Captivity Liberation Shadow & Light

Passion Week, or Holy Week, continues to be a season in my life where the veil between heaven and earth exhibits an opaqueness allowing me to gaze more deeply into myself and the heart of God.

From the Triumphal entry to the empty tomb, I have learned that life is a journey of captivity, liberation, wilderness, and freedom. Learning the layered lessons embedded in the Passion of Yeshua is worthy of a lifetime of prayer, meditation, study and practice.

The story, or rather the stories, that comprise the final week of Yeshua’s life cascade out of larger story. To miss the larger story will diminish the power of the latter. In this week of cumulative passion Yeshua uses the Passover as the framework to display His compassionate redemptive mission. The Passover story itself is part of a larger narrative displaying God’s saving and intimate connection with humanity, the Exodus.

The moments and movements found in the Exodus story include Captivity, Liberation, Wilderness, and the gift of freedom.

This week I chose the spiritual practice that Jung called “shadow work.” Shadow work, or sanctificational reflection, is when I allow Holy Spirit to shine the light of Yeshua in my soul in order to reveal both light and shadow, the twin growth partners of our human journey,

I went on a slow walk. While walking, my attention was drawn to my physical shadow displayed before me on the path. Pausing, I reflected on how the light more easily helped me see my shadow. That thought is worthy of a divine pause. I took a picture of my shadow on the ground. Next I looked at the image and asked Holy Spirit to illuminate the moments and movements where I have been living more from my shadow-self than from my true self.

As I reflected on my shadow in the picture I felt the nudge of the Spirit beginning to speak. I felt drawn to reflect on how my shadow has been showing up in my life, relationships, unspoken thoughts, and subconscious interactions.

In that moment I remembered one of my favorite “shadow” or ” imposter” quotes Brennan Manning wrote years ago:

“When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games. Aristotle said I am a rational animal; I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer.”

I simply love that quote. Closing my eyes I can hear Brennan intone those thoughts to me the last time he spoke at a church I pastored. Perhaps even more to the point Brennan also has said:

To live by grace means to acknowledge my whole life story, the light side and the dark. In admitting my shadow side I learn who I am and what God’s grace means.”

Why is shadow work important?

I believe there are multiple reasons, however, two that immediately come to mind are, first, that people who don’t do the deeper shadow/soul work cause great harm to others by their lack of personal awareness and stunted emotional and relational intelligence. Often, they are unaware of how their interactions cause pain.

The second reason is exactly what Brennan said: In admitting my shadow side I learn who I am and what God’s grace means.” To stand in confessed awareness before God and receive His grace helps us better know both Trinity and self.

Do you see shadow at work throughout the Passion Week as the radiant light of the Resurrection shines fully?

Pondering the liberation experienced by the people of Israel as their Exodus journey began, I quickly realize that liberation and freedom are two very different things. God moved powerfully against the hard-hearted Pharoah in a display of power and strength over the gods of Egypt. The final judgment, “Death of the firstborn” was the ultimate blow crumbling Pharaoh’s impenetrable heart. God’s people were liberated.

The “Death Angel”, however, spared the firstborn of Israel by “Passing over” every house that had the blood of an innocent lamb applied to the doorframe of their houses. The blood of the lamb was the sign for the “Death Angel” to Pass Over and spare that house.

This resulted in light for some, but darkness for others.

While liberation came for the Children of Israel that night it took forty years to experience the freedom they inherited on that “Passover night.”

Those were forty years of “shadow work.”

As the people escaped slavery, tasting the sweetness of liberation for the first time, they experienced the highest highs and the lowest lows. As a people they were:

  • Delivered, yet never satisfied…Where are we going Moses, it was better in Egypt.
  • Divinely fed yet never thankful…Really, manna again?
  • Spiritually Taught, yet slow to learn…Hey I have an idea, let’s craft a golden calf idol.
  • Continually rescued, yet never appreciative…Does Yahweh even care about us!

“The journey from liberation to freedom is long, hard, and takes as long as it takes.”

I wonder if the years of wilderness wandering might have been shorter had they spent more time embracing the wilderness rather than trying to escape the wilderness. In my life I continue to learn through doing my shadow work that trusting God in the wilderness creates a greater capacity to be satisfied with the unseen traits of the ordinariness of freedom.

God is not in a hurry, Trinity prefers the long game.
The spiritual/human journey is a marathon, not a sprint.
The movements from liberation to freedom pass through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

In the passion week of Yeshua we see Him:

* Destroying the way of power and empire as he enters Jerusalem on a donkey and not a war stallion.
* Eating with and serving those He knew would deeply betray and deny Him.
* Wrestling with the conflict between His desire and the will of Abba in the shadows of Gethsemane.
* Longing for his followers to pray with Him rather than fight for Him.

