Lent Week Five ~ Injoining God

 

Dallas Willard once said that “prayer is both the enjoying and in-joining of what God is doing in the world right now.”  Notice the two words: enjoying and in-joining, which means that prayer doesn’t need to be serious and somber and stoic; prayer can be playful.  Laughter is prayer.  Prayer can be quiet.  Holding hands with a family member or friend is a prayer posture.  Where you find joy, you find God.  This can be counterintuitive and even counter-cultural.  Prayer has more shapes, sizes, and shades than our human imaginations can dream. 

 

Wait, you may think, God wants me to enjoy prayer?  At its heart, prayer is an encounter with the Eternal.  It is us awakening and aligning ourselves with God.  One way we experience God is through goodness.  God isn’t some Grumpy Gus with a permanent scowl.  God delights.  God dances.  God dreams of new ways to let loose the holy to hum and hover in your life ~ remember Lazarus on Sunday being unbound?  We know people who practice the art of pessimism ~ wrapped in negativity.  Sometimes this is because life has hurt and harmed the person so much that the scars are a shield.  I have had a time in my life when I was always worried that the other shoe would drop, and I was suspicious of joy because I thought it wasn’t dependable.  Joy seemed flighty or fragile.  So, instead, I committed myself to the fine art of always looking for the negative as a way to protect myself from being too vulnerable.  Make no mistake about it, cynicism is easy ~ there is plenty of external evidence for why the world is crashing and crumbling.  And, joy still insists and inserts herself in our lives. 

 

What would it look like for you and God to enjoy each other? 

 

The second word, “in-joining,” is important here too.  Prayer has legs and hands and words.  Prayer has a body, that is yours.  God’s prayer finds expression in you.  Too often, I can rush and run in a direction I am convinced God called me to go, only to find myself lost.  To join with God means I first listen for/to God.  (Note that the words “listen” and “silent” share the same letters.)  God may not show up with a neon sign.  In Scripture, God shows up in dreams, a still small voice, in the wilderness (which can be loneliness), at meals, at prayer circles, in burning bushes, whales that swallow prophets, and countless other ways.  One question to ask is, where has God shown up so far this week?  Where have you felt energized and enlivened?  St. Irenaeus said that, “The glory of God is a (being) fully alive.”  Alive as in your spirit leaping, heart soaring, smile crossing, and body tingling.  Alive as in goodness or God-ness that is woven into this world.  Hold those twin words: enjoy and in-join, as invitations as we approach our holiest week of the year.  Amen.

Lent Week Five ~ Prayer is Ongoing

 

Recently, I heard this quote, “Prayer is not performative”.  God isn’t grading my prayer.  Nor is my prayer about achievement or my personal enjoyment (like a Netflix show).  Prayer isn’t about me rating/ranking how spectacularly the Sacred showed up. 

 

Add this other insight, “Prayer isn’t starting a conversation, but entering one that is ongoing.” 

 

God has been with you every moment of your life, from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same.  As the mystics say, “There is nowhere God is not.”  Which means you don’t need to give God the inside scoop about what has been happening.  God, our constant companion and Creator, is continually at work authoring in our lives.  So much of our lives is about performing and projecting.  We really see ourselves, as Shakespeare said, as actors on the stage of the world.  But God isn’t in the audience writing a review of our words; God is part-taking alongside us in the unfolding drama/comedy/tragedy/ordinariness of each day.  Because we take on roles, we present a pretense/shape shifters, given the situation we find ourselves in each day. 

 

One other great quote to ponder with prayer, “Expectations can be resentments waiting to happen.”  When I expect or even demand God/others/myself to show up in a certain way with defined words on the script I’ve written, I reduce the humanness of myself and the other.  Or sometimes I don’t listen to what the other person is saying, because I assume I already “know” what they believe, regardless of whether that is what is falling from their lips.

 

Take the three quotes from today: “Prayer is not performative” ~ it is showing up in honest, even raw and uncensored, ways.  “Prayer isn’t the beginning but the continuation of a conversation” ~ what threads and themes are woven into your ongoing and unfolding dialogue with the Divine so far this month?  And are there “expectations that have turned to resentment” recently in your life?  Let these questions stir and sing and sink into your life.  I pray these insights will feed and fuel your ongoing conversation with our Creator.  Amen.  

Lent Week Five ~ Short Spacious Prayers

 

Despite my own very human tendency for long-winded prayers, what we offer to God is not judged on word count or waxing eloquent.  Sometimes shorter sentences offer a doorway to our shy souls.  A few honest, heartfelt words can open/offer space for our souls to speak.  Below are four short prayer sentences by Justin McRoberts.  Read each slowly, savoring the flavor of words, engaging the thoughts, noticing your emotions and response.  Pause after each sentence to recognize where the words are landing in your body. 

 

May I cease to be annoyed that others are not as I wish they were, since I am not as I wish I was.

 

Pause to breathe and let the words settle.

 

Before I see someone as a problem, may I see him/her/them as a human.

 

Pause to breathe and let the words settle.

 

May the depth and energy of my criticism be at least equaled by the depth of my commitment to help.

 

Pause to breathe and let the words settle.

 

Help me, O God, spit out the taste of rage and regret rather than keep swallowing it.

