Day by Day on the Damascus Road

Try the Damascus Road * January 1
Acts 9:1-9

I

Have you had a religious experience lately? Have you ever had one? Jameson and Westfall, in their “irreverent guide to churchology” called, Bull at a New Gate, say: “There was this Jew named Saul, and what a corker he was! He was on the road to Damascus one day to get some more Christians to persecute, and all of a sudden, bang, he was struck down blind like he was hit with an atomic bomb or something.
And when he came to, he asked what had happened. And a voice answered, and there was a change in Saul like you never saw before. Moral: Most people nowadays avoid the road to Damascus.”
III * January 3

I want to challenge three common conceptions about religious experiences.
(a) Religious experiences happened only in Bible times.
(b) Religious experiences are always ultra-dynamic.
(c) Religious experiences happen only to other persons.
Wrong, wrong, and very wrong.
Let us take a look at Paul’s experience. He started on his journey as Saul, breathing threats and murder against the disciples of Christ. He is no 40-hour-a-week employee. He enjoys his persecuting job. Never mind the double-time pay; let’s get on with it. But on that trip he had an encounter with Jesus. And because of his past lifestyle, of course others found it difficult believing he (of all people) could have a religious experience.
En route to Damascus this young Pharisee came to a crossroads and to a personal crisis. Accumulated influences caught and crushed him until he was emotionally unhinged, spiritually bleeding, and physically blinded. It was at that moment, when he could go no further within himself, that he found help beyond himself. He found God. From that experience he arose, still blinded, to follow the living Lord of his vision. The details are not important. What is important is that he was transformed by that experience and became a new being.
The God that was present with Paul is present with us. Biblical personalities do not have a strangle-hold on religious experiences. Our God is a God of creation and re-creation. We can be guided by the same Spirit that guided Paul. Jesus’ spirit was alive then and is alive now.

Joan of Arc * March 11

In George Bernard Shaw’s “Saint Joan,” Joan is trying and trying to get French King Charles VII to do something – to give some leadership – some direction – and he (as usual) will do nothing.
Joan shouts at him, (even using his nickname which could have cost her, her life) “Charlie, there is one thing you have never learned – we are put on earth not to do our will, but to do God’s will!”

The Long Walk * April 27

An African girl presented a gift to her teacher. When the teacher unwrapped the gift, she found a beautiful sea shell. Asked where the girl found it, she told her teacher that such shells come only from a special, faraway ocean beach.
The teacher was very touched, knowing the girl had walked many miles, and remarked, “You shouldn’t have gone so far for a gift for me.” The girl looked at her, smiled and replied, “The long walk is part of the gift.”

Like a Sunflower * May 5

While living in Kansas an insightful friend said, “My life is like that of a sunflower. My roots are of and in the earth God made. In this place I live proudly, if only for a short time. I accept this, and I do not worry that my unique being must some day end. Then I will fall back into the earth, where God will continue to care for me.”

To Donatus from Cyprian * May 31

“This seems a cheerful world, Donatus, when I view it from this fair garden under the shadow of these vines. But if I climb some great mountain and look out over the wide lands, you know very well what I would see – bandits on the road, pirates on the high seas, in the amphitheatres men murdering each other to please applauding crowds, under many roofs misery and selfishness.
It is really a bad world, Donatus – an incredibly bad world. Yet, in the midst of it, I found a quiet and holy people. They have discovered a joy which is a thousand times better than any pleasure of this sinful life. They are despised and persecuted – but they care not. These people, Donatus, are the Christians, and I am one of them.”
- Cyprian – 248 CE
For the Birds * July 18

Doves always appear
at new beginnings
carrying olive branches
and attending baptisms.

Maybe God is a bird-watcher
calling to me
in my spiritual pilgrimage,
“Hey, you turkey, fly!”

“Prayer was too complicated” * August 16

A friend told about a woman he met in the parking lot of a local bookstore. She had a bundle of books in her arms. “What in the world are you doing,” he asked, “opening your own bookstore?” “No,” said the woman, “these are all books about prayer. All my life I have been hearing about the importance of prayer, so I finally decided to learn how to pray. I have bought fourteen books on the subject. And not only that, I have signed up for two courses in prayer, one at my church and one at a friend’s church. I am really going to master this subject!”
Several weeks later, the friend ran into the woman again, this time at the grocery store. “How is the big project going?” he asked. “Have you learned to pray?”
She hung her head and made a gesture of despair. “It was too complicated,” she said, “and I gave it up. Now I’m taking a course in Yoga.”

“Recon I’d give it to the poor” * August 17

In the depths of the depression during the 1930’s a government agent visited the smoky mountains in eastern Tennessee. The federal government was making small allotments to impoverished farmers for stock and feed and necessary equipment.
The agent came upon a mountain woman who lived alone and tried to grub a living from two acres. The floor in her cabin was of packed earth and it held a few sticks of homemade furniture. Daylight streamed through chinks in the walls.
The agent looked around and then asked, “If the government gave you $200 what would you do with it?” The woman weighed the question for a moment and replied, “Recon I’d give it to the poor.”