the next step anyway, hearing the same voice tell me, “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.”

My footsteps continue on and I see that the trail will wind around a wide hummocky field, dotted with trees and tall grasses.

In the distance, I see a leaf sailing on a soft but steady breeze. I am drawn to that leaf somehow and stand where I am, watching.

The leaf is coming in my direction, far away but getting closer and closer. I have a curious feeling that there is some message in it for me. Nearer and nearer it comes until I reach out and catch it in my hand.

The leaf is painted by the autumn season. Red and yellow and orange, but still traces of green here and there.

As I think of all the seasons that have come and gone and will never come again, I hear the same voice, sounding somehow closer now. “Blessed are those who mourn,” it tells me, “for they will be comforted.”

There is a turning in the trail now, away from the meadow and now down a tree-lined path. Mid-way down it, not far from the woods, I find a Monarch butterfly captured in a spider’s web, caught tight with no hope of escape for this beautiful and endangered species.

There is no movement. I fear that it is dead but I can’t bear the thought of it being eaten by a spider.

Using twigs, I carefully free it from the web but it is still wrapped up in the strands as I place it gently on the ground. With as much delicacy as I can, I pull the strands off, fearful that I will damage its delicate wings.

Miraculously, its wings begin to flutter, awkwardly at first, but soon it takes awkward flight up into the leaves of a small nearby tree. To rest from its ordeal, I suspect, but it is free to continue its journey.

As I look toward the place where I last saw it, I hear the voice as if it’s just beyond the trees. “Blessed are the merciful,” it says, “because they will be shown mercy.”

I find myself wishing I could free every creature, every person caught in whatever web has bound the wings of their hopes and dreams.

Tears run down my cheeks and I hear the voice, almost inside me, say, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”

And there, fluttering in front me, is the Monarch butterfly I had just freed. Its wings of stained glass keep it flying close to me, instead of flying off and away.

It circles me and I have the uncanny sensation of it unwrapping what has bound my own wings for so long as it flies around and around me.

The path leads into the edge of a forest and as I journey on the Monarch flies before me, leading me on. The tall ancient trees create a cathedral effect. I look up in wonder as the Monarch flies through a window in the sky.

“Blessed are the pure in heart,” I hear the voice say, sounding right in front of me. Looking away from the trees, I see a man walking toward me. He’s dressed simply, wearing a knee-length tunic covered by a prayer shawl, sandals on his feet.

A gentle love is shining from his eyes as he completes the sentence.

“Because,” he tells me, “they will see God.”
And then Jesus seems to disappear and I am by myself, but never ever alone again as my journey continues.
None of us are ever truly alone, no matter where our paths take us.

The Sermon on the Mount was a long time ago but its words—desperately needed now—are all around us.
Waiting.
As is the one who spoke them.

“Before The Beginning”

kenwoodley31 Comment

By Ken Woodley

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

But….

….before the beginning.

Before the word.

Before the light.

The darkness was everywhere.

We closed our eyes as tightly as we could to keep from seeing it but it only got darker and we could hear the darkness taking deep breaths as if it were preparing to blow everything away.

We felt it touching us.

We heard the darkness speak our name.

Our tongues and lips trembled in search of a prayer: an army, please, Lord, with swords raised, spears held high to push back against all of this darkness.

But no thundering hoofbeats came.

No rescuing trumpets sounded.

There was no clatter of metal weapons.

We were utterly on our own, like the last leaf on an autumn tree, all the rest fallen and winter digging in all around the empty forest.

We were as helpless as the day we’d been born and reached frantically for the only thing we saw—even with our eyes closed—in a brief flash of flickering light inside our soul:

A star was shining from the stump of Jesse.

A branch was shining out of its roots.

We opened one eye to take a peek.

Outside our window, a corner of the dark horizon was turning gray.

The spirit of the Lord began to call, like a single bird on a lonely limb of the last tree standing, wondering where all the leaves had gone.

That was all but that was enough.

Darkness knew that it was already too late.

A spirit of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and might had begun to brushstroke traces of pink and orange in the sky.

There was more to the world, we realized, than the darkness that had surrounded us.

Shapes began to emerge in the gathering scatterings of light.

And, even with one eye closed, we saw unmistakable miracles.

We saw a leaf on a tree, green somehow, even on winter’s doorstep.

We saw our own wrinkles and veins.

We sawa lion lying down with a lamb.

A wolf was eating straw like the ox.

And a little child was leading them.

A little child coming from Bethlehem.

No army to the thundering rescue.

No swords and clattering of spears.

Just this one, small child.

And what amazing grace—we knew his name.

“Jesus,” we called out to him. “Jesus!”

And the darkness knew then that it had met its match.

Darkness knew the game was over.

Darkness knew the final score was set in stone for all eternity.

We opened both eyes as wide as we could and there was suddenly light all around. The little child had brought the light that never sets.

A light that could not and would not be extinguished.

A light that hope can trust.

A light that also shines inside us toward others waiting in the darkness.

We could hear the light breathing deeply.

We felt its touch.

Then, with even more amazing grace, the light spoke each of our names.

Our tongues and lips trembled with “Amen” before we joyfully shouted, “Hallelujah!”

Its echo became a refrain and the light shone in the darkness and the darkness did not understand it.

The true light that gives light to every woman, child and man had come into the world.

And still the darkness did not understand it.

But oh, Lord, if only the darkness one day would. If only darkness would believe that it, too, can feel a light so deep and bright that even its casting shadows would disappear.

Perhaps, if we give the true light our arms and our legs with faith and perseverance, some day the darkness will comprehend completely.

Darkness turning into light one person at a time.

And all of creation would blossom and flower in one embrace of love.

What a beginning that would be.

By Ken Woodley

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

But….
….before the beginning.
Before the word.
Before the light.
The darkness was everywhere.

We closed our eyes as tightly as we could to keep from seeing it but it only got darker and we could hear the darkness taking deep breaths as if it were preparing to blow everything away.

We felt it touching us.
We heard the darkness speak our name.

Our tongues and lips trembled in search of a prayer: an army, please, Lord, with swords raised, spears held high to push back against all of this darkness.

But no thundering hoofbeats came.
No rescuing trumpets sounded.
There was no clatter of metal weapons.

We were utterly on our own, like the last leaf on an autumn tree, all the rest fallen and winter digging in all around the empty forest.

We were as helpless as the day we’d been born and reached frantically for the only thing we saw—even with our eyes closed—in a brief flash of flickering light inside our soul:

A star was shining from the stump of Jesse.
A branch was shining out of its roots.

We opened one eye to take a peek.
Outside our window, a corner of the dark horizon was turning gray.

The spirit of the Lord began to call, like a single bird on a lonely limb of the last tree standing, wondering where all the leaves had gone.

That was all but that was enough.
Darkness knew that it was already too late.

A spirit of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and might had begun to brushstroke traces of pink and orange in the sky.

There was more to the world, we realized, than the darkness that had surrounded us.

Shapes began to emerge in the gathering scatterings of light.
And, even with one eye closed, we saw unmistakable miracles.

We saw a leaf on a tree, green somehow, even on winter’s doorstep.
We saw our own wrinkles and veins.
We saw a lion lying down with a lamb.

A wolf was eating straw like the ox.
And a little child was leading them.
A little child coming from Bethlehem.

No army to the thundering rescue.
No swords and clattering of spears.
Just this one, small child.

And what amazing grace—we knew his name.
“Jesus,” we called out to him. “Jesus!”
And the darkness knew then that it had met its match.

Darkness knew the game was over.
Darkness knew the final score was set in stone for all eternity.

We opened both eyes as wide as we could and there was suddenly light all around. The little child had brought the light that never sets.

A light that could not and would not be extinguished.
A light that hope can trust.
A light that also shines inside us toward others waiting in the darkness.

We could hear the light breathing deeply.
We felt its touch.

Then, with even more amazing grace, the light spoke each of our names.
Our tongues and lips trembled with “Amen” before we joyfully shouted, “Hallelujah!”
Its echo became a refrain and the light shone in the darkness and the darkness did not understand it.

The true light that gives light to every woman, child and man had come into the world.
And still the darkness did not understand it.

But oh, Lord, if only the darkness one day would. If only darkness would believe that it, too, can feel a light so deep and bright that even its casting shadows would disappear.

Perhaps, if we give the true light our arms and our legs with faith and perseverance, some day the darkness will comprehend completely.

Darkness turning into light one person at a time.
And all of creation would blossom and flower in one embrace of love.
What a beginning that would be.



The Episcopal Church Must Resurrect “God Is Love” From Page 849 Of Its Own Prayer Book

kenwoodley32 Comments

“God is love” is buried on page 849 in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer. And those words are absent from any and every single one of the Church’s liturgies, prayer services, you name it

The Episcopal Church must resurrect them into a place where their life-changing, world-shaping light can shine with fullest effect. Right now they are, in effect, under a bucket rather than on a lamp-stand.

The BCP is a jewel—my companion early morning, throughout the day, and right before I turn off the lights and fall asleep—but we have buried its greatest treasure in the Catechism:

“What is the nature of God revealed in Jesus? God is love.”

If only those words were written across the sky across the world every day. Then, perhaps, they would find their way into the hearts of more and more people everywhere.

