doris gomez

2003-12-08T11:24:00.000-05:00

What would I have done....

I read this article (http://www.bruderhof.com/articles/ToBeVirgin.htm) via the blog of my husband and the following description stood out to me:

The angel summoned Mary, betrothed to Joseph, from the rather safe place of conventional wisdom to a realm where few of the old rules would make much sense. She entered that unknown called virgin territory. She was on her own there. No one else could judge for her the validity of her experience.

She can measure her reality against Scripture, the teachings of her tradition, her reason and intellect, and the counsel of wise friends. But finally it is up to her. The redemption of the creation is resting on the consent; the choice of this mortal woman to believe fearlessly that what she is experiencing is true. And to claim and live out that truth by conceiving the fruit of salvation.

Everything about Mary's experiencence tells my rational mind...God wouldn't do such a thing to anybody. I mean, if you really look at it, Mary's life was pretty much "destroyed" at that point. She didn't know that Joseph would come around - she didn't know that an angel would appear to her fiance, telling him to stay in the relationship and support her. All she knew at this moment was that this can end really badly.....pregnant, unmarried, conception rather unusual....

Or was there something that Mary experienced that was so much stronger than any of that. It must have been. God was there in a way that I have not experienced yet. God's presence was so real and all-consuming that there simply was no room for not consenting to His will. Those moments with God, when he shows up in power, change our lives and paths forever. From Mary's standpoint, here life got harder; yet I think she expereinced something that made it worthwhile.

God's presence demands a response - we cannot remain neutral, we have to make a choice, even though it may cost us our life.

2003-12-08T09:01:00.000-05:00

Christmas joys....

This Christmas season will be very interesting. My mother comes for a visit from Austria and will stay with us for three weeks. Part of me really looks forward, part of me is very much on guard. Last time I saw her was the day before our wedding (2 years ago)....she and my father left the day before the wedding, since they didn't approve of my choice and desperately wanted me to go back with them to Austria. So, how do you deal with that. I guess FORGIVENESS is the key; I think I did this thousand times, yet it still hurts a lot. She is not a believer and so much is at stake. I still hope and pray for a miracle, that somehow she will get saved and we alll live happily ever after...we shall see.

In one thing I have to trust: GOD IS IN CONTROL!

2003-12-05T10:37:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the encouragement of my husband and a wonderful 'blogger' friend Emily, I am blogging again.

Thank you for the encouragement!

2003-12-05T10:04:00.000-05:00

I was reading this post today on Greg Burnett's blog.

Some things really stood out to me as I was reflecting on this particular verse: Song of Songs 2:12 -- The flowers have appeared on the earth: the pruning-time has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.

1. The flowers - representing a new season and new beginnings
2. The pruning - representing letting go, cutting back, pain
3. The turtledove - representing the bridegroom's love

Having those three elements in one verse together though got my attention and for me it meant that for every new beginning in my life God takes me through a season of pruning , so that at the end of the pruning I will hear the voice of my heavenly bridegroom more clearly

God I pray that I will see the dawn of a new season in my life and accept the pruning for the greater sake of intimacy with Jesus

2003-12-05T08:15:00.000-05:00

I am still so moved and taken by the quote I read yesterday about being ambushed by the scandalous love of an unfair God who refuses to give me what I deserve...

I wonder why it is touching me so deeply...probably because I agree with one thing: that, according to my 'high' opinion of myself, I don't deserve his grace and mercy; in my brokenness and hatred of myself I would so much easier accept punishment (the old familiar ways)....His Love that comes, no matter what, seems unfair....I cannot push it away - it just comes stronger; I cannot run from it - he just runs faster; I cannot hide - he always finds me...so what am I supposed to do?; am I supposed to just let him ambush me and surrender ?

2003-12-04T17:24:00.000-05:00

I am ambushed by the scandalous love of an unfair God who refuses to give me what I deserve.

I didn't write that....I read it....but just imagine the following:

being ambushed by Love....with no way out

2003-12-04T17:21:00.000-05:00

I stopped attending church services. It seems so cliché; then again, clichés are cliché for a reason. There’s something about staring at the back of someone else’s head while calling it “community” that inspires a certain cognitive dissonance. After a service on one occasion, I was asked how I was doing by a friend. Through gritted teeth and a determination to “commit-to-community-no-matter-what,” I replied that I wasn’t doing well. He smiled and nodded, apparently oblivious to what I had shared. Sure, it was an isolated incident, but it seemed to sum up faith for me at the time. And so I withdrew from people, from family and from God.

by brad birt

been there, happened to me...and sadly: done that

2003-11-23T09:06:00.000-05:00

What does Community look like...?