Even in His final week Yeshua reveals that the path from liberation to freedom travels through the darker spaces and places of life. The only way to embrace the light is to journey through the dark. The beauty of life is through the wilderness of death.

Shadow work not only asks the question, “What is it that is causing me anxiety?” But it also seeks to understand “Why am I so anxious?”

Shadow work not only reveals what wounds I carry, but also helps me ask deeper questions such as, ” Why do I still carry the wound around allowing it to define me?”, or, “Why am I choosing to hold onto bitter wounds rather than allow God to transform them into sacred wounds through forgiveness and grace?”

Shadow work not only allows me to be honest about who has hurt me and how I have been betrayed, it also takes me to deeper into my heart becoming aware of and acknowledge those I have hurt and who need me to make amends. Deeper still I am able to see where I have betrayed myself and God by inflicting pain on others.

Shadow work is the journey between the triumphal entry and the resurrection. Between Liberation and freedom.

There are no shortcuts, bypasses, or alternate routes if your desire is the freedom only found in God.

Perhaps this is why the Passion Week remains a “thin space” for me where the veil between who I am and who I am becoming is more profoundly seen, and why the opaque veil between an earthly reality and a heavenly present-future hope is calling me to trust God in the journey. The result is feeling the embrace of His light.

Finally, I hold to the truth that as the Divine Light that is Yeshua bathes me in grace and mercy,, I am able to trust that His all encompassing Light is far greater than any darkness in me.

Breathe in: I am not my shadow
Breathe out: I am becoming love

Shock Me With Terrible Goodness

A Good Friday Meditation…

Shock Me with Terrible Goodness

Holy One,
Shock and save me with the terrible goodness of this Friday,
And drive me deep into my longing for your kingdom
Until I seek it first-
Yet not first for myself,
But for the hungry
And the sick
And the poor of your children,
For prisoners of conscience around the world,
For those I have wasted
With my racism
And sexism
And ageism
And nationalism
And religionism,
For those around this mother earth and in this city
Who, this Friday, know far more of terror than of goodness;
That, in my seeking first the kingdom,
For them as well as for myself,
All these things may be mine as well:
Things like a coat and courage
And something like comfort,
A few lilies in the field,
The sight of birds soaring on the wind,
A song in the night,
And gladness of heart,
The sense of your presence
And the realization of your promise
That nothing in life or death
Will be able to separate me or those I love,
From you love
In the crucified one who is our Lord,
And in whose name and Spirit I pray.

by Ted Loder – Guerrillas of Grace

Standing With My Asian Brothers & Sisters

People took part in vigils in Washington, D.C.’s Chinatown , Garden Grove, Calif., and Philadelphia on Wednesday night following the shootings in Atlanta, while mourners grieved outside Young’s Asian Massage, one of the three spas targeted by a gunman. Photos: Alex Wong/Getty Images; Apu Gomes/AFP/Getty Images; Shannon Stapleton/Reuters; Rachel Wisniewski/Reuters


Standing with my Asian Brothers and Sisters…

“Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” ~1 John 3:15

Today I have, like you, read many tweets, thoughts, observations and news articles about the murder of eight people in the Atlanta Asian community. I would like to cut through all the spin out there surrounding this and first say that my heart is broken, and we in the Alliance NW mourn and grieve with our Asian friends, family, and churches that have already endured an intense year of racial hatred in America.

We stand with you…
We grieve with you…
We see you…
We speak out with you against the rise of Asian-racism…

In my mind, I hear the words of my Asian friends who have told me that the message they were taught growing up was to “keep their head down, work harder than anyone else and try to keep beneath the radar ” if they wanted to get ahead.In other words, “Here is how to survive in a “White” world.

We have had a year of escalation of hate toward Asians fueled by a national conversation surrounding COVID19 by calling it the “Kung-Flu” or the “China Virus” or other names that center the pandemic on a “people-group” making them the enemy. The result? Destroyed Asian restaurants, businesses and attacks on Asian people.

Words matter…
Sarcasm kills…

The spin has already begun…I have heard that, “The murderer had a sexual addiction, and the massage centers that the people worked in were a temptation… so, it’s not racial it’s sexual.”

It’s not that simple…it’s all connected…

As the murderer was a professed Evangelical Christian, blaming this on his sexual struggle misses the point. I see this as an unholy trinity of flawed sexual theology, unrepented of white supremacy systems, and an absolute devaluing of the sanctity of life…We have lost the concept of dignity towards others and we spin it in so many devaluing ways.

