Let's say that there was something that could happen... something you'd experienced before that was challenging, difficult or scary... something you knew had the potential to happen again, but which you prayed and hoped would not.
And then it didn't.
Like a devastating storm bearing down on your house that suddenly lifts and dissipates on a gentle breeze. It doesn't mean that another storm will never come your way, but this one, THIS storm passed, and nothing bad happened. What would you do? Would you shout for joy? Would you say "Amen" or "Thank you Jesus!" or "Praise God!"? or ANYthing that shows a grateful heart for the faithfulness of God??? And if you did all those things and someone told you not to get excited, what would be your response?
WHY ARE WE NOT EXCITED??? When something isn't going well, we ask God WHY, and to help us, and when something goes right, we question it... something quantifiable must have transpired to CAUSE this. We look for numbers, for data, for reasons why the bad thing didn't occur, looking to make sure that it isn't still lurking in the closet waiting to surprise us with some kind of horrific terror. We look for ways to credit ourselves and debunk any action that might be considered divine. We ask God for help every day, and when we receive it, invest far more energy in downplaying the goodness of it and trying to find the error, than in thanking our merciful Creator for life-affirming moments of faithfulness in action.
God is Good, All the Time; All the Time, God is Good.
When we bring fear to the table, then we begin to loathe, instead of love, the work of Christ's church. Fear divides and faith unites. God has a love enormous enough for all of us, if we hear it, and live it.
Showing posts with label thots. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thots. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Wisdom, Old and New.
My grandmother used to say to us “Have I told you lately that I love you? Because I do.” I've been thinking about how important that was. And still is. Grandma heartily, and sometimes very plainly disapproved of things that we did when we were small... and when we were grown. I suppose though, there's a lot more room to understand the context of that disapproval when it comes from someone who loves you, and always did, from before you were born til she stepped off this mortal coil. And who took the time to tell you so regularly, both with clearly understood actions and plain words. What a gift we can give to children! Has it ever been said that a child was hugged too much? Too often told that they were precious and loved? What is the worst that could come of that? My son a few months ago remarked of a baby he had never met, the child of a person he had never met, but upon who's picture we were looking “She is important to somebody.” I want that sensitivity to the gentle spirit that dwells within each of us to always, ALWAYS be a part of the way he looks at the world. I fail at it often myself, so I don't know if I will be the best teacher. Maybe I'll just have to learn this from him instead. Perhaps the best I will be able to do is love him, and hug him and tell him every day that he is precious to me. In plain words tell him when I approve and when I disapprove. Practice forgiveness he can see, and hope that it is enough to flourish the gentle spirit in him that recognizes already the value of another child of God.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Dreams, and Goals, and Resolutions, Oh My!
Just a short post... Everyone is still so fresh and resolution-y right now... I just want to ask... How will this year be different?? If I start with myself, and move out in faith, how will my 2010 be different and better than the year before?
Makes me think of one of my all time favorite quotations:
"The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands,
and then work outward from there."
— Robert M. Pirsig
In what ways do you hope to grow and change as a person of faith in the next year? How do you resolve to start that work in your own heart, head and hands?
In what ways do you want to see our church community do the same?
How do you begin to move outward with your faith?
What do you resolve to do differently, better or more of in your faith year?
How can we improve the world by improving on ourselves?
These are to me, frighteningly elementary, and simultaneously grandiose questions.
I'm looking forward to your answers and thoughts, dreams and hopes.
Makes me think of one of my all time favorite quotations:
"The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands,
and then work outward from there."
— Robert M. Pirsig
In what ways do you hope to grow and change as a person of faith in the next year? How do you resolve to start that work in your own heart, head and hands?
In what ways do you want to see our church community do the same?
How do you begin to move outward with your faith?
What do you resolve to do differently, better or more of in your faith year?
How can we improve the world by improving on ourselves?
These are to me, frighteningly elementary, and simultaneously grandiose questions.