Something I am very pre-occupied lately is the question regarding 'Community'. Hoe does true (Christian) Community look like and is it realistic to hope for one in our times of increased division and individual pursuits?

One of my favorite TV shows is "I Love Lucy". Somehow my thoughts drifted to the Ricardos and the Mertzes. Maybe one reason why I like this show so much is that in some way these two couples represent a form of community that I long for. Friends that are in your life through thick and thin, who know you inside and out and still believe in you and stay with you...people you share your life and heart with...

2003-11-03T09:19:00.000-05:00

'communities of diverse and effective leaders who empower their organizations to learn with head, heart, and hand'

As I am doing research on leadership and new leadership paradigms and theories I am coming across terms, such as 'Transcendental Leadership'...a leadership theory that explores the spiritual dimension of leadership....

Now for 'us Christians' this might not be a novel idea, since we 'knew' for a long time that leadership has more to do with our spirituality than anything else...at least that's how I saw it, kowing that without a deept connection with Christ I couldn't do what I am doing...

What I am so excited about is that the secular world ( and even secular academia) is coming more and more to the realization that there is a deeply spiritual element to leadership. CEO's of large corporations realize that they cannot lead effectively without embracing their spirituality - otherwise they only lead out of 'half of what they are'...if you want one could even go so far as to call this new form of leadership 'the holistic approach to leadership'...

2003-10-22T15:56:00.000-04:00

On leadership....

As I am wrestling with issues of leadership I came across the following post: Poised at the millennium, we confront two critical challenges: how to address deep problems for which hierarchical leadership alone is insufficient and how to harness the intelligence and spirit of people at all levels of an organization to continually build and share knowledge. Our responses may lead us, ironically, to a future based on more ancient -- and more natural -- ways of organizing: communities of diverse and effective leaders who empower their organizations to learn with head, heart, and hand. Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline

Can we indeed find the key for future leadership in the past - is it a 'back to the future scenario'? Does it all end with the beginning - which is Jesus Christ - the alpha and omega?

2003-10-19T12:01:00.000-04:00

Help, my old routines aren't working ...!

Over the last few months I came to the painful realization that my old routines of connecting with God aren't working anymore.

No matter how hard I try to have a 'quiet time', to do 'my thing', to go through the motion of getting my coffee, opening my bible and journal, reading, trying to 'commune with God'...my routines aren't working...

This troubled my a great deal and I was wondering what was going on; until today as I came across someone else's blog. In this he quotes Thomas Merton:

I picked up a book and read these words by Thomas Merton in Contemplative Prayer:

"Those who imagine that they can discover special gimmicks and put them to work for themselves usually ignore God's will and his grace. They are self-confident and even self-complacent. They make up their minds that they are going to attain to this or that, and try to write their own ticket in the life of contemplation. They may even appear to succeed to some extent . . . "

So, no more gimmicks, but abiding and being attentive to God's will and grace.

2003-10-19T10:34:00.000-04:00

"God is dancing outside the walls..."

This statement from an article my husband sent me this morning really struck me. For the sake of comprehension I paste the article into this blog:

http://www.nextreformation.com/new.htm

Saturday, October 18th, 2003
Somewhere someone asked this question: "Can we be of the church but not in it?"

* * * * *

On Friday morning six guys gathered at the Bean Scene in downtown Kelowna. Of the six of us, two were well known beyond the local area. We varied in age from about 27 years to 49 years. We represented four denominations, with two of us currently not anchored in any identifiable group.

Discussion was passionate, stimulating, sometimes poignant, always relevant. I was reminded at the end of an article by Andrew Pritchard some time back. In his discussion of James Fowler's stages of faith development, Andrew looks at the phenomenon of people leaving their churches. One of his conclusions is that for some people, leaving their church can be a step of spiritual growth. This was true for me personally, and in our gathering Friday morning I saw a similar reality in two others. We talked a bit about why this was true.

I think it is true first of all because within the system many of us confused the purpose of man with the purposes of God. In some cases this extended to our confusing human agency with God's power or activity. We began to idolize the system or its leaders.

