Prayers for the Ordinary

 

Today, I invite you to pause, breathe and be.

 

~ Breathe in on this last day of June ~ all that this month has held for you …breathe out all that is unresolved and unsolvable right now in your life and our world.

~ Breathe in your earnest efforts to be caught up in the symphony of God …breathe out the moments of frustration that things don’t always happen the way you wish or on the timetables you’ve established in your plans.

~ Breathe in a grace and love that YOU are enough …breathe out all the chattery chaos that offers unhelpful color commentary of the places you’ve bumbled and stumbled.

~ Breathe in the holiness of this new day God has made …breathe out those thoughts and feelings that you hoard in your heart, that nagging negativity that you keep rummaging and ruminating upon.

~ Breathe in a promise and presence of the Eternal…breathe out the striving and struggle and stress right now.

~ Breathe in a holy love that will never let you go…breathe out offering every moment to God, giving God back your whole life.

~ Breathe in the unknown-ness of this day…breathe out the plotting and planning.

 

~ Breathe and be.

 

~ Be in this moment with the One who is Presence. 

 

May you be know peace; may you know hope; may you know love; and may you come to the sense of the sacred with every breath you take today.  Amen.

Prayers of the Ordinary ~ Wednesday

 

Wednesday arrives on your doorstep to announce a new day, what is awaiting you today?  Pause with me to ponder, “what is on your mind and in your heart right now?” 

 

The phrase, “beautiful ordinariness” is one that I am living with this summer.  So often we crave, cultivate, and want to create the “special and spectacular”.  We deeply desire the extraordinary.  We live in a world where internet influencers are famous for being famous. 

 

Where constant comparison chatters chaotically in our minds throughout the day offering unhelpful color commentary to how we live our lives in the light of what we see/read about others. 

 

Where we think our thoughts are facts rather than seeing how our brains can twist and turn things that may or may not be true; how our minds can come up with countless fictional problems to be solved.  We can hoard feelings, past hurts, words someone said to us, storing all that in boxes within our hearts.  On top of that we constantly return to rummage around those internal boxes reliving the pain. 

 

We keep striving because boredom or feeling unnecessary is too difficult.  We volunteer and go to meetings and keep our calendars fill believing that if we rest, we rust. 

 

It was once believed that because of modern inventions, the forty-hour work week would be more than cut in half and people would have abundance of leisure time.  Seriously, the economist John Maynard Keynes once said his grandkids would work just 15 hours a week!  We bought into the script that if you work hard now, one day you can enjoy your retirement.  How often do we keep on keeping on, perhaps seeing life as a struggle rather than an adventure? 

 

We need a grace of enough-ness to intercede and interrupt, O God.  We need a love that we don’t earn, but is given.  Just given.  God’s love is not deserved because of good actions, or right beliefs.  God love is…just because.  Hear God saying to you, “You are beloved so that you can be in that love.”  Please re-read that statement.  We connect to the Source of Love to be a source of love.  Love is generative and generous.  God calls us to compassion that we might offer in words and actions this day.  We receive the peace of God’s Presence that the world needs more than ever.  My prayer for you on this Wednesday is that you would know and live from a place of unconditional love and unceasing grace.  That this holy truth would be experienced and explored in your life today.  May the “beautiful ordinariness” of this day open you to the One who is co-authoring your life every day.  Amen.

