Hello friends,
This is Mark Lardman,
Also known as Brother Frederick James,
Your friendly neighborhood monk in docks.
Welcome to day 30,
Our last day of our series,
God is.
As we begin,
I just invite you to still yourself,
To take a nice deep breath in.
And out.
And to let a smile come upon your face today.
Because we've arrived at the end.
Of our series,
Although I'm not sure.
.
.
That I want to call it in the end.
It's not because I don't want it to finish.
Let me explain.
30 days ago we began with two words,
God is,
And then we started filling in the space.
God is more.
God is presence.
God is in all things.
God is here.
God is flesh.
God is Jesus.
God is the way.
God is the Word.
God is grace.
God is already saying yes.
God is not keeping score.
God is home.
God is love.
God is relationship.
God is self-giving.
God is the one in whom we belong.
God is in everything.
God is the Ordinary?
God is beauty.
God is not the universe.
God is silence.
God is darkness.
God is freedom?
God is invitation.
God is becoming.
And now on our final day.
I don't want to give you another thing.
To fill in the gap.
I want to give you the start of the sentence.
God is.
And I just want to leave it there.
Help them.
And I think that's where we need to finish.
Not with some sort of definition.
Nice.
Neat.
Boxed up.
But with an invitation.
The 30 days of this journey.
Have intentionally not been about constructing a new,
Better definition of God.
They've been about loosening our definitions,
Turning the gem,
Looking again,
Discovering another facet,
Allowing the old image to become even larger,
And even allowing some of our images to fall away.
Sometimes our spiritual lives are so crowded with pictures of God that we inherited long before we were old enough to question them.
God is distant and judge.
And God as scorekeeper or ruler.
God as someone we have to please or as someone who might withdraw love if we get something wrong.
And maybe some of those images have served a purpose.
Maybe they helped someone once.
But we don't have to keep every image simply because it was handed to us.
The God we encounter in Jesus keeps inviting us deeper.
Into love.
Into freedom.
Into relationship.
Into grace.
Into presence.
Into mystery.
Into life.
And I think maybe the most important thing we discovered in our series is that God is more.
More than every word we've ever used,
More than every theological system that's been constructed to try and comprehend God,
More than every experience and every doctrine,
More than every image?
More than everything we could say.
It doesn't mean our words about God are meaningless,
It just makes them humble.
I mean we can still say God is love,
God is grace,
God is presence,
God is mystery and mean it.
But then we remember.
God is more.
But again,
Please don't see this as a frustrating conclusion.
It's a freedom thing.
We may not be able to capture God.
But we can encounter God.
We don't have to possess the mystery because we can participate in the mystery.
And while we may never finish understanding.
We can always keep on becoming every day who God's created us to be.
And so today,
I just want to hand the sentence back to you.
Maybe you could take a piece of paper or open your journal,
Sit somewhere quiet and just write,
God is at the top of your page.
And then finish it.
But as you do,
Don't worry about getting the theology right.
It's not an exam.
There's no correct answer here.
And don't write what you think you're supposed to say.
Write what you personally have encountered,
Whether it's through this last 30 days,
Or even before that,
Or even just before you sat down to do this meditation.
Might think about what's become real for you,
What surprised you.
What's challenged you?
What's given you life?
And in terms of this series,
Maybe that's been God is Love.
Or God is here.
Oh,
God is mystery.
You might even put down something like,
God is the one who sees me.
Or you might write,
God is silence,
Or God is beauty.
It might be God is the space between things.
Or God is the invitation that I keep hearing.
Or maybe,
I don't know,
Maybe your sentence will just end up being.
.
.
A god is.
And today.
You just need to leave it unfinished.
And to be honest.
.
.
After everything we've explored,
An unfinished sentence could be one of the most honest ways.
To end up.
And there's one more thing I hope you take with you.
Please don't let this become just another collection of ideas about God.
Let it become a way of seeing.
Look at the world differently.
Look at people differently.
Look at yourself differently.
Notice the ordinary.
Receive beauty.
Sit in silence.
Welcome mystery.
Pay attention to grace.
Ask what love is inviting you to notice and when you find yourself trying to get back to the God you once imagined,
Just stop.
Breathe.
And look again.
Maybe God's already here.
Maybe God's always been here.
The invitation for us is to wake up to the God in whom you already live and move and have your being and then keep walking,
Keep noticing,
Keep becoming,
Keep turning the gem.
Because whatever you say about God,
Never forget,
God is moi.
Let's pry.
God,
Who is more,
We come to the end of our words and discover that you are still beyond all of them.
We've called you love,
Grace,
Presence,
Beauty,
Mystery,
Life,
Relationship,
Home,
Freedom.
And so much more.
Receive all our words,
But also receive all our silence.
Receive what we've understood and what we have misunderstood.
Receive the images that have opened us and gently release the images that have made you small in our minds and hearts.
Teach us to recognize you in the ordinary,
In one another,
In creation,
In beauty,
In silence,
In mystery,
And in the face of Jesus.
Teach us to live from grace rather than fear.
From belonging rather than striving,
From freedom.
Rather than coercion,
From love rather than judgment.
And when we ask,
Where are you?
Remind us to become still enough to notice.
That you are here.
You are within us.
You are around us.
You are beyond us.
You are more.
And so we leave the sentence unfinished.
God Who Is.
And may grace,
Peace and love be with us as we continue to sit in that mystery today and always.
Thank you so much for joining us through this series,
Friends.
Tomorrow we start a new series.
In the Psalms.
Looking at a world that is full of God.
I look forward to joining you tomorrow.
I hope you'll be here with us.
And maybe.
.
.
You'd like to drop a comment today.
How would you finish the sentence?
God is in this moment right now.
It could be a word from the series.
It could be something completely different.
I'd love to hear from you.
Until tomorrow friends,
Grace,
Peace and love be with you.
Thank you for your fellowship here with us in this space.
