Pardon the Dust

 

At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks about building our lives on the firm foundation, the rock, of God’s presence and possibility.  So, I wonder, if you could add one additional space to your current house (or transform one room) what would you do? 

 

For me, I don’t know if I would add to our house, as much as pick out a different color paint or add some wonderful new decorations or find softer lightening.  Why don’t I do this?  Great question, probably because I am frugal or tell myself this is frivolous.  Philip Simmons says our lives are the unfinished house in which we live.  Look around at the place where you call home.  What do you love about your home?  What frustrates you?  One of the things that annoys my wife, and I, is that our brand-new refrigerator makes strange noises.  I know this is a First-World problem.  What we love about our house are comfy chairs that we sink and settle in on Friday nights after working all week.  Look around, what do you love and where would you like to remodel your home?

 

Now, let’s ponder this metaphorically, if you could clear out the clutter and chaos in the cobwebbed corners of your soul, what would you do?  For me, I would add more space for prayer ~ to breathe and be.  Why don’t I do this?  I could blame the Protestant work ethic that tells me my worth is based on what I accomplish.  I could look in the mirror at my own addiction to work.  I could confess that my ego likes to be noticed for being busy.  That is some of what is in the cardboard boxes shoved in the cobwebbed corners of my soul.  I long for space and place to be.  And the truth is, this doesn’t cost me a dime.

 

The questions we ask help us awaken to realities (past/present/and future) of what we are lugging in the luggage of our life ~ why we are feeling the way we are physically, emotionally, spiritually and mentally (go back to Monday’s Morning Meditation).  Hold your thoughts today next to the fun you had on Tuesday.  Connect this question with the one from yesterday to give yourself a gift of resting in God’s presence this day in holy and healing ways.  Amen.

The Gift that Keeps Giving

 

So far this week, we have checked in with ourselves in mind, body, and soul.  Yesterday, I invited you to let loose your inner-10-year-old, who still resides and lives in you, in a holy way of hilarity.  The two prayer practices so far this week are not one and done, they can be returned to and repeated often!

 

Today, I wonder, what is the best gift you’ve ever been given?  Who gave it to you?  What was the occasion?  It may not be something tactile or tangible.  It could be the gift of an experience or encounter.  Please note, I am not asking about the gift you gave, but the one you received.  This is uncomfortable for us in a culture that demands and decrees control.  Many of us don’t like to feel in debt or beholden to someone.  When someone gives us a plate of cookies, we want to return that plate with a loaf of banana bread. 

 

I think about this because a month ago I was given the gift of additional time away, vacation.  As someone who struggles with over-functioning and can get enmeshed, the gift of stepping away and remembering that I am not defined or confined by my work.  What I do with our church is not where I get my worth.  My worth comes from God whose love is unconditional and unceasing and entirely uncontrollable by me.  Or I think about the gift of an upcoming vacation with my college-age young adult children.  This is a tremendous, holy, gift.  Or I think about the daily gift of time with my wife.  To be sure, don’t think that you only must limit yourself to one gift.  Name and notice the ways God’s love has shown up in your life through others.  And, you may want to call the person who gave you that gift today, to catch up and check in.  May the One who offers us a gift of presence and peace and possibility, be with you today.  Amen.

Finding Your Play this Lent

 

Yesterday, we checked in with ourselves.  How did that go?  Did you discover something hidden just beneath the surface that has been simmering there for a while?  Checking in with yourself is a profoundly beautiful way to begin any day.  Today, I invite you to get out the photo album of your life or the projector and slides of scenes from your childhood.  I wonder, what did you do for fun when you were ten years old? 

 

For me, I loved playing kickball as a lot.  I loved coloring with all the crayons in the box.  I loved listening to music ~ which was 80s rock!  I loved talking to friends.  I loved laughing.  I loved pizza and ice cream.

 

Today, as you remind yourself what caused your soul delight decades ago, I encourage you with as much pastoral love as I can, to go do that!  Get out the colors, blast the music of your youth, call a friend.  This is a holy, healing practice in Lent.  This might fill your soul with God’s love in a real, tactile and tangible way.  You have my permission, even in the season of Lent, to go have fun!  And even better, invite some others to join you.