Prayers for the Ordinary

 

God of Tuesdays, where some of what was left undone yesterday greeted me with a “Good morning!” when I opened my eyes today.  God of appointments and to-dos lists that clamor for attention and energy.  God of blank, open, spaces when I might be tempted to fill with one more “thing” because the deep desire to be needed and necessary.  Meet each of us in this moment.  Thank you for rest last night, even for those moments we tossed and turned like Jacob who wrestled with You at night.  Remind us, O God, that life is not a math problem to solve, but a mystery to experience.  Thank you, O God, for cups of coffee and tea that warm us from the inside out.  Thank you for food that nourishes us, even for leftovers in our refrigerators or things we glance past in the cupboard.  Thank you for bowls of cereal and sandwiches and ripe, red strawberries or tomatoes or peppers.  Thank you for music that moves our souls.  Thank you for books that inform and inspire.  Thank you for friends we can call today to connect and catch up.  Thank you for this day.  May this minute of naming and noticing the goodness of life and offering our gratitude continue to be a way we move through every minute today.  Invite us to pause when we go to an appointment to give thanks for cars or people to drive us.  Awaken a thankful heart for doctors who see us and staff that cares for us.  Grant us words of gratitude for our church and Your love embodied in others.  Open our lives to sense the Sacredness of this Tuesday whatever may happen, trusting that You are with us.  May such trust continue to be a theme for countless Tuesdays to come.  In the name of the One who entrusted his whole life to You, Jesus the Christ.  Amen.

Prayers for the Ordinary

 

God of Monday mornings when a new week is before us – we glance over the events on our calendar and the blank spaces there too.  What would it mean for every event and gathering this week to be an offering to You, O God?  How can we live trusting in the promise that You go before us every day this week so that where we are, there You are already there also?  What would it mean that whether we are walking into a doctor’s office or meeting or the grocery story, You are the one who opens the door and welcomes us into that space and place?  Help us live this way, O God, today.

God of this last week in the month of June – we think back on the moments that have filled our days the last few weeks.  

~ We name to You a moment of JOY during June. (Name aloud a time you felt God’s presence).  

~ We name to You that which sits uneasy in our hearts and weighs on our souls.  (Name aloud those people and places where you are not sure what to do or say or a pain you have grown weary of carrying).  

~ We name to You a time when we could taste grace and felt love like the summer sun warming our skin. (Name aloud the thoughts that swirl and stir within you as blessings).  

Meet us here, O God, in the sacred stillness of this moment.

God be with each of us in the beautiful ordinariness of this week.  Receive, renew, restore, replenish, and revive us to let our lights shine.  Help us be open to the lights of others we encounter, for in our causal conversations You often show up unannounced and can catch us unaware.  May the holy rhythm of planting, watering, watching, harvesting, sorting, and resting continue to be a pace and pattern that is woven in our lives this day and week.  In the name of the One who is the Lord of the Dance, Jesus the Christ.  Amen.

Friday Prayer

 

Please pray with me.  God who moves in our lives with a hope and healing, we know Your wisdom needs only a few millimeters to find room to reside within us.  Thank you, God, for moments this week when asking whether something needed to be said, now, by me was helpful or even adverted creating more animosity.  Thank you, God, that You need only a split second to help me write a better story.  I share with You times I said some snappy come back that hurt someone.  Or moments I treat my words as if they are scoring me points on that mythical (but does-not-exist) scoreboard.  I still can see life as a balance sheet where if I don’t speak, I don’t win.  Help me continue to listen to the stories I tell myself, then give You, O God, room to revise my story with the one You are prayerfully co-authoring with me.  May such space help me and be a blessing to those I encounter today.  In the name of the One who loved to tell Your story of endless love, Jesus the Christ.  Amen.

This Moment Called, "Now"

 

As we pause to breathe and be today, what is stirring within you that you want to offer to God?  What is unresolved or unsolved in your life?  What blessings are blooming in your life?  Hold that which is part of your story called, “this week and this day” for a moment.

 

Breathe in God’s presence and peace…breathe out one thought you’d like to share with God..

Breathe in the desire we have to fix and repair…breathe out a person and place that is bugging or bothering you, releasing the person or place to God.

Breathe in the goodness and grace…breathe out a blessing you can name.

