The recognition of our true self, in the divine image, is then a recognition of the fact that we are known and loved by God.
(Thomas Merton, The New Man)
Dear Friends,
As I write to you Chris and I are preparing to visit WMF communities in Argentina and Brazil. It’s been a few years since we visited our co-workers and friends in theses cities and we are very much looking forward to being among them.
The community in Buenos Aires serves among abandoned and vulnerable youth on the streets. In Rio the staff offer a prophetic witness in the favelas (slums) among people who suffer violence, poverty and drug addiction. These communities bear witness to the reign of Christ. Our friends have forsaken a life of comfort and excess to live in solidarity with people of poverty. They labor daily for an alternative reality to a world of dominance and injustice. Each one stands as a mirror for us to reflect on the ways in which we are or are not living lives that reflect Christ—true to who God has created us to be.
The first weekend of August I had the opportunity to facilitate a women’s retreat for a church in Atlanta. While there we explored the theme: “Discovering the Gift of Your True Self.” Our true self is the new creation made possible by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Listen to the way St. Paul writes about it:
So I declare and testify together with Christ that you must stop living the kind of life the world lives. Their minds are empty, they are alienated from the life of God…That is hardly the way you have learned from Christ, unless you failed to hear properly, when you were taught what the truth is in Jesus. You must give up your old way of life; you must put aside your old self, which is being corrupted by following illusory desires. Your mind must be renewed by a spiritual revolution, so that you can put on the new self that has been created in God’s likeness, in the justice and holiness of the truth. (Ephesians 4: 17-18, 20-24 TIB)
We are held captive by all kinds of illusions and compulsions. We need a spiritual revolution to live into the true (or new) self. This takes a lifetime. With every step of faith and obedience, we access more and more of the free gift of grace to live into the truth of who we are, so that eventually we might testify with St. Paul, “For to me to live is Christ…” (Gal 2:20).
The objective of the Christian life is that we might truly reflect the Christ. However, often times, “Christian love has been sentimentalized & debased just as the idea of Christ has been debased even by those who try to love Him.” (Thomas Merton, The New Man) Without a spiritual revolution, our best attempts at reflecting Christ in the world are either superficial, mute, or at the worse—destructive
My friends in Argentina and Brazil are pressing into Christ’s life in beautiful and profound ways. They go to the hard places in the world that often confront the hard places within their soul. They don’t shy away from the pain on the streets or the pain in their own hearts—they meet Jesus there and are transformed. This is the meaning of brokenness. When we are broken, by grace, we are molded to the image of Jesus. And the world is one step closer to the reign of Christ.
When the true self is free, one is able to connect the life of Christ within them to the most desperate needs of the world (in our family, neighborhood, country or world.) As Frederick Buechner says, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”[1]
It’s my prayer that we would all press into the gift of our true self, that we might respond to the deep hungers of our world.
Where in the World are Chris and Phileena?
08/15-22 Buenos Aires, Argentina: Field Visit (Chris & Phileena)
08/22-26 Rio, Brazil: Field Visit (Chris & Phileena)
09/04-06 Souix Falls, SD: LifeLight Festival (Chris)
09/08-17 TENTATIVE: Snowmass, CO: Silent Retreat (Phileena)
09/10-12 Humble, TX: Israel Houghton’s “Deeper Level” Conference (Chris)
09/13-14 Houston, TX: St. John’s UMC(Chris)
09/16-18 Baltimore, MD: RE:Form Conferece (Chris)
09/22-28 Catskill, Mountains, NY: Men’s Gathering (Chris)
10/01-04 Nebraska City, NE: Omaha Community Retreat (Chris & Phileena)
10/07-09 Atlanta, GA: Catalyst Conference (Chris & Phileena)
10/09-14 Atlanta, GA: Vacation (Chris & Phileena)
10/18-20 UMC District Resource Day (Philadelphia) (Chris)
10/25-28 Nashville, TN: Belmont University (Chris)
10/29-31 Omaha, NE: WMF Board Meetings (Chris & Phileena)
As always, thank you for your sacrificial partnership on behalf of our most vulnerable friends in poverty.
Be well. Breathe deep.
Phileena
[1] Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC (1973; San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993), 119