We can’t write them in the sky but we can resurrect them from the 848 pages and 200,000 words which precede and have the effect of burying them. If we go and tell this truth on a mountain it will be harder for people to keep weaponizing Jesus for personal and political gain.

Personally, I believe they belong in every single liturgy, every daily prayer. They should be our motto, our banner. On the first page of the BCP: “We believe that the nature of God revealed in Jesus is love. God is love.” 

I’ve been an Episcopalian for 57 years, since I was 11, and licensed lay preacher in the Diocese of Southern Virginia since 2005. I know what it could have meant to me as a child had the Church made “God is love” part of its liturgy, if they had told me that truth.

For me, this is deeply personal. I wasn’t on a horse riding to Damascus to persecute Christians. I was driving a VW bug on July 2, 1980, pursued by the ongoing post-traumatic effects of a soul-deep wound from my childhood. On my way home from covering the Buckingham County School Board meeting for The Farmville Herald, there was a burst of light around me in the car and I simultaneously heard a voice tell me, “Be happy” and I was engulfed, embraced, submerged by the most beautifully intense and complete feeling of love. I burst into uncontrollable sobs of deepest joy, shouting “Thank you, God! Thank you, God!” and had to pull off the road because I could no longer drive. It was immediately clear to me what, and who, I was experiencing.

Eventually, I made my way home, love surrounding me. Love inside me. Chapter 17, verse 23 of the Gospel of John come true in my life. I was literally inside LOVE and LOVE was literally inside me. Not a feeling but the thing itself. God as LOVE. The feeling lasted for hours, even as I did the laundry at a laundromat. I stood outside and the whole world was LOVE. I was breathing it. Exhaling it. (I’ve preached on this and written about it in Forward Day By Day).

Through God’s love and grace, I know those words in the BCP are true and when I discovered them on page 849 a month ago, I had to do something about helping my Church lift them up, raise them up, for all to see.  I believe every Protestant denomination must do the same thing. Tell the world that God is love. 

I have felt the Holy Spirit in all of this so strongly. There is a Task Force for Liturgical and Prayer Book Revision in the Episcopal Church, so it feels that the time is now. Please join me and help spread these words as far as you can. I believe that God has others waiting for us to find them, too, and move this forward. We simply want to elevate a few words from our own catechism and tell the hungry world the truth: God is love.

Will you please help? Shout it out loud from your own mountaintop!!


“God is love” is buried on page 849 in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer. And those words are absent from any and every single one of the Church’s liturgies, prayer services, you name it
The Episcopal Church must resurrect them into a place where their life-changing, world-shaping light can shine with fullest effect. Right now they are, in effect, under a bucket rather than on a lamp-stand.
The BCP is a jewel—my companion early morning, throughout the day, and right before I turn off the lights and fall asleep—but we have buried its greatest treasure in the Catechism:
“What is the nature of God revealed in Jesus? God is love.”
If only those words were written across the sky across the world every day. Then, perhaps, they would find their way into the hearts of more and more people everywhere.
We can’t write them in the sky but we can resurrect them from the 848 pages and 200,000 words which precede and have the effect of burying them. If we go and tell this truth on a mountain it will be harder for people to keep weaponizing Jesus for personal and political gain.
Personally, I believe they belong in every single liturgy, every daily prayer. They should be our motto, our banner. On the first page of the BCP: “We believe that the nature of God revealed in Jesus is love. God is love.”
I’ve been an Episcopalian for 57 years, since I was 11, and licensed lay preacher in the Diocese of Southern Virginia since 2005. I know what it could have meant to me as a child had the Church made “God is love” part of its liturgy, if they had told me that truth.
For me, this is deeply personal. I wasn’t on a horse riding to Damascus to persecute Christians. I was driving a VW bug on July 2, 1980, pursued by the ongoing post-traumatic effects of a soul-deep wound from my childhood. On my way home from covering the Buckingham County School Board meeting for The Farmville Herald, there was a burst of light around me in the car and I simultaneously heard a voice tell me, “Be happy” and I was engulfed, embraced, submerged by the most beautifully intense and complete feeling of love. I burst into uncontrollable sobs of deepest joy, shouting “Thank you, God! Thank you, God!” and had to pull off the road because I could no longer drive. It was immediately clear to me what, and who, I was experiencing.
Eventually, I made my way home, love surrounding me. Love inside me. Chapter 17, verse 23 of the Gospel of John come true in my life. I was literally inside LOVE and LOVE was literally inside me. Not a feeling but the thing itself. God as LOVE. The feeling lasted for hours, even as I did the laundry at a laundromat. I stood outside and the whole world was LOVE. I was breathing it. Exhaling it. (I’ve preached on this and written about it in Forward Day By Day).
Through God’s love and grace, I know those words in the BCP are true and when I discovered them on page 849 a month ago, I had to do something about helping my Church lift them up, raise them up, for all to see. I believe every Protestant denomination must do the same thing. Tell the world that God is love.
I have felt the Holy Spirit in all of this so strongly. There is a Task Force for Liturgical and Prayer Book Revision in the Episcopal Church, so it feels that the time is now. Please join me and help spread these words as far as you can. I believe that God has others waiting for us to find them, too, and move this forward. We simply want to elevate a few words from our own catechism and tell the hungry world the truth: God is love.
Will you please help? Shout it out loud from your own mountaintop!!






The Smallest Star At The Bottom Of The Sky (A parable about Jesus)

kenwoodley31 Comment

 By Ken Woodley

“I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

                                                                                      —Matthew 18:3

Once upon a time on a blue planet deep in space, two children stood looking through a window at the night-time sky. Darkness was everywhere and they heard the darkness thunder.

The date was December 25. A day of no meaning whatsoever for the children, nor anyone else in their world. Just another Tuesday. 

One-by-one, all of the stars disappeared.

The children reached for each other when all of the light was gone.

The darkness always scared them when it thundered with storms that swallowed all of the stars with its booming clouds. They held each other’s hands, looked up into the sky and decided to pray.

“How far can you see?” Liam asked when they had finished praying.

“I think I can see to the bottom of the sky, but it’s too dark to be sure,” Fiona told him.

“Can you see God anywhere?” he asked.

“No,” she replied. “Just like all of the other scary nights, I don’t see God at all.”

Their eyes filled with tears.

But, far, far away, a Little Star that had just been born heard the children calling. Their voices sounded so distant, as if they were on the other side of the universe. 

“Please,” it heard them pray, “there is a terrible storm thundering toward us in the darkness. If you are really there, please come to us. Let us see you. Be with us and protect us from the thundering darkness.”

The Little Star looked around. None of the other stars seemed to hear the children calling. It was surprised. “Me? They are calling me?” it wondered. “I am such a very small star. There are much bigger and brighter lights than me.”

But every single one of those much bigger and brighter lights stayed right where they were. The Little Star, however, began its long journey toward the children calling out from across the universe.

“Can’t anyone else hear them?” the Little Star asked the universe.

“Oh, yes, all of us hear them,” a stunning supernova said as the Little Star flickered on its way, “but we are far too busy being spectacular Superstars. We’ve got no time for two children on the other side of universe.”

The supernova looked at the Little Star and chuckled.

“And just who do you think you are?” it asked. “God? A Messiah? You’re so small and hardly shine at all. You belong in a manger. In fact, I can barely see you. How could you possibly help anybody?”

The Little Star seemed to hear the entire universe laughing but it kept on going and had soon left the skeptics and their doubts far behind him.

“Perhaps they are right, but maybe I am exactly what the children need,” it thought. “Perhaps I am the only one who can help them because I am the only one who wants to help them, the only one who cares. I might just be the Little Star that shines the light of Truest Love.”

On the blue planet, the children were still standing side by side in the darkness, looking up toward the bottom of the sky.

“Do you see God yet?” Fiona asked.

“No,” Liam answered, “Maybe God doesn’t hear us. Maybe God’s not listening.”

“I wonder if God’s even real,” she said. “Maybe God is only make-believe, like unicorns and magic dragons.”

But they kept on looking because they wanted God to be very true and absolutely real and on the way to save them. 

Soon the Little Star saw a galaxy called the Milky Way, which looked like a humongous spinning pinwheel. “I think I’m almost there,” it thought.

And then, yes, it saw the blue planet in a solar system, circling a sunny star, but half of the blue planet was covered in the darkness of night.

The Little Star knew exactly where to find the children and just what to do when it got there.

“I’m ready to give up looking for God forever,” Liam sighed. “I don’t see anything but a very large lightning bug.”

Fiona looked as the light grew closer. “That’s no lightning bug,” she said.

“Here I am,” the Little Star told them as it flew through their half-opened window.

“Here is who?” Liam asked. “What are you?”

“I am me,” answered the Little Star. “I was on the other side of the universe and heard you praying.”

“You aren’t what we expected,” the children told him. “You are much smaller and far different than we imagined.”

“Well,” the Little Star admitted, “I’m certainly no Tony-winning Super Star breaking box office records on Broadway but I am who I am and I believe I am the answer to your prayer, if you’ll let me try.”

The Little Star’s belief in itself was so strong that Fiona and Liam decided to listen to what it had to say about the light it had brought them. It visited them for a week and they felt their faith growing stronger and deeper. 