 

Now, repeat the above as many times as you need this morning.  Each time beginning by breathing in God’s presence and sharing with God what is stirring within you; then what is bugging or bothering you; then a blessing.  All three are important in writing the narrative of YOUR story called, “right now”.  I pray this moment this morning leaves an impression on the story you are telling yourself and will tell yourself every hour today.  With God’s love and blessing!

Morning Meditation

 

I pray yesterday you found yourself slowing down before you said the first thing that came into your mind.  I pray you are having fun experimenting with different ways you can hold, examine, and let God bless what you want to offer this world before tossing and throwing words out there.  Such intentionality and prayerfulness in how we move and interact and be in this world is a blessing. 

 

I wonder what struggles are you facing as you live a different way?  Maybe your friend wants to know why you are not as quick with the sarcasm as you were last week.  Maybe your family member is frustrated that you are not joining in bashing and blaming “those” people, but are now speaking with less edge to your words that can turn down the temperature.  Or maybe you felt frustrated because a conversation moved on and you felt like you never got a chance to contribute.  It is like when you are trying to enter a jump rope being swung by two friends and others keep hopping in before you have a chance.  We want to have the most lines in the story of our lives, and we want to be the one who is seen as witty and pretty and bright (to quote the song from The Sound of Music).  There will be tension in this prayer practice.  There will be plenty of chances for you to fall back into your usual way of speaking first and asking questions letter. 

 

A few weeks ago, I preached on the Parable of Wheat and Weeds ~ how we think we have the weeds all figured out, classified, and categorized.  How the weed Jesus was talking about might have been darnel that looks just like wheat until the harvest time.  I know my words have pulled plenty of weeds that ended up really being wheat, if I had just waited.  What we are doing this week is that “waiting, watching, watering” part of the parable rather than thinking we can race from planting to harvesting.  We are living in the resting time when the field needs to lay fallow before constantly spreading more seeds around.  I pray you will return to the wisdom of that parable, holding it as a way God might get a word in edgewise with wisdom for you. 

Morning Meditation

 

How did yesterday go?  Did you try to employ the three questions:

~ Does this need to be said? 

~ Does this need to be said by me?

~ Does this need to be said right now?

 

Was there a situation when this was helpful?  Did you find yourself trying to remember the questions?  Was there a frustrating experience when the moment passed, and you didn’t get to chime in because these three questions slowed you down?  Are you wondering, in a fast-paced world, if such questions can really be helpful to yourself or others?

 

By no means do I think these are the only questions that could improve the quality of our communication and connections and stories we are telling ourselves and others.  Recently a church member offered these three great questions she asks:

~ What should I say?

~ How should I say it?

~ Who should I say it to?

 

Or maybe you remember the philosophy of Socrates who said we should ask: Is this true?  Is this kind and good?  Is this necessary to say? 

 

If one of these sets works better for you, great!!  Or you are welcome to create and compose your own three questions that help you reflect before you respond.  Part of engaging the internal editor and our co-author God is giving some space before we speak or write or send that text.  One of the blessings of email and text is that you can write it and walk away before sending.  Most of the time, when I come back to what I have written after taking a walk and asking these three questions, I end up editing and grateful that I didn’t just push “send” immediately.  We need space to reflect.  We need space to listen and let God offer wisdom.  We need grace and love to come alongside to help.  I pray you will find ways this week to lean in and listen for God who is co-authoring your story that is unfolding right here and now this day. 

 

Prayer: Writing God, weave in space today where You can help me prayerfully ponder how I respond to others I encounter.  Help strengthen muscle where my first step is to breathe and be open to You rather than thinking I have the perfect response and don’t want to miss my moment.  May such a prayer practice bless our world to be more thoughtful, intentional, and clear in with what is in our hearts.  Amen.

