Lively-Listening

We are nearing the end of our walk through the Baptismal Covenant this Lent. The last question we are asked in the vows is “will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?”

I wonder how often we are oblivious to the needs around us. Unless an injustice is brought to our attention, we can be too busy with our own routines to notice. News stories can, in fact, desensitize us because there is sooo much violence and injustice that we can start to feel that we can do nothing.

As part of our work at living more fully into our baptismal vows, we might need to become more aware and more active at listening. I don’t just mean listening to what is said, but more often than not to what is not said. Yes, there is pain and suffering. Yes, we have promised to make a difference. Yes, it can be overwhelming. Perhaps we need to ask, "Lord, which thing is speaking to my heart?"

After the Sandy Hook Elementary tragedy people responded with compassion in many ways. And so it is after any disaster. Day-to-day struggles to survive sometimes don’t make it to the news, but are just as important.

At the retreat the beginning of March, attendees heard about a ministry to women in two adjacent border communities. One town is in Mexico and one in the United States. It is really one community with a wall through the center. On both sides of the border there are needs that you could easily miss.

Children, who were born in this country and are able to attend school in the US, but whose parents cannot cross to go to school events or teacher conferences. Families who live in such poverty that collecting cans is a means of getting money to buy food.Children who do not have a blanket or even underwear. Women who are raising their children alone because the men in their lives have been killed by drug cartels.

Amid this, one woman is empowering women to create cottage industry and helping provide food, coats, blankets, and other necessities on both sides of the border. She heard the need with her heart and was moved to respond. She did not know what she was getting into, but she heard God saying, “Feed my sheep” and “whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me”. In the eyes of the young and old she sees God and responds. You can learn more about helping the Las Palomas ministry. 

I have another friend who heard a different need. Her heart heard the need of families who are living under the shadow of having a family member incarcerated. She built a ministry to those children and parents based on sharing the Bible, a meal, crafts, and music in a ‘party’. It has expanded across the nation and there have even been parties in Africa and India. Wings Ministry now has a weekly program to help build assets and support the children and families even further. God is in the least of these-the victims of bad decisions by a parent or other family member. They are learning that God hasn't forgotten them.

There are many other such stories. Ministries to the disenfranchised that quietly go on, run by women and men who heard the need and responded. We may not all be able to actively work with the homeless or the poor or the sick or those in prison. What we can do is ‘hear’ the need and respond in whatever way we are able. Maybe it is filling a shoebox with toiletries and gifts at Christmas for Las Palomas. Perhaps it is a cash donation toward a Wings party. It could be bringing canned goods for your church or local food pantry.

Just possibly God is calling you to personally respond to something you see on the news. Listen to the needs and then listen to how God is calling you to respond.

Next Sunday is Palm Sunday and we will enter the journey to the Cross. Come and see what Love our Father has for us.

Lively-Family

So far, in this Lent series about living into our baptismal covenant, we’ve considered the need for community in order to “continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers”. Many prayer styles help us “persevere in resisting evil, repent and return to the Lord” and journaling is a way to learn how to tell our story as we “share the Good News of God in Christ.”

An important part of the Baptismal Covenant is moving beyond our comfort zone to “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself.” As I noted at the beginning of this series, community is how we live into all the parts of our baptismal vows. Sometimes on our journey of faith it is harder to love our selves than to love our neighbor. We know the faults that we try to keep hidden from the rest of the world and that can make us think that we are unlovable.

Not true! God loves us just the way we are. Look at the characters in the Bible-and some of them were really wild characters. God loved each of them and used them to move the Kingdom forward. When we read the Bible stories, we notice, as this blog says, [that] “our ancestors in faith were so unafraid of their beautiful mess. What a witness that the full spectrum of human emotion is woven tightly in their relationship with God. What a witness that the people who eventually wrote down the sacred account of humanity and God felt no apparent need to conceal the bruises and wounds to pretty up humans and, for that matter, God. God, it seems, cares little for our perfection, which doesn't exist, except as a false idol. God's love for the whole of who we are and God's work with the whole of who we are is uncomfortable for many of us.” The women and men in the Bible are part of the community in which we live our Baptismal vows.