During the day, the Little Star stayed in Fiona’s sock drawer—after she removed all of the socks and put them under her bed. “It’s dark in the drawer,” the Little Star explained. “That makes it the perfect place to practice shining my light of Truest Love.”

Just before sunset each day, Fiona and Liam would take the Little Star outside, where it shone in the darkness all night long, right outside their bedroom windows.

But one night the Little Star told them that it would be leaving in the morning.

“Now that I have come to your blue planet,” it explained, “I hear so many others calling out to me from the darkness of their own storms. I must bring my light to them, too, if they will let me.”

The children were crestfallen. “Please don’t go,” they pleaded.

“I will only appear to be gone,” the Little Star assured them. “The light I shine remains even after it seems that I have left you. And I will stay at the very bottom of the sky, as close to you—as close to everyone—as I can.”

The children looked at one another and asked the very same question at the exact same time.

“How can we be sure that you are still with us?”

The Little Star looked deeply into their eyes. “There is one other place where you can always find me, even when all of the other lights in the world seem to go out and storm clouds hide even the biggest, brightest stars, the moon, and the Milky Way.”

“Please tell us where that place is,” they asked.

“You will always find my light shining,” the Little Star told them, “in the eyes of someone who loves you forever.” 

That night Fiona and Liam dreamed dreams that were overflowing with a radiant love-filled light and the sound of singing flowers. When they awoke in the morning the Little Star did indeed seem to be gone. 

But it was still there. Just as it had promised them. They were certain of that because the Little Star had told them the truth.

Liam and Fiona could see the Little Star’s light shining in each other’s eyes.

Even on the stormiest nights when the clouds hid everything else in the heavens above, they had faith that the Little Star’s small, bright twinkling light of Truest Love was at the very bottom of the sky, as close to them as it could get.

Or even closer.

Because for some reason, they could always feel it shining deep inside them, sending ripples of light through their souls.

“This is such a miraculous feeling,” Fiona said. “Something this wondrous deserves a special name, one that is filled with love.”

Liam agreed and the two of them began compiling a long list of possibilities. Long names, short names, old names and new names that they made up out of their imagination, but none of them seemed to fit.

They finally stopped trying to think of names and just looked into each others eyes, instead. 

“I see a name,” Fiona said, looking at Liam.

“I see one, too,” Liam answered, gazing at Fiona.

“I also feel it,” Liam told her.

“I know,” she replied. “So do I.”

“The name is Jesus, isn’t it?” Liam said.

“Yes,” Fiona agreed, “it is Jesus.”

And the name always was Jesus for as long as they lived.

And even after that.

Forever and ever after that.

(Copyright Ken Woodley 2025)

By Ken Woodley

“I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
—Matthew 18:3

Once upon a time on a blue planet deep in space, two children stood looking through a window at the night-time sky. Darkness was everywhere and they heard the darkness thunder.
The date was December 25. A day of no meaning whatsoever for the children, nor anyone else in their world. Just another Tuesday.

One-by-one, all of the stars disappeared.
The children reached for each other when all of the light was gone.
The darkness always scared them when it thundered with storms that swallowed all of the stars with its booming clouds. They held each other’s hands, looked up into the sky and decided to pray.

“How far can you see?” Liam asked when they had finished praying.
“I think I can see to the bottom of the sky, but it’s too dark to be sure,” Fiona told him.
“Can you see God anywhere?” he asked.
“No,” she replied. “Just like all of the other scary nights, I don’t see God at all.”

Their eyes filled with tears.
But, far, far away, a Little Star that had just been born heard the children calling. Their voices sounded so distant, as if they were on the other side of the universe.
“Please,” it heard them pray, “there is a terrible storm thundering toward us in the darkness. If you are really there, please come to us. Let us see you. Be with us and protect us from the thundering darkness.”

The Little Star looked around. None of the other stars seemed to hear the children calling. It was surprised. “Me? They are calling me?” it wondered. “I am such a very small star. There are much bigger and brighter lights than me.”

But every single one of those much bigger and brighter lights stayed right where they were. The Little Star, however, began its long journey toward the children calling out from across the universe.

“Can’t anyone else hear them?” the Little Star asked the universe.

“Oh, yes, all of us hear them,” a stunning supernova said as the Little Star flickered on its way, “but we are far too busy being spectacular Superstars. We’ve got no time for two children on the other side of universe.”

The supernova looked at the Little Star and chuckled.
“And just who do you think you are?” it asked. “God? A Messiah? You’re so small and hardly shine at all. You belong in a manger. In fact, I can barely see you. How could you possibly help anybody?”

The Little Star seemed to hear the entire universe laughing but it kept on going and had soon left the skeptics and their doubts far behind him.

“Perhaps they are right, but maybe I am exactly what the children need,” it thought. “Perhaps I am the only one who can help them because I am the only one who wants to help them, the only one who cares. I might just be the Little Star that shines the light of Truest Love.”

On the blue planet, the children were still standing side by side in the darkness, looking up toward the bottom of the sky.

“Do you see God yet?” Fiona asked.
“No,” Liam answered, “Maybe God doesn’t hear us. Maybe God’s not listening.”

“I wonder if God’s even real,” she said. “Maybe God is only make-believe, like unicorns and magic dragons.”

But they kept on looking because they wanted God to be very true and absolutely real and on the way to save them.

Soon the Little Star saw a galaxy called the Milky Way, which looked like a humongous spinning pinwheel. “I think I’m almost there,” it thought.

And then, yes, it saw the blue planet in a solar system, circling a sunny star, but half of the blue planet was covered in the darkness of night.
The Little Star knew exactly where to find the children and just what to do when it got there.

“I’m ready to give up looking for God forever,” Liam sighed. “I don’t see anything but a very large lightning bug.”
Fiona looked as the light grew closer. “That’s no lightning bug,” she said.

“Here I am,” the Little Star told them as it flew through their half-opened window.
“Here is who?” Liam asked. “What are you?”
“I am me,” answered the Little Star. “I was on the other side of the universe and heard you praying.”

“You aren’t what we expected,” the children told him. “You are much smaller and far different than we imagined.”

“Well,” the Little Star admitted, “I’m certainly no Tony-winning Super Star breaking box office records on Broadway but I am who I am and I believe I am the answer to your prayer, if you’ll let me try.”

The Little Star’s belief in itself was so strong that Fiona and Liam decided to listen to what it had to say about the light it had brought them. It visited them for a week and they felt their faith growing stronger and deeper.

During the day, the Little Star stayed in Fiona’s sock drawer—after she removed all of the socks and put them under her bed. “It’s dark in the drawer,” the Little Star explained. “That makes it the perfect place to practice shining my light of Truest Love.”

Just before sunset each day, Fiona and Liam would take the Little Star outside, where it shone in the darkness all night long, right outside their bedroom windows.

But one night the Little Star told them that it would be leaving in the morning.

“Now that I have come to your blue planet,” it explained, “I hear so many others calling out to me from the darkness of their own storms. I must bring my light to them, too, if they will let me.”

The children were crestfallen. “Please don’t go,” they pleaded.
“I will only appear to be gone,” the Little Star assured them. “The light I shine remains even after it seems that I have left you. And I will stay at the very bottom of the sky, as close to you—as close to everyone—as I can.”

The children looked at one another and asked the very same question at the exact same time.
“How can we be sure that you are still with us?”


The Little Star looked deeply into their eyes. “There is one other place where you can always find me, even when all of the other lights in the world seem to go out and storm clouds hide even the biggest, brightest stars, the moon, and the Milky Way.”

“Please tell us where that place is,” they asked.
“You will always find my light shining,” the Little Star told them, “in the eyes of someone who loves you forever.”

That night Fiona and Liam dreamed dreams that were overflowing with a radiant love-filled light and the sound of singing flowers. When they awoke in the morning the Little Star did indeed seem to be gone.

But it was still there. Just as it had promised them. They were certain of that because the Little Star had told them the truth.

Liam and Fiona could see the Little Star’s light shining in each other’s eyes.

Even on the stormiest nights when the clouds hid everything else in the heavens above, they had faith that the Little Star’s small, bright twinkling light of Truest Love was at the very bottom of the sky, as close to them as it could get.

Or even closer.

Because for some reason, they could always feel it shining deep inside them, sending ripples of light through their souls.
“This is such a miraculous feeling,” Fiona said. “Something this wondrous deserves a special name, one that is filled with love.”

Liam agreed and the two of them began compiling a long list of possibilities. Long names, short names, old names and new names that they made up out of their imagination, but none of them seemed to fit.

They finally stopped trying to think of names and just looked into each others eyes, instead.

“I see a name,” Fiona said, looking at Liam.
“I see one, too,” Liam answered, gazing at Fiona.

“I also feel it,” Liam told her.
“I know,” she replied. “So do I.”

“The name is Jesus, isn’t it?” Liam said.
“Yes,” Fiona agreed, “it is Jesus.”

And the name always was Jesus for as long as they lived.

And even after that.

Forever and ever after that.




























The Yoke Of Love

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By Ken Woodley

The weight is so heavy.

Too burdensome.

I don’t see how I can go any further.

No way.

It has been so hard for so long.

Years and years, it seems, so another single step feels impossible.

The valley of this dark shadow seems to stretch forever and the slopes that surround me look and feel too steep. 