Morning Meditation

 

What stories have you been noticing, hearing, telling, and sharing over the last few weeks?  The beautiful part of this prayer practice is that it takes time to explore and evolve.  The more you return and review the chapter titles of your life, the deeper you can dive into listening to your life.  The more you look at the lists you have of top ten moments; the more you lean in, remember and recall a once-forgotten-detail.  It is like a sacred spiral that takes you deeper.  Or as Rabbi Abraham Heschel said, “Words create worlds.”  And the more you inhabit and investigate the world of your words, the more material it will create.  Stories are generative.  They tend to feed and fuel more stories.  Keep listening to your life.  Keep tuning in to the words you speak.  To do this, I will add a wonderful practice from Ian Morgan Cron.  He says that before he says a word in a conversation, he asks three questions:

~ Does this need to be said? 

~ Does this need to be said by me?

~ Does this need to be said by me right now?

 

First, asking these three questions will slow you down.  You can’t quickly respond.  To be sure you may lose that witty come back that would have gone down in history as the greatest one liner ever.  And you may even lose some of the initial emotion (anger or euphoria) in the moment.  The trade off is that these questions can help you find a deeper place within you from which to speak.  Second, don’t feel like you always must use these questions.  If a person is taking your order and asks you about your preferred side dish is, go with your gut.  But in conversations that matter, even in causal conversations with friends, these questions might provide new insights for you in the great art project called, “Your Life”. 

 

A few thoughts on the questions.  The first, does this need to be said?  I encourage you to pay attention not only to your response to that question (yes or no), but also the passion with which you are thinking/answering.  If I am annoyed that a family member didn’t do something I asked him/her to do and am about to go give said family member a piece of my mind - but having read this insightful post today - pause and ponder, “Does this need to be said?”  In response, my brain thinks, “Darn tooting it needs to be said.  In fact, it has been said by me so many times that you’d think by now it would have sunk in!!!”  I might also notice that I am quite stirred up at the moment.  This leads to the second question, “Does this need to be said by me?”  In the story of our life, we are the s/hero and lead character – of course we want the most lines.  Of course, we think we move the plot along.  Of course, we believe our unique voice and insights will bless, heal, and help the world.  However, if we return to the above example of frustration with a family member, it seems like I have said something similar before and didn’t really make a huge difference and dent.  Or in a meeting, I have found that if I wait just a moment (asking these three questions), it gives time for someone else to say a similar thought.  The diversity of voices is part of the symphony of God.  Finally, I love the last question, “Does this need to be said right now?”  In a world of Twitter, texting, emails, constant communication, we have sped up responses to an unsustainable and unhealthy pace.  We don’t have to return to long-form letter writing transported by the Pony Express, but a bit of space (a few minutes or hours) can be helpful in editing the story we are telling ourselves. 

 

Now is your chance to go out into the world and try to let this prayer practice of questioning how you are sharing your words and wisdom.  May you take a breath and pause before speaking today.  I pray you find moments when these questions help you, guide you, and lead you to share God’s love in more profound ways.  With God’s love to you all ~     

Friday Prayer

 

Please pray with me. God of every day and each week, thank you for this month of June.  Thank you for the experiences and encounters so far that have been a blessing.  Thank you for moments when I can grow, continue to learn, listen, and know that You are not finished with me.  Thank you for times of new insights, ideas, renewed energy, and sensing Your presence.  Thank you for music, soundtracks, in my life.  Thank you for the titles of music I can connect to the chapters of my life.  Thank you for moments when I can pause, breathe, rest in You.  Thank you even for the moments that perplex me, remind me of my own limitations, and that I don’t know everything.  In the words of the great hymn, “I need Thee, O God, every hour, in joy and pain. Come quickly and abide or life is in vain.”  Abide with me every moment today.  I pray for You, O precious Lord, to take my hand, lead me on, and help me stand.  May Your summons echo true when You but call my name, let me turn and follow You and never be the same.  All this I pray in the name of the One who is the composer and conductor of the symphony of life.  Amen.  

Just because I love this anthem so much right now...listen again to "O Love"...

Thursday Pause

 

Today, I invite you to pause, breathe and be.