Last weekend, I attended a retreat, which is a great way to interact in a community that is made up of new and old friends. One thing we did to build community was to choose prayer partners and also to hang prayers on a tree in the garden of St. Francis on the Hill. We then each took a prayer or 2 off the tree when we left.
The keynote speaker was Bishop Vono of the Diocese of the Rio Grande. He talked to us about the Road to Jerusalem and the Road to Emmaus noting that the Road to Jerusalem is life. While it isn’t easy, life is a journey that we participate in as pilgrims not tourists. Pilgrims look for LIFE and discover our personal story in the scriptural record. As pilgrims we are on a journey to being awake (although that won’t completely happen until we die and wake up to the fullness of life).

At the beginning of the retreat we participated in a Renewal of our Baptismal Covenant because Baptism is the start to the pilgrimage to our life. Through it we enter the community, the Family, of God.

The Road to Jerusalem may have times when we experience “outrageous suffering” on the journey. The good news is that we aren't journeying alone. Teresa of Avila said, "The feeling remains that God is on the journey too." After we go through the dark Jerusalem, we find ourselves on the Road to Emmaus where we meet Jesus and find that our minds are opened to the scriptures and to salvation and to each other.

What does this have to do with ‘loving our neighbor and ourselves’? On our journey, we come to terms with our own “beautiful mess” and then we can live lives that reflect the story of scripture so that others are drawn to the Truth and the Mystery. We begin to be awake and to live Holy Mystery in our lives and interactions so that the Gospel becomes person-centered and actively life-centered. Our stories, individually and corporately, become part of the sacred strand that runs through history and life.

Next time, we’ll look at the line in the Baptismal Covenant about striving for justice… What does that mean to you in your journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus?

Lively Lent-Telling the Story

It's right there in the Baptismal Covenant: "Share the Good News of God in Christ”. That really is our life’s work. We have to know our own story and how God has worked in our lives before we can share it with others. Some of us have powerful stories of transformation that lead to witnessing. Those of us with more ‘humble’ stories can also share how God works.

One way to help prepare to tell our story and share the Good News is to keep a journal. I know that word makes some of you cringe. Others think; how can journaling be a spiritual aid? Some of us get happy-writing! Oh boy! Others think of it more as a torture. Journaling is more than just writing random thoughts about the day or your spiritual life. It is a way to:

Delve deeper into a Bible passage by jotting down insights.
Store pictures, sayings, drawings, ideas, etc. that are important to you.
Capture thoughts about something that’s troubling you.
Record your prayers and the responses to them.
Remember inspirational sayings.
Consolidate thoughts about what you are reading.
Gather your ideas about sharing your journey

There is no right or wrong way to do a spiritual journal. You may already be keeping a ‘spiritual journal’ without knowing it. Today we’ll look at a few forms of journaling that you may not have thought of as spiritual journals or even journaling at all. They won’t all appeal to each of you. One caveat-to me a journal is not a diary. You know the ones we kept as teens. “Dear Diary, I saw the cutest boy today. I hope he asks me out…” Do girls today even keep such diaries?

The simplest Spiritual journal is a Prayer Diary. It can simply be a spiral notebook that you list your prayer requests in. Once a week or month (or whenever you decide) go back and look over the prayers. Write down what sort of answer God has given. You might, or might not, be moved to add some thoughts on ‘why God?’ or ‘thank you God’. Even if all you are doing is tracking prayer answers, you are journaling because you are looking at God in action and that will help you ‘share the Good news’.

Similar is the Prayer Diary is a Thanksgiving Journal where you write down several things each day you are thankful for. Again, it is a window into God’s actions in your life and an avenue to an easy way to ‘share the Good News’.

So, what if you want to take a step and journal more than just prayers and/or thanksgivings? The blank page can be rather intimidating. Some would say just start writing anything-random thoughts and eventually something will pop out to really focus on. And, some days that’s where I start. I’ll say, ‘it’s a gray day and looks like snow’ and go one for a while in that vein. Sometimes that’s all that gets put on the page, but other times, something sparks as I’m writing and I start thinking about the beauty of snow and the verse in Isaiah 1:18 that says ‘Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool…’ Where else can you get inspiration?

You’d be surprised. It can be a line from the morning or evening lectionary that strikes home. It might be something in an email or a devotional or a picture. The other day, it was when this hawk flew into the tree in my yard. I had to take his/her picture and journal about the magic of such a creature of God, present in my life.

I’ve discovered that many books and even videos/movies and music can have lessons of great importance to our Christian walk. We are used to thinking of Oswald Chambers, Beth Moore, Max Lucado, Rowan Williams, Barbara Taylor Brown, Madeline L’Engle, and others of their stature as authors to turn to for good solid devotional material that can enrich our Journey. These are, indeed, great authors, and there are many more modern and not so modern. A line from one of their books can inspire a journal entry about something in your life. So can non-theological books like Little Women or A Dog's Purpose and moviles like Star Wars.  