I'm looking forward to your answers and thoughts, dreams and hopes.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Thought For The Day
"When you come to the edge of all the light that you know, And you are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, Faith is knowing one of two things will happen: There will be something solid to stand on or you will be taught how to fly." - Barbara J. Winter
Monday, December 28, 2009
The Darkest Time of the Year
I have been thinking tonight, and it occurs to me after a very strange fashion, that this may be the darkest time of the year. Yes, in terms of the Earth's trip around the sun, we are now on our way back to long daylight hours and short dark nights. In the dusky hollow between Christmas and the new year though, many of us grow introspective, reflective, retrospective. We turn and look behind us at another 12 months gone by... slack-jawed, agape at the swift passage of time which has taken no notice of us as it dashes by, save perhaps to gray a hair, deepen a wrinkle, or add inches to young frames. It can make us melancholy, thinking of things left undone or unsaid. Wrongs not righted... goals not met... old times gone by. Meant-tos and should-haves. This is the time of year when we self-evaluate, make resolutions and simultaneously flog ourselves for falling short in the current year, while puffing ourselves up with great hopes for how spectacular we will be in the year ahead.
How do we get to this place every time? Well, to start with... it IS darker and colder. Our souls (and our bodies) would really appreciate it if we could make like a bear and crawl into a cave and wait for spring. (Goodbye Christmas, wake me when it's Easter!) We've all come off this family-friends-food-fun high that kicks us in the teeth when we find that it is over... our spirits seem to be in some sort of detox from the drug of conviviality and community. We've run ragged to every party, gathering, family function, school show, parade, company Christmas, reunion, potluck and shindig we can possibly cram into a month. We've shopped til we drop, or madly baked, cooked, created and crafted our gifts. We have compromised our health, our sleep, our waistlines and our wallets in the name of one big party that is increasingly lost on the celebrants. We've spent lots on things that maybe don't matter as much as the one thing we all need more of but can't ever get... time. We're tired of everything and thirsty for something more all at once. We are too much time out of joint, too much of the time.
The sense of the liturgical calendar is gone from our lives too, it seems. I know so many people that couldn't wait to get their Christmas decorations out before Thanksgiving... now, just a few days into the "Twelve Days of Christmas", they are all bemoaning what a chore it is that they must be taken down. Everyone is dreading the return to work, to school, to ordinary life. For them, the star in the East has already set. The shepherds have returned to the fields and flocks... the magi have gone home by another route. We get so caught up in preparing for the big party at the manger for weeks ahead of time, that we don't spend most of the 12 Days actually celebrating it. We don't wait for Epiphany to reveal the visions of the three kings. I have my guilty moments too... I used to leave the tree up somewhat unintentionally, but fairly consistently until February or March. Now I set a strict January 5th deadline. I know that the modern, progressive church does not necessarily set much store by a lot of seasonal/liturgical hoopla. Nor does the modern Christian very often either I suspect. That's okay... but I'm a bit of a medievalist on this score. I adore the changing seasons of the church calendar, and the natural calendar. I continue to the think about the words from Ecclesiastes, reminding us that there IS a season for everything, and a time for every purpose under heaven. I think about how that might benefit us, to reserve a little time for each part of our lives... the mundane, the extraordinary. The holy, the profane, the profound. The sacred and the secular. Some will disagree... but for myself, it gives meaning to things to think about them each in their own context, and as part of a cycle of continuation. It gives me hope in the dark days of winter... it gives me something else to look forward to, and a new season in which to dwell, reflect, and revel. I'm still celebrating Christmas, and you can't stop me!
My big resolution for 2010? To live a very full and rich life, with time set aside for each thing after it's own needs... including time for God... so that this time next year I'm feeling blessed and fulfilled, instead of wondering what I've done with another year.
How do we get to this place every time? Well, to start with... it IS darker and colder. Our souls (and our bodies) would really appreciate it if we could make like a bear and crawl into a cave and wait for spring. (Goodbye Christmas, wake me when it's Easter!) We've all come off this family-friends-food-fun high that kicks us in the teeth when we find that it is over... our spirits seem to be in some sort of detox from the drug of conviviality and community. We've run ragged to every party, gathering, family function, school show, parade, company Christmas, reunion, potluck and shindig we can possibly cram into a month. We've shopped til we drop, or madly baked, cooked, created and crafted our gifts. We have compromised our health, our sleep, our waistlines and our wallets in the name of one big party that is increasingly lost on the celebrants. We've spent lots on things that maybe don't matter as much as the one thing we all need more of but can't ever get... time. We're tired of everything and thirsty for something more all at once. We are too much time out of joint, too much of the time.