 

Breathe in melody of music that brings smiles to your face, peace to your heart…breathe out times of dissonance and discord this week. 

Breathe in the love that will not let you go…breathe out all the ways we tell ourselves a story that we have to “earn” love or grace (which are always, always freely given by God).

Breathe in the editing the words of your story…breathe out any sense that your life is being graded.

Breathe in new ways you can tell your story…breathe out the voices that want you to strive or struggle for that which is not life.

Breathe in this moment right now…with all its beauty and brokenness…breathe out our pain, hurt, and harm that too often holds the editorial pen of the stories we tell ourselves.

 

May you sense God’s peace and presence that surpasses understanding, grounds you in a grace, fills you with joy, and holds you with a love that will not let you go.

Adding Music to Our Chapters

 

This week you are prayerfully pondering the chapter titles of life, the stories you tell yourself, along side the meaningful moments that have left an impression. Yesterday we added a soundtrack.  Because every good story needs some music. 

 

(Insert, “Celebrate Good Time” by Kool and the Gang here…I know I am showing my 80s roots!)

 

Today, I want you to focus on the moments in life that overflowed with joy…those “celebrations of good times”.  If you have not included and incorporated moments of holy hilarity, times when the tears came from laughing so hard your side ached, when joy was what fed and fueled your life, please receive this invitation as a way to continue to revise/review the chapters of your life.

 

As I’ve confessed, I was schooled in the lesson that life was a struggle rather than an adventure.  One of the ways we can re-write our story, is to hold times of joy – as we heard on Sunday.  One of the ways we can honor the adventure of life is to name moments you tasted heaven while still on earth.  To shine a light on your heart being so full you thought it might burst.

 

One joyful moment from my childhood is a photograph of me on Christmas morning vacuuming the carpet of tiny pieces of wrapping paper after opening presents.  Because apparently, I’ve always had some OCD with cleanliness.  That makes me smile.

Or I think of our band trip in high school to California, being peer pressured into riding Space Mountain, spending the whole ride shouting, “Make it stop!”  Good times.

Or my wedding day and wearing a hole in the carpet of the narthex pacing back and forth before the ceremony with nervousness until I saw Gina turn down the aisle.

Or the time I preached my first sermon here at our church (it was on John 1:35-42).

 

Is there room in the story you are telling yourself for joy, goodness, grace, and laughter?  I pray you will hear and hold this invitation to listen and lean into God’s presence.  Our minds can be like Velcro for the bad and Teflon for the good.  We need to exercise the muscle of laughter’s healing art.  Not because it is some magical spell that makes everything better.  Not because we all need to be eternal optimists.  But if we never take time to hold the grace and goodness, we miss one of the ways God shows up in our lives.

 

I can’t wait to hear all the holy hilarity of YOUR life.  I pray that you will let this part of your story loose so the joyful moments and memories can edit the words you choose for chapter titles and top lists.  May there be a holy melody of God’s love that will not let you go surrounding each moment.

Editing Our Life - Adding Music!!

 

How is co-authoring your story with the Sacred going?  Are there new insights that stirred and swirled when you went back to revise and rework what you had written from last week?

 

Now, I wonder, if there is a soundtrack that you are hearing?  It could be a song from years past or a hymn that you find yourself humming or a melody that stirs your soul.  Or you could go back to the chapter titles and consider a piece of music that would accompany/amplify the theme.  This could be music from popular culture or hymns or BOTH.

