N. Gordon Cosby

Letting Go of the Need to Change

By N. Gordon Cosby on 07-17-2010

One of the most crucial dimensions of letting go is the recognition that there is no need to change an event or person. This is extremely rare and demands a respect and reverence beyond most of us.

But, we argue, shouldn't we want to change an undesirable happening, or to change a person who obviously needs changing? The answer is, no. We can be there, and God's presence can be there in us and through us, and that's all we can do. Whatever changes are appropriate will occur. But that is quite different from our struggling to change people and trying to change events.

There will be very little celebration and transcendence and lifting of another's burdens when we're hoping to change them and "clean them up."  I have discovered through the years that it is very heavy work to get another cleaned up. And it's even heavier to get a community cleaned up.

The task, I think, is to enjoy the other more. To experience the wonder of the person, to be more open, more attentive, to learn from the person or the community, and to revel in the surprises that are given. If the person or community changes, good. If not, you've celebrated who they are. You've lived in the Now.

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Infinite Newness

By N. Gordon Cosby on 04-07-2010

When life reaches the depths, as it reached the ultimate depths in Jesus, it explodes into infinite newness. The only man ever resurrected was the one who hit the bottom and knew total poverty. And so we have a new injection into the lifestream of humanity. The ascending way never explodes into newness. It reaches its pinnacle of fame, authority, power by sucking into itself that which should never have been arrogated to it. We store the names, remember the accomplishments--sometimes envy the accomplishments--and write much of our history around those who were invested in fame. We don't write it around the poor, the real people. We write the story of who we are as a people around "the names." But they don't cause us to want to walk tall in the faith. They don't release love into the common family.

Suppose the only God is the descending God. Suppose the only way that we can know God is to go down, to go to the bottom. Suppose the only way to be reconciled to God is to be reconciled to Christ, who is with the least, at the bottom. If God is going down and we are going up, we'll miss each other. Going up is the way to evade God and miss the whole purpose of our existence.

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The Descent Is the Glory

By N. Gordon Cosby on 04-01-2010

We live in a debilitating dichotomy. We hear the images of Jesus being the lamb, the lamb led to slaughter; and Jesus being the servant kneeling with a towel and a basin, washing feet as he gets ready to go to the cross; and the weeping Christ, riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. We want to believe we, too, are moving toward this sort of surrender of power and control, wanting no person to feel the weight of our authority. But we don't yet embody it. We don't yet live as though the way to God, the way of fulfillment, is the downward way. We spend our best thinking and energies on the upward way and are distressed if we are not recognized or appreciated.

The closer we get to the end of life, the more meaningful the symbols of weakness become. I've noticed this time and time again: people of power, the closer they get to the end, the more they appreciate the images of weakness. Jesus didn't live a great life but end that life poorly. No, the crowning of his life was the death that he died. The poverty, the leastness of those final hours, the death, is the glory.

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Paradigm Pioneers

By N. Gordon Cosby on 03-15-2010

The majority of people are settlers. They like to settle a land pioneered by others. There are fewer paradigm shifters and paradigm pioneers, those who are ready, and sometimes even eager, to enter the new. The biblical understanding is that the new is always beckoning us. God, by definition, is "One who does a new thing." And our desperate need is for the new. A new neighborhood. A new city. A new world which respects and honors and cares for all of its people. The paradigm shifters and the pioneers are the ones who lead us into that newness.

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Trust the Stream

By N. Gordon Cosby on 03-06-2010

"There is a river, whose streams gladden the city of God..." (Psalm 46:4).

The stream flowing through our lives is from eternity to eternity. It is artesian. It is totally adequate. Everything we need is borne by that stream. Its origin is the realm beyond, and it carries infinite resources. In this space-time realm, conditioned as we are, the stream can seem to be a trickle. It seems puny against the drugs we're battling, against the divisions among us or the power of greed that fuels our economy.

When we're up against all the world's needs and lacks--the way we perceive life--the stream seems inadequate. But in fact, it is a powerful, surging, cleansing tide that purifies all it touches. It is a grace torrent. It flows irrespective of merit. It carries everything that a human being has ever needed--and could ever want. Whatever we need will flow by at just the opportune moment. Our problem is that we're not attuned to the stream. We don't see it. We're not even looking in the river's direction.

But when we wait in expectancy, looking at the stream and then recognizing what we need as it floats by, we simply reach out and take the gift. It's an effortless way of living. Usually we're not attuned to effortlessness. We're too busy striving. We're holding forth and carrying on and trying to reach our goals. The wisdom of the stream is the opposite of this. What I'm talking about is moving from a conceptual awareness of God's care--the idea of God's providence--to trusting the flow of that stream that carries everything we need and will bring it at just the opportune moment.