Is racism embedded? Yes
Is sexism embedded? Yes
Do we need to address our faulty sexual discipleship? Yes
Do we need to address the ethnic biases that exist in our lives, communities and churches? Yes

BUT…those realities and our focus on those things also dehumanizes this tragic loss of life. We forget that eight families have lost people they love and they lost them in a horrible, devastating and violent way that will leave scars on their souls forever.

Today would you pause with me and remember their lives.
Today would you pause with me and pray for our Asian friends and communities.
Today would you stand up and say “No More”

Grace and Peace,Monty

Madam C.J. Walker: Black History Month (part 3)

I first encountered the story of Madam C.J. Walker in a movie about her life called “Self Made” on Netflix, starring Octavia Spencer. It was a powerful movie about a dynamic woman. Debra Michals PhD, writing about Walker states:

“Struggling financially, facing hair loss, and feeling the strain of years of physical labor, Walker’s life took a dramatic turn in 1904. That year, she not only began using African American businesswoman Annie Turbo Malone’s “The Great Wonderful Hair Grower,” but she also joined Malone’s team of black women sales agents. A year later, Walker moved to Denver, Colorado, where she married ad-man Charles Joseph Walker, renamed herself “Madam C.J. Walker,” and with $1.25, launched her own line of hair products and straighteners for African American women, “Madam Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower.”

An article on PBS.org states that Walker was the first Black American women that was a self-made millionaire. The piece goes on to say: “To keep her agents more loyal, Walker organized them into a national association and offered cash incentives to those who promoted her values. In the same way, she organized the National Negro Cosmetics Manufacturers Association in 1917. “I am not merely satisfied in making money for myself,” Walker said in 1914. “I am endeavoring to provide employment for hundreds of women of my race.” 

Walker was tenacious, savvy, compassionate, entrepreneurial, and sacrificial. I hope yyou are inspired by her story. Check out the sources links at the end for more info.

The following biography is found at theundefeated.com

MADAM C.J. WALKER

“Because she found out you can never go broke working black women’s hair.”

ENTREPRENEUR, ACTIVISTb. 1867 – 1919

At first, it was all about hair and an ointment guaranteed to heal scalp infections. Sarah Breedlove – the poor washerwoman who would become millionaire entrepreneur Madam C. J. Walker – was trying to cure dandruff and banish her bald spots when she mixed her first batch of petrolatum and medicinal sulfur.

But what began as a solution to a pesky personal problem quickly became a means to a greater end. With the sale of each 2-ounce tin of Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower, she discovered that her most powerful gift was motivating other women. As she traveled throughout the United States, the Caribbean and Central America, teaching her Walker System and training sales agents, she shared her personal story: her birth on the same plantation where her parents had been enslaved, her struggles as a young widow, her desperate poverty. If she could transform herself, so could they. In place of washtubs and cotton fields, Walker offered them beauty culture, education, financial freedom and confidence. “You have made it possible for a colored woman to make more money in a day selling your products than she could in a week working in white folks’ kitchens,” one agent wrote to her.

The more money Walker made, the more generous she became — $1,000 to her local black YMCA in Indianapolis, $5,000 to the NAACP’s anti-lynching fund. Scholarships for students at Tuskegee and Daytona Normal and Industrial institutes. Music lessons for young black musicians.

In 1917 at her first national convention, Walker awarded prizes to the women who sold the most products and recruited the most new agents. More importantly, she honored the delegates whose local clubs had contributed the most to charity. She encouraged their political activism in a telegram to President Woodrow Wilson, urging him to support legislation that would make lynching a federal crime.

Walker was labeled a “Negro subversive” by Wilson’s War Department because of her advocacy for black soldiers during World War I and her support of public protests against the East St. Louis, Illinois, riot.

By the time she died in 1919 in her Westchester County, New York, mansion, she had defied stereotypes, provided employment for thousands of women and donated more than $100,000 to civic, educational and political causes.

As a philanthropist and a pioneer of today’s multibillion-dollar hair care industry, she used her wealth and influence to empower others. One could say she was woke a hundred years ago. – A’Lelia Bundles

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Sources:

https://theundefeated.com/features/the-undefeated-44-most-influential-black-americans-in-history/#madam-cj-walker

https://www.biography.com/inventor/madam-cj-walker

https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/madam-cj-walker

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/100-amazing-facts/madam-walker-the-first-black-american-woman-to-be-a-self-made-millionaire/

https://www.netflix.com/title/80202462