 

One of the pieces of music that saving my life, stirring in my soul right now is “O Love” by Elaine Hagenberg.  This anthem was inspired by the words of a Scottish minister, George Matheson.  He was blinded at age of 19.  If that wasn’t bad enough, his fiancé called off their engagement.  Ouch.  That makes my soul ache.  Think about the kinds of words Matheson might have used to describe and define that time in his life, the chapter titles he would have chosen.  Then, on the eve of his sister’s wedding, he penned these words:

 

O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thy ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

​

O Joy that seeks me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

 

I find such profound power in these words knowing a bit of the back story and what was happening in Matheson’s life.  How might you and I be open to the Holy Love that never lets us go?  How can we rest in the Eternal’s embrace?  The invitation to let go of clinging to control in life so we would be so caught up in the current of our Creator.  The invitation to be open to the rich fullness of God.  Hold that second verse about “joy that seeks me through the pain.”  How often do I close my heart to God in the times of pain?  Do I focus so much on the rain drops drenching that I miss the promise, presence, and possibility of God? 

 

I admit that I cannot listen to this anthem without tears in my eyes.  You can click on YouTube video above so you can listen to this anthem sing to your soul.  May God’s love that never lets you go embrace and enfold you every moment.  With great love and creativity and peace!

Editing our Life

 

Last week, I invited you to consider and come up with words on how you would title the chapters of your life.  This is never a one and down exercise.  I hope in the weeks to come, you will continue to let God, our co-author, help you edit how you describe and define the decades of your life.  The words you select are important because they shine a light on the story you are telling yourself about your life.  For example, last week, I suggested that I could title the chapter of my 30s as, “White-knuckling life.”  There is truth to that.  I could also title those years as, “Awaking up to my passion and purpose.”  It was in my 30s that I began to sense how meaningful writing and preaching sermons are to me.  God planted a seed in the soil of my soul in those years that God continues to tend.  As the roots of that seed reached down, the holy nudged me to search (like the pearl merchant from the parable yesterday) for a doctorate program where I might learn more and hone this love of mine.  The seed of preaching, teaching, and writing continues to be part of the garden God is cultivating and curating in my story today.  YOU, each of you, who read and respond to these morning mediations, YOU are helping me.  When I look at my 30s that way, a different story can be told than the struggling and striving – white knuckling my life.  Alternatively, I could title my 30s, “Discovering a true treasure”.  Which is true – white knuckling life or treasuring?  Both are.  Both were part of who I was, still am, and seeking to be.  Both shine a light on what was going on in me and around me. 

 

You can go back and edit your chapter title to the story called, “Your Life.”  Perhaps as you edit, with God’s grace and love, new stories (that were always there, just hidden beneath the surface – like a treasure in a field) start to emerge.  These stories are seeds…or fish we’ve caught in our net and didn’t realize were there. 

 

I encourage you to engage the spiritual prayer practice of authoring your story.  You can also return and revise the ten top lists of your life.  Those moments that have left meaning in your heart, shaped your soul, and are part of the story you tell yourself. 

 

Please remember, I would love to see the chapter titles and top ten lists you are coming up with in these summer days.  May God, who edits not with a red pen, but with a love that will not let us go help you find new words and ways to tell your story in these days.  With great love and creativity and peace to you all!

Prayer

 

So we wrap up and wind down another week of telling the story of you.  Have you, along with God, found ways to define and describe the chapters of your life?  Have you played with top ten lists of your life?  What are you sensing is important and significant?  What would you say you was an insight from this last week you want to carry forward?  Are there things/experiences/encounters you need to lay down so as not to let that hurt so define what you do?  Are there celebrations that can still bring a smile to your face? 

 

Reflect and review with God the good, the not so great, and the “Oh my word” moments of this last week.  Reflect and review with God the beautiful ordinary and the hard/holy work.  Reflect and review the God all that was and is…and what might be as this day unfolds.

 

God, You are our help in ages past and our hope for this day to come.  You are the One who shelters us amid the stormy blasts.  To be sure, we still get soaked from the rain and we can get so caught up in ruminating on what is wrong with others, projecting our pain, and feeling immobilized by our wounds.  We can long for a faith that can move mountains, but right now we are not even sure we can gather enough strength to go to the grocery store.  We want to be good soil for the seeds of Your love, but the rough and rocky places in our life are hard to break through.  We need You every hour to abide.  Bring Your gardening tools, O God, to till and tend our lives.  Bring Your editing pen to help us re-write our lives as testimonies and testaments to a love that will not let us go.  Meet us in this moment and every moment this day.  In the name of the One who we follow, Jesus the Christ. Amen. 

