God's Song to Us

 

We are leaning in and listening to the powerful, profound prayerful poetry of the hymn, “I was there to hear your borning cry” this week.  We are opening our hearts to hear this as God singing these words over our life right now.

I want to hold close to your life today the first verse;

I was there to hear your borning cry,
I'll be there when you are old.
I rejoiced the day you were baptized,
to see your life unfold.
I was there when you were but a child,
with a faith to suit you well;
In a blaze of light you wandered off
to find where demons dwell.

I invited you yesterday to think about God singing this to you.  Who was God for you growing up?  Was God the old, white guy with the white flowing beard and a robe to match?  Was God seen as loving or vengeful?  Did God seem distant?  Were You encouraged to deepen your relationship with God?  Or was God not talked about at all in your home growing up?  I wonder if our image of God can become stagnant or stay stuck in sameness over the years, rather than (as this hymn suggests) God who grows and move.  Or put another way, God as the ground of being in which we can grow and move.  Both may be true.  Just as the earth’s soil is alive and constantly changing, so are we.  And if we are in the image of God, God need not stay stuck in one image or one word or one way of being throughout our lives.   

I am particularly taken by the next to last line, “In a blaze of light you wandered off.”  My children are no longer children.  They morphed, seemingly overnight in the blink of an eye, into young adults who are about to wander off to college.  They are about to fly away from the security of the nest my wife and I have surrounded them with.  To be sure, there were days (especially when they were two or three), high school graduation looked like an eternity away.  Even as people said, “Enjoy this now, it goes too quickly,” that can be hard to do when you are sleep deprived and working long hours at your job and trying to potty train!  Yet, I realize that the blaze of light when we wander off happens to all of us, not matter our age.  Perhaps the pandemic or witnessing the ways we discriminate or the stress and strain of life of this last year has caused you to feel like you’ve wandered off from God.  Maybe falling out of the rhythm of weekly worship or feeling confused has caused a riff between you and the divine.

Each of us lives in the mixture of past, present, and future.  Faith, I believe, is elastic and expansive and can embrace our understandings from when we were young to today. 

Finally, I invite you today, to think about a child you know.  This might be a grand or great-grand child, a nephew or niece, a neighbor’s child, or your own.  A child you know and send that child a text or a note telling him or her your love and support and care; tell a young person something you are proud about in him or her.  Our children are growing up in a world of a pandemic and polarization and problems that are vexing to us as adults.  Problems that will not be easily solved.  We need to cheer our children and youth and each other on in our daily living.  Come to think of it, trying to encourage everyone you encounter today to let his/her light shine might be the best prayer to live today.

Prayer: Holy One, embrace us with a grace we need and then empower us to let Your grace loose in our lives this day.  Amen.

Immersed in God's Grace

 

This week, I want to invite you to open your head, heart, and whole life to the hymn, “I was there to hear your borning cry.”  This is often a hymn we sing at baptism, and thus we associate these words as only meaningful to parents.  This is missing a meaningful moment that could make a difference. 

This is God singing to you.

God was there to hear your borning cry.

God was there when you wandered off to explore, experience, and encounter the world with all its beauty and brokenness.

God is here right now wherever you are in life.

I invite you first to read these powerful words as God’s prayer, God singing these words softly to your soul meeting you where you are right now.

I was there to hear your borning cry,
I'll be there when you are old.
I rejoiced the day you were baptized,
to see your life unfold.
I was there when you were but a child,
with a faith to suit you well;
In a blaze of light you wandered off
to find where demons dwell.

When you heard the wonder of the Word
I was there to cheer you on;
You were raised to praise the living God,
to whom you now belong.
If you find someone to share your time
and you join your hearts as one,
I'll be there to make your verses rhyme
from dusk 'till rising sun.

In the middle ages of your life,
not too old, no longer young,
I'll be there to guide you through the night,
complete what I've begun.
When the evening gently closes in,
and you shut your weary eyes,
I'll be there as I have always been
with just one more surprise.
I was there to hear your borning cry,
I'll be there when you are old.
I rejoiced the day you were baptized,
to see your life unfold.