The sense of the liturgical calendar is gone from our lives too, it seems. I know so many people that couldn't wait to get their Christmas decorations out before Thanksgiving... now, just a few days into the "Twelve Days of Christmas", they are all bemoaning what a chore it is that they must be taken down. Everyone is dreading the return to work, to school, to ordinary life. For them, the star in the East has already set. The shepherds have returned to the fields and flocks... the magi have gone home by another route. We get so caught up in preparing for the big party at the manger for weeks ahead of time, that we don't spend most of the 12 Days actually celebrating it. We don't wait for Epiphany to reveal the visions of the three kings. I have my guilty moments too... I used to leave the tree up somewhat unintentionally, but fairly consistently until February or March. Now I set a strict January 5th deadline. I know that the modern, progressive church does not necessarily set much store by a lot of seasonal/liturgical hoopla. Nor does the modern Christian very often either I suspect. That's okay... but I'm a bit of a medievalist on this score. I adore the changing seasons of the church calendar, and the natural calendar. I continue to the think about the words from Ecclesiastes, reminding us that there IS a season for everything, and a time for every purpose under heaven. I think about how that might benefit us, to reserve a little time for each part of our lives... the mundane, the extraordinary. The holy, the profane, the profound. The sacred and the secular. Some will disagree... but for myself, it gives meaning to things to think about them each in their own context, and as part of a cycle of continuation. It gives me hope in the dark days of winter... it gives me something else to look forward to, and a new season in which to dwell, reflect, and revel. I'm still celebrating Christmas, and you can't stop me!
My big resolution for 2010? To live a very full and rich life, with time set aside for each thing after it's own needs... including time for God... so that this time next year I'm feeling blessed and fulfilled, instead of wondering what I've done with another year.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Get Out Of The Way...
I'm pondering how much, and how often, we get in our own way.
I think about all the times we're asked to do something, something that will be really good for us, or for those around us, and we get all tangled up in doubt and second-guessing ourselves and the circumstances. We make excuses that become self-fulfilling prophecies. I wonder if Noah would have had as much trouble moving on faith as many of us do, whether we would even be here to talk about it.
God, I suspect, has more patience with us than we often rightly deserve. Like a parent who can calmly and capably repeat themselves 100 times until their child gets it right, until they understand. I hope that I, and others, are listening to what is being said to us, and through us. I hope that I have the faith to keep trying as long as God will keep repeating those instructions, to do what is asked of me.
In this time of year when we're busily making way for all the trimmings and trappings of a 21st Century Christmas... and hopefully also for that precious Christ-child, I pray that we all remember that we are on assignment. We're on a mission to make a highway through the desert... through the barren places of our own spirituality, and the desolate places in the world... make a road that will take us right to the source of love and light if we let it. Each of us, one voice, crying in the wilderness. I believe that voice is one, but not alone. It was never alone. This path has been walked countless times by numberless souls. Prophets, shepherds, servants, magi, brave young girls, wise old men, fools, saints, sinners, dreamers... and maybe even Jesus himself. And the voice of God, there the whole time, was and is patiently, gently guiding us.
Listen. Try it again. Don't give up. This work can be done... you can make this path, though the hills, the valleys, the curved places. God does not give up on us. God does not grow weary. Stop. Redirect yourself. Get out of the way so that you can make God's way. In the wilderness of our souls then, the road will be straight, and the desert will bloom.
I think about all the times we're asked to do something, something that will be really good for us, or for those around us, and we get all tangled up in doubt and second-guessing ourselves and the circumstances. We make excuses that become self-fulfilling prophecies. I wonder if Noah would have had as much trouble moving on faith as many of us do, whether we would even be here to talk about it.