Where this was true we wrapped our own identity in the flag (the church) more than in Christ. At that point we were set for a very nasty fall. It's true that the old system of hierarchy elevates leaders (clergy) above the ordinary human being and so encourages such idolatry.

But another more ordinary dynamic is also at work, and it is simply developmental. In the process of human growth we must first know who we are before we can give ourselves away. We must form boundaries before we can safely move beyond them. This is called individuation. It is also part of spiritual growth.

At some point in our lives we have to stand alone. We have to discover who we are without the support of others. We have a desert experience. It is a dark and lonely time, filled with temptation, danger, and personal demons.

Some of us left the system because we could no longer survive safely within it. Others of us left it because we were on a personal journey of discovery. But either way when we left it, we discovered it had its mirror inside us. The same striving and love of position or hunger for power that we saw around us was within us. We realized that either our personal growth had been twisted, or that there was something about the system itself that encouraged this kind of striving.

And there is something even more interesting to me personally. It is that only those who are free of the punishment or rewards of a system can hope to change the system. If you want to move the world, you need a lever outside it.

As we talked yesterday morning I realized that there is also a paradox in all this. The paradox is that we can't simply lead people out of the old system; to do so is to encourage the same dependence on leaders that we knew within the old system. But dependence stops people from growing, it keeps them immature. Unfortunately, the only way to have a deep personal encounter with ourselves and our own darkness is through crisis and pain. Offering others an easy solution.. that they simply join with us in some new movement.. would not be a path to inner transformation for them. We would eventually rebuild the old system on top of the new one.

Instead, we have to become mentors for those who are hurting within the system, or who have already left it. We have to come alongside them and help them understand and survive the process. We have to affirm that they are not bad people because they have left the church or because they see the fallenness of the system. We have to support the work of the Lord in their lives, both inner and outer, and help them sift the true from the false. God could be at work in their leaving, God is dancing outside the walls, God is active and alive in the culture around us. We can find ways to partner with Him wherever we are.

And perhaps slowly, by His grace, we can reconstruct.

If God is dancing outside the walls, then I want to be outside the walls as well. I have not given up my life to follow a system (even if this system is the church), but I have given up my life to follow Him.

I want to dance with God!

2003-10-10T08:47:00.000-04:00

I love the fall - always have - even as a child growing up in Austria. For me fall is the season of stillness and quietness, more so than winter with all the buzz surrounding the Christmas season. But fall is different - nature comes to rest and there is a certain beauty as you watch the leaves change their colors - almost as a last goodbye before they fall to the ground - there is such dignity in this season. One of my favorite poems pertains to this season by Rainer Maria Rilke:

Autumn Day

Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Let thine shadows upon the sundials fall,
and unleash the winds upon the open fields.

Command the last fruits into fullness;
give them just two more ripe, southern days,
urge them into completion and press
the last bit of sweetness into the heavy wine.

He who has no house now, will no longer build.
He who is alone now, will remain alone,
will awake in the night, read, write long letters,
and will wander restlessly along the avenues,
back and forth, as the leaves begin to blow

I don't know - call me melancholy - but this is my all-time favorite - it deeply moves me...

2003-10-03T13:12:00.000-04:00

Just finished listening to Allen Hood during this morning's session at the Harp&Bowl Conference. There were some things that really touched me and resonated with my spirit:

1.You can be the most informed church but no transformation happens in your community. It’s after the encounter that you can start walking out the information.

2. Your church model is not an excuse for the lack of light! Let light come in again and forget your worries about MODELS! Stop playing by the rules – don’t apologize for the groan in your spirit as you sit in church week after week and you leave empty again!

3. We have no preaching, that when it goes forth from the platform, God’s glory comes. We cannot afford to speak PEACE to one another. There cannot be peace until God’s true glory comes. We open our mouths with many words, but God is not speaking.

4. Intercession is not an option – it is the method of government! We don’t rule from power, knowledge, insight – we rule from the place of intercession and intimacy with God. Leader’s don’t have an option – if you are human, you ARE called to intercede. Isaiah 56…my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations (we are his temple…our human bodies are his house….)