Pausing and Breathing

 

Today, I invite you to pause, breathe and be.

 

Breathe in memories of childhood that bring smiles to your face…breathe out the pain of the past.

Breathe in teenage years, dances, activities, prom, graduation…breathe out moments you were treated as less than fully beloved by God.

Breathe in the goodness and joy of building a career, your calling and sharing your passion…breathe out the striving and trying to prove you are successful.

Breathe in the holy moments of adulting…breathe out the problems that we could not fix no matter how hard we try.

Breathe in this moment right now…with all its beauty and brokenness…breathe out the agendas we have if only we were King/Queen of the Universe.

 

Breathe in…breathe out.

Listen to sounds of creation, your home, your own heart beating.

Be in this moment with the One who is Presence.

Amen.

The Story of Me and We

 

On Monday, I invited you to reflect on the chapters of your life, the story of YOU. Yesterday, I asked you to compose lists of events and experiences that make you, you.

You have a story you tell yourself that is impacted and influenced both what has happened internally and externally. There is a world within you and the world around you. Both are tangled and twisted together. Sometimes we don’t know where one begins and the other ends. But the truth is that you are uniquely crafted in God’s likeness with a light to shine AND there is a deep desire to connect with others. We are both individual and collective; we crave community and others can cause hurt and harm. Or as Carrie Newcomer has said, “Love is easy. People are hard.” I find this to be true. As you look at the chapters of your life, where is your story connected to another person’s story? For example, being a husband and father is a part of my individual life but is dependent on other people too. I have a story to tell about my family, but so does each family member. We know this to be true when we have a shared experience and yet encounter that moment differently. For example, I can feel and remember our family trip to the Grand Canyon one way; my kids another; and Gina still another way. We all went, but we came away impacted differently. The meaning and memories are both shared and distinctive. Our story is never just our own, but there is a cast of characters. As you look over your chapter titles and lists, are there other people there that play an important part in your story?

When you expand this truth, we start to see where some of the tension in life is at. Individuals inhabit this world in different, diverse, and distinctive ways. We want to own our stories, but our stories are impacted/influenced by others. To take this one step further: it is true that I have a story to tell where I am the lead character, not just a supporting actor. Each of us is trying to be the s/hero of our own story. We want to be the sage in another person’s story. We can feel like the victim of a third person’s story and even the villain of someone else’s story. Let these truths be like a light as you look back on the prompts from yesterday and Monday. May this help you edit your chapters and lists of important moments in ways that let God enter in. Our story is never about you as an isolated individual, there is always a "we" more than just a "me". May you find ways today to let God co-author your life and help you participate in the great symphony being conducted where each of us has a part to play. Amen.

The Story of YOU part Two

 

How is the writing assignment going from yesterday?  Wait, you think, he was serious about that?  Yup!  Okay, let me give you an alternative way to think about the invitation.  What are the top ten or fifteen or nineteen experiences and encounters in your life?  You could actually make multiple lists.  One could be professional; one could be personal; one could be playful.  For example, on one list I could put earning my doctorate and serving three amazing churches.  On another I could put marrying my best friend and having two great children.  On another I could put my love of Legos and the awe I felt standing at the Grand Canyon years ago. 

 

As a matter of fact, just start making the list.  Don’t get so caught up in classifying or categorizing.  Just reflect on the story of your life and start writing.  Again, I would love to see your lists when you finish.  May God, the co-author of all our stories, guide and ground you in this prayerful, hopefully playful, exercise.

The Story of YOU

 

Every single day you are working on a wonderful art project entitled, “Your life.”  Every single moment is a sentence; every single hour is a page; every single experience and encounter is part of the narrative God is co-authoring with you. 