Each time I try to climb up and out of this, I slip and slide and stumble and fall. I am cut and bleeding and still this burden refuses to fall from my shoulders, fall away from my heart, or from my soul. Its weeds are everywhere and there are days when I cannot see my flowers. Can’t even smell them.

Today is one of those days.

The weeds of this burden blind me to even a single petal of one solitary flower.

And all around me are people on the same journey.

Carrying their own burdens that are too burdensome.

They don’t see how they can go any further.

No way.

It has been so hard for them, too, for so long.

Years and years, it seems, even if it has been a few days, weeks or months, so another step feels impossible to them.

The valley of the shadow surrounding them seems to stretch forever and the slopes surrounding them look and feel too steep.

Weeds surround them. Their flowers are nowhere to be seen. They can’t even smell them.

All of us have stumbled and fallen and the weeds seem certain to take every one of our blossoms away.

But, on our bruised and bleeding knees we pray.

Unable to gaze skyward any longer, we look down and see our bent and humbled shadow in prayer.

Prayer is all we have left, hopeless words searching for hope.

And that—yes, that—is when we see the second shadow.

A second shadow beside us.

Beside every one of us.

The shadow of someone carrying a yoke across his shoulders.

This shadow of the man and his yoke look just like the shadow of a cross, a crucified man somehow journeying right by our side.

Has he been there all along?

Did we mistake our burden for his?

Or his burden for ours?

None of that matters, we realize, as the flowers of this moment bloom, the sudden petals painting even the weeds into some kind of rainbow pasture where we rest and feel our burdens lifted. Our heads are anointed with oil. 

In a moment, we shall all journey on.

Our burden won’t be gone but it will feel less heavy because we do not carry it alone.

Jesus knows all about crosses.

That’s why he can help us carry our own.

The only thing Jesus adds to our darkness is light.

The one thing he adds to our burden is love.

That is why there are occasional moments when we’ll actually feel weightless, defying the world’s gravity.

For just a moment or two, perhaps, but they make the next few miles so much easier than they might have been.

And we move on toward beyond.

By Ken Woodley


The weight is so heavy.
Too burdensome.
I don’t see how I can go any further.
No way.
It has been so hard for so long.
Years and years, it seems, so another single step feels impossible.
The valley of this dark shadow seems to stretch forever and the slopes that surround me look and feel too steep.
Each time I try to climb up and out of this, I slip and slide and stumble and fall. I am cut and bleeding and still this burden refuses to fall from my shoulders, fall away from my heart, or from my soul. Its weeds are everywhere and there are days when I cannot see my flowers. Can’t even smell them.
Today is one of those days.
The weeds of this burden blind me to even a single petal of one solitary flower.
And all around me are people on the same journey.
Carrying their own burdens that are too burdensome.
They don’t see how they can go any further.
No way.
It has been so hard for them, too, for so long.
Years and years, it seems, even if it has been a few days, weeks or months, so another step feels impossible to them.
The valley of the shadow surrounding them seems to stretch forever and the slopes surrounding them look and feel too steep.
Weeds surround them. Their flowers are nowhere to be seen. They can’t even smell them.
All of us have stumbled and fallen and the weeds seem certain to take every one of our blossoms away.
But, on our bruised and bleeding knees we pray.
Unable to gaze skyward any longer, we look down and see our bent and humbled shadow in prayer.
Prayer is all we have left, hopeless words searching for hope.
And that—yes, that—is when we see the second shadow.
A second shadow beside us.
Beside every one of us.
The shadow of someone carrying a yoke across his shoulders.
This shadow of the man and his yoke look just like the shadow of a cross, a crucified man somehow journeying right by our side.
Has he been there all along?
Did we mistake our burden for his?
Or his burden for ours?
None of that matters, we realize, as the flowers of this moment bloom, the sudden petals painting even the weeds into some kind of rainbow pasture where we rest and feel our burdens lifted. Our heads are anointed with oil.
In a moment, we shall all journey on.
Our burden won’t be gone but it will feel less heavy because we do not carry it alone.
Jesus knows all about crosses.
That’s why he can help us carry our own.
The only thing Jesus adds to our darkness is light.
The one thing he adds to our burden is love.
That is why there are occasional moments when we’ll actually feel weightless, defying the world’s gravity.
For just a moment or two, perhaps, but they make the next few miles so much easier than they might have been.
And we move on toward beyond.

Even Holy Routines Can Become Merely Routine

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By Ken Woodley

My soul felt dusty on the morning of Friday, December 27. Despite the joys of Christmas still caroling in the air, I felt a desperate need to walk more closely with God and with Jesus than I had the day before, to literally walk as closely as I possibly could. To feel them. To even see them if I could.

I needed manna from heaven and I needed it badly. Heading toward my familiar daily trails at our local national park, I turned and drove, instead, to James River State Park. I would walk the River Trail, where I have sometimes heard the whispered echoes of the Holy Spirit.

I usually have this trail entirely to myself, especially in the winter on a week day. Nearly a mile into my solitary walk, the trail took a hard right turn at the end of a line of trees. Emerging from the riverside path 100 yards in front of me, I suddenly saw someone. 

Then my mind and my soul did a double take. The man headed in my direction was wearing priestly garb, flowing black robes. And a second was right behind him. Then a 10th, a 20th, a 30th. There had to be more than 40 of them, and most of them young men.

It was totally surreal. So completely out of context. Or was it? 

Astonishment filled me as we exchanged greetings during this crossing of paths. Then, moments later, I began to weep, tears of pure joy, and I started thanking God and thanking Jesus over and over again, thanking them aloud as I walked along the side of the river.

I had literally hungered to walk closer to the Lord and set that spiritual goal for myself earlier in the morning but this seemed utterly miraculous to me.

Just like manna from heaven.

And I knew I had to share my experience with them. I turned around and retraced my steps but there was no sight of them. I drove to the park office and they told me that when the group had arrived, one of the priests had asked how to pay the entrance fee for 23 cars.

The park attendant didn’t know where they were from, but she could tell me where they had parked. I drove as quickly as I could and saw the group approaching the wooded entrance to another trail. 

I stopped my car in their midst just in time, got out and told them of the spiritual hunger I had felt that morning and the tears of joy had I had experienced after passing them on the trail.

My prayer had been answered, I told them, and they were the physical manifestation of God’s Holy Spirit bringing that answer. 

Then one of them came up to me, smiling, and introduced himself as Brother Maximillian. They were from St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Buckingham County, Catholic priests, brothers and seminary students. He reached into a pocket and gave me a very special medallion made in honor of the Virgin Mary.

The card that came with what is known as The Miraculous Medal had a painting of the Virgin Mary on one side and these words on the other:

“Mary, the Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ, appeared to St. Catherine Laboure in 1830. She requested that this medal be made and worn in her honor. Mary has promised her special protection to those who wear it constantly, especially around the neck, and devoutly pray this prayer each day: O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

“This medal is called Miraculous due to the countless miracles associated with this devotion. This medal is blessed,” the words on the back of the card concluded, “so please give it due respect.”

It’s been around my neck ever since, reminding me of how close God and Jesus are, even when I do not feel them.

But it also reminds me how close I had come to missing out entirely on this moment of pure grace. And it made me wonder how many other moments I might have missed in my life because I didn’t do what I had done that day.

It would have been so easy to feel my hunger for intimate proximity with God and Christ but remained content to keep to my familiar daily paths and routines, praying and meditating before dawn and then walking nearby trails just down the road.

Instead, I’d had to suddenly turn my day upside down and drive 30 miles to a state park. I had to reach my heart and soul out beyond routine. God knew the St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary priests, brothers and seminary students were there but God had to get me there too.

And just at the right time.

Then I needed to listen to the Holy Spirit tell me to turn around after that first encounter and go find them to share the importance, to me, of our paths crossing, sharing it with them so that the day would fill them with a shared experience of the Holy Spirit. 

I couldn’t be content to have the beautiful wonder of it all to myself.

It wasn’t just about me. It was about them, too. Sharing a “manna moment” out of the blue with someone they’d never seen before, Holy scripture lived out in real time and all of them part of it.

I especially wanted the seminary students to feel validation of the path they had chosen. I told them that I would be preaching a sermon that very Sunday titled “In The Footsteps Of Christmas” and that the footsteps were now theirs. “You can’t make this stuff up,” I told them.

This experience taught me that we all need to reach out beyond our normal routines, even if those moments are filled with prayer, because it is beyond our normal daily borders that God and Christ can most emphatically touch our deepest needs.

It doesn’t mean we have to drive 30 miles and go on a hike. It can be a journey of 30 spiritual miles and a hike, in your mind, around the Sea of Galilee with Jesus. Just the two of you.

Our daily routines, even if filled with devotion, can become too familiar. Even the best routines eventually become only routine. They can dull our spiritual senses. 

Holy routines can often insulate us against the world’s encroaching darkness but they can also insulate us from the deeper illuminations of the brightest light.

There’s nothing routine about meeting God beyond the edge of our usual spiritual boundaries. And that new frontier of the soul can feel like the Promised Land when we need it most, manna from heaven all around us. 