2003-10-02T12:55:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I blogged. I was busy preparing a presentation for the NATO Defense College and I still am rather brain-dead. So, I don't expect any great insights to flow out of me...on the other hand 'in our weakness HE is strong'...so who knows, that's probably the moment God was waiting for to get me out of His way so that I would 'blog' His thoughts.

As I am waiting on something to come to me, I am listening to a broadcast from Friends of the Bridegroom - Harp & Bowl Conference. I feel very much at home spiritually there and I wish God would have called us to go to Kansas City, instead of Virginia Beach. My heart longs for intimacy with God and fellow believers that encourage each other to press into God's presence and to dwell in His house all the days of their lives. I don't want to wait until I am dead and see Christ face to face...I long for intimacy with Him while I am still here on the earth. I believe that true transformation of oneself and others ONLY comes out of intimate relationship with God. The International House of Prayer in Kansas City is such a place and I wish that there would be such a place here in Virginia Beach. I never considered myself an intercessor, but I know deep in my heart that the only way that we as Christians will see any fruit in the future and will be able to stand in light of things to come is when we dwell in His house all the days of our lives. His house is called...House of Prayer....Jesus is the door and Prayer is the road to the Father...

I pray and hope that God will provide such a place for us here in Virginia Beach. Visions of starting in our own home come to mind...It's so hard to get started though...I don't know if it's the enemy or if it is merely our flesh that so easily gets side-tracked...

2003-09-29T08:43:00.000-04:00

It is Monday morning and my heart is so amazingly happy. After years and years of no contact I finally was able to locate my best friend in Austria again. We were best friends since school when we were 12 years old, I got saved because of her faithfulness and prayers (it took her and God about 7 years), we lived for years in apartments right next to one another...and I missed her terribly all those years here in the US. Her name is UTE and I ask whoever reads this blog to pray for her; just bless her!

My move to the States 6 years ago, brought about a lot of change and I had to let go of everything (and I mean everything) that was near and dear to me. I died on a daily basis and it was the most painful experience (so far). Even my bones were aching in agony.

Now after almost 6 years God gave me the release to try to locate her; and thanks be to God I did find her address in the Austrian Yellowpages....:-)

God is faithful and once again he proved himself faithful to me in a very special way. He is restoring the bridges I had to burn in His timing.

To Him I give all the glory.

2003-09-26T16:13:00.000-04:00

TheOoze - Articles: The Movie Mystic: Whale Rider ;Written by Stephen Simon

Just read this article after I saw the movie a few weeks ago. What a great movie and what a powerful message, not only to aspiring women leaders, but also to the men that love them.

If you haven't seen the movie Whale Rider I strongly encourage you to do so.

2003-09-26T15:44:00.000-04:00

Something I am working on currently has to do with the 'Call to Sacrificial Leadership'. I want to start this discussion with some comments from the final chapter of a doctoral dissertation by James Walz: “Today, the Western Church is the richest in material wealth and economic success. It has built the most magnificent architectural structures for corporate worship and social acceptability. The Western Church is on the ‘cutting edge’ of evangelistic programs, and has researched and designed church growth programs in line with much of the current leadership and management literature. Most of this literature has originated in the private business sector and has been modified to fit ‘sacred’ constructs. […] The Western Church has built the ‘finest’ seminaries and matriculated some of the most well-educated religious scholars of our times. Many of these scholars serve in some of the largest and best-dressed congregation in the world. […] The Western Church has been devoted in recent years to bringing about political and economic transformation through political action committees and heavily financed lobbying efforts. On the surface, it appears much has been accomplished, but the statistics tell otherwise” (Walz, 2000, p. 124 f).

The question that has to burn on every Christian leader’s heart is “Why”. The world is dying before our very eyes, people go to hell, Christians leave the church, and many fall away. Is the world dying because we as Christians refuse to die? Christ’s greatest victory was not his birth, was not his life, but his death. Only because he paid the ultimate sacrifice, were we able to live. Jesus was more than a servant leader; he was the sacrificial leader, the lamb that was slain.

2003-09-26T15:20:00.000-04:00

well, thanks to my hubby (Nile) my site looks much, much more 'cutting edge'...thanks honey!...i think i am getting into the flow of blogger-land...what a great tool to record your thoughts and share it with the whole, wide world ;-0

2003-09-25T17:41:00.000-04:00

i can't believe it...i am blogging....don't even know what the word means but i am doing it.....also, note my writing...it's all lower case...kind of cutting edge ;-)