You might find a blog that is thought provoking-like say the VarietiesOfGifts or this one that I write, or the site of a favorite author or artist. Their thoughts might just give you something to think about on paper. One that often gives me something to think about is Dirty Sexy Ministry, written by 2 female Episcopal priests. Another is titled While We Wait, by another Episcopal priest.

Another non-traditional place to start both journaling and sharing the message of God’s love is in music, which as we have heard, ‘has the power to sooth the savage beast.” St. Augustine of Hippo is quoted as saying, “He who sings, prays twice.” And Martin Luther once said, “Beautiful music is the art of the prophets that can calm the agitations of the soul; it is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us.”

In my journaling I’ll often include the words of some hymn or song that gets stuck in my head and then chat with myself and God about what those words really mean to me and my Walk. Most recently, the new song by Toby Mac-“Steal my Show” got stuck in my head. The final verse is a reminder that we need to let God Steal the Show and be in charge of what we do.

Come on and Steal my show
My life My plans My heart
It's all Yours, God
Take it away
My dreams My fears My family My career
Take it away Take it away
It's all Yours, God
So take it away Take it away
It's You I wanna live for

There are other aids to getting going in journals. Believe it or not-you can even find online Prayer Journals or downloadable ones-just do a 'Google' search for prayer journal or spiritual journal!

I’ve probably given you way more information than you will ever want or need about journaling. I hope you will give one of these options a try, even if just for a little while this Lent. In order to make your journal really a spiritual aid, you want to make it your own. Do it at a convenient time, in a way that is comfortable-write, draw, add pictures, clippings, sayings, etc. Martin Luther noted, “If you want to change the world, pick up your pen and write.” There really is something cathartic about writing your thoughts in pen and ink that isn’t present when typing.

When you know more of your own story and how God is present in your life, you can more easily and readily share that Good News! Good luck.

Next time we will look at the “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself” part of the Baptismal Covenant.  

Lively Lent-Prayer

The baptismal service states we are to “persevere in resisting evil, repent and return to the Lord”. For many, that is the only thing Lent is about. “We have to repent because we are ‘terrible human beings’.” And repentance is important. If we think we are perfect and getting along just fine, we will start to think we don’t need God. Pausing and taking a look at our faults and our good attributes is important.

We aren’t supposed to wallow in our sin, though. The next step is to repent and turn around, stop doing things that we know aren’t really quite what God wants us to do. Quit acting in ways that are contrary to the mandate to “love one another as I have loved you”.

How do we do that? We take time to be with God who loves us, like a parent-a father or mother. We cuddle up in God’s arms and say, “I’m sorry and I’ll try to do better.” That’s called prayer. And some of us are intimidated by it.

Consider it conversation with God rather than some big report that you have to come up with and use fancy words in. Do you talk to your friends with ‘$100 words’? Or do you just chat? While conversation with God is maybe a bit more than an informal chat, it is still not something you have to prepare for. Just sit down and open your heart to the One who loves you more than you or I understand.

This Lent might be a time to try out a different prayer style or new prayer discipline. If it doesn’t feed your spirit and bring you closer to God, you can always abandon it. However, you may find a new route to conversation with God. An easy way to begin is by using the ACTS touchstone to pray (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication).

There are some other special disciplines that can help us focus in our praying. Last year, about this time, I posted a series of prayer aids on the Varieties of Gifts blog. You can check them out here.  Some suggestions are things like praying with the psalms, keeping a prayer journal, arrow prayers, 5 finger prayers and using a rosary. Other aids can be candles, walking, vigils and many others.

Sometimes we try a prayer discipline and it just doesn’t feel comfortable. We struggle while others rave about how great it is. Things like Centering Prayer and Journaling can be a good fit for some and difficult for others. That’s because we have different prayer personalities. These have fancy names like Augustinian and Ignatian, Thomistic, and Franciscan. If you know your Myers Briggs personality, you can look up which type might fit you here. Having said that, don't give up on something new after just one try-you may discover that sitting in the quiet of contemplative prayer or writing and drawing your thoughts in a journal are actually helpful-once you get used to the discipline.

Next time, we’ll take a look at one specific prayer and spiritual aid: Journaling. This isn’t something that everyone thinks they will like, but there are many ways to journal that don’t involve just writing pages and pages of your thoughts. Check back for some hints.