By Ken Woodley


My soul felt dusty on the morning of Friday, December 27. Despite the joys of Christmas still caroling in the air, I felt a desperate need to walk more closely with God and with Jesus than I had the day before, to literally walk as closely as I possibly could. To feel them. To even see them if I could.

I needed manna from heaven and I needed it badly. Heading toward my familiar daily trails at our local national park, I turned and drove, instead, to James River State Park. I would walk the River Trail, where I have sometimes heard the whispered echoes of the Holy Spirit.

I usually have this trail entirely to myself, especially in the winter on a week day. Nearly a mile into my solitary walk, the trail took a hard right turn at the end of a line of trees. Emerging from the riverside path 100 yards in front of me, I suddenly saw someone.

Then my mind and my soul did a double take. The man headed in my direction was wearing priestly garb, flowing black robes. And a second was right behind him. Then a 10th, a 20th, a 30th. There had to be more than 40 of them, and most of them young men.
It was totally surreal. So completely out of context. Or was it?


Astonishment filled me as we exchanged greetings during this crossing of paths. Then, moments later, I began to weep, tears of pure joy, and I started thanking God and thanking Jesus over and over again, thanking them aloud as I walked along the side of the river.

I had literally hungered to walk closer to the Lord and set that spiritual goal for myself earlier in the morning but this seemed utterly miraculous to me.
Just like manna from heaven.

And I knew I had to share my experience with them. I turned around and retraced my steps but there was no sight of them. I drove to the park office and they told me that when the group had arrived, one of the priests had asked how to pay the entrance fee for 23 cars.

The park attendant didn’t know where they were from, but she could tell me where they had parked. I drove as quickly as I could and saw the group approaching the wooded entrance to another trail.

I stopped my car in their midst just in time, got out and told them of the spiritual hunger I had felt that morning and the tears of joy had I had experienced after passing them on the trail.

My prayer had been answered, I told them, and they were the physical manifestation of God’s Holy Spirit bringing that answer.

Then one of them came up to me, smiling, and introduced himself as Brother Maximillian. They were from St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Buckingham County, Catholic priests, brothers and seminary students. He reached into a pocket and gave me a very special medallion made in honor of the Virgin Mary.

The card that came with what is known as The Miraculous Medal had a painting of the Virgin Mary on one side and these words on the other:

“Mary, the Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ, appeared to St. Catherine Laboure in 1830. She requested that this medal be made and worn in her honor. Mary has promised her special protection to those who wear it constantly, especially around the neck, and devoutly pray this prayer each day: O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

“This medal is called Miraculous due to the countless miracles associated with this devotion. This medal is blessed,” the words on the back of the card concluded, “so please give it due respect.”

It’s been around my neck ever since, reminding me of how close God and Jesus are, even when I do not feel them.

But it also reminds me how close I had come to missing out entirely on this moment of pure grace. And it made me wonder how many other moments I might have missed in my life because I didn’t do what I had done that day.

It would have been so easy to feel my hunger for intimate proximity with God and Christ but remained content to keep to my familiar daily paths and routines, praying and meditating before dawn and then walking nearby trails just down the road.

Instead, I’d had to suddenly turn my day upside down and drive 30 miles to a state park. I had to reach my heart and soul out beyond routine. God knew the St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary priests, brothers and seminary students were there but God had to get me there too.
And just at the right time.

Then I needed to listen to the Holy Spirit tell me to turn around after that first encounter and go find them to share the importance, to me, of our paths crossing, sharing it with them so that the day would fill them with a shared experience of the Holy Spirit.

I couldn’t be content to have the beautiful wonder of it all to myself.

It wasn’t just about me. It was about them, too. Sharing a “manna moment” out of the blue with someone they’d never seen before, Holy scripture lived out in real time and all of them part of it.

I especially wanted the seminary students to feel validation of the path they had chosen. I told them that I would be preaching a sermon that very Sunday titled “In The Footsteps Of Christmas” and that the footsteps were now theirs. “You can’t make this stuff up,” I told them.

This experience taught me that we all need to reach out beyond our normal routines, even if those moments are filled with prayer, because it is beyond our normal daily borders that God and Christ can most emphatically touch our deepest needs.

It doesn’t mean we have to drive 30 miles and go on a hike. It can be a journey of 30 spiritual miles and a hike, in your mind, around the Sea of Galilee with Jesus. Just the two of you.

Our daily routines, even if filled with devotion, can become too familiar. Even the best routines eventually become only routine. They can dull our spiritual senses.

Holy routines can often insulate us against the world’s encroaching darkness but they can also insulate us from the deeper illuminations of the brightest light.

There’s nothing routine about meeting God beyond the edge of our usual spiritual boundaries. And that new frontier of the soul can feel like the Promised Land when we need it most, manna from heaven all around us.























A Recipe From Heaven

kenwoodley31 Comment

By Ken Woodley

If today’s Gospel reading were an earthly recipe, I would have had the ingredients all over me many times, all over the floor, the ceiling and all over Kim if she happened to be walking through the kitchen. 

Despite my best efforts, I’ve often made a mess of them.

But this is no recipe found in the pages of a cookbook. It’s a recipe from  heaven given to us by Jesus.

“Love your enemies.

Do good to those who hate you.

Bless those who curse you.

Pray for those who abuse you.

If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also.

And from anyone who takes away your coat do not even withhold your shirt.”

Those words are so easy for me to read aloud but so very hard to put into practice in my daily life.

As with many holy recipes, this one can be hard to swallow, especially when I’m wrestling with a fresh hurt, or an old familiar wound.

Jesus doesn’t even recommend any particular amount for most of the ingredients. 

We don’t know whether it’s two pounds of lean cut love for our enemies.

Maybe a cup of goodness to those who hate us?

Perhaps a quarter cup of blessing for those who curse us?

Possibly two tablespoons of praying for those who abuse us?

Who knows?

The only time Jesus gives us specific directions about quantity is that we’re to offer our entire other cheek to those who smack us in the face and the complete shirt off our back to anyone who steals our coat.

It would take a five-star restaurant chef to make anything out of this recipe worth serving.

Except, Jesus isn’t talking to a convention of celebrity chefs with their own television series.

Jesus is talking to a large crowd of his disciples, as well as a great number of people from all over Judea who had come to hear him and be healed.

And, of course, Jesus is also talking to us.

At first glance, it may initially appear that Jesus is more concerned with those who are harming us physically and emotionally. As if he’s letting them off the hook and putting a great burden on us.

But, with Jesus, merely glancing at his words is like quickly turning our backs on a masterpiece.

We’ve always got to go deeper.

We’ve got to loosen up and stretch our spiritual selves because, as is so often the case, Jesus is encouraging us to practice spiritual gymnastics because he’s turning everything upside down and inside out again, as he always seems to do. Blessed are those who mourn, for example.

This time it’s:

Love the haters.

Pray for the abusers.

How challenging were his words then? Just as challenging as they are today. And will be a thousand years from now.

The haters and abusers seemed to be winning everywhere in Jesus’s day, just has hatred and abuse seem too often triumphant in the world today.

So, Jesus, are you asking us to help them?

The answer is Yes.

And No.

Jesus does want us to help them.

But he doesn’t want us to help them hate or abuse or steal. I don’t think Jesus is trying to enhance the wardrobe of coat-stealers or train cheek slappers to become mixed martial arts experts.

Jesus wants us to help them stop hating and start loving.

He wants us to help them stop abusing and start loving.

Jesus wants us to help them stop hitting and start loving.

But not by hating, abusing or hitting them back.

Not even Superman or Wonder Woman could put out a fire by pouring gasoline on the flames.

Trying to extinguish even a single flame in our homes with gasoline would produce an inferno that would burn the whole house down.

So why try and defeat hatred with more hate?

Love would have no chance. Only ashes would remain.

The only victor in a battle of hatred versus hatred would be hatred. And hatred would emerge far stronger than it was before the fight began.

Nobody can defeat darkness by trying to overcome it with more darkness.

The result would be a deeper, darker darkness.

The peace and love of God that we all wish we’d feel more often throughout the day—if only the world would stop bruising us—finds room in our hearts and souls when we turn on our light to drive darkness away.

Loving those who hate us and praying for those who abuse us—turning our physical and emotional cheeks—makes us stronger spiritually and gives us power over the pain that others inflict. We cease to feel like victims. 

Anger is a difficult companion—a weed that quickly consumes every flower in the garden and plants the seeds of hatred.

Hatred then wraps the heart in a heavy chain and in the darkness it is impossible to find the key.

Forgiveness, on the other hand, is our soul’s best friend.

And love is our guardian angel.

They are the water with which we put out the fires in our lives and in the world around us.

They are the light that drives the darkness away.

That’s why Jesus gave us the recipe.

Yes, following this recipe may not stop all, or any, of the haters and abusers. But the one thing it will most certainly do is save us from becoming one of them, sparing us from spreading darkness into our own communities, homes and the lives of those closest to us.

There’s a reason Jesus didn’t give us any specific measurements for this  recipe of spiritual gymnastics.

The amounts of each ingredient will vary person to person, depending upon the individual situation we are responding to and degree of difficulty in turning the other cheek, or responding to hatred with love.

A pound, a quart, a cup or a tablespoon, wherever we are able to begin, is the right amount of any of these ingredients because it is, at that moment, all we have to give. The amounts will vary but the essential spiritual recipe remains the same. Today a teaspoon, but tomorrow may find us able to give much more.

