As I was getting my hair cut the other day by my friend, she asked me what I was doing afterwards.
I told her I was going to pick up my homeless friend to have dinner.
When she heard this, she immediately asked if there was anything she could do to help, and I said, "Yeah, he's asking for a pair of size eleven shoes and a haircut."
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She went to her purse, pulled out forty dollars, and told me to bring him in and she would cut his hair for free.
"Don't tell him who gave the money. It's not good for karma," she said.
I looked her in the eyes and could tell that she was genuinely concerned for my friend, and I told her that I would spend her money well.
As I walked away, I felt the presence of God. I felt as if I had just conspired with my barber to create good in the world, like we were on the same page and knew that the best thing to do in that moment was to care for someone who has nothing.
There was this force, this power, this spirit, that moved in each of us to respond to a need and to take what we believed and put it into action and to work together.
There was this sense of simplicity in doing the right thing. While we spoke a different language in terms of how we view God and how we connect, there was a common ground which pulled us forward in unison. Just below the surface of language and belief and karma and God and why we do what we do is this force that moves and tugs and pulls and calls our hearts and hands into action.
The words we use and the beliefs we form are a response to this pull, this tug on our hearts to act - to make a difference in the world.
Since we can't put into words and detailed description what this force is, we develop systems of belief and languages that attempt to make sense of it - karma, God, the holy spirit, Allah.
We want so badly to stay in touch with this power and to know it and to feel it and to understand it, and so we do things and say things and think things that seem to draw us nearer and deeper into it.
The way I grow deeper into my connection with it is through following the narrative of thousands of generations before me of a God who loves to redeem and to restore. In the scriptures, I find threaded throughout the story of a God who continuously calls people to set aside their agendas to live simple and honest lives - to care for the needy around them and to quit trying to earn this God's love.
And then this God takes the form of a human and moves into real culture, real time and space, and becomes that which no other god has ever accomplished - a living sacrifice, an atonement for the people. A god who becomes exactly what all the other gods demand. A god who sacrifices himself for humanity while all the other gods demand the constant cycle of sacrifice and offering from humanity.
The God I believe in and find threaded throughout the scriptures isn't concerned about what people believe as much as how people believe. Constantly, this God is looking at the heart, the motives, and not so much the outer results - because after all, out of the heart the mouth speaketh.
. . . and the hands doeth . . . and the legs runneth . . . and the eyes looketh . . .
I believe in a God who doesn't want blind faith, but a faith that works through our hands, our feet, our words, our wallets, and our stuff.
It's not so much what we believe, but how we translate our beliefs into actions that can change the world, one pair of size eleven shoes at a time.
I told her I was going to pick up my homeless friend to have dinner.
When she heard this, she immediately asked if there was anything she could do to help, and I said, "Yeah, he's asking for a pair of size eleven shoes and a haircut."
.jpg)
She went to her purse, pulled out forty dollars, and told me to bring him in and she would cut his hair for free.
"Don't tell him who gave the money. It's not good for karma," she said.
I looked her in the eyes and could tell that she was genuinely concerned for my friend, and I told her that I would spend her money well.
As I walked away, I felt the presence of God. I felt as if I had just conspired with my barber to create good in the world, like we were on the same page and knew that the best thing to do in that moment was to care for someone who has nothing.
There was this force, this power, this spirit, that moved in each of us to respond to a need and to take what we believed and put it into action and to work together.
There was this sense of simplicity in doing the right thing. While we spoke a different language in terms of how we view God and how we connect, there was a common ground which pulled us forward in unison. Just below the surface of language and belief and karma and God and why we do what we do is this force that moves and tugs and pulls and calls our hearts and hands into action.
The words we use and the beliefs we form are a response to this pull, this tug on our hearts to act - to make a difference in the world.
Since we can't put into words and detailed description what this force is, we develop systems of belief and languages that attempt to make sense of it - karma, God, the holy spirit, Allah.
We want so badly to stay in touch with this power and to know it and to feel it and to understand it, and so we do things and say things and think things that seem to draw us nearer and deeper into it.
The way I grow deeper into my connection with it is through following the narrative of thousands of generations before me of a God who loves to redeem and to restore. In the scriptures, I find threaded throughout the story of a God who continuously calls people to set aside their agendas to live simple and honest lives - to care for the needy around them and to quit trying to earn this God's love.
And then this God takes the form of a human and moves into real culture, real time and space, and becomes that which no other god has ever accomplished - a living sacrifice, an atonement for the people. A god who becomes exactly what all the other gods demand. A god who sacrifices himself for humanity while all the other gods demand the constant cycle of sacrifice and offering from humanity.
The God I believe in and find threaded throughout the scriptures isn't concerned about what people believe as much as how people believe. Constantly, this God is looking at the heart, the motives, and not so much the outer results - because after all, out of the heart the mouth speaketh.
. . . and the hands doeth . . . and the legs runneth . . . and the eyes looketh . . .
I believe in a God who doesn't want blind faith, but a faith that works through our hands, our feet, our words, our wallets, and our stuff.
It's not so much what we believe, but how we translate our beliefs into actions that can change the world, one pair of size eleven shoes at a time.
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