God, I suspect, has more patience with us than we often rightly deserve. Like a parent who can calmly and capably repeat themselves 100 times until their child gets it right, until they understand. I hope that I, and others, are listening to what is being said to us, and through us. I hope that I have the faith to keep trying as long as God will keep repeating those instructions, to do what is asked of me.
In this time of year when we're busily making way for all the trimmings and trappings of a 21st Century Christmas... and hopefully also for that precious Christ-child, I pray that we all remember that we are on assignment. We're on a mission to make a highway through the desert... through the barren places of our own spirituality, and the desolate places in the world... make a road that will take us right to the source of love and light if we let it. Each of us, one voice, crying in the wilderness. I believe that voice is one, but not alone. It was never alone. This path has been walked countless times by numberless souls. Prophets, shepherds, servants, magi, brave young girls, wise old men, fools, saints, sinners, dreamers... and maybe even Jesus himself. And the voice of God, there the whole time, was and is patiently, gently guiding us.
Listen. Try it again. Don't give up. This work can be done... you can make this path, though the hills, the valleys, the curved places. God does not give up on us. God does not grow weary. Stop. Redirect yourself. Get out of the way so that you can make God's way. In the wilderness of our souls then, the road will be straight, and the desert will bloom.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Thoughts For The Day.
"Many demolitions are actually renovations." -Jalaluddin Rumi, poet and mystic (1207-1273)
Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.
--Colossians 3:13
Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.
--Colossians 3:13
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Annual Advent Post
It seems like every year I have to do a post around Advent. Maybe this is just the time of year when I get inspired...
In the United Church of Christ, we believe that "God is Still Speaking."
God is still speaking to the church, still guiding us, still growing us, still challenging us. I have been, along with many of our congregants, EXTRA challenged in the last 48 hours or so. God is still speaking to us as individuals... every moment of every day of our lives, there is the chance that God will say something to any one of us... it might be a great thing, or a small thing. Sometimes God speaks with silence, and sometimes God shouts at us in a deafening roar.
I finally, reluctantly joined Facebook this year. After some painful and cathartic moments in a church meeting, I came home to find the following things posted at random by fellow Facebookers:
Zinger of the day part 1: “Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain but it takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving.” Dale Carnegie
Zinger of the day part 2: "Traditions are group efforts to keep the unexpected from happening."
Zinger of the day part 3: A motivational video that talked about upping your output just a little bit more to achieve great things.
God is shouting at me right now... Now I have to figure out what to do with that.
In the United Church of Christ, we believe that "God is Still Speaking."
God is still speaking to the church, still guiding us, still growing us, still challenging us. I have been, along with many of our congregants, EXTRA challenged in the last 48 hours or so. God is still speaking to us as individuals... every moment of every day of our lives, there is the chance that God will say something to any one of us... it might be a great thing, or a small thing. Sometimes God speaks with silence, and sometimes God shouts at us in a deafening roar.
I finally, reluctantly joined Facebook this year. After some painful and cathartic moments in a church meeting, I came home to find the following things posted at random by fellow Facebookers:
Zinger of the day part 1: “Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain but it takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving.” Dale Carnegie
Zinger of the day part 2: "Traditions are group efforts to keep the unexpected from happening."
Zinger of the day part 3: A motivational video that talked about upping your output just a little bit more to achieve great things.
God is shouting at me right now... Now I have to figure out what to do with that.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Advent Is...
Let me set this up for you...
Yesterday (Sunday) was the first Sunday of Advent. Our liturgist had read the first scripture for the day, and about half of the second one. She closed her Bible and then said "oops, I didn't finish that one. Hold on while I get back to it." or something to that effect. Then she said that we could all enjoy that "pregnant pause" while pondering the first part of the scripture lesson.
I love that phrase "pregnant pause"... it's been rolling around in my head all day. I thought about it while my pastor and I, with other friends, talked about the season of Advent and what that means. I am up out of bed at nearly half past twelve because that phrase was chewing at my brain.
