The Beautiful Less-than-Perfectness

 

This week we are holding close to our hearts the countercultural language of Advent.  We are letting the words of hope, peace, joy, and love sing and sit, perhaps unsettled, in our hearts.  Don’t worry if you don’t have the “perfect” definition, expectation, and way you are going to prepare for hope to enter.  In the wayless way of life, what we think about hope today might be different when we step into the straw to stand before God’s love incarnate on Christmas Eve.  How you plot and plan for joy this season might get tossed out the window tomorrow when you turn the calendar to December.  The point is not to cling to or control these words, rather let hope, peace, joy, and love have space to breathe and be in your life in the coming days.  Take time to gaze (rather than glance or gnaw or gawk) at how these words are showing up unannounced or catching you off guard.  As a matter of fact, what a wonderful invitation to keep track of how hope surprised you in December, how peace washed over you as you were washing the dishes, how joy came from a bite of a cookie made by a neighbor or love was felt in the hug.  There is a holy ordinariness to God entering the world.  There is a messiness to God entering the world ~ with no offense to the hymn Away in the Manger, I do think baby Jesus was fussy and cried and did all the other things babies do.  Hope need not be perfect and probably won’t be this Christmas.  Peace comes in fits and starts.  We stub our toes on the love of God and laugh at how human-sized we are.  All this is part of the amazing gift we are creating space to hold and to be held by this Christmas.  I pray you find hope, peace, joy, and love in the most deliciously, delightful and unexpected ways this day.  Amen.

Preparations and Expectations

 

So far this week we have described and defined our experiences with hope, peace, love, and joy.  Yesterday, we paid particular attention to how our preparations might fan to flame these words of this season.  Perhaps you found yourself questioning some of the events in your calendar or remembering the way you would prepare twenty years ago that you want to try again.

Part of preparation is expectations.  You see, sometimes we do things not because we want to but out of obligation.  There is still a middle schooler living in each of us that succumbs to the peer pressure of the world today.  We want to be liked.  We don’t want to get voted off the island with friends, so sure we will go to that party and stand around eating little sausages drenched in BBQ sauce while talking about Florida State football.  Does that bring hope, peace, joy, or love?

To be clear, our expectations can guide the outcomes.  That is, if I dread going to the party, it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy that I won’t have a good time.  But if I show up remembering there is nowhere God is not…even making small talk at a party whilst munching on meatballs, then of course hope is there. 

We need to name and notice our expectations.  What are you expecting this season?  How do you think hope should show up?  Does that mean politically or economically or relationally?  How do you long for peace?  Maybe you want wars to end and no more mass shootings.  Where would love to interrupt the status quo?  Seriously, imagine what that would mean.  Where might joy be a thread and theme of life?  What would that look like, taste like, sound and feel like? 

Too often our expectations are ambiguous, they lurk and live just beneath the surface of our consciousness, and poke/prink at us in the most inconvenient ways.  Bringing our expectations to light is one way that we might be honest this Advent about our heartfelt feelings toward hope, peace, joy, and love.

Note, the more clarity in both your expectations and preparations ~ how you are filling your days as we approach December can begin to shine lights on your reactions and responses to the language of Advent.  The more we can go into the basements of our souls, sort through the boxes of clutter and chaos that call that space, “home”, the more we can begin to clear space to live hope, peace, joy, and love in ways that our souls long for expression ~ even when David Muir doesn’t start the nightly news tonight by saying, “Breaking news from Sarasota, where a church is leading a revival of living hope, peace, joy, and love…we go live now to the homes of these people.”  Friends, that didn’t happen on the first Christmas, and may not happen this Christmas, but it can happen in our hearts even/especially here and now when we let hope, peace, love, and joy have the first, middle, and last word for how/when/where/why we are living our lives this day.  Amen.

Morning Meditation

 

Yesterday, I invited you to get out four pieces of paper to write down the language of Advent  ~ hope, peace, love, and joy ~ one at the top of each piece of paper.  Then, I encouraged you to write a definition or description or detail about what that word provokes and evokes in your soul right now. 

Today, we are going to add to this with a second exercise.  I know, homework two morning meditations in a row!!  Today, I invite you to get out your calendar for December.  Look over your to-do list for the coming weeks between now and Christmas.  What events and items do you have that fill these dwindling days of this year?  Could be parties, shopping, baking, creating cards, decorating, concerts, buying your favorite pastor a present (wanted to make sure I hadn’t lost you amid the laundry list of things that can crowd our December days like the streets of Bethlehem where for the census when God quietly entered this world). 

Look over all that awaits us in the weeks and days to come.