Jesus found it difficult to understand his disciples' anxiety. He was so in the river, he was so aware that the stream carried everything that was needed, that he couldn't understand why others were having so much trouble with the idea. What he says is to set our minds on God's realm, God's justice, before everything else. Everything else will be given by the stream. This is different from achievement and different from making things happen. Do not be anxious about tomorrow, Jesus says. You'll have plenty to think about when tomorrow comes. Now the stream is flowing.

Once we get accustomed to noticing the stream, and we spend more time near the stream, taking from it what is being given, there comes another step: actually getting into the water and resting in its flow. Even when the flow is a torrent, we know we are safe. We trust the flow. We become non-resistant. We become receptive. We trust the power of the divine presence, which longs to take our one little life to its divine destination. Even if we're in deep water, we trust the flow and are not afraid. We simply wait in expectancy to round the next bend, looking in wonder at the view. Always a new view. Effortlessness, expectancy and wonder are how we live, rather than striving.

Faith, in the biblical sense, is trusting the flow and reveling in the view and being carried beyond all existing boundaries. Faith is being excited about the final destination, even when the destination is mystery. When Jesus says, "Believe in God, believe also in me," he is saying, "Get into the stream with us. It's a stream of pure grace and mercy. Go into its depths and find us there."

Gordon Cosby, along with his wife Mary, established The Church of the Saviour in 1947. In this, his 93rd year of life, he still offers his wisdom and vision to the community.

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It Didn't Just Happen

By N. Gordon Cosby on 08-26-2009

We were born into and continue to live in a blatantly unjust world. It is blatantly unfair, and it didn't just happen. Powerful people who wanted more power and privilege made decisions, which took privileges away from those less powerful. Events in Haiti and the Sudan and in Iraq and in Washington didn't just happen. It didn't just happen that 49% of the children in Washington are living in poverty. It happened because budget decisions were made which meant that many low-income families would have no affordable place to live and would have to live in areas with schools which could not educate. It is a structured injustice, which always leads to structural violence.

Listen to Isaiah 10:1 -- "Woe betide those who enact unjust laws and draft oppressive edicts, depriving the poor of justice, robbing the weakest of my people of their rights, plundering the widow and despoiling the fatherless. What will you do when called to account?" The prophets were speaking 2800 years ago and we have to ask, does it do any good for the prophets to speak?

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Will You Love Me?

By N. Gordon Cosby on 07-11-2009

All of us need to know that we are loved. And just as we need to know that we are loved, Jesus needs to know that he is loved. Just as we need to listen to Jesus' declarations of love for us, we also need to tell Jesus that we love him and that we want to be closer and closer to him forever. Jesus' love for us and our love for Jesus is a mutual love affair.

Everything else is changed by that relationship. Nothing can be separated from it. Every friendship, every love relationship, is transformed by a consuming friendship with Jesus. All our money, all our work is an expression of our love for Jesus and his love for us. We show our love for Jesus by listening to him and taking on his dream for our city, our nation and our world

Becoming Good News

By N. Gordon Cosby on 12-17-2008

Too many tired Christians are trying to be good news for the world. God is saying, 'I want you to trust me. I'll do the majority of the work. I want you to go along with me and just watch the miracles.'

What's the good news for you? Are you having a good time in life? Do you have news that's so good you've got to share it? Do you feel safe, inwardly? Are you trusting the goodness and grace of someone who loves everyone?

We need new forms for sharing the good news of God. The good news has to be embodied--so we must BE before we DO. Our first task is to become new creatures. Like C.S. Lewis said, "God doesn't want improved creatures, but a new creation."

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The Mind of Christ

By N. Gordon Cosby on 10-20-2008

The alternative consciousness, or the prophetic consciousness, or what we call the mind of Christ is quite different from what we call the dominant consciousness. The transition from the dominant consciousness to the mind of Christ occurs much too infrequently. If we are serious about making this journey into this radical new kingdom consciousness, we must integrate the extremes of evil and good into our consciousness.

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Morality and the Economic Crisis

By N. Gordon Cosby on 10-08-2008

I have a friend who is an attorney with a deep knowledge of the national economic crisis. He made two interesting comments:

He first said that "liquidity" is not the real problem in the market right now--it is that no one knows what anything is worth. So much stuff of questionable value is hidden on balance sheets that buyers no longer know if something is worth what it is trading for, less, or more. So no one really knows how bad things are and cannot put an efficient, valid price on things. In other words, blindness about value. That destroys the logic of the "free market" because efficiency is based on "transparency" of value.

Second, he said that as a result of the first problem of blindness about value, it is difficult to know if persons you are selling to can meet their commitments to you. In other words--blindness about the solvency of parties in the market. That also kills an "efficient" market because it destroys the needed trust that makes the market work.

In spiritual traditions of all kinds, blindness is an old theme---people who corruptly set out to blind others end up blind themselves. We ignore that wisdom at our peril. Morality, once again, is proven to be fundamental to an efficient marketplace.

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