Where God Shows Up Part 4

 

Our Buddhist friends have a wonderful phrase: “When the student is ready, the teacher arrives”.  I’ve had lots of teachers over the years.  Some of these professors shaped my soul, others left me feeling cold.  Some taught in formal classrooms, and others, in places where I didn’t expect to learn a lesson. As you look over your artwork and chart of your life, where are the teachers?  Sometimes, teachers in my life didn’t show up in the best of times.  Sometimes the teachers came at the exact moment when I was overworked, overwhelmed, and overextended.  Sometimes the teachers came not with calm, comforting words, but with coals, like the ones that burnt Isaiah’s lips.  Other times the teacher wasn’t a fellow featherless biped at all.  The teacher was a canyon or cave that taught me something I couldn’t learn from a book.  The teacher was a song that my soul needed.  God, for me, is at work in both the tending to our exploration and our moments of quiet.  God teaches in words, people, silence, confusion, slowly figuring something out, and continued mysteries we will never completely resolve but that keep us curious.  Where, when, and how has God been a teacher in your life?  Note this on your artwork/chart of life.  Then, what does that say about God?  For example, if God shows up in a tree swaying in a breeze teaching you how this part of creation weathers storms of life, maybe God is more than an old, white man on a throne with a long beard.  If God shows up to tell you about love in the form of someone who previously hurt you, maybe God is more than a cuddly, cozy blanket of complacency.  How, when, and where did God show up in sanctuaries and beyond the four walls of a building, reminding you that God is never contained or confined.  May this truth awaken You to the fingerprints of the Divine, God who continues to sink God’s loving presence, shaping you in beautiful ways.  Amen.

Where God Shows Up Part 3

 

Yesterday, you looked at the places and spaces where you have found yourself.  The soil that still rests and resides in your soul.  And I asked you to ponder: where was God, especially in moments when you felt in Exile or Sheol or a Pit?  Where was God amid the difficult experiences you named and noticed last week?  Sometimes God shows up disguised as other people.  Sometimes God shows up in ways we never anticipated.  One of the tensions is that highlights and lowlights live side-by-side without neat and tidy conclusions.  One of the tensions is that we can’t resolve everything like a balance sheet.  In Genesis 1, God/Spirit/Logos/Word surfed over the chaos in creation.  That isn’t just some ancient truth; it is a promise of God in your life every day.  God surfs over the chaos creatively trying to bring forth life.  And yet, I have free will to either listen or get caught up in focusing only on the brokenness.  This week, we are diving deep into where God was and how God was weaving threads of love into our lives.  This is never a one-and-done assignment.  Sometimes the more distance I get from a moment, the clearer I see.  Sometimes what seemed like the worst thing ever in that moment twenty years ago feels now like a blip.  Maybe you’d even forgotten about that moment until you started working on these invitations in the Morning Meditations.  Which you say, “Thanks a lot, Wes, for bringing back that memory!”  And, perhaps you are now remembering the sweetness of a moment in your 20s that also had gotten boxed up and stored in the cobwebbed corners of your life.  Keep looking at the places, people, highlights and lowlights, noticing how and where God was at work in you, through you, and I know for me, sometimes despite me!  May these moments of meditation help you glimpse the mystery of your one wild and precious life.

Where God Shows Up Part 2

 