Pregnant Pause may be the tidiest summation of advent that we have. It's a little space of time in our lives where we anxiously await the coming of something... a something that is the Best Sort Of Surprise (I feel very A.A. Milne in typing that) because you know that it's coming, and you're excited about it anyway. There are lots of discussions right now, I'm sure, about Advent, and it's meaning. Whether this should be a time of spare, austere, Lenten-style preparation, or a frenetic Black Friday-style preparation. I feel like they're two very different sorts... but maybe neither one is really what Advent is about. When Christ came to us in the simplest, smallest form of hope that we could readily grasp and digest and understand, there was a gift that we didn't anticipate, maybe. A gift of knowing how to prepare for that type of hope. To me, Advent is a lot like waiting for a baby... any baby. It's a time to reflect on all the wonderful things you want the world to be for new little person. A time to take even just a few small steps towards realizing that dream... a little extra kindness. A tiny bit of charity. Some small change, an extra smile. As a mother, I think of the light of Advent the same way I remember the soft, warm light in the delivery room. It's dim, but it's enough to see by. It's not stark, or scary, or threatening. It isn't the blinding light of Easter morning at the tomb... it's the same gentle color as candleglow and rosy sunsets. It's winter firelight, and the welcoming light of home through the window. When a baby is coming, there's lots to do, but it's the kind of work most people seem to enjoy. Dreaming, planning, preparing, hoping. Giving, sharing, opening, making room for someone. You weed out things you don't need cluttering up your space anymore... things you don't use, things that wouldn't be safe or appropriate for a baby, things that are reminders of your life BEFORE you were preparing for a baby. You give it away, recycle it, throw it out. You start to take stock of what you have, and what you'll need, and what you don't want to carry around anymore. And it's a good thing.... because the funny thing about a baby... it's such a tiny package, but as most modern-day parents will tell you, it comes with so much STUFF! Pretty soon, if you let it (or sometimes, in spite of yourself) there's baby-stuff everywhere. And a very little person who isn't ready to take care of themselves not only comes with lots of STUFF... it comes with a whole new set of priorities and responsibilities that you couldn't have imagined in your wildest dreams. They say "a baby changes everything." They are not kidding. Fully grown, 'responsible' adults will allow their entire lives to be reordered by a baby.
Our Awesome God must have known something in offering the world that tiny baby so long ago... what in the world but a baby could embody hope so tidily, awaken our desire to nurture and protect so readily, and cause us to embrace a life-altering course so willingly? Nothing I can think of. A baby is the physical manifestation of every biological and spiritual urge to leave something of ourselves in the world. A baby, even a very important baby, needs to be held, nourished, nurtured and loved or it will not survive, or grow. A baby makes normally rational, orderly, organized people do very irrational, disorganized things. The God who created us and nurtured us; then came to us in the most humble and helpless form we could understand, had hope and faith in us, that we would take that baby into our lives. Every year at Advent, we prepare again to accept that gift. We make a place. In a world of fast-paced and furious events, we can take advantage of that pregnant pause. I believe that if we let it, (or maybe in spite of ourselves) that tiny baby could enter the place we've made, and maybe overtake our priorities and fill our lives with amazing, beautiful baby stuff. Yes, a baby changes everything.
Yesterday (Sunday) was the first Sunday of Advent. Our liturgist had read the first scripture for the day, and about half of the second one. She closed her Bible and then said "oops, I didn't finish that one. Hold on while I get back to it." or something to that effect. Then she said that we could all enjoy that "pregnant pause" while pondering the first part of the scripture lesson.
I love that phrase "pregnant pause"... it's been rolling around in my head all day. I thought about it while my pastor and I, with other friends, talked about the season of Advent and what that means. I am up out of bed at nearly half past twelve because that phrase was chewing at my brain.