Now breathe.  Sometimes seeing what fills our days (which says something about how we live our lives) can be a bit shocking to our systems.  Breathe.  There are lots of expectations and preparations that are woven into December.  In some way, like the chaotic journey to Bethlehem, we feel tossed and tussled about this time of year.  It is good to explore and examine the threads that go into the season of Advent.

The next part is to ask yourself, does this event of preparation bring me hope or peace or love or joy?  For some writing cards is an exercise in sharing love as you ponder the people who you are sending the card to.  For others, you wonder, “Wait, why am I don’t this?”  For some baking brings joy that you can taste woven into the flour and sugar of the cookie, for others you’d rather buy the cookies from a bakery.  Maybe there are some things that used to bring you hope that you’ve lost along the way.  Maybe there was a moment of joy in the past that you can bring back this year.  Maybe there are some events of preparation you want to set aside this year because you just don’t feel like decorating or sending cards or singing “Frosty the Snowman” at the clubhouse party.  In contemplating what awaits us we can ask the holy question, how does this shine and share a light of hope, peace, joy, and love this season?  We can ask if what is on our calendar helps us prepare the holy ground of our heart for God or are we doing this more as an expectation rather than preparation?  So ask yourself, what can tend the flame of hope this year?  What might spark the light of joy?  Where is love needing to be rekindled in new ways or in old cherished ways or by writing to one person whose love means the world to you?  May this help you begin to make room in your heart, clearing out clutter/chaos for God to enter in as a baby ~ a vulnerable infant in a few weeks.  Amen.

Morning meditation

 

Yesterday in worship, we began the season of Advent by lighting the candle of hope.  In some ways the language of Advent is countercultural.  Talking about hope, peace, joy, and love in the world today seems Pollyanna on the one hand and downright foolish/silly on the other hand.  After all, our wonderfully linear/logical brain wants to point out, there are reports of discrimination everyday and wars raging, and we don’t feel “safe and secure from all alarms”.  Given the evidence the headlines present to us daily, hourly, and with the constant dinging of notifications on our phones, how can we dare to light candles of hope, peace, joy, and love?  Perhaps what we hear each night on the news is not the only truth.  Perhaps God is working not in the special or spectacular or splashy but in the still small voice on a silent night filled with star light when amid the hustle and bustle of Bethlehem ~ chaos from the census crowding God’s presence ~ most of the people missed the star. 

Wait…go back and re-read that last sentence.  What we are prepare for ~ the arrival of God in the flesh in the vulnerable form of an infant ~ didn’t make the headlines of the day.  Caesar didn’t stop oppressing people.  Herod didn’t stop being paranoid and plotting to squelch anyone.  Tax collectors didn’t kneel before the manger and stop demanding money.  As a matter of fact, for most people God’s entry didn’t change their lives in any noticeable way.

Except.

Except for a few shepherds who were watching the stars, trying to keep warm, and who heard the angels singing.  I believe that others might have heard the faint chorus and thought it was some people who had enjoyed too much wine.  Or maybe they were so caught up in grumbling and mumbling about Ceasar that they missed the light.  Or maybe, like too many of us, we are convinced that hope is nice to talk about in church but isn’t all that realistic outside the sanctuary walls.  After all, we don’t want to look foolish.

Maybe we light a candle of hope so that we can see/encounter/experience hope amid the shadows of today.  Maybe we light a candle of peace to guide us not only in the dwindling of 2023, but the dawning of 2024.  Maybe we light a candle of love to rekindle the flame of God’s presence in our lives.  Maybe we light a candle of joy so that laughter and play can remind us that joy can be found even here and now. 

I invite you today to take out a piece of paper, write down the four words of Advent (hope, peace, love, and joy), and spend time working out a definition for each.  You may start with Google, but try to find your own words.  Look in the rearview mirror of the art project of your life asking, where did you experience hope this last year ~ define and describe that moment.  Where did you taste peace ~ what flavor and color was it?  Where did you feel unconditionally love ~ who shared that God-gift incarnationally/in the flesh with you?  Where did joy overtake your soul so deep you laughed until you cried? 

I don’t know if I can really assign homework in a morning meditation, but I am going to anyway.  Four pieces of paper, four words (hope, peace, love, and joy), and begin to hold each close to your heart to see what light of God starts to dawn even in this world we call, “home” right now.  May God awaken your sacred imagination to God’s presence here and now with you.  Amen.

In Praise of Leftovers

 

When the feast is over and Tupperware containers are full,

When the laughter lingering in the air from yesterday begins to slip out the door,

When the glow of gratitude starts to flicker and fade in the face of the headlines today,

When the commercials begin to blast and blare the “gospel” of “We consume therefore we are,”

When the year takes a turn to wind down and wrap up as the last month creeps up to our door,

It is here I pause I wonder about leftovers.