We all need safe, sacred spaces.  Even before Maslow offered his hierarchy of needs, Scripture shares with us places where God’s comfort and care made all the difference.  From a Garden of Eden given to our ancestors, to wrestling with Jacob beside a river, to even a foreign land when Egypt became a place of security in a time of lack during the life of Joseph.  Scripture is also clear about moments when the places we find ourselves don’t seem safe and secure from all alarms.  We hear about the crying out in Egypt when the Pharaoh didn’t learn his history and oppressed the people.  We hear about Exile when the people of God found the promised land in rubble and ruin.  We hear about the Roman occupation in the time of Jesus.  In fact, so much Scripture is written for and by oppressed people.  The Psalmist describes this as Sheol, or a pit.  Jesus called it Ghanna, or a burning garbage heap.  And, Scripture proclaims, even God is there.  As you look back on the places that have left soil in your soul, where are those Sheol, Gahanna, places?  Or maybe you were living in paradise, but it felt in your life was shattered and scattered because of oppression or grief or pain you couldn’t process?  Look back over the places you’ve lived/named in previous weeks as well as the corresponding lowlights.  Was there a tension?  I know that well, living in a place where people come to vacation, and yet, here in the tourist mecca of Florida, people struggle to make ends meet; we do not care for our unhoused neighbors, and our immigrant friends live in fear.  People are grieving and hurting.  We pass laws discriminating against our LGBTQ+ siblings and those whose skin tone is not white (even though we still share 99% of the same DNA).  Prayerfully ask in those moments where you felt far from Eden: Where was God?  For some, you felt God show up in hugs and love, even in the pit.  For others, you felt alone, confused, and angry that God didn’t swoop in and save you instantly.  Today, just notice the threads and themes that tether and tie your life together.  We don’t always have answers for what God is doing or how God shows up.  The mystery that both fascinates and frustrates is that God is not predictable or plays by the script we want God to write.  Yet, with the Psalmist we can say, “Even if I make my bed in Sheol, You (O God) are there.”  (Psalm 139:8).  Or with Jacob we can profess, “God is in this place – truly.  And I didn’t even know it.”  (Genesis 28:16).  Let us sit with our lives, not as math problems to be solved, but mysteries that are unfolding before us and within us.  Amen.

Where God Shows Up Part 1

 

In Isaiah 6, we hear how God swooped in and showed up in Isaiah’s life in a way that discombobulated and disoriented him.  Isaiah had just gone to church, thinking, “Maybe I will have a bagel for lunch.”  At some point, Isaiah realized God was there.  The truth is that God is always there.  As the mystics say, “There is no place God is not.”  Yet, there are certainly places and among certain people where it is nearly impossible to figure out what God is up to in that moment.  When I look back, with my soul squinting and mind spinning, I suddenly realize the Sacred had been there all along. 

 

When have you felt like God showed up in your life?  To be sure, it might not have been as splashy and spectacular as Isaiah 6.  God’s robe may not have cuddled you.  God’s angels probably did not serenade you.  But your shy soul, like Isaiah, shouted out, “Here I am, God!  Pick me!  Pick me!!”  Like you were back on the baseball, kickball, softball field of your youth, hoping not to be the last one standing waiting. 

 

How has God shown up in your life?  Maybe through music, art, reading, conversations, hugs, friendship, smiles, listening ears, trees swaying in the breeze, or wading in the water.  Maybe through laughter or quiet, maybe in your home or thousands of miles away from your bed at a place you always wanted to visit.  As you look over your timeline of places you’ve been, people you’ve met, highlights and lowlights, where has God been? 

 

I confess that I have a hard time finding God in the difficult parts of life.  When my soul is sagging or when grief has paid an unwelcome visit.  Where is God among people whose presence is like fingernails on a chalkboard of my soul?  Sure, theologically and theoretically, I say that everyone is created in God’s image, but some people offer abundant evidence to the contrary.  Today, scan over the artwork/chart of your life from the last few weeks.  Think back to your childhood home: was there a cozy corner where you felt safe, wrapped in the Sacred?  Or in College, was there a church you wandered into or went to because of friends, and suddenly God was there?  Look back over the last ten years in the photo album of life: where have you encountered God?  May you discover how God’s light and love have led you thus far and continue to be part of your life to this day.

Prayer

 

Crafting, creating, conducting, composing, and copy-editing, God, thank you for the ways You are still writing a melody, harmony, and holy story in my life.  Thank you for the mystery of places where I have been and the people I’ve met/encountered.  Thank you for the stars that shine brightly within me through moments that linger and leave the warmth of light in my heart.  Thank you, even for moments when the light wasn’t as bright, and I still shed tears thinking of that experience.  There are highlights, lowlights, and so-so lights that have been collected as I moved through each day.  Help me stay open to You as we near the halfway point of this year.  Help me stay grounded in Your soil and guided by Your stars.  Awaken me and keep me always aware that You have been, are, and promise to always be near.  In the name of the One who embodied Your love, Jesus the Christ.  Amen.  