Pregnant Pause may be the tidiest summation of advent that we have. It's a little space of time in our lives where we anxiously await the coming of something... a something that is the Best Sort Of Surprise (I feel very A.A. Milne in typing that) because you know that it's coming, and you're excited about it anyway. There are lots of discussions right now, I'm sure, about Advent, and it's meaning. Whether this should be a time of spare, austere, Lenten-style preparation, or a frenetic Black Friday-style preparation. I feel like they're two very different sorts... but maybe neither one is really what Advent is about. When Christ came to us in the simplest, smallest form of hope that we could readily grasp and digest and understand, there was a gift that we didn't anticipate, maybe. A gift of knowing how to prepare for that type of hope. To me, Advent is a lot like waiting for a baby... any baby. It's a time to reflect on all the wonderful things you want the world to be for new little person. A time to take even just a few small steps towards realizing that dream... a little extra kindness. A tiny bit of charity. Some small change, an extra smile. As a mother, I think of the light of Advent the same way I remember the soft, warm light in the delivery room. It's dim, but it's enough to see by. It's not stark, or scary, or threatening. It isn't the blinding light of Easter morning at the tomb... it's the same gentle color as candleglow and rosy sunsets. It's winter firelight, and the welcoming light of home through the window. When a baby is coming, there's lots to do, but it's the kind of work most people seem to enjoy. Dreaming, planning, preparing, hoping. Giving, sharing, opening, making room for someone. You weed out things you don't need cluttering up your space anymore... things you don't use, things that wouldn't be safe or appropriate for a baby, things that are reminders of your life BEFORE you were preparing for a baby. You give it away, recycle it, throw it out. You start to take stock of what you have, and what you'll need, and what you don't want to carry around anymore. And it's a good thing.... because the funny thing about a baby... it's such a tiny package, but as most modern-day parents will tell you, it comes with so much STUFF! Pretty soon, if you let it (or sometimes, in spite of yourself) there's baby-stuff everywhere. And a very little person who isn't ready to take care of themselves not only comes with lots of STUFF... it comes with a whole new set of priorities and responsibilities that you couldn't have imagined in your wildest dreams. They say "a baby changes everything." They are not kidding. Fully grown, 'responsible' adults will allow their entire lives to be reordered by a baby.
Our Awesome God must have known something in offering the world that tiny baby so long ago... what in the world but a baby could embody hope so tidily, awaken our desire to nurture and protect so readily, and cause us to embrace a life-altering course so willingly? Nothing I can think of. A baby is the physical manifestation of every biological and spiritual urge to leave something of ourselves in the world. A baby, even a very important baby, needs to be held, nourished, nurtured and loved or it will not survive, or grow. A baby makes normally rational, orderly, organized people do very irrational, disorganized things. The God who created us and nurtured us; then came to us in the most humble and helpless form we could understand, had hope and faith in us, that we would take that baby into our lives. Every year at Advent, we prepare again to accept that gift. We make a place. In a world of fast-paced and furious events, we can take advantage of that pregnant pause. I believe that if we let it, (or maybe in spite of ourselves) that tiny baby could enter the place we've made, and maybe overtake our priorities and fill our lives with amazing, beautiful baby stuff. Yes, a baby changes everything.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
In the Hub of Circle of Life...
I sit here tonight,(well, really, this morning, in point of fact) filled with a strange sense of the vastness, the miraculousness, and the fragility of life as we know it. In just a short few hours this evening, I have word that my cousin should be delivered of her daughter any moment, and that my friend's sister, who has been battling cancer for maybe 10 years now, and who had been in pallative care, has died. Here we live, on the needle-fine precipice, as soft as the breath in our nostrils, as fleeting as shooting star. Yet that space is filled with the immenseness of a lifetime's experiences. I have been in this place before... a juxtaposition of life and death that makes your head whip around with awe. How can it go so fast? There is a beauty in the realization of how delicate the balance is... each moment moves another grain through hourglass, a pennyweight from one side of the scale to the other... more beautiful still that we have no notion of the total amount being measured. We can only mark what is passed, and guess and hope at what is yet to be. We have to relish the now, and embrace these small hours because as I am being reminded tonight; the little space of our lives, the gift of it, and the joy of it, is in the uncertainty of it. That is what makes the gift precious. Yes, how strange it all is, and how frightening, and how perfect.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
A little 'thought for the day'
Life has peaks AND valleys. If it weren't for the ups and downs, it would just be one long, flat road, and what fun is that?
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