 

Pause to breathe and let the words settle.

 

Which of the above did your shy soul say, “Amen”?  Which one of the above four sentences stretched or challenged you?  Which one did you shout, “Objection!” as your response?  Which one do you question if you could really live this way? 

 

Go back and re-read the sentences, this time noticing and naming where and with whom you might be able to live these words.  Remember, God is not asking for perfection, but for you to be wholly and beautifully you ~ with all your fabulous foibles.  The hopes and heartbreaks, the divine dust that you are.  May these prayer sentences find a space and place in your life in these Lenten days.  Amen.

Lent Week Four

 

Please pray this beautiful prayer/blessing from Kate Bowler with me:

 

a blessing when you can’t fake it (or make it?)

I have been propped up on my toes, peering over fences but mostly staring at the peeling paint.  Hoping has become longing.  Wanting has become needing. I can see love everywhere but here. There is a naturalness to the way other people experience their joys popping up like tender, spring grasses. The earth, it seems, is always warm and autumn seedlings break open and bring life, life, everywhere. And I chew on my lip as neighbors roll their eyes at relationships, children, plans—gifts I would tear open like a Christmas present. What riches. Scatter my heart like a dandelion, drifting high over these walls and setting down, gently, where good things grow. Contentment and wonder, surprise and new adventure, comfort in the hands of those who know love’s value and love’s cost. Envy will be blown away by another breeze and I rest here waiting, waiting for the blooms.

Lent Week Four ~ Delores Williams

 

Women’s History Month is a call to open our ears and hear voices that come from diverse perspectives.  Delores Williams is a Womanist Theologian.  She was an African American who wrote the brilliant book, “Sisters in the Wilderness”.  She built on the voices, like Sojourner Truths famous quote, “Ain’t I a Woman?” and helped to expand our understandings of faith with her insights.  Slowly read the following two quotes from Williams:

Faith has taught me to see the miraculous in everyday life: the miracle of ordinary black women resisting and rising about evil forces in society, where forces work to destroy and subvert the creative power and energy my mother and grandmother taught me God gave black women.”

 There is nothing divine in the blood of the cross ... As Christians, Black women cannot forget the cross, but neither can they glorify it. To do so is to glorify suffering and to render their exploitation sacred. To do so is to glorify the sin of defilement ...

 

What is your response to these two quotes?  What thoughts are evoked and provoked?  Do they stretch you?  Where are you seeing the miracle of the everyday, especially in the courage and conviction of our siblings on the margin?  How does Williams’ beautifully unique voice send you in a new direction?  I pray you will expand your list of female voices this month.  Read the voice of a new author, especially one who does NOT share your background.  Listen to the podcast of a female who comes from a different perspective.  Women’s History Month should invite us into a conversation with a multitude of beloved daughters of God who are still speaking and singing in the spirit of Sophia, or wisdom in the book of Proverbs.  Sophia, who sings to us, calling us back to God’s way in a time when so many voices want to pull us to consume and lash out at each other.  Stretch yourself today and listen to the voice of someone unfamiliar as a way for God to get a word in edgewise.  Amen.

Lent Week Four ~ Therese of Lisieux

 

Therese of Lisieux was born in 1873 and lived only until 1897.  In her short, sacred life she wrote, “The Little Flower of Jesus”.  You can find out more about her online or read her book.  For today, savor these quotes from her:

 

The value of life does not depend upon the place we occupy. It depends upon the way we occupy that place.

 

Perfect 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.

 

Jesus, help me to simplify my life by learning what you want me to be and becoming that person.

 

I recently heard that annoyance is the price of community.  We can frustrate and flummox each other.  We can push each other’s buttons.  And, this is true not only for others, but for you.  I annoy people ~ perhaps with my lame jokes or side comments or constant talking.  We base much of our lives on what we accomplish or achieve, rather than how we occupy and show up.  We judge based on numbers rather than character.  Ponder, how do you want to show up today?  How might you hold gently the weaknesses and foibles of others?  Let these quotes sing to your soul this day in ways that surprise and delight and stretch you.  Amen.

Lent Week Four ~ Women's History Quotes

 

I pray today you are continuing to remember women who have left fingerprints on your soul and inspired your life.  I pray your list is growing longer as you suddenly remember that 3^rd grade teacher who instilled in you a love of reading.  By the way, my 3^rd grade teacher was Mrs. Lord (no kidding!).  She was thoughtful, kind, and generous.  I still remember her giving me extra pretzel sticks when we were making a log cabin for Abraham Lincoln’s birthday in February.  Why, why would we glue a perfectly good (and delicious) pretzel stick on a piece of construction paper?  I don’t remember, but I think I ate more than I glued.  In the spirit of that, read slowly these quotes from Julian of Norwich.

 

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.

 

As truly as God is our Father, so truly God is our Mother. (note that Julian wrote in the 1300s!)

 

Between God and the soul there is no between.

 

What stirs and swirls in response to these quotes?  When have you experienced and encountered God’s mothering care?  When have you felt the distance between God and your soul evaporate in the blink of an eye?  What objections do you have to Julian, what questions?  Write down your responses.  Then, re-read the quotes and see if anything shifts or something new stirs within you.  May you and I feel God’s presence grazing our skin and entering our souls in these days.  Amen.