Lively Lent-Community

Lent-the time of year when we all deprive ourselves and wear sack cloth because we are horrible sinners. Wrong…

Lent-a season of the church year, which is a time to reflect on what it means to really live a Christian life. Right!

I think that too often we do think that Lent is a dark time when we should be sorrowful and beat ourselves up about our failings. Instead, it is a wonderful opportunity to renew our commitment, made at baptism, to “continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers.”
To “persevere in resisting evil, repent and return to the Lord.”
To “proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.”
To “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself.”
And to “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.”

Throughout Lent, on this blog, I’ll be offering thoughts about these 5 parts of the Baptismal Covenant* and ways to make them alive in your life. As is often the case, these reflections will probably teach me more than you, my readers, will learn. Anyone who’s been a Sunday School teacher or led a retreat or given a sermon can tell you that is what usually happens.

Community is an important, perhaps even core, aspect of the Christian life. The first question of the Baptismal service asks, “Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?” The Gospels all tell of Jesus living in community with his disciples and in Acts we hear that the very first followers of the Way “had all things in common…attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes…praising God and having favor with all the people.” (Acts 2:44-47)

As the Good News spread throughout the Roman Empire it was small groups (communities) of people who heard and believed and shared the Truth. It can be easy to lose sight of the simple, even humble, beginnings of the church when we sit in our lovely buildings on Sunday. However, the Gospel is still shared in small groups and in homes.

We are not a member of just one community, either. There is the community of our family, the community of church, the community of our work environment, and the community of our church. We are members of the community of close friends, the community of neighborhoods, and the community of any clubs or organizations we belong to. Our lives are circles of communities, some of which may intersect or even interlock. In each of the communities, we are to live a life, like Peter and John before the Sanhedrin, where it is “recognized that [we have] been with Jesus.” (Acts 4:13)

When we gather with family or friends and pray before the meal, even in public, we are sharing the Gospel. When we come together on Sunday and consider the miracle of the Eucharist, we are sharing the Gospel. When we pause in our busy lives to offer comfort to a friend or even a stranger, we share the Gospel. When we join a Bible study or attend a retreat, we are sharing the Gospel with one another in that community. 

The newly baptized, whether infants or children or adults are welcomed "into the household of God. [to] Confess the faith of Christ crucified, proclaim his resurrection, and share with us in his eternal priesthood." All who are baptized into Christ (no matter what denomination) are part of one big family-one big community.

Living up to the “apostles’ teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayers” and living into the mandate of that prayer might seem overwhelming if we had to do it by ourselves, but we don’t. We are in a community of fellow believers that support us. As the old hymn says "Yes, we are the family of God; And He's brought us together To be one in Him That we might bring light to the world..." Over the next 4 weeks we’ll look at the other parts of the Covenant and how we support one another to live a Lively Faith in Lent and beyond.

Lively prayer gives us a way to “persevere in resisting evil, repent and return to the Lord.”Lively Study is the way we learn how to “proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.”Lively Action teaches us to “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself.”Lively Listening helps us hear the need as we “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.”

Incidentally, there will be a retreat in El Paso on March 1-2 focusing on this topic of a Lively Lent that you are welcome to join if you are in the area. (http://varietiesofgifts.blogspot.com/p/whats-happening-in-drg-for-women.html)

*Episcopal Book of Common Prayer page 304 (http://bcponline.org/)

The Wonder of Smell

Starting with the Feast of Epiphany, this blog has been considering the Wonder of each of the human senses. There was the way that Sight helps us to see what is important, both physically and with the eyes of the heart. In the same way Hearing can let us notice the lovely sounds, and can also offer us a time for quiet to hear the ‘still small voice of God’. Touching someone in need allows us to be the hand of Christ, while the idea of Tasting the goodness of God brings us closer to what is really important in life.

The last sense we will consider is the Wonder of Smell. Think what happens when you smell something delicious-say a cake or steak or rose. You inhale the scent or fragrance so you can enjoy it more fully. Sometimes we get a whiff of something that doesn’t smell so good. Perhaps a skunk or diesel exhaust. Then, if you are like me, you kind of hold your breath and hope you can get past it before you have to breathe again. Some smells are overpowering and some are so delicate you can barely make them out. Each smell has its own characteristics.