In the waters of baptism, God claims us as beloved.  In the waters of baptism, God seals our souls with a grace we need to face every day.  In the waters of baptism, God infuses and imprints upon us an unconditional and unceasing love that is gospel truth for how we live – if we let that truth ground/guide us.  Now listen to the above beautiful YouTube Version as a centering prayer for this week.

Letting the Easter Light In

 

As we wrap up and wind down another week, I have one more exercise for you.  This one is I pray you will find helpful. 

Make a list of everything good in your life right now.  Make this a game.  After you exhaust everything that comes quickly to mind (family, friends, breakfast, meaningful morning meditations – just to name a few!); try to go deeper.  For example, the cup of coffee this morning, the rays of sun peaking beautifully over the horizon, the music you can play right now.  Keep going since you have momentum and challenge yourself to exercise your creativity muscle.  Name something so small, subtle you usually miss it – like that new salad mix I found that I am really enjoying.

That is it.  You can think back over the last week or month.  What is good that you encountered?  List the people, places, experiences, encounter, interactions and events for which you are grateful. 

And I wonder if as you look back, you might see something that you initially thought was less than amazing, but ended up being a blessing.  A moment that your first response, reaction was frustration, but the moment ended up teaching you something.

I wonder, how long can you make your list today.

This is a powerful prayerful exercise to awaken your artist, because we need to name and notice traces of grace.  We need moments of recognizing what is happening – patiently paying attention.

I pray this exercise today opens your eyes, hearts, soul, and whole life.  And even more so, I pray you will notice what God is up to in the art project called, “Your life” right now.  Amen.

Letting the Easter Light In

 

We have been playing with, pondering, pursuing, and practicing the truth of Genesis 2.  One of the first, foundational, formational truths of Scripture is that from the very beginning God commits to relationship.  Many will say that God is relationship in the form of the Trinity – the Creator, Liberator, and Sustainer. 

God is at work co-authoring and co-creating the art project called, “Your Life”. 

So here is my invitation to patiently pay attention today:

Where does God appear in your story today as Creator?  Maybe as you walk in creation or as you pick up that paint brush tentatively to try to paint on canvas or as you write or find yourself in conversation.  You can do it!  Or to try to pen a poem.  You can do it!  Or to use that bread machine you haven’t touched in years.  You can do it!

Where does God show up as Liberator?  Maybe in words you speak from your heart.  Maybe in setting you free from the negative soundtracks in your life.  Maybe in your work for justice.

Where does God appear as a Sustainer, giving you strength when you are at the final tread of your proverbial rope?  Or allowing yourself the grace to step off the treadmill of life and not measure today by how many things you crossed off your to-do list.

Pay attention to God as a character in the narrative life today.  And may God, who is a verb – an active source and ground of being in your life, be experienced and encountered in beautiful ways today.  Amen.

Letting the Easter Light In

 

How did your list of naming and noticing your cloud of witnesses go yesterday?  Did you discover some names of people whose quiet support meant the world?  Did you recognize people whose force in your life was not for good?  It is amazing how our brains create a soundtrack of the negative voices and can dismiss the positive ones so quickly.  Why is that?  Why do we let the cynic and critic be seen as more intelligent than the compassion and caring ones?  We have the power to lean in and listen, to decide what we give authority to.  We do have a choice which voices have veto power on our words or actions.

So, today, I want you think of one moment from yesterday.

Being stuck in traffic.

Going to the doctor, dentist.

Standing in a store.

Talking to a friend.

A real, embodied experience.  Next, write a one-page story as a pessimist about that experience.  You could start, “The heat rose from the engine of my car and the engine of my soul as I was late for my appointment.  ‘Of course,’ I thought!  ‘This always happens to me.’  I fiddled with the radio to distract me from my frustration.  I checked my mail.  I fidgeted as I fumed that if it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.” 

You get the idea.  Let loose with your inner critic.  You might even want to name your inner critic, give him/her a face and a body and a personality. 