 

Looking back over the last few weeks, what sticks and stands out for you?  What moments have left a lasting/lingering impression on your heart?  When has the ordinary been saturated and soaked with the holy?

 

Pause for a moment with me, get out a piece of paper, and respond to the above questions.  By the way, this is an open calendar quiz, you can look back at your paper calendar or app on your phone to remind you of where you have been and what has filled your days.  I encourage you to do this now.  It’s okay, I’ll wait.

 

When I look back some of what rises to the top is: celebrating Gina’s birthday, Ethan’s graduation, Sunday morning worship, laughing so hard at the last session of Artful Prayer tears came streaming down my face, family dinners, hard and holy Sacred Conversations on Race, Bible Study, and the session on “The Story of You” in May.  There is so much more.

 

Here is my invitation for June: Look back over your life as a story and name the chapters.  You might look at your childhood.  I would name my growing up in Iowa, “Just a city boy born amid corn fields”.  Look at your teenage years.  I might name that chapter, “Marching with the Drum Major God,” which combines my love of band and church as a teenager.  I might name the chapter of my early twenties, “Wait…I’m a Pastor…and a parent…and an adult…Gulp.”  I might name the chapter of my thirties, “White knuckling life,” as I tried to prove that I knew what I was doing.

 

Hopefully you get the point.  Rewind and review the art project of “Your Life” and come up with descriptions that capture some of the Spirit for you. 

 

And I invite you to please share these with me.  Email me or come in and talk to me.  This summer I want to HEAR your story and celebrate the ways God is moving in your midst.  I can’t wait to hear what you come up with.  Ready?  Set?  Go!  With great love!

Friday Prayer

God of new days and holy ways; God of moments of sacred play; meet me in this moment I pray.  I need Your presence when I start to fray (and fret and sway); I need Your grace amid the fears and hurts that weigh; I need Your light to guide me when I stray. 

Enter in, awaken my soul, surround the words I say; allow Your presence to shine through me like a ray; give me moments to pause and safety from prey; the hurts I carry too long of betray; for there is another way to life rather than dismay; so grant me wisdom, courage, and love along this walkway; for your presence sweetens my life like a sorbet; that somehow, in some way, I might find serenity through this wordplay.  May the love of God dance and delight you in marvelous and mysterious way. 

 

I pray you continue to find ways to be open to our planting, watching, watering, waiting, harvesting, sorting, and resting God.  May the God who dances in our midst awaken you to join in the holy movement of today. Amen. 

 

Morning Meditation

 

Return with me this morning to the Serenity Prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change...courage to change the things I can…and Wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as the pathway to peace. taking, as Christ did, this sinful (read: broken, bruised, gone astray) world as it is, not as I would have it. Trusting that God will make all things right if I surrender to God’s will. That I may be reasonably happy in this life, And supremely happy with God forever in the next. Amen.  

 

This is the third time this week we have said this prayer.  Is there something new you heard?  A word that caught your attention or a phrase that unsettled you?  You can pray the same prayer every day for your whole life and never tire of it, because words create worlds each time we speak them.  Each time I say, “I love you” to my family, those words recreate a world.  Yes, the same words can be repetitive or go on autopilot.  Or words can fashion and form new things.  This is why gratitude is endless new each day.  Today I am thanking that I woke up.  I am breathing.  The sun is shining and a bird just whistled a tune.  The mystery that our bodies are constantly shedding skin, recreating/resurrecting, and we look in the mirror and we are able to still recognize ourselves!  The mystery of relationships.  The joy of laughter and music and love that fills our hearts.  The world is alive with God.  Do we notice?  Do we let the holy hovering in our lives get a word in edgewise?  This is the endless source of thanksgiving.

 

May the beauty of living the questions today so enliven your heart and soul, making all the difference.  Alleluia and Amen.