The Apostle Paul says “we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.” (2 Corinthians 2:15) and that we are to “walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Ephesians 5:2). Each of us is, no doubt, a different fragrance to God. Some are pungent, some sweet, some delicate, and some are spicy.

How does that happen? When we are inspired and filled with the Holy Spirit. Consider the word inspire. We think of it as being something that happens when we are moved by a speaker or a competition or something. The word is from the Latin in-spirare (to breathe upon or into). The root word of Spirit is the same: spirare or breathe. We very much need the continuing Breath of God to in-spire (literally to in-Spirit) us. Only by breathing in the Spirit of God can we remain a ‘sweet savor’ to the world and to God.

“Breathe on me breath of God” is the first line of one of my favorite hymns. It reminds me that the Spirit of God is the ruach that stirred the waters of creation. It says in Genesis 2:7 “then the Lord God formed man of the dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.” God continues to breathe ruach into us when we pray, as it says in the hymn:

Breathe on me, breath of God,
Fill me with life anew,
That I may love what Thou dost love,
And do what Thou wouldst do.

Breathe on me, breath of God,
Until my heart is pure,
Until with Thee I will one will,
To do and to endure.
Breathe on me, breath of God,
Blend all my soul with Thine,
Until this earthly part of me
Glows with Thy fire divine.

Breathe on me, breath of God,
So shall I never die,
But live with Thee the perfect life
Of Thine eternity.

Ash Wednesday is this coming Wednesday. During Lent we will consider some ways to live a Lively Lent-the theme of an upcoming retreat in El Paso. 

The Wonder of Tasting the Goodness of God

I don’t think much about my sense of taste. In fact, I must admit that too often I don’t really even taste what I am eating. My mind is usually busy on something else: listening to the news, planning my day, reading email, or just plain rushing through the meal. The food goes in my mouth, gets chewed and swallowed, but not really appreciated. Do you do that? We take our food for granted and don’t pause to think about the mingling of the sweet and salty, the tangy and tart, the spicy and bland flavors. I cannot remember the last time I stopped to think how wonderful it is to have a sense of taste so that I can enjoy a variety of flavors. It’s something I suspect many, if not most, of us take for granted.

We can do the same thing with our ‘taste’ of the Word of the Lord. We can become too preoccupied with getting to the end of the reading for the day (and on to the next thing) that we don’t really pause to savor what the words say to us. We forget that the Bible is full of wonder and surprises even in verses we’ve read before.

Have you ever had the experience of reading or hearing a Bible verse and saying, “I never knew it said that”? There are depths of sweet and savory and tart and salty in the Bible that we only discover if we take time to pause and let the words really sink in. Like gulping our food without paying attention, we get some nourishment out of the Bible when we read it with half our attention, but we get a lot more enjoyment if we take time to really savor-both the food and the Bible.

Recently a friend told me that they went to a small French restaurant and ordered the cheese platter. He told me that the experience was fabulous, because he and his wife actually took time to taste, savor, and compare each individual cheese.

Likewise, we can pause in our reflections on the Bible to really ‘taste’ what God is saying. Psalm 34:8a admonishes us to “Taste and see that the Lord is good!” Consider just that one stanza. You don’t have to worry about the rest of the psalm right now. Really think about each word in the verse. You will have much to savor and meditate on, even in those 8 words.

What does the word ‘taste’ mean to you? Say it aloud and let it sink into your mind.
Do special foods or flavors come to mind as you think about taste?
What sensations come to mind when you hear the word?
Have you ever considered that you can ‘taste’ God?
How does God ‘taste’?
Are there descriptive words you can use to explain the ‘taste’ of God?

Do the same with the word ‘see’ and ‘Lord’ and ‘good’…How do each of these words evoke a deeper sense of the totality of God? Sit with the idea of tasting the goodness of God. Speak a prayer to the good God who gives us senses, including taste so we can come to know God more and more.

You can do this exercise with other verses. The psalms are especially suited to it because they are already broken into stanzas like songs (because that’s what they are). Another short verse to consider tasting and savoring is: “How sweet are thy words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth.” (Psalm 119:103)

There are other ways to savor the ‘taste’ of the Bible like lectio devino, journaling about a verse, really taking time to meditate with a certain citation, etc. The important thing is to take the time to really pause and savor the words and what they say to you. One wonderful thing about the Bible is that the same verse can say something different to you each time you read it! That will only happen if you take the time to ‘taste’ the word, though.

The final sense we will consider is smell. How do you find the wonder of God in the smells around you?