The pie that yesterday was whole, is still deliciously waiting for me.

The leftover sweet potato casserole once steaming hot, has had time to absorb the spices.

The remains of the turkey eagerly anticipate new life found in sandwiches and casseroles.

Let Thanksgiving linger not only in the leftovers of your fridge, but in the practices of our soul.

Let Thanksgiving continue amid the perplexity and complexity of life, trusting that life is not a math problem to solve but an art project to collaborate with our Creator and all creation.

Let Thanksgiving leave an impression that what you felt yesterday is true and can be trusted, the joy was not fleeting and fading.

Let Thanksgiving be more than yesterday, by a way of life today and for the todays that follow in the weeks to come. 

For as we live gratitude as a value, we generatively let loose a light that the world didn’t give to us so the world can’t take it away. 

Happy day after Thanksgiving, may God continue to gather the leftovers of our lives to cook up and create delicious recipes that feed and fuels our lives for the sake of the world God so loves.  Amen and Amen. 

Thanksgiving Poem

 

Happy Thanksgiving!!  Today I pray you find moments of gratitude amid the complexity and perplexity and contradictions of life.  Today I pray the goodness of life leaves a lasting impression upon your life for the rest of this year and the dawning of a New Year.  I pray the food fuels your life, reminding you that you are connected to God’s good earth.  You have soil and stardust in you, you are made of the earth, and we are caught in a web of life where when the thin fibers shutter with hurt from the trees crying out or an endangered animal or a fellow featherless biped called, “Human” is in pain.  We feel all this because we are connected to all of that is.  Here is a wonderful poem and prayer for today.  Choctaw elder and retired Episcopal bishop Steven Charleston offers a meditation honoring different ways of knowing that have fed his soul:  

 

For all the great thoughts I have read
For all the deep books I have studied
None has brought me nearer to Spirit
Than a walk beneath shimmering leaves

Golden red with the fire of autumn
When the air is crisp
And the sun a pale eye, watching.

I am a scholar of the senses
A theologian of the tangible.

Spirit touches me and I touch Spirit
Each time I lift a leaf from my path
A thin flake of fire golden red
Still warm from the breath that made it.

Thanksgiving Eve

 

One of my favorite online resources is the Greater Good Science Center in California.  They are continuing to work with the complexity and perplexity and joy of trying to create/cultivate the art project of life.  The research suggests that a daily or three times a week practice of journaling ~ writing down your gratitude and thanksgivings is healthy and healing.  We write down because, even though we think we will remember the deliciousness of the ice cream sundae or conversation that warms our hearts, we also know that negative words and stories and experiences leave wounds that the goodness of life gets elbowed out of the way/quickly forgotten or set down.  Negativity soaks and saturates and ends up evicting the moments of joy.  Finally, we live in a world where for some reason we give more weight to the bad than the good.  We overemphasize what is broken and are quick to dismiss or discount what is a blessing. 

 

I know the above paragraph rings true for me.  I need practices that help level the playing field and remind me that hope is a muscle that needs to be exercised.  I need practices that remind me that cynicism and criticism is easy, the default mode of the modern-day mind.  But joy?  Joy has a life that is just as true, just hasn’t gotten as many likes on social media.  Here is a description of gratitude journaling from the Greater Good Science Center.  Time Required is15 minutes per day, at least three times per week for at least two weeks.  How to Do It:  There’s no wrong way to keep a gratitude journal, but here are some guidelines to help you get started.  Write down or type up to five things for which you feel grateful. You can use a notebook, your phone’s notes application, a word processor, or whatever works best for you. The physical record is important—don’t just do this exercise in your head. The things you list can be relatively small in importance (“The tasty sandwich I had for lunch today”) or relatively large (“The birth of a new grandchild”). The goal of the exercise is to remember a good event, experience, person, or thing in your life—then enjoy the good emotions that come with it.

As you write, here are some important tips:

1.     Be as specific as possible.  Being as clear as possible is key to fostering gratitude. “I’m grateful that my coworkers brought me soup when I was sick on Tuesday” will be more effective than “I’m grateful for my coworkers.”

2.     Go for depth over breadth. Going into detail about a particular person or thing for which you’re grateful carries more benefits than a surface-level list of many things.

3.     Get personal. Focusing on people to whom you are grateful has more of an impact than focusing on things for which you are grateful.

4.     Try subtraction, not just addition. Consider what your life would be like without certain people or things, rather than just tallying up all the good stuff. Be grateful for the negative outcomes you avoided, escaped, prevented, or turned into something positive—try not to take that good fortune for granted.