And besides, Jesus knew that any amount—even just a pinch of true, deep love at the right time, and in the right place, can stand us on our head so we can see things right side up.

Not as they always are.

But as they are always meant to be.

One more person, one more part of the world, seeing its true self through the eyes of Christ.

The kingdom of heaven so near.

All lit up with our light and our love.

                                               AMEN




By Ken Woodley

If today’s Gospel reading were an earthly recipe, I would have had the ingredients all over me many times, all over the floor, the ceiling and all over Kim if she happened to be walking through the kitchen.
Despite my best efforts, I’ve often made a mess of them.

But this is no recipe found in the pages of a cookbook. It’s a recipe from heaven given to us by Jesus.

“Love your enemies.
Do good to those who hate you.
Bless those who curse you.
Pray for those who abuse you.
If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also.
And from anyone who takes away your coat do not even withhold your shirt.”

Those words are so easy for me to read aloud but so very hard to put into practice in my daily life.
As with many holy recipes, this one can be hard to swallow, especially when I’m wrestling with a fresh hurt, or an old familiar wound.
Jesus doesn’t even recommend any particular amount for most of the ingredients.

We don’t know whether it’s two pounds of lean cut love for our enemies.
Maybe a cup of goodness to those who hate us?
Perhaps a quarter cup of blessing for those who curse us?
Possibly two tablespoons of praying for those who abuse us?
Who knows?

The only time Jesus gives us specific directions about quantity is that we’re to offer our entire other cheek to those who smack us in the face and the complete shirt off our back to anyone who steals our coat.

It would take a five-star restaurant chef to make anything out of this recipe worth serving.
Except, Jesus isn’t talking to a convention of celebrity chefs with their own television series.

Jesus is talking to a large crowd of his disciples, as well as a great number of people from all over Judea who had come to hear him and be healed.

And, of course, Jesus is also talking to us.

At first glance, it may initially appear that Jesus is more concerned with those who are harming us physically and emotionally. As if he’s letting them off the hook and putting a great burden on us.
But, with Jesus, merely glancing at his words is like quickly turning our backs on a masterpiece.

We’ve always got to go deeper.
We’ve got to loosen up and stretch our spiritual selves because, as is so often the case, Jesus is encouraging us to practice spiritual gymnastics because he’s turning everything upside down and inside out again, as he always seems to do. Blessed are those who mourn, for example.

This time it’s:
Love the haters.
Pray for the abusers.

How challenging were his words then? Just as challenging as they are today. And will be a thousand years from now.
The haters and abusers seemed to be winning everywhere in Jesus’s day, just has hatred and abuse seem too often triumphant in the world today.

So, Jesus, are you asking us to help them?

The answer is Yes.
And No.
Jesus does want us to help them.
But he doesn’t want us to help them hate or abuse or steal. I don’t think Jesus is trying to enhance the wardrobe of coat-stealers or train cheek slappers to become mixed martial arts experts.

Jesus wants us to help them stop hating and start loving.
He wants us to help them stop abusing and start loving.
Jesus wants us to help them stop hitting and start loving.
But not by hating, abusing or hitting them back.

Not even Superman or Wonder Woman could put out a fire by pouring gasoline on the flames.
Trying to extinguish even a single flame in our homes with gasoline would produce an inferno that would burn the whole house down.
So why try and defeat hatred with more hate?
Love would have no chance. Only ashes would remain.

The only victor in a battle of hatred versus hatred would be hatred. And hatred would emerge far stronger than it was before the fight began.
Nobody can defeat darkness by trying to overcome it with more darkness.
The result would be a deeper, darker darkness.

The peace and love of God that we all wish we’d feel more often throughout the day—if only the world would stop bruising us—finds room in our hearts and souls when we turn on our light to drive darkness away.

Loving those who hate us and praying for those who abuse us—turning our physical and emotional cheeks—makes us stronger spiritually and gives us power over the pain that others inflict. We cease to feel like victims.

Anger is a difficult companion—a weed that quickly consumes every flower in the garden and plants the seeds of hatred.
Hatred then wraps the heart in a heavy chain and in the darkness it is impossible to find the key.

Forgiveness, on the other hand, is our soul’s best friend.
And love is our guardian angel.
They are the water with which we put out the fires in our lives and in the world around us.
They are the light that drives the darkness away.
That’s why Jesus gave us the recipe.

Yes, following this recipe may not stop all, or any, of the haters and abusers. But the one thing it will most certainly do is save us from becoming one of them, sparing us from spreading darkness into our own communities, homes and the lives of those closest to us.

There’s a reason Jesus didn’t give us any specific measurements for this recipe of spiritual gymnastics.
The amounts of each ingredient will vary person to person, depending upon the individual situation we are responding to and degree of difficulty in turning the other cheek, or responding to hatred with love.

A pound, a quart, a cup or a tablespoon, wherever we are able to begin, is the right amount of any of these ingredients because it is, at that moment, all we have to give. The amounts will vary but the essential spiritual recipe remains the same. Today a teaspoon, but tomorrow may find us able to give much more.

And besides, Jesus knew that any amount—even just a pinch of true, deep love at the right time, and in the right place, can stand us on our head so we can see things right side up.
Not as they always are.
But as they are always meant to be.

One more person, one more part of the world, seeing its true self through the eyes of Christ.
The kingdom of heaven so near.
All lit up with our light and our love.






















Pavilions For The Sun

kenwoodley31 Comment

By Ken Woodley

The heavens declare the glory of God, Psalm 19 proclaims. And although they have no words or language and their voices are not heard, their sound has gone out into all lands, including your own.

An inaudible sound is so mystifying, to me, but so like the Holy Spirit. Unheard, but utterly articulate within us.

I imagine that heavenly sound seeking out every corner of the Earth to quell the dissonance that strives to drown out every melody ever sung in our hearts by God.

What amazing grace, and all of us are suddenly there.

We cup our hands to our ears as the dissonance slowly fades away.

The clashing noise of warring notes around us and within us, like sharp swords striking iron shields, is fading into the song of plowshares.

Soon, we cannot hear a thing except this new wordless chorus that covers the earth. A hallelujah chorus that turns dissonance inside out. A chorus that is the melody of pure love.

But how can that be? The dissonance proclaimed that it would rule  forever and then, just like that, it’s gone?

We are overcome by this new sensation of a world no longer shouting at us.

A world that is suddenly singing to us, instead.

And then, the sky, itself, seems to fall straight out of the heavenly melody.

Seems to fall from golden clouds of harmony to earth and take its place by our side.

Then the sky seems to touch our face.

We hear the sky speaking in tones of velvet thunder that ring softly, echoing with a strength of a million melodies that will not be denied.

And then there are words. The sky speaks them to us.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” we hear the sky say, “because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release of the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And we feel the sky reaching out as far as it can to caress our cheeks.

As if heaven, itself, is brushing our face with its lips.

Redeeming us, healing us, with a kiss.

But why would heaven ever want to kiss me?

The dissonance said that heaven never would.

“In the deep,” Psalm 19 explains, God “has set a pavilion for the sun, it comes forth like a bridegroom out of his chamber.”

A pavilion for the sun whose light has come looking for us. For you and for me. Looking for us all. 

So intent on finding us that it “goes forth from the uttermost edge of the heavens,” Psalm 19 states, “and runs about to the end of it again.”

It all sounds like joy to the world but dissonance doesn’t give up that easily. It sneaks about like wolves around the edge of a sheepfold. 

There is no howling but there are moments when the dissonance slithers between the heavenly melody’s notes of harmony and sows cynical doubts in our hearts.

You’re not really taking all of that lovey-dovey, Spirit-is-upon-me, pie-in-the-sky stuff seriously are you? the dissonance demands.

Seriously, the dissonance continues, why would God ever truly care?

Why would the sky do anything more than remain far beyond your reach and God so far beyond the sky that even the sky has no clue how to get there.

The dissonance swears that God never would.

The dissonance swears that dissonance is the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Melodies and harmony? Those were ancient echoes you heard a moment ago, the dissonance assures us, and it was only the wind brushing against your cheek and touching your lips.

Maybe the dissonance is right, I tell myself. Why would God ever want to brush my face with a kiss of even the smallest caring show of affection?

But there it is again—a sudden harmony of such joyous wonder that it  sends dissonance scattering like dandelion seeds before the wind.

Dissonance, I now know for sure, wasn’t telling the truth at all. Not the whole truth. Not any of the truth. 

I see the same understanding in your eyes and the harmony wraps us up so entirely that it makes each of us feel that we’re the only thing the heavenly melody ever wanted for Christmas.

We are all silent and wondering as the sky rolls up the scroll, gives it back to the synagogue’s attendant and sits down.

Amazing grace fills up every corner of the room.

We see it within the gentle light shining from the sky’s eyes into ours.

We feel it in the healing touch of the sky’s voice upon our souls.

The sky speaking words that dissonance sought to shout out of existence:

“Today,” the sky tells us, singing with God’s voice, “this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

The sky stands now and we rise with it.

Together, we leave, following the sky into the deep and inside pavilions for the sun. 