 

May today your soul cry out with a joyful shout that God’s love is not some prize at the end of life, but a holy encounter in this life when we open ourselves to the creativity and care of our Creator.  Amen.

Breathe

 

As March winds down and wraps up, as we find ourselves in the messy middle of Lent, I wonder how is it with your soul?  Seriously?  Honestly?  Whole-hearted-ly?  I am not looking for you to say, “I’m fine” through clinched teeth and a tight jaw with your shoulders so tense they touch your ears while you are exhausted from not getting enough sleep last night ~ I can say that because I live that.  How is it with your soul?  When was the last time you checked in with yourself ~ physically, emotionally, spiritually, relationally and mentally?

 

Take a breath.  Breathe in God’s grace that holds us and behold how you reflect God’s image. Breathe out all those messages your inner critic screams as your mind offers unsolicited color commentary on your life.  Breathe in God’s peace, wholeness or shalom, that seeks to gather all your parts ~ the beautiful and broken and ordinary into God’s embrace.  Breathe out all the striving and saving and fixing we try to do.  Breathe in the love of God that is unconditional and uncontrollable and unceasing.  Breathe out the carbon dioxide of choke us.  Let out a loud sigh.  Even louder so I can hear it where I am!

 

Now, take a piece of paper and check in ~ what is roaming around your mind?  Again, be honest and earnest in this ~ about the good, the bad and the ugly.  Where are you worried, where are you wondering, where are you wandering?  What concerns and celebration spin on the hamster wheel of your mind? 

 

Now check in physically, do a body scan from the top of your head to pinkie toe.  Where is there sore muscles, pain, or ache?  What do the soles of your feet feel like?  How about your stomach is it settled (in the rest and digest stage) or doing summersaults? 

 

Now check in emotionally and spiritually ~ ask, “How is it with my soul?”  It doesn’t have to be amazing or awesome.  You could have an ordinary, okayish, day.  You could be having a terrible, rotten, no good, awful day.  You could be confused or frustrated.  You could be doubting today and have endless questions for God.  Remember, there are no good emotions or bad emotions.  Emotions are energy is motion~ emotions point us in a direction, that we can take or not take.  Same with thoughts.  Both are data points.

 

How are you and God doing?  It’s okay if you are going through a rough and rocky patch with God.  It is okay if you need to lament that God isn’t swooping in and saving us from all the brokenness and pain.  It is okay to shake a fist and raise a voice.  It is okay if you are confused about where God is or what God is calling you to do ~ I often am.  Where you are is where you are ~ and you can only start right here.  Remember, your emotions and thoughts don’t need to be chased or acted on, sometimes they just need to be noticed and heard.

 

Who do you pray for today?  Maybe a friend is going through cancer treatment or having surgery or struggling.  Maybe for our church.  Maybe for your enemy not to be a jerk today or for you to be able to respond without your words dripping, drenched with sarcasm.  For people and places you do not even know or will never visit. 

Now breathe and slowly exhale.  Again, breathe and slowly exhale.  Breathe and be knowing who and whose you are.  Amen.

Prayer ~ Mothers of Mysticism Series

 

I pray this week has been filled with “Aha” moments.  Maybe you have googled the names of the mothers of mysticism, read a few more quotes where they shared their wisdom, or found God’s goodness through the prayer practices these fiercely faithful women embodied.  Today I invite you to listen and learn from Therese of Lisieux.  She is relatively recent living in the late 1800.  She wrote a book called The Little Flower.  

Therese once said, “Remember that nothing is small in the eyes of God.  Do all that you do with love.”  

Or my favorite, “The value of life does not depend upon the place we occupy.  It depends upon the way we occupy that place.”  You may need to read that quote a few times.  

She challenges us by saying, “Perfect (or sacred) love means putting up with other people’s shortcomings, feeling no surprise at their weaknesses, finding encouragement even in the slightest evidence of good qualities in them.”  

Finally, “A word or a smile is often enough to put fresh life in a despondent soul.”  

So may you today, my friends, find a word or a smile to share with those who cross your path.  May you occupy this place where you find yourself with love.  May you remember that it isn’t about being special or spectacular, because the sacred is found in small actions on this day.  Amen. 