5.     See good things as “gifts.” Thinking of the good things in your life as gifts helps you avoid taking them for granted. Try to enjoy and savor the gifts you’ve received.

6.     Savor surprises. Try to record events that were unexpected or surprising, as these tend to bring up stronger feelings of gratitude.

7.     Aim for variety. Writing about some of the same people and things is OK, but focus on different details each time you write about them

8.     Write regularly. Whether you write daily or every other day, commit to a regular time to journal. Do your best to honor that commitment.

The Seasons of Life

 

Yesterday, I introduced the four seasons of life from Brian McLaren ~ those being simplicity, complexity, perplexity, and harmony.  We pondered how you might find parts/pieces of your life right now in all four seasons.  For example, there is a beautiful simplicity for me right now in my morning prayer practice of reading devotions and prayer as well as writing these morning meditations.  There is a holy flow I feel as I sit and open my soul to God.  There is a complexity within me as my wife and I try to figure out how to “parent” two college students, how to be “empty nesters”, and how to be here in this new place.  There is a perplexity as I look at the world and what is my response?  What is mine to do when the world clamors and cries out from discrimination, pain, war, violence, hunger, hurt, and climate change?  How do I respond in ways that are loving, caring, and where the practice of the good is a challenge to the bad.  How do we lament the brokenness without becoming cynical?  There is also harmony as I encounter people who are living a different way and as I laugh with others and as I walk outside connecting with the trees above exchanging carbon dioxide and oxygen with each other. 

These are but a few examples. I pray the four seasons might speak to you and spark a new thought within you.  As always, if you want to talk more about this, need more descriptions or definitions, be in touch.  May God who is present amid all the seasons of life in their beautiful and messy and chaotic contradictions and celebrations hold and enfold you.  For you are breath and stardust; you are light and beloved; you are held and released to be who God is crafting and calling you to be this day. Amen.

Embracing the Uncertainty of It All

 

As turkeys began to thaw in the refrigerator readying themselves for the oven, sweet potatoes wait patiently on your counter, and pumpkin pies anticipate hugging and holding a dollop of whipped cream on Thursday, preparations and expectations are underway as we begin the week of Thanksgiving.  Years ago, a popular phrase was turning thanksgiving into thanks-living or having an attitude of gratitude.  The sentiment was that Thanksgiving is more than a day. This is not an original thought of recent positive psychology.  Psalm 118 says, “Give thanks to God for God is good, God’s love endures forever.”  This invitation to praise and thanksgiving to God ever living is woven throughout the Hebrew hymnal.  Psalm 7:17, “I will give God thanks…and sing praise to God.”  Psalm 28:7, “God is my strength and shield, in God my heart trusts”.  Psalm 69:30, “I will praise the name of God with song and magnify (amplify or bring to life) God with thanksgiving.”  Woven into our faith is an invitation to praise God from whom all blessings flow.  This thanksgiving is not Pollyanna, it isn’t sticking your head in the sand while the world burns or rearranging the deck chairs as the Titanic sinks.  In our dualistic, either/or thinking of Enlightenment; we believe that we have to choose between life being awful and rotten and completely broken OR thriving and breaking growth barriers right and left to live our best life ever.  Holding the #2 pencil of life, we think, “Welp, it’s gotta be one of those.”  In the beautiful complexity and perplexity of life, it is actually C…all the above.  Yes, our hearts break and souls ache with the headlines we consume (and consume us, perhaps leaving us feeling powerless) every day.  Yes, the people I pray for who suffer and struggle in mind, body, spirit, and are afflicted by the pain of people through discrimination, those who live paycheck to paycheck or go hungry or suffer abuse ~ this prayer list is long.  And yes, God is still at work in this world, just as God was in the beginning over the sloshing and stirring chaos that created waves of seasickness.  God is still calling forth light and darkness; creation to thrive and humans to tend (to own our responsibility and accountability of the great commandment to love God with our whole self and love our neighbor as ourselves). 

