Ronnie McBrayer

In Part 6 of "The Path Is Made By Walking, Ronnie quotes Janet Hagberg, words that serve as proper commentary to the Emmaus Road experience of Luke 24: “Now we surrender to God’s will, but with our eyes wide open…for we have been changed. We sense a looser grip on ourselves and all we have believed, because our confidence is in God - not what we think about God. Our primary motivation in life becomes the desire to love and to live honestly. We acquire an inner peace and calmness because we grow into the full awareness that God truly loves us. We learn how to go about our lives with patience and freshness, a vitality that can only come from God. There is no striving, just evolving. The healing experience is so personal and so profound, we may find it difficult to express.”

How do we get this? Persistence. Muddling through. Surrender. Being melted down and re-formed. Anger. Tears. Shaking your fist or the middle finger at heaven. Kicking and screaming on the floor. Trying out atheism for a while. Shunning anything religious, spiritual, prayerful, or anything like you knew in the past. But if you are a person with a bent toward faith - if you are a person who discovers that the eternity planted in your heart cannot be ignored - you will begin to poke around in the ashes for the bones. You will begin to put the pieces back together, and maybe - just maybe - you will have an Emmaus experience: “Suddenly, their eyes were opened, and they recognized him…They said to each other, 'Didn’t our hearts burn within us as he talked with us on the road.” 

As this journey down the Emmaus Road continues, Ronnie speaks about the times when faith seems lost: "Before you change, you will be confused. It’s natural. It’s to be expected. Once you are on the road, you will encounter roadblocks - intense seasons of questioning; dark nights of the soul; arrows shot toward heaven that never seem to hit their target. Janet Hagberg rightfully calls it, 'The Wall.' You crash up against it and things go to pieces.

"It feels like you are losing your faith and possibly losing your mind...like everything you were ever told about God or believed about God is wrong... all your old prayers and Bible verses and routines that used to do the trick have lost their power. Your unassailable, bullet-proof solutions fail, and no amount of praying harder, believing more, reading your Bible, or rededication will remedy you. In the words of William Butler Yates: 'Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; anarchy is loosed upon the world.'"

With episode four of his current series, "The Path Is Made By Walking," Ronnie observes that Jesus challenged his fellow travelers on the Emmaus Road to do something almost impossible: To throw out what they had believed previously, and look at life, faith, and reality with a completely different point of view. He was invited them to change their minds - something so few of us are willing to do. 

(For the opening reference, the rabbit/duck image, see: https://www.ualberta.ca/science/news/2018/march/optical-illusion-gives-insight-into-how-we-perceive-the-world.html )

In this third installment of "Walking," Ronnie clarifies his hopes for this deep dive into the Emmaus Road story of Luke 24. "One: There’s always something deep, innovative, and wondrous beneath the surface of Scripture - it’s only 7 miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus, but so much further than that. Two: Luke was not afraid to meet people right where they were, to speak their language, in order to tell the story of Jesus. And three: Can we stop and appreciate the artistry and creativity of the biblical writer?" Ronnie picks up that third hope in this talk, revealing the imagination and skill of Luke.

Regarding the two photos discussed in this talk: 1) Visit https://stellarium-web.org to see the night sky anywhere in the world. 2) "The Starry Night" is on display at the Museum of Modern Art, NYC: https://www.moma.org

In Part 2 of Ronnie's exploration of the Emmaus Road text from Luke 24, he takes a deep dive into the background of the story - a background that is more than 400 years old - but one Luke and his listeners would have known all too easily. From there, Ronnie gives a challenge to readers of the Bible to "dig deep," discovering the multiple worlds that are beneath our shallower readings of the text.

Note: For Dum's meme "Persistence," referred to in the talk, visit: http://dumilustrador.blogspot.com/2011/04/ha-momentos-que-devemos-persistir-em.html 

With this introduction to the Emmaus Road experience of Luke 24, Ronnie begins an ambitious series of talks entitled, "The Path is Made By Walking" (taken from a poem by Spanish poet, Antonio Machado - text below). Ronnie says, "This story has been given for every true believer, for every spiritual seeker; for every honest doubter, and every troubled questioner; it’s for every wanderer and wonderer; for every curious soul, every longing heart, every disillusioned cause-keeper, and every disappointed lover. It is a tale told for the freshie just beginning her walk of faith; for the cynic who has lost his faith; for the agnostic who interrogates faith; for the atheist who has no faith; and for the old hand, the road-weary traveler who is just trying to keep the faith...I recognize that these seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus cover the distance of eternity. I recognize that these few verses might be the most creative use of narrative anywhere in the Christian lexicon - as Luke, the writer, brings together Jewish wisdom, emerging Christian reflection, metaphor, parable, and borrows from both Plato and Socrates. I recognize that this gold mine has gone largely un-mined; and I recognize that I am not up to the task of trying to communicate all that is here."

“Traveler, there is no path. The path is made by walking. By walking the path is made. Beat by beat and verse by verse...When the goldfinch cannot sing; when the poet is a pilgrim; when prayer will do us no good: Traveler, there is no path. The path is made by walking.” - Antonio Machado

On his 90th birthday,  legendary local dentist Dr. Johnny Savage shares words with the congregation at A Simple Faith Church.

See the Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzqFXaIIbAU

Johnny's biography, written by Kathryn Hardy is available at online bookstores.

"A garden is where it all began - a garden is where it is all headed - and a garden makes it all possible. The resurrection is heaven come to earth; life and life-giving spirit confronting and overcoming death. Jesus  is the man working in the garden - restoring the garden of life - does all that is necessary and possible for life to flourish. In the words of Robert Frost: “He has kept the pathway open...our home is at the end.”

Based on John 19 and 20

Images referred to in this talk can be viewed at: https://artandtheology.org/2016/04/05/she-mistook-him-for-the-gardener/ 

Power. Politics. Prophecy. Peace. And a little donkey carrying Jesus through the gates of Jerusalem. In this talk Ronnie focuses on the overlooked details and persisting challenge of the first Palm Sunday.

St. Patrick's Day fell on a Sunday this year, and I couldn't resist playing a few  Irish songs. This quintet collection of The Backsliders band features myself on guitar and vocals, Matt Miller on fiddle, Tim Ryals on percussion, Andy Stucky on bass, and Ricky Stanfield on mandolin. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.