The journey, however, isn’t toward some distant place beyond the reckoning of compass or computer. We follow the sky until we find our own reflections looking back at us in puddles of rain, or the mirror where we stand brushing our teeth.

A pavilion for the sun, the sky tells us in a voice that Peter, John, Thomas and Mary Magdalene would instantly recognize, is actually deep inside each of your souls.

Right where God put it. 

All of us are pavilions for the sun and we help heal the world with the light that shines through us.

                                           AMEN

By Ken Woodley

The heavens declare the glory of God, Psalm 19 proclaims. And although they have no words or language and their voices are not heard, their sound has gone out into all lands, including your own.

An inaudible sound is so mystifying, to me, but so like the Holy Spirit. Unheard, but utterly articulate within us.

I imagine that heavenly sound seeking out every corner of the Earth to quell the dissonance that strives to drown out every melody ever sung in our hearts by God.

What amazing grace, and all of us are suddenly there.

We cup our hands to our ears as the dissonance slowly fades away.
The clashing noise of warring notes around us and within us, like sharp swords striking iron shields, is fading into the song of plowshares.

Soon, we cannot hear a thing except this new wordless chorus that covers the earth. A hallelujah chorus that turns dissonance inside out. A chorus that is the melody of pure love.

But how can that be? The dissonance proclaimed that it would rule forever and then, just like that, it’s gone?

We are overcome by this new sensation of a world no longer shouting at us.
A world that is suddenly singing to us, instead.
And then, the sky, itself, seems to fall straight out of the heavenly melody.

Seems to fall from golden clouds of harmony to earth and take its place by our side.

Then the sky seems to touch our face.

We hear the sky speaking in tones of velvet thunder that ring softly, echoing with a strength of a million melodies that will not be denied.

And then there are words. The sky speaks them to us.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” we hear the sky say, “because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release of the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And we feel the sky reaching out as far as it can to caress our cheeks.
As if heaven, itself, is brushing our face with its lips.
Redeeming us, healing us, with a kiss.

But why would heaven ever want to kiss me?
The dissonance said that heaven never would.

“In the deep,” Psalm 19 explains, God “has set a pavilion for the sun, it comes forth like a bridegroom out of his chamber.”
A pavilion for the sun whose light has come looking for us. For you and for me. Looking for us all.

So intent on finding us that it “goes forth from the uttermost edge of the heavens,” Psalm 19 states, “and runs about to the end of it again.”

It all sounds like joy to the world but dissonance doesn’t give up that easily. It sneaks about like wolves around the edge of a sheepfold.

There is no howling but there are moments when the dissonance slithers between the heavenly melody’s notes of harmony and sows cynical doubts in our hearts.

You’re not really taking all of that lovey-dovey, Spirit-is-upon-me, pie-in-the-sky stuff seriously are you? the dissonance demands.
Seriously, the dissonance continues, why would God ever truly care?

Why would the sky do anything more than remain far beyond your reach and God so far beyond the sky that even the sky has no clue how to get there.

The dissonance swears that God never would.
The dissonance swears that dissonance is the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Melodies and harmony? Those were ancient echoes you heard a moment ago, the dissonance assures us, and it was only the wind brushing against your cheek and touching your lips.

Maybe the dissonance is right, I tell myself. Why would God ever want to brush my face with a kiss of even the smallest caring show of affection?

But there it is again—a sudden harmony of such joyous wonder that it sends dissonance scattering like dandelion seeds before the wind.

Dissonance, I now know for sure, wasn’t telling the truth at all. Not the whole truth. Not any of the truth.

I see the same understanding in your eyes and the harmony wraps us up so entirely that it makes each of us feel that we’re the only thing the heavenly melody ever wanted for Christmas.

We are all silent and wondering as the sky rolls up the scroll, gives it back to the synagogue’s attendant and sits down.

Amazing grace fills up every corner of the room.

We see it within the gentle light shining from the sky’s eyes into ours.
We feel it in the healing touch of the sky’s voice upon our souls.

The sky speaking words that dissonance sought to shout out of existence:

“Today,” the sky tells us, singing with God’s voice, “this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

The sky stands now and we rise with it.

Together, we leave, following the sky into the deep and inside pavilions for the sun.

The journey, however, isn’t toward some distant place beyond the reckoning of compass or computer. We follow the sky until we find our own reflections looking back at us in puddles of rain, or the mirror where we stand brushing our teeth.

A pavilion for the sun, the sky tells us in a voice that Peter, John, Thomas and Mary Magdalene would instantly recognize, is actually deep inside each of your souls.

Right where God put it.

All of us are pavilions for the sun and we help heal the world with the light that shines through us.

















Three Dreams

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(A meditation on December 25, January 15 and July 4)

By Ken Woodley

Jesus Christ of Nazareth had a dream.

He had been to the mountaintop.

Jesus had a dream that we would love our neighbors as ourselves.

That we would turn the other cheek.

That those who hunger and thirst for righteousness would be filled.

He had a dream about the blessedness of peacemakers and he called them children of God.

Jesus had a dream that you and I are the light of the world and that we would let that light shine so bright that it would give light to everyone in the house.

Yes, Jesus very definitely had a dream.

And he was not alone.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. also had a dream.

He had been to the mountaintop.

Dr. King had a dream that the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners would one day sit down at the table of brotherhood.

That the heat of injustice would be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

He had a dream that one day his children would live in a nation where they would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

That one day little black boys and black girls would be able to join hands with little white boys and girls as sisters and brothers.

Yes, Jesus Christ of Nazareth and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. very definitely had a dream.

And they were not alone.

The United States of America also had a dream.

It had been to the mountaintop.

The United States had a dream about truths that were so obvious that they were self-evident.

A dream that all people are created equal.

That they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.

A dream about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

A dream about forming a more perfect union.

A trinity of dreamers and dreams that share so much in common:

Peace. Love. Humanity.

None of them was, or is, a danger to anybody.

They are fiercely innocent.

But they are so utterly vulnerable.

The first dream was crucified with hammers and nails.

The second was assassinated by a single finger on a trigger.

And the third dream was pursued by its own dreamers—hunted down by lynch ropes and chains. The Liberty Bell didn’t crack on July 4, 1776 because it was rung so hard for so long. No, it cracked because liberty rang for far too few people on that day. For African Americans, the liberty bell made no sound at all that day.

They were, and are, still so vulnerable. They are stalked daily by a darkness that does not understand the light that fills them and shines through them.

The dark divisions of hate surround them.

Back them into a corner.

Certain that one day they will smother the light.

That’s where we come in.

You and I have a question to answer:

What happens to those dreams?

Where do they go from here?

Each of those dreamers articulated a vision that has—so far—been beyond humanity’s ability to make come fully true for everyone.

The United States of America, in fact, failed to grasp the full meaning of its own dream, believing for far too long that its life, liberty and pursuit of happiness were meant only for white males of a certain social stature.

January 15 is the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who we honor on January 20 with a national holiday. But there are still some who would like to make that dream—and the challenge it still sets for our nation—disappear.

Just as the hammers and the nails sought to erase the meaning and message of Jesus Christ, whose birthday carols still ring in our ears.

But the assassin’s bullet failed and the instruments of crucifixion were unable to complete their mission.

Dreams filled with the light and love of God cannot be eradicated.

The love of God for all people—and the light of that truth—cannot be hammered and nailed out of existence. It cannot be assassinated.

But the struggle to reach the light of that love to all people is very real. The darkness of this world is no joke. It is alive and well and living in the human heart. 

Even, sometimes, our own.

But the light, too, is alive and well and reaches for our wrinkles and veins, yearns for our heart, longing to go where only our footsteps can take it. 

We are the light of the world. Jesus said so. I believe him. 

God didn’t light up our souls so that we could hide behind locked doors and shuttered windows.

God lit up our souls so that we would shine, shine, shine.

And that is what we must do because we are in a desperate race, you and I, a relay of light against the darkness. We must run the light of healing love and reconciliation as far as we can.

We run it to those living in darkness and despair, and then they run their own light as far as their lives can take it.

Because the darkness has its own footsteps, the footsteps of those who try to divide us over race, separate us because of the color of our skin, segregate us over the language that we speak, partition us over how we choose to pray to God, disjoin us because of who we choose to love.

The relay of light is no spectator sport. There is no sitting on the sidelines. If we don’t run our light into the world the vacuum of our absence will be filled with the darkness of division. 

There are hundreds of thousands of ways, large and small and none insignificant, to shine our light into the world toward one another, to heal and reconcile. 

A light that might inspire a nation.

A light that Jesus knows is inside us.

A light that Dr. King, who preached the Gospel of Christ, saw from the mountaintop.

A light the United States of America declared over and over and over until it finally began to believe its own declaration.

A light in which their three dreams—walking in your footsteps—can gather, join hands and say:

Hallelujah.

(A meditation on December 25, January 15 and July 4)

By Ken Woodley
Jesus Christ of Nazareth had a dream.
He had been to the mountaintop.
Jesus had a dream that we would love our neighbors as ourselves.
That we would turn the other cheek.
That those who hunger and thirst for righteousness would be filled.
He had a dream about the blessedness of peacemakers and he called them children of God.
Jesus had a dream that you and I are the light of the world and that we would let that light shine so bright that it would give light to everyone in the house.
Yes, Jesus very definitely had a dream.
And he was not alone.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. also had a dream.
He had been to the mountaintop.
Dr. King had a dream that the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners would one day sit down at the table of brotherhood.
That the heat of injustice would be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
He had a dream that one day his children would live in a nation where they would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
That one day little black boys and black girls would be able to join hands with little white boys and girls as sisters and brothers.
Yes, Jesus Christ of Nazareth and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. very definitely had a dream.
And they were not alone.