At this point you maybe thinking, “Goodness, Wes, can we just talk about how your parents used the screened in back porch to cool/store the pumpkin pies growing up.”  (True story by the way.)  What I want to invite you into this week is the continued movement of what Brian McLaren describes and defines as simplicity to complexity to perplexity to harmony.  This a pattern our life repeats and replays.  Simplicity is where the world makes complete sense, there are rules and regulations and rituals that you follow.  One plus one equals two and we seek (even cling) that there must be a rational and reasonable explanation for everything and that everything happens for a reason.  In complexity, we pay attention to limitations and the places where things don’t make linear or logical sense.  There are problems we can’t solve quickly or easily.  Life is messy and no amount of Mr. Clean products will help.  In perplexity, we pay attention to God's elusiveness.   We may feel alone or abandoned in this season, or in a fog.  We cry out with the psalmist about feeling forsaken (Psalm 22).  And in harmony, we hold all that is in its beautiful messiness with curiosity amid the contradictions.  Which season do you find yourself in this week?  Or maybe there are places in your life that are in each of the four states/seasons above.  Hold this with God as we open our hearts to God’s presence that awakens joy and dance in the perplexity and complexity and contradictions of life.  May this truth be encountered and experienced and expressed this week.  Alleluia and Amen.

 

Last Day with Elijah

 

This week, we have returned and reviewed and remembered some of the learnings from Elijah’s life.  We have let Elijah’s story read our story.  We have asked, what’s feeding you?  We have asked, what are we consuming and what’s consuming us?  How might God’s still small voice get a word in edgewise?  We have wondered, with non-judgement, when have I gone off script and what am I doing here?  Or better, how am I doing here?  I believe you could journal these questions every day in 2024, they would offer an Olive Garden endless basket of breadsticks for you to keep munching on.  To be clear, Olive Garden is not a sponsor of these morning meditations, but I might listen if they would like to become one.

Which of those questions warms your heart?

Which of those questions do you think, “Humph, I am not going to answer that, Wes!” 

Which of those questions confuses you?

Which of those questions awakens your curiosity?

When you look back at the Elijah narrative, are there other questions you’d like to ponder?

I have one more for you.  We hear that before Elijah climbs on that chariot that swung low to carry him home, he passes the mantle (his covering) off to Elisha.  Who are you passing your life off to these days?  This could be family or friends or fellow church members or neighbors or in our community.  What are you leaving behind in the trail of your life?  Make a list of who you long to let love flow from your life to another.  Who are you sharing your light with?  I pray that these ponderings provide you with a heart full of courage and grace and love to continue to let God’s presence pour forth from you to this world this day.  Amen. 

Reviewing Elijah

 

A few weeks ago in the sermon on October 29, we held close to our heart question, “What are you doing here?” that God asks Elijah when he was hiding in the cave.  What are you doing here is still a powerful, prayerful question for each of us to sit with each day.  We may want to rush to fill that question with actions, because we equate busyness with faithfulness.  We think, “Welp, don’t just sit there, Wes, do something…anything is better than nothing.”  We’ve adopted the Tech philosophy of, “move fast and break things.”  Because we believe the more we break, the more we will have to repair and the more work we can do.  It gives us humans great job security to fill our calendars.

What are you doing here?  Not just the events, but how are you being/showing up here?  What ways are you sharing and shining your light?  Are you showing up with hope, peace, joy, and love (foreshadowing the Advent calendars we will light beginning November 26).  Why are you here?  That, of course, is the great question our whole life tries to answer day-by-day.  Who are and how are you being here, that question of identity that shifts and grows and changes.  When are you being here, is a question that encourages us to look at time, how each of us holds the past, present, and future within us and our relationships. 

I pray today, you will return to this wonderful question, not just for this day but for every day in the coming year.  May you know that you are not alone here.  God’s presence in that still small voice keeps showing up.  May you know that you are not alone here.  I would love to talk to you more about some of the responses your soul is offering bravely in response to the above questions.  May you know that you are not alone here, we long to be a collective community where God’s love shines from the ways we bring our lights and lives together.  Amen.

Off Script

 

On Monday we ponder the Elijah size question, what’s feeding you?  I pray you are still paying attention to what you are consuming and what’s consuming (eating or gnawing) you.  Yesterday we tried to find ways like Elijah to listen for God’s holy prompting, realizing that sometimes we need to put our smart devices down for God to move in different ways.  Today, I want to talk about going off the script.  In 1 Kings 18, God tells Elijah to go to King Ahab with the weather forecast that the drought is over, we are about to be singing and dancing in the rain.  Elijah says, “Well, I could do that.  But this is the Bible after all, this could be my moment to shine and you only get one shot and I am not throwing away my shot” ~ thank you to the musical, Hamilton for that reference.  It is Elijah, not God, who comes up with the March Madness showdown on Mt. Carmel.  It is Elijah, not God, who dreams up this contest of seeing whether Baal or God will rain down fire first ~ although since Baal is the god of rain it seems a bit unfair for Baal to be asked to do something outside Baal’s lane.  It is Elijah, not God, who preaches to the people about going astray.  It is Elijah, not God, who then kills the priests of Baal ~ 450 of these priests…which tells us something about how violence lives in each of us. 