Stroll ~ Mothers of Mysticism Series

 

So far, in our whirlwind tour of mothers of mysticism, we have spent time with Catherine of Siena, Hildegard von Bingen, Teresa of Avila and today one of my favorites, Julian of Norwich whose book, Showings I read in seminary.  Julian had visions, like so many of the brave and bold women we have met this week.  

She once found herself in a pit of life that she could not escape and felt Christ’s presence right there.  This caused her to say, “Jesus did not say, ‘You will never have a rough passage, you will never be over-strained, you will never feel uncomfortable,’ but he did say, ‘You will never be overcome.”  

Julian, like Hildegard, found holy in creation.  “The fullness of joy is to behold God in everything.  God is the ground, the substance, the teaching, the teacher, the purpose, and the reward for which every soul labors.”  

Julian was one of the first to preach and teach expansive and evolving language.  She said, “As truly as God is our father, so truly God is our Mother.”  

And “We need to fall, and we need to be aware of it; for if we did not fall, we should not know how weak and wretched we are of ourselves, nor should we know our Maker’s marvelous love so fully.”  

Julian reminded us that we don’t need to hide our vulnerability from God, as if we could, but rather we offer our full selves, warts and all, to the One who knows the number of hairs on our head.  

Finally, Julian once said, “The fullness of joy is to behold God in everything.”  Now, to be sure, that is difficult and demanding in some places ~ especially when watching the news!  

But today’s prayer practice is to take a walk around your block.  As you do, remember Teresa saying that to love your neighbor is holy, so if you bump into someone, feel free to chat for a while.  I encourage you to find one thin place, one place where you feel goosebumps/God-bumps or flesh bumps.  Perhaps it is a butterfly that briefly flutters past.  Perhaps it is a flower that catches your eye.  Perhaps it is the wind on your skin or the sun warming your face.  Where do you feel you are embraced and enfolded by the Eternal as you wander around?  By now, I hope you realize you don’t have to walk 10,000 miles to do this, just to the end of the driveway to fetch your mail will be enough.  May your wandering in the wonder of the world today help you discover the Divine right on your doorstep.  Amen.

Sit! Mothers of Mysticism Series

 

So far this week we have stood in the sun with Catherine of Siena calling us to be brave and bold.  We have sung with Hildegard von Bingen who remind us that music softens the souls of those around us.  And today we turn toward the mother of mysticism, Teresa of Avila who was born in Spain in the 16^th Century.  While she, like Catherine and Hildegard, wanted to join a monastery, her father disapproved.  She also faced several severe bouts of malaria.  You may be well familiar with one of her most famous invitations to faith, 

“Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands, no feet but yours.  Yours are the eyes with which Christ looks out his compassion to the world.  Yours are the feet with which he is to go doing good.  Yours are the hands with which he is to bless us now.”

 

Pause with me to check in with your body, your full self.  How are you doing today physically?  Do you have aches and pains?  Gaze at your hands, how have you reached out with Christ’s love embodied in your fingers?  Look at your feet, where have you gone this week?  With whom has your path intersected?  What words have fallen from your lips?  What thoughts race around your mind?  What stirs and souls in your heart/soul?  You are an incarnation, in the flesh, living faith, of Christ who we follow.  Hold this truth that Teresa awakens beautifully, profoundly, powerfully for us.

 

Teresa also said, “Trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.”  

In a world of FOMO (fear of missing out) we are constantly concerned that something better is happening somewhere else.  We race and run in all directions, frenzied and fearful that the grass is greener over there.  Teresa says no, right here is holy, because right here is where God is.

 

Teresa also said, “The surest way to determine whether one possesses the love of God is to see whether he or she loves his or her neighbor.  These two loves are never separated.  Rest assured, the more you progress in love of neighbor the more your love of God will increase.”  

And, “Prayer is an act of love.  Words are not needed.”   

 

Today, sit in silence listening for God.  Given what Teresa said above, we might be tempted to race off to save the world.  I think of the cartoon character Mighty Mouse, whose catchphrase was, “Here I come to save the day.”  We all want a cape or the lasso of Wonder Woman to right all wrongs.  Yet, contemplation, letting God get a word in edgewise in your agenda, letting God’s realm awaken in you is the first and final step.  It is only out of prayer that we seek to act and the act returns us to prayer to check in with the Creator who corrects and consoles us because our actions will always be human-size.  May the holy silence today be a moment of God serenading you with love.  Amen.