Stardust of Experiences and Encounters Part 4

 

Did you know that there are over 9000 stars in the sky that you could see with your eye, without a telescope?  Did you know that you can only see about 2000 stars on any given night, but you need to be far away from any artificial light source, and it needs to be a moonless night?  Did you know that stars are born in batches and are categorized by the light they radiate?  Who knew the Morning Meditation would be a science lesson?  The point is you can’t see every star – true scientifically and in the art project of your life.  Some stars in your life shine brighter and leave you soaked/saturated in ways that other star moments did not.  Last Sunday, we looked at Moses’ story of encountering the burning bush.

I wonder if he walked past that burning bush the previous day and didn’t see it.  Maybe he was chasing Gus the Sheep, who had wandered away again!  Maybe he was scrolling on his phone, playing Wordle, or gazing at the last star disappearing as the sun claimed the sky.  Maybe God tried to get Moses’ attention by making bats form words in the sky, but Moses was looking at the sand.  Maybe God tried to have the wildebeests sing a song, but Moses just said, “That’s odd.”  We don’t know.  I do know that not every star gets wished upon, noticed, or named.  You and I could fill our papers with galaxies of stars ~ reviewing our calendars or diaries, combing our lives, and still miss moments.  You might just now remember a house/place you lived in for a short six months or that friend whose love made a difference, but you lost touch decades ago ~ and out of sight can be out of mind.  Or just now you thought, “How could I forget that experience or event?”  Listening to your life, the unfinished sacred symphony, isn’t a one-and-done homework assignment; it is the invitation of a lifetime.  Breathe, permit yourself to complete what you can now, knowing that you can return to this again and again.  May you continue to pay attention to the stars over your head that illuminate the stardust in the solar system of your soul.  Amen.

Stardust of Experiences and Encounters Part 3

 

Too often, in the hustle and bustle of to-do items to be crossed off, projects completed, and calendar spaces to be filled, I can miss the Holy humming quietly in my life.  For the last week and a half, I have invited you to listen to your life for the holy mystery/symphony/unfolding and unfinished story it is.  As Karl Rahner wrote, "In the torment of the insufficiency of everything attainable, we come to realize that, in this life, all symphonies must remain unfinished."  Pause with me.  Re-read that quote, both its rough edges and beautiful invitations.  Rahner reminds us that life has a quality of feeling like not enough or that there is more to life that we are not tasting, seeing, or experiencing.  The insufficiency Rahner writes about is the constant desiring of more, and this can leave us with the frustrating incompleteness of what is.  You buy a pair of shoes you love, only to find another pair you love more on sale the next time you are at the store.  You go on a retreat, there in that place, you have what you think is a life-changing experience, only four months later, to fall back into the ruts and routines of life before you went.  The not-enough-ness of our lives is what marketing and social media and streaming platforms bank on.  We are continually shown new products being rolled out, and we are being rolled over by the steady stream of more/more/more every day.  The market is flooded not only politically, but also in our consumeristic culture.

 

Okay, philosophical soapbox sermon over.  (I hear your sigh of relief).  My point is that your holy summer homework project of listening to your shy soul sing might feel like one more thing to do.  I pray it isn’t.  Today, I encourage you to breathe in the beauty of God, who is still authoring your story.  The beauty of stars that shine in the deepest ink-spilled night skies.  The beauty of places where the dust beneath the soles of your feet has sunk into your soul.  The beauty of people who linger in your imagination, even if their presence is to remind you what you don’t want to be.  Look at what you have on the paper before you.  Rectangles drawn with places named.  Circles of people who included you, embraced and enfolded you, and perhaps people who have heartbreakingly excluded you.  You’ve added stars of moments and memories that left dust in your life.  Your masterpiece of life doesn’t need to be finished and handed in for a grade, although I would love to talk to you about what you are discovering or discerning in listening to your life.  Today, sit quietly with the incompleteness of what you’ve done so far, especially if you have had to cross things out or scribble over names or add one more star to an already cramped and crowded space.  Your life doesn’t need to be a Picasso-winning art; rather, your life is the beautiful unfinished symphony of God.  Amen.