This makes me wonder when have I gone off script recently?  When have I had a God-idea that I thought I could improve?  When have I said to God, “Great, I’ll take it from here God.”  When have I tried to be more than human size?  There is a long list and it’s only Wednesday, friends. 

This isn’t about blame or shame.  The invitation of God is for us to offer both the ways we shine our light and the shadows that light casts.  I am both (as Pastor Steve Wiens says) limited and limitless.  I am both infinity and eternal in the image of God.  To be sure, most of the time we live in the messy middle between those polarities.  I tend to lean one way or the other.  When I fail, I want to say, “I’m only human”.  And when someone compliments me, my ego pats me on the back, “Jolly good job, old chap!”  Yes, my ego is British…I don’t know why. 

Where have you gone off script recently?  Where has the story of your life written you into a corner you can’t creatively come out of?  Where do you, like Elijah, want to run away from life, the mistakes and miscues and missed opportunities? 

I pray you are playful with this question.  I pray you do not get blogged down with blame.  I pray you don’t let your inner critic come roaring out, like you’ve released the kraken you can’t put back.  I pray you will cling to the truth that even when Elijah went off script, God showed up with cake and water and in a still small voice of love calling Elijah back to himself.  May this story be your story today.  Amen.

The Absurdity of God

 

We are stepping back this week to look at the whole of the fabric of Elijah’s life that we have been studying over the last few weeks in church.  Yesterday, we reflected on the question, what is feeding you?  What are we consuming through all our senses (not just the intake in our mouths, but the words that fall from our lips and enter our ears and experiences that warm our hearts and the ones that cause our souls to break.  There is too much in one day of life to every fully understand…yet we keep racing and running on to the next event and experience determined to squeeze the lemon of life into lemonade.)

Another thread and theme in the fabric of Elijah’s life is listening to and for God.  God tells Elijah to go camp by the wadi, to go to the widow, God tells the widow to feed some strange man who will show up asking for bread, God instructs Elijah to go tell the king that rain is in the forecast (and Elijah think, “Humph, I can improve that message with some fireworks!” and goes off script ~ more on that tomorrow), God comes to Elijah not in wind, earthquake or fire, but in a still small whisper.

We live in a world that is full of noise, noise, noise.  The twenty-four hour news cycle tossing and throwing out words, pausing only for commercials that seek to sell you something that can almost certainly make you happy ~ no refunds however if it doesn’t make everything magically or instantly better.  All this happens while your phone dings with notifications and emails pile up and Slack notifications from co-workers tell you that they need that report yesterday ~ because their lack of planning is now your emergency ~ while you are told that only you can prevent forest fires and need to solve all the world’s problems because what kind of world do you want to give your children??  (Insert a deep breath here!).

In the immortal words of Shaggy of Scooby Doo fame, “Zoinks!!”  Gulp.  No wonder I want to curl up with a pint of ice cream and binge watch television while surfing Amazon for anxiety treatments.

If God is still speaking, how does God get a word in edgewise when humans fill every silence with words?  Insert a deep breath here again.

So today, I encourage you to put your phone in time out, in a drawer ~ seriously ~ put the phone away for a while.  Turn off the television.  Go out for a walk or sit outside in the sun or go to the beach (be sure to wear sunscreen though and bring a hat).  Breathe and be.  Breathe and listen.  Breathe and be open.  I am not promising that God will show up, although I deeply believe that God is always present but doesn’t always use neon signs and bolts of lightening to communicate.  God loves to communicate creatively with us.  Emily Dickenson said to tell the truth with a slant, God loves coming into our lives in unconventional, not always through the front door, and in sometimes absurd ways (see the Christmas story of God being born in a barn!).  The more we practice being in the presence of God, the more we find ways to tune and turn toward the One who is still composing a symphony of life, yours and mine and ours together every day. Amen.

Wrapping Up Elijah

 

For the last several weeks in worship, we have let the Elijah narrative read our story (the stories we tell ourselves and the stories we tell others).  As the sermon series on Mr. Swing Low Sweet Chariot fame winds down and wraps up, I invite us to look back at the threads and themes we’ve discovered in the fabric of this Biblical narrative. 

 

One of the throughlines of Elijah’s story is food.  Elijah is fed by a raven who arrived with a French Baguette in its mouth every morning.  Elijah is fed by the fiercely faithful widow who rolls up her sleeves and with God made endless breadsticks for her son, herself, and Elijah.  And Elijah is fed by an angel who arrives with hot cakes and water when he is out in the wilderness under a broom bush.  Elijah gets more food brought to him than room service at the Ritz Carlton.  Maybe pastors should look to Elijah for the reason why congregants years ago would pay us in casseroles and chickens and Jell-O salads.