The United States of America also had a dream.
It had been to the mountaintop.
The United States had a dream about truths that were so obvious that they were self-evident.
A dream that all people are created equal.
That they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.
A dream about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
A dream about forming a more perfect union.

A trinity of dreamers and dreams that share so much in common:
Peace. Love. Humanity.
None of them was, or is, a danger to anybody.
They are fiercely innocent.
But they are so utterly vulnerable.

The first dream was crucified with hammers and nails.
The second was assassinated by a single finger on a trigger.
And the third dream was pursued by its own dreamers—hunted down by lynch ropes and chains. The Liberty Bell didn’t crack on July 4, 1776 because it was rung so hard for so long. No, it cracked because liberty rang for far too few people on that day. For African Americans, the liberty bell made no sound at all that day.

They were, and are, still so vulnerable. They are stalked daily by a darkness that does not understand the light that fills them and shines through them.
The dark divisions of hate surround them.
Back them into a corner.
Certain that one day they will smother the light.

That’s where we come in.
You and I have a question to answer:

What happens to those dreams?
Where do they go from here?

Each of those dreamers articulated a vision that has—so far—been beyond humanity’s ability to make come fully true for everyone.

The United States of America, in fact, failed to grasp the full meaning of its own dream, believing for far too long that its life, liberty and pursuit of happiness were meant only for white males of a certain social stature.

January 15 is the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who we honor on January 20 with a national holiday. But there are still some who would like to make that dream—and the challenge it still sets for our nation—disappear.

Just as the hammers and the nails sought to erase the meaning and message of Jesus Christ, whose birthday carols still ring in our ears.

But the assassin’s bullet failed and the instruments of crucifixion were unable to complete their mission.

Dreams filled with the light and love of God cannot be eradicated.

The love of God for all people—and the light of that truth—cannot be hammered and nailed out of existence. It cannot be assassinated.

But the struggle to reach the light of that love to all people is very real. The darkness of this world is no joke. It is alive and well and living in the human heart.
Even, sometimes, our own.

But the light, too, is alive and well and reaches for our wrinkles and veins, yearns for our heart, longing to go where only our footsteps can take it.

We are the light of the world. Jesus said so. I believe him.

God didn’t light up our souls so that we could hide behind locked doors and shuttered windows.

God lit up our souls so that we would shine, shine, shine.

And that is what we must do because we are in a desperate race, you and I, a relay of light against the darkness. We must run the light of healing love and reconciliation as far as we can.

We run it to those living in darkness and despair, and then they run their own light as far as their lives can take it.

Because the darkness has its own footsteps, the footsteps of those who try to divide us over race, separate us because of the color of our skin, segregate us over the language that we speak, partition us over how we choose to pray to God, disjoin us because of who we choose to love.

The relay of light is no spectator sport. There is no sitting on the sidelines. If we don’t run our light into the world the vacuum of our absence will be filled with the darkness of division.

There are hundreds of thousands of ways, large and small and none insignificant, to shine our light into the world toward one another, to heal and reconcile.

A light that might inspire a nation.

A light that Jesus knows is inside us.
A light that Dr. King, who preached the Gospel of Christ, saw from the mountaintop.
A light the United States of America declared over and over and over until it finally began to believe its own declaration.

A light in which their three dreams—walking in your footsteps—can gather, join hands and say:

Hallelujah.





The Footsteps of Christmas

kenwoodley34 Comments

By Ken Woodley

What a compelling reaction by Mary in Luke’s birth narrative as the  invisible snowflakes of grace fall all around her, shepherds recounting their encounter with angels.

“Do not be afraid,” Luke’s account states, because this is “good news for all people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.”

Go to the manger to see for yourselves, the angels told the shepherds.

So they did and those listening to their story, Luke tells us, “were amazed.” 

But what of Mary? Her reaction deserves our full attention, a deep, silent and thoughtful response, as if she could see the footsteps of the Lord in those  unseen snowflakes of grace that began covering the world around the manger.

She “treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” Mary was clearly beginning a meditative journey about the deepest meaning of her son’s birth.

The angel Gabriel had sketched out the meaning when he’d visited Mary in Nazareth nine months earlier. You will give birth to a son, Gabriel had told her, conceived by the Holy Spirit, a son to be called Jesus. 

“He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David,” Gabriel had further explained, “and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will have no end.”

Mary’s reaction had often left me perplexed. Why did she need to ponder the shepherd’s words? Gabriel had made things clear to her. But then I reconsidered.

Anyone would be awash in wondering about an encounter with an angel. There may even have been times when she doubted her own understanding of what had happened. Could it have merely been a dream?

“The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever….”

Did that mean her son would some day become an earthly king, sitting upon an earthly throne?

The throne of David, after all, was very much an earthly throne and David was an earthly king.

Mary surely wondered about the precise meaning of those words. 

Nor was she alone in doing so. People have been pondering them ever since.

The question—like footprints in the snow—followed Jesus all of his life.

From his very first moments in this world to the final hours before his death—when Pilate asked him “Are you king of the Jews?”—people have wondered about the true meaning and message of his birth. 

In the end, each of us will decide for ourselves who this Jesus is in our lives and how that answer influences the way we see the world, what we see in each other, and how we see ourselves.  

And, crucially, the decisions we make in response to our answer.

We can choose to treasure the answering of that question in our hearts, and ponder it for a lifetime, joining Mary in a contemplative journey. If we choose that path, the nuances and subtleties of our answer will develop in different ways during our lifetime. A spiritual journey is organic, not static. 

There will be layers of understanding, flashes of clear insight—as if they were spoken to us by an angel—that may, at times, seem like an uncertain mirage or a dream when our daily lives intrude, pushing them to the side. We may also find that we return to previous understandings, but with deeper insight into them.

But if we treasure this and ponder it in our hearts, as Mary did, it can become both sustenance and light for our journey when we need it most.

The sun eventually melts even the deepest of snowfalls and every footstep taken through them disappears.

But not these footprints.

Because they are not left in the snow.

Every footstep we take on this journey is left firmly planted in the heart of our soul where the deepest meaning of Jesus’ birth is waiting to be born.

By Ken Woodley

What a compelling reaction by Mary in Luke’s birth narrative as the invisible snowflakes of grace fall all around her, shepherds recounting their encounter with angels.
“Do not be afraid,” Luke’s account states, because this is “good news for all people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.”
Go to the manger to see for yourselves, the angels told the shepherds.
So they did and those listening to their story, Luke tells us, “were amazed.”
But what of Mary? Her reaction deserves our full attention, a deep, silent and thoughtful response, as if she could see the footsteps of the Lord in those unseen snowflakes of grace that began covering the world around the manger.
She “treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” Mary was clearly beginning a meditative journey about the deepest meaning of her son’s birth.
The angel Gabriel had sketched out the meaning when he’d visited Mary in Nazareth nine months earlier. You will give birth to a son, Gabriel had told her, conceived by the Holy Spirit, a son to be called Jesus.
“He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David,” Gabriel had further explained, “and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will have no end.”
Mary’s reaction had often left me perplexed. Why did she need to ponder the shepherd’s words? Gabriel had made things clear to her. But then I reconsidered.
Anyone would be awash in wondering about an encounter with an angel. There may even have been times when she doubted her own understanding of what had happened. Could it have merely been a dream?
“The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever….”
Did that mean her son would some day become an earthly king, sitting upon an earthly throne?
The throne of David, after all, was very much an earthly throne and David was an earthly king.
Mary surely wondered about the precise meaning of those words.
Nor was she alone in doing so. People have been pondering them ever since.
The question—like footprints in the snow—followed Jesus all of his life.
From his very first moments in this world to the final hours before his death—when Pilate asked him “Are you king of the Jews?”—people have wondered about the true meaning and message of his birth.
In the end, each of us will decide for ourselves who this Jesus is in our lives and how that answer influences they way we see the world, what we see in each other, and how we see ourselves.
And, crucially, the decisions we make in response to our answer.
We can choose to treasure the answering of that question in our hearts, and ponder it for a lifetime, joining Mary in a contemplative journey. If we choose that path, the nuances and subtleties of our answer will develop in different ways during our lifetime. A spiritual journey is organic, not static.
There will be layers of understanding, flashes of clear insight—as if they were spoken to us by an angel—that may, at times, seem like an uncertain mirage or a dream when our daily lives intrude, pushing them to the side. We may also find that we return to previous understandings, but with deeper insight into them.
But if we treasure this and ponder it in our hearts, as Mary did, it can become both sustenance and light for our journey when we need it most.
The sun eventually melts even the deepest of snowfalls and every footstep taken through them disappears.
But not these footprints.
Because they are not left in the snow.
Every footstep we take on this journey is left firmly planted in the heart of our soul where the deepest meaning of Jesus’ birth is waiting to be born.