Now, I want you to tell the same story as if God was at work in your life.  You could start, “I am always saying, I need to slow down.  Quit rushing and running everywhere.  Life isn’t a race to be won, there is no metal at the end of the day for crossing everything off my to-do list.  So, here I am stuck in traffic.  No better time than the present to try out that prayer practice of paying attention.  God, is there something I need to hear?  I fiddle with the radio and the song comes on that soothes my soul.  I sit there wrapped in the warm of a melody like a warm blanket.  I am no longer frustrated but fascinated stir within me.  I realize that I could have missed this song if I too quickly pushed the next preset button on my radio.”

I hope you get the idea here.  Moreover, I hope you have fun with this playful and prayer activity.

May the God who stories, co-authors/co-creates, the art project called, “Your life” stir within you today.

Letting the Easter Light In

 

I want to continue to invite you to explore, embrace, expand, and encounter your inner artist.  This exercise comes from The Artisan Soul by Erwin Raphael McManus.  He encourages us to think of the voices who have informed and impacted your life – good or bad. 

Make the list right now.

Parents and grandparents; aunts and uncles; sibling or cousins – family who influenced you.

Teachers.

Preachers.

Friends.

Now, look at the list, for each person, ask how has the words of this cloud of witnesses left a soundtrack in your soul?  Again, in positive ways and painful ways.  Perhaps the teacher who cheered you on and the one who scolded you for coloring outside the lines.  Perhaps one of the above people encouraged you to pursue your passion, to stay open to your curiosity.  Perhaps someone else responded to your career choice by saying, “For the love of Pete, you’ll never make any money doing that!!”  The point is to interview the list of people to see the good, the bad, and ugly in the relationships that formed and fashioned us. 

Naming and noticing who were the cheerleaders and critics helps us in many ways.  First, we start to see the role nurture (or lack thereof) played in our lives so far.  Second, we can ask, why give more power to the armchair quarterbacks?  Why let someone else having editing power over the artistic project called, “Your life”?

Take time today to practice patient attention.  To be open to God who is meeting you in the presence tense of this moment.  Right here where you are, right now in this moment.

By the way, today is Star Wars day, (“May the fourth” sounds like "May the force be with you"), so may the force of God’s grace and love be with you now more than ever.

Letting the Easter Light In

 

This week, we will explore, embrace, and encounter our inner artist, seeking to expand our understanding of the theological truth that you are made in God’s imaginative image.  We will continue to work silencing the soundtrack in your mind that is telling you, “You are not an artist,” because those words are both harmful, hurtful.  The truth is we are made in the image of God, formed from dust with Divine DNA all over us.  We need another story and narrative.  We need to see that your whole life is an art project.  We need to come to live with a curiosity amid the uncertainty.  This week is a celebration and constructing on the truth that art can awaken us to our soul and how our soul loves to create.  God is the original artist who sought to awaken us, breathe life into us, so that we could collaborate and co-create with the Holy.  Kirk Byron Jones says Creativity is what happens when freedom and joy come together.  Creativity is not just what God does.  Creativity is who God is.  Therefore, made in God’s image, we too share those inventive powers with God. 

One step in exploring creativity is to practice patient attention.  So often in our world, we are too caught up in multitasking.  For example, are you listening to music or have the news on in the background as you read this?  Are you also constructing a grocery list?  (Which, by the way, you probably need more chocolate.) Are you thinking about a past wound when you tried to create art or a future fear?  Our minds are so busy.  To practice patient attention is that in this moment, right now reading these words, there is more than enough to stir and swirl the artist within you.  For example, when I keep saying the word, “artist”, if you can cease the negative soundtrack telling you otherwise, where does your creative spark say, “Well, I’ve wanted to try…” 

What?

Writing a book?

Composing a poem?

Testing out some new recipes?

Gardening?

Painting?

Photography?

Learn another language?

Artists supplies come from more than just craft stores.  The creativity in you will be expressed in a multitude of magnificent ways. Where does the still small voice long for a stage and spotlight, even for just yourself?

Practice patient attention, means we are leaning in and listening to God’s creative voice more and more, letting the wisdom of our artist’s soul get a word in edgewise.

Listen…right now.

Lean in…closer.

Open your ears and hearts to where God’s creative spark is prompting you to go.

May the creative presence of the One in whose image you are formed burn brightly today.