The question I have for you is, what is feeding you?

The awkwardness of that question is intentional.  It is a take on the question my mom would ask me when I was in a grumpy, grouchy, no good, rotten, mood some mornings.  She would say, “What’s eating you?”  The heart of that question is trying to get at what is gnawing at you, needling you, pushing the nuclear codes of your emotions in that moment that is causing you to erupt like a volcano covering everyone around you with hot lava. 

What’s feeding you is a wide doorway to walk through.  You can answer this literally, what are you eating?  How does it sit in your stomach?  You can answer this metaphorically, how are you consuming the news of the day, or the words people say (sometimes don’t say), or the actions that you are absolutely certain the person meant as a slight when perhaps the person was so wrapped up in something someone had just said to him, he didn’t even really see you.  We can ask this question looking at what is feeding our souls ~ in both hopeful and hurtful and blink and you miss it kind of ways.  We can ask this question individually and collectively ~ where the “you” becomes a group of people.  What is feeding our church right now?  What is feeding our small groups or Teams or Moderators.  What is feeding Sarasota?  What is feeding the United States?  What is feeding our world?  I encourage you to move beyond binary, either/or, have to have a definitive and absolute opinion one way or another.  Hold the creative tension that we encounter and experience brokenness and beauty every day.  We live with the truth of being God’s beloved and that like our first ancestors we hide from God, others, and ourselves (see Genesis 1 and 2), every day.  What is feeding you?  May God’s love fill your soul, stomach, from the top of your head to pinkie toe this day and this week.  Amen.

Friday Prayer

 

Please pray with me:

God of mystery, who holds me as well as every star and planet and person and manatee and moment, thank you for Your presence.

God of delights in discovery, exploration, and the never-ending unfolding of spiritual formation.

God who continually calls us to do what we can, where we can, how we can so that all life, everything that breathes, might be free to thrive and reflect Your glory.

God who awakens a song that we sing every day, thank you for this week and this day.

Thank you for saints of the past and present ~ people who we’ve named and noticed and honored.  Thank you for the twists and turns of the rollercoaster of life, for Your presence rides beside us and You hold us when the bottom drops out and the wheels come off and we go crashing down twenty-six floors in two seconds in the dark (thank you for that experience, Space Mountain).  God, help us find ways to pick up the paintbrush of life, realizing that spiritual formation invites our participation.  God, help us not white knuckle this art project of life, for when we cling or control or get too tense, we miss the holy flow of Your grace and love. 

God continue to go with us in the dwindling of these November days that enlivens us to the truth that Your presence is a mysterious ground of being that liberates and sings to all.  Let Your light shine upon the path of this day.  Alleluia and Amen.

Endlessly Knowable

 

This week we are playing with others whose love never lets us go ~ also known as our saints.  We are playing with ideas and feelings and sensations that are beyond words as what shapes us.  We are playing with the Presence of the Eternal who is as close as our next breath and as big as the galaxies we have yet to explore.  Four images of God that I learned in seminary were that God is “Holy Other” (Karl Barth) and God is “the Ground of our Being” (Paul Tillich).  God is also the Liberator of that which binds and confines us (James Cone) and God is the One who leads the singing in the wilderness of life (Delores Williams). 

Which one of those images sings and speaks to your heart and life?  Or maybe, all four do in specific ways to parts of who you are.  You might sense the vastness of God as night arrives at our doorway earlier and earlier.  You might sense the closeness of God in a hug from one of your saints.  You might sense God empowering you to find your voice in the face of what hurts and harms others or singing out to God’s goodness even in the face of difficulty. 

God is more than we could ever capture in words, but we continually try to name the unnamable, because God is endlessly knowable.  God is not some genie in a bottle we can confine and contain, God breaks and bursts forth in our lives and the lives of others too.  God forms us, hides within us, and within others, and within the tree outside your window and the squirrel that just scurried up that tree too.  God is within and more than our lives.  I realize I may be writing in circuitous circles right now…and I do appreciate you staying with me…but it is my prayer that we will ponder our relationship with God.  The mystics say that at the heart of faith is two questions, “Who are you, God…and who am I?”  Those two are connected and you cannot respond to one without the other.  May you and I dive deeply into the holy mystery of life with the One who is here and there; the One who comes to set us free to sing the song of life for all that is and will be.  Amen.

