"Present Risenness"

A new phrase I gathered from Brennan Manning, "present risenness."  "The Jesus who walked the roads of Judea and Galilee is the One who stands beside us.  The Christ of history is the Christ of faith."

Celebrating His risenness today, His presence with me in everything.  He is alive.  He is risen.  Death is conquered.



***Meant to post the following earlier this week!***
Brennan Manning is quickly climbing my "favorite authors" list.  I just finished his "Abba's Child" and I recommend it.  I love his writing, probably more so because he is weathered.  He doesn't speak from the vantage point of theory, but experience.  He's been through the up and down.  He's gone inside to search the depths and I appreciate that he writes from a rich, muddy, imperfect, humble, and balanced perspective.  I imagine him with a husky voice, relaying life and reality-the here and now and in the life ahead.  As he imparts wisdom and engages me in his stories, gut-wrenching realities and thoughtful prompts, I imagine him speaking at me.  He pauses often to make me uncomfortable with silence so that I might dwell with the discomfort he often leads me to, with great purpose.  And here is where I attempt to listen.  To listen is difficult.  It means putting to a halt the constant rattle I live with, a rattle I've come to recognize as both a help and a hindrance.  You, too, might know exactly what I'm talking about.  How often I (we) don't pause to truly listen.  I'm working on that this month while I'm still away from the fast and furious pace of los estadounidenses (gringos-north americans-you get it).

A few highlights I'm choosing to share:

• In light of this week leading up to Jesus Christ's death and resurrection...Pharisees invest heavily in extrinsic religious gestures, rituals, methods, and techniques, breeding allegedly holy people who are judgmental, mechanical, lifeless, and as intolerant of others as they are of themselves-violent people, the very opposite of holiness and love, "the type of spiritual people who, conscious of their spirituality, then proceed to crucify the Messiah."  Jesus did not die at the hands of muggers, rapists, or thugs.  He fell into the well-scrubbed hands of deeply religious people, society's most respected members.

• …the heart of it is this: to make the Lord and his immense love for you constitutive of your personal worth.  Define yourself radically as one beloved by God.  God's love for you and his choice of you constitute your worth.  Accept that, and let it become the most important thing in your life.  …We discuss it.  The basis of my personal worth is not my possessions, my talents, not esteem of others, reputation…not kudos of appreciation from parents and kids, not applause, and everyone telling you how important you are to the place…I stand anchored now in God before whom I stand naked, this God who tells me "You are my son (daughter), my beloved one." …The ordinary self is the extraordinary self-the inconspicuous nobody who shivers in the cold of winter and sweats in the heat of summer, who wakes up unreconciled to the new day, who sits before a stack of pancakes, weaves through traffic, bangs around in the basement, shops in the supermarket, pulls weeds and rakes up the leaves, makes love and snowballs, flies kites and listens to the sound of rain on the roof. …While the imposter draws his identity from past achievements and the adulation of others, the true self claims identity in it's belovedness.  We encounter God in the ordinariness of life: not in the search for spiritual highs and extraordinary, mystical experiences but in our simple PRESENCE IN LIFE.

• Standing on a London street corner, GK Chesterton was approached by a newspaper reporter, "Sir, I understand that you recently became a Christian.  May I ask you one question?"  "Certainly," replied Chesterton.  "If the risen Christ suddenly appeared at this very moment and stood behind you, what would you do?"  Chesterton looked the reporter squarely in the eye and said, "He is." … The Jesus who walked the roads of Judea and Galilee is the One who stands beside us.  The Christ of history is the Christ of faith."

• Everything that is comes alive in the risen Christ-who as Chesterton reminded, is standing behind us.  Everything-great, small, important, unimportant, distant, and near-has its place, its meaning, and its value.  Through union with Him (as Augustine said, HE IS MORE INTIMATE WITH US THAN WE ARE WITH OURSELVES), nothing is wasted, nothing is missing.  There is never a moment that does not carry eternal significance- no action that is sterile, no love that lacks fruition, and no prayer that is unheard.  "We know that by turning everything to their good God cooperates with all those who love him.-Rom8:28  The apparent frustrations of circumstances, seen or unforeseen, of illness, of misunderstandings, even of our own sins, do not thwart the final fulfillment of our lives hidden with Christ in God.  The awareness of present risenness effects the integration of intuition and will, emotion and reason.  Less preoccupied with appearances, we are less inclined to change costumes to win approval with each shift of company and circumstance.  We are not one person at home, another in the office; one person at church, another in traffic.  We do not pass rudderless from one episode to another, idly seeking some distraction to pass the time, remaining stoic to each new emotion, enduring with a shrug of our shoulders when something irks or irritates.  Now circumstances feed us, not we them; we use them, not they us.  Gradually we become whole and mature persons whose faculties and energies are harmonized and integrated.

Enough, I know.  Read the book if you're a doer, an achiever, a list maker, or just in need of a reminder of why He loves us.  Not what you did, what you're doing, or what you plan to do.  He just does.  Next on the list, waiting on the table, is another Manning book!