Finding God Here and Now

 

Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.  Ephesians 3:20-21

Yesterday, we explored how Spiritual formation was more than information, but a sensation that entered through the doorways of our hearts, crept in through the stairs of our souls, ticked the soles of our feet, and is found in the web of life that teethers us to each other and all God’s creation.  You are continually being formed (and sometimes misshaped) by the world within you and around you.  I’ve encouraged you to journal about people and places (the good and not so great or grand in life).  All this is important because it is how God shows up disguised as our life.  Paul says that God is at work in your life.  God is the painter, poet, composer, conductor of the symphony called your life.  And God is also the painter, poet, composer, and conductor of the symphony called the life of others you meet this day.  The world is filled with music, but not always harmony.  The world is alive with sound, some is dissonate as banging on a piano with your fist. 

Part of faith is the truth that God can take the beauty and chaos to create something good.  This is the truth of Genesis.  In the beginning there was just God and a swirling, sloshing inky sea.  God loves beginnings, but beginnings are messy.  (Hold that for your New Years Resolutions).  God is continually calling light and darkness to work together, to hold boundaries, and to work in our lives.  God is singing forth life to all creatures great and small. God is finding ways to move in our midst.  Let’s face it, most of the time we miss the new creation within us and around us.  We might look at the rearview mirror and see what was new more clearly, but when we are driving down the road of life at the frenzied pace we live, most of what we pass is blurry.  Because we don’t see people/places/experiences and encounters clearly (even though we think we do), we can tend to have a negativity bias ~ that this (whatever this is) is not good.

Go back to your list of saints (past and present) who have left fingerprints on your soul; your list of the good, bad, and ugly of the art project of life, and prayerfully ponder how God is at work in all of this.  You are being formed and reformed, you are dust/starlight and breath, you are limited and eternal, you are called to dream and dance, because God is here and now in your life.  I pray as you let these words sink and settle and sing to your soul today, you might sense the sacred stirring in ways that awaken and enliven you for this day.  To the glory of God we dedicate every moment and breath, Amen.

More than Brains with Legs

 

I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.  Ephesians 3:18-19

This week we are letting Paul’s words to the Ephesians continue to rummage and roam around our hearts, minds, souls, and whole lives.  Yesterday, you made a list of saints today, people you can call or text or have a cup of coffee with to remind you that God’s love is not just a “good idea”, but a holy experience in our lives.  Today, you may add another person or two to your list.  I love how Paul says that when we are in the mystery of our relationships with each other, we experience a holy moment that surpasses knowledge.  Recently I heard someone say, “Spiritual formation is not information, but the process of being formed in the image of Christ for the sake of the other.”  Wait, go back, and read that sentence.  Spiritual formation is not just some more knowledge for our brain.  Rather, spiritual formation is God’s work shaping our lives for the sake of the other.  God showing up in us and through us to connect us to all creation from people to platypuses to porcupines.  What does that evoke and provoke?  Two thoughts.  We were all shaped by the Enlightenment, that there was no problem we couldn’t solve and no issue that we couldn’t study.  The Enlightenment, in some ways, turned us into brains with legs.  What mattered most was that you understood.  But you are more than your mind (and we have explored before in these morning meditations that our thoughts are not just some databases that live in the network of neurons in your brain you can recall perfectly).  You are also your emotions, you are also your physical body, you are also a soul, and the truth is that you are more than the sum of your parts too.  This Spiritual formation isn’t just a great idea that we add-on to our life or check off a list, it is the essence of our being.  We live in a do-it-self culture where we want knowledge or techniques to be more effective.  If we fail to see instant results, we see ourselves as failures.  Perhaps Spiritual formation doesn’t only happen by reading the right book or listening to a sermon or going to a conference.  There is no one process or procedure, there is only the wayless way that is the art project of your life.  And the truth is, whether it is intentional or unintentional, every thought we hold, decision we make, action, emotion we hold (or that holds us) are forming us, and relationships we have can shape us or misshape us.  We are constantly being formed and deformed by what the weather patterns in our souls and in the world around us. 

In addition to the people, what events/experiences are shaping or misshaping you right now?  Add to your list the good, the bad, and the ugly of life internally and externally.  Usually, it is easier to start with the places and spaces that are breaking our heart and causing our soul to ache.  Yet, don’t stop there, keep diving and digging deeper to discover what is forming and fashioning your life in good ways too right now.  For example, we could point to wars in Israel and Palestine or Ukraine and Russia; discrimination; or words spoken harshly by another person.  Pain shapes us one way, on the one hand.  And on the other hand, there is also the truth of laughter and joy and music and beauty that is forming us too. 

Paul is saying that God works through both in ways that surpass our understanding!  I invite you to explore and I pray you will experience the beautiful mystery of this truth in your life, your heart, your soul, and your whole being…and in your unfolding relationships with